Thinking Outside of the Exercise You See

So today during a workout I had just started squatting.  I’m not going to get into the details of my current program, but an easy way to sum it up is to say that I’m trying to subject all of my major joints to lots of range of motion in various directions with loads I can easily handle in order to increase mobility so that when I switch to a different form of training they are more able to handle higher levels of force across them.

A trainer at the gym I work out at came up and watched a set, then commented that I had a lot of pelvic tilt and pressure on my lower back and that he wanted to show me something.  My first comment was “yes, I know – that’s on purpose.”  From the expression on his face I could tell he was curious.  He asked what I was doing the squats for.  I said “my knees” (and ankles and hips and back etcetera but I’m not going to explain all of that).  Okay, he said – but if you go narrower you will engage more of your quads.  I told him that I didn’t say my quads – I said my knees.

There are 12 muscles that cross over that joint alone, never mind the many dozens that assist in the movement through the hips, back and foot and ankle.  I also said that I was intentionally letting my pelvis roll, which I think was a little bit outside of the proverbial box.  Take it as a piece of advice – never assume that you know exactly what the person is trying to do and that what they are doing is “wrong”.  You might think it is, but wrong is defined on many different levels.  It is based on the individual.  If I was doing a shoulder press to help my knee, that’s probably wrong.  But moving my legs into ranges they aren’t used to under load in order to help them learn to generate tension through ranges they aren’t used to – that’s not wrong.  For what I want, it is very, very right.

Now, this guy definitely had the best of intentions (I know that) and thought that from what he has learned over his years of bodybuilding and weekend courses that he was right.  And he was – if we were talking about what he thought we were talking about.  The first instinct is to immediately make him feel like an idiot, but he’s not.  He just hasn’t seen the side of movements that I have or knows what I know.  And at his stage of development as a trainer admittedly I didn’t know those things either.  But what I ask people to do on a daily basis when it comes to their body is to really think beyond simply things like quad contraction and go a little bit deeper.  So maybe people can learn more about what is really going on within the body when we subject it to force by doing things like squatting so my butt touches the ground and my hamstrings touch my calves with a load on my back.

If I wanted this article to be ten pages long I could break down exactly what happens when you squat with load, through what joints and how fast and with what ranges depending on what goals but that’s not the point.  Part of my RTS training is really thinking outside of the movement and being able to either go in like a microscope, or come way out into a much broader view so that no matter who you are dealing with you can not only show them something that is appropriate for them and gives them a good experience, but also maybe teach them a bit (as much as they want to know) about words like “good” and “bad” and what they actually mean.  Even words like “better” and “worse” have so many variables they are really hard to define.  Better for what?  For who?  Better how?  Where is the magic dividing line that makes better into worse?  That makes good into bad?  These are all questions that I constantly am searching for the answers to, but the fundamental truth is that there isn’t any one answer.  The answer, like I tell people so many times on a regular basis is IT DEPENDS.

When you see someone squatting, you think that it is to get stronger legs.  When you realize how many other things are involved in that chain of movement you might realize that by squatting, I can actually make my back stronger.  Or my ankles.  By changing the tempo or by pushing differently I can affect changes in strange ways as well.  By putting the bar on my back instead of my front – the movement changes.  Let’s all try hard to think outside of the exercise and consider everything that might be going on with a movement before we judge it.

So to all of the trainers and regular people out there in the gym, let us try really hard the next time that you see someone doing an exercise and you think that it’s “wrong” – maybe ask them why they are doing it.  Then ask more questions.  And more.  You might just learn something.

Do you actually eat Real Food?

One of the more disturbing trends I have seen recently in the fitness world is the incredible over consumption of supplements.  As fitness people we hear trainers talk all of the time about the importance of proper nutrition in order to reach your fitness goals, but more often than not I still see people (mostly trainers and other fitness people just because that’s who I see all day) amping ourselves up with energy drinks, protein in the form of powder and sugar and various other types of concoctions that are supposed to help us get to our goals faster somehow.

You can’t open a magazine without hearing that one powder is infinitely more superior than another.  You have probably been approached recently by various people who claim that Vi Shakes, Herbalife, NutriSystem or Isagenix are the most amazing weight loss thing on the market right now.  The funny thing is that as our society degrades our food supply even further, the very people who are supposed to be keeping your health in mind are usually the ones telling you that it is okay to use these products (and imagine that, you can purchase them right off of your “trainer” too!).

When my clients ask me what they should eat, it is a pretty simple answer:  FOOD.  One of the best ways I ever heard it put during one of my nutrition courses was pretty simple – stuff that used to be alive in some way.  Did it come from the ground?  Was it born and raised somehow?  Did it breathe, provide oxygen or develop without being manufactured in a facility?  Let’s start there, shall we?  Last I checked, that protein powder wasn’t actually made from ground up chicken or cow.  The casein or whey inside it didn’t come from milk that was actually taken out of an animal.  Even my wife’s protein powder, which is vegetarian and GMO and soy free mostly gets it’s protein from Yellow Pea Protein Isolate, but I doubt if they actually ground up the yellow peas in a factory.

I read blogs time to time from various fitness competitors and bodybuilders, and most of the time when they eat a real meal they can’t help but brag about it like it is some magical thing and post pictures of it on the internet.  Or they post about how amazing their supplement shakes taste (this post sponsored by Nutrabolics!) or how amazing these things make them feel, without a second thought as to the chemical crap storm these things might be creating within their body long term.  Many “diets” that are posted by fitness competitors online always contain at least 2 or 3 protein shakes and other things supposedly designed to increase results.  Why couldn’t a competitor just eat a chicken breast instead?  Oh, your coach doesn’t sell chicken?  Whoops.

The fundamental truth is that if someone can make a profit off of selling people some product, whether it is good for them or not then they are going to do so, but I call this a severe lack of integrity as a fitness professional.  Then there are the people who take these things all of the time claiming that they have to due to time constraints or the fact they are “too busy”.  I always call BS on this because basically what it comes down to is poor time management skills.  I can create a healthy meal with stuff from my cupboards in 10-15 minutes that has all the major macronutrients (and often do when I get home).  If you have no time, then you simply aren’t managing it very well.  I’ll admit that time management is crucial for this type of thing, but putting eight chicken breasts in the oven instead of 1 just makes sense because then you have no excuse.  We use our slow cooker to make 3 days worth of meals at once and they are generally pretty healthy and easy.

If you’re driving around and get hungry, there is no need to stop at a drive through when grocery stores are now open 24 hours and are everywhere.  God forbid you actually have to get out of your car and walk into the store and take 10 minutes to buy something.  It doesn’t have to be expensive either.  Buy enough things to last you the day, not just a meal.  Keep non-perishable food in your car or office (there are lots of easy ways to do this).  It amazes me when people would rather go out and spend $30 at a restaurant at one meal when you can buy two days worth of groceries for the same amount, and these are the same people who say, “I can’t afford to eat healthy”.  Well, you also can’t afford to eat lazy.  There’s a reason your body isn’t very happy, and it’s probably because it is sick and tired of the crap you are putting into it.

Even if you can’t do this all of the time, please make sure that you do it more often than not.  The word “supplement” means just that – something intended to provide nutrients that may be missing or not consumed in sufficient quantities in a persons’ diet.  The main issue there being the diet itself.  There is no reason beyond allergies that you shouldn’t be able to eat the things that you need to when you really get down to it.  In the fish world alone there are about 50 different choices.  If your body doesn’t like it then it will tell you and then you just need to find something else.  But you do have to plan ahead.

So lets as a group start a new trend within the fitness world and beyond.  Ready?  Instead of reaching for a shake, eat something real.  Fuel your body with things that are designed by nature to provide energy, not get it in a chemical shot.  Stop buying things because it is more convenient or because you had some unethical idiot convince you that it is good for you.  Try it just for two weeks and see if your body responds in a positive way.  I’m pretty sure that it will and you will notice a huge difference.  Feel free to let me know what you think!

Why Don’t You Count Reps?

Walk into any fitness facility in any part of the world, and inevitably if you see a trainer working with a client, part of the workout will consist of the trainers standing there counting.  “One, two three” or “four more, three more, two more, last one!”  I joke with my clients that trainers are the only people who can count to fifteen better than any kid watching Sesame Street.  Now, here’s a little tidbit for those of you that see this all of the time, and it might just open your eyes into something that will make you rethink exercise.

The amount of reps doesn’t matter.

I know immediately I’ll have a bunch of weightlifters jumping on my head who will say things like “what about power training?” “8-12 reps is for hypertrophy and 15-20 reps is for endurance” and similar things.  While it is true that different rep ranges bring forth different types of stimulation, it has little or nothing to do with the actual rep range – it has to do with the load in question and the fibre type of the individual in question.  And this has been backed up in studies, unlike many of the lifting myths that are out there.  I’ll provide some background:

Without getting into too much detail here, Dr. Wayne Westcott (and this has been backed up by others) many years ago presented evidence of 10 different studies that basically all came to the conclusion that high repetition and low repetition training yield the same results in terms of strength gains or muscle gains.  People who trained two or three times a week – same results.  People who trained for 40 seconds versus people who trained for 80 seconds – same results.  Young men doing either 3 sets of 10 reps or 6 sets of 4 reps – same results.  8 reps versus 20 reps – same result.  And here’s really the fundamental truth behind the whole thing:

“It doesn’t matter how many you do if they all suck!”

I tell my clients constantly – we don’t train reps – we train CONTROL.  I would expect that every rep is as perfect as the first one, and when you lose the ability to control the movement, then we stop because we are likely pushing your body beyond the ability it has at that time to maintain joint control.  It’s as simple as that.  Our goal is to keep you coming back in a better position than you were before, and your body will adapt over time with appropriate positions, motions, time, effort, and intention.  Plus, some days you are going to be able to get that really heavy lift and be able to control it – some days, when you had a fight with your partner, you have two deadlines and work and haven’t eaten or slept – you’re not.  It is my job to program things accordingly and make sure we take your body to suntan, not sunburn (like in my previous article).  This applies whether you reach 8 reps one set, then 11 the next and then 4 on the next.

This is also why some of the workouts given in workouts like P90x, Insanity and CrossFit are ridiculous.  They will ask you to force your body to perform something it lost the capability to do about a dozen reps ago and greatly increase your risk of injury just for the sake of “being hardcore” or “feeling the burn”.  This is idiotic for most of the general population.  Pushing your body beyond its’ capacity, especially when it is telling you that it is tired by using sloppy form and the myriad of other ways it will tell you it is pushing too hard is irresponsible to your body, not “hardcore”.

For someone like a powerlifter, they are training to lift something exactly once with perfect form.  This is why they use really heavy loads because that is what they have to get used to controlling.  But for the average gym goer they (hopefully) aren’t looking to lift 400 pounds.  Just focus on doing a bit more than you did previously.  That’s how gains are made, no matter what you are doing.  Runners go up from 30 miles a week to 31.  Military people go from 45 pushups to 46.  That’s how we make progress and improve.  Write it down and focus on trying to do a bit more than you did last time, if your body will allow it.

So to that client, why are we stopping at fifteen?  Why are we not stopping at twelve or ten?  It’s not like if you do 17 reps you’re magically going to poof into an endurance athlete.  And if you can only do 4 you’re not going to become the Hulk.  It just means that the load, rest period and intention needs to be a bit different and also appropriate for what you are trying to accomplish as the goal of the exercise.

So next time that you decide to do 3 sets of 10, just think about what I have written first.  Take that first set and go until you are tired and can’t control the movement.  Once you are tired, stop.  If you feel you need to do more to get tired enough, do another set.  Figure out what works for your body, not what someone wrote down in a book.  And if you need someone to figure it out for you, that’s where people like me come in.  And you won’t hear me counting.

Don’t Fall For It!

This is just another rant for the month of September.  Just this morning on one of the sites I contribute to I got into it with a “trainer” and called him out on the ridiculous claims that he made on his web site.  I’m not going to tell you which one because he’s all about marketing and spam (not reality) and he would love that he got any more attention, which unfortunately is far too common in my industry.  However, the claims that he made are things that I commonly see on many salesman trainer web sites:

“Build 15-20 pounds of lean muscle in a month!” (physiologically impossible and if this was so easy then most of us would be walking around looking like the Hulk).

“Burn 10 pounds of fat a week!” (ditto.  The Biggest Loser is to blame for this one, although it is possible if you’re willing to work out 6-8 hours a DAY like they actually do on the show).

“This person got ripped in record time using x supplement”.  (these pictures, popular among supplement advertisements are sometimes even taken on the same day, and heavily doctored or photoshopped – or they have used drugs).

“My secrets to a 6-pack!”.  (you can commonly find these “secrets” on several other web sites, but they will charge you $14.99 for the privilege of reading something that they copied off of somewhere else on the internet and call it an e-book).

“Only I have the patented system that is GUARANTEED” (if anyone in this industry tries to guarantee you anything please run in the other direction).

Here’s the simple truth:

If you want to change your body, then you have to prepare for a couple of things right off of the bat.  A lot of time and a lot of hard work.  Athletes at any level, fitness competitors and bodybuilders get a lot of respect from me simply because the vast majority of the time they are in the gym pretty much every day working out really, really hard and eating really, really clean.  Even the ones on drugs.  For some people who do high level endurance events and other competitive sports, they usually train 20-30 hours a week.  If you think for one second that you can get to that level without doing these things then you’re fooling yourself.  And if you think you can go from the couch to working out that much then you’re also fooling yourself.  Somebody else might tell you it’s possible in order to sell you something.  I won’t, in fact I’ll do the exact opposite, which is the point of this article.

So for the average gym goer who works out maybe 3-5 hours a week (if they are lucky), is getting results like these impossible?  No, of course not.  It just means that it will take a much longer period of time than it might for somebody who is training four times that much (and has been for many years longer).  When people come to me and want to run a marathon and don’t run, do you think I tell them that they can do it in six months?  I’d much rather keep my integrity and get real, valid results over time for people.  So many people are seduced by quick fix hype that they don’t bother to find out if the claim is actually valid or not.  However, if you put in the hours over time, you are guaranteed to continue to make progress.  One thing I always tell my clients is that the only way they are going to move backwards is if they stop moving forward.  That’s the truth.

There is a massive amount of dishonesty and garbage marketing in the fitness industry.  Just like anywhere else in life, if something sounds too good to be true, it likely is.  Please find someone that you can trust that will tell you the truth and get you going down the right path so that you don’t waste money and time not getting anywhere.  If you need it, get help from someone that you trust and has actual referrals from people that they have gotten results for over time.  Challenge your trainer to give you phone numbers or emails of actual people, not just lines on a web site.  People do this when they are redoing their floors, but they won’t take the time to do it when someone is affecting their physical well being.  They would rather believe a pipe dream that is unproven.  Just like the title says – please don’t fall for it.  I can give you clients from ten years ago that will back up the job that I did for them and that is why I continue to be able to work with great people every day.

Here’s the bottom line.  Work hard, eat well and treat your body with respect and it will change for the better.  How long it takes and how far it goes is entirely up to you – not me.  And that’s a guarantee you can print on any web site.