Blogging is funny sometimes. There are instances where I feel I put a lot of time and effort into a post thinking to myself that I’m easily going to win some kind of blogging Pulitzer or that I’m going to step outside my apartment and a ticker-tape parade will just spontaneously erupt complete with a Stealth Bomber flyover and Kelly Clarkson busting out the national anthem in my honor.
Low and behold that’s never even come close to happening (yet), but still…I’m often bemused at which blogs actually catch on, gain momentum in terms of traffic and shares, and which fall by the wayside.
Take for example one of my posts last week, Success = Strength. This was something I wrote in like 30-45 minutes and something I just tossed up on my site because I didn’t feel I had anything important or revolutionary to say that day.
Funnily enough, it’s a post that, despite not getting a ton of “Likes” (which doesn’t really mean all much anyways), did result in quite a few people reaching out to tell me how much they enjoyed it and that they enjoyed the overall message.
In addition, I also had a fair number of clients at the facility walk up me throughout the week telling me they really liked it. Go figure!
And with that, today’s post, I feel, is another one of those hit or miss scenarios which may resonate with a few people and win me a few internet high fives; or maybe more appropriately make people want to throw their face into their keyboard in a fit of rage.
I’m hoping for the former.
One of the more prevalent and frequent questions we receive at the facility from other coaches and trainers who visit is: Why don’t you include any Olympic lifting into your programs?
Seemingly I think many who visit are under the impression that we (or more specifically I) don’t find any efficacy in their use and that we feel they’re a waste of time, which couldn’t be further from the truth.
I don’t feel I need to insult anyone’s intelligence and delve into the in’s and out’s of why Olympic lifting is efficacious or why it’s a superior way to train speed, power, explosiveness, and overall athleticism.
They work. Nuff said.
I’d be a complete moron to state otherwise.
That being said, and I’m speaking on my own behalf here (and not for the rest of the CP staff), I have my reasons why I don’t use them in my programming.
Numero Uno
I know I’m going to catch some flak some of the internet haters and gurus out there, but I’m going to say it anyways. Point blank: I know my limitations as a coach.
I don’t have a lot of experience with the OLY lifts personally, and I just wouldn’t feel comfortable pretending otherwise. That said, it doesn’t make much sense to me to spend an inordinate amount of time coaching/teaching something I don’t have a lot of familiarity with.
It’s certainly not going to do my athletes and clients any good. And it most certainly won’t paint me in good light. At best I can probably get by and fudge my way through coaching a half-way decent hang-clean. At worst I end up hurting someone.
And I don’t feel any less of a person or coach admitting that this is a weakness of mine. If anything I wish this is something more coaches and trainers would admit to themselves. That they’re not Superman and that they DO have weaknesses.
Hi, my name is Tony Gentilcore……and I don’t know how to coach the OLY lifts.
Of course this isn’t to say I’m never going to improve my OLY coaching prowess. I’m sure at some point I’ll ask someone to coach the coach and take me through the ABC’s. But until that happens I’m most certainly not going to pretend I’m something I’m not.
Numero Dos (<=== That’s About the Extent of My Spanish)
There are other, more “user friendly” ways I can train power and explosiveness.
I never quite understand why some coaches and trainers take an “elitist” attitude towards any one modality or way of thinking. One of the more common examples would be some people’s gravitation towards everything kettlebells.
I can use the same train of thought with regards to powerlifting, CrossFit, Zumba, Yoga, the Shake Weight…..you name it, and you’re bound to find your zealots.
Okay, maybe not the Shake Weight…but you get the idea.
When talking about power and explosive training, as paramount as OLY lifting is, when working with a specific population like baseball players, I feel we can serve them well by implementing med ball training into the mix.
Hell, I’d argue it’s more “specific” to their needs in the first place and a lot less detrimental in terms of joint distraction forces on both the shoulder and elbow:
And this doesn’t just apply to baseball players either. We use med ball training with our general population clientele as well.
Numero Three
Pigging back on the point above, I don’t necessarily know how long a particular athlete or client will be training at the facility. Some have been with us for one, two, three, four+ years. But more common are those who may come in for a 1-3 month span.
Teaching and coaching the OLY lifts (well) can easily take months to accomplish, and if I only have a limited amount of time with someone I have to be overly judicious with my time with them.
With that I tend to opt for med ball training, skipping drills, heidens, sprint work (when applicable), and the like to get my “power” training in.
And not to blow sunshine up my own arse, but I feel the results that I (and the rest of the CP staff) have been able to accomplish speak for themselves.
And That’s That
Hopefully I didn’t offend anyone or cause someone to blow a gasket. Just to reiterate, I understand that OLY lifting is important and that it works. So save the hate mail.
I just don’t feel that you HAVE to include them to be a successful strength and/or performance coach. As the saying goes – there’s more than one way to skin a cat.
Maybe even most important of all: I think we can’t be afraid of knowing our own limitations as coaches.
It’s nothing to be ashamed of, nor is it something to cower away from.
Let me preface all of this by asking you a question. How stoked are you to go see Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim this weekend? If you don’t know what it’s about all you need to know is this: Giant robots vs. giant alien monsters.
The only way this movie could be more manly is if the robots all had beards or something.
Or if by some stroke of writing genius (and movie studio cross promotion), Batman comes out of nowhere and starts Sparta kicking aliens left and right. And Matt Damon reprises his role as Jason Bourne. Just because.
I defy anyone to tell me that that wouldn’t win an Oscar for “Most Awesome Movie Ever Made.”
Think about it.
Anyhoo, I’m sitting here in a Panera Bread as I write this post and I told myself I was going to sequester myself into “academic quarantine” (a term I stole from Eric Cressey) so that I could spend a few solid hours working on my tan presentations for mine and Dean Somerset’s Boston Workshop at the end of the month (Hint: there are still some spots OPEN.)
But I wanted to make sure I posted up a little sumthin, sumthin before the weekend. And since it’s been a few weeks since I’ve shared a new Exercise You Should Be Doing, I figured it was perfect timing.
Off-Bench Oblique Hold w/ Pulse
Who Did I Steal it From: On Tuesdays I typically train at Boston University Strength & Conditioning, and I’ve seen this exercise done with their athletes numerous times. I liked it, so felt I’d steal it.
What Does It Do: I’ve long trumpeted the notion that I think planks (and all their infinite variations) reach a point of diminishing returns once people start getting carried away with how LONG they go for.
There’s no denying that there’s a lot of efficacy for their use with people suffering from low back pain, as guys like Dr. Stuart McGill and Dr. Craig Liebenson have long demonstrated their practicality in that regard
Watering things waaaaay down: one of the major red flags when it comes to chronic back pain is when there’s a huge discrepancy or asymmetry in anterior, posterior, and lateral spinal endurance. In this context, planks are a god-send as it helps teach people to engage and fire more efficiently the appropriate musculature (rectus abdominus, external/internal obliques, TVA, erector spinae, longissimus, iliocostalis, etc), – SYNCHRONOUSLY (it’s NOT about isolating anything) – in an effort to better stabilize the spine.
But even then, it’s not like the objective is to plank people to death and make a run at the Guinness Book of World Records.
Technique can get dicey for many after a certain point, and I believe as of late, McGill et al are more in favor of short, intermittent planks holds such as several 5-10s holds done in succession.
And this doesn’t even take into consideration that when we’re referring to healthy, UN-injured people, performing planks for minutes on end makes about as much sense as wiping your ass with sandpaper.
I still find value in planks – I’m not trying to poo-poo on them altogether. Which is why I’d much prefer to make them more challenging than to worry about length.
To that end, the off-bench oblique hold with pulse is a great plank variation that ups the ante on core stabilization, as you not only have to fight gravity to a higher degree, but also resist the dynamic “pulse” of the plate coming back and forth from the body.
Key Coaching Cues: Hook your feet underneath a secure bench (or GHR if you have one), and then extend your body so that your hips are on the very edge of the bench. From there it’s important to ensure that you’re body is in a straight line, and that your not rotated too far one way or the other and that your neck is packed and not protruding forward.
Grab a plate, dumbbell, kettlebell, Easy Bake Oven, whatever (I was using 10 lbs in the video and that was plenty challenging) and “pulse” it back and forth from from your chest until your arms are fully extended.
Perform 8-10 reps per side and switch and perform the same process on the other.
I woke up this morning with every intention of writing a post on something mind-blowing, like femoral acetabular impingement, and discussing some guidelines on how to assess and write effective programming around it, but then realized that it was waaaaaay too early to do that much thinking before I had the opportunity to inject any caffeine into my left ventricle.
Besides my good friend, Kevin Neeld, beat me to the punch and had some fantastic things to say on the topic HERE and HERE, so I figured there was no point in reinventing the wheel. Also, there’s no way I could have possibly topped what Kevin had to say, sooooo, enjoy!
Understandably FAI isn’t everyone’s wheelhouse. Which is why today’s idea for a post took a dramatic turn when I opened up my email this morning.
As you might expect I receive my fair share of emails on a day to day basis.
Everything from “wet under the ears” trainers asking me for career advice to people asking how to program around certain injuries to random Saudi Princes gratuitously willing to fork over their millions.
Some people reach out to recommend books or movies, while others reach out just say “thanks for doing what you do.” I like those kind of emails……..ahh-lawt.
As it happens I received a cool email this morning from someone I’ve never met in person nor ever heard from before today.
Quite simply all he did was shoot me a quick email to say how much he enjoyed reading my stuff and to share a quote from a book he’s reading which he felt I’d enjoy.
In his own words, “I found an amazing passage on why someone would want to be strong in my current reading, “Kafka on the Shore” by Haruki Murakami.
I’m not sure if you’re familiar with his work, or with the Magical Realism genre, but this post struck me and I felt like it’s something that should be shared:
“The strength I’m looking for isn’t the kind where you win or lose. I’m not after a wall that’ll repel power coming from outside. What I want is the kind of strength to be able to ABSORB that outside power, to stand up to it. The strength to quietly endure things- unfairness, misfortune, sadness, mistakes, misunderstandings.”
I felt that was a pretty profound passage.
Anyone who reads my stuff on a consistent basis knows I’m all about strength. I want, nay, I love….to make people strong
Hell, my tax returns every year say “strength coach,” so it’s obvious I’m a little biased.
But here’s the rub: strength isn’t always about how much weight someone can pull off the floor or hoist off their chest or place on their shoulders. Nor is strength necessarily about training people till they blow a sphincter or splay out across the gym floor in a pool of sweat
Sure those can enter the conversation. But strength has a much broader umbrella than that and can mean something entirely different from one person to the next.
Take Bill for example. Bill is an 80-year old father of one our other clients who started training with us a few months ago. Bill suffered some health issues last year, and after more than a few nudges from his son, finally decided to give this whole “lifting weights doo-hickey nonsense” a try.
Understandably everything was Greek to him from the start.
Everything from a foam roller to a dumbbell was completely foreign to Bill, not to mention intimidating.
I remember one day I pointed towards the Prowler and told Bill that he was going to be pushing that bad boy down the turf – 40 yards. He looked at me flabbergasted as if I just asked him to sprint up Mt. Everest. He had similar reactions when I asked him to perform (elevated) push-ups, bodyweight box squats, and farmer carries.
He didn’t think he could do any of those things. But I knew better.
It was my job to show Bill SUCCESS!
Having the ability to demonstrate success to clients is a trait I wish more trainers would grasp onto. And I don’t mean quantifiable success like “x” number on a bench press or “x” inches off the waistline (although those certainly are warranted and respectable goals, and important to some).
Rather, I’m referring to having the ability to make a client feel successful regardless of their background or experience level. Demonstrate to them QUALITATIVE markers that prove they CAN do something.
This can be strength too!
Yesterday Bill was handed a new program. Each program he’s started has included 1-2 “new” exercises that (progressively) challenge him in different ways.
Yesterday happened to include a 1-legged hip hinge on the docket. It wasn’t easy for Bill. And I’d garner a guess that he was thiiiis close to scissor kicking Keifer (who was coaching Bill) in the face out of frustration.
But what helped Bill tremendously – and something he brought up himself – was the fact that the (new) exercise was paired with something he knew he could dominate (push-ups).
Again, my objective is to challenge my clients, but not at the expense of making them feel defeated 24/7. That, to Bill, more often than not, is strength.
Knowing that he can do “stuff” and that he can persevere, regardless of what’s thrown his way.
To that end, I’ll end with another quote from the same person who sent the original email that spurned this conversation:
“You guys at CP discuss the quiet confidence that come from training for strength instead of size, but I think that Murakami’s Kafka really expounds on that idea, bringing the purpose of strength from a physical (aggressive?) attribute to one that leads to a great deal of self-assurance in the ability to cope with whatever may arise. Instead of walling one’s self off from any and all comers, a strong person knows they’re able to accept whatever may come and make adjustments without losing themselves.”
Think about that for a few moments and let it sink in.
Back in 2002 I was contemplating becoming a teacher. A health teacher to be more precise. As an undergrad I was studying Health Education with a concentration in being awesome Health/Wellness Promotion, and as many of you can probably guess, a major part of the requirement for completion was to spend a semester student teaching at both a local middle and high school.
In my case “local” meant driving 50 miles (both ways) to Binghamton, NY. And while I could easily sit here and bemoan some aspects of the experience – driving 50 miles through the lake effect snow capital of the world during the dead of winter comes to mind. As does teaching human sexuality to a bunch of 7th-graders. Hey, you try to explain “nocturnal emissions” WITH A STRAIGHT FACE – I have to say, all in all, it was an amazing few months.
I learned a lot about myself during that time (like, how to properly tie a tie), and it was a wonderful opportunity to, as Chip and Dan Heath describe in their book, Decisive, get an “ooch,” or “taste” as to whether or not teaching was the right fit for me.
Turns out it wasn’t.
When it came down to it: I decided it was way cooler to spend my time hanging out in a gym making people stronger than it was hanging out in a classroom teaching kids what cell-mediated immunity was.
Still, I was reminiscing the other day about my student teaching experience and amid my thoughts of lecture plans, pop quizzes, and the differences between boy-down-there-parts and girl-down-there-parts (seriously, try to keep a straight face!), it brought me back to the day when I was asked by one of my students if I’d be willing to attend his poetry reading that he was organizing after school in the cafeteria.
While the Jaws theme music immediately started reverberating in my head as soon as the word “poetry” left his lips, being the good trooper and responsible teacher that I was, I gladly accepted.
Hopefully without sounding too mean, there’s Broadway, off-Broadway, off-off Broadway, the two homeless guys fighting over an empty Coke can in the park, and then there’s the poetry reading/one-man monologue/play that he put on in front of a group of 20 or so people.
I feel like a major a-hole for saying it (more than ten years later), but it was face palm bad. But I survived. And well, giving credit where it’s due: it’s not like I’ve ever done anything remotely as ballsy as that.
And because I really don’t have any other way to segue into what I actually wanted to talk about today, want to know what else is face palm worthy? The following story………..
It’s a Doozy
After linking on my site THISpost she wrote on why she doesn’t believe in barre classes anymore, last year my friend Emily Giza Socolinsky wrote a stellar guest post on this site titled A New and Better Butt? Why Not a Stronger Butt?
Note: before you continue, I’d HIGHLY recommend you read the actual post(s) because what follows won’t be nearly as vomit in your mouthish if you don’t.
Finished? Okay, good.
Great message, right? I felt Emily hit the nail on the proverbial head with that one. Any message which empowers and encourages women to not be afraid to lift appreciable weight, as well as any message which debunks the notion that lifting something heavier than a 3 lb dumbbell, bar, or purse will turn them into a Highland Games competitor overnight is alright in my book.
Apparently someone felt otherwise and took offense to Emily’s “tone.” Well, to be more precise they originally took offense that, unbeknownst to Emily, the photo she used in her original post was of an actual owner and instructor of a Barre class (that she snaked off of Google Images).
Emily gladly took the photo down. But it was the snide comment that the owner left in the comments section of Emily’s post which really grinded her gears:
” You have used the photo of barre class with out permission … Please remove it. This is a photo of my instructors at a barre studio and myself.. It is not stock for public consumption.
Separately, you are completely wrong about barre class. I don’t know what kind of class you taught at your studio but our clients are much stronger, much more confident, ski better, play tennis better, etc and aren’t just there to tone their thighs. Perhaps they can not pull their husbands out if a burning building – not sure whose overall goal that would be anyway – but they are not looking to build enormous muscles and look like a man either.
Remove the photo immediately.
Thank you.”
OMFG – when will this ever end??????????????
Excuse me while I go face palm my face into a cement wall.
Emily responded like a champ:
“Thank you for your comment. I apologize for using your picture. I will remove this out of courtesy to you and your instructors.
However, what I cannot and will not do is apologize for my post. I am not completely wrong about barre classes and if you actually read my post, I am all for women doing what works for them and makes them happy. But I want to deliver to my female clients what I believe to be a better program for getting stronger and gaining confidence.
While I am sure that your clients have gotten stronger from your barre classes, I believe that my clients are served better by actually lifting weights that will challenge their bodies, minds and spirits. None of my ladies look like a man.
In fact, all of my women have dramatically changed their bodies into curvaceous, strong and fit women. Your comment implies that my goal is to make women look like men. Women can be strong, have muscle, lift heavy weight and still be women.
I want to deliver the best program to my women and for them and for me, this includes picking up weight that weighs more than 3 lbs. Sure, you can get stronger by doing anything….but in my world (and many others) building a stronger body means actually lifting weights.
And for me, I DO want to know that if I had to, I could pull my husband out of a burning building.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAryFIuRxmQ
The absolute best response I saw on Emily’s Facebook Page was this:
“Ski better, play tennis better” is the bougiest response to anything I’ve seen in a while. “
Our clients can handle many pottery barn shopping bags.” “She has the strength to open the hood of her own 3 series.” “Our clients look great in their cocktail dresses when they attend philanthropy luncheons.”
Well said by whoever said that!
I don’t feel I need to add any fuel to the fire here since most of you reading know my stance on this topic. I just find it disheartening that this is still the pervasive attitude which dominates much (not all) of the female psyche.
For the love of all that’s holy can you blame some of them?
I have a female client who’s a personal trainer on the side and she mentioned how she wanted to ween herself out of the commercial gym setting, and start working with younger athletes (particularly female) at the local high school where her son goes.
As it happened, she sent out an email to all of the girls athletic coaches at the high school telling them that she’d be in the weight room this summer to help out, and she asked the coaches to encourage their athletes to come.
She heard back from TWO coaches, one of which is the female PE teacher who also coaches the field hockey team.
This is what the coach wrote back:
“One issue is the lack of user friendly equipment for the girls. They are not interested in the heavy lifting machines. I wrote a grant for strength training circuit machines and cardio machines, but it did not get funded.
Well no shit they’re not interested if this is the mentality that’s being engrained from the get go!
For the record: my client noted that the “heavy lifting machines” this coach is referring to are the TEN squat racks in the weight room.
Since when do females need user friendly equipment? Since when do they need to be pampered with cardio machines?
It’s all BS if you ask me. Worse still, it’s a disgrace and woeful fail in judgement on the coaches’ parts. Way to go! You just pandered to the fears that every girl has towards lifting weights by telling her she needs to head to elliptical row!
If females are being “programmed” by their elders and coaches at such a young age to think that boys and girls need to train differently and that the squat rack isn’t “user friendly,” is it any wonder why this seems like a losing battle at times?
Why not, I don’t know, encourage young, impressionable women that the squat rack isn’t Mordor. That they don’t need to train any differently than the boys? That lifting appreciable weight can be a key to unlocking a treasure trove of beauty, athleticism, and maybe even more importantly, confidence?
Can we turn the page sometime in the near future? Please?
1. Like many of you I’ve seen all the prerequisite blockbuster movies this summer – Iron Man 3 (awesome), Man of Steel (good, not great), Before Midnight* , and World War Z (eh).
And while it’s pretty much breaking man-code for not wanting to see Fast and Furious 6 – somewhere out there Kevin Larrabee just punched a wall – I do want to take a few moments to point all of you in the direction of a lesser known movie that Lisa and I saw yesterday which may very well trump all of the above:
The Way Way Back
I tend to gravitate towards the more artsy-fartsy, independent, Focus/Miramax/Sony Pictures Classics films. You know: The type of movies that actors and actresses do for the “street cred” and Oscar talk buzz more so than the paycheck.
I first heard about The Way Way Back when I was reading up on the reviews from the Sundance Film Festival (yes, I’m that much of a nerd), and as soon as I realized it was made by the same people who were responsible for Little Miss Sunshine and Juno, I knew I was going to be intrigued.
In a nutshell it’s about a kid – Duncan – who’s forced to go on a summer vacation to a beach town in the Hamptons with his mom and new doucher of a boyfriend (played, surprisingly, by Steve Carrell).
The rest of the storyline is fairly predictable: Duncan is an introvert, doesn’t make friends well, he hates the new boyfriend, there’s a crazy alcoholic neighbor thrown into the mix. a cute girl, so on and so forth.
No zombies. No explosions. And no gratuitous nude scenes. Basically, it’s the anti-man movie.
This isn’t to suggest that the movie was a bust – it wasn’t at all. Instead, it’s just to say that if you watched Little Miss Sunshine and/or Juno, you know there are going to be some oddball characters involved.
A perfect example would be the always underrated Sam Rockwell who plays a guy who runs a local water park, has his fair share of witty one-liners, befriends Duncan, and helps him come out of his shell.
I really, really enjoyed this film. It’s in limited release now, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to be gaining momentum as the weeks pass. If you get the chance, definitely check it out!
2. Nick Tumminello sent me a copy of his new product Core Training: Facts, Fallacies & Top Techniques and I finally had the opportunity to give it a look, of all places, as I was sitting in the laundry mat yesterday morning.
Hey, if I’m going to sit there for an hour hating life I might as well get smarter right?
Nick never disappoints, and while I’m going to give full disclosure and say I haven’t yet watched the entire thing, I will tell you that from what I have seen……….it’s awesome!
I’m always amazed by Nick’s no BS attitude and I respect that he’s so willing to go against the grain on many things.
In any case, I was a little late in the game to say anything and as it happens, the sale he was running was supposed to end last night (Sunday, June 7th) at midnight. HOWEVER, Nick informed me that he’s willing to extend the pre-sale another day for all of my readers. Woot woot!
3. I also want to give a shout out to my good friends Dr. Jonathan Fass and Bret Contreras. As of two weeks ago I’ve been getting up earlier and going for some early morning strolls around my neighborhood. And with that I’ve also been crushing the Strength of Evidence Podcast which is hosted by both Jon and Bret.
I’ll be the first in line to say that I absolutely abhor reading research. You might as well hand me War and Peace translated into Elvish, because I’d rather read that than anything remotely attached to “clinical findings” or “p-ratios” or “statistical errors.”
It’s all Greek to me.
Which is why I really appreciate the depth and thoroughness that these guys include in each episode. They dig DEEP into a lot of hotly debated topics – CrossFit, should everyone squat deep?, the efficacy of neck packing, sprinting mechanics, to name a few – and they do so with just the right mix of geek and meathead.
So if you’re looking for a new fitness podcast to check out, look no further. You’re welcome.
4. I was asked recently how my quest for a 600 lb deadlift is coming along. More to the point: I was asked what my training has been consisting of lately – other than deadlifting mack trucks and arm wrestling tanks (<—just a slight exaggeration).
Well, truth be told, I’ve been including a lot more jump training into my weekly repertoire.
I’ve made no qualms at the fact that I’m slower than molasses off the floor when I pull, and much of that I attribute to my loss of athleticism throughout the years.
Now don’t get me wrong: I can still sprint without looking like the Tin Man. But at 36, as awesome as it may be, it’s not like I’m going out of my way to play pick-up games of Laser Tag or beach volleyball in my jeans Top Gun style.
Sorry ladies.
Needless to say I finally hit a tipping point and decided to nip things in the bud and work on getting more explosive. To that end, I’ve been including more things like deadstart box jumps prior to my squat and DL days.
Video courtesy of strength coach John Gaglione.
In addition Lisa and I have been reacquainting ourselves with stadium sprints at Harvard on Sunday mornings. Nothing too crazy or CrossFitish, but enough to make us realize how much they kick our ass.
And it seems to be working. I randomly walked up to a barbell loaded up with 500 lbs the other day in the middle of the afternoon and, without warming up, pulled it for an easy triple (with more in the tank).
I’ve also been toying around with more of a pseudo Sumo stance deadlift and love it.
I’m not sure when I’ll actually give 600 a go, but suffice is to say things are finally moving along at a nice pace. Stay tuned…….
* = LOL, just kidding. I didn’t go see this one. Nope. Not me. That would mean I would have had to have seen Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, too. That would just be ridiculous.
“It’s Fourth of July, I think I’m gonna try to eat clean today.”
– Said no one. Ever.
Like many of you reading I’m recovering from a day of gluttony. Although giving myself some credit, I wasn’t all that bad. Instead of hitting up a few BBQs, Lisa and I decided to keep our Fourth a bit more low key and opted to head to the beach instead.
We packed a cooler full of fruit, chicken, guacamole, and Coke Zeros (we like to live lifer dangerously), along with some summer reading material (I was finishing up the book Decisive, Lisa was reading whatever it is girls read on the beach) and we soaked up some vitamin D.
When we got back into the city, though, I treated myself to an ice-cream sundae and then crushed an entire bag of honey wheat pretzels. Holla!
In any case I’m not going out of my way to do a bunch of work today, and as such I’m just going to link to an article I had published on T-Nation the other day on the pull-through (which I feel is one of the most UNDERrated exercises out there).
I hope you check it out, and I’ll be back on Monday with some new content!
Happy day before 4th of July! I might as well take the opportunity to wish everyone a happy 4th now (remember: firecrackers aren’t toys!), because the likelihood that I’ll even open up my laptop tomorrow is slim to none. I believe the game plan for Lisa and I is to pack a cooler and head to the South Shore for a little beach action tomorrow.
Which means, of course, that I’ll be taking myself through a little “beach workout” today at the facility. Sun’s out Guns out!
Don’t judge me! You know you’re going to do the exact same thing today.
Anyhoo, here’s some stuff to read to keep you occupied until your boss leaves work early, and then you hightail it out there yourself.
I recently read this booknot too long ago- and subsequently made my girlfriend read it as well (who then recommended it to a few of her friends) – and thought it was an absurdly fascinating (and scary) look into the food industry.
Basically the food industry is hoodwinking us in more ways than one.
If you eat food – and I know you do – I can’t recommend this book enough.
I’m s sucker for any article which encourages women to think that lifting (appreciable) weights is a good thing. So a hardy internet “slow clap” goes out to Sophia for writing this baller article.
What’s even more interesting than the article itself (and it IS a good one), is some of the commentary in the comments section. I often find it comical (and at the same time sad) that some women read a piece like this and act as if someone clubbed a baby seal.
Many will go off on some tired tirade on women’s rights, “HOW DARE YOU BASH SKINNY WOMEN!!!”, blah blah blah…….when that’s not even the point of the article in the first place. Stop the freakin ballyhooing!
As Sophia noted is the endnotes: strong is not a body type, it’s an ability.
Note from TG:Theeeeeeey’re baaaaack. The Dynamic Duo, Chris and Eric Martinez, strike again. And this time they’re setting their sites on the whole “should we or shouldn’t we perform cardio” around training time debate.
(For those out of the loop, HERE and HERE are two other previous guest posts by the Duo.)
As with everything the best answer is…..it depends.
Contrary to popular belief I’m not at all opposed to people tossing in some dedicated cardio into the mix. I recognize that it’s important, that it offers a ton of benefits, and that it serves as an ideal time to catch up on reruns of Judge Judy.
I keed, I keed.
In all seriousness, there’s a mountain of research backing up traditional cardio as a fantastic way to improve overall conditioning, heart health, hormonal profile, immune function, as well as stuff like reducing the risk of developing type II diabetes, to name a few.
My main beef is when people rely SOLELY on “cardio” to be the end-all-be-all panacea of health and performance. As an example: If you’re trying to increase strength and are still running 20 miles per week, good luck with that.
Alas, the point of this article isn’t to throw cardio under the bus. Rather it’s to demonstrate that there’s a time and place for it given your goals and needs, and that WHERE you prioritize it can have a huge impact on long-term results.
Especially if you’re a performance athlete or someone who likes to lift heavy stuff.
Enjoy!
The lovely world of cardio, we have to love it right? Cardio has countless benefits for the human body, so it must be good for us, right? How else do you think all the celebrities stay so skinny and “toned?”
How many times have you seen people get to the gym and hop on a cardio machine and just gas themselves, and not to mention go do some resistance training right after. Or what about when someone gets done from an intense lifting session, then goes off and does an intense cardio session?
We know you’ve seen this before and we are not going to get into the psychology of why people do this because that could be a whole other article itself. We are more focused on is it optimal to perform cardio pre and post workout? With a specific focus on which cardio modality (type of cardio you do) is the best to perform to avoid the interference effect of strength, power, and hypertrophy gains?
But before we give you the answer, it’s vital that we always have to take people’s goals, activity level, overall health, and training experience into consideration before anything. So please read this with an open mind and a non-black and white answer, all or nothing approach.
What’s This Interference Effect Thing?
When we refer to the interference effect, we are talking about the interference of strength, power, and hypertrophy gains (muscle growth) when doing cardio pre or post workout. This topic of discussion has been floating around for quite some time now, whether concurrent training is optimal or not.
We all have our biased opinions, but what is the correct cardio modality to do pre and post workout and should we even be doing cardio pre or post workouts? That is the million dollar question that many of us would like to know.
Why continue to keep robbing your hard earned gains and progress if you don’t need to. Instead, why not continue to maximize your overall potential the correct way instead of shooting yourself in the foot? As always, we bring scientific based evidence to the table to get to the bottom of these popular topics, because the research doesn’t lie folks.
Before we delve into the research, we want to quote what Brad Schoenfeld said:
“There is no one cookie-cutter recommendation I can provide that will be ideal for everyone. People have varying responses to exercise programs. Large inter-individual differences are seen in any research protocol. Thus, in giving advice on a topic such as this, I can only provide general recommendations that must be individualized based on a variety of genetic and environmental factors. This is the essence of evidence-based practice, which should form the basis of every fitness professional’s decision making process.” (1)
We can’t agree more with this statement and we truly feel this statement is a legitimate and valid way of viewing such a topic like this one.
Cardio Modalities
We are certain we can all agree that there are numerous different cardio modalities out there today. To name a few modalities that have more ground-reaction force with higher impact are:
Conventional sprints
Up-hill sprints
Resisted sprints
Car pushes
Prowler pushes
Sled pulls
Pretty much all the badass cardio workouts that we look forward to doing.
Cardio modalities that minimize ground-reaction forces are:
Cycling bikes
Treadmills
Ellipticals
Various machine based equipment
The stuff we like to watch TV on or read magazines 😉
These are all great choices whether you use them in the form of HIIT or LISS, but which modality is more optimal to prevent the interference effect and when should you do these you ask? Let’s delve into some research shall we.
Should you do cardio pre or post workout?
Layne Norton and Jacob Wilson claim that when you choose a cardio modality such as running or sprinting after a resistance training bout, the ground-reaction force (think sprints) and distance causes more muscle damage as opposed to a modality with less impact such as cycling instead.
Cycling seems to be more similar to hip and knee flexion as opposed to running because it’s biomechanically interfering with squat and leg press patterns. This muscle damage seems to be coming from the eccentric components when running and sprinting (2).
Norton and Wilson make a valid point in the essence that if you are going to do cardio post workout, make sure you do it in the form of an opposing muscle group.
Let’s say you did a grueling lower body workout, you would then want to do cardio in the form of using your upper body, something like rope slams because otherwise if you go and run or do sprints you are going to get a complete interference effect and possibly get injured.
After resistance training you have mTOR (cell growth) being ramped up and protein synthesis (making of new proteins) being turned on and when you do cardio after resistance training you get such high drastic rises in AMP kinase (signaling cascade for ATP production) that it ends up shutting off protein synthesis.
In easier terms, cardio after weights interferes with the muscle growth phase and a good analogy is after training you turn the faucet on for muscle growth and when too much cardio is being done or after training, it shuts the faucet off.
As for pre workout cardio, this tends to be a little trickier than post workout cardio and we say this because it really depends on a lot of factors such as: What muscle groups are you training that day? What form of cardio are you doing pre workout (low, moderate, or high intensity)? What modality will you use? Are you in a low calorie and glycogen depleted state?
A Study in the Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise shows 30 minutes of jogging pre workout decreases volume of spinal discs and leads to a reduction in the amount of weight you can load on your back (3).
For example, if you did a moderate-high intensity cardio bout such as jogging before squats it’s probably not a good idea because it will lead to decrements in strength and negatively affect your squats. Jogging shows to have a lot of muscle damage in the quads, hams, and glutes, so this will definitely affect your squat game.
A 2012 study in the International Journal of Sports Nutrition showed extended periods of moderate volume concurrent strength, power, and endurance training interferes with explosive strength development (4). This is not something you want if you’re trying to increase your 1 rep max on squats and deadlifts.
The data is pretty clear that performing moderate-high intensity cardio pre workout will lead to decrements in strength and power with your resistance training. Perhaps doing cardio earlier in the day and performing resistance training later in the day will not have a negative impact on either the performance or the measured markers of the exercise induced growth stimulus the resistance training session will have.
However, we highly encourage doing resistance training and cardio on separate days as this would be the most optimal route to go.
Is there really an interference effect?
In a study by Wilson et al. a large body of research indicates that combining aerobic and resistance exercise (concurrent training) has a negative effect on gains in muscular strength and size (5).
There is credence to the underlying concept that catabolic processes predominate to a greater extent in aerobic training, and concurrent exercise therefore has the potential to impair muscular gains. There is even evidence that cardio can blunt the satellite cell response (helps with muscle growth) to a bout of resistance exercise and therefore potentially impair the protein-producing capacity of muscle (6).
With that said, why are people still considering doing cardio pre or post workout if clearly the evidence indicates that it can potentially inhibit muscular gains, strength, and power?
What if you could avoid the interference effect?
Burn more calories, increase muscle, and acutely increase your metabolic rate, sounds good, right?
This is where the famous HIIT cardio would come into play.
When you think of HIIT, high intensity and high stress should be taken into consideration. What we have to keep in mind is that stress has to be recovered from, just like the stress from weight training. Last time we checked HIIT cardio is done during the week along with resistance training. If you are still recovering from a HIIT cardio session to the point that it affects your ability to lift weights, then it can be detrimental to your gains.
If there is a significant eccentric component (sprinting and running), or high level of impact, HIIT can cause problems in your overall training and potentially lead to chronic overuse injuries. You have to be cautious and smart when incorporating HIIT into your training protocol because it seems that the work to rest ratios in HIIT intervals are very similar to resistance training sets and your number one focus should be on progressive resistance training.
Here are some ways to avoid the interference effect:
Schedule your cardio around your resistance training, especially HIIT cardio
If your number one priority is resistance training, then perform cardio modalities that minimize ground-reaction forces
Perform a cardio modality that is opposite of the muscle group your training. For example, if you do train legs then do an upper body dominate form of cardio and vice versa
If you absolutely have to do cardio the same day as your resistance training and you can’t find a cardio modality opposite of the body part you trained then make sure to keep the intensity to low-moderate.
Wrapping this up
We believe that the research is pretty clear here when it comes to this particular topic. Clearly there is no black and white answer, sorry to disappoint, but at least we have a great indication of what to do and when not to do it.
It’s tough to predict that anyone can avoid any interference effect when it comes to aerobic or anaerobic training. Just like anything else you have to compensate something. We are not all built like machines and able to handle the same workload as others.
Genetics always play a vital role in how someone responds to training. Other factors such as nutrition, stress, sleep, occupational activity, ect. All must be taken into account. Refer back to Brad Schoenfeld’s quote if needed, it pretty much tells you there are only general recommendations that can be given here. The best thing to do is choose the correct cardio modality that suits your training and goals. Always train hard, think logically, and but most importantly train smart.
References:
(1) Schoenfeld, AARR Research Review. Cardio Roundtable Discussion. February and March 2013.
(3) Kingsley, MI., et al., Moderate-Intensity Running Causes Intervertebral Disc Compression in young adults. Med Sci Sports Exerc, 2012.
(4) Mikkola, et al., Neuromuscular and cardiovascular adaptations during concurrent strength and endurance training in untrained men. Int J Sports Med. 2012.
(5) Babcock, L, Escano, M, D’Lugos, A, Todd, K, Murach, K, and Luden, N. Concurrent aerobic exercise interferes with the satellite cell response to acute resistance exercise. Am. J. Physiol. Regul. Integr. Comp. Physiol. 302: 2012.
(6) Wilson, J.M., et al., Concurrent Training: A Meta Analysis Examining Interference if Aerobic and Resistance Exercise. J Strength Cond Res, 2011.
About The Authors:
Chris and Eric Martinez, CISSN, CPT, BA, also known as the “Dynamic Duo” operate a world class personal training and online training business “Dynamic Duo Training,” They’re also fitness and nutrition writers, fitness models, and coaches that love helping people reach their goals. Their philosophy is “No excuses, only solutions.”
