Hello Friends and Family! Once again, the Gentilewis’ greet you from Europe, only this time with the addition of Julian-the-baby, and Eileen-the-nanny! After much planning, we set off for Bonn, Germany at 3pm on Thursday afternoon – here we are, in good spirits:
We took an overnight flight to Dublin, and even under the best of circumstances, trans-continental flights are tiring. Julian’s first hop over the pond could have gone worse, but truth be told, it could have gone much better. Although Tony and I did not sleep one wink, Julian slept for a few hours, draped over one of us, and we arrived in Dublin at 5am local time, 11pm Boston time.
Everyone felt gross, and weird, but that’s part of the adventure. We had a snack, and Julian snuck into the bar across the terminal for a quick pop-up-Julian!
After a few hours we were on our way again, this time to Frankfurt. The flight was 2 hours, and fortunately I slept most of the way! So did Eileen and Jules, so it was only poor, poor Tony who endured another sleepless flight.
When we arrived in Frankfurt we all felt even weirder, and even grosser. It was 10:15 local time, and 3:15am Boston time. Eww. Frankfurt is a massive airport! So after all kinds of taxi-ing, de-planing, and walking, we arrived in the airport lobby, in search of caffeine.
Julian had already lost most of his mind at this point, and the rest of us were doing the best we could. With the help of a coffee and some free wifi, we found the train terminal and walked over to purchase our tickets from Frankfurt to Bonn. Unfortunately the next available train was not until 2pm! So we hung out in the train terminal for a good part of the day. Julian was not a fan, but we all did our best. Here we are, in semi-good-yet-weary spirits:
At long last, we got on the train! Julian chose this occasion to have a meltdown, which our fellow passengers did not appreciate, but who can blame them? And who can blame Julian either, really? Here he is, delirious and seemingly drunk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZQuQndRA2o
The train was crazy fast. We arrived in Bonn within 45 minutes and met our amazing host and guide for the weekend, Valentina! Owner of Unique Fitness, Valentina invited us to come and speak at her gym and helped us coordinate our European Adventure! Upon our arrival Valentina then took us on the Tram, where we made our way to her gym, Unique Fitness, then to the grocery store, and then to our AirBnB (local time, 5pm, Boston time, 11am).
Needless to say, we were weary!
But our apartment was lovely, with a room for Tony and I, a room for Eileen, and even a room for Julian! We made a quick dinner, took a quick shower, and tried not to fall over. Julian was all the way outside of his mind by this time. We all passed out early, and had an up-and-down night of jet-lagged sleep, interrupted by a crying baby, every few hours or so. Tony and I took turns sleeping with Julian, and by the time 6:15 rolled around, I was awake and looking for the coffee pot!
We had such a great response when Lisa and I hosted a SBSM Workshop in Boston last year that we decided to do it again this summer.
I’ll be speaking to assessment, coaching up common strength exercises (squats, deadlifts), and how to better “match” your programs to your client’s abilities and goals.
Lisa will be discussing how to better manage client expectations, motivation, and how to adopt better mindset strategies for success.
The umbrella theme of this workshop is to enhance the SOFTskills of coaching, how to garner a connection, and build rapport with your athletes/clients.
Spots are limited
Early Bird rates apply for both students ($99) and professionals ($129)
CEUs will be available (NSCA)
For more details (including itinerary and registration) go HERE.
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, Hoth – 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, Edmonton, 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.
Worked with a new client today who was equally dumbfounded (and relieved) when I told him he didn’t HAVE to squat with “x” stance with toes pointing “y” way. It looked like shit and it felt like shit. Textbook technique rarely applies to anyone.
It’s not lost on me there’s an easy Lord of the Rings reference to be had here, and I’m going to try my best to be professional and abstain and….
Fuck it.
One ring………..to bind them.
Okay, with that out of the way, what do I mean when I say “stacked rings?” and how how can that possibly help your squat?
I had to audit myself a few years ago when it came to coaching the squat. After being introduced to the concepts of PRI (Postural Restoration Institute) and listening to other strong dudes like Chad Wesley Smith speak on the topic, I wondered if cueing people to “arch, hard!,” and to” sit back” were the right things to be saying to the bulk of my athletes/clients when they were getting under the bar?
Very few were competitive powerlifters and even fewer were geared lifers. I.e., none wore squat suits when training (which require an aggressive arch and sitting back to reap the benefits).
To be clear: There are still many very strong dudes (and coaches) who advocate squatting with a hard arch, and that’s their prerogative. The thing to appreciate, however, is that what works and is ideal for a geared lifter won’t necessarily (read: rarely) ever translate well to a non-geared lifter.
If I were to balance the “I want to be brutally strong AND not shit my spine on this next set” teeter-totter, I’d opt for not arching (aggressively).
Like this.
The ribs & diaphragm are pointing in one direction (up) and the hips & pelvic floor are pointing in another (down).
Put simply, this is all sorts of fuckeduppery not a stable position.
We’re placing a ton of shear load on the spine.
What’s more, this will invariably force the lifter to initiate the movement by sitting back (rather than down, you know, like a squat). As a result, often, the chest will fall forward, and the cue we default towads is “arch, arch, arch, chest up, chest up, chest up, you crap you’re going to fall on your face, too late.”
This only feeds instability.
A better approach, I believe (again, for non-geared lifters) is to tone down the arch and adopt what’s been referred to as the “canister” position or to “stack the rings.”
Giving credit where it’s due, the first person I ever heard use this phrase was Dr. Evan Osar. A simple analogy he used was to think of your pelvis as one ring and your rib cage as a bunch of other rings.
We want all those rings to be stacked.
This will nudge us into a more stable, joint-friendly environment
Now, a minor glitch in this way of thinking is that some people think this infers going into posterior pelvic tilt, where we flatten out the lumbar spine.
This is not what’s happening. As you can see in the picture above, my hips are still behind the bar (still very important) but there’s less of an aggressive arch. Telling people to posteriorly tilt their pelvis towards spine neutral is different than telling them to flatten out their spine.
From there it’s a matter of owning the canister position and to squat down rather than back.
Maybe this quick 3-minute video will help:
Want More Tips Like This?
Yeah, I thought so.
My friends Dr. Sarah Duvall, Kellie Hart, and Meghan Callaway released a stellar product this week – Glutes, Core, and Pelvic Floor Online System – and it hammers home points like the one above. It’s often necessary to break down movement(s) into their respective parts to make certain we’re getting motion from the right areas and that we’re using/engaging the areas we want to use/engage to perform exercises well.
GCPF is a 12-week online course that will teach you how to assess movement and how to implement the correct drills and exercises to help you (or your clients) get stronger and to move better.
TODAY (6/29) is the last day to get it at it’s FULL sale price. You can still get it at a discount until Monday (7/2), however today is your last chance to get it at $200 OFF.
It’s a great resource and one I feel will help a lot of people.
Fear not. I’ve still managed to queue up some stellar content for you in my absence.
Today Dr. Sarah Duvall is pinch-writing for me talking about a topic that’s relevant to anyone who likes to lift heavy things: Squats (and how to make them feel better).
Her new resource, which she developed alongside fellow coaching superstars Kellie Hart and Meghan Callaway – Glutes, Core, and Pelvic Floor Workout System – is on sale starting today (6/28) and runs through 7/2.
Are You Engaging the Right Muscles When You Squat?
Several months ago Tony and I met at Caffe Nero to talk shop.
After a combined 30 + years of working with people, we have both come to the conclusion that strength is your friend!
It’s your friend for rehab, for life and for aging.
In other words,
“You need to lift shit to fix shit.”
It can get a little tricky, because I’ve often found for patients with tightness or pain that we have to first make sure the right muscle is doing the work before overloading.
A great example of this is doing squats but primarily loading quads and low back instead of balancing the lift with glutes and abdominals. Or doing deadlifts but primarily feeling them in your back, never your glutes or hamstrings.
So you’re lifting and trying to get stronger, but in reality if you’re experiencing the above you’re overworking a subset of muscles instead of the intended target.
That’s why you should always know what muscles you want to work and where you should feel it.
Educated lifting!
Let’s take a second to break down the ever-elusive squat a little further. There are so many varieties from goblet to back to front squats and everything in between.
You’ll want to pick a variety that feels best for you, but I’d like to share a couple tricks for squatting in a way that targets your glutes and abs. This will be especially helpful if you primarily feel squats in your quads and low back.
Let’s work from the ground up at 4 key areas of the body.
#1. Keep Your Toes Firmly on the Ground
Somewhere along the way the cue to lift the toes got popular.
This is an easy way to shift your weight back to help get the squat more into your hips instead of your knees.
When we make cues too easy they often miss the mark. It’s true that you want to sit back into your hips, but the body follows patterns and when you pick up your toes you set off a flexion chain in your body that can increase hip flexor activation and decrease abdominals.
Give it a try now.
Pick up your toes for a squat and focus on how much you feel your abdominals. Now, give me a nice short foot (big toe down, arch engaged, weight spread evenly between the ball and heel) and see if this grounded foot turns your abs on more.
Those hardwired neuro patterns are hard to break, and having great foot placement sets the tone for the rest of the body.
So how do you sit back instead of coming forward onto your knees? Try practicing your squat by sitting back to a box or chair.
This will help train the pattern without picking up your toes.
#2. Sit Into Your Glutes
You want to feel your glutes lengthening for your squat.
It’s not a deadlift, your knees will bend, but it shouldn’t be all knees.
Two signs you’re not lengthening and sitting into your glutes:
You have to fold in half to sit back. (Now, if you have really long femurs or a narrow stance, you’ll need to lean forward a bit more. But if you widen your stance and you still find yourself bending over at the waist, it might be a good idea to check your rockbacks.)
You start with a neutral spine but then overarch your back to sit into the squat. Overarching the back and lengthening the hamstrings is a great way to look like you’re sitting back into your glutes when in reality you’re just going into a big anterior pelvic tilt. If this is the case, your low back will often feel tight after your squat.
To fix the folding in half, try holding on to something when you squat, like suspension straps. Then you can practice sitting back and down into those glutes.
#3. Neglecting to Keep a Neutral Spine
How we initiate a motion sets the tone for that exercise.
So if you arch your back to start, then your brain gets the signal, “this is a back exercise.” If you lengthen your glutes to start, then your brain gets the signal, “this is a glute exercise.”
Sitting the tone is important!
It’s much easier to do something right from the start than it is to play catch up. Wait, are we talking about life or squats?
See if you can spot the difference between initiating for the glutes lengthening vs the low back overarch?
#4. Head Alignment
Let’s do a test.
Look up at the ceiling and squat.
Did you feel how you wanted to overarch your back?
Now, put your chin to your chest and squat.
See how you wanted to tuck your bottom?
Our body follows our head. You’ll never see a gymnast look the opposite way for a flip.
Playing around with head positioning and where the eyes are looking can dramatically change a squat. If someone is having lots of trouble keeping their abs engaged, I might have them look down just a pinch more. If they are really having trouble sitting into their glutes, I might have them look up a pinch.
The real takeaway from this is to know where you should feel an exercise and make sure that is what’s working. When you’re doing squats, you should feel both your glutes and quads working, as well as your abs and low back. A balanced squat works everything, and working everything means you’ll be able to do more and get stronger without getting hurt because the effort is shared.
Want to learn more about where you should be feeling an exercise and which muscles should be working?
Three expert coaches in the fitness and rehab industry came together to build an incredible 12 week workout program to help you reach your fitness goals.
Everyone – women AND men, powerlifters AND CrossFitters, Batman AND Care Bears – can spend more time developing their glute, core and pelvic floor strength and integrity.
Sarah, Kellie, and Megan are phenomenal coaches and have put in a ton of work to make this a resource that can equally help (and be applied) fitness professionals and general population alike.
Fitness Professionals: to be able to assess and write effective corrective and training programs to address things like pelvic floor dysfunction, rectus diastasis (which effects males too), incontinence, and many other “intricate” issues that aren’t easy to train around (much less talk about).
General Population: to show you the basics needed to feel great and to set yourself up for as much success as possible if or when you choose to attack the iron.
Batman (in case you’re reading this): to fight crime in a more efficient and timely manner.
This program is thorough AF and the beauty is that it requires minimal equipment and can be done at home or in a gym.
I’ve performed a few of the workouts & movements myself and lets just say its highlighted a few glaring weaknesses on my end. What’s more, I’m learning a lot. This WILL make me a better coach.
The price is heavily discounted – $200 OFF – for two days only (6/28 and 6/29).
It increases $100 on June 30th – July 1st.
And then increases to full price on Monday, July 2nd.
You don’t have much time to take advantage, so I encourage you to do NOW.
I’ve never been to the Bay area and am pumped for this opportunity.
Yeah, yeah, I just Googled Mapped it and San Jose is 55 miles from San Francisco.
Close enough.
Either way I’m totally coming a day early so I can visit the Full House houses.
After that I’ll mozy on down to Palo Alto and try to make a cameo appearance at Stanford University to hang out with my boy Cory Schlesinger (<— Epic beard and an even epic(er) strength coach. You should follow him on Instagram HERE) and attempt to beat him in a game of H.O.R.S.E.
After my victory parade I’ll head to San Jose, either in a Nissan Sentra or a tank (whichever is a cheaper rental), to take part in what will inevitably be an amazing weekend hanging out with like-minded fitness professionals.
I’ll be presenting on the third and final day, first thing in the morning actually.3
My presentation will be: The Shoulder: From Assessment to Badass.
I.e., How to improve overhead mobility and shit. <— a working sub-title.
There are many outstanding presenters lined up for the RISE 2018 weekend including Molly Galbraith, Mark Fisher, Kellie Hart, Craig Ballantyne, and Pat Rigsby (to name a few).
If you’re a gym owner, studio owner, personal trainer, independent trainer, strength coach, or, I don’t know, a one-legged pirate, and you’re serious about taking your fitness business to the next level this is an event that can’t be passed up.
Early Bird Rate Is In Effect ——-> HERE. (same link as above, but marketing research suggests you’re 136% more likely to click this link4).
I’ve Got 5 TICKETS to Giveaway for FREE
As a presenter I’ve been given five tickets to give away.
“I……have…….the………power!”
[NOTE: One ticket has your name written all over it Matt Damon, Gal Gadot, Nolan Ryan, and/or He-Man.]
To that end, everyone who signs up within the next two weeks will be put into a raffle where I’ll randomly pick five names to win a FREE ticket to the event.
We had such a great response when Lisa and I hosted a SBSM Workshop in Boston last year that we decided to do it again this summer.
I’ll be speaking to assessment, coaching up common strength exercises (squats, deadlifts), and how to better “match” your programs to your client’s abilities and goals.
Lisa will be discussing how to better manage client expectations, motivation, and how to adopt better mindset strategies for success.
The umbrella theme of this workshop is to enhance the SOFTskills of coaching, how to garner a connection, and build rapport with your athletes/clients.
Spots are limited
Early Bird rates apply for both students ($99) and professionals ($129)
CEUs will be available (NSCA)
For more details (including itinerary and registration) go HERE.
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, Hoth – 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, Edmonton, 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.
My biggest pet peeve in this industry – other than kipping pull-ups7 – are people who think their way or what’s worked for them will automatically apply to everyone.
This applies to training, but it especially applies to nutrition.
“Face pulls? Really, Tony? That’s what you’re going to write about today? What’s next: Talking about the Kreb’s Cycle? Discussing all the uses of Osmium? Breaking down who will win this season of The Bachelorette?”8
I get it. Face pulls aren’t the most exciting exercise in the universe, but I’ve never been someone who feels exercise has to be entertaining.
I want to help get people results and I want people to stay healthy.
Face Pulls have been an exercise I’ve utilized in my programming – both personally and with clients – for as long as I can remember. I try not to play favorites but I can’t think of an instance where I haven’t sprinkled them into a program in some way, form, or fashion.
They’re one of the most user-friendly and effective exercises to strengthen the upper back, posterior cuff, and help keep the shoulders healthy.
Now that’s sexy.
In fact, if I were to rank their sexiness in the pantheon of sexy things it would look like this:
1. Sade singing pretty much anything.
2. Tom Selleck’s mustache.
3. Face Pulls.
4 – 13,908,743. Anything my wife wears, says, or does.
Hyperbole aside – is it too late to add my pecs onto that list? – there are few things to consider when it comes to common mistakes people make with the exercise and execution in general.
1. Face Pull Fix – General Set Up
It’s not inherently wrong to do so, but I’m not a huge fan of people utilizing a pronated (overhand) grip with this exercise.
It locks people into a more internally rotated position in the glenohumeral joint as well as narrows the acromion space, which can predispose people who are vulnerable to impingement syndrome.
Instead I like this approach:
2. Face Pull Fix – Too Much Low Back Movement
Another common mistake some make with the execution of this exercise is using a squared stance.
Again, it’s not inherently wrong, but a squared stance provides an opportunity for some people to crank through their lumbar spine and promote more of a rib flare.
The fix is to
Adopt a staggered stance
Revert to a tall or half-kneeling position.
Both options help omit extraneous movement from the lower back.
NOTE: Excessive forward head posture is common too and can be fixed by telling people to 1) stop doing that, 2) telling them to make a “double chin,” or 3) place a tennis ball underneath the chin.
3. Face Pull Fix – Adjusting to the Lifter
There’s never a one-size fits all approach to any exercise. As coaches and trainers it’s important to do our due diligence and adjust/temper any given exercise to fit the needs, goals, and ability level of our clients.
With the Face Pull I’ll usually set it up so the vector of pulling is in more of a top-to-down fashion.
Meaning: most often the goal is to nudge people into more scapular retraction and depression.
However, in some cases it can be challenging for some lifters – due to a litany of scenarios: pattern overload (too much bench pressing), sitting in front of a computer for half their life – to get into proper position to perform the exercise well.
Some may present with more anteriorly tilted scapulae and/or over-active upper traps and the exercise has to be adjusted.
4. Face Pull Fix – Scapular Motion
We want bone-on-bone congruency between the shoulder blades and rib cage throughout.
In other words: I want to see the scapulae move around the ribcage during this exercise.
Many retract/depress the shoulder blades when they bring the attachment towards their face, and then make the mistake of keeping the shoulder blades there when extending their arms.
To repeat: the shoulder blades should move around the ribcage.
I like to tell trainees they should feel a slight/subtle “stretch” when extending their arms out in front.
Face Pull Variety
For those who do like to keep things interesting, here are two Face Pull variations you may like.
It looks all inane, simple, and easy and stuff…but this one is a lot more challenging than it looks.
This will fire up everything on the backside of the shoulders and is superb at improving strength of the upper back and posterior cuff.
Face Pull w/ Band Abduction
I stole this one off Dr. John Rusin
and started experimenting with it recently. This is another variation that will really fire up the posterior cuff and strengthen the entire upper back.
Programming Tidbits
I try to include one form of rowing variation in just about every training session – yes, even on lower body days – with the bulk of my clients/athletes.
Face pulls, and rowing in general, are one of those things most people can’t perform enough of. To wrap things all in a nice little bow, I’m all about the “feel” of this exercise and am not entirely concerned with going very heavy.
To that end, I do prefer high(er) reps with Face Pulls and will often opt for 3-4 sets of 10-2o repetitions 2-4x per week. I tend to stick with using them as a stand alone exercise towards the end of a training session, but am also a big fan of pairing them with squats/deadlifts/bench press and performing them with EVERY set (even warm-ups).
It serves as a great way to ramp up rowing volume, but because they’re a relatively low-grade, non-aggressive exercise, they won’t compromise performance of subsequent sets of the big 3.
I’ll be in London in three weeks for this 2-day assessment, program design, PRI, deadlift till our faces melt off bonanza.
My buddy Luke Worthington (London’s handsomest man alive) and I are really excited for this workshop. We’re going to do a deep dive into the systems we both use to help our client/athletes get better.
What’s more, this event will be held at the brand spanking new Third Space location in the heart of London.
We had such a great response when Lisa and I hosted a SBSM Workshop in Boston last year that we decided to do it again this summer.
I’ll be speaking to assessment, coaching up common strength exercises (squats, deadlifts), and how to better “match” your programs to your client’s abilities and goals.
Lisa will be discussing how to better manage client expectations, motivation, and how to adopt better mindset strategies for success.
The umbrella theme of this workshop is to enhance the SOFTskills of coaching, how to garner a connection, and build rapport with your athletes/clients.
Spots are limited
Early Bird rates apply for both students ($99) and professionals ($129)
CEUs will be available (NSCA)
For more details (including itinerary and registration) go HERE.
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, Hoth – 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, Edmonton, 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.
You don’t always have to deadlift to improve your deadlift. Lana shares some insights and exercises she likes to help with performance on the sumo deadlift – especially for women.
Dan’s a coach I feel more people need be more aware of.
I’ve known him for several years, first meeting him when he was an assistant strength coach at Boston University, and now as the head S&C coach at Northeastern University here in Boston.
He’s one of the most forward thinking coaches I know.
He recently made a cameo on Mike Robertson’s podcast and, well, you should listen to it.
Social Media Shenanigans
Twitter
Not many things annoy me more than when a doctor tells a client of mine to stop training or to avoid exercising altogether. Instead to just rest. Outlier scenarios aside, rest = watching Netflix for 4 weeks. Sorry, that isn’t gonna “fix” anything.
A few weeks ago I presented at the Spurling Spring Seminar up in Kennebunk, Maine. The first presenter of the day, Portland based physical therapist Noah Harrison, blew me away with his talk on muscular tension.
Honestly, the only way his presentation could have been better is if he somehow included a pair of nunchucks.
Or a t-shirt cannon.
His message resonated with me and after he spoke I asked if he’d be interested in summarizing his thoughts in an article for my site. He was more than happy to oblige.
There are two aspects to what dictates the strength of a muscle; how big it is and how hard it can contract at any given moment, with any given movement. Keeping that in mind there are then two ways you can train a muscle to become stronger:
Make it bigger and give it more leverage.
Teach it to contract harder by creating more tension.
While hypertrophy obviously has its use, there are times our goal is simply to increase strength without having to buy a new wardrobe, or jump a weight class. There are also times we have a little more strength in our muscles as they already are, and it is simply a matter of getting them to work fully in the moment.
This article is about ways in which you can train your muscles to fire a little (or a lot) harder, instantaneously, and apply it to nearly any exercise you are performing.
Yes, you can practice tensing your muscles like a body builder during “X” movement, and if an EMG was attached to your area of focus it would read a spike.
The problem with consciously focusing on flexing your muscles during a movement is that this does produce increased tension locally where you are focusing, but often times at the expense of your performance. Quite often tensioning your muscles consciously while moving will result in you simply working harder, moving slower, and experiencing premature fatigue (1).
So how do you get your muscles to pump out more power without destroying your performance?
Simple: you will not do it consciously.
Instead you will do it reflexively. You will use the reflexive reactions you already have.
What I will map out are three body areas/actions that you can focus on with any given activity, and depending on what you do with these areas/actions will either elicit a reflexive increase or decrease in body wide muscular tension.
Again, this article will solely focus on increasing muscular tension.
The three areas/actions are:
What you do with your breath.
What you do with your hands.
What you do with your face.
Now there is no better place to begin talking about changing bodily tension than talking about…
What You Do With Your Breath
The general rule is that if you want to increase muscular tension then either hold your breath or forcefully exhale.
The latter, a forceful exhale, is preferred.
Why?
First, let’s look at what is happening with both these situations.
In one case you hold your breath and barrel down (a valsalva maneuver) and in the other you forcefully exhale through resistance. In both situations you are jacking up your intra-abdominal pressure (IAP), which is necessary to keep your trunk stiff and give your limbs leverage with anything difficult.
Core strength is pressure production, and if you want to be strong, you need to be able to make a lot of it.
However the valsalva maneuver (VM) has a few significant draw backs. The most notable is that you really cannot do many repetitions this way. One rep, maybe, but once you get to two or three repetitions deep into an exercise you will need to breathe.
The second drawback is that a VM is associated with some negative cardiovascular effects, including a sharp increase in your heart rate, blood pressure, as well as an increased risk of cerebral hemorrhage (2). Again, if it doesn’t kill you, holding your breath is going to gas you quicker than necessary.
The third problem is that a VM is associated with an increased risk of incontinence in certain populations (3, 4), which is not desirable if you or your client is trying to be active. Nobody, regardless of what Adam Sandler says, likes to pee themselves, and especially in the middle of a fierce effort.
Performing a forced exhalation (FE) has none of these issues, and has been shown to be as equally effective at spiking your IAP as a VM (2).
Additionally, a forced exhalation has been shown to increase the activation of your abdominal wall (5), is as effective at stiffening the trunk as bracing your abdominals (6), and even result in an instantaneous increase the strength of your grip and several large muscle groups throughout the body (2, 7).
We all know that a tight midsection is necessary to keep the body from crumbling during a strenuous task, but the take home from this should be to focus less on bracing your abdomen consciously.
Just forcefully exhale with the movement, and the abs will kick in automatically.
You have to breathe anyway; you may as well make it work in your favor. The general rule is to exhale with effort, and ingrain it with the movement you are performing.
How do you ingrain it? Every movement has a sticking point, you simply exhale through it.
See the video below for a demonstration of how to ingrain this into any exercise.
What You Do With Your Hands
This one is pretty simple.
If you want to increase body wide muscular tension, maximally tense your hands, preferably in a fist. If you are holding something, grip it hard (very hard). As a result, the rest of your body will “grip” harder as well.
In matters of strength, this is very convenient, because very often we are gripping something and either trying to move it (A barbell, dumbbell, kettlebell, etc) or ourselves around it (a pull up or dip bar). Simply aim your attention on what you are already doing.
How or why does this work? It probably comes down to both the law of irradiation, and how your cerebral cortex is organized.
Irradiation is a principle stating that the activity of a group of muscles will have a ripple effect on its neighboring parts (8). Meaning as you clench your hand harder, not only does your forearm tighten up, but your whole arm and shoulder does as well.
Grip even harder and your whole torso will become engaged. If you are not already trying this I encourage you to begin.
This has actually been measured, as research has shown that the harder you grip your hands, the harder your rotator cuff fires (9, 10). This is convenient, because if you are gripping a hold of something you would really like your shoulder to grab a hold of your body as well. Not only does gripping effect your shoulder, but your body as a whole; postural stiffness will increase the harder you grasp an obect (11). The utility of these reflexive responses with any pressing movement should go without saying.
So that is one factor, how about the second; your brain?
Well what is known is that there is a very large sensory and motor representation of both your hands and your face in the brain. Google “Homunculus Man” and you will see a model representation of this. It is a distorted image demonstrating the density of neurons in our cerebral cortex as it relates to sensing and moving our bodies in our environments.
You can think about this as that your brain both perceives and interacts with the world primarily via your face and hands, so whatever you do at these places will reverberate throughout your body.
If your hands are relaxed, your body will be as well. If your hands are tensed, then your brain will take you seriously and give you more juice. And in matters of strength, we all want juice.
So now we come to our third and final place to consider…
What You Do With Your Face
You may have a hard time believing your face matters so much in terms of strength, but it is true.
Do not forget that strange little homunculus man. Remember; your brain thinks the vast majority of you is face and hands. What you do in these places will resonate through your body.
What you do with you face can be further broken down into three factors;
Your eyes.
Your jaw.
Your facial expression as a whole.
Eyes
What you do at your eyes can be thought of as more steering your bodily tension than necessarily jacking it up or down.
It is well established that the body follows wherever the eyes gaze (12).
This means that if you look to the left, you will have a reflexive weight shift to the left, and the same goes for looking to the right, up or down. Although gymnasts, power lifters and weight lifters will use this often to their advantage to drive extension or flexion with a movement, the vast majority of us should stick to simply looking relatively forward with whatever movement we are performing.
So, for maximal tension; fix your eyes when doing something hard, and do not let them wander.
Jaw
Just as the tension in our hands seems to reverberate through our bodies, what we do at our jaws does as well.
No different than our hands, the amount of tension that we hold at our jaw has the ability to increase reflexive activity as distant as our forearms and calves (13, 14).
Yes you read that correctly; clench your jaw and your forearms and calves will fire harder. In fact, clenching your jaw has been shown to improve your athletic performance across varying endeavors, including a back squat and vertical jump (15, 16).
I would advise caution with this (and for some a mouthpiece), as some people have trouble relaxing their jaws then necessary engaging it. Other people may not have a fully congruent bite, and heavily clenching may cause more of a problem than a help.
Simply focus on setting your jaw and keeping your teeth touching firmly when you need more muscular effort.
Facial Expression
Think about it: setting your eyes and jaw is pretty much a game face now isn’t it?
Besides focusing on where your eyes look and keeping your mouth shut, it is common sense to be serious during a heavy or difficult lift.
Laughing is completely out, as it has been established that there exists a body-wide inhibition of muscular tension for up to 45 minutes after a bout of laughter (17, 18).
So, save the jokes for after the work is done.
Putting It All Together
Here it is; the meat and potatoes of it all.
If you want to increase body wide muscular tension, then simply:
Exhale with resistance.
Clench your fists.
Fix your eyes.
Set your jaw and be serious.
This comes down to learning to place your mental effort on these choice few factors with whatever challenging movement you are performing.
By doing this you set yourself up for the best chance at eliciting the highest potential your muscles and body as a whole has in that given movement, on that given day.
Integrate this into your training, and you will likely find that you become stronger not simply because your muscles have grown, but because they have learned to work together, better.
Enjoy!
[List of references below]
About the Author
Noah is a Physical Therapist and Strength Coach based out of Portland, Maine.
He is the owner of Portland Integrative Physical Therapy, through which he provides one-on-one musculoskeletal rehabilitation with a holistic, full body approach.
Noah has extensive training in a variety of rehabilitative approaches, and combines this with progressive strength training in order to build and restore strong and capable individuals.
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Ishida et al “Comparison between the effectiveness of expiration and abdominal bracing maneuvers in maintaining spinal stability following sudden trunk loading” J Electromyogr Kinesiol 2016 Feb; 26: 125-9
Li S, et al “Forced ventilation increases variability of isometric finger forces” Neurosci Lett 2007 Feb 2; 412(3): 243-7
Gontijo LB, et al “Evaluation of Strength and Irradiated Movement Pattern Resulting from Trunk Motions of the Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation” Rehabilitation Research and Practice Volume 2012, 6 pages
Sporrong H, et al “Influences of handgrip on shoulder muscle activity” Eur J Appl Occup Physiol 1995; 71(6): 485-92
Sporrong H, et al “Hand grip increases shoulder muscle activity, an EMG analysis with static hand contractions in nine subjects” Acta Orthop Scand 1996 Oct: 67(5): 485-90
Ustinova KI, et al “Postural stabilization by gripping a stick with different force levels” Gait & Posture 2013 May: 38(1): 97-103
Ivanenko YP, et al “Effect of gaze on postural responses to neck proprioceptive and vestibular stimulation in humans” Journal of Physiology 1999; 519(1): 301-314
Takashi T, et al “Modulation of H reflexes in the forearm during voluntary teeth clenching in humans” European Journal of Applied Physiology 2003 Nov; 90(5-6): 651-3
Miyahara T, et al “Modulation of human soleus H reflex in association of voluntary clenching of the teeth” J Neurophysiol 1996 Sep; 76(3): 2033-41
Ebben, WP, et al “Jaw clenching results in concurrent activation potentiation during the countermovement jump” J Strength Cond Res 2008 Nov; 22(6): 1850-4
Ebben WP, et al “Kinetic analysis of concurrent activation potentiation during back squats and jump squats” J Strength Cond Res 2010 Jun; 24(6): 1515-9
Paskind, J “Effects of laughter on muscle tone” Arch Neurol Psychiatry 1932; 28: 623-8
Overeem S, et al “Is motor inhibition during laughter due to emotional or respiratory influences?” Psychophysiology 2004; 41: 254-8
The concept is simple: to inspire people to take action on living the healthy life they deserve. Mitch sits down with guests to discuss habits, fitness, diet, and overall happiness.
I was fortunate enough to be one of those guests.
You can download our conversation via iTunes HERE (episode #64)
Noah is a Physical Therapist and Strength Coach based out of Portland, Maine.
