Back Up In This

Been mad long since I've updated my training so I'm just going to give you the nuts and bolts of what I'm doing.

For all of my lifts I'm working up to a single anywhere between 85-95% of what I want to hit in November.  My drop down sets are based off of Prilipen's Chart and I'm doing three week cycles.

Week 1: 5x5 at 65% of top single
Week 2: 4x4 at 75% of top single
Week 3: 3x3 at 85% of top sinlge

This is the second week of the second cycle and I bumped some of the percentages by about 2.5%.  All of my work sets are done with max speed in mind.  Speed is the name of the game not only on the way up but also on the way down, especially on squats.  I think one thing holding me back from progressing was that I would descend too slow and lose my stretch reflex.  I've been working on getting down fast without losing tightness and I like the results so far.  Speaking of which here are a few highlights.

460 beltless back squat.  Possible PR.
545 beltless dead lift.  PR.

That's about it since my presses have taken a half step back.  My guess is this is due to only doing bench and press once per week.  I'm going to fix this moving forward.

That's about all there is.  Just plugging along until November comes.  I'll definitely be updating and writing more articles going forward.  Pinky swear.

Captain's Log: Bench and Deads 8.21-22.13

Pretty happy with the outcomes of both days.  I'm going to go one more week of working towards a 5RM and then I'm going to go more into actual programming.  Next week I'm going to go for 275 and 500 on bench and dead lifts, respectively.

My recovery seemed a little bit better this week although my adductors and medial hamstrings felt really tight today.  But way better than last week.  Probably a combo of acclimation and doing a little extra soft tissue work.

Tomorrow will be an "off" day but I will probably take the prowler for a prowl.  An impromptu gun show may also pop up in the Crushatorium as well.

Captain's Log: Squat 8.19.13

Pretty decent session.  I was nervous going into my last two sets of squats.  It's been a long while since I've done 425 x 5 but I was happy to get it.

One thing that I'm trying to work on is staying tight but getting to the hole faster.  I noticed that I have a tendency to descend too slow.  This makes it hard to get any kind of  rebound out of the bottom.  The trick is staying tight.  A lot of lifters have a tendency to relax in an effort to sort of wind up into the transition.  This rarely works out well.  They lose position as soon as they start their transition and try to get the tightness back.  Once it's gone, it's gone.  Staying tight but finding a good speed to descend takes a little trial and error.

I decided to move RDLs to Thursday.  They go better with dead lifts and I was sore until Friday from last Monday.  Need to keep tweaking the volume/intensity of each session.

Captain's Log: Anterior Dominant 8.17.13

Front side!  Strong side!

Actually quite the opposite.  My backside has always been stronger than my front.  I can dead lift and squat disproportionately more than I can press and front squat.  My guess is because I thoroughly enjoy those lifts more.  Presses and front squats are exercises that I don't really look forward to.  Probably why I did both of them today.  Better to get them out of the way in one shot.

Anywho, front squats didn't feel terrible.  My last set of three I stayed conservative and did 315 again.  Rome wasn't built in a day and neither is a massive front squat.  I'm going to take a linear approach to building up my 3RM.  Next week everything will stay the same except I'll add 5-10 pounds to the last set.  I keep doing this and I'll be doing 365-385 for 3 towards the end of this cycle.  It's never that smooth but my strength on this particular exercise isn't so high that it needs complicated loading schemes.  I may do the same thing with my last single before the work sets.

Presses are a strange bird for me.  My last single at 195 was a Struggle.  That capital "S" was no typo.  It was hard.  But then my sets of 5 felt great.  165 was tough at the end but nothing like that last single.  With most of my other lifts I'm going to push the 5RM for a couple more weeks then get heavier and drop a bit of volume.

This was one of my longer "Captain's Log" posts but thanks for reading.

Captain's Log: Bench & Dead Lift 8.14-15.13

Benching was nothing special.  80%er.  With these 5RM training sessions I'm going to keep every aspect of the workout the same except for the last set of 5.  So next week on bench my last set of five might be 265.  On dead lift something like 475.  Even the accessory stuff will stay the same.

I wanted to do high bar back squats yesterday after dead lifting but it literally felt like my adductors were going to snap in half.  They are still sore from Monday.  I need to do something about this.  I'm going to talk a long hard look at what I'm doing (and not doing) recovery wise.  I don't mind being sore, but when it affects a work out three days later then I need to assess and change some things up.

Oh, and if you missed it check out my solution to helping end obesity.  It's a good'un.

The End to Obesity?

Just recently the CDC release a report saying that childhood obesity rates were dropping in 18 states across the nation.  This is the first time that this has happened after decades of increases.  Many experts are saying that the numbers are encouraging but much more still needs to be done.

They have attributed three big reasons for the decreases; higher rates of breast feeding, initiatives like the Let's Move! campaign launched by Michelle Obama in 2010, and the WIC program aligning their food guidelines to more current thinking than the past.

I could get somewhat political here, but these things are relatively small compared to other changes that could and should be made like changing the way farm subsidies are handed out and changing the way advertisers are allowed to hawk their products to children.

This article, however, is not about children or the bullshit that goes on in Washington.  This is about the everyday American that wakes up in the morning and makes a conscious choice to live healthier or to be one with the waddling, mouth-breathing masses.  This about having pride in the only body you will ever inhabit.  This is about getting rid of the excuses like "The advertising companies have brainwashed me!" or "I don't have time to exercise" or "Losing weight is impossible, I was meant to be fat".

This is about taking full responsibility for your current physical state, but in a good way.  And with a little help from your local, friendly government.

The Test

What I'm proposing is a physical test that is administered to every single person in the United States.   If you pass you get nothing (until later).  If you fail you will then have $1,000 dollars added to your tax bill.  Simple as that.  The test is designed so that an average American who does little more than walking and maybe a few push ups here and there and doesn't eat fast food 6 times per week could walk in off the street, pass the test, and go about their lives until next year's test.  With that said, let's get to the events.

The Mile Test

To pass The Mile you must be able to move yourself 1 mile within 20 minutes.  This is an average of 3 mph.  This is little more than a stroll down the street.

The Drag Test

To pass The Drag you must push, pull, or drag a sled that weighs as much as you do 100 yards.  There is a five minute time limit.  This is much easier than it may sound.  Trust me.

The Upper Body Power Test

Men: 10 consecutive push ups OR 1 dead hang chin up
Women: 5 consecutive modified push ups OR 1 regular push up.

On all push ups your torso must drop below your elbows.

Why These Tests?

I picked these tests because they are simple, easily administered, and easy to pass...for most people.  The one's that don't are the ones that are the most in need of help with their health.  Failing the test is not meant to ostracize people and shame them.  It is meant to be a wake up call that they are putting their health in danger.  It's meant to be the "light bulb moment" that they need to take action.  No more empty proclamations that they are going to get back into shape.  With the programs like the ones held up by researchers that may be stemming the tide on childhood obesity people have plenty of carrots in front of them.  Literally and figuratively.  They have tons of access to education on healthful eating and exercise and the benefits thereof.  But with this test they have that $1,000 whip-crack to answer to if they don't take advantage of it.

Ages

I'm going back and forth on the lowest age.  Part of me thinks 18 so that everyone is an adult and responsible for their own pass or fail.  But the other part of me thinks it should be 16.  This gives parents an extra incentive to not let their kids become obese in the first place.  But I could see a lot of shitty 16 year-old kids failing the test on purpose just to spite their parents.  I'm open to debate on this.

The maximum age for compulsory completion will be 50.  After that you are off the hook.  But if you want to keep taking the test for every year after 50 that you pass you will get $500 deducted from your tax bill.  This is your incentive to stay healthy as you age.  And if you don't fail any of the tests that you have to take you're going to come out ahead on the whole thing.  Pretty sweet deal to me.

Exemptions

There would be very few.  And these are more towards diseases like cancer that leave you physically incapacitated.  This test is going to be administered to every man, woman, and child that are physically able to operate in society.  If you have a physical handicap modifications will be made but you will still be required to take some, all, or some variation of the test.  If you want to complain about physical handicaps I would invite you to watch the Paralympics and /or the Special Olympics and then come back to me.  I empathize with people that have physical handicaps and have trained people with them.  But like I said, this is about taking responsibility for yourself.  Things happen but life goes on.  Saying, "Poor me poor me poor me" is not a good way to go about it.  No one has a perfect body, but it does no one any good constantly lamenting that fact.

The Libertarian Exemption

There is one possible exemption, and that is for hard line libertarians.  If you're unfamiliar with them they are all about personal liberties and freedoms.  If they want to ruin themselves with drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and shitty food it should be their inalienable right to do so.  Fine.  If you are libertarian feel free to opt out and never have to take the test or pay the $1,000 tax.  That is your choice.

But while you're at it I'm going to make you go all in.

I feel it is my inalienable right to not have to bear the consequences of your poor decisions with increases in medical costs and insurance premiums.  That is why if you opt out of the test you also opt out of ever being covered under any kind of medical insurance.  Paying full price for medical treatment is capitalism in its purest form.  Simple as that.  You make the choice, you live with the consequences.

Year Zero

I think it would be unfair to institute this test with no forewarning of whether or not you could pass.  That's why the first year will be everyone's one "Get Out of Jail Free Card."  No taxes will be levied for a failed test.  If you fail you now know what you need to work on.

The Cost

Implementing a test to 330 million people would take immense man power.  If you own a business it's a rule that your biggest expense is payroll.  That's why I've built in free labor.  All fitness professionals would be required to administer the tests to the residents of their areas.  So I would be required to administer a certain number of tests for free at no extra cost to the tax payer.  But why wouldn't I want to?  It would be my civic duty to convince the people who didn't pass the test that they should hire me to help them pass the test!  Sounds like a win-win to me.  The biggest expense would then be for a program to collect data but that is way beyond my skill set.

Bringing It Home

Do I actually think anything like this would happen?  Probably not.  In my mind there are way too many people who are getting rich off of people getting and staying fat.  This solution is too simple, would probably work too well and doesn't make any money.  Big Agra and Big Pharma are too entrenched in the decision maker's pockets to see any real change.  Big ships don't steer quickly.  Better to keep hawking diet pills and foods that are made with bullshit and lies, drugs to combat the side effects of being obese, surgeries, and idiotic devices and advice that don't do any good.

Is this solution perfect?  Hell no.  Testing that many people would be a logistical nightmare.  Testing a randomly selected 10% of the population, however would be much more doable.

And a lot more needs to be done to change WHAT we eat instead of just how much.  I'll say it to the day that I die that quality of food is 10x more important than how much.  Changing that is much more complex than a having to pass an hour of gym class once per year.

The point is that what we are doing now isn't working.  Something needs to change.  Actually, a lot needs to change.

Or we could have mandatory military service like other countries.

Captain's Log: Squats 8.12.13

This was really hard, no bones about it.  By the time I was done I couldn't catch my breath, I felt dizzy and a little nauseous, and didn't stop sweating for a long while.  It's been a while since I felt this way but I liked it in a weird way.

This is how my workouts are going to look for the next few weeks.  I want to push my 5RM and see where I can get it on all my lifts.  After that it'll be a few weeks of pushing a 3RM, then a 2RM, then working towards max weights close to the birthday lift challenge.

I may add in a few light morning sessions to do stuff like abs, neck, arms, and any other stuff I don't do in my main lifts.  Also going to go back to weighted dog walks with a heavy back pack in the mornings.  I'm going need all the recovery help I can get.

Wednesday will be bench.  Watch out.

Captain's Log: Lower Body 8.8.13

I took most of this week completely off while I was in Florida for the Circle of Friends Reunion Trip.  This was perfect timing since I was in need of a break and I've got 12 weeks to peak for my Birthday Liftaggedon.  Yesterday I just wanted to work up to a heavy single on front and back squats and dead lifts.

If you talk to any swimmer that is in-tune with their bodies during their taper before a big meet they will tell you that they usually feel worse before they feel better.  This is the ebb and flow of training and the reality of supercompensation.  This is no exception.

Ever since I started implementing deloads I've hated them.  It's more mental than anything since I worry that those missed days will be the make or break difference in my training.  But I, like anyone else, have to understand that training is a marathon, not a sprint.  Being in it for the long haul is where the real gains are made.

I also hate them because any time I try to do light workouts or very low volume like yesterday everything usually feels like a giant bag of shit.  Everything feels heavy, my motor patterns feel off, and I usually end the session feeling worse than when I came in.

But I've got a few more days of rest and a change to my programming coming up.  The combination of these two things is usually enough to spark my training back to life.  Until Monday it'll be in a semi-conscious but stable condition.

Captain'S Log: Last Week''s Highlights 8.5.13

I'm writing this from the balcony of my hotel room in St. Pete Beach, Florida.  In the hustle and bustle leading up to me leaving I forgot to post anything.  Instead of a bunch of pictures I'll just give you the highlights from last week:

Monday; Squat: up to 475x1; then a lot of heavy volume work.  I was sore for many days.

Tuesday; Bench: 305 x 1; 245 x 10, 2.  245 x 10 was a PR.

Wednesday; Dead Lift: 525 x 1; 425 x 12.  425 x 10 was also a PR

Thursday; Press: 205 x 1

Friday; Front Squat: up to 335 x 3 singles

By the time I was done Friday I was pretty well and fried.  I planned to lift Saturday at my friend Joe's garage gym, Iron Ally, but I wanted none of it.  I'll be taking a few days off while I'm here in Florida which is what I need at this point.  Once I get back I'm going to drop to four days per week.  My training will change slightly to begin peaking for November.  More heavy singles, doubles, and triples and a little less volume.

Strength Training for Endurance Athletes, Part 2: Movement Patterns and Muscular Balance

In the first installment of this series I talked about the most important thing you can do to increase performance and longevity if you are an endurance athlete or any athlete for that matter.  And that is to address your issues concerning tissue quality, mobility, and stability.  These form the base that all other athletic qualities are built on.  This is not to say that the most time should be spent on them, but if you have issues with them get a handle on them and then move on to fun stuff.  It’s like eating your vegetables before you can have your dessert.

This installment is going to address the middle of our pyramid; Movement Patterns and Muscular Imbalances.  As we saw the first installment these two qualities are very much intertwined with each other.  Due to this it is difficult and unnecessary to train each in isolation even though that is how I am going to present them.  Oftentimes you’ll pick an exercise that addresses one in earnest but still contributes to improving the other.

Movement Patterns

If I could impart one piece of advice to newcomers to endurance athletics it would be this; seek out someone who is very good at what you want to do and have them teach you the finer points of what it is you are doing.  Things like running, swimming and biking seem like innate skills that everyone should know how to do.  On one side of the coin this is true.  Most of us have been running since before we could remember, learned to ride a bike when we were 4 or 5, and can swim a few meters without drowning.  But on the other side of the coin there is a huge skill gap between “learning” these activities as kids and being smooth, efficient, and good at them as athletes/adults.  And it’s this skill gap that can lead to problems.

Running, biking, swimming, and all other endurance sports are movement skills that must be trained to be proficient at.  It is not my area of expertise to assess running, biking, or swimming mechanics.  What I can do is assess the movements that all humans should be able to perform with proficiency and inform you where you have opportunities for improvement.  It is then up to the individual to take the improved human movements and apply them to their sport of choice.  Improving the movement of a 4:00 marathoner won’t turn them into a 3:00 marathoner, but they do have one more piece of the puzzle in place to get there.

I recently assessed an Ironman competitor and Kona qualifier (big league of Ironman), and marathon runner.  When you look at the list of his finishing times it looks great.  But when you look at his assessment sheet it tells a different story.  He also has a recent history of bulging discs in his low back from a recent injury while attempting to pick up a guitar.

I will not say that what I saw in the assessment caused his injury, but it is something to definitely keep in mind.  This is that whole longevity thing I’m talking about.  Injuries eat up valuable training time and decrease enjoyment of activity.  Fewer injuries equals more years and more enjoyment.    

Now, beyond running, swimming, and biking there are a few basic human movements that all athletes need to not only be able to do, but need to be strong in as well.  Numero Uno is and always will be the squat.  And one of the best diagnostic tools is to watch and unloaded (using a PVC pipe or wooden dowel) overhead squat.

You can tell a lot about an athlete’s current state just by watching them overhead squat.  Each fault is like a clue into not only how they perform when in motion and under load but also how you can improve that performance.  The reason that the overhead squat is great for this is that its performance requires mobility, joint stability, and coordination throughout the entire body.

The other basic movements beyond the squat that should be trained and done well are the hip hinge or dead lift, the push up and the chin up.  This article would turn into a book going through the finer points of each so I've attached a few quick videos below.  But the importance of being competent in these movements cannot be understated.  Get good at them, get strong at them, be a better athlete.

Movement and Pain

As I discussed in the previous installment chronic (not from an impact injury like a broken bone or sprained ankle) musculoskeletal pain is the end result of dysfunction somewhere down the line, not necessarily at the source of the pain.  But now that you have an injury/pain there are a few things that need to be done.

1. Find the source of your dysfunction.  This may take some trial and error.  One thing that I will caution against is trying every possible solution at once.  If you do this you won’t know what got you better. 

2. Keep doing what got you better.  That last sentence is in bold for a reason.  I've seen dozens of cases where an athlete has an issue, gets prescribed a remedy, pain dissipates, remedy is ceased, pain comes roaring back.  You might want to put your sunglasses on and pull out your voice recorders because another bold statement is coming at you. The cessation of pain is not the end of your rehab.  I’ll say it a little louder.  THE CESSATION OF PAIN IS NOT THE END OF YOUR REHAB! This brings me to point #3.

3. Pain causes compensations in movement that do not disappear when the pain disappears.  Have you ever seen someone hurt some aspect of their lower body and walk with a limp?  Have you ever seen them limp long after the injury has healed?  There is an evolutionary reason for this.  Back in the old days if we got hurt our bodies didn't say, “Alrighty, that sprained ankle sure does hurt something fierce.  Why don’t we take the next few days off, ice it, and we’ll see what it looks like after some rest.”  Uh, no.  If that happened we wouldn't have made it long as a species.  When we got injured our bodies did some quick rewiring so that we could keep moving to prevent A) starvation or B) getting eaten by saber-toothed tigers.

But being the scumbag frat bro that the human body is, it doesn't go back to the previous movement pattern once our pain disappears.  It got comfortable in its new movement pattern and damned if it’s going to change now.  I can usually tell when someone has had a previous lower body injury.  A history of sprained ankles is usually the easiest to see.

And as we discussed in the first installment, faulty movement patterns, whether they are in the form of running, walking, biking, lifting, or living are going to lead to their own new problems down the road.  As in the example above we all know the person who limps long after their injury is healed.  And it’s always that same person that then starts to complain about something else, usually on the opposite side of the injury.

If you’re injured or have pain you have to look at it with the big picture in mind.  Focusing solely on the pain is too myopic to be effective.  This is why I tell all of my athletes braces, especially for the ankle and knee, should be last on their list of remedies.  Treat the cause, not the symptom.

Muscular Balance

There main two components to muscular balance are size and strength.  As endurance athletes size is not what you are going for, but strength is.  Having either a front/back or left/right discrepancy, or a little of both, is a killer to performance for a variety of reasons.  From a decrease in efficiency to low power output to injury, addressing muscular imbalances is a must.

Now, when addressing muscular imbalances the main areas of concern are the hips and the shoulders.  Everything runs through these two complexes, especially the hips.  If something is off in the hips you will usually find something off somewhere else.

The Hips: Follow the Pelvis

Side View

The pelvis is the big, wing-like bone that connects the legs to the spinal column via the hips.  Any time we move our bodies forward force goes through the pelvis and up into our upper bodies.  When assessing the hips you are looking at where the ilia and their components are in relation to each other. 

The most common tilt is one to the anterior (front).  This is when the pelvis is pulled forward and down creating a hyper-lordotic curve.  It’s kind of like always being a little bent back.  Not good for the spine.  This is caused by the hip flexors shortening and the glutes and hamstrings not having the strength to pull the pelvis back into place.  Having short, tight hip flexors and weak glutes and hamstrings are symptoms of front side dominance during activity and excessive sitting during inactivity.  The hip flexors get used a lot and the hip extensors not so much.  Over time the imbalance develops.

Left: Proper pelvic alignment.  Right: Anterior pelvic tilt.

There is also a left/right imbalance that can occur.  This is when one side of the pelvis rides higher than the other.  The cause of this is usually more complex than one side is tight and the other is weak.

One thing to remember when looking at the hips is that, due to the interconnectedness of the human body, imbalances in the hips will affect and influence the position of the shoulders.  With the anterior tilt of the pelvis comes a shortening of the rectus abdominus (six pack muscle) which pulls the rib cage forward and down.  Big picture is if you find something wonky (medical term) in the hips you’ll more than likely find something wonky somewhere else.

The Shoulders

The same thing is seen through the shoulders.  Excessive slouching and internal rotation of the humerus- as seen in people who sit and reach a lot- and not enough strengthening of the upper back create kyphosis.  Extreme examples are seen in people who appear to hunchbacked.

In the upper back there is a lot going on what with having the whole floating bone/socket joint thing.  I’m talking about your scapula AKA the shoulder blades.  The scap’s main jobs are to connect the arm to the torso via the shoulder socket and to buffer and protect the shoulder from dislocation.  We have a very high degree of freedom in our shoulders which leaves it vulnerable to dislocation.  Where the hip has a deep socket and the strongest muscles of the body to keep it in place the shoulder has a shallow socket and relatively weak muscles keeping it on lock down.  When we throw an object, perform a pressing movement, or pull our arm through space the shoulder blade moves to prevent the humeral head from slipping out the back side.

People who have kyphosis and shoulder pain often have dysfunctional scaps.  Most often they are stuck in place and have a hard time sliding with the movement of the upper arm.  This problem is a common one is swimmers and dentists.  Swimmers because they are constantly using the front side musculature (pecs and anterior deltoids) and dentists because they are constantly hunched over with their arms extended in front of them.

The Fixes

Luckily, these issues have relatively simple fixes.  Enter the glute extension, the face pull and their numerous variations.  The exercises are not a panacea for their respective imbalances.  You still need to learn to squat and do pull ups and chin ups and all the rest, but they go a long way to help sort the issues out.  They are best used for activation and maintenance of strength, although they can be used to build strength if you are starting from a very low level to begin with.

These can also be done lying flat.  However you do them your goal to squeeze your butt cheeks like you are trying to crack a walnut.

Don't just pull your hands back with these.  Pinch your shoulder blades together, then pull with your elbows.

Along with the exercises there is usually mobility work that needs to be done on the front side.  In the hips it is usually the quads, hip flexors, and adductors that are tight.  In the shoulders you’re going to want to show some love to your pecs and lats and ensure they have proper mobility through stretching and myofascial release.

Doing one or the other is never as effective as doing both.  If you only stretch you've got no strength on the other side to hold your new mobility in place.  Your tight muscles will just get tight again.  If you only try to strengthen what’s weak you’ll be fighting a losing battle to get the full range of motion and the full benefit.  Do both and you’ll be so much better for it.

The Wrap Up

As an endurance athlete the topics in this article should be the bread and butter of your strength training program, especially the muscular balance aspect.  You should strive to perfect the basic human movement movement patterns so that they become automatic but because of the highly repetitive nature of endurance athletics training them under load is extremely important.  Training these movements and being strong at them keeps your body in a healthy balance.  And being in balance is a recipe for success.

If it has been a few years since you've attempted a squat or any of the other basic movements, chances are your brain has rewired a new and incorrect movement sequence.  If you've ever seen a toddler squat down to play with something you realize that the ability to squat is something that we lose over time. 

This is why any time I work with new athletes, especially young athletes, my first mission is to get them to squat, push up, and perform chin ups properly.  I want these patterns to be so ingrained in how they move that they literally cannot perform them wrong.  And if they do I want them to look around and silently think to themselves, “Oh crap that squat was bad.  I hope Troy didn't see that.”

Like all things in the human body proper movement and muscular balance are so intertwined that you can't train one without effecting the other.  Strengthening your hips and hamstrings is going to have effects on your gait.  Training and improving your gait or swim stroke or pedal stroke while getting stronger is going to give you the most bang for your buck and help keep overuse injuries far far away.

Captain's Log Press 7.25.13

Pretty decent session today.  205 felt pretty good.  My back off sets were humbling.  I need to do more lower weight sets on the press.  those weights are 80% and 60% and I should be able to get the same number of reps in two sets.  Not four and three.  Constant learning and smart modification is what it's all about.

Captain's Log: Deadliest Lift 7.24.13

Pretty decent session.  My ramp up sessions felt pretty fast.  There is one typo though.  525 x 2 should say 515 x 2.  Other than that can't complain with getting one more rep than last week at 425.  I probably could have squelched out another rep but my back was starting to round something fierce so I shut it down.

Live to fight another day.

Captain's Log: Bench Press 7.23.13

Nothing special about today.  More or less business as usual.  I had planned on 3 singles at 305 but my second moved pretty slow so I decided to just drop down and do some twerk sets.  Blah.

Captain's Log: Squats 7.22.13

This session was like getting a large tattoo.  In the beginning it stings a bit because the sensation is new but you're excited about the new ink so it doesn't bother you.  Then the endorphins kick in and you feel pretty damn good despite what's actually going on.

Then you hit a wall.

You get fidgety and you just want to be done.  You'd almost walk around with an unfinished tat instead of spend anymore time in the chair.

The hang cleans felt good.  I made one small tweak to my technique and they felt fairly easy.  Squats started a little achy but by the time I got to 455 I was feeling great and that rep felt faster than last week.  The first 2.8 sets of the 365 work sets felt fast.  The last rep of the last set put me over the top.  The sets of 405 were about the last thing in the world that I wanted to do.  It was mostly due to the skin on my back being raw from my shirt being wet with sweat and sliding.  When I was done I did a silent celebration in my head.

Then I remembered the 315 rep set.

I put it on low and did a rep but it felt like shit and just hurt so I re-racked and put it high and got to 6 and called it a day.

Now for a shameless plug.

I contributed another article to The Macho Nacho.  You can see my article on Hiring A Personal Trainer here.

And if you're feeling extra froggy give them a follow on Twitter @MachoNachoWeb.

Captain's Log: Saturday Shenanigans 7.20.13

Benching was no trouble.  The 335 and 425 trap bar walks weren't anything too tough.  The 515 walks made me feel like an epileptic.  515 pounds is a lot of weight pulling down and face muscles tend to do strange things when under that kind of pressure.  The whole shebang, including a short warm up, took about 80 minutes to complete.  A solid 20 of that was just loading and unloading the trap bar.  That is by far the worst aspect of doing fun exercises like that.  Total pain in the ass.

Embrace the 'Nado

In America you never know what might reach a tipping point and become a cultural phenomenon.  SyFy’s original movie Sharknado is one such phenomenon.  Much in the same vein as Snakes on a Plane, Shraknado was movie that was hyped purely for its title.  The movie’s poster even came with the tagline, “Enough Said!”  It was literally a movie about sharks being thrown into Los Angeles from a tornado/hurricane.  (On a side note, looking through some of SyFy’s original titles is awesome and hilarious.  I personally think they should stop making movies and only produce titles and movie posters.)  One look at that story line and most people would go, “Ehhh, sounds neat.”  And that would include the cast and crew.

But not the director of the movie, Anthony C. Ferrante.  The movie would be ridiculous and outside the conventions of Hollywood and he knew it.  To keep his cast and crew from falling to negativity regarding the said ridiculousness his mantra on the set was, “Embrace the ‘nado.”  There’s a lot of wisdom in those words.

That simple phrase brings to mind the famous words of Mark Twain, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Whatever your “‘Nado” is embrace the shit out of it.  Are you a geek and like geeky things?  Embrace your ‘Nado.  Are you thinking about spending a year traveling instead of going to school?  Embrace your ‘Nado.  Want to starting your own business?  Embrace your 'Nado.  Thinking about trying heroin for the first time?  That’s probably one ‘Nado you should avoid.  You get the point.

There’s a good training lesson in there as well.  Carefully calculated training programs have gotten a lot of people stronger, but at some point you have to say, “Fudge it” and go ape shit crazy on a set.  Being careful and always lifting with perfect technique will take you far but only to a certain point.  Take a chance on hitting a weight that scares the shit out of you.  Strain, struggle, let your form go to shit (within safe parameters) and push past your physical and mental barriers.  The ones that can embrace, harness, and use their ‘Nados for good are rarely on the wrong side of success. 

Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors. -African Proverb

Embrace your inner ‘Nado; let it sweep you away from your safe harbor.  There is opportunity is every adversity.  Remember that.

Captain's Log: Weighted Fist Pump Variations and a PR 7.18.13

Pretty darn good session tonight.  I wouldn't put it in the +10% category, more like and upper 80%er.  I was happy with the 90kg hang snatch for sure.  I think it's a PR since I haven't done much snatching from the hang in the past.  Either way I gave myself a 50/50 shot to make it and I came out on the good 50 side.

Huzzah!

Overhead Press AKA Weighted Double Arm Fist Pumps felt really good as well.  Normally I throw my belt on as the weights get up there but today I decided against it.  Actually I was just lazy.  You might be thinking that a belt wouldn't make that much difference but trust me, it does.

Single arm fist pumps and chins gave me a nice little pump.  I am so ready for the club.

Captain's Log: Last Two W/ a PR 7.17.13

Tuesday

Wednesday

Tuesday was a solid 80% day.  Nothing special.  Didn't surprise myself at all.

Today was a bit different.  The 425x10 is a PR.  Most I've ever done for 10 before was 405.  This is mostly because I don't do a lot of high rep dead lifting but this set felt great.  I haven't felt that locked in mentally to a dead lift set in a while.  Each set was fast from the floor and my form only broke a little bit towards the end.  I was probably good for 12 or so but decided to shut it down.  Next week I'll give 455 a ride.  Getting to the point of being able to do 500 x 10 would be pretty bad ass.  But that's a ways away.

Captain's Log: Squats 7.15.13

Back into the 80% range as far as the quality of the workout goes.  The 455 felt a bit heavy but everything else felt pretty good.  I was sweating like a whore in church but the time I was done squatting so I just did some body weight stuff and GTFO.

Captain's Log: Last Few 7.13.13

Tuesday's and Thursday's sessions were poop bucket sessions.  I got all my reps but everything felt like shit.  Wednesday was OK but nothing special whatsoever.  That's the ebb and flow of training.  Some sessions you feel like you could lift the world and other days you'd rather be watching the death scene of your beloved childhood pet on an endless loop instead of training.  That's what Thursday felt like.

Saturday was better.  These days are geared towards getting me ready for the 500 x 29 day which will probably happen on my birthday.  At the end I added up the total pounds dead lifted and it came to 14,350.  500 x 29 = 14,500.  This got me thinking about the concept of total volume which is weight x reps.  In my mind volume always needs to be looked at within the context of intensity.

Intensity is represented as a percentage of your 1RM and can be different from day to day.  After my first rep at 500 I estimated my 1RM to be about 540-550 even though I've pulled 565 in the past few weeks. Today 565 would've stayed right where it was.

So back to intensity.  If we take 540 as my 1RM, on Saturday I pulled 4,000 pounds at a  93% intensity, 5,100 pounds at a 78%, and 5250 pounds at a 65% intensity. Buuuuut it's not that simple.  By the time I got to the third and fourth reps at 500 that 1RM felt like it could have crept back into the 565 range.  And by the last rep at 500 that was about all I had in the tank.  So what does that say about intensity?  Was 500 93%, 90%, or 100%.  It was all of them.  Intensity is a sliding scale and one that is more about feel than anything.

Lately I've been ramping up to a daily 1RM before I do rep work at lighter weights.  This daily max is lower than my 1RM and is a weight I feel confident hitting any day of the week regardless of where my recovery is at.  This number and my work sets after it are not picked using percentages of my 1RM.  They are based almost entirely on feel.  How does the weight feel in my hands or on my back?  How have all of my warm up sets felt?  Do I need to poop or will I be safe?  This is how I pick a lot of my weights and  how I pick a lot the weights for most of my clients.  I pay attention to body language and speed of the movements.

What I'm trying to say is that weight training is not a math assignment.  Percentages certainly have their place- in my case I use them with my weaker lifts- and are extremely useful when training large numbers of people.  But the whole point of the thing is to improve your body.  Listening to what your body is telling you and deciding the best course of action is part of that improvement.  Keep things simple, pay attention, get better as time goes on.

Captain's Log: Little Catchup 7.9.13

Saturday's Workout.  Put me out of commission for the rest of the weekend.

Monday.

Saturday's workout was a ball buster.  I was cashed after the first round of 10 singles but somehow managed to finish.  When I do this in the future I'm going to pull heavier singles but lighter doubles and triples.

Bench was fine.  Nothing to write home about.  I want to get to the point where I can rep 275 for 5-8 before I start pushing the everyday max (305) up.  Right now that number is in the 3-4 range although I've never tested it.

After this week I'm going to start planning out my workouts more.  My Goals Week is fast approaching and I want to make sure I leave no stone unturned.  I'm thinking I'm going to start working on more rep PRs for a bout 6-8 weeks and then I'll move into my max strength phase which will last another 8-9 weeks.  I'll plan from my Goals Week and move backwards.

Captain's Log: Let Freedom (And Dead Lifts) Ring! 7.3.13

Dead lifts were OK today as I was still pretty sore from Monday.  I dropped my ladder set down from last week.  I was planning to do them at 465 but decided after my singles at 515 that that was probably not a great idea.  425 felt really good and fast and that is more what I want out of these sets.

After the rows I did some glute extensions and chest supported rows but didn't feel like writing them down.

And to kick off your holiday weekend, a very 'Merica picture.

TRY AND BURN THIS FLAG.  I DARE YOU.

Captain's Log Bench 7.2.13

Bench went really well today.  I dropped two of my ramp up sets a bit and 305 felt as smooth as it's ever felt.  Going back to the 85% for 12 total reps and 70% for 20 total reps for my work sets.  This set up helped to finally get me to over 300 bench so I'm going to ride it until she can't be rode no more.  And those percentages are based off of my top single which is my everyday max.

Captain's Log: It's My Job...To Do Squats 7.1.13

Pretty decent day considering my first set of warm ups told me I wasn't as recovered as I thought I was from Saturday.  Oh well, nothing broke and I hit all my reps with out too much of a struggle.  Win.

Strength Training for the Endurance Athlete

Intro

As I’ve written about before, strength training is a key component to success in endurance athletics (I’m referring mostly to running, swimming, cycling, and rowing) yet it is one that is often avoided.  The old mindset of “to get better at XYZ sport you should ONLY perform XYZ sport a lot” is gone.  Every athlete regardless of chosen discipline must take the time to focus on their body to be at the top of their game.

I feel that endurance athlete’s aversion to strength training comes down to two things:

                -Fear of unwanted weight gain and

                -Time

The weight gain issue is a legitimate one when a few ounces here or there can hurt your performance.  But as someone who trains heavy 5-6 days per week and eats a lot to fuel those workouts I can tell you, it’s not as easy as you think.  Weight gain comes down to food choices more than anything, but that’s beyond the scope of the article.  In a nutshell, a few days a week of strength training will improve your performance above and beyond what a pound or two of lean tissue gain will do to hinder it.

The lack of time issue is the bugaboo here.  But just like the bogeyman it is often just a figment of our imagination. 

To get good at running, swimming, cycling, and/or rowing long distances you need to run, swim, cycle, and/or row long distances.  There is no way around that and anyone who tells you different usually has something to sell.  The time issue gets to the root of the problem when it comes to strength training for endurance athletes- very few of them know what their strength training should look like or consist of.  I know I wouldn't want to be out doing extra work that could hurt my performance when I spend so much time training as it is.  But on the flip side taking away some road work and replacing it with an individualized strength training program will help your performance way more than the extra road work will.  I cannot understate that enough.

When someone says “strength training” often the images that are conjured are those of big guys with big weights on their backs or in their hands grunting and screaming at each other.  That caricature isn't too far off from what happens at a lot of gyms but it couldn't be further from the truth of what an endurance athlete’s strength training should be.  The point of these articles is to dispel this myth and point endurance athletes in a direction that will improve their performance in both the short and long term.

Whatever your passion or sport of choice may be I feel it is important to not only be as good as you can be at it, but to also be able to do it for years and years.  Ok, enough of the yadda yadda yadda.   Let’s get to the goods.

Part 1: Mobility, Stability, and Tissue Quality

When it comes to training athletes the concept of a pyramid is an easy one to follow.  At the bottom you have the base.  It is wide and strong and supports everything above it.  Everyone would agree that if you don’t have a strong base the rest of what’s on top is in jeopardy of crashing down.  In essence the base is the most important part of the pyramid.

When it comes to the training of endurance athletes, mobility, stability, and tissue quality are and always will be the base.  Without proper mobility, stability, and tissue quality training for muscular balance, proper movement patterns, and strength and power becomes a gamble at best and downright detrimental to the athlete at worst.

Improvements in these three areas lead to more efficient and smoother strokes, pedal strokes, and strides since you are not fighting your body to get into necessary positions.  Due to the repetitive nature and high demands of endurance athletics mobility and tissue quality issues will creep up.  Taking a proactive approach will do wonders to abet them.

Mobility, Stability, and Tissue Quality: They Are All Connected

The human body is more complex and integrated than all of the supercomputers in the world combined (I made this up but it is more than likely true).  I could talk in circles for days about different situations that appear to be mobility problems but are stability problems caused by poor tissue quality that came about due to a lack of mobility because the body didn't have proper stability, ad nauseum.  Often times it takes a little detective work to figure out the source of the problem. 

And that detective work starts with a comprehensive movement screen.  These can be as simple as someone who is well versed in these things watching you go through various movement tasks to having someone video tape you and put you into a computer model to find deficiencies.  Either way, what you find in this screen is only a snapshot.  It is up to you and/or your fitness professional to determine the root of the problem and the best course of action.

Pain Isn't the Problem

It would be nice to be able to say, “Gee golly gosh, my patellar tendon hurts!  I should stretch my quads.”  It is rarely that cut and dried.  The point of pain isn't where the problem starts, it’s where it ends.  The beginning (i.e. the source) could be almost anywhere. 

Take the above example; your knee hurts so you stretch your quads.  Your quads feel really tight and stretching them feels good but it doesn’t do much to help your knee pain.  So you stretch more and more but still nothing.  So you go to a fitness professional and he puts you through a movement screen.  He sees that when you perform a body weight squat your heels come off the ground putting all of your weight onto your toes.  Through another test he finds that your ankles are tight which forces you to do everything with your quads, making them tight.  This essentially leaves your glutes and hamstrings to atrophy from under use.  Due to the overactive quads he also finds that you have an anterior (forward) tilt in your pelvis.  Your pelvis tilting forward causes it to pull on your underactive glutes and hamstings making them lengthened and “tight”.  This only forces you to use them less and less which causes for more force to run through your quads and knees until viola!, your knee hurts.

This seems like a complicated series of events but it actually happens quite often.  Because of the complexity of many issues self-diagnosis becomes hard.  This is why it becomes extra important to start taking care of your bones, muscles, ligaments, and joints BEFORE something starts to hurt.  And fortunately this takes minimal equipment and even less skill. 

There are many techniques to choose from when it comes to taking care of mobility and tissue quality but the most accessible to everyone is myofascial release and stretching.

Myofascial Relase

This is more or less a fancy term for rolling out.  When choosing an implement it’s important to scale it to you.  I use a 4” PVC pipe but most would be just fine with a BLACK foam roller.  The white ones are junk and do not last long.  

So without further ado here is a simple and basic rolling routine that can be done any time and just about anywhere.  I'm not going to go through the technique of each and every one.  My email is tdequaine@hotmail.com if you have any specific questions.

The tools of the trade.  PVC pipe and a softball.

IT Band Start

IT Band Finish

Hamstring Finish

Hamstring Start

Upper Back Start

Upper Back Finish

Quad Start

Quad Finish

Adductor Start

Adductor Finish

Calf Start

Calf Finish

Prirformis.  Go side to side on top, outside part of your buttcheek.  Hunt around and find some spots that hurt.

Stretching

Stretching has been much maligned in the past few years as both ineffective and deleterious to performance.  Studies have shown that stretching will neither improve performance nor prevent soreness.  Those that stretch before performing power movements such as squats or jumping will display less power than if they had not stretched.  These viewpoints are, in my opinion, myopic.

Stretching, when performed on its own, is rather ineffective for improving performance.  But when done in conjunction with myofascial release and targeted strengthening (i.e. the opposite muscle of the one that is tight) it becomes a useful tool in the tool box.  The below stretches are by no means comprehensive and pale in comparison to being stretched by someone who knows what they are doing, but they are great for the prevention injuries and the improvement of performance both in the gym and on the road.

Quad/Hip Flexor Pos. 1

Quad/HipFlexor Pos. 2

Quad/Hip Flexor Pos. 3

Calf

Pigeon Pose (stretches the glutes) side view

Pigeon Pose front view

Adductor Stretch Start

Adductor Stretch Finish

Stability

Now that we've got mobility and tissue quality issues cleared up let's look at stability.  Stability IS NOT the ability to do single leg squats on bosu balls while spinning a basketball on one finger.  That's called the circus.  Stability is the ability to resist motion when motion wants to happen.  

When I'm running I want to be as efficient as possible with each stride.  But if my shoulders and mid section are swinging from side to side and leaking energy all over the place I will not perform optimally, period.  Also if I'm having to fight my body to get into positions because I lack core strength and stability I'm at a disadvantage.

Everyone talks about core strength, but how many really know what that means?  In a nutshell the stronger your core, the better you'll be at displaying strength and power throughout your entire body.  If my legs are strong enough to squat 500 pounds but my core can only handle 400 pounds I will only be able to squat 400 pounds.  Same goes with endurance events.  If I'm using energy in my legs to counteract my swinging shoulders and midsection because my core can't keep them steady I'm going to tire out much faster than if I could keep them streamlined.

Stability starts in the middle and radiates out.  The word "core" has become a buzz word in the industry and many associate "core" with your abdominal muscles specifically the rectus (the six-pack muscle).  But the core is comprised of much more than just your abs.  There is also your obliques, transverse abdominus, erector spinea, diaphragm, latissimus dorsi, multifidus, hip flexors, and many more muscles that are part of your core.  But they all have a similar purpose when talking about your "core".  And that is to stabilize and protect the spine.  Entire volumes have been written on this notion but for our purposes it comes down to this:

The better you are at stabilizing and protecting your spine the more freedom of movement you will have in your extremities.  The more freedom of movement you have the less you will have to fight against yourself to obtain optimal postures and positions.  The easier it is to obtain those positions the easier it will be to propel yourself through space.  Strengthen and stabilize your spine, run/swim/bike/row further and faster.

What that is saying is that the less stability you have surrounding your spine the more you will need to take from your hips and shoulders.  This can present itself as a lack of mobility.  You can see this when someone has difficulty getting depth on a squat but can lie on their back and put their feet behind their head.  Their mobility is fine but their body will not allow them to get into a position that could be harmful to the spine, i.e. squat all the way down.

Joint integrity and stability are also key.  If you have lax hips and your femoral head bounces around inside your hip socket eventually those structures are going to wear down.  Being able to stabilize the joint without sacrificing freedom of movement is MUCHO IMPORTANTE when it comes to enjoying your sport many years into the future.

That is an incredible simplification of that certain precept.  Having a strong and stable core is only the first part of the puzzle.  Applying that strength to benefit your sport takes focusing on your movement patterns and the watchful eye of a competent coach.  We only have a certain number of reps on our tissues regardless of perfect technique or not but performing movements with sub-optimal patterns burns through those reps at a much higher rate.  And taking the time to counteract the abuse we do to our bodies will help us perform when it matters the most.

This brings us to the topic of the next post which will be on the middle of the pyramid; movement patterns and muscular balance.