CategoriesStuff to Read While You're Pretending to Work

Stuff to Read While You’re Pretending to Work: 12/5/14

I’m in trouble.

I was perusing Netflix yesterday morning trying to find something quick to watch while I ate my eggs when I noticed the show Forensic Files was now available to stream.

Was started off as me thinking “Oh, I’ll watch like one or two episodes” (they’re 20 minutes each), turned into five, and I ended up getting zero work done yesterday.

I then came home from the gym last night and somehow convinced Lisa to watch two more episodes with me. And I just watched four more this morning.

I……..can’t……..look……..away.

I feel like Frank the Tank from the movie Old School – “once it hits your lips, it’s so good!!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4quisonHOJE

The show is like crack. And, for the record: there are some messed up people out there!! As much as the show is impossible to turn away from, it also makes you want to lock all your doors, screw all your windows shut, turn off the lights, and huddle in the corner of your apartment.

Anyhoo – I managed to turn off the television without going so far as to throw it out the window, and now I’m finally sitting down to write this blog and then spend the rest of the morning writing some programs.

Lets get to this week’s list of stuff to read:

Four Ways to Band Up Your Deadlift – David Dellanave

Much like my affinity for dark documentary crime series, when it comes to anything written on deadlifts I’m like a moth drawn to a flame.

In this superb article Dave breaks down a few ways to add bands to your deadlift training, including one INGENIOUS way to implement when you’re stuck traveling and have little access to a gym let alone a barbell to do deadlifts with.

Also, just a reminder that Dave’s resource Off the Floor: A Manual For Deadlift Domination is on sale at HALF-OFF until TONIGHT (Friday 12/5) at midnight.

Unlike most other resources Dave’s approach takes a unique perspective in that he incorporates autoregulation, which is just a fancy term used to describe what it means to listen to what your body is telling you.

In addition, in the year since its first release Dave has used feedback to help develop three new programs for the manual as well as add a bunch of other cool stuff, including a little over an hour of new video coaching content.

It’s an excellent resource, I love it, and feel if you’re someone looking to add somer serious progress to your deadlift this is something you can’t pass up!

The Double Rep Method – Will Vatcher

I saw this article last week and admittedly almost rolled my eyes. But after reading it, I really liked the idea it proposed and am starting to experiment myself.

It’s BRUTAL!!!!  So if you’re looking for a change of pace in your program, at the mercy of sounding cliche, this may be exactly what you’re looking for!

The Bretzel and Bretzel 2.0 – Gray Cook

Fans of Gray Cook (and Brett Jones) will know this one as it’s an oldie-but-goodie. The Bretzel and Bretzel 2.0 are two drills we’ve been incorporating more and more into our pre-work and “corrective” work with a lot of our athletes and clients at Cressey Sports Performance.

They’re both excellent drills that hammer a lot of stuff at once. Bretzel 1.0 = anterior chain. Bretzel 2.0 = posterior chain.

Bonus Stuff

1. I, along with Jen Sinkler and Neghar Fonooni helped contribute to an article that was featured on Yahoo! Health recently on the Turkish Get-Up: The Full-Body Exercise That Absolutely Everyone Should Be Doing.

2. Now that we’re smack dab in the middle of the Holiday season it’s time for the majority of us to start thinking about the inevitable New Year’s resolution to lose some weight or firm up a bit.

Nutrition is generally the one bottleneck for most people because, lets be honest, most of us are stubborn. Everyone is set in the their ways, has their likes and dislikes (I’m sorry but gluten free bread tastes like sawdust sprinkled with sandpaper shavings), and most telling of all, people are confused as f*** as to what they should be eating.

There’s a lot of noise out there, and it’s no surprise that many are paralyzed or overthink what or how they should be eating (no carbs after 7PM!). And well, some people don’t do any thinking at all (chocolate comes from a plant. Plants are green. Chocolate is salad!).

The people over at Precision Nutrition are gearing up for their annual Lean Eating Program, which is pretty much the quintessential coaching-based nutrition support program out there.

I have many of my own clients use their services, and I know many, many fitness professionals who have also used Precision Nutrition to not only act as their coach, but to use it as a learning experience as well.

PN has just released their FREE Starter Kit which as a stand along thing is worth more than what most diet books try to sell you for whatever is they charge for useless (or to be less cynical: regurgitated) information.

For the men’s kit go HERE.

For the women’s kit go HERE.

Both kits offer their own unique content tailored to both men and women, and like said they’re both FREE. You don’t have much to lose. And hey, they may serve as the impetus to finally hold yourself accountable and make 2015 your most healthy year yet!

CategoriesExercise Technique Miscellaneous Miscellany

Miscellaneous Miscellany Monday: Get-ups, Deadlifts, and B-Days

1.  I have a love-hate relationship with Turkish get-ups.

Photo Credit: John Maguire

As a coach I love them in the sense of how much bang-for-my-training-buck they provide. I get asked all the time from my athletes and clients “what the hell do these get-up thingamabobbers do anyways?” To which I respond: what don’t they do?

Dean Somerset wrote an excellent article last week on T-Nation HERE which mirrors many of my own thoughts on the matter.

But to expound a bit more, you can think of get-ups as loaded yoga. Yes, I can use the word “yoga” in a sentence and not throw up a little in my mouth….;o)

Truth be told: 98% of the dynamic warm-up drills that we use on a regular basis at Cressey Sports Performance are derived and have their base in yoga. Likewise, a fair number of basic strength training moves like planks (and all their iterations), yoga push-ups, and certain lunge variations have their ancestry in yoga.

So it’s not like yoga doesn’t deserve some credit!

Taking the thought process a bit further, can you name another exercise which incorporates so many valuable components as the get-up? We have lying, rolling, glute activation, bridging, scapular stability, overhead static hold, core stability/strength, half kneeling, and lunging; and then a reversal of all of that. About the only thing get-ups don’t do is remember to set the DVR to record the latest episode of The Walking Dead, GODDAMMIT!!!!

As a trainee I hate get-ups.

1. No exercise does a better job at highlighting any glaring weaknesses up and down the kinetic chain. Whether it’s limited hip flexor length, having hip mobility that would rival the ROM of a pregnant rhino, poor scapular stability, or weakness in general, get-ups are going to humble you.

2. Using a more personal anecdote, get-ups just take F.O.R.E.V.E.R to perform. Coming from a guy who thinks anything that requires more than five reps is cardio, the fact that it takes upwards of one minute to complete ONE SIDE of a get-up makes me want to punch myself in the neck. It’s so annoying.

The thing is: when performed correctly, that’s how long a get-up should take!

Dr. Mark Cheng was kind enough to make a cameo appearance two weekends ago at mine and Dean’s Excellent Workshop in LA.

He spent a solid 90 minutes taking all the attendees through the kettlebell swing and get-up. I learned more in those 90 minutes than anything I’ve watched or read in the past five years (no offense to those who’s DVDs I watched and books/articles I read!).

Side Note: Mark is the guy James Fell interviewed for THIS article a few years ago that time Jillian Michaels tried to pretend she knew what she was talking about when it came to whatever it is she was trying to demonstrate here.

– For example, why are they called TURKISH get-ups in the first place? Why not Canadian get-ups or Vulcan get-ups? Why do the Turks get all the love?

It seems back in the day, and I assume present day too, the Turks were kind of badass. I forget what term Mark used, but he described the form of grappling they typically trained their warriors in, and how they used to do so all oiled up.

You know how hard it is to grip or grab something that’s all wet or sweaty, right? Well imagine that only 100x more challenging and homoneurotic (depending on what your definition of an ideal Friday night is)1

Anyways, waaaaaaay back in the day, in order to even be considered “man enough” to train and to learn how to fight the Turks made it a prerequisite you had to perform a get-up with close to a 100 lb kettlebell (give or take a few lb’s). While fighting a grizzly with your free hand!

Okay, I made that last part up….but still. WTF!!!!!

Point: Turks. Well played.

– Another tidbit I didn’t realize was that Mark is the guy who implemented the high bridge into the get-up! This isn’t to say he feels this is the correct way to do the get-up, but rather to suggest there’s more than one approach to any given component.

To transition from the seated overhead position to the half kneeling position you can do so in a variety of ways depending on preference and/or limitations. You can use the basic leg sweep, the leg switcharoo (<— where you essentially stay seated the entire time, switch leg positions, then stand up), the two-legged squat approach, or the high bridge.

– According to Mark he was toying around with the high bridge one day (as it emulated a specific move in his favorite form of fighting), and he and Gray Cook had an Ah-HA moment! The high bridge, when you pause to think about it, “clears” people from hip flexor limitations. If they can’t get full hip extension, their hip flexors may be a limitation.

Again, as Mark adamantly noted, the high bridge IS NOT a requirement!!! He’s not married to one way or the other with regards to completing the movement. It just comes down to personal preference.

– The get-up should be a controlled movement!  If you have to speed up in order to complete any one step, you lack stability. Speed = instability!!!!

As I alluded to above, when done correctly, the get-up should take upwards of 60s PER SIDE!!!

– Mark prefers to using anywhere from 20-24kg for his get-ups and “grease the groove.” He can go higher – much higher – but that’s not necessarily the point of the exercise. It’s to do shit right (my words, not his. But I know he wouldn’t disagree).

In short: SLOW DOWN!!!!!!

2. Thanks to everyone who went out of their way to send me B-day wishes yesterday. As you can tell I had a rough day.

Lisa snapped this pic in the middle of the afternoon as I was taking a nap. I fell asleep watching The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey for the 17th time.

Don’t worry, though. I recovered nicely, took off my lame hat, and Lisa and I went to an amazing dinner last night with our friends Pat and Brianne.

A quick nod to Sarma (located in Somerville, MA) for an unreal menu and dinner.

3. Deadlifts!!!!

Last year my good friend, Dave Dellanave, released what I felt was one of the best deadlift(centric) resources I had ever come across  – Off the Floor.

It just so happens that after receiving feedback and testimonials over the past year, Dave’s fine tuned his program and has added a bunch of new content and add-ons.

As if listening to a guy who has deadlifted 3x bodyweight on three different deadlift variations – not to mention owning a few world records to boot – wasn’t enough, Off the Floor now includes three different programs (beginner, intermediate, and advanced), a slew of new grip challenges, in addition to just under an hour of new video content (including Dave talking about the concept of autoregulation).

It’s off the hook and something I feel would be an excellent addition to anyone interested in improving their deadlift; or just their overall level of badassery in general.

For more info you can go HERE (<—- link to an article, not a sales page).

4. Seriously, how freakin cute is my cat?

CategoriesProduct Review Program Design Strength Training

A Deadlift 3 Times Per Week Program

It’s rare that I post anything on the weekend, but when I do you know it’s kind of a big deal.  Today I’ve got a special guest post from Dave Dellanave, author of the brand spankin new resource (and arguably the best title for a book, like ever) Off the Floor: A Manual for Deadlift Domination.

Admit it. As soon as you read the title of this post you were thinking “No way.” The deadlift is a lift you perform once per week, if that. It’s too taxing on the CNS and there’s just no way your lower back can handle deadlifting that often. Plus, your hands would probably get torn to shreds, and your gym would kick you out for dropping a heavy bar over and over again every time you come in to lift.

Right?

Is everything evil we’ve been told about frequent deadlifting true? People often say the same thing about squatting, and many authors have dispelled and debunked that myth, including our gracious host, Tony.

What I’d like to do here is convince you that if you like deadlifting, it’s more than okay to deadlift more frequently, and you stand to gain tremendously from it. Here are a few reasons I deadlift as often as I do, and I think you should, too:

  • There aren’t many ways to work more muscles than the deadlift. From your hands up to your neck, down your entire back to your calves, and back up the fronts of your legs and your abs, almost every muscle in your body is working during a deadlift. Maybe the only thing it doesn’t develop impressively is your chest. (But who cares about chest muscles when you’ve got a massive back?)
  • Picking up heavy things is an essential life movement. It’s unlikely that a single day goes by that you don’t pick something up. When the time comes to lift something heavy, it’s pretty awesome to not even have to think twice about it because you know it’s a fraction of your deadlift.

  • Having a big deadlift is like having a cheat code for every lift in the gym. I will be the first to tell you I am an embarrassing hack when it comes to the Olympic lifts, the snatch and the clean and jerk. Yet I can snatch over my bodyweight, and I can clean over 275 pounds, simply because I can cheat with my strength. I won’t be competing at the next Olympic Games, to be sure, but it’s not a bad start from next to nothing. My point is, relative to a triple-bodyweight deadlift, most other things in the gym become easier to achieve.
  • Let’s be honest, nothing is more awesome than taking a heavy bar in your hands and standing up with it like all that is man.

Fortunately, I don’t think I have too much of a tough sell to convince you, a reader of Tony’s site, that deadlifting is awesome. So how can you do it more often?

As I mentioned initially, most programs involve deadlifting once per week with very low sets and reps at a high percentage of your max. For good reason, as well, since it is true that unless you’re very, very new to lifting and very weak, you’re not going to be able to deadlift heavy three times per week. At least, not for very long before you run out of steam. To pull off that frequency, you’ll need a little more creativity and variety. Here’s what I suggest:

  • Day 1:  Heavy, low-rep deadlifts. This looks like your typical deadlift programming, with your favorite deadlift variation performed at a high intensity (meaning percentage of max, not turning up the music and getting slapped before you lift) for 1 to 5 reps and a few heavy working sets.

  • Day 2: Grip deadlifts. Picking up anything heavy off the ground is a deadlift. To cut down the absolute amount of weight lifted, make it hard to hold on to. An extra-thick bar or a pinch lifting block is a great way to do that. Since your hands are going to be the limiting factor here, it’s going to be awfully hard to do too much, so feel free to crank up the volume.
  • Day 3: Light technique or speed. This is your chance to amp up the volume because you’ve dialed down the intensity. At a lighter weight you can either do a lot more reps to hone your technique, use as much speed as possible to improve your rate of force development, or both. At first you will require a fair amount of recovery from higher-volume deadlifting, but in a few weeks you’ll be surprised at how little recovery you actually need and how much work you can get in without affecting your heavy days. If you’re on a M-W-F lifting schedule, you’re probably wondering how it would go to lift heavy on Monday after doing a ton of deadlifts on Friday. Again, you’ll be surprised at how little it affects you negatively, and how it can even improve your heavy days.

This is, in a nutshell, is the program I lay out in my book Off The Floor.

Of course, to round out the program you’ll want to fill in any gaps with appropriate accessory exercises, but this should give you a great starting point. If you love deadlifting even half as much as I do, you’ll get your fix as often as you can handle by deadlifting three (or more) times per week.

Sometimes beliefs, even unfounded ones, can be very limiting. I’ve found, through my own experience and helping people improve their own deadlifts, that not only can you get away with deadlifting often but it’ll do exactly what you want it to do: make you stronger, put more muscle on your body, and up your deadlift numbers.

Looking for more insights like these on the deadlift – as well as a great program to help you improve your pull?  Be sure to check out Dave’s new product, Off the Floor: A Manual for Deadlift Domination, which is on sale at a great price until Saturday (Sept. 7th) at midnight. 

I read it one sitting last weekend while snuggling on the couch in a blankie, and literally had to resist the urge to hop in my car to drive to the facility right then and there to go train.  It’s awesome.

If I were you I’d act quickly, because the price increase 50% by midnight tonight.

About the Author

David Dellanave is a lifter, coach, and owner of The Movement Minneapolis in the Twin Cities. He implements biofeedback techniques, teaching his clients, ranging from athletes to general population, to truly understand what their bodies are telling them. He writes articles to make you stronger, look better naked, and definitely deadlift more at http://www.dellanave.com/.

Twitter: http://twitter.com/ddn

Facebook: http://facebook.com/movementminneapolis