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.”
I don’t think I’ve ever posted a blog post on a Sunday, so this must be for a good reason. And it is.
It’s just a quick reminder that the EARLY BIRD special for mine and Dean Somerset’s Boston Workshop hosted at Cressey Performance the weekend of July 27th is ending on Monday, July 1st (whenever Dean wakes up from is beauty sleep).
We’re priming this whole shebang to be an epic weekend for sure. For starters we have a special guest speaker to kick things off Friday (the day prior) for all those people who arrive early and want something to do other than stare at their hotel walls or watch re-runs of Game of Thrones on HBO.
I don’t want to spoil anything but whoever this guest speaker is, I can tell you he deadlifts a metric shit ton of weight and he has an affinity for shoulder anatomy. Oh, and his last name rhymes with Schmessey……;o)
Day numero uno is going to be all about assessment. We’ll go through the ins and outs and rationale for an assessment, but also include a large “hands on” portion as well. And, if we all play our cards right, Dean will use interpretive dance to demonstrate how to go about assessing one’s diaphragmatic breathing prowess.
Day two is going to be a hodgepodge of a number of things: corrective exercise, programming considerations around hip, shoulder, knee, and core issues, and knowing how (and when) to regress or progress exercises.
In addition we’re going to cover coaching cues and technique when it comes to squats, deadlifts, and overhead dwarf throwing, to name a few.
It’s going to be an intimate affair since we’re capping the total number of seats available to 30. Our goal is to make this as dynamic and informative as possible, and we want to give people as much access to us as possible.
To help sweeten the pot, CEUs will be available through the NSCA and ACE. As well, I heard through the grapevine there may be some other “fitness celebrities” making the trip, so it’s looking like this is going to be a worthwhile networking opportunity as well.
Like I said, though, the early bird special ends on Monday (July 1st), and the price is going to increase significantly after that.
I’m going to rock your world this morning and give you the gift of not one, but TWO things you can add to your daily routine that will not only provide a bevy of health benefits, but make you feel like a million bucks to boot. Which is basically a health benefit in of itself so that makes completely no sense.
Whatever, just roll with it.
Help me, help you.
Now full disclosure: what I’m about to share with you isn’t anything Earth shattering or something you’ve never heard before. I’m not going to sit here and disclose some super secret Russian quasi-isometric drop-set protocol that’s going to add 50 lbs to your deadlift in two weeks, nor am I going to blow sunshine up your ass and tell you that drinking acai berry juice mixed with unicorn tears and the back hair of an angel is going to somehow add ten years to your life.
Nope, I’ll save all that nonsense for the gurus and quacks out there on the interwebzzzz who think a ham sandwich is smarter than you.
All I want to share are two things that I feel will help improve your health and well-being almost instantly. Both are absolutely FREE, and both are something that EVERYONE can implement within five minutes. Ready?
Drink more water and go for a walk.
Seriously, that’s it. No target heart rate talk. No breaking down macronutrient percentages. Paleo this, intermittent fasting that. Just drink more water and go for a walk.
“But that’s lame Tony.”
Au contraire my friend.
I don’t have the stats in front of me at the moment, but chances are you live in a state of mild dehydration on a daily basis. Do pee less than 3-5 times a day? Does your pee look like battery acid? Yep, your (probably)dehydrated.
I’m not going to make this into some campaign on the benefits of drinking more water, but just to highlight a few things:
Staying hydrated:
– Helps you look younger.
– Helps with weight loss – it’s a great appetite suppressant , and it also prevents fluid retention. When you’re dehydrated the body will retain water.
– Combats skin conditions like eczema and dermatitis.
– Helps reduce the incidence of headaches.
– Improves joint health. I know when I stay hydrated my knees feel infinitely better.
– Drinking water also helps your body burn stored fat. If you’re not drinking enough water, your liver will be forced to help your kidneys detoxify your body. When you drink plenty of water, your kidneys don’t need any extra help, so your liver will be able to metabolize stored fat more efficiently. Drinking water flushes toxins from your body and prevents constipation.
** And yes, this assumes a caloric deficit.
My rule of thumb for many of the athletes who ask me how much water should they be drinking is to take half your bodyweight and drink that much in ounces. So, if you weigh 200 lbs, you’d shoot for 100 ounces per day. And that’s just the minimum.
That number will go up the more active you are.
Here’s on simple actionable item you can start implementing tomorrow. The very first thing you do when you wake up is to walk to the kitchen sink or grab your Brita, pour yourself a ginormous glass of water, and guzzle that sumbitch down.
And then….
Go For a Walk
This is something I used to do quite often a few years ago, but for some reason stopped. As of this week I’m back on the walking train.
I live in a very walkable city and it’s actually really nice to walk around early in the AM without all the hustle and bustle of city chaos surrounding me. If anything I find it rather relaxing and a perfect way to start my day.
There’s two ways I can approach it:
1. Just walk and enjoy my surroundings.
2. Grab my iPod and listen to a podcast. Lately I’ve been crushing Dr. Jonathan Fass and Bret Contreras’ Strength of Evidence Podcast, which you can check out HERE.
The way I see it, if I’m going to spend a good 20-30 minutes walking I might as well get smarter while I do it.
And the cool thing is that you don’t even need two guys chirping in your year in order to get smarter in the first place. There’s a mountain of research out there demonstrating that daily strolls help make people smarter. More specifically, walking has been shown to decrease the risk for dementia and Alzheimer’s.
What’s more, other benefits include: reduced risk of type II diabetes, improved sex life (oh yeah!), improved immune function, and a whole host of other stuff.
In many ways, walking is fairly underrated if you ask me. I’m not going to deem it the best form of EXERCISE – it’s walking – but I do feel that if more people turned off Dancing With the Stars and did more of it, they’d feel infinitely better about themselves. And, probably be more productive too.
I mean come on! I went for one this morning and ended up writing close to a 1000 word blog post on drinking water and walking. And I included a unicorn tears reference. If that doesn’t tell you something, I don’t know what to say.
Like I Said
Nothing revolutionary. And nothing remotely sexy or new. Maybe even a bit lame. But what have you got to lose by at least trying?
I’d say that at least once a week I open up my email and start reading something that sounds like this, “Hi Tony, this is (enter name of Victoria Secret model here). I was checking out your website and……..”
Just kidding – that’ll never happen. But fingers crossed that it does someday.
Back in reality what typically happens is a receive an email that starts, “Hey man, so, uh, I have this shoulder thingie going on…………………”
And almost immediately the Darth Vader theme music starts echoing in my head.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m always honored when someone goes out of their way to reach out to me and ask for advice. And, I’m always more than happy to respond. It’s just sometimes I feel like I’m a broken record repeating myself over and over and over again.
Now shoulder injuries can be tricky, as no two shoulders are the same. There’s a lot of “stuff” happening, which shouldn’t come as surprise given the shoulder actually consists of four joints (glenohumeral, scapulothoracic, acromioclavicular, sternoclavicular), as well as consists of 17 muscular attachments alone. This piece slides into that piece. This part rotates. BAM – it’s like it’s own little Transformer!
On top of all that, because the shoulder is such an intricate joint it lends itself open to injury fairly easily. We have AC joint separations, labrum tears, SLAP tears, external (primary and secondary) and internal impingement, and a whole host of other words that end in ‘itis or “WTF my shoulder hurts!”
All that said, however, I’d say that 90% of the time when someone reaches out to me (or Eric for that matter) asking why their shoulder is flipping them the bird, it usually comes down to a handful of common denominators. While the following shouldn’t be taken as the end all-be all list, I feel it does cover most people’s bases.
Lets get to it!
1. Programming Balance?
There’s a popular theme that a lot of coaches and trainers like to live and die by called programming balance. Meaning, any well structured program should have a balanced approached between movement patterns. Specific to the conversation at hand, with regards to upper body training, it’s often recognized that for every pushing exercise one performs (bench press), he or she should also perform one pulling exercise (seated row, etc).
This actually isn’t a bad advice. The thing is: We all know that Mondays are reserved for bench pressing. So are Wednesdays, Fridays, and every other day that’s a prime number.
Basically, guys like to bench press.
As a result many develop muscular imbalances – short/stiff pecs, weak/inhibited upper back – which leads to protracted and internally rotated shoulders.
If we’re lucky, we may see a set or two of rows in there for good measure, but it’s safe to assume that for many, their pressing to pulling ration is skewed.
Program balance isn’t going to work for these people. Using a 1:1 ratio ain’t gonna cut it. In this sense we need to use an UNBALANCED APPROACH.
Which is why I’m not adverse to recommending that most people revert to a 2:1 or even 3:1 (pull:push) ratio to help offset their gross muscular imbalance and help their shoulder feel better.
To that end I typically let these guys know that their world won’t end if they don’t bench press for a few weeks, and that it would be in their best interests to implement more horizontal rowing into the mix.
2. And Don’t Forget Push-Ups!
I’d say that 95% of the time any shoulder issue comes dow to it being a scapular issue. One of the main reasons why I’d prefer guys nix the bench pressing for the time being is because it’s an open chained movement.
Speaking english, what this means is that the hands are able to move freely, but the scapulae are pinned against a bench. Like, they can’t move. At all. They’re “glued” in place, which doesn’t bode well for shoulder health.
Moreover, holding a barbell locks us into a pronated grip which leads to more internal rotation of the humerus, which closes off the subacromial space
On an aside: using DBs with a neutral (palms face one another) grip would be a more shoulder friendly option, as we can encourage a bit more external rotation and open up the subacromial space a bit more.
Push-ups on the other hand are a CLOSED-CHAIN exercise, where the hands don’t move and the scapulae have a bit more breathing room. This is a HUGE advantage, and something I feel many trainees dismiss because they deem push-ups too wimpy.
Of course push-up technique is going to enter the conversation as a huge reason why a lot of people’s shoulders hurt is because they have no idea how to perform one correctly.
For a primer I’d encourage everyone to check out THIS post.
3. Scaps, Scaps, and more Scaps
As I noted above, much of the time when someone’s shoulder hurts it can pinpointed to the scapulae. The most cliched – albeit easiest – explanation to use here would be the shooting a cannon from a canoe analogy.
When everything is hunky-dory, the scapulae are hugged tight against our rib cage and our force couples are “balanced” and everything is in ideal alignment to allow things to run smoothly. In other words our downward rotators (levator, rhomboids, pecs, and lats) and upward rotators (upper and lower traps, serratus anterior) are doing their jobs and everyone is happy.
Unfortunately, due to societal demands, lack of physical activity, and global warming (we can blame everything on that, right), most tend to be woefully weak in their upward rotators (especially lower traps and SA) and dominant in their downward rotators – leaving the scapulae abducted and anteriorly tilted.
Or……UNSTABLE!
Placing a premium on drills that target the lower traps and serratus anterior while stretching or addressing tissue quality on the levator, pecs, and lats will go a long ways in helping the shoulder feel a ton better.
1-Arm Prone Trap Raise
Forearm Wall Slide w/ Lift Off
Shoulder W’s
Hand Switches w/ Push-Up
Actually Doing Your Rows Correctly
Pec Release w/ Ball
4. Learning to Breath Correctly
While I’ve always felt this was important, I generally steered clear of it because I felt there were more pressing (HA! Pun intended) issues that people should work on – technique, program modifications, soft tissue quality, etc.
But when we consider that everyone takes roughly 20,000 breaths per day, incorrectly, firing our accessory breathing muscles (upper traps, scalenes, levator) and completely neglecting the diaphragm – it’s no wonder we have an epidemic of pissed off shoulders!
I won’t go into too much detail here, other than to say to check out THIS post on breathing patterns I wrote last year as well as check out Mike Robertson’s much more detailed post HERE.
5. Watch Predator
This really has nothing to do with shoulders, but it’s a crime if you haven’t watched this movie. I’m pretty sure watching the Predator Handshake on repeat increases T-levels by 286% instantly. Subsequently your shoulder will feel better!
6. Hammer T-Spine Mobility
I don’t think I need to belabor this point. If you’re rocking a Neanderthal posture, chances are your shoulder hates you. This ties in hand-in-hand with the section on scapular stability above. When we’re stuck in a overly rounded/kyphotic posture, the scapulae are going to be abducted and anteriorly tilted. Tossing in some daily t-spine mobility drills will work wonders on how your shoulder feels.
Some of my favorites include:
Quadruped Extension-Rotation
Side Lying Windmill
Yoga Push-Up Complex
Also, because I’m sick of typing now, I’d HIGHLY encourage you to check our Dean Somerset’s 3-part series on All Things Thoracic Spine HERE.
I’ve always been an animal lover. Growing up as a kid I spent a lot of time with my dog, Daisy. We did everything together. She’d follow me back and forth in the side yard as I hit a baseball from one end to the other, we’d go fishing together, she’d even greet me everyday at the end of my driveway when the schoolbus would drop me off.
She was the best.
Wherever I was, chances are she’d be right by my side.
I have a lot of fond memories of various pets growing up, but Daisy and I definitely had a special bond and it’s something that I still cherish to this day.
It’s funny how we as humans connect with animals – man’s best friend in particular. I mean, I still get teary eyed whenever I watch classics like Old Yeller or Where the Red Fern Grows, and my mom always loves re-hashing the story of when I was a youngin watching Lassie Come Home, and crying incessantly that Lassie would never make it back to her family.
SPOILER ALERT: She did. And I’m pretty sure I crushed some ice-cream after the fact.
Heck put on any movie or tv show or read THIS story where an animal gets killed or injured or lost and my heart breaks.
Throw on a zombie flick, however, and show a human-being getting ripped to shreds and I’m running around giving people high-fives.
FYI: the clip above is from Dawn of the Dead (2004), arguably one of the best zombie movies ever made. ZOMBIES!!!!!!
Anyways, back to animals.
Strength coach Chris Smith asked a bunch of us a while back if we’d be willing to write some unique content – an article, brief program, anything! – for a little project he had in mind to help benefit a local animal shelter in his neck of the woods in NY.
Having adopted a pet two years ago – our cat, Dagny, who can be seen HERE is all of her “cutest cat ever” cuteness – I was more than happy to contribute to such a great cause.
Chris ended up recruiting some other big whigs in the industry – John Romaniello, Joe Dowdell, Ben Bruno, Dean Somerset, Sean Hyson, David Dellanave, to name a few (and there are 20 programs or articles featured in all) – and ended up with a 150-page ebook of quality fitness and health content.
With all the overhead pressing articles being posted up on T-Nation as of late I figured I’d join in on the fun and I invited myself to the party.
Overhead pressing isn’t for everyone.
To be fair, I’m not adamantly against ALL overhead pressing. As a strength coach I’d be remiss not to recognize that overhead pressing is a staple with regards to well-balanced programming, not to mention it’s kind of important from a shoulder health and building delts the size of boulders standpoint.
That said, I truly feel most trainees need to earn the right to overhead press.
As sad as it is, most people have the movement quality of a pregnant turtle or the Tin Man on a good day. As such, walking up to a barbell and haphazardly hoisting it above our heads might not be the best decision.
In the article I link to below I discuss some simple screens to help people ascertain whether overhead pressing in the right fit for them, as well as dive into one of my go to “shoulder friendly” pressing variations. Give it a look and let me know what you think!
Not in the “I drive 45 MPH in the left lane on the highway” slow or “I need to give exact change to the cashier so let me dig around in my pocketbook for two nickels and three pennies while everyone else waiting in line taps their foot” slow.
No, not quite. And just so we’re clear: I don’t own a pocketbook. I was just using that as a frame of reference, mmmmkay?
What I’m referring to when I say I’m slow is how I lift weights. I’m just, you know, slow. I lack explosiveness, pizzazz, “oomph,” whatever you want to call it, I just lack it.
Take my deadlift for example. I have a decent pull. My best is 570 lbs at a bodyweight of 190. My goal is to eventually pull 600 at a bodyweight of whateverthef*&k. I don’t care, I just want to pull 600. However, the biggest hurdle to jump when it comes to hitting this milestone is my speed off the floor.
To put it bluntly – It sucks!
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done my fair share of dedicated speed work, working in the prerequisite 45-65% 1RM range and placing an emphasis on bar speed. But it’s just never panned out for me. And, if I were to speak candidly, there’s a small part of me that prefers grinding out heavy sets anyways, which is a very ass-backwards way of doing things.
NOTE: For a brief primer on the “Strength Continuum,” and to get a better idea of the ins and outs of what I’m talking about, I’d highly encourage you to check ou this video by Eric Cressey
I’ve been talking about this goal of mine for at least 2-3 years now. And for the past 2-3 years I haven’t made much of an effort to address my weakness, just assuming that if I grind out enough heavy singles, and if I want it bad enough, it will just somehow magically happen one day.
Well, we all know what they say: the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
So it’s been within the past month or so that I’ve had an epiphany and decided to nip things in the bud. In a nutshell I need to get a little more athletic.
As noted in the video above, I’m one of those guys that’s been leaning more towards the absolute strength side of things and completely neglecting the speed side. Bad Tony!
Now, this isn’t all to say that I’m an un-athletic sloth here. It’s like I look like the Tin Man when I run, I can still throw a baseball in the mid-80s, and I’m pretty sure I could last at least seven seconds in a cage-fight with Gina Carano:
The impetus behind my new found motivation is an article that my pal, Todd Bumgardner, wrote a while back for T-Nation (HERE) where he discussed the benefits of implementing more “neural charge” workouts throughout the week.
What’s a neural charge you ask? It’s simply a way to train the CNS in an efficient and non-ball busting way (<=== how’s that for science?).
Getting faster is a full-proof way to get stronger. Likewise, implementing more of this type of training is a great way to improve inter and intramuscular coordination, increase recruitment of high-threshold motor units, increase rate coding, and lets be honest: it just looks bad ass.
As well, I’d even argue it’s a great way to decrease joint stress (as your utilizing (mostly) concentric based movements), not to mention there’s an obvious metabolic component as well.
Nevertheless the basic premise is this: you pick 5-6 exercises or drills and perform them as explosively as possible in circuit fashion. I should also note that it’s important to allow full recovery between each exercise. So when I say circuit fashion it’s not like you’re going to rush through it. And you’re not going to perform many total reps. I’d say 3-5 max.
Here’s an example of a neural charge workout that I took myself through this past Saturday and Wednesday:
From a personal perspective I’ve been prioritizing more jumps in my training – hence the box jumps and split squat jumps. But the important thing to consider is alternating between upper and lower body exercises, and if you’re going to include things like med ball work, core specific work, OLY lift variations, and the like, you need to put some thought into the order.
From there, as noted above, you’re gong to cycle through the exercises (making sure to recover between each) for a specific number of rounds or for a specific amount of time. Six rounds takes me around 12-15 minutes which is just about right in my book.
Remember: the idea here isn’t to hate life and train until you shit a liver. If anything after this type of session you should feel refreshed and ready to take on the world.
I’ve been implementing these twice a week as of late, but I know Todd and other coaches have no qualms going higher than that. There’s a bit of autonomy and personal preference here, but I’d caution against going overboard.
And it seems to be working. I walked up to a bar loaded with 500 lbs in the middle of the afternoon the other day, and without warming up pulled it for an easy triple with more in the tank.
Nevertheless, this may be a nice fit for some people who feel stagnant in their training and need a bit of a boost. Try it out and let me know how it goes.
Before we dive into this week’s stuff to read, I wanted to give a genteel reminder that we’re closing in on the final days to take advantage of the early bird special for mine and Dean Somerset’s Boston Workshop at Cressey Performance.
As it stands we’re a little over half-way to capacity (30 seats) and we’re expecting a major influx of signees as the end of June approaches.
Dean has updated the website to showcase the general itinerary for the weekend, as well as highlight that we have a special guest speaker lined up for that Friday evening for those who actually do arrive a day early.
No it’s not Optimus Prime. And no, sorry, it’s not Macho Man Randy Savage. But I promise it will be someone whom all of you know and will want to listen to…..;o)
Click HERE to view the updated details and to register.
It’s hard not to get excited when these two collaborate, because when they do it’s a win-win for everyone.
It was roughly a year ago that Eric and Mike released Functional Stability Train for the Core which dived into the “umbrella topic” surrounding the interplay between the “core” and upper extremity function and performance.
Now, I know what some of you may be thinking: the industry needs another “functional training” product like we need another Kardashian spin-off. To that I say….fair enough!
But come on: these two aren’t your run-of-the-mill trainers here. Combined they’ve worked with over a billion dollars worth of Major League arms, not to mention Eric’s pulled 660 lbs and Mike, well, he hasn’t pulled that much. But regardless, these two not only talk the talk, but they walk it.
This time around they’re setting their sights on the lower body. While covering all the topics would be impossible here, the main point to consider is that “by addressing alignment, strength, mobility, and dynamic motor control, you can maximize your rehabilitation and training programs to reach optimal performance.”
The whole series is more of “system” in the long run, and it’s a system that will undoubtedly help any trainer, strength coach, or manual therapist take his or her knowledge base to the next level. This one definitely gets the TG thumbs up of approval.
I think the title pretty much says it all. This is some sage advice from a good friend of mine who’s been in the industry for 18 years, twelve of which have been running his own facility.
Basically – he know’s what he’s talking about.
21 Practical Ways to Improve Your Training Today – Ben Bruno (<== not a link)
Ben’s a good friend of mine, and when he asked if I’d be willing to help spread the word on this awesome resource I didn’t even blink an eye before I said yes.
For everyone who goes to his site HERE and signs up for his newsletter, you’ll receive this FREE report which offers a gulf of insight/tips/opinions on how you can go about increasing your general level of awesomeness today.
And don’t worry: Ben’s assured me that if you sign up for his newsletter he won’t use it to spam the shit out of you or do something lame like send “selfie” pictures of himself. Except for on his birthdays, of course.
Whether you refer to them as supine barbell bridges, barbell glute bridges, barbell hip thrusts, or what some of our pro-baseball guys like to call “slump busters” (give it a sec), there’s no mistaking that whatever your iteration, in recent years the exercise in question has grown in popularity and should be considered a staple in any well-designed strength training program.
Championed by strength coach Bret Contreras, and later highlighted in his book Strong Curveswhich he co-authored alongside the lovely Kellie Davis, the hip thrust has become a mainstay and often very popular exercise at Cressey Performance – and for good reason.
You’d be hard pressed to find any other exercise which targets the gluteal muscles, not to mention trains them in the often neglected anteroposterior load vector than the hip thrust/bridge.
Thing is: a lot of people tend to butcher technique, akin to watching Jillian Michaels attempt to coach someone through a proper KB swing. Which is to say – she’s not even close.
As much as I love the barbell hip thrust/bridge, I still have to be cognizant of implementing proper progressions when working with certain athletes and clients. For many, throwing them in the gauntlet and forcing them to place a loaded barbell over their pelvis and asking them to thrust up may be a bit aggressive and altogether a raging catastrophe.
In the end, without taking someone through the proper progressions, I may be doing them a huge disservice. Which is why I generally like to start people off with your garden variety 1-legged hip thrust .
While some will scoff at the notion (dude, I squat 300 lbs, eat beef jerky for breakfast, can grow a beard in three days, and drive a Chevy, trust me, I don’t need to do these! ), I’ve seen my fair share of strong peeps have to take a larger than expected piece of humble pie after trying these for the first time.
That said, I don’t want to sit here and discuss the benefits. For that you can head on over to Bret’s blog. Rather I want to discuss some common mistakes people make when trying to execute the exercise.
In the brief video below I give a handful of coaching cues that I’ve found very useful in helping to clean up exercise technique. I hope you find them useful!
