What’s unique about the deadlift – as opposed to the squat or bench press – is that it begins with a concentric, or overcoming, movement.
For a variety of reasons like leverages, mobility restrictions, it’s Tuesday, etc., starting from the floor can be problematic for some people. One simple way to build context, especially as it relates to the starting position from the floor, is to start at the end (or top) with an eccentric, or yielding/negative, movement.
You’ll essentially be performing an eccentric deadlift (RDL) until the barbell reaches the ground. When I have my athletes do this drill I’ll stop them once they hit the floor and say, “Feel that position you’re in right now? That’s what I want to see and for you to feel when you begin from the floor.”
You’ve heard these before: Chest up. Extend your T-spine. Create torque in your hips.
Those are cues which work well for some, but can sound like Elvish to many trainees, particularly when they’re new to deadlifting. Instead, get more acquainted with external cues which, contrast to their internal counterparts (which speak to what the body is doing in space), imply intent or direction.
These can be game changers when it comes to helping people better understand what you’re asking them to do as a coach.
You can’t go more than a few clicks on the internet before you inevitably come across some coach or trainer discussing the merits of positional breathing and how it can help improve performance in the weight room (and on the field).
(👆👆👆 I guess this depends on what part of the internet you peruse…BOM, CHICKA, BOM BOM 😉 😉 😉 )
Nevertheless, if you’re someone who geeks out over the human body and movement in general “positional breathing” is a term you’ve definitely come across.
And you likely still aren’t understanding it’s relevance.
I have a treat for you today. Dr. Michelle Boland (a Boston based strength & conditioning coach and one of the smartest people I’ve ever met) was kind enough to offer to write on the topic for this website.
Positional Breathing: The Implementation of Training Principles
Note From TG: For a bit of an “amuse bouche” on the topic of positional breathing I’d encourage you to check out two posts I wrote on the topic HERE and HERE.
Identify
Our role as fitness professionals is to determine what is important for our clients. In order to do so, we need to identify what is important, formulate principles, and then follow through with implementation.
A way to identify and formulate what is important to us as trainers, is to create principles. Principles are simply what you believe in and what you teach your clients. Principles serve as a hierarchy of reasoning for your training methods, which include your choice of exercises, organization of training sessions, program design decisions, and communication strategies.
In this article, I am going to review my first two training principles:
Training Principle 1: All movement is shape change (influence from Bill Hartman)
Training Principle 2: Proximal position influences distal movement abilities
Formulate
Movement is about shape change.
We change shapes by expanding and compressing areas of the body.
Movement will occur in areas of the body that we are able to expand and movement will be limited in areas of the body that, for some reason, we have compressed. The ability of an athlete to transition from expanded positions to compressed positions informs their ability to change shape and express movement.
Movement occurs in a multitude of directions depending on both position and respiration. Certain positions will bias certain parts of the body to be able to expand more freely, allowing increased movement availability. Respiration can further support the ability to expand and compress areas of the body, as an inhalation emphasizes expansion and an exhalation emphasizes compression.
(👇👇👇 Just a small, teeny-tiny taste of importance of positional breathing 👇👇👇)
Position selection is my foundation of exercise selection.
Positions such as supine, prone, side lying, tall kneeling, half kneeling, staggered stance, lateral stance, and standing can magnify which areas of the body that will be expanded or compressed. Additional components of positions can include reaching one arm forward, reaching arms overhead, elevating a heel, or elevating a toe. Furthermore, pairing phases of respiration within these positions will further support where movement will be limited or enhanced.
The position of the proximal bony structures of the body, such as the rib cage and pelvis, can greatly enable or restrict movement. Positional stacking of the thorax and pelvis provides an anchor for movement. Respiration then provides the ability to create expansion in the thorax and pelvis, thus providing expansion areas of the body, within joint spaces, allowing our limbs to express pain-free movement.
Lifting heavy weights can often compress areas of our body and reduce our ability to expand and rotate through our trunk and hips, limiting movement, and negatively affecting our ability to perform. Remember, expansion begets movement freedom, so adding positional breathing work or pairing movement with respiration can create opportunities for expansion.
Implement
Where is a good place to start with positional breathing work?
Start by thinking about what you already do.
Then, apply your new lens of where you want movement to occur.
Finally, label the positions of the exercises and pair respiration within those movements. Pair an inhalation when you want to enhance expansion and an exhalation when you want to enhance compression. Here are a few examples of how I implement my two training principles into exercise selection. Movement within each example can be supported or limited with changes in position, respiration, or execution.
1. Supine Reach
The supine position is combined with a bilateral arm reach forward with the intention to expand the upper thorax during inhalation. The position can also be used as a tool to teach stacking the thorax over the pelvis by cueing a hip tuck and soft exhale to move the front side of the ribcage downward. Our “stack” IS the set-up position for your main loaded, lift exercises (squat, deadlift, etc).
Check out how the inhalation expands the upper thorax and the exhalation creates compression.
Now you will not be able to take your eyes away from those two movement strategies.
2. Staggered Stance “Camporini” Deadlift
The staggered stance position is going to magnify the expansive capabilities of the lower, posterior hip of the back leg. The staggered stance position allows you to use the front leg to push back to the side of the back leg and align the pelvis and thorax back and to the side of the back leg.
The opposite arm reach allows you to transition the weight to the back leg. The expansive capabilities can be enhanced in the posterior hip with an inhale during the hip movement backwards (hinging).
3. Low Cable Step-Up
The staggered stance position puts the hip of the elevated leg in flexion (expansive) and the hip of the leg on the ground in an extension (compressive) biased position.
The addition of an opposite arm cable hold expands the backside of the upper back (avoid resisting the cable). The posterior hip of the elevated leg will compress as the individual pushes their foot into the ground and moves against gravity to perform the step-up.
At the bottom position, expansion can be enhanced in the posterior side of the flexed hip and posterior side of the arm holding the cable during an inhalation. Coaching cues may magnify expansion and compression within areas of the body by pairing respiration within phases of the exercise. Try inhaling at the bottom position and exhaling during the movement/step-up.
4. High Hip Reverse Bear Crawl
The bear crawl exercise is performed in a prone position. The additional component of the high hips and reverse direction promotes expansion in the upper thorax and posterior hips. You can coach continuous breathing through the movement or pause at certain points to inhale.
This is a fantastic warm-up exercise!
5. Tempo Squat Paired with Respiration
The squat starts in a standing position.
The assisted squat will also include a positional component of both arms reaching forward (same as goblet squat, zercher squat, or safety bar squat) which encourages the ‘stack’ position of the thorax and pelvis. The assisted squat is an example of turning positional breathing work into fitness. The squat movement requires both expansive and compressive capabilities within various phases of the movement in order to be able to descend and ascend against gravity.
The exercise can be used to teach people to change levels with a stacked, vertical torso. As a general notion, inhale down and exhale up.
6. Medicine Ball Lateral Stance Weight Shift Load and Release Throw
The exercise is performed in a lateral stance position.
Here, we are adding fitness with an emphasis on power, to positional breathing work!
Pair an inhalation with pulling the medicine ball across the body (transitioning weight from inside to outside leg) to bias expansion of the posterior hip of the outside leg. Then pair an exhalation with the throw to bias compression, exiting the hip of the outside leg.
This exercise also encourages rotational abilities and power through creating expansion and compression in specific areas of the body. For example, if you want to promote right rotation, you will need right anterior compression, right posterior expansion, left posterior compression and left anterior expansion abilities.
Conclusion
The use of positional breathing activities can improve our abilities to move with speed, free up range of motion at the shoulders and hips, rotate powerfully, and move up and down efficiently. My training principles are derived from this concept. My specific strategies are implemented through exercise selection, cueing, teaching, and pairing respiration with movement phases.
The ‘stacked’ position emphasizes a congruent relationship between the rib cage and pelvis (thoracic and pelvic diaphragm) and I believe it can serve as a foundational position to support movement. I want to thank Bill Hartman for exposing me to this lens of movement.
Implement these strategies with your clients and you’ll discover that positional breathing work WILL help your clients squat, hinge, run, rotate, and move better.
Principle Based Coaching
A strategy such as positional breathing work for better client movement is only as good as your ability to implement and communicate it with your clients. We become better at implementation and communication through analysis and development of our PRINCIPLES.
In this webinar, we will take a step back and learn the skills to formulate principles, make new information useful, AND IMPLEMENT information. At the end of the webinar you will know how training principles can be used to:
Make new information useful to YOU, YOUR clients, and YOUR business
Clarify your coaching decisions
Develop a more pinpointed coaching eye
Plan more effectively to get your client results
Gain confidence in your abilities and formulate your own coaching identity
2020 has not been a favorable year for the masses.
In particular for fitness industry which has been decimated due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. Many brick and mortar gyms (as well as commercial gyms) were forced to shut down indefinitely for several months – some, unfortunately, forever – due to the crisis. And as a result many fitness professionals have been forced to face a stark reality…
…that there’s an integral if not imperative impetus to adapt.
In short: It behooves every fit pro to consider adopting (or at least leaning into) a more “hybrid” approach to the services they offer and how they go about scaling and growing their business.
For those who want to skip the foreplay click HERE. <— You can try the Online Trainer Academy FOR FREE for 30 days and become a Certified Online Trainer.
The harsh reality is most people are not going back to the gym anytime soon. Certainly the bulk of that is due to the fact many don’t have a gym to go back to anyway, but also because there’s been a mad dash of everyone beginning to pimp out their respective at home gyms.
If there’s anything this dumpster fire of year has taught the fitness industry it’s that having the ability to provide a competent and streamlined ONLINE service to your current and prospective clients has never been more important.
I’ve long championed the idea that having a HYBRID fitness business – one that allows you to work with people both in person & online – is wise.
My first online client was back in 2005-2006.
Smart phones weren’t really that smart yet.
I used a carrier pigeon an Excel spreadsheet to deliver my programs.
Even more dumbfounding: My clients paid me via check through the regular mail.
The online space as come a looooooong ways since I first started.
More to the point: While there are a number of websites and resources out there that will help you get started, The Online Trainer Academy has had a several year head start on ALL of them and is really the only one I trust (not to mentions offers all the tools you’ll need to be successful).
3. Get instant digital access to the entire OTA curriculum, including:
the seminal 338-page textbook, The Fundamentals of Online Training (V3.0)
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your step-by-step workbook (so you can build your business as you go)
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(A quick allegory: I know some will scoff at the cost after the free trial. But let’s put that into quick perspective. The TOTAL cost for the year would be roughly what ONE paying online client would pay you for three months of your services. If you pick up one paying client – and you most definitely will – the program will have paid for itself.
Smoke, smoke bomb, mic drop, exit stage left.)
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When it comes to the setup, however, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach.
In this instance we’re all special snowflakes with varying limb lengths, torso lengths, and hip orientation… all of which will affect what will feel best and allow us to lift the most amount of weight.
That said, there are two tenets to the deadlift setup that applies to every lifter:
1. Use the Wedge.
Popularized by Dr. Stuart McGill, it’s a foolproof way to set yourself up for success and protect your back. Basically, when you bend over to grab the barbell, you want to use it as a counterbalance to “pull” your chest up and get the hips down, “wedging” yourself between the bar and the floor.
2. Now think, “Armpits over the bar, with maximal hamstring tension.”
Today’s guest post comes courtesy of Dr. Lisa Lewis (AKA my wife).
Earlier this year she released her Psych Skills for Fitness Professionals course which was designed to help fill a gap where many fitness professionals lack formal education: psychology, motivation, and the “softer skills” needed to coach effectively and help clients attain their goals.
I’ve long noted that what burns and stresses most coaches/trainers out isn’t the x’s and o’s of program design or breaking down someone’s squat technique…
…rather, it’s the ongoing attempts to maneuver around the dark recesses of our clients’ psychological needs (particularly when it comes to motivation).
Of more relevance, COVID-19 has really done a number on just about everyone’s life in 2020 and the importance of motivation, healthy habits, and resilience through stress and uncertainty has never been more apparent.
Lisa has just opened up enrollment for her course, with a NEW, just-added module focusing on how fitness professionals can better build immunity to stress and uncertainty for themselves AND their clients/athletes.
If no foreplay is needed, you can dive right in HERE.
In 2020, this sequence of emotions, and the resulting toll they take is familiar to us all. Whether your personal, professional, or financial life has been stressed, shaken, or stamped out by the pandemic, chances are you have been significantly impacted by closings, stay-at-home orders, and social-distancing mandates.
When we have a stressful day, most of us can cope well.
We may become flustered, negative, or pessimistic, but a trusted coping strategy can typically help us to recover and turn the page quickly, like dinner with friends, a big hug from a loved-one, a good training session, or a hot bath.
But when days turn into weeks, and weeks into months, we all need more than a good pump and steamy soak in the tub. We need skills that can help us to persist.
To maintain hope.
To help us access our strengths in the face of long term adversity.
Starting in April and May of this year, I have been asked to contribute to articles and podcasts on “coping with the pandemic,” or “coping with stress,” or some similar topic.
As a psychologist, these requests and their resulting discussions and writings led me to explore the current literature on resilience, and this in turn focused my attention on the field of positive psychology.
Over the past 20 years, positive psychology has offered evidence-based recommendations for living well, coping effectively, and thriving (Peterson, 2006). The benefits of optimism, positive emotions, personal strengths, gratitude, meaning, healthy relationships and other optimal experiences in life have been examined, evaluated, and clearly identified as real, measurable, and worth-while.
This research, and the resulting recommendations for coping and living well offer a rich variety of skills that are relevant, important, and even essential in the current climate.
For example, as I read up on how to build and sustain resilience, I learned about “mental agility” from Karen Reivich (2002), who explains that we can learn and practice thinking flexibility and more effectively. Reivich states that by recognizing our tendencies to think in overly-rigid ways, intentionally changing direction, and carefully planning for negative outcomes, we can be more productive, efficient, and hardy in difficult situations.
Dr. Karen Reivich
The same way fitness professionals and enthusiasts can practice skills and drills for physical agility, so too can we work on mental agility.
If your thinking sometimes gets you stuck in negative, ruminative, unhelpful patterns of all-or-nothing, catastrophizing, or “poor me” thinking, then working on your mental agility could help you to think more objectively, effectively, and productively.
In addition to mental agility, challenging life events require us to not only work on our deficits, but also to draw on our strengths. In my work with patients, clients, and fitness professionals, I’ve found that most people gravitate toward addressing weaknesses, blindspots, or shortcomings in their thoughts and behaviors. However, understanding and leveraging the best of you is also a rich and potent source of resilience (Petersen & Seligman, 2004). Your personal character strengths can contribute to coping and even thriving in adversity – especially now!
Whether they be optimism, diligence, spirituality, or a great sense of humor, the best of you has so much to offer in the face of the worst times in life.
Do you know how to practice flexible, agile thinking?
Are you familiar with your character strengths? Do you appreciate them and harness them intentionally in the face of adversity?
This summer, I’ve designed a curriculum for developing and practicing these skills, and added them, for free, to my Psych Skills for Fitness Pros course. This curriculum has been included as a bonus module for students of Psych Skills for Fitness Pros, and covers the following content:
An Introduction to Resilience
Optimism
Mental Agility
Character Strengths
Implementation and Practice
In addition, this bonus module includes an interview with Mike T. Nelson, Ph.D., who discusses the concept of anti-fragility, and it’s parallel to stress hardiness and resilience! Dr. Mike and I explore the physical and psychological benefits of anti-fragility, as well as how to promote anti-fragility with your clients.
Psych Skills for Fitness Pros offers not only a review of theory and research, but also real life applications for coaches in fitness, wellness, and nutrition. Here’s what a recent graduate of the program had to say about her experience in the course:
“Coaching is about so much more than exercise selection and macros. I’m always looking to get better at the psychological side of coaching so that I can help my clients actually make the changes they want to make. Psych Skills for Fitness Pros was exactly what I needed. It was not just theoretical, but practical. “Here are the theories and here’s how you can use them in your day to day work.”
As a result of practicing the skills Lisa teaches I am better at meeting clients where they’re at with regards to motivation while helping them to develop along the motivation continuum and using motivational interviewing techniques such as helping clients work through their ambivalence. You will without a doubt be a better coach after taking this course.”
For the rest of 2020, and beyond, these skills and assets are what I hope you can draw from, lean on, and utilize to cope with the pandemic and all that it brings. But even more than that, I hope we can all develop more strength, agility, and skill as a result of having to cope with the pandemic. If we can endure this year, good – but if we can thrive and improve ourselves as a result of it, great!
Please read more about Psych Skills for Fitness Pros, Volume 1, HERE.
If you want to see more of my writing and approach to interlacing strength training and physical activity with mental skills and positive psychology, follow me on Instagram, HERE. If you want to learn more about positive psychology, mental agility, and/or character strengths, check out the fabulous content at the Positive Psychology Center at UPenn, HERE.
References
Peterson, C. & Seligman, M. (2004). Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification. Oxford University Press: NY.
Peterson, C. (2006). A Primer in Positive Psychology. Oxford University Press: NY.
Reivich, K. & Shatte, A. (2002). The Resilience Factor: 7 keys to finding your inner strength and overcoming life’s hurdles. Broadway Books: NY.
A few years ago on Mike Robertson’s Physical Preparation Podcast (<— you should check it out if you haven’t already) I listened in as Memphis Grizzlies’ Director of Performance, Chris Chase, went into detail on the concept of the Trainable Menu.
It was such a simple phrase, yet so eloquent of an idea that it:
Blew my mind.
Melted my face.
Made me hate him because I didn’t think of it.
All the above.
I’ve written several blog posts and adopted the concept as my own in the years since, even championing the hashtag #findyourtrainablemenu on Instagram.
It truly is a splendid way to re-frame training (and program design) into highlighting what people CAN do rather than what they can’t.
One of my biggest pet peeves in the industry is when coaches or personal trainers treat program design as this one-size-fits all phenomenon; as if it’s an Old Navy knit scarf.
It drives me bonkers.
To take the mentality that a 60 year old “computer guy” with a history of low back pain (and who hasn’t touched a barbell since Dalton was practicing shirtless kung-fu and busting heads in the movie Road House) should have the same “menu” as a 21 year-old college basketball player is, well, dumb.
Don’t get me wrong.
Across the board – whether we’re talking about computer guys, basketball players, baseball players, someone training for fat loss, or Orcs – there are going to be more commonalities in everyone’s trainable menu than differences.
Meaning, most are going to be squatting, deadlifting, pushing stuff, pulling stuff, throwing stuff, carrying stuff, performing single leg work, doing an array of dedicated core work, and otherwise just getting after it.
However, where the difference show up are in the types or variations of those movement patterns being performed.
As an example, if I am working with a 6’7″ basketball player I’m probably not going to be too concerned with his or her’s ability to squat ass-to-grass.
I mean, it’s possible they’ll be able to do it (and do it well), just like it’s possible I’ll someday make-out with Jennifer Lopez.
But, it’s unlikely.
Rather, more often than not, if I’m working with a tall(er) individual, their trainable menu (which is an amalgamation and compromise between their health/injury history, training goals, ability level, and anthropometry) will consist of things like box squats, rack pulls, elevated Trap Bar deadlifts, pin squats, and the like.
Likewise, I can take the same train of thought with regards to any sport. For instance, I work with a fair number of endurance runners here in Boston; a handful of which train yearly for the Boston Marathon.
Strengthening a runner’s hamstrings and glutes and developing the ability to put more force INTO the pavement – in short: getting strong(er) – will undoubtedly help with getting to the finish line faster.
However, none of them are competitive powerlifters or Olympic lifters so I could care less whether or not they deadlift with a straight bar (or from the ground for that matter).
Every trainable menu should take into account an athlete’s sport, the demands it places on the body, what (s)he needs to do in order to succeed at that sport (from a movement standpoint), and then the cost-benefit of the exercises being prescribed.
To steal my own quote:
“A football strength & conditioning coach may look at a program that doesn’t include Olympic lifts and back squats as a joke.
Well, if we’re not talking about football players, what the fuck? That’s a completely different menu we’re talking about.”
A more germane angle to take would be what I am going through currently with my Achilles injury. For the past several weeks I have been highlighting some of my training sessions on my Instagram feed.
My goal in doing so is to prove to people that I’m still jacked AF despite an injury – even a significant one – you CAN still train.
I remember vividly as my wife and I were driving home after rupturing my Achilles I was sitting in the passenger seat actively building a mental rolodex of exercises I KNEW I was still going to be able to still pull off:
All the bench pressing and pull-ups I wanted.
Arms.
Affected Leg: open chain band curls and leg extensions, hip clams, etc.
Non-Affected Leg: Supported 1-Leg RDLs, 1-Leg Squats, etc.
Heck, even 1-week post surgery Hallway Lightsaber Battles were on the menu…
I didn’t attempt anything asinine, and in fact, took a full three days post-surgery to just chill and sleep like a champion. But I’d be lying if I didn’t reach a tipping point on Day #4 and was like…I…NEED…TO…DO…SOMETHING.
By Day #5 I was back in the gym doing a little of this and a little of that, and if felt gooooooood. Seated DB Bicep curls and 1-Leg Hip Thrusts never felt so empowering.
In my mind it was more about starting the healing process (without being an asshat about it) while also giving me a much needed mental boost.
I’m now six-weeks post surgery and fully weight bearing on my affected side (still in a boot, though). Just the other day I performed my first bilateral RDL @ 135 lbs.
Nothing crazy in terms of the weight on the bar, but I’m constantly tweaking and adjusting my Trainable Menu to match my current capabilities.
I have zero doubts this mindset is going to help expedite my recovery and rehab.
That’s the beauty of the Trainable Menu: It’s applicable whether you’re an athlete prepping for a competitive season or you’re someone trying to train through an injury.
I want to make something crystal clear before I proceed:
Exercise – I.e., lifting weights in particular – should have a degree of sucktitude attached to it.
No one became a brick shit house in the gym or built an impressive physique without pushing their body to the limits on a consistent basis. I’m often flummoxed by people who, when I post a video of myself or one of my clients doing something badass, will sometimes chime in with something to the effect of “oh, you better be careful. Such and such exercise causes too much stress on the body.”
I can’t help but think to myself: “Um, that’s kinda the point of exercise isn’t it?…
…to stress the body and force it to adapt?”
It’s a narrow-minded and boneheaded take if you ask me.
That being said, I do feel there’s a distinct difference between working hard and (always) striving to make exercise harder.
The former = good. Great, even.
The latter = meh.
Working Hard vs. (Always) Making Exercise Harder
The easiest way for me to explain my train of thought here is to use a real-world example.
I have a client I started working with a few months ago. She’s a trainer herself, actually, and is no stranger to being a gym-rat, getting after it, and satiating her inner-meathead.
She reached out to me because she had been training on her own for several years and was sorta “stuck” in her progress. Namely she wanted someone to audit her technique with the barbell lifts (squat, deadlift, bench) in addition to having someone take over the mental gymnastics that’s often a side-effect of writing your own programs.
I can totally relate (even coaches need coaches).
As is the case with every client I work with there’s always a window where the two parties are kinda feeling each other out and getting the lay of the land. On my end I’m trying to ascertain how I need to temper my coaching style to better fit the personality, ability level, and needs of the client.
On their end there’s undoubtedly an adjustment to Techno Tuesdays or, I don’t know, maybe even coaching with no pants Thursdays.2
This was no different.
One thing that struck me in our initial sessions together was her proclivity to always want to beat her previous workout. Meaning, if she deadlifted “x” weight the week prior and didn’t surpass that number the following week (or at least attempt to) she’d be disappointed.
Now, in a general sense I LOVE this kind of attitude.
I want people to work hard and to push themselves in the weight-room.
A continual, consistent pattern of progressive overload – gradually doing more and more work over the course of weeks, months, years – is the key to long-term progress & success.
It makes my job infinitely easier when someone “gets” this concept. However, it can also be a double-edged sword.
In the case of my client, I got the impression that she was stuck in the trap of constantly testing her strength rather than building it.
More to the point, she was stuck in the trap of trying to always make exercise harder.
But Tony Didn’t You Just Say You WANT Your Clients to Work Hard?
Yes, I did (and do).
But working hard and always making exercise harder are two different things.
To help ruminate my point further I always recall this idea of “80% Workouts” I picked up from strength coach Paul Carter.
In short:
10% of the time you will feel like Leonidas leading his Spartan soldiers to battle and crush your workouts.
10% of the time you will feel like you spent the night in the Sunken Place and your workouts will crush you.
80% of the time you will just show up, get your reps in, and leave.
THAT’s the key.
Those 80% workouts.
The workouts where nothing spectacular happens.
You just exist and do the work.
80% of the time or 8 out of 10 workouts (<— I’m a master in math).
Another way to think about it: You’re still working hard every session, straining, and training with intent…but it’s just not worthy of Instagram.
To that end:
You can still work hard despite having a poor night’s sleep.
You can still work hard despite being injured.
You can still work hard despite having a bad day at work and resisting the urge to throw a stapler into boss’s face.
The point is: Every session (and exercise) doesn’t have to be a ball-breaker or “battle” or leave you with no sensation in the left side of your face in order for you to make progress.
Life gets in the way often and it’s unhelpful to hold ourselves to the impossible standard of breaking personal records every single training session.
It doesn’t always have to be harder.
This is where using other metrics of effort – like Rate of Perceived Exertion or Reps in Reserve – can be useful. For example, lets say you have a client who had a poor night’s sleep the night prior or maybe lost a fist fight to Rambo.
Whatever, they’re in no shape to train at full throttle.3
Instead of hitting that scheduled heavy double with their squats, maybe a better approach would be to have them perform 2-3 sets of squats aiming for 2-3 Reps in Reserve (a concept popularized by strength coach Dr. Mike Israetel).
This way they’re still squatting and hitting a few challenging sets, but not risking injury or further piling on more CNS fatigue that will only continue to accumulate and further derail their training.
Alternatively, you can try this approach (which is something I picked up recently from strength coach Conor Harris):
Week 1: 3×5 @ 70% of 1 Rep Max + one set of as many reps as possible (AMRAP).
If AMRAP >8 reps, go up 5 lbs next session.
If AMRAP 6-8 reps, repeat next session.
If AMRAP <5 reps, go down 5 lbs next session.
This is a healthy compromise because it satisfies my preference of each repetition being (somewhat) fast and crisp, but the AMRAP set also helps satiate the more competitive clients.
If you’re like me you want nothing more than to tell it to stfuuuuuuuuu.
My wife and I were practicing some aggressive quarantining the past several weeks here in Boston, but reached our breaking point.
About a week and a half ago she turns to me and says, and I’m paraphrasing here (but not really): “Fuck this shit, why don’t we drive down to my mom’s place in Florida? At least there we’ll have access to a yard, a swimming pool, and a grandma.”
So we packed our car and made the 21+ hour drive in two days; toddler in tow (he did amazingly well. Thank you The Croods).
We arrived at 4:15 PM yesterday and were in the pool and hot tub by 4:45.
#grandmashouserules.
The Real Reason For This Post (Not That My Travel Shenanigans Aren’t Thrilling to You)
Speaking of the lockdown…
…I’ve actually been spending much of it catching up on some reading. Personally, I’ve been re-reading a bunch of Kurt Vonnegut novels
I just finished both Mother Night and Slaugherhouse-Five (which I haven’t read since 2002).
However, I realize not everyone is a Vonnegut fan and he certainly hasn’t got anything of value to add to the world of online coaching. So it goes.
If you’re looking for a great read while we’re all practicing social distancing, I want to send you a free paperback book.
It’s pretty obvious that online training is going to grow huge as trainers and gyms adjust to our new reality. But there’s always a lot of uncertainty when we’re changing how we approach our career as fit pros. You can remove that uncertainty today—by ordering this simple step-by-step guide from my friend Jonathan Goodman, founder of the Online Trainer Academy and master of the digital fitness market.
Not only that, but this guide—with over 25,000 copies already in print that sells for $19.99 on Amazon—can be yours FREE today.
(and when you order, you’ll get the audiobook and Ebook free as well!)
If you…
are just starting out online
are struggling to grow your online coaching business
have a PASSION for fitness or nutrition, but don’t know how this online thing works
want to build an unbreakable fitness/nutrition business that will THRIVE even in turbulent times
Then the Wealthy Fit Pro’s Guide to Online Training can help you.
Here’s a snippet of what you’ll learn:
-How to choose your online fitness business model (pg. 13) -How to identify and market to your ideal client (pg. 51) -Savvy PRICING and PACKAGING strategies, so you get paid what you’re worth (pg. 67).
-How building a set of pecs that can cut diamonds will yield more client retention (pg. I’m just kidding). -Smart client onboarding and remote assessment techniques (pg. 85) -The tech you need to DELIVER WORLD CLASS RESULTS (p.103)
There’s no one in the industry I trust more than Jonathan on the topic of online coaching. He and his team at the Online Trainer Academy have helped countless fitness professionals scale their businesses and/or build new ones from scratch.
I’ve benefitted myself from their expertise and insights, and I think you can too.
I can’t believe we still have to have this “debate” in 2020.
While it’s not nearly as prevalent of a thought process as a decade or two ago, there are still people out there under the impression that lifting appreciable weight – and therefore, by extension, squatting – will result in big, bulky, and stiff muscles.
Merely looking at a barbell will make you tighter than a crowbar.
I don’t even think that makes sense, but whatever…you get the idea.
The same people who fall prey to this mind-trap are the ones who likely still believe lactate acid causes muscle soreness, creatine is a steroid, starvation mode exists, and that Tom Selleck doesn’t have the sexiest and manliest mustache of all-time.
I could opine judiciously on why I feel the argument that lifting heavy/squatting makes you tight is a tepid and weak one at best, but I’m not going to because 1) this is blog post and 2) it’s not a dissertation (and my 3-year old is going to wake up from his nap any minute now).
Too, I can respect and appreciate that people are at the mercy of their milieu and can often succumb to the atmosphere, anecdotal experiences, and the echo chambers that feed into their biases.
I get it: You watch one too many Tom Brady documentaries and the idea of touching a barbell (or a tomato) makes you sick to your stomach.
Nevertheless, I do feel it’s a silly stance to take.
“Squatting doesn’t make you tight. Squatting like shit does.”
I’m stuck
Make no mistake: There are many nuances to consider with regards to squat technique and what variation, setup, and execution will be best suited given an individual’s injury history, goals, ability level, genetics, and anthropometry.
I don’t think there’s any ONE best way to execute or coach the squat, and I lose a lot of respect for coaches and trainers who play all hoity-toity and think THEIR way of coaching it is the only way to do so.
Again, and this can’t be reiterated enough:
Injury/health history
Goal(s)
Ability level
Genetics
Favorite He-Man character
Anthropometry/leverages…
…all need to be taken into consideration when coaching up the squat.
The internet likes to argue semantics on bar position, hand position, depth, stance, what day of the week it is, barometric pressure, and a myriad of other things that may or may not matter when it comes to enhancing squat technique and performance.
For me, so long as the feet, ankles, knees, and hips are appropriately positioned and loaded (using all the info above as guidance), “neutral” spine is maintained, and we’re doing all we can to prevent any destroying back of pants…
…we’re (probably) accomplishing some good things.
Moreover, if you think about what’s required to pull off a decent looking squat:
We could make the case that everything listed above is a splendid way to “offset” sitting at a desk all day, particularly when you consider a loaded squat will nudge or force people to adopt a little more thoracic extension, which is rarely a bad idea for that population.
By contrast, squatting (and by proxy, lifting appreciable weight) correctly can be viewed as the opposite of making someone tight.
NOTE: For some more insights on how I address squat technique check THIS and THIS and THIS out. Oh, and if your favorite He-Man character isn’t He-Man you need to check yourself before you wreck yourself.5
