Yes I knew I'd get a few of you alcoholic's to click through on this one, well I bet I did at least. Been a bit since I've gotten into here, things are getting busy for me and my new workouts provided by one of my teammates have been destroying my legs. For that matter they've been beating me up all around. I'm really a fan of them as far as the design and outline of them, just not a super fan of how they make me feel. It is just six of the bigger lifts, most of which involve a barbell, at least two on each day. There are several big names out there that are fan's of the two-bar minimum, actually pretty sure most are fans of it. Usually it's a matter of if it's sensible and the big IF the trainee is ready for that mark. Posted pictures of what the set up looks like for each workout.
Day 1 and Day 3 Set Up
At this point this summer I've back off the mobility work just a bit, god knows I needed it this winter and I know you are cringing and shaking your head right now Mike, gotta be done for the time being. I get my warm ups and a few quick, and I mean quick, mobility exercises in before I get after this monster, that's it for the mobility. Power and brute strength is what rugby requires and that's what we are staring at with this short list of exercises for my final pre-season program before the spit starts flying. Squats, Deadlifts, Cleans, Snatches, Push Press, Bench, Box and Broad Jumps...nothing fancy that would get Ben Bruno out of his seat, but it's getting the job done.
Day 2 and Day 4 Set Up
I am going to pick on my teammate and pretty much any strength coach that gives out a plan like this for their summer programs. The problem I have when you just assign exercises blindly, or damn near it, you are just assuming everyone has the correct mobility and can do the lifts with the right form. Now every coach is nit picky about something to a degree about these lifts, but there are certain ranges of mobility that everyone NEEDS. Deadlift, squat, clean and snatch are all lifts that can be bad news without the correct mobility and some monitoring. With these big blanket programs that get put out there is potential issue of injury, not every athlete that's lived in the weight room is still going to know what to do if they lack the mobility for these. There's a short list with end results for each solution to this issue; get smart and find someone to help you with these lifts/get a program designed for YOU, try them on your own and your mobility is great so there's little to no issue, try them on your own with compensation issues with an injury in season, try them on your own with compensation issues without an injury in season, try them on your own with an injury while training or do nothing. Now there's only three options that get you through healthy and two of them are pretty much based on genetics and dumb luck.
Got a little cynical at there, but don't get my wrong I'm loving/dreading my lifts, I just happen to be fortunate enough I know enough and know the right people to help me with it. Most people's response is 'why don't you just ask the coach for help?' That is the right question to ask, but you know the problem is you won't even ask the coach the question(s) that need to be. Message of today is be smart and ask questions, the worse case after that is you are back where you started.
Have a good one folks, go out and get after it today!
Every time I get stuck sitting at the desk at work I really am not enjoying it. Whether it's covering the desk to help the staff, writing this blog or doing some research, really try not to let myself stay in the chair for longer than 20 minutes or my body just stops liking me. Afterwards I get up stiff and in need of a big stretch. How in the crap people do this daily for hours on end baffles the holy god out of me. I know a bunch of people have hit on this subject, but I wanna join the club and put my 2 cents in.
Is this really an exaggeration?
Here are the top 3 issues that occur in today's cubicle dwellers.
-Low back pain: Almost every desk jockey that I train and do an assessment on has some sort of low back issues. With the legs flexed and the hamstrings constantly firing it's going make the hammies short and stiff, tilting the pelvis. Mix in some poor posture with the typing and driving done for the majority of the day and voila you have yourself a really sore and tight lower back causing back pain. The problem also occurs because you are no longer using your glutes, you are just sitting on them, this I know I've hit on before so I won't beat a dead horse. Just get up, move around so you aren't tight and make sure to use those glutes at the gym, lunges, squats, dead lifts, bridges, OK I'm done.
-Poor T-Spine/Shoulder Mobility: Generally the 2 will go hand in hand for this population, not always though. It is possible although rare to have one and not the other. With constant reaching down and forward the pec minor muscles just grow tighter with each day at your desk. Group your glenohumeral joint probably being slid forward along with all those great bench presses that you do WHEN you actually get to the gym and you now are looking more like Quasimodo with each passing day. It's all fixable but generally people are a little ticked when I tell them that we need to mobilize their thoracic spine before we can do any sort of bench because they are so jacked up. Won't hurt to do some sort of row or pulling motion instead of the push-ups or bench at the gym either.
-THE GUT: This one is especially aimed at the gentlemen out there, but the lady's are susceptible to similar issues as well. Face it you are in sedentary life style if you are working an office job, no way around it. The second you stop leaving time for the gym is the second that you start to grow this bad boy. It's a very slippery slope once this happens, especially as we get older. Remember the line about the chocolate shake from Big Daddy? No? OK point being as you get older those donuts you bring in for everyone as a nice gesture don't metabolize as easily and get stored as fat. Same for pretty much all the junk food you eat during the day, including that Captain Crunch you took from your kids this morning.
I've said it before, something is better than nothing, but if you are going to leave the time and burn it at the gym, do something that's useful. Minus the gut issue most college students likely end up with some of the above, but they are younger and it can be resolved much easier. The time it takes a 45 year old male pull out of that nasty forward shoulder rotation is at a fraction for a young 22 year old male. The whole point of this is...?? Sit with good posture, get in the gym and do some pulling with your legs and upper back and put down the doughnut.
Have a good hump day all, go out there after you get done reading this and get after it!
I'll try to make this a fairly quick but hopefully useful and to the point post today. I moved all my crap out of my apartment this past weekend, not exactly a great weekend. Honestly unless you are bat shit crazy then you probably aren't a huge fan of moving either. With Catherine's help we got it done in about 8 hours. We did as much as possible until about 10 PM Saturday night (5 hours), got up Sunday morning and finished the job (3-4 hours).
How this relates to strength training is pretty easy. Say I'm picking up a bureau that weighs 300 lbs+, split that between 2 people and it's 150, depending on which end you get stuck going down the stairs with. Doesn't sound like much, but you'd be surprised how many people have a hard time getting that much weight up off the ground in any fashion. To the point, if you don't do any sort of strength training then everything is going to feel like an anchor off of the Titanic.
Catherine and I both strength train for our various reasons and I can guarantee you, with the way we had to do some pretty odd maneuvers with some of this furniture because of the odd corners, a lesser pair would've had an issue trying to finish the job. The different angles we had to work with incorporated pretty much all of the main exercises that should be included in a solid strength program, presses, pulls, squats, deadlifts (grip strength much???) and the like. Throw in some core for stability and you've pretty much hit it all.
We were both pretty gassed either way you slice it but since we've both been in the strength game for a bit we didn't have too much soreness, or tightness to speak of. Again the average joe and jane would have not wanted to move for 5 days. Moral of this story is, yes it is better to be strong for several reasons, and because those of us that do this shit day in and day out we are going to suck less at life than the ones that don't.
An early Happy Independence day to all and go out there and get after it so moving sucks just a little less!
Well hey to all those weary Bruins fans out there that stayed up late last night only to watch 18 seconds of what-the-hell-was-that chaos? I will say it was one of the wildest endings to a Stanley Cup final I've seen for awhile. What is with Chicago and these crazing endings, 3 years ago Kane scores the game winner and no one knew it but him and a few other because the puck got stuck in the net under the padding. Last night...well if you didn't watch I'll let you watch sports center and see the highlights. Everyone can now start sleeping like a normal human, hopefully. Despite my foolish lack of sleep from staying up I'm feeling a good post today.
I'm going to start this with a question, when is it really a good idea to put your knees over your toes and bear weight on those toes? I'm willing to bet most people with a working brain cell or 2 will tell you never! Second question I have is, if we teach the Deadlift, the Squat, the Clean, the Snatch as well other variations of these exercises to start with hips back and push through the mid-foot or heal, why is it that we have people bombing the push press? I can look on you tube for push press or anything similar to it and 9 out of 10 videos the demo will have the trainee/trainer push their knees forward to start the movement. WHY??? Hurts my knees watching it, especially when it's with heavy weight. I know some people are going to call me out on this and say I'm being too picky or that I am an idiot, either of those might be true. Even if those are so, I'm going to teach it this way, because if you haven't figured it out I worry about knees a ton, mostly because the pair I have are going to need replacing at some point according to my Doctor, AWESOME. Maybe it's an over reaction, but I'm going to do everything to prevent that and in turn I'm going to help anyone I can keep there's as long as possible too.
After that is all said some of you were probably scratching and wondering what in the Holy Hand Grenade is a push press? Push press is an over head pressing variation that enables those that don't have the strength to do a traditional over head press to do exactly that. By using your legs just a little bit to get the weight up. As I said before people botch it, perhaps the person shouldn't be doing the movement in the first place (check out the recent T-Nation article by Tony Gentilcore on over head presses). More to the point if you can over head press and it's not hazardous to your health, let's get you started, and I like this movement to get started with some of my clients, not all, but some.
I've posted video below on mistakes people make doing a push press and how I teach it, the right way. Let's be real, everyone has little things here or there for every lift on how they want it done. As long you are consistent and keep the basics in line, you and you're clients/athletes should be fine, so like I said this is how I teach it.
First video is pretty much the way I teach it and want it done. Pay attention to the green line and how forward my knees slide in each video. This one not too far if it all, others, well it's not pretty lets just go with that.
This next video there are 2 issues, 1 is the knees, you'll notice them, they come far too forward for what I would want. The 2nd issue is that each rep is not distinct, the reps flow together which is wrong to me. It's a power movement, you can not be explosive and have the reps flow together, you won't see a (Good) power lifter try to flow together cleans as if they were one rep, so why would you do it for this? Next case...
Third video the main issue is the knees, but I also have an issue with some people making this into too much of a squat to press, honestly if you want to do a push press and call it so, just be consistent in what you're calling it and how you are coaching it.
Final video the main issue is the press itself, it's an over head variation, not an in front of head, ruin my shoulder and back variation. When you don't finish a press over head you are more likely to look to arch your back to make it some sort of deep incline press with your chest (which is helping, but not as much). Good cue that I've used is elbow in line with the top/back of ear, varies from person to person.
Again make sure you have shoulders healthy enough to do this without ruining yourself, if you have no clue, seek out a (good)local fitness professional. Enjoy the videos guys and I'll be back for more later this week. Until then go out there and get after it!
I've survived the first week on my diet and haven't killed anyone, although I did come close. My brain is adapted to what I've deprived it of and what I'm supplying it with for food and nutrients. Won't go into a ton of detail right now about it, plan on writing about it at the end of the month when I've experienced the full effects and have the results of how it went for me. For now on to the subject of today's matter.
Awhile back I wrote a post about glutes and some of the exercises you can do for them. Those of you that have read more blogs than my own or have been training for awhile now have probably heard quite a bit about glutes. Also if you've had an injury you probably couldn't stop hearing about glutes, or if you are a desk jockey with the standard problems that come with it you've heard about them too. Glutes glutes glutes...what the hell is the obsession with butt's you're probably wondering? Well it's much more than how nice looking some of them are.
Glute strength solves a number of high frequency issues, number one in my assessment is back pain. The glutes and the core muscles are, for the most part, your ticket to a healthy and pain free back. The glutes are a major contributor out of 3 that most consider the driving force in your posterior chain, the other 2 being hamstrings and erector spinae. At first I use to think the posterior chain was essential just in sports, then I got real smart real quick and realized it's essential for life. Think about every time you go to bend over and pick something up and potentially expose your back to injury? The second your glute strength dissapears is the second your hips start to go all out of whack and your hips are pretty damn important clearly. They are that crossover point between your lower body (upper leg) and upper body (lower back), so if those are messed up, something will be in pain, I promise.
As I mentioned glutes and hips have a ton to do with sports, for example, think back to when you were first starting sports, and I'm gonna use football for this example since I played it and I think it translates the best. Those that played, when you first started out, do you remember when you were first learning how to tackle and the coach told you to watch the ball cairrers belt, aka their hips, because that was the only thing wouldn't move unless they were in fact going that direction? Case and point, you can not move without your hips. Obviously the really good ones could get those to move and still make you miss and look foolish. Hips are also a huge source of power for athletes, if you can get those to generate force you will do some damage. Any time you are trying to go from flexion to extension, it's your glutes that are (or at least should be) driving you to that point.
Guess He Forgot That Advice
Going from there to the next subject, broad jumps, great exercise for producing and measuring your power without loading up weight on your body. The power in a broad jump is produced mainly through where?? That's right you guessed it, glutes and hips. Starting to notice the theme yet?
My buddy Mike has written a ton of crap about box jumps, it's all good stuff, so I am gonna take a page or 2 out of his book, because there are so many similarities between the 2 moves. The idea with broad jumps, in really simple terms, is to throw your hips forward as far into extension as you can be and still land without making your knees (or anything else for that matter) crumble. Below we got do's and many don'ts concerning a broad jump.
First video is pretty much what you should look like when you perform a broad jump. Land without killing yourself and make it look athletic. Land in the same position you jumped from.
Second video looks pretty much the same to the first one to the untrained eye. Take a listen to how loud my feet hit. I did this video on a wood floor so you could hear it. Landing like that just makes my knees and hips hate me for doing it. Simply put it's not a good idea and a good way to put unnecessary stress on your joints.
Third video involves way too much pressure on the toes. Another great way to make your knees hate you and your jump. The main contact points in your broad jump should be mostly between the ball of your foot and your mid-foot (yes there is a difference).
Fourth video hopefully everyone is starting to pick up on what I've been putting down here. I landed so heavily on my heals I almost fell on my ass. I'm sure a good number of you were hoping I would so you could have a good laugh at me. Sorry to disappoint you guys.
Last video simply has no counter movement and looks about as athletic as John Goodman. No counter movement means your jump will be pretty short and pretty ugly, and this one was.
Moral of the story is if it looks ugly and not athletic then it probably is wrong. My advice to those that are having any of these issues is to cut down the distance on the jumps and focus your technique. Again make it look athletic, it'll save you lots of pain.
Wrapping it all up, this is just one little example of where your glutes come into play in sports. Remember also that they are important for healthy living too. Next time your trainer says that they are going to work on activating your glutes or strengthening them, maybe you can now be a little more excited knowing that they are in fact looking out for your health concerns.
Have a good day all, go out and get after it today!
Hey it's June, never thought we'd make it here after Nemo but we did it guys! Hockey is getting down to the nitty gritty, although I'll say from just a hockey fan in general's perspective, it's been a pretty disappointing pair of series, both are one sided to this point and none of the games were that competitive. LA showed some fight last night, so there is hope yet. The good news is that whoever happens to come out of these Conference Finals I think the Final for Lord Stanley's Holy Grail will be a good one.
Real quick, and I mean real quick because I know everyone here is just so concerned with how my face is doing after my post from a few months ago. The eye is heeling fine, I will probably have a new scar to go with the one that was there from when I was just a little guy (me little?? I know not possible). I made it through the season without reopening it thanks to my scrum cap and some vaseline...keep your mind here guys come on. I'm not any prettier but I'll be fine, still going to be healing for up to another year or so.
Now that everyone can relax knowing that my health is in good shape I'm going to get into one of those posts about something really dumb I've seen a number of people do here while working out. Not so much of a rant, call it more charity, free advice on how to not have your spine turn into dust while doing a deadlift, and if you haven't guessed it from the title,we are talking about rounded backs.
The last few days while either I was working out or while training clients I've noticed a good number knuckleheads doing a variation of the deadlift (one was trying to turn it into a power clean and yeah I'm not getting into that because it will get me way too fired up and it's too early for that). Back to the point, most of these lifts were just asking to be put on the operating table for a back issue. Flat back is a safe back guys and none of these people had one, even on their warm-up sets, oh boy!
Seriously Don't Look Like This Cheesebrain
I know there will be someone reading this that's going to want to jump all over me like a fat kid on fried twinkie "Pavel deadlifts with a rounded back" or the like. News flash champ Pavel has been at this for way longer than most of us, including some of the better known pro's out there like Eric Cressy, Dan John and Dean Somerset (note that none of these guys are into the hump back thing either). He also freaking deadlifts 900+ pounds. Pretty sure no one can keep a completely rigid back on that one and if you can sorry I don't have a trophy for you. Not everyone gets a trophy!
Let's just try this, unless you are doing deadlifts for record numbers and have been doing so for decades, keep a flat back, brace your core and lower back, and use your hips. No more using your lower back and no more turning it into a dead-squats, makes me wanna shove a hot iron in my ear when I see it. Mobility is restricting you from deadlift correctly? Do some mobility drills and elevate the deadlift for a spell, sounds good yes? OK so no more asking to get on the operating table by deadlifting with a rounded back.
Have a good one kids, go out there and get after it, the weather is beautiful, no reason not to!
Bit of a break in the posts, my apologies again, it should be more consistent the next few months because sadly rugby is over. I'm not going to lie this was an absolutely brutal season on my body. The lack of consistency in games for me was what beat me up the most, my body would be use to getting thrown all over and then it would have a week or 2 off and have to be use to it all over again. In the end it was a triumphant one as we took home the New England Championship for Division 1. Hands down, so I've heard, best match I played was the championship game for the trophy. The idea is to peak at the end of the season right? I guess that worked out. We lost this past Sunday in our national playoffs so unless you're one of those crazies that play 7's in the summer then it's time to hit the links and get back in the gym.
Just the Prize Along fo the Ride
This sets up a pretty good segway into the topic of today, THE Deload. I feel like I could/should put dreaded in front of it because so many people hate it, but then again if you're like me you welcome it. To start, what is a deload some are probably wondering, I'll be happy enough to answer it to the best of my ability.
Essentially a delaod is a week built into a strength program to make sure that you don't take that turn from awesome to fail while you are in your training, some actually choose to completely take the week off because they are so destroyed from their training, it's ok now and again. This is the reason I say I could have put dreaded in front of the word deload because many hammerheads out there don't like it when you tell them to back off for a week. Then some of them go balls to the walls through it and beat themselves up any way, then they get hurt a week or so later, jokes on you fool! I actually saw this first hand up at Maine during my internship with the atheltic department. The coaches would try to dial back their training for a week and then I would catch some of these dopes in the campus recreation center trying to do their own thing. Then they wondered why they couldn't hit their target weights for the max testing, in a word....IDIOTS!
As I said a deload is so you don't collapse on the lifting platform and then your results go into the sewer, great! I'm going to try to put this in some pretty plain english, because I'm not a scientific genius by any regards, so I won't try to be, so simply your body can only handle so much at once. Countless training injuries occur from overworking your body and when you're body can no longer handle the stress it gives in and you hear a pop during a squat and oops there goes your MCL, hopefully not.
Yes the overload principle says you are suppose to overload your body, but that's just so much at a time so you can recover and get stronger. You wouldn't pack on 50 pounds to your 5 rep max, or 5 RM, and expect not to get injured on that following attempt (example current 5 RM=250, shooting for a 5 RM of 300, hopefully that made sense). Noooo you wouldn't, and if you did and you were one of my trainees or athletes I'd tell you to sit in the corner and think about what you just tried to do, ok kidding....half kidding. Should you be able to pull that off without hitting other maxes along the way, 1 I hate you and 2 hop in the phone booth and put on the super suit because there's some bad shit that could use your help. Seriously though that is simply asking for an injury and so would be not doing a deload.
How You'll Feel if You Hurt Yourself
Some of us bust our ass for those weeks prior to the deload week so when it gets there we are dropping to our knees and praying to the barbell gods that we can dial it back for the week. The best part is you are still getting stronger in that week, double whammy! Here's a secret for those that dread the deload week, you can still go heavy, but just back off the sets and reps. The big key for having a successful deload week is the volume that you do. In plain terms, volume is the actual number of reps you do.
Yeah Maine Hockey!
Just so we have a couple of examples to go over, if say you like doing 5 sets for your main lifts, then by all means do 5 sets, just dial down the reps from say 5 to 3 or 2. Now then if you would prefer to do the sets of 5 ok great then limit the number of sets to 3 or 2 even. As I said before you can make these sets easy as pie or you can go heavy, just be sure you can do it with good form. The accessory work is something you should probably dial back too, yeah it's not the main focus of your workouts, but it can still take you beyond those limits.
Hope I made sense today, any questions or concerns shoot them my way guys. Have a good one and get after it today!
