Spots are still available for my Coaching Competency workshop in Sterling, VA in a few weeks.
For $129 you get to hang out with me for seven hours, talk about assessment, program design, deadlifts, and LOLCat memes. This event has been approved for CEUs via the NSCA.
ButcherBox may be my most favorite thing outside of kitten cuddles and a Lord of the Rings marathon.
How it works is so simple it’s silly:
You go to the site and curate your own box of delicious cuts of meat.
It’s delivered to your doorstep.
Cook that shit and eat it.
My wife and I have been using the service for a while now and it’s always serves as a monthly highlight.
For a limited time only, all new subscribers to ButcherBox will receive free Filet Mignon AND Bacon AND $10 off their initial order.
All you to do is click THIS link. Fist pumps optional.
3. Even More Complete Shoulder & Hip Blueprint – Coming Soon
Dean Somerset and I are currently in the throes of drumming up new content for our staple workshop series.
We’ve presented this workshop all over the world – London, Vancouver, Oslo, Prague, Boston, LA – and even turned it into a popular digital product HERE so everyone can enjoy it.
We’ve already nailed down dates in Slovenia, Houston, and LA this fall (2018) and are also in talks to bring it to Detroit, Philadelphia, Australia, and Singapore in 2019.
If you’re someone who’d like to host this event/participate in a tickle fight please reach out to either Dean or myself.
Pat Davidson made people cry with MASS, his phenomenally popular program he released a few years ago.
MASS 2 will make people weep.
For a limited time only, you can get in on the action at 15% off the regular price if you go HERE and type gentilcore15 in the coupon area at checkout.
He’s a few days short of turning 14 months old and I have to say, at the expense of coming across a tad braggadocious, I’m pretty darn proud of myself and my wife: Julian’s happy, healthy, and has only been caught once running around with a pair of scissors.
Far be it from me to describe every parent’s first year with their first child in the same light, but for us the past 365 days and change can best be described as somewhere between organized chaos and a dumpster fire.
Lack of sleep, colic, blowouts, lack of sleep, breast feeding, lack of sleep, 10 pm “how to swaddle” Google searches, lack of sleep, 11 pm walks in a blizzard (goddam colic!), more blowouts, lack of sleep, he just pissed all over the place, Llama Llama Red Pajama, lack of sleep, what did he just put in his mouth?, scissors, and lack of sleep.
Okay, it wasn’t all that bad. In hindsight Lisa and I did a pretty damn good job.
That said, lifting heavy things was/is probably last on most guys’ minds during this period of time, let alone the notion of actually making progress in the gym.
What follows are some tidbits and insights on what most dads can expect to accomplish on the training side of things in year one.2
I’ll be the first to admit I’m a bit of an outlier here.
I’m going to wax poetic below on how most guys need to pump the brakes with regards to their training and that training will often take a backseat to life (and laundry) once they become a Dad.
However, this past year was arguably one of my best training years in recent memory, highlighted by the fact I finally achieved a long-time goal of hitting a 600 lb deadlift.
40 Years Old + (A Then) 9 Month Old at Home = #humblebrag
To put things into perspective, though:
I work in a gym. I have/had no excuse not to train.
I had a wonderful support system in place.
I did implement much of what I write about below.
I’m pretty awesome.
1. Expectation Management
Lets cut to the chase: The idea of training 5-6x per week needs to be given the kibosh right out of the gate.
Well, you can train that often; it just won’t be good training.
It behooves everyone involved to have some feel and a degree of expectation management in the weeks (if not months) after baby is born. Think less “I’m going to train for my first powerlifting meet while also competing in my first Ultra-marathon while also following a ketogenic diet” and more “lets try to get through 20 minutes without falling asleep in the power rack.”
In short, attaining a minimal effective dose is the name of the game.
For most guys a reasonable goal would be to aim for 2-3x per week of full-body training revolving around the compound lifts
2. What Does Minimal Effective Dose Even Mean?
Basically, it means doing as little work as possible while still creating a training effect.
You don’t have to kill yourself in the gym in order to make or even maintain progress during this time.
For most guys who are stressed and woefully sleep deprived, a reduction in both training volume and intensity is warranted (and wise).
Most will read that and assume they’ll lose all teh gainz; that the diminished training frequency (and loading) will turn them into small, weak, girly men.
Actually, no.
On the contrary I’d make the case those 2-3 training sessions per week can and will be very productive sessions.
Counterintuitively, as an example, it’s rather “easy” to maintain strength levels with a reduction in both training frequency and intensity.
As Dr. Vladmir Issurin notes in his book, Block Periodization, in order to maintain maximal strength, there’s a window of 30 +/- 5 days to work with.
Meaning, regardless of any secondary emphasis you can leave alone and maintain certain qualities for “x” days without much (if any) reduction in performance.
If you’re still not picking up what I’m putting down let me put it like this:
“You don’t have to do a lot of something in order to maintain something.”
When it comes to maintaining strength, the body (or, more specifically the central nervous system) just needs to be nudged or reminded every 30 +/- 5 days that you’re into it and maybe want to make out.
For the sake of brevity, the bulk of my training hovered in the 60-85% range most of last year with some 90-95 percenters peppered in every 3-4 weeks.
That’s pretty much it.
3. Okay, That’s Cool Tony….But I Could Give Two S***ts Jars of Pureed Beef Pilaf and Vegetables About Being Strong.
I can respect that.
I got your back.
I wrote an article a few months back on BodyBuilding.com catered to the newly-minted Dad and it described what I felt would be a highly effective – and reasonable – 2-3x per week training program most could follow without batting an eye.
I like this concept for a lot of dudes, but especially for sleep deprived ones who feel like a bag of dicks for a lengthy period of time.
Utilizing a bit of auto-regulation in your training and taking into account day-to-day fluctuations in energy and one’s ability to recover is key.
The key advantage to EDM sets is they still allow you to lift some challenging weight…albeit based on how you feel that day.
Here’s an example:
A. Squat Variation – 5 EDM
Work up to challenging set of 5. Pretty self-explanatory.
B. Same Squat Variation – 3×3
Whatever your 5 EDM ends up being, use the same weight and perform 3×3.
Those nine reps should be crisp, beautiful, relatively fast reps that will make me roughly 65-70% aroused.
2. Embrace Your Meathead
There’s a lot to be said about utilizing more isolation, bodybuilding type exercises to keep guys motivated to train, improve their ability to recover, and to help maintain training economy.
This can be as simple as tossing in a little “gun show” work at the end of a session in order to feel a pump.
Here’s a favorite (stolen from the guys over at The Strength House):
DB Hammer Curls x eight reps, rest 15s, repeat for six minutes.
You can also utilize Density Sets. Here, all you’ll do is set a timer for 8-12 minutes, pair two exercises together (or maybe a circuit of 3-4), and do as much work as possible during that time.
Lower Body Example:
DB Goblet Step-Ups x 8/leg
Cable Pull-Through x 10
Foam Roller Bodysaw x 10
Upper Body Example
DB Bench Press x 8
TRX Row x 12
Upper Cut a Grizzly Bear x2/side
The permutations are endless and what you choose is dependent on goals, what hurts, what doesn’t, and equipment availability. The bigger picture to appreciate, though, is that something is better than nothing.
And your workouts don’t have to be marathon sessions. You can get quite a bit done in 30 minutes.
3. Sub-Maximal Training Works, Trust Me
Even when a baby isn’t thrown into the mix, sub-maximal training (60-85% of 1RM) is something that should be stressed more often.
You need to build strength, not test it.
What’s more, hanging out in this range won’t beat up the joints as much
4. You May Think It’s Lame…But Walking Will Prevent You From Wanting To Kill People
Baby can’t sleep? Go for a walk.
Baby is aimlessly meandering around whining? Go for a walk.
The Price is Right just ended? Go for a walk.
Going for walks is what keeps parents sane. Exercise doesn’t have to be in the form of lifting things. Walking is actually a very underutilized modality and something I did often with my little guy.
I’d put him in the stroller, put on a podcast, and walk around the neighborhood.
It served as an easy way to get out of the apartment and to get my Zone 2 work in.3
In addition my walks spawned the #popupjulian phenomenon, which initially started as a way for Lisa to keep tabs on us when she went back to work after maternity leave. During my walks I’d send Lisa videos of Julian “popping up” around Boston.
Training is every bit as important to her as it is me…so it wasn’t a hard “sell” to ask her to take over watching Julian so that I could go train; and vice versa.
We were (and are) a team.
Teamwork is vital during this time. Sacrifices and compromises are par for the course.
“Sure, babe, you can go have drinks with the girls…for a small fee of 37 foot massages.“
Moreover, and this is something Eric Cressey wrote about when he was a new father, many guys will balk at the notion of asking for or taking help as if it’s a strike to their ego to do so.
To that I say, “bull to the shit.”
Someone offers to watch your kid for a few hours so you can have a date night? Take it. Emphatically.
Hire someone to write your programs. That’s what I did.
It’s okay to ask for help and/or to delegate tasks when needed. I mean, shoot, Batman had Alfred.
Even he didn’t do things all alone.
6. You’re Going to Fail…and That’s Normal
Sometimes you’re going to have a case of the “Eff Its” and not want to train. And that’s okay.
Sometimes you’ll prefer to order a pizza. And that’s okay too.
My friend, colleague, and new(ish) Dad himself, Bryan Krahn, put things into perspective:
I have ZERO insight. From day of birth to month 6, I was an abject failure at training/nutrition. Though the past month has been better — I sent the kid off to Pyongyang for his “education” — so I’ll be jacked again soon. https://t.co/rKJxn50nfu
Pat Davidson is the best interview on the internet.
He developed one of the most badass training programs in recent memory – MASS – a few years ago, and the interview(s) he and I did – Becoming a Brick Shit House HERE and HERE – were the most popular in this site’s history.
Well, he’s back. This time to discuss his sequel…MASS 2.
If you want to skip the foreplay and get straight to business…you can click THIS link to purchase. However, I’d encourage you to read the interview because you’ll want to punch through a brick wall after the fact. That, and there’s a special offer at the end for a discounted price only available to reader’s of this site.
TG:Okay, obvious question: What’s different in MASS 2?The original MASS program was a beast. I know many coaches and people who followed it with great success. What’s different about MASS 2?
How much (more) will it make people hate life?
Who’s the target demographic?
PD: What’s different about MASS 2? MASS 1 was my version of writing the most stupid program I possibly could. It was originally written for an intern at Men’s Health who had never lifted weights before and wanted to put on as much mass as possible in 16 weeks.
I wasn’t going to be able to coach this intern on a day to day basis, but I knew I would have to give him feedback. To be able to give him more accurate feedback, I started doing the program with him. I put the video of a couple workouts on social media and people started asking about them. I sent the program to some prominent coaches in our field, and they started doing the program, and they started posting videos.
Men’s Health was going to do a story on the intern, because he gained a ton of muscle on the program and they were going to name it best new program of the year.
I figured I could make some money out of the situation, so I turned the program into a book, and the MASS concept was born. The book got out into the world, and people started to have great results from it. I had to really start thinking about why the program was so effective for so many people.
My conclusion was that it made people do more mechanical work in less time than they were doing before, so it was an overload, and that the game like structure of the workouts was incredibly motivating for people and made them increase their effort.
The other major factor is that it forced people to be more consistent with their lifestyle factors. The workouts were so hard and punishing that people ate better food, more of it, got more sleep, drank less alcohol, etc, simply to reduce the punishment of the workouts…physiology drives behavior.
MASS 1 features the same workout four days a week for four straight weeks. Like I said, it’s kind of moronic…don’t get me wrong, there’s some brilliance in the simplicity, but it’s also wicked dumb too.
To me MASS 2 is real deal training. It’s the kind of program I would write for myself (it is what I write for myself).
MASS 2 takes lessons learned from MASS 1, and then flips the script on you a little bit, because rather than doing the same workout four days per week, there are four different workouts on the four training days each week.
MASS 2 uses a heavy day, a light day, and a moderate weight day kind of approach, and therefore trains different physiological pathways associated with strength, power, and hypertrophy. There are no easy days in MASS 2, rather different kinds of suck thrown at you across the week.
So in some ways, MASS 2 might not make you hate life as much as MASS 1, because you’ll have some variation and novelty across your weeks, but you’ll re-appreciate the way that shit can be served to you in slightly different stylings.
What’s the shit du jour?
It’s the shit of the day. Great, I’ll have that. That is MASS 2 in a nutshell.
The demographic that MASS 2 is written for is two fold in my mind. It’s for strength coaches, intelligent trainers, and exercise aficionados, but it’s also for regular people who want to learn the truth about things.
MASS 2 is written for those amongst us who are not cowards.
The weak like to skim the surface of topics in life. They like to read blurbs and watch two minute selfie videos on social media. Cowards don’t dig their heels into the ground and try hard when things get difficult.
They want CLIFF notes on everything.
Thankfully the world also has other people in it who are tough, resilient, and truly appreciate depth and challenge. They want the whole story, and the deeper the rabbit hole goes, the more excited they get about the dig. I wrote MASS 2 for this latter group, because very few people in fitness are writing books for them. There’s plenty of crap that regurgitates the same superficial shit that’s been around forever, and basically I want to light that stuff on fire and then put it out with a nice long piss.
TG: What have you added or taken out compared to the first iteration? Why?
^^ This pic shows Pat actually is a very lovely person ^^
PD: One of the most obvious things that I added to this book is that I tell the reader some of my own life story. I talk about coming from a lineage of drunks and drug addicts, and personally being a recovering alcoholic and drug addict.I also talked some about being fired from Springfield College. Those experiences are part of my identity, and they’re elements that bring a lot of shame to me when I think about myself.
At the same time though, those two experiences have been powerful lessons for me to learn some much greater truths about myself. I’ve learned that I’m immature, arrogant, thin skinned, low in self esteem, resentful, and self destructive. At the same time I’ve learned that I can face uncomfortable truths, learn my tendencies and habits, and actually change my persona and behaviors with disciplined deliberate practice.
I’ve also learned that you can reframe what some would consider character flaws into strengths. Drug addicts are in fact the most goal directed amongst us. They want one thing and one thing only, and they usually do whatever it takes to acquire that thing. When you’re a recovering drug addict and you take that same capability and aim it at other things, there’s nothing you can’t acquire.
The other obvious difference is that MASS 1 was thematically inspired by Rocky IV. MASS 2, the sequel uses the greatest action movie sequel as its muse, Terminator 2.
Let’s face it, if you’re going to write a sequel to a badass book involving a Stallone movie, the only way you can follow that up is by channeling Arnold.
MASS 2 is bigger, badder, and stronger than the OG book. In my opinion, everything about the sequel is better than the original…the program, the content of the book, and the writing style.
TG: I know you like to go into the weeds as it relates to program design…..what do you feel are the most common mistakes most coaches make when it comes to writing programs?
PD: In this day and age, it’s actually criminal to not include something about, Start with the Why, in your response to your approach to things in life in 49 out of the 50 states (sorry Tennessee).
If you don’t include something from this book in a fitness based answer, you’re ostracized from the fitness world, and on your way into exile you get tarred and feathered, the shame bell nun walks you out of town, and even your mother throws rocks at you while you trudge head down and cry to the rhythm of Celine Dione’s, My Heart Will Go On.
Essentially most coaches don’t explain why they’re asking you to do something.
If you don’t tell people why something is important, they don’t believe in the concept. Belief will drive effort, and effort will drive physical performances that will cause the body to change.
What I just said doesn’t mean you can throw a shit program on paper, and then tell a magical story about it, and that will work. I think those of us who love training and science will work harder to learn better information, try those approaches out in our own training, and discover what really works, and why it works.
Those same people are usually so passionate that they want to tell other people about what they’ve learned. So I see great story telling about program design and actual knowledge about training science as being a symbiotic relationship that creates a positive feedback loop.
Great science ultimately ends in an explanation of the mechanisms.
The mechanisms of how things work is usually the most interesting part of the story…and those mechanisms are usually complicated, deep, and intertwined with other systems and stories. Great stories have multiple dimensions to them, often times come full circle, leave you with cliff hangers, make you want more, seamlessly weave a common thread throughout the plot, stretch your ability to question your previous assumptions, and inspire you to take action.
To me program design is story telling, and I get people to reach for the stars because they want to after the story affects them.
How many coaches do you know that try to explain everything to the people they work with?
I’ve definitely seen some do it, and they’re usually the great ones. There’s nothing else they want to do more than talk training. They’re excited about it, and if you let them, they’ll never stop passionately explaining every detail of what they think about the things they’re doing.
That’s how I felt meeting Rusty Jones. That’s how I felt hearing Al Vermeil talk. Those guys weren’t spring chickens at those points in time, but they had more energy and passion than 99% of 20 year olds I’ve met.
Something else that people make mistakes on is that they pick shit exercises or put things in a bad order.
Here’s a list of things that I think make something shit in no particular order.
The TRX is involved.
It’s a complex with light dumbbells.
There’s a band around your knees and no barbell is in sight.
Your first movement of the day is an isolation exercise for arms.
The heaviest thing you did involved a cable.
More exercises in your training day used a band than bars or dumbbells.
You spent more than two minutes using a PVC pipe.
The Viper (aka, the weak man’s log) made an appearance.
At some point you did super man’s.
The BOSU was stood upon.
Finally if you write a program and don’t physically try it, I really worry about that thing. I personally don’t put anything out into the world that I don’t test on myself. At some point I’ll probably get too old and fat to self test, but hopefully that isn’t until I’m 80 or something.
The Early Bird rate for my Coaching Competency workshop in the DC area ends THIS weekend (3/25).
For $99 you get to hang out with me for seven hours and talk about assessment, program design, deadlifts, and LOLCat memes. Price increases to $129 after this weekend.
Registration for this highly competitive certification opens on April 4th. However, I’ve got some good, nay, fucking amazing news.
I’ve negotiated some awesome perks for you:
Early access to enroll on April 3rd (24 hrs before they open to the public), increasing your chances of getting in.
A huge discount (up to 33% off the regular price).
This is without question one of the best certifications any fitness professional can possess, offering incredible value and helps to separate you from the masses.
3. Even More Complete Shoulder & Hip Blueprint – Coming Soon
Dean Somerset and I are currently in the throes of drumming up new content for our staple workshop series.
We’ve presented this workshop all over the world – London, Vancouver, Oslo, Prague, Boston, LA – and even turned it into a popular digital product HERE so everyone can enjoy it.
We’ve already nailed down dates in Slovenia, Houston, and LA this fall (2018) and are also in talks to bring it to Detroit, Philadelphia, Australia, and Singapore in 2019.
If you’re someone who’d like to host this event/participate in a tickle fight please reach out to either Dean or myself.
4. Cobra Kai – This Looks Fucking Awesome
I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I watched The Karate Kid when I was, well, a kid.4
I am PUMPED for this. I am 65% aroused.
Shout out to my boy, Chad Landers, who helped prep star (and 1980’s Movie Douchebag 1st Team All-Star) William Zabka, for this role.
For starters, I can tell you without hesitation that in my 15+ years working with athletes, general population, and the occasional wizard, it’s a rare find when someone shows up on Day #1 and can impress me with their push-up prowess.
Most of the time I end up watching something like this:
Which makes me do stuff like this:
SIDE NOTE: This is also how I react when my wife tells me to make the bed in the morning.
Suffice it to say, the push-up – or rather, someone’s ability to do one without making me go batshit crazy – provides me with a lot of information.
Sure, it gives insight on their upper body strength. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg and not really what I’m after. More importantly it provides valuable data with regards to someone’s lumbo-pelvic-hip control/stability and their ability to 1) maintain a good position and 2) to do so once motion comes into play and fatigue sets in.
Secondly, I’m a firm believer that push-ups are one of the keys to healthy shoulders. On one end of the spectrum it’s standard procedure to cue trainees to lock the shoulder blades in place – retract and depress – during basic strength movements like the bench press, squat, and deadlift.6
In short: In order to “protect” the shoulder and to move appreciable weight you have to be dialed in with scapulae positioning.
And on the other end of the spectrum we take everything I just said and toss it out the window.
Unlike the bench press, push-ups are a closed-chain movement (hands don’t move).
As much time as we spend cuing people to “glue” the shoulder blades in place – especially during bench pressing variations – it’s equally as vital to allow them to experience moving around the ribcage (protraction) and gaining access to their full range of motion.
That’s what the shoulder blades are designed to do….
…to move.
I have a simple approach with most of my lifters:
1. Lock those fuckers down when lifting heavy things.
2. However, do your push-ups. Those shoulder blades need to move.
To that end, one of the other advantages of push-ups is that they can be done anywhere and there’s no shortage of iterations to regress or progress them according to someone’s ability level.
Here’s a variation I think will pique some interest.
What Does It Do? – Here I take away a base of support (an arm) and try to hold a 3-point position without allowing my torso or hips to rotate.
This is a killer core/rotary challenge.
Key Coaching Cues – I’m gonna throw myself under the bus a little and say I should have held my elbow tap a tad longer in the video above. I rush things in an effort to get in a more stable position and not make out with the floor.
The idea here is to keep a controlled tempo.
No rushing.
Slowing things down is paramount to the effectiveness of this exercise.
Any sort of mild elevation will work here: an aerobics stepper, the bar set at the lowest position on a Smith Machine, a medicine ball (if you really want to up the ante), or anything similar.
Feel free to alternate which hand comes off the ground.
Pregnancy can be an arduous and delicate time in a woman’s life. To be a bit more colloquial…shit goes down.
Shit goes down hard.
I’m a firm advocate of strength training during pregnancy. It’s a great way to keep the body healthy and strong during those nine months, and to (hopefully) expedite the recovery process once the little one arrives.
There’s a small sentiment out there that exists where women are told strength training is bad or altogether dangerous during this time, and that it should be avoided at all costs.
Lifting weights during pregnancy dangerous? No.
Lifting weighs during pregnancy different? Yes.
Today’s guest post by Pre and Postnatal Exercise Specialist, Terrell Baldock, helps to shed some light on the issue.
If you’ve been lifting for a while, you know the back squat is essential to any strength training program.
But What If You’re Pregnant?
Squatting will become a way of life in motherhood and you will need all of the squat training you can get during pregnancy. Squats are mostly known for their work in the lower body but they’re fantastic as full body movement as well.
A few years back, “I would have said absolutely no, there is no way you should be back-squatting during pregnancy.”
But I’ve come around a bit since then.
Instead of omitting exercises like the barbell back-squat all together, making modifications and learning how to safely execute a barbell back-squat is far more important.
The barbell back squat is fantastic to do during your pregnancy, but you will need to monitor your pelvic floor for any downward pressure as well as your overall stability.
You may also notice your “butt wink” creeping in. This is typically because as your belly is growing, additional weight is being placed onto the pelvic floor.
As a result, your hip flexors, adductors, and abductors tend to become tight and take on more work, plus your glutes become inactive due to the shift in your alignment.
In this article, I’m going to give you strategies to not only maintain your squat, but keep you back-squatting throughout your entire pregnancy.
Your Core
As your belly grows, your abdomen will begin the separation process known as Diastasis Recti. This is completely normal and there is nothing to fear, but you can minimize the effects and keep your hips more stable.
Diastasis Recti is classified as the unnatural separation of your left and right rectus muscles. This process is different for every woman, but research shows that 100% of women will have diastasis recti by their 35th week of pregnancy (Mota et al 2014).
Yes, you can still train your core during pregnancy, but this looks a little different than traditional core training methods. Personally, I like anti-rotation exercises like the Half-Kneeling Pallof Press because it provides both hip and core stability which is perfect for your entire pregnancy.
Many people commonly think of their core as the “six-pack” abdominal muscles, but it’s a bit more involved. Your “deep core system” is made up of your diaphragm, pelvic floor, multifidus, and your transversus abdominis and they need to work synergistically along with the glutes to provide a stable foundation for all of your movements patterns.
So if you happen to notice some coning, or tenting in your abdomen during your back-squat, you’ll need to address your lifting strategy.
Hip Mobility
Your hips can become tight to compensate for the weight of your growing baby. And this is a biggie for your squat pattern because that “butt wink” will be a result.
Not to worry my friend. If you see that “butt wink” it may not the end of your back-squatting days.
In this video, I’m 26-weeks pregnant and back-squatting 70 lbs in the 12 to 15 rep range. As I go into the eccentric part of the squat, you can see the “butt wink” almost right away.
Note From TG:To toss my keen coaching eye into the foray – and this is NOT to call out Terrell in any way, shape, or form – if you watch how she sets up to squat you’ll notice she starts with an aggressive arch (or anterior pelvic tilt) which means she’s likely running out of hip flexion “room” sooner than she normally has access to. As a result the lumbar spine is going to compensate by going into lumbar flexion (butt wink).
The “fix” may be to cue her to start with a little more posterior pelvic tilt first and then to squat with her hips more underneath her. Or, I can just STFU and recognize she’s 26 weeks pregnant and understand that things are a bit wonky at the moment….;o)
At 26-weeks in my most recent pregnancy, I had a “butt wink” in my back squat almost immediately. This is a good indication that I was dealing with muscle tightness in my hips.
At this point, I switched up my strategy by using goblet and sumo squats with kettlebells or dumbbells as well as incorporating soft tissue release of my hips, quads, hamstrings, glutes, abductors, and adductors.
To be perfectly honest, when I switched up my strategy, I had no intention of improving my back squat. I wanted to begin preparing my pelvis for childbirth by releasing the tightness, which is critical when it comes to labour and delivery.
Note From TG:Viola! Goblet Squat = more of an anterior load = anterior core turns on = posterior tilt = Tony does need to STFU.
However, at 33-weeks pregnant, I attempted a back squat and something pretty cool happened.
After down-training for several weeks, my squat improved. Same load, same rep rage and there was a significant difference in my squatting pattern.
Goodbye butt wink!
This means, you may not have to give up your back squat at all.
But if you notice your hips rolling under during your back-squat, it would be a great time to add some release work into your fitness regime.
Using a foam roller to roll out your hips and glutes are a great way to release the tightness. It may not feel good, so remember to breathe.
Your Breathing
A proper breathing technique can help to balance out the pressure in your core which will ultimately provide better protection to your core and pelvic floor. When you have a core and pelvic floor that is functioning well, you will have a strong and healthy foundation for all movement pattern including your back squat.
The breathing technique that you want to master along with your squat is a diaphragmatic breath with a light pelvic floor engagement or “kegel”.
On the eccentric phase or on your way down, inhale deeply through your nose making sure you have good expansion through your rib cage.
On the bottom of your squat, you’re going to begin your exhale through your mouth like your blowing through a straw, engage your pelvic floor, and then press yourself up. Julie Wiebe calls this “blow before you go” because this signals your brain to engage your core and pelvic floor naturally if your core system is functioning properly.
And there’s a lot more information in my Barbell Training For Pregnancy: Your 3 Step Guide For Maximizing Performance During and After Pregnancy.
It features simple and actionable steps to maximize your core and pelvic floor function, improve performance, and most importantly, avoid the complications that can arise from postnatal exercising.
As your pregnancy progresses, you may find your pelvis starting to anteriorly tilt. Now, you want to nip this in the bud in your first trimester or as soon as possible because this can affect how you squat.
Not only that, but your alignment affects your breathing and your coordination.
Ideally, you need to maintain a neutral posture.
This means your ribs stacked over your hips. This keeps the diaphragm seated directly above the pelvic floor allowing it to work with the multifidus and the transversus abdominis together as a team. A neutral pelvic position will optimize the availability to the pelvic floor making it easier to for the pelvic floor to work in unison with the rest of the system.
You know what else your alignment does?
It keeps your deep core system including your pelvic floor functioning optimally, helping to manage the intra-abdominal pressure. However, if you’re feeling downward pressure in your pelvis and your alignment is spot-on, it may be time to make modifications.
Here’s how to stand in neutral alignment in your back squat.
Stand with your legs just outside hip width apart (or a narrower stance if that’s where you’re comfortable) and toes angled at about 15 degrees and knees slightly bent
Squeeze your shoulder blades together, you don’t want the bar sitting on bone. It won’t feel good!
Stack your ribs over your hips and make sure that your pelvis is in neutral position and not anteriorly tilted.
Load and Range Of Motion
Generally speaking, you can continue to use the same load you were using before pregnancy during the first trimester and early into your second trimester (if you’re feeling up for it, of course!).
However, when your belly begins to grow, you will need to monitor your squat for pressure on your pelvic floor and range of motion.
It’s best at this point to lighten the load.
Let’s say you’re working in the 8-10 rep range. Drop the weight to where you can lift 15 reps comfortably.
The goal isn’t to work to fatigue.
If you find that you feel pressure in the pelvic floor after lightening the load, decrease your range of motion so that you don’t come down as far. If that still isn’t helping with the pressure, it’s time to modify.
Listen To Your Body
This is the most important step to any movement during your pregnancy. If you feel overexerted, fatigued, dizzy, faint, or you need extra support in your belly, it’s best to lighten the load or swap your barbell for kettlebells or dumbbells.
Additionally, pay attention to your pelvic floor. If you’re feeling bulging, heaviness, pain or pressure, or leak a little–or a lot, it’s time to modify. If it doesn’t feel quite right, don’t do it.
Seeing a pelvic health physical therapist (pelvic health physiotherapist if you’re in Canada), is a great defense in your prenatal and postpartum training. They can get an internal perspective of how your pelvic floor is functioning, look for any pelvic organ prolapse, and give you the best possible guidance when it comes to prenatal training when it comes to your pelvic floor.
When troubleshooting your back-squat (pregnant or not) make sure you start off unloaded to train the squatting pattern properly along with all of the strategies listed.
First and foremost is safety.
I suggest not training alone and working or consulting with a coach who is trained in prenatal and postnatal exercise. Pregnancy isn’t the time to set personal records and egos need to be set aside. How you train during pregnancy matters in maximizing your postpartum performance, maintaining a well balanced pelvic floor, and keeping you injury free.
About the Author
Terrell Baldock is a Prenatal and Postnatal Exercise Specialist in London, Ontario, Canada. She specializes in working with women with core and pelvic floor dysfunctions and prepares them for the demands of pregnancy, birth and postpartum recovery.
With over a decade of coaching experience, she trusted by Maternity Doctors and Pelvic Floor Physiotherapists as well as a regular speaker at the University Of Western Ontario.
If you have questions about training during pregnancy, feel free to reach out on Facebook, Instagram, or check out her website.
On Saturday, April 21st I’ll be putting on my Coaching Competency Workshop at Beyond Strength Performance located in Sterling, VA.
I’m using the opportunity to post on my blog today because I’M THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN THE WORLD this week (ending on 3/25) will be your last chance to attend at the Early Bird rate of $99.
I can’t tango, I have zero nunchuck skills, and I haven’t the faintest idea how to make a flambeau dessert.
However, I do know how to coach people in the weight room. And I know how to coach coaches on how to be better coaches.
See…here’s a picture of me coaching:
Coaching Competency Workshop
This will be an immersive and interactive day where I peel back the onion as it relates to my approach to the following topics:
I flew down here yesterday from Boston courtesy of Equinox. I’ll be doing two separate workshops for a bunch of their trainers talking about shoulder assessment and how to turn their clients into a bunch of bench pressing and chin-upping T-1000’s.
I still wanted to make sure I got this week’s list up for your reading pleasure, though.
I’ve got a bevy of speaking engagements lined up for 2018, and next week begins the madness.
I’ll be in NYC speaking at a few Equinox locations on March 16th and 17th, and from there on out I’ve got a place to be at least one weekend every month for the foreseeable future.
It’s a nice feeling to be in demand.
I’d encourage you to click the link above or THIS one for more details/insights into where I’ll be and when.
Events Just Around the Corner
Spurling Spring Seminar – Kennebunk, ME: April 14th
Coaching Competency Workshop – Sterling, VA: April 21st
The Fitness Summit – Kansas City, MO: May 4-5th (Dean Somerset and I are doing a special 4-hour PRE-CON for this event).
Registration for this highly competitive certification opens on April 4th. However, I’ve got some good, nay, fucking amazing news.
I’ve negotiated some awesome perks for you:
Early access to enroll on April 3rd (24 hrs before they open to the public), increasing your chances of getting in.
A huge discount (up to 33% off the regular price).
This is without question one of the best certifications any fitness professional can possess, offering incredible value and helps to separate you from the masses.
3. Even More Complete Shoulder & Hip Blueprint – Coming Soon
Dean Somerset and I are currently in the throes of drumming up new content for our staple workshop series.
We’ve presented this workshop all over the world – London, Vancouver, Oslo, Prague, Boston, LA – and even turned it into a popular digital product HERE so everyone can enjoy it.
We’ve already nailed down dates in Slovenia, Houston, and LA this fall (2018) and are also in talks to bring it to Detroit, Philadelphia, Australia, and Singapore in 2019.
If you’re someone who’d like to host this event/participate in a tickle fight please reach out to either Dean or myself.
Not that I’m biased or anything (my wife wrote this article for Mark Fisher Fitness), but this is the greatest article on the topic of how to punch negative self talk in the dick that’s ever been written.
Hip flexion is kinda like the evil red-headed step child of hip mobility. For some reason it always seems to get a bad rap.
As Ashleigh states in this article:
“That’s the action of pulling your knees to your chest with a neutral spine. You need to be able to put your hips in flexion while under load, with structural integrity, at the bottom of your squat or top of your hinge.”
It must be “gym ownership week” on TG.com this week.
Yesterday’s post on the effect social media has on the perception of gym ownership – everything is seen through rose colored glasses – was a huge hit.
Today I have guest post by another gym owner, Doug Spurling of Spurling Fitness located in Kennebunk, ME, discussing how to best build a team to help your business thrive.
Doug’s done an amazing job building a successful fitness business and he’s someone I respect a ton. Read what he has to say. He’s smart.
NOTE: Next month I’ll speaking alongside Doug (along with his staff, and my wife, Dr. Lisa Lewis) at the Spurling Spring Seminar. It’s going to be a great event and tonight (3/14) at midnight is your last chance to take advantage of the early bird registration of $50 off.
Getting good at marketing, financial statement analysis, strategic planning, holding good meetings, putting out fires, and that you’ll never be able to actually shut it “off.
I’m sure the list could go on and on, but today I want to focus on one particular aspect that I don’t think we spend enough time on as an industry.
HUMAN RESOURCES.
More leads, more clients, and more growth usually means….
More team members.
They are our biggest asset, but can also be our biggest headaches if you don’t know how to lead them.
We thought we got into this business to train people, change some lives, and do it all hanging out in comfy gym clothes.
Now I’m telling you if you want long-term success you need to get really good at human resources.
Today I spend the majority of my time on human resources, team development, holding meetings, and making sure our margins are strong as I run a payroll that exceeds a half a million dollars a year.
I love it, but it’s not what I expected as a gym owner.
I now have seven families I am responsible for, only one of which is mine.
With six full-time team members, that means six people that look up to me, six people that count on me running a successful business so they can get a paycheck next week, six people who live their life mission through my business, and six people who support their families with my business.
That’s a big responsibility when we think about it.
That being said, I’ve made some major mistakes as a leader, but I also feel that I have one of the strongest teams around.
Here are six lessons I’ve learned so far…
1. Hire for Personality, Train for Skill
I want driven, hard-working, value-focused people, I don’t really care if you can coach a squat.
I can’t train a smile, I can train you how to coach a squat.
We aim to hire people that fit our core values, and then have a strong onboarding system that teaches them the technical stuff like how to coach.
2. Have Clear Systems
We have a master folder called “The Spurling Way.”
Every process in our business is documented under that folder.
There’s no questioning how to do things.
We get feedback when we create a new process, but once it’s put into this folder the team has agreed that this is the way we do things.
We don’t want people that want to do it “their way.”
Follow the system.
Run the play.
3. Hold Good Meetings
I think good meetings are totally underutilized.
Every day we have a meeting.
It starts each day with a daily huddle-a quick 5-minute accountability meeting about what each team member is doing that day and what that needs help with.
We have a leadership meeting every Monday, a coaches meeting every Tuesday, individual meetings every Wednesday, and a team meeting every Thursday.
Now, notice above I said, “good meetings are underutilized.”
Read a book like “Death by Meeting” and learn how to hold good meetings.
They can be some of the most productive hours of the week, or if done wrong, they can be the biggest waste of time.
4. Balance Multiple Personalities
We can’t have a universal leadership approach.
Each team member is different.
How you talk to one team member is different than how you talk to another.
One may be motivated by public praise, one may want a small note left on their desk.
We use things like the DISC profiles and the 5 Languages of Appreciation to understand how each of us functions and how each of us gives and receives appreciation.
As your team continues to grow the possible communication flaws, the potential drama, and headaches can quickly multiply if you don’t stay on top of it.
Understanding each team member, what they value, how they tick, treating them as an individual, and not have a universal leadership approach is key.
5. Communication Is Key
Communication is not what’s said, but what is understood.
Nothing drives us crazier than when we tell someone something and they don’t do it or don’t follow through with it the way you wanted it to be done.
Or you tell Coach A how to do something, they nod their head, and then don’t go it the way you taught them.
Or you come in and hear the Coach A hates Coach B but isn’t doing anything about it.
Or Coach A is annoyed because they feel they’re working so much harder than Coach B.
Or Coach A is complaining about something but then isn’t doing anything about it.
I’m sure you can think of a million scenarios that cause you to pull your hair out as the leader.
However, as the leader, you have to take extreme ownership (good book, btw), and take charge of the situation.
Quite often if you hire good people (see number one), most situations come down to poor communication and/or assumptions.
Someone makes an assumption that someone else took care of it.
Someone makes an assumption that the person understood what they just told them.
We need to over-communicate with our team, never make assumptions, and make sure that we understand each personality (see number four) and how they like to receive communication.
6. Treat Them the Way You’d Want To Be Treated
Seriously.
Seems like common sense, but as they say, sometimes common sense is not so common.
I get a lot of questions on why I have an all full-time staff, all salaried, all fully benefited, have unlimited time off, and they all work a “normal” 40ish hour work week.
It’s the culture I’m trying to build.
I don’t want people that want to train “their clients.”
I don’t want people that are just here for a paycheck.
I want people that are going to devote their lives to our mission.
I want people that are here for more than just a job.
In order to do that, I need to treat them really well.
That means a good salary, a good schedule, good benefits, constant leadership, constant appreciation, and a constant pitch of why we’re doing this.
Is it easy?
No.
Most months I shed a few tears when the payroll gets withdrawn.
It’s my biggest expense, but I also know it’s my biggest ROI.
The most common message we get from client always comes back to something along the lines of…
“You have the most cohesive team I’ve ever met. You can tell they are here for the right reasons.”
It all comes back to driving the mission, communicating clearly, leading them, and treating them the way you want to be treated.
We all got into this business to change lives, and depending on what kind of impact you want to make, if you want to change the lives of hundreds of people, you’re going to need a team to support you in your mission.
Hope this helps.
Want More?
Next month Doug will be hosting the Spurling Spring Seminar in Kennebunk, ME alongside myself, my wife, Dr. Lisa Lewis, and the entire Spurling Fitness staff.
There aren’t many events outside Boston that cater to the fitness community, so this will be an awesome opportunity for any personal trainers, strength coaches, gym owners, or anyone interested in assessment, program design, business, and mindset skills to enjoy a day of learning.
Long before I owned CORE, and even now, as a current gym owner, I’ve championed the message that gym ownership is not for everyone, and more to the point that it should not be perceived as the holy grail of the fitness industry.
There’s a running theme – which is nauseatingly prevalent on social media – that owning a gym provides some sort of pinnacle, “I’ve made it!” mentality, and that once it happens it’s nothing but rainbows and kitten kisses for everyone.
Sure, the fairy tale ending can happen.
However the reality is, for many….being a gym owner is fucking brutal.
My friend and colleague, Mike Connelly, who’s a recent former gym owner, took the time to write this beautifully honest guest post today on the trials and tribulations (and general dumpsterfireness) of owning a gym.
What Social Media Isn’t Telling You About Owning a Gym
“I’m so sorry to hear about that. Must be tough, man.”
I’ve heard that line from a lot of people in the past two months. The reason I’m hearing that so much is because after six years I am moving on from owning my business, Rebell Strength and Conditioning, and all I can think about when it comes up is how happy I am about the situation.
I’m not going to sit here and tell you it all went as I planned and that I’m coming out of this footloose and fancy free.
That’s not the case.
But, since being out of the operation of my business for the last two months, my life has changed and only in positive ways. I’m averaging just about twelve more hours of sleep a week, I’ve lost thirty pounds, my mental health is back to being stable (as stable as it will get anyways), and, most importantly, I feel like myself again.
When you own and run a business, it’s easy to get so caught up in things that you don’t even realize what is happening to yourself. You think about bills, timelines, clients, marketing, bills, social media posts, blogs, bills, complaints, finding new clients, keeping current clients, bills, programming, systems, bills, platforms that run your business, networking, bills, finding good employees, keeping good employees, how to manage your revenue, and finally…. bills.
It’s a lot.
It’s nauseating at times. To feel stress at a molecular level (Paul Lyngso hit that description on the head) all the time becomes your new normal.
And it sucks.
But you keep going because you’re “living the dream.”
A mentor of mine once described entrepreneurship to me like this:
“There you are, riding the bull that is business, through town. People are cheering for you and admiring your courage to go out and do it on your own. You are revered and respected at the mere mention that you own a small business. Yet, through all the accolades all you can think about is, “how the fuck do I get off this bull?!”
I know that’s not the case for all business owners.
There are some out there that are owning it through and through. These people are running a business and not just getting paid for their hobby. It took me a long time to realize and then admit it, but I never broke through to that level of ownership.
I never owned my business.
My business owned me.
I could go on vacation whenever I wanted, but I always had to add the cost of people covering my work to the price tag. I didn’t have a boss, but a long client list that could, at times, be much worse than a boss.
I had the opportunity to take as much free time as I wanted, but it always came with the sacrifice of progress. When all that became too much, the progress suffered, and once that ship sails, it’s hard to get it back to shore.
As coaches, we should teach our clients to own movement, not just survive it. Well, for a long time I was merely surviving being a business owner. And that, my friends, is not a path to success or happiness.
I’m not writing this to shit all over your dreams of being a business owner.
Nope, far from it.
Nor am I here to make excuses.
I fucked this whole thing up.
I always had good intentions, but that and a nickel will get you a jaw breaker from a vending machine at your local arcade. I wanted to share this with you because the coach in me wants you to move forward with caution. I want you to realize that before you get on that bull, you better have those ducks in line and know that the glory and freedom that often get put on owning a business rarely become a reality.
I want to share this cautionary tale, because chasing down the dream of business ownership seems to be trending in our industry, and I don’t hear too many people talking about why it might be a bad idea.
I’m not the smartest guy around, but I’m not the dumbest either. I’m intuitive and have a wicked creative side. I’m strong willed and will fight to the death at the drop of a hat.
I’m a Marine.
I once did 177 get ups in one hour with a 24Kg bell for a fundraiser and then drank whiskey and danced the night away at a wedding. I can get shit done – when I want to – and that’s the thing about being a business owner that caught up to me.
The accounting, the marketing, the interviewing, the blah, blah, blah side of business that I didn’t like finally became not as fun anymore, so I just let off the gas and coasted.
That’s how you lose $4,000 in revenue in a month, and that’s the thing about losing business, it always goes much, much quicker than it comes.
It wasn’t over a bad customer experience either. In six years I can count those on one hand.
It’s because people move, lose jobs, get in relationships, and any other reason that has nothing to do with you.
There is no amount of success that can protect you from that and for that reason, you can never let up. Never.
Well, I did.
I knew what I had to do, and I just didn’t want to anymore. It didn’t make me happy like it used to. I know, I know, you’re supposed to delegate and hire out for all those items that you suck at, and that brings me to my next shortcoming.
I mean, I’m good at spending it without thinking, but I really suck at doing the right thing with it.
If you don’t want your business to own you, you better have a fucking stellar plan for every dollar that comes in the door. It seems to me that every successful business has a numbers guy somewhere in the mix.
That’s no coincidence.
Then there’s me, just throwing money at things that won’t do me any good in six months, let alone a year.
I paid my staff too much; I charged too little for my product; I wasn’t patient with purchases, and I got into a lease that put me in a position where I was fighting uphill from day one.
I never gave myself a chance, but I never saw it because I always thought that if I treat people better than they would ever expect, then that would motivate them to produce. I thought that if I was aggressive with purchases and leases that it would pay off overall.
I’m not saying that employees shouldn’t be paid well and that aggressive moves don’t pay off. I’m just saying that you should have a plan for everything, and it better make sense to someone that knows numbers.
Have a numbers person!
In the end, that will make or break your business no matter how good your product is.
There are plenty of shitty gyms out there making a large profit because they have their numbers on lockdown. There are also a lot, and I mean a lot, of unbelievable coaches getting their asses kicked because they are not equally as good of a numbers person.
I’ve learned from the many, many mistakes that I’ve made over the years. I know that I will continue to learn as I sort through and process all of this.
For that, I am grateful.
Any time we can learn from our mistakes it was worth it.
The only thing I’m ashamed of is that I allowed myself to think that my identity and character were defined by a title that I slapped on myself but was never really cut out to live up to.
That kills me a little bit when I think about it.
I let it stress me out and change who I am. It stressed all my relationships and probably none more than the one that I have with my family. My hope is that maybe one or two business owners out there who are feeling alone and completely fucked mentally read this, and it lets them take a breath and realize that they are not bad people or coaches because they are having a hard time with their business.
It’s easy to feel like a failure in that position, but the reality is that you had the guts to take a shot and that’s great. If you’re the type that just cannot go back to working for someone, then I hope this pushes you to get the help you need to right the ship.
But if you’re like me and can be perfectly happy and have a lot to contribute in another arena then I hope this gives you the guts to do the right thing for yourself and the people that you love.
About the Author
Mike Connelly: Former Owner of Rebell Strength and Conditioning for 6 years, current Fitness Director for Fitness Formula Clubs at their Oak Park, Il. location and co-owner/coach at Strength Faction.
Serves as a consultant to the Chicago Blackhawks organization for off-season camps for the past three years.
Terrell Baldock is a Prenatal and Postnatal Exercise Specialist in London, Ontario, Canada. She specializes in working with women with core and pelvic floor dysfunctions and prepares them for the demands of pregnancy, birth and postpartum recovery.
