CategoriesProgram Design Strength Training

5 Quick Tips to Increase Strength

There are no “hacks” to getting strong. I’m a firm believer you get out of it what you put in.

It’s hard, and it takes a lot of hard work; oftentimes over the course of several years.

That said, below are a few “quick” tips that can help expedite the process. Admittedly there’s nothing profound or elaborate included, but I felt it important to suggest things that are easily accessible to the bulk of people who read this site.

Hope they resonate and help.5 Quick Tips to Increase Strength

1. WARNING: Captain Obvious suggestion of the day: Creatine

It still dumbfounds me to think there are people out there who train on a consistent basis, yet are still not taking creatine (and yes, this includes you as well ladies). It’s the most researched supplement in human history and it’s efficacy has been proven time and time again.

*It’s safe

*It works

*It’s NOT steroids

Just take five grams of creatine monohydrate (no need to buy the expensive brands that are laced with rocket fuel) per day and that’s that.

ADDENDUM: This is a suggestion. Not mandatory. The first step to addressing lack of progress is to audit your program and nutrition. If those two factors aren’t getting the job done, no one supplement is going to be the panacea.

That said, you still need to go train like a savage. Taking creatine alone isn’t going to mount to much.

2. Deadlift Barefoot

Everyone who trains with me here in Boston is told to take their shoes off when (s)he deadlifts.

To quote a new client I started with the other night

“Why?”

BECAUSE I SAID SO. HOW DARE YOU QUESTION ME. KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!!

Just kidding.

Well for starters, by taking your shoes off you’re now 1-2 inches closer to the ground, which is 1-2 inches less distance the bar has to travel.

Secondly, and more germane to the point, by taking your shoes off you’re now able to push through your heels. As a result, you’ll recruit more of your glutes and hamstrings to help out.

It’s not uncommon for some people to see a significant increase in how much weight they can pull off the ground from a little more posterior chain recruitment.

Thirdly, people will automatically think you’re badass cause you’re training with no shoes on. Of course, this is contingent on whether or not your feet smell like you’ve been walking through a sewer all day.

In that case, it’s your call.

3. Glute Activation

If your glutes aren’t able to fire full throttle, the hamstrings and lower back have to do more work than they’re accustomed to doing.

So from that standpoint paying more attention to glute activation can have positive repercussions for those suffering through chronic low-back pain.

However, people often forget the badonkadonks are not only the body’s dominant hip extensor which play a key role in athletics and strength, but are also a fairly large muscle that’s aesthetically pleasing to look at (cue obligatory fitness Insta-celebrity pic here).

Don’t worry, I got you too ladies:

By “turning on” the glutes with some simple activation techniques beforehand, you will undoubtedly be able to handle more weight when you squat and/or deadlift.

To that end, while I don’t have any PubMed research articles to back this up, more weight=more strength=more people want to see you naked.

Here are some of my favorites:

Up 2, Down 1

 

I like this variation because it allows for more eccentric overload on the lowering leg. Obviously one will need to master the two-legged variation first, but this is a nice progression to consider.

Band Resisted 1-Legged Hip Thrust

 

This is an ingenious variation I stole from Dean Somerset. If you’re looking to progress you’re 1-Legged Hip Thrust and having a hard time figuring out a way to do so, give this a try.

Creepy McCreepypants Frog Pumps

 

Popularized by none other than Bret Contreras, Frog Pumps are another fantastic exercise that aid in getting the glutes nice and juicy.

Thing is, they’re awkward as fuck to perform in public.

So, there’s only one way, and one way only, to perform them….

…..by copying Bret and Dr. John Rusin’s lead and making direct, intense eye contact with someone and making things creepy AF.1.

Reps can range anywhere from 15 to infinity.

4. Stop Testing Strength and Build It

I’m not the first to say this.

Many other coaches stronger than I – Chad Wesley Smith, Greg Robins, Julia Ladewski, Pavel, to name a few – have reverberated this quote on repeat throughout the years.

Far too often trainees head to the gym week in and week out and “test” their lifts rather than actually build them.

Now, mind you, lifting heavy things (90% + of 1 rep-max) is a non-negotiable factor to getting strong. However, as I noted in THIS blog post sub-maximal training (I.e., predominately using loads in the 65-85% range) is much UNDER-valued component to strength training.

In other words: loads in those ranges help one to BUILD strength.

Moreover, utilizing more sub-maximal training – while having an obvious muscle building effect (bigger muscles often equate to more force output) – also allows trainees to hone their technique and to get into (and maintain) proper positions to exhibit their strength more effectively.

5. Use Novelty Sparingly

Unlike coaches Dan John or Mike Boyle, I don’t find myself to be a very quotable person.

However, I am proud of this one:

“Look, I’m not bashing exercise variety. Variety has a time and place. However, the greatest gap in most people’s training isn’t lack of novelty, but rather lack of mastery.”

Many trainees have what I like to call “Squirrel Syndrome” when it comes to working out.

They start doing an exercise (or in most cases start an exercise program) and before they’ve put down the dumbbell on their first set they’re distracted by a new “squirrel.”

 

In this case the squirrel is an entirely new exercise program or a bright, shiny, new exercise.

– “Jumping Jack BOSU Bicep Curls?”

– “Sweet Christmas, I need that in my life.”

Want to get stronger?

Stop hopping exercise to exercise or program to program. It’s almost impossible to see steady progress if you’re heavy-handed on the novelty.

I like Jim Wendler’s approach to programming for strength:

“The boring shit works.”

Observe anyone who’s strong or has a physique you admire and almost always they’re doing very vanilla things in the weight room.

Contrarily, watch most other asshats who cry afoul about hitting their genetic ceiling2(or something equally as lame):

Jumping Jack BOSU Bicep Curls.

CategoriesSupplements

Creatine (Wait, Stop! I Promise This Post Won’t Make Your Head Hurt)

Creatine has been around for well over 20+ years and is undoubtedly one of the most researched (and popular) sports and performance supplements in human history.  Still, there’s a lot of preconceived notions and misinformation regarding creatine and its efficacy.

Some people think it’s a steroid (it’s not), some people think it will stunt growth (it doesn’t), some people think it will shut down your kidneys faster than Congress can shut down the Federal Government (it’s close, but no cigar; in fact, it’s perfectly safe), and some think creatine is part of the Periodic Table of Elements (Walter White would be disappointed in you).

And while there’s certainly no shortage of blog posts, articles, and even books written on the topic, this post written by Eric Bach of Bach Performance won’t make your head hurt with long words and overly “sciency” stuff.

In every essence of the phrase, he gets right down to the nitty gritty and tells it like it is.

Enjoy! – TG

Creatine. We’ve all heard about it, but what’s the real deal?

I get tons of questions regarding the safety and effectiveness of creatine.

Does it make me look better naked?

Will it turn me into a deadlifting Megatron?

What’s the ideal dosing?

Is it dangerous?  Are there any side-effects?

With all the products and information it’s no wonder there are questions.  I’m going to dig in and tell you what creatine is, how to use it, and what to expect.

What is it?

Creatine is a natural amino acid most commonly found in red meat, but is also produced in small amounts by the liver, kidneys, and pancreas. In the body, creatine becomes a fuel source for short duration high-intensity activities such as weight training, sprinting, and jumping where phosphocreatine is converted to ATP.

The amount of creatine consumed through the diet and produced naturally in the body are low; supplementation increases available levels.

Why It’s Important

*Warning, this gets a bit heavy.  But I promise it will be fairly painless.

The energy needs of brief and powerful movements lasting less than 10 seconds, such as a short sprint or a maximum lift, are met by the phosphagen system. This system replenishes the stores of adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, which provides energy to working cells  (Andrews).

Muscles have a small amount of ATP in the cell, but only a little bit — enough for a few seconds. ATP is broken down by removing a phosphate, which turns it into adenosine diphosphate. To generate more ATP, the muscles need to replace the third missing phosphate. AH-HA!

This is where Batman creatine saves the day. Creatine donates a phosphate for ADP to become ATP again, providing fuel to finish the sprint without a drop in performance.

Supplementing with creatine creates larger stores of creatine, allowing for more ATP for short-duration exercise performance.  Endurance athletes have also experimented with the use of creatine, but for the most part creatine is not useful in endurance sports.

Basically, more creatine let’s you go Beastmode for longer. And that’s cool.

Do You Even Lift, Bro?

A sweet side effect of creatine supplementation is weight gain. Some don’t gain any weight, and some gain 5-10 pounds, it’s highly individualized.

Here’s the deal: Creatine is osmotic, meaning it pulls water into the cells. When supplementing with creatine it’s best to drink boat-loads (this is an actual measurement, trust me bro) of water to properly hydrate the body.

When this happens your muscles pull additional water into the muscle, increasing cell volume. The additional hydration increases the speed of protein synthesis within the muscle, boosting muscle growth and recovery.

Safety Concerns

Contrary to the beliefs of its pundit’s, creatine is safe. Creatine has gone through extensive research and testing without significant findings that it’s harmful.

The biggest issues related to creatine relate to dehydration, which can lead to soft-tissue injuries such as a strain, and hypothesized kidney dysfunction at extremely high levels.

Recently, increased research and testing of creatine have analyzed the effectiveness of creatine on health related outcomes. Preliminary evidence has suggested supplementation can be beneficial in the treatment of a broad range of diseases, neurodegenerative disorders, cancer, rheumatic diseases, and type 2 diabetes.

How to Use It

The body can store only a limited amount of creatine. I don’t recommend a loading phase for my clients; rather, taking 5-10 grams per day.

On workout days dose it pre and post-workout with your beverage of choice. Taking creatine with a protein or carbohydrate beverage can increase absorption, as the increased insulin response will pull more creatine into the muscle tissue. A recovery drink works better than beer, trust me. 

On non-workout days creatine works well in the morning with a drink such as green tea. Using a warm drink helps dissolve creatine better, so the bottom of your beverage doesn’t taste like a sandbox.

Other Types of Creatine

There has been an influx of new creatine products hitting the market over the past few years. Despite the fancy marketing and price tag they aren’t better than good ole’ creatine monohydrate. In this study, creatine ethyl ester was found to not be as effective as creatine monohydrate at increasing serum and muscle creatine levels OR in improving body composition, muscle mass, strength, and power.

Sounds busted to me.

Wrap Up

Creatine is a great supplement that increases high-intensity exercise performance and boosts muscle mass. Stick with creatine monohydrate, as it’s the most tested and proven form. 5-10 grams per day should work great, especially if taken post-workout with your recovery meal or in a warm beverage on non-workout days.

To maximize creatines’ effectiveness and alleviate any safety concerns hydrate your body.

About the Author

 

Eric Bach, CSCS, PN1 is a Strength Coach in Denver, Colorado. Eric trains clients in-person at Steadman Hawkins Sports Performance and is President of Bach Performance. A writer for EliteFTS, thePTDC, and STACK, Eric has established a great reputation for his simplistic style, nutritional programming, and helping clients develop long-term lifestyle changes.

Come hang out with Eric on Facebook, twitter, or drop him a line at Bachperformance.com.

Resources:

Andrews, Ryan. “All About Creatine.” Precision Nutrition. Precision Nutrition Inc., n. d. Web. 2 Nov. 2013. <http://www.precisionnutrition.com/all-about-creatine>.

Baechle TR & Earle RW. Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning. National Strength Training Association, 2nd ed. Human Kinetics. Champaign, IL. 2000.

Green AL, et al. Carbohydrate ingestion augments skeletal muscle creation accumulation during creatine supplementation in humans. Am J Physiol 1996;271:E821-E826.

Gualano, B., H. Roschel, A. H. Lancha Jr, C. E. Brightbill, and E. S. Rawson. “National Center for Biotechnology Information.” In Sickness and in Health: The Widespread Application of Creatine Supplementation. (2011). National Center for Biotechnology Information. U.S. National Library of Medicine. Web. 28 May 2012. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22101980.

Spillane, Mike, et al. The effects of creatine ethyl ester supplementation combined with heavy resistance training on body composition, muscle performance, and serum and muscle creatine levels. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 2009, 6:6doi:10.1186/1550-2783-6-6.

CategoriesUncategorized

Supplement Review: Supplements That Suck, Supplements That Work, and Supplements That Are Underrated Part II

Yesterday in Part One of this series Sol Orwell and the guys over at Examine.com discussed a handful of supplements that they feel are about as useful as a poop flavored lollypop.  Which is to say:  not very useful.

As a strength coach and as someone who’s routinely discussing supplementation with younger athletes and general population clientele, especially to those who feel that they’re the magic bullet they’ll need to take their performance (and physique) to the next level, it was great to see some of the more well recognized ones thrown under the microscope for further inspection.

Besides, as I like to tell the vast majority of people:  if your current nutrition and training routine isn’t eliciting the results you’re after, no supplement is going to become the “x” factor.

More often than not it’s just a matter of making better food choices and actually going to the gym to train rather than wasting time on the internet talking about it.

That said, not all supplements deserve the bad rap.  In today’s post, Sol discusses some of the supplements he feels deserves their reputation, as well as those he feels should steal a bit more of the spotlight.

Enjoy!  And please, share your thoughts below.  Any supplements you feel deserve more recognition? 

Supplements that Deserve their Reputation

Creatine

Creatine is a molecule that seems to have a vitamin-like effect on the body. Relative creatine deficiency (especially common in vegetarians) may result in suboptimal cognition and strength levels. True creatine deficiency (only achievable via genetics) results in mental retardation.

Creatine is most commonly used for the purpose of increasing power output and the rate of building muscle, and it is definitely proven for these roles as it is currently the most well researched ergogenic aid (performance enhancer) in existence.

Creatine works for increasing power output during anaerobic exercise (powerlifting, bodybuilding, sprinting, etc.) and although it may have crossover to endurance based events it doesn’t seem as reliable. It has less evidence for increasing the rate of building muscle but this appears to also be true. Putting muscle cells in an energy surplus state tends to increase the rate of which they grow, and creatine is a very readily available source of energy.

Evidence is being gathered in creatine also have positive effects on cognition.

Beta-alanine (and a note on its “big brother”)

Firstly, beta-alanine needs to have a jab taken at it for two things: potency and instances when it is used.

  • Yes, beta-alanine works; no, it is not magical. It might enhance endurance performance by around 2% or so, nothing astonishing although it can provide a needed benefit
  • Yes, beta-alanine works for endurance; it doesn’t really do anything reliable for strength (it might, some weak evidence for building muscle like creatine) and seems to only reliably increase physical performance for exercise exceeding 60s (and under 240s; these numbers derived from the only meta-analysis on the topic)

However, given those two qualifying statements, beta-alanine does increase performance and secondary to that can increase training adaptations.

Beta-alanine is essentially a lactic acid buffer (hence its lack of efficacy for power output –  lactic acid is not the reason you fail on a 5 rep max test) similar to its lesser known big brother, sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). Both of these compounds are essentially the same, just reduce the influence of acidity on muscle failure and you can go longer until failure; they aren’t too potent as you cannot disturb pH in the body easily, but they do work.

 

Vitamin D

The increased popularity of vitamin D in the last decade is actually quite remarkable, and its growth in popularity seems to even exceed that of fish oil when the latter first arrived on the scene. In regards to vitamin d, it is definitely beneficial in a few disease states for preventative purposes although it is not the panacea it is sometimes held up to be.

Vitamin d is stored in the body and when it is needed it is converted into a bioactive hormone known as 1,25-dihydroxycalciferol. Negative things are associated with a state that attempts to produce the hormone but has insufficient vitamin d to do so, and supplementing vitamin d alleviates this possible negative.

Thus, Vitamin d is critical for people in a deficient state. The combination of our indoor lives coupled with pollution means that most people outside of the tropics tend to be in a deficient state. Supplementing with 2000 UI while you get your vitamin d levels tested is a smart way to go.

So although the outcome is still beneficial, vitamin d supplementation is more about alleviating negatives rather than inducing positives.

Supplements that Deserve More Recognition

Sodium Bicarbonate

Referred to earlier as beta-alanine’s bigger brother, sodium bicarbonate (aka baking soda) actually has a fair bit of evidence for performance enhancement. It shares a lot of similarities with beta-alanine, being an acidity buffer and improving performance that is hindered by lactic acid.

Recently, it has been shown to provide benefit to hypertrophy exercise in resistance trained males at the dose of 300mg/kg bodyweight.

The pros of sodium bicarbonate include its very good cost-efficacy in regards to the financial price (you can buy baking soda at a grocery store) and pretty good performance enhancement.

The main downside is too much taken at once will cause a snowstorm coming from your butt; the sodium bicarbonate doesn’t even change color when it does this, actually being quite hilarious the first time it occurs (to somebody else).

Note from TG:  Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhaha.

Due to this, sodium bicarbonate is taken in multiple doses throughout the day and with soluble fiber containing meals to try and minimize this side-effect which appears to be related merely to taking too much at once.

Beetroot

Beetroot is merely a vessel for the molecule known as inorganic nitrate. Nitrate is absorbed in the intestines and regurgitated (surprisingly a good term) into saliva where it is converted to nitrite. When swallowed the saliva nitrite can be converted into nitric oxide and sustain physical performance.

Beetroot is most commonly used for nitrate due to it being in the class of vegetables that are the richest source of nitrate (alongside spinach, rocket, celery, and swiss chard). It’s cheap to purchase in bulk quantities and the tastiest to blend and consume before exercise.

It does not appear to be effective for acute power output improvement, but similar to beta-alanine it can enhance physical endurance exercise and more prolonged endurance exercise.

Similar to other nitric oxide related supplements, it is also ‘healthy’ from a cardiovascular health perspective and also may confer other benefits related to nitric oxide (namely reductions in blood pressure and increased frequency of erections).

In regards to the connection between nitrates and cancer (nitrate, used as food preservative, is thought to be a factor in the connection between pink meats and processed meats with cancer) the cancer link is dependent on production of nitrosamines from nitrate. This production seems to occur at a greatly reduced rate in the presence of any antioxidant, with vitamin c being used most frequently in research. Due to antioxidants present in beetroot, nitrosamine production is not a concern.

This is also a reason why, if using supplemental nitrate, a coingested antioxidant would be a good idea (or just to take the supplement with some fruit).

Citrulline

Citrulline is essentially a more effective form of arginine (which tends to be pretty popular).

L-Citrulline is an amino acid that, following absorption, is sent to the kidneys and simply converted to l-arginine. It is superior to l-arginine itself because of its superior absorption rate; l-arginine is poorly absorbed, and malabsorbed l-arginine proceeds to the colon to then induce diarrhea.

Citrulline carries all the same benefits of l-arginine except at a lower dose due to enhanced absorption (5-8g commonly being used). It usually comes as citrulline malate, which gives it a slight sour/tangy taste.

Author’s Bio

Kurtis Frank and Sol Orwell are cofounders of Examine.com, where they spend their time making sense of scientific studies on supplements and nutrition. They also have a Beginners Guide to Supplements, which you should really, really check out (subtle hint).