CategoriesMiscellaneous Miscellany

Miscellaneous Miscellany Monday: It’s Go Time Edition

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these.

First things first: We’re in the final countdown for baby Gentilewis1 to arrive. Lisa entered week #40 this week and we’re gearing up for the due date which is technically this Friday, January 27th.

Copyright: alien185 / 123RF Stock Photo

 

We think we’re ready, but we’re both pretty realistic about the shit-show (literally and figuratively) that’s about to be dropped into our laps. Don’t get me wrong: we’re both super excited and pumped. However, all of that is met with equal parts trying not to destroy the back of our pants too.

If for some reason I happen to not update this blog this week, you will know why.

Wish us luck….;o)

1. It’s still surreal to think that by this time next week I’ll be someone’s daddy. I have zero confidence I’ll be able to keep my bearings and I know it’s going to be one of the most emotional and spectacular events of my life.

My emotions came to the forefront even more this past weekend when I finally sat down to watch the documentary, Gleason.

 

It’s hard to explain in words how this film made me feel. As a relatively newlywed (1.5 years) and a dad-to-be, it definitely brought to light the unparalleled beauty, complexity, and tragedy that life can deal us sometimes. We can either bow down or do something about it.

Do yourself a favor and watch this film. Keep a box of Kleenex handy too.

2. My wife is a rock star. Throughout her entire pregnancy she’s been hitting the gym pretty hard. She’s kept up with her strength training 3-4x per week in addition to teaching three spin classes per week.

Lisa will be 35 weeks pregnant tomorrow. Forget the idea that we’re quickly approaching the “shit is now getting real” window and that I’m equal parts excited and trying not to destroy the back of pants. How cool is it that Lisa’s still getting after it in the gym? Strength training through pregnancy can be a tricky thing and I always default to how the woman feels and whether or not anything makes her feel weird. Prior experience plays a key role here. In Lisa’s case: 20+ years of strength training prior (and the load used in this video – 155 lbs – is no where near her 1RM). All that said I do find there’s still a lot of stigma with training through pregnancy and unfortunately many women are told to stop lifting weights. Of course no pregnancy is the same, but assuming one is healthy and has experience there’s no reason not to keep up with it. Modifications need to be addressed as a woman progresses (in the case of the video above we elevated the trap bar, even with high handle setting, to accommodate for her belly), but we need to do a better job at relaying the message that pregnancy is NOT a disease and doesn’t mean you have to be relegated to the elliptical and pink dumbbells.

A video posted by Tony Gentilcore (@tonygentilcore) on

 

Although, she did stop teaching her classes three weeks ago and has only been attending them since. Slacker.

I feel there’s a lot of stigma with regards to strength training and pregnancy, which I find dumbfounding. Everyone is different and the answer as to whether or not a woman can (or should) do it is dependent on her previous experiences (and preferences). That said, women have been giving birth for thousands & thousands of years in much more complicated scenarios, and the body is more resilient than we give it credit for sometimes.

There’s a degree of bias in me saying this but, I don’t feel strength training is in any way deleterious during pregnancy. In my eyes strength training during this time is helping to prepare the body for something a helluva lot more taxing than a few sets of deadlifts.

#makinglaborlesslaborious

I wrote a much more thorough article on the topic a few years ago HERE when I was working with a few female clients through their first pregnancy.

3. I’ll be the first to admit my wife is a bit of an outlier. As an example throughout her pregnancy she’s still been hammering her chin-ups (and having weird taco cravings). Even with 25-30 lbs of natural progressive overload she’s been crushing them. Beast mode.

I think she made it to week #34 or 35 before she started giving me the “dude, really? look” and we stopped performing bodyweight chins and started using band assistance. She’s already planning her “come back” and is excited to give Kourtney Thomas and Jen Sinkler’s The Bigness Project a go once she’s cleared to resume normal physical activity.

I happened to get an advance copy of it last week, and am really impressed. What I love is the message: it’s okay, nay, more than okay, for women to want to put on muscle.

All this past week Kourtney and Jen have been putting out killer content in anticipation of it’s release this week:

How to Look Like You Lift

Get Buff in the Buff

And the latest, Pace Yourself for Big Payoffs.

Keep your eyes peeled because this program is going to change a lot of women’s lives.

 

4. The topic of program design is an abyss of dichotomies, paradoxes, and juxtapositions. What works for one person may have the polar opposite effect on someone else. I never like to marry myself to any ONE way of doing anything and wholeheartedly believe that it’s important to cater each program to the individual.

What’s more, each program is going to be contingent on several factors:

  • Past/current injury history.
  • Goals.
  • Training frequency.
  • Ability/Experience level.
  • Equipment availability.
  • Expectation management. I had someone ask me to write them a program to bring their deadlift from 300 to 400 lbs in four weeks. Um, yeah, what’s next? Beating The Mountain in being a ginormous human being?

This will likely be a topic of a more thorough blog post down the road, but there are some “rules” I have to program design to carry over to most everyone.

  • I LOVE using fillers. In short, there are various l0w-grade mobility, activation, stretching drills that are paired with a strength exercise. So, rather than make someone feel like a patient and bore them to tears with a litany of “correctives,” I can include fillers to take on that role and still ensure a training effect. For example, if someone lacks hip flexor length and t-spine mobility a good pairing may be:
    • Trap Bar Deadlift: 3×5
    • Stationary Spiderman w/ Reach 3×4/side

 

  • Volume is an under-appreciated component of muscle growth. However, it’s important to understand that training to failure all…the…time isn’t the same thing as volume.

 

  • I’ve been trying to do a better job at making sure my clients leave a rep or two in the tank in their earlier sets. The idea is that if they putter out too quickly, it’s going to impede their ability to hit all their prescribed reps in the first place.
  • Along the same lines, and a bit counterintuitive given what I said above, one easy way to get your bench up is to include more rest/pause AMRAP sets. This is something I “stole” from strength coach Greg Robins. After you hit your top set on your bench do this:
    • 80% of 1RM for AMRAP, rest 20s, AMRAP, rest 20s, AMRAP
    • Rest 3 Minutes
    • 75% of 1RM for AMRAP, rest 20s, AMRAP, rest 20s, AMRAP
    • Try not to die.

5. Two coaches who are putting out amazing content of late are:

Joel Seedman

Meghan Callaway

Check them out if you aren’t already.

And that’s all she wrote. See you tomorrow, I think….;o)

CategoriesUncategorized

Miscellaneous Miscellaneous Monday: 1/23/12

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve written one of my miscellaneous posts, so I figured this would be the perfect way to start what I hope will be a full week of blogging.

1. It’s no secret that I heart movies. I’ve always joked that if I were ever independently wealthy, all I would do is train, finance my own gourmet omelet restaurant/bowling center, and hang out with Matt Damon and give each other high-fives while we watch movies – like, all the time.

There are only a few shows on television that I like to watch:  The Daily Show, the Red Sox (when it’s baseball season), Top Chef, and House Hunters.  Namely, with regards to the latter, Lisa and I just like to have fake arguments with the couple’s that are on the show.

I mean, how asinine is it that someone walks into a room, and can’t look past the color of paint on the walls?

Anyways, I don’t watch a lot of tv, and would much rather walk down to the theater and catch a movie.

In the past few weeks alone, we’ve seen Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (awesome), The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (I read the books AND watched the original foreign films, too, but the American version was like whoa); Sherlock Holmes (first one was better); A Dangerous Method (Keira Knightely shows her boobies); Melancholia (Kirsten Dunst also shows her boobies, but it was the worst movie I’ve ever seen); The Descendants (good, but overrated); and lastly, Haywire, which Lisa and I saw yesterday.

I’ve been anxiously waiting for this movie to come out since I first saw the trailer back in November. Directed by one of my favs, Steven Soderbergh – of Erin Brockovich and Ocean’s 11,12,&13 fame – and starring Gina Carano – of MMA, she can totally kick your ass fame – Haywire, in simplest terms, is basically the female equivalent of the Jason Bourne films.

While Carano won’t be winning any Best Actress awards anytime soon, she more than held her own, and it was clear, from the start, that the film was all about showcasing her fighting skills.

What I liked best was that the movie wasn’t enhanced with silly sound effects or over-the-top music during the fight scenes. Instead, it was raw, unadulterated, awesomeness.

What was interesting, and this was something that Lisa brought up on our walk back home, was that Carano’s physique was covered up.  There was no doubt that the film makers showcased Carano’s, um, assets. But you couldn’t help but think that they were purposely holding back and blatantly covering up her pecs, shoulders, and upper back throughout. Possibly to make her seem more feminine?

Either way, like I said, it was great to see a (believable) female character kick some ass. I get so tired of watching female characters who weigh like 87 lbs toss around dudes three times their size like a paperweights.  Conversely, Carano looks the part. And she ain’t too shabby on the eyes either.

All in all, when you combine the action, writing, directing, as well as the supporting cast (Michael Fassbender, Michael Douglass, Antonio Banderas, Obi Wan Kenobi Ewan McGregor), it was definitely worth seeing.

I gave the movie a solid B.

2.  Speaking of strong female characters, HERE is an awesome interview done with MariAnne Kane from the Girls Gone Strong crew.

I LOVE what these women are doing for the industry. Guys have always had the likes of Arnold, Ronnie Coleman, Dave Tate, and numerous others to look up to. Now, thanks to Girls Gone Strong, women have someone to look up to for inspiration. And it’s a beautiful thing.

3.  Here’s a question that I received in the mail the other day:

Q: Tony is it ok to switch from doing regular deadlifts and do deficit deadlifts as a different variation for training deadlifts?  What are the benefits of doing deficit deadlifts… do they still work the same muscle groups ?

A: It’s definitely okay to switch from “regular” deadlifts to deficit deadlifts.  While there are a few benefits, the main one to consider is that deficit deadlifts help to increase the ROM, which for those who are slow off the ground, can bode in their favor.

In short, when you return back to standard height, the weight should feel lighter.

The key thing to remember, though, is that you DO NOT need a huge deficit to perform these.  Anything from 1-4 inches is plenty.  Placing a plate underneath each foot should suffice for most.

Additionally, and maybe even more important, is that deficit deadlifts aren’t something you’ll want to include in your programming for a prolonged period of time – ESPECIALLY if your technique isn’t up to par.

As noted previously, you’re going to increase the ROM of the movement which by default, will make it more challenging.  And hence, maybe more deleterious to the spine (if done incorrectly).

Having said that, even if you’re technique is flawless, I’d still be reluctant to do this for more than 3-4 weeks at a time.  Honestly, four weeks is pushing it in my eyes.

 To that end, deficit deadlifts are a worthwhile variation to include in your programming – I just wouldn’t use them exclusively for a long period of time.

4.  On January 2nd my girlfriend, Lisa, started a little experiment on herself. She’s always been interested in nutrition and the effects that certain foods can have on the body. After doing a little research and talking to a few people, she picked up The Paleo Diet.

 

It really resonated with her (she read the entire book in a day), and so, she decided she’d give it a try for 60 days.

Now, I understand that there are a lot of detractors out there who will chime in and say something along the lines of “Tony, Tony, Tony…..you do realize that we have no idea what our Paleolithic ancestors ate, and it’s all based on speculation and not fact, right?”

Indeed, I do. Who cares!?! I also realize they didn’t eat Dunkin Donuts for breakfast.  To each his own.

Nonetheless, it’s not like Lisa cowers into the fetal position every time she encounters a carb.  She has her allotted “off” meals on the weekends.  But all told, she’s been following the diet verbatim, focusing her efforts on lean meats (beef, buffalo, chicken, ground turkey,etc), tons of greens and various fruits, and limiting her salt and sugar intake.

After three weeks, she feels amazing! She’s more energetic and it takes her waaaaaaay longer to get pissed off whenever I leave dirty clothes on the couch.  It’s a win-win if you ask me.

Being the supportive boyfriend that I am, I’m doing a Paleo’ish type diet, too.  Albeit, I’m still allowing myself more wiggle room like oatmeal, sweet potatoes, yogurt, Ezekiel bread, and grass fed dragon.

So far, I really like it, and it definitely supports my lifestyle.  I can’t say for sure whether or not I’ll follow it long-term, but for now, it seems to be working.

I’ll keep everyone posted.

5.  And lastly, sitting sucks.  Read THIS article if you don’t believe me.