Injuries = Imbalances
Look at injuries as symptoms of imbalances: Weak glutes cause pulled hamstrings. A weak psoas and iliacus leads to pulled quads. Rotator cuff strains come from lack of scapula control. I think we spend way too much time treating symptoms and trying to strengthen the wrong muscles. Shirley Sahrmann says that if you have an injured muscle, you should start looking for a weak synergist. Think about it.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
From the ever interesting Mike Boyle:
Not for Every Body
Not everyone is made to squat or clean. I rarely squatted with my basketball players as many found squatting uncomfortable for their backs and knees. It killed me to stop because the squat is a lift I fundamentally believed in, but athletes with long femurs will be poor squatters. It's physics. It took me a while to realize that a good lift isn't good for everybody.
Not for Every Body
Not everyone is made to squat or clean. I rarely squatted with my basketball players as many found squatting uncomfortable for their backs and knees. It killed me to stop because the squat is a lift I fundamentally believed in, but athletes with long femurs will be poor squatters. It's physics. It took me a while to realize that a good lift isn't good for everybody.
Morning Z
shoulder elbow and wrist this AM. Still working out the issue with my elbow trying to bend while doing overhead shoulder circles. It's a common error but I'm trying to Iron it out. Worked the camshafts thoroughly and the elbow circles at a slow pace. Think i'll add in a few Super Joint drills to the recipe aswell.
Scott
Scott
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Warrior Diet Tonight
Huge salad consisting of Carrot, Cucumber, Chinese leaf Lettuce, Tomato, peppers and Onion followed by 3 tablespoons of Cod liver oil with EPA and then a Chicken and Mushroom omelette (Bit of Cream in there too) and honey glazed pork Joint. Finished with blueberries and 3 glasses of Merlot.
I Love eating like this!
Scott
I Love eating like this!
Scott
Last nights C&J
Delighted with the efforts of last night. Managed to go a full 10 sets of 7 and 3 sets of 5 with the 32's. Not getting as winded as quickly as when I started out and my form isn't as shaky when the clock runs down. Upped the protein in the last week by 10% of total daily calories and not suffering any DOMS today. Doing a light session of stretching and some Z before going at it again tomorrow. I still think I'm on track to get the full 45 mins with the 32's. Dropped down again to the 28kgs and 24kgs for the last 12 minutes last night and improved my sets by 2x5reps.
To Track..
Calories, macronutrient ratios/percentages and as a great way of monitoring your training, log into www.fitday.com and open up a free account. It's easy and well worth the time to see the reakdown of exactly what you put in your mouth. Since starting mine I've upped my Protein intake as from the calculations and the daily eating log I certainly wasn't getting enough.
Scott
Scott
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Morning Z-Health and Stretch
Little bit of Ham and Hip flexor soreness from the Hiking the other day so ankle, knee and hip R-Phase followed by a bit of light stretching. Hitting the C&J this evening and looking for some great numbers in the 45mins.
Scott
Scott
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Great Books Part 4
Science and Practice of Strength Training. Vladimir Zatsiorsky.
What to say? Another Classic text that all trainers and coaches need. The sections relating to Athlete-specific strength and Timing in strength training have had a lasting influence on how I view training others and myself.
Quality book.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
The Mornings Z-Health
Plenty of it this AM. Did drills for ankle, knee, hip and shoulder. I've been adding more and more six position shoulder circles and camshafts into my day and I noticed something. My right elbow has been trying to unlock itself in the top position of the shoulder circle after about 4 repetitions. I have been feeling the ever so slight bend, so it's something to watch and try to improve on. The left side is fine though freely flowing.
On another note, Just ordered I-Phase and hoping to have it beginning of next week, can't wait!
Get moving, keep moving, occasionally have a steak and some red wine.
Scott
On another note, Just ordered I-Phase and hoping to have it beginning of next week, can't wait!
Get moving, keep moving, occasionally have a steak and some red wine.
Scott
Friday, July 18, 2008
Truly one of the best articles I've ever read!
This is from dragondoor.com article section by Brett Jones Master RKC. Please read it, it will give you a brand new perspective on training if you are unfortunate enough to be floundering from program to program and complex to complex at present.
Occam’s Razor in Program DesignBrett Jones, Sr. RKC, CSCS
Warning – Philosophical information ahead!!In the realm of program design and exercise there is a paralysis that can occur when trainees begin to seek information to design a program. The science of periodization, muscle fiber types, energy systems and other exercise science can overload the trainee. This is followed by a shotgun approach where the trainee tries to hit every muscle and every possible function and cover every possible permutation of training in a single program. Poor results, frustration and confusion are often the result. Where is a confused trainee to turn? Leonardo da Vinci had stated: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” A master of so many esoteric and philosophical arts and he relates simplicity to the highest level of understanding and application. So the trainee should seek a simple approach, but how do we do this without feeling like we are missing out on the good old complicated stuff. Because people do believe that the more expensive and or complicated something is the better it is – we need to provide some comfort to those heading in a simpler direction. Enter “Occam’s Razor” which when boiled down to its simplest level states: “All things being equal, the simplest explanation is the best one.” I’ll let you chew that one over for a moment….. Sounds too good to be true? Well, we are going to delve into the Razor for a bit and see if we can apply it without murdering the science. There are several caveats to applying Occam’s Razor but once we have a grasp on those it can be applied well. You see what Leonard da Vinci stated about simplicity being the ultimate sophistication assumes that you understand that that simplicity was purchased at the price of great study and expansive work through the complex to arrive at the simplicity. So do not make the jump that simple means easy! Einstein (yes that Einstein – bear with me here) stated: “Theories should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.” It is possible to go too far in the pursuit of simplicity and miss the mark. The base of Occam’s Razor is that you are making a decision between two equal theories and deciding that the simplest is the best but not necessarily perfect explanation. This is further expounded on by “anti razor” philosophies. Karl Menger was an anti razor scientist who countered Occam’s with: “Entities must not be reduced to the point of inadequacy.” A warning that if you cut too much of the fat off of the meat – you ruin the taste. So be simple but not too simple and don’t reach the point of inadequacy!!?? Now I am sure you are finding this very helpful but keep reading. One more philosopher to pitch in here to assist us in reaching the nirvana of simplicity in training, Thomas Aquinas a 13th century philosopher stated: “If a thing can be done adequately by means of one, it is superfluous to do it by means of several, for we observe that nature does not employ two instruments where one suffices.” Now here is a statement that should ring true in the realm of exercise science. How you ask? Well we have finally laid the foundation for simplicity in training – so let us get to it by examining a couple of common areas of complexity. Let us take a look at exercise selection for the upper body as an example. Instead of trying to isolate and imagine all of the muscles and combinations of muscles in the upper body, simply breakdown the movements. Essentially you have four movements: horizontal push, vertical push, horizontal pull, and vertical pull. And before you start throwing Menger in my face – combinations of these movements create crossing and spiraling patterns in the upper body. But you can break those complex movements down into the component parts listed above. So to effectively train the upper body you should pick a direction, horizontal or vertical, and train the push and pull for that direction. Or combine a vertical pull with a horizontal push – or vise versa. Then once you find a weakness or area that needs further attention, just a raw bench presser will need extra triceps work, target that area with one tool. In the area of training one of the most confusing to trainees is how to target a specific muscle fiber type. I mean how can you truly reach your potential unless your training targets those coveted type II fibers or better yet your type IIA fibers?? But stop for a moment and apply Occam’s Razor. Is the simplest explanation that your body selectively recruits muscle fibers and you must target these fibers with selective precision or does the body adapt to the stresses you place it under? Simplest explanation – the body adapts to the stress you place it under. If you want to target your Type II fibers, lift something heavy and lift something quickly. Deadlift and kettlebell swings come to mind as a good combination in this case. Basically, place your self under the stress that you want to adapt to and let the muscle fibers sort themselves out. How to best achieve cardiovascular conditioning? Long and slow or sprint interval are the two popular options and if you look at the amount of time people spend on the treadmill or step mill or running – you would assume that long and slow is the way to go. However, Thomas Aquinas already gave us a hint here – “nature does not employ two instruments where one suffices.” The Tabata protocol is a high intensity interval program that was shown to produce very significant increases in both aerobic and anaerobic fitness. If you had forgotten about anaerobic metabolism you missed out on the journey though the science to the simplicity. So if I can achieve both anaerobic and aerobic improvements with one tool – why apply two or a lesser tool that will only accomplish one. We are told that in order to burn this or do that that we need 45 minutes of activity (input your own number if you wish). But the Tabata protocol, Dr. Al Sears and others are showing us that one tool – high intensity intervals are a superior tool and Occam’s Razor would lead us in the direction of choosing the simplest option. Does this cover all contingencies? No. But if you apply the Razor and the other philosophical information and run your training program through those filters, you might just arrive at a program that will accomplish your goals. This is what I do for my clients – cultivate simplicity in training. To show you that I am not “armchair” training here let me share with you some of my current training goals and how I am applying the Razor to achieve them. My current long-term goal is to hit a powerlifting total of Raw Elite. This means hitting a total of 1396 in the three power-lifts (squat, bench and deadlift) in a meet. Broken down this means a 500+ squat, 350 bench, and a 550+ deadlift – all without any gear or assistance other than a weightlifting belt - I’ve got some work to do! So how do I go about accomplishing this? Simply! I want to achieve a high level of proficiency in the three power-lifts so those will form the base of my program. To achieve skill in a lift you must practice the lift. There are powerlifters out there who have been honing their technique in the three lifts for 15-20+ years! So don’t think that after six months that your technique is perfect and your low total lies elsewhere. Practice what you want to be good at doing! Designing the program around the three power-lifts was easy but now to the nuts and bolts of the program. Sets, reps, volume, intensity, and frequency are the nuts and bolts. For myself I am a low volume kind of guy so I will be hitting between 3-5 sets of 1-3 reps in the three lifts. Intensity will overall be on the high end of things, in the 75-90+% range. For my deadlift this will place me between 405 and 495 pounds. I prefer to train 2-3 days a week on this program. If I am going heavier on my squat I go lighter on my deadlift and vise versa. Other assistance work is weighted pull-ups and the floor press. Targeting the lats/back and triceps/lockout strength for the bench press. That is it – 3- 5 exercises and done! For volume and conditioning I hit the kettelbell. Centered around swings, snatches and Get-ups on the off days for variety and volume. While I want to become very skilled at the power-lifts I do not want to become a one-groove machine with all sorts of compensations and restrictions. This is where I also incorporated movement screening and drills from Gray Cook, Pavel and Steve Maxwell. Being strong is fantastic but being strong, injured and non-functional is not! Balance of all aspects of fitness is necessary even if I am centered on one goal. So there you have it – an Occam’s Razor approach to training. Filter your training through the razor and see what happens when simple is best
Brilliant! Brett runs courses for and with Dragondoor and the Functional movement screen amongst other things (Z-Health,Private courses). Look him up at appliedstrength.com in my links.
Scottie
Occam’s Razor in Program DesignBrett Jones, Sr. RKC, CSCS
Warning – Philosophical information ahead!!In the realm of program design and exercise there is a paralysis that can occur when trainees begin to seek information to design a program. The science of periodization, muscle fiber types, energy systems and other exercise science can overload the trainee. This is followed by a shotgun approach where the trainee tries to hit every muscle and every possible function and cover every possible permutation of training in a single program. Poor results, frustration and confusion are often the result. Where is a confused trainee to turn? Leonardo da Vinci had stated: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” A master of so many esoteric and philosophical arts and he relates simplicity to the highest level of understanding and application. So the trainee should seek a simple approach, but how do we do this without feeling like we are missing out on the good old complicated stuff. Because people do believe that the more expensive and or complicated something is the better it is – we need to provide some comfort to those heading in a simpler direction. Enter “Occam’s Razor” which when boiled down to its simplest level states: “All things being equal, the simplest explanation is the best one.” I’ll let you chew that one over for a moment….. Sounds too good to be true? Well, we are going to delve into the Razor for a bit and see if we can apply it without murdering the science. There are several caveats to applying Occam’s Razor but once we have a grasp on those it can be applied well. You see what Leonard da Vinci stated about simplicity being the ultimate sophistication assumes that you understand that that simplicity was purchased at the price of great study and expansive work through the complex to arrive at the simplicity. So do not make the jump that simple means easy! Einstein (yes that Einstein – bear with me here) stated: “Theories should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.” It is possible to go too far in the pursuit of simplicity and miss the mark. The base of Occam’s Razor is that you are making a decision between two equal theories and deciding that the simplest is the best but not necessarily perfect explanation. This is further expounded on by “anti razor” philosophies. Karl Menger was an anti razor scientist who countered Occam’s with: “Entities must not be reduced to the point of inadequacy.” A warning that if you cut too much of the fat off of the meat – you ruin the taste. So be simple but not too simple and don’t reach the point of inadequacy!!?? Now I am sure you are finding this very helpful but keep reading. One more philosopher to pitch in here to assist us in reaching the nirvana of simplicity in training, Thomas Aquinas a 13th century philosopher stated: “If a thing can be done adequately by means of one, it is superfluous to do it by means of several, for we observe that nature does not employ two instruments where one suffices.” Now here is a statement that should ring true in the realm of exercise science. How you ask? Well we have finally laid the foundation for simplicity in training – so let us get to it by examining a couple of common areas of complexity. Let us take a look at exercise selection for the upper body as an example. Instead of trying to isolate and imagine all of the muscles and combinations of muscles in the upper body, simply breakdown the movements. Essentially you have four movements: horizontal push, vertical push, horizontal pull, and vertical pull. And before you start throwing Menger in my face – combinations of these movements create crossing and spiraling patterns in the upper body. But you can break those complex movements down into the component parts listed above. So to effectively train the upper body you should pick a direction, horizontal or vertical, and train the push and pull for that direction. Or combine a vertical pull with a horizontal push – or vise versa. Then once you find a weakness or area that needs further attention, just a raw bench presser will need extra triceps work, target that area with one tool. In the area of training one of the most confusing to trainees is how to target a specific muscle fiber type. I mean how can you truly reach your potential unless your training targets those coveted type II fibers or better yet your type IIA fibers?? But stop for a moment and apply Occam’s Razor. Is the simplest explanation that your body selectively recruits muscle fibers and you must target these fibers with selective precision or does the body adapt to the stresses you place it under? Simplest explanation – the body adapts to the stress you place it under. If you want to target your Type II fibers, lift something heavy and lift something quickly. Deadlift and kettlebell swings come to mind as a good combination in this case. Basically, place your self under the stress that you want to adapt to and let the muscle fibers sort themselves out. How to best achieve cardiovascular conditioning? Long and slow or sprint interval are the two popular options and if you look at the amount of time people spend on the treadmill or step mill or running – you would assume that long and slow is the way to go. However, Thomas Aquinas already gave us a hint here – “nature does not employ two instruments where one suffices.” The Tabata protocol is a high intensity interval program that was shown to produce very significant increases in both aerobic and anaerobic fitness. If you had forgotten about anaerobic metabolism you missed out on the journey though the science to the simplicity. So if I can achieve both anaerobic and aerobic improvements with one tool – why apply two or a lesser tool that will only accomplish one. We are told that in order to burn this or do that that we need 45 minutes of activity (input your own number if you wish). But the Tabata protocol, Dr. Al Sears and others are showing us that one tool – high intensity intervals are a superior tool and Occam’s Razor would lead us in the direction of choosing the simplest option. Does this cover all contingencies? No. But if you apply the Razor and the other philosophical information and run your training program through those filters, you might just arrive at a program that will accomplish your goals. This is what I do for my clients – cultivate simplicity in training. To show you that I am not “armchair” training here let me share with you some of my current training goals and how I am applying the Razor to achieve them. My current long-term goal is to hit a powerlifting total of Raw Elite. This means hitting a total of 1396 in the three power-lifts (squat, bench and deadlift) in a meet. Broken down this means a 500+ squat, 350 bench, and a 550+ deadlift – all without any gear or assistance other than a weightlifting belt - I’ve got some work to do! So how do I go about accomplishing this? Simply! I want to achieve a high level of proficiency in the three power-lifts so those will form the base of my program. To achieve skill in a lift you must practice the lift. There are powerlifters out there who have been honing their technique in the three lifts for 15-20+ years! So don’t think that after six months that your technique is perfect and your low total lies elsewhere. Practice what you want to be good at doing! Designing the program around the three power-lifts was easy but now to the nuts and bolts of the program. Sets, reps, volume, intensity, and frequency are the nuts and bolts. For myself I am a low volume kind of guy so I will be hitting between 3-5 sets of 1-3 reps in the three lifts. Intensity will overall be on the high end of things, in the 75-90+% range. For my deadlift this will place me between 405 and 495 pounds. I prefer to train 2-3 days a week on this program. If I am going heavier on my squat I go lighter on my deadlift and vise versa. Other assistance work is weighted pull-ups and the floor press. Targeting the lats/back and triceps/lockout strength for the bench press. That is it – 3- 5 exercises and done! For volume and conditioning I hit the kettelbell. Centered around swings, snatches and Get-ups on the off days for variety and volume. While I want to become very skilled at the power-lifts I do not want to become a one-groove machine with all sorts of compensations and restrictions. This is where I also incorporated movement screening and drills from Gray Cook, Pavel and Steve Maxwell. Being strong is fantastic but being strong, injured and non-functional is not! Balance of all aspects of fitness is necessary even if I am centered on one goal. So there you have it – an Occam’s Razor approach to training. Filter your training through the razor and see what happens when simple is best
Brilliant! Brett runs courses for and with Dragondoor and the Functional movement screen amongst other things (Z-Health,Private courses). Look him up at appliedstrength.com in my links.
Scottie
Tonights Warrior Diet eating.
A little spike in evening hunger this last 2 days with the C+J's sapping a lot of enery and calories. I'm listening to what my body is saying to me and today I felt the need for extra energy. I had a large coffee with cream at 7.30 and then a handful of almonds around 8.30. Usually I would be fine then until after 1ish but I desired more today so I had a glass of milk and some raspberries at 12 and then a small salad at 1. I needed more by half 3 so I took 2 teaspoons of EFA's and another coffee with cream.
For my evening meal I had a huge salad with lettuce, onion, cucumber Tuna and boiled egg followed by 3 lamb chops and 4g of creatine in water. Then I had more nuts(cashews) and 2 fist size portions of boiled brown rice. All washed down with 2 large glasses of Pinot Noir.
The warp speed on the C&J's are doing the business.
Scott
For my evening meal I had a huge salad with lettuce, onion, cucumber Tuna and boiled egg followed by 3 lamb chops and 4g of creatine in water. Then I had more nuts(cashews) and 2 fist size portions of boiled brown rice. All washed down with 2 large glasses of Pinot Noir.
The warp speed on the C&J's are doing the business.
Scott
Stan Pike..
Is one of the strongest and nicest men i've ever had the pleasure of meeting and also the talented guy who made me my first kettlebells when I discovered them in 2001. Whether it's swinging a 'bell, lifting the Inch dumbell, closing a captains of Crush gripper or demonstrating his strength and conditioning in one of many other ways, Stan is and will remain a class act and an example to follow. Have a look at http://www.intensefitness.co.uk/ to see what I mean.
Scott
Wonderful
"Great things are not done by impulse but by a series of small things brought together"
Vincent Van Gogh
I took this from the Z-Health R-Phase manual, it's a very fine quote. Get the small things right, practice, work out all the very small details, think and analyse, break things down and then build them back up, swing before you snatch. Reverse engineering in many ways.
Scottie
Vincent Van Gogh
I took this from the Z-Health R-Phase manual, it's a very fine quote. Get the small things right, practice, work out all the very small details, think and analyse, break things down and then build them back up, swing before you snatch. Reverse engineering in many ways.
Scottie
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
There was..
recently a post on the dragondoor strength and conditioning forum called Health in a Nutshell. It was a series of points, 20 to be exact, from a poster regarding his opinions on how one should go about taking care of their health. It garnered some positive and negative feedback and some lively debate. I read the debate but didn't post on it, so I'm putting my own few Health points up here. Maybe you'll agree with some of them.
1) Man or woman, young or old, should do some form of resistance training
2) Joint mobility is vital to health, do it every day. It outranks flexibility
3) Essential Fatty acids are just that, use them
4) A Good fitness text (Tsatsouline,Boyle,Siff,Gallagher,Hatfield etc) Is worth a thousand magazines. Buy a book by one of these authors, read it, then buy another.
5) Steaks are good...I urge everyone to eat them.
6) Do you really need all those Carbs You are eating all day? Thought not. Cut back a bit, have a steak instead.
7) Drink Green Tea, it works.
8) The vast majority of people spend the vast majority of their lives in flexion. It's time to do more extension.
9) Take care of tissue quality. Get a foam roller, massage, stretch. Your body will love you for it.
10) The deadlift is a truly great exercise and should be a staple in your training routine.
11) Clients, look through your program and really think about it. If it does not include at least 3 of the following, Mobility work, Prehab exercises, Core activation, Some form of functional movement screening, A Strength component, Flexibility training, Energy System development, Regeneration techniques and Nutritional analysis, you are being swindled. Please get a new trainer who will do the job properly.
I think that'll do for now. Hope it helped a bit.
Scott
1) Man or woman, young or old, should do some form of resistance training
2) Joint mobility is vital to health, do it every day. It outranks flexibility
3) Essential Fatty acids are just that, use them
4) A Good fitness text (Tsatsouline,Boyle,Siff,Gallagher,Hatfield etc) Is worth a thousand magazines. Buy a book by one of these authors, read it, then buy another.
5) Steaks are good...I urge everyone to eat them.
6) Do you really need all those Carbs You are eating all day? Thought not. Cut back a bit, have a steak instead.
7) Drink Green Tea, it works.
8) The vast majority of people spend the vast majority of their lives in flexion. It's time to do more extension.
9) Take care of tissue quality. Get a foam roller, massage, stretch. Your body will love you for it.
10) The deadlift is a truly great exercise and should be a staple in your training routine.
11) Clients, look through your program and really think about it. If it does not include at least 3 of the following, Mobility work, Prehab exercises, Core activation, Some form of functional movement screening, A Strength component, Flexibility training, Energy System development, Regeneration techniques and Nutritional analysis, you are being swindled. Please get a new trainer who will do the job properly.
I think that'll do for now. Hope it helped a bit.
Scott
Reduced training load last night.
Feeling slightly under the weather yesterday and cut right back on the sets accordingly. Used the 24kgs for two sets of 7 before 1 set 28kgs 5 reps and 3x5 with the 32's. Took longer rest periods aswell (2 mins between sets). Much better today, I'll be back on track.
Scott
Scott
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Steve Maxwell
Truly one of the great innovative trainers in the business. He can be found at http://www.maxwellsc.com/
He recently started a free newsletter and it promises to be a goldmine of information. Do yourself a favour and subscribe, you won't regret it.
Scott
Edward Aston..
Was one of the great classic old time strongmen. For more info, pics, biogs and much more on him and all the other legends of the era visit http://www.sandowplus.co.uk/
Brilliant!
And this one is truly class.
The Six W's: Work will win when wishing won't.
Todd Blackledge
The Six W's: Work will win when wishing won't.
Todd Blackledge
Monday, July 14, 2008
Updated training
Started the C+J cycle on friday. After 2 light sets for body awareness I started the timer at 45 mins and began the sets of 7 reps with the 32's. managed 4x7 with 60s breaks before sets 5 and 6 dropped to 5 reps. Had to drop to the 28's and got 6 reps twice and 5 once. Down to the 24's and thats where the struggle began sets 10 and 11 barely got the 5 reps (minimum rep count) and dropped to the 20's. finished sets 12+13 with 6 reps before failing to get 5 on set number 14. Wasn't too bad a start and by sunday I was fresh to go again.
Sunday, 45mins again and hit 6x7 with the 32's. I was feeling pretty steamed on set 7 and struggled to get the fifth rep. moved to the 28's again and got 4x6 and 1x5. 24kg's came out for 3x5 and by this time I was feeling fragged(The extra sets on the 32kg were catching up). I quickly dropped to the two 20's and nailed a set of 6 followed by a miserable 4 so it was a finisher for 2x5 with the 16kgs. I had a lot of hamstring and shoulder soreness yesterday but after a good solid WD meal last night chock full of protein, i'm not feeling so bad at all today.
So the numbers stack up as follows:
Friday 14 sets 82reps
Sunday 19 sets 111reps
A big jump on sunday. The numbers mean nothing as such due to the fact i'm not using a fixed weight but from set to set there has been progress. By the end of this cycle I hope to be going the full 45mins with the 32's
More reporting tomorrow
Scott
Sunday, 45mins again and hit 6x7 with the 32's. I was feeling pretty steamed on set 7 and struggled to get the fifth rep. moved to the 28's again and got 4x6 and 1x5. 24kg's came out for 3x5 and by this time I was feeling fragged(The extra sets on the 32kg were catching up). I quickly dropped to the two 20's and nailed a set of 6 followed by a miserable 4 so it was a finisher for 2x5 with the 16kgs. I had a lot of hamstring and shoulder soreness yesterday but after a good solid WD meal last night chock full of protein, i'm not feeling so bad at all today.
So the numbers stack up as follows:
Friday 14 sets 82reps
Sunday 19 sets 111reps
A big jump on sunday. The numbers mean nothing as such due to the fact i'm not using a fixed weight but from set to set there has been progress. By the end of this cycle I hope to be going the full 45mins with the 32's
More reporting tomorrow
Scott
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Part 4 of Thib, last Installment
You've made it through three parts of this article, but hopefully you've got the patience for just a little bit more of my training philosophy!
Principle #7: Vary Your Training Often... But Not too Often!
Rarely do you see someone changing their workout at an optimal frequency. They either change their workouts too often (the "I want to try that program I read about today" phenomenon) or not often enough (the "I can stay on the same routine longer than the same woman" phenomenon).
Both of these knuckleheads have it wrong.
If you don't change your program often enough, your body will fully adapt to it and as a result the workout won't represent a challenge anymore. When it stops being a challenge, there's no need for the body to adapt, change, and grow.
If you change it too often, then you never actually give your body a chance to progress from a program. The one universal rule of gaining size or strength is progression. Every week you must become a bit better and work a little harder. But it's kind of hard to show progress when you never stick to a program for more than one week.
As a rule of thumb, you should stick to a program for four to six weeks. After that, switch to a new one. There's no need to change every single training variable, though. Generally, the less progress you're making at the end of your current program, the more changes you should make on your next one.
Principle #8: Progression is the Real Key to Success
The real secret to building muscle and strength is to progress. You must challenge your body on a consistent basis and find ways to progressively ask more of it. If you do the same thing over and over, you'll still look the same ten years from now.
Now, there's more than one way to progress. What we're looking for are ways to make our bodies work harder. This is progress, and it's what'll lead to growth. Here are a few ways to make your body work harder.
1. Increase the load: You can challenge your body by adding weight to the bar and performing the same number of reps per set. For example, if you did 225 pounds for ten reps on the bench press last week and put up 230 for ten this week, you've forced your body to work harder.
Obviously, this method of progression has its limitations. You can't just keep adding weight to the bar every week and expect your body to adapt. You'd increase your bench press by 260 pounds a year simply by adding five pounds to the bar per week if this were possible. Unfortunately, it's not.
This first method of progression, while it can be used with any exercise, is better suited for compound movements.
2. Increase the reps: Another way to make your body work harder is to do more reps per set with the same weight. For example, if last week you did 225 for ten reps and this week you do 225 for 12 reps, you've progressed. Just like with the previous method, you can't add reps like this every week.
3. Increase the average weight lifted for an exercise: This is very similar to the first method, except whereas increasing the load refers to lifting more weight on your max set, this refers to lifting more weight on average for an exercise.
Let's say you perform four sets of ten reps on the bench press:
Week 1
Set 1: 200 pounds x 10 (2,000 pounds)Set 2: 210 pounds x 10 (2,100 pounds)Set 3: 220 pounds x 10 (2,200 pounds)Set 4: 225 pounds x 10 (2,250 pounds)
Total weight lifted = 8,550 poundsAverage weight per set = 2,137 poundsAverage weight per rep = 213.7 pounds (214 pounds)
Week 2
Set 1: 210 pounds x 10 (2,100 pounds)Set 2: 215 pounds x 10 (2,150 pounds)Set 3: 225 pounds x 10 (2,250 pounds)Set 4: 225 pounds x 10 (2,250 pounds)
Total weight lifted = 8,750 poundsAverage weight per set = 2,187 poundsAverage weight per rep = 218.7 pounds (219 pounds)
As you can see, even though the same top weight was reached during both workouts, on week two you lifted five pounds more on average. This is progression!
4. Increase training density: You can also progress by increasing the amount of work you perform per unit of time. This refers to decreasing the rest between sets while using the same weight. By reducing rest intervals, your body is forced to work harder and recruit more muscle fibers due to the cumulative fatigue phenomenon.
This method of progression is better suited for either a fat loss program (in which case it can be used with any exercise) or isolation movements during a mass-gaining phase.
5. Increase training volume: This is probably the simplest progression method. If you want to make your body do more work, then do more work! This means adding sets for each muscle group. For example, on week one you might perform nine work sets for a muscle group and bump it to 12 on week two and 14 on week three.
While this can work, it shouldn't be abused, as it can lead to overtraining. Most trainees should stick to no more than 12 total sets per muscle group 90% of the time.
6. Use intensive training methods: The occasional inclusion of methods such as drop sets, rest/pause sets, tempo contrast, iso-dynamic contrast, supersets, and compound sets is another way of making your body work harder. It also shouldn't be abused, as it constitutes tremendous stress on the muscular and nervous systems.
Furthermore, intensive methods, as we saw earlier, should be used to accomplish a specific purpose, not to trash the muscle for the sake of trashing it!
7. Use more challenging exercises: If you're used to doing all your training on machines, then move up to free weights. You'll force your body to work harder because you have to stabilize the load. If you use only isolation exercises and start including multi-joint movements, you'll also make your body work harder because of the intermuscular coordination factor.
8. Produce more tension in the targeted muscle group: It's one thing to lift the weight; it's another to lift it correctly in order to build size! As I often say, when training to build muscle, you're not lifting weights; you're contracting your muscles against a resistance. You can improve the quality of your sets, thus making your body work harder, by always trying to flex the target muscle as hard as possible throughout the duration of each rep.
This method should only be used with isolation exercises.
9. Increase the time under tension by lowering the weight under control: I'm not a huge fan of precise tempo recommendations, as I find that they can interfere with training concentration. However, when a muscle is under constant tension for a relatively longer period of time (45 to 70 seconds), more hypertrophy can be stimulated.
The best way to do this without having to use less weight is to lower the weight even slower, while still focusing on tensing the muscles as hard as possible the whole time.
10. Increase the lifting speed: The concentric part of a strength training movement is where you're "lifting" the weight. In that phase of the contraction, the force formula applies:
Force = Mass x Acceleration
If you lift a certain weight with greater acceleration, you increase the amount of force you produce, thus making the set harder.
It takes a lot more force to throw a baseball 50 yards than to throw it five feet. The weight is the same, but you must accelerate the ball more. More acceleration equals more force.
This method of progression is best used for Olympic lifts, ballistic exercises, speed lifts, and the like.
As you can see, there are several ways that you can use to improve the quality and demand of your workouts on a weekly basis. The more often you can progress, the more you'll grow, period!
There You Have It
With proper application of my general principles, you'll be able to crank up your growth. However, the individualization factor still remains the basis of my system. This is why in the future I'll talk about how to assess your own needs and select the proper exercises and methods that'll lead to the greatest rate of progress possible
Principle #7: Vary Your Training Often... But Not too Often!
Rarely do you see someone changing their workout at an optimal frequency. They either change their workouts too often (the "I want to try that program I read about today" phenomenon) or not often enough (the "I can stay on the same routine longer than the same woman" phenomenon).
Both of these knuckleheads have it wrong.
If you don't change your program often enough, your body will fully adapt to it and as a result the workout won't represent a challenge anymore. When it stops being a challenge, there's no need for the body to adapt, change, and grow.
If you change it too often, then you never actually give your body a chance to progress from a program. The one universal rule of gaining size or strength is progression. Every week you must become a bit better and work a little harder. But it's kind of hard to show progress when you never stick to a program for more than one week.
As a rule of thumb, you should stick to a program for four to six weeks. After that, switch to a new one. There's no need to change every single training variable, though. Generally, the less progress you're making at the end of your current program, the more changes you should make on your next one.
Principle #8: Progression is the Real Key to Success
The real secret to building muscle and strength is to progress. You must challenge your body on a consistent basis and find ways to progressively ask more of it. If you do the same thing over and over, you'll still look the same ten years from now.
Now, there's more than one way to progress. What we're looking for are ways to make our bodies work harder. This is progress, and it's what'll lead to growth. Here are a few ways to make your body work harder.
1. Increase the load: You can challenge your body by adding weight to the bar and performing the same number of reps per set. For example, if you did 225 pounds for ten reps on the bench press last week and put up 230 for ten this week, you've forced your body to work harder.
Obviously, this method of progression has its limitations. You can't just keep adding weight to the bar every week and expect your body to adapt. You'd increase your bench press by 260 pounds a year simply by adding five pounds to the bar per week if this were possible. Unfortunately, it's not.
This first method of progression, while it can be used with any exercise, is better suited for compound movements.
2. Increase the reps: Another way to make your body work harder is to do more reps per set with the same weight. For example, if last week you did 225 for ten reps and this week you do 225 for 12 reps, you've progressed. Just like with the previous method, you can't add reps like this every week.
3. Increase the average weight lifted for an exercise: This is very similar to the first method, except whereas increasing the load refers to lifting more weight on your max set, this refers to lifting more weight on average for an exercise.
Let's say you perform four sets of ten reps on the bench press:
Week 1
Set 1: 200 pounds x 10 (2,000 pounds)Set 2: 210 pounds x 10 (2,100 pounds)Set 3: 220 pounds x 10 (2,200 pounds)Set 4: 225 pounds x 10 (2,250 pounds)
Total weight lifted = 8,550 poundsAverage weight per set = 2,137 poundsAverage weight per rep = 213.7 pounds (214 pounds)
Week 2
Set 1: 210 pounds x 10 (2,100 pounds)Set 2: 215 pounds x 10 (2,150 pounds)Set 3: 225 pounds x 10 (2,250 pounds)Set 4: 225 pounds x 10 (2,250 pounds)
Total weight lifted = 8,750 poundsAverage weight per set = 2,187 poundsAverage weight per rep = 218.7 pounds (219 pounds)
As you can see, even though the same top weight was reached during both workouts, on week two you lifted five pounds more on average. This is progression!
4. Increase training density: You can also progress by increasing the amount of work you perform per unit of time. This refers to decreasing the rest between sets while using the same weight. By reducing rest intervals, your body is forced to work harder and recruit more muscle fibers due to the cumulative fatigue phenomenon.
This method of progression is better suited for either a fat loss program (in which case it can be used with any exercise) or isolation movements during a mass-gaining phase.
5. Increase training volume: This is probably the simplest progression method. If you want to make your body do more work, then do more work! This means adding sets for each muscle group. For example, on week one you might perform nine work sets for a muscle group and bump it to 12 on week two and 14 on week three.
While this can work, it shouldn't be abused, as it can lead to overtraining. Most trainees should stick to no more than 12 total sets per muscle group 90% of the time.
6. Use intensive training methods: The occasional inclusion of methods such as drop sets, rest/pause sets, tempo contrast, iso-dynamic contrast, supersets, and compound sets is another way of making your body work harder. It also shouldn't be abused, as it constitutes tremendous stress on the muscular and nervous systems.
Furthermore, intensive methods, as we saw earlier, should be used to accomplish a specific purpose, not to trash the muscle for the sake of trashing it!
7. Use more challenging exercises: If you're used to doing all your training on machines, then move up to free weights. You'll force your body to work harder because you have to stabilize the load. If you use only isolation exercises and start including multi-joint movements, you'll also make your body work harder because of the intermuscular coordination factor.
8. Produce more tension in the targeted muscle group: It's one thing to lift the weight; it's another to lift it correctly in order to build size! As I often say, when training to build muscle, you're not lifting weights; you're contracting your muscles against a resistance. You can improve the quality of your sets, thus making your body work harder, by always trying to flex the target muscle as hard as possible throughout the duration of each rep.
This method should only be used with isolation exercises.
9. Increase the time under tension by lowering the weight under control: I'm not a huge fan of precise tempo recommendations, as I find that they can interfere with training concentration. However, when a muscle is under constant tension for a relatively longer period of time (45 to 70 seconds), more hypertrophy can be stimulated.
The best way to do this without having to use less weight is to lower the weight even slower, while still focusing on tensing the muscles as hard as possible the whole time.
10. Increase the lifting speed: The concentric part of a strength training movement is where you're "lifting" the weight. In that phase of the contraction, the force formula applies:
Force = Mass x Acceleration
If you lift a certain weight with greater acceleration, you increase the amount of force you produce, thus making the set harder.
It takes a lot more force to throw a baseball 50 yards than to throw it five feet. The weight is the same, but you must accelerate the ball more. More acceleration equals more force.
This method of progression is best used for Olympic lifts, ballistic exercises, speed lifts, and the like.
As you can see, there are several ways that you can use to improve the quality and demand of your workouts on a weekly basis. The more often you can progress, the more you'll grow, period!
There You Have It
With proper application of my general principles, you'll be able to crank up your growth. However, the individualization factor still remains the basis of my system. This is why in the future I'll talk about how to assess your own needs and select the proper exercises and methods that'll lead to the greatest rate of progress possible
New Training routine starts today.....
Double Clean and Jerks.
Going on a mass building routine. Currently weighing 174lbs at approx 10.8% BF. Thats surprising because I though I was lighter by at least 4lbs and I thought my BF would be a digit or so higher. Anyway, i'll be working this routine 4 days from 7 depending on recovery. I'll monitor my sleeping patterns, HR upon waking and other fatigue factors such as appetite, DOMS etc. sets will be 7 reps with 1 min rest between them. I expect to drop to 5 reps as fatigue builds up and i'll be starting with the 32kgs. I do imagine i'll be down to the 24kgs by the time the session is up. 40 minutes on the clock, no more. I plan to stay on the program for 6weeks but may stretch it to 8 if the gains are still showing. No other upper body work at all but I will keep up the Z-Health and mobility work aswell as the Split training which is coming along swimmingly well.
I'll post everyday on it with completed worksets/reps and weight etc.
Scott
Going on a mass building routine. Currently weighing 174lbs at approx 10.8% BF. Thats surprising because I though I was lighter by at least 4lbs and I thought my BF would be a digit or so higher. Anyway, i'll be working this routine 4 days from 7 depending on recovery. I'll monitor my sleeping patterns, HR upon waking and other fatigue factors such as appetite, DOMS etc. sets will be 7 reps with 1 min rest between them. I expect to drop to 5 reps as fatigue builds up and i'll be starting with the 32kgs. I do imagine i'll be down to the 24kgs by the time the session is up. 40 minutes on the clock, no more. I plan to stay on the program for 6weeks but may stretch it to 8 if the gains are still showing. No other upper body work at all but I will keep up the Z-Health and mobility work aswell as the Split training which is coming along swimmingly well.
I'll post everyday on it with completed worksets/reps and weight etc.
Scott
Great Books part 3
Beyond Stretching.
Back when I was starting out in the industry I never really understood stretching or flexibilty beyond what was taught on some courses I attended...and the methods and breakdown of the teaching on some of them wasn't great! Beyond stretching changed all that. I became more flexible, noticibly, within two days of putting a program together from it and it allowed me to train others and write up programs in a more cohesive way using the techniques Pavel describes. This book led me to super Joint and then to Relax into stretch and finally to Thomas Kurz's Stretching Scientifically. Very Influential
Part 3 of Thib
Welcome back. Last time I went over the 2nd part of my training principles. Today it's time to chow down on the third course. Say grace and dig right in.
Principle #5: Ideal Training Frequency
Training frequency per body part is the "single-set vs. multiple sets" of this decade. In the late '70s and early '80s, the raging debate was between proponents of single-set training versus those who preferred the high volume approach.
It was Arthur Jones vs. the Weiders; Mentzer against Arnold. The debate was never truly settled because, in some regards, both camps were right. But at the same time, neither of them were the indisputable truth.
The fact is that both low and high volume training have their own pros and cons and can be used effectively given the right circumstances.
The same can be said about training frequency. Just like with the volume debate, the frequency fisticuffs continue. I can guarantee you that one camp will never get to break out into "We Are the Champions" for the simple reason that both absolutist sides are right... and wrong!
There's no such thing as a perfect training frequency per muscle group. Only optimal training frequency based on the other training variables, your lifestyle, and your recovery capacity. There are, however, some broad guidelines that can be used to select the optimal training frequency that you need to use:
The harder you work a muscle group during a session, the longer it'll need to recover. If you typically perform super draining workouts (either via high volume or intensive methods), your training frequency per muscle group will need to be lower than if you don't kill the muscle every time you hit the gym.
The more muscle damage you create in a session, the more recovery time you'll need before the trained muscle(s) can be hit hard again. Muscle damage is mostly a function of mechanical work and eccentric loading. Most damage occurs in the 8 to 12 reps per set range (or sets lasting 30 to 60 seconds with a heavy load). When the eccentric portion of the movement is emphasized (via slower eccentrics, accentuated eccentric methods, or eccentric-only training) the damage is also greater.
This is why Olympic lifters can train on the competition lifts six days a week. Olympic lifters rarely perform more than five reps per set, and the eccentric portion is all but eliminated because the bar is dropped to the floor at the end of every lift. Low mechanical work plus no eccentric equals the capacity to train the lifts extremely often.
Training frequency is also dependent on the level of nervous system fatigue that's induced during each training session. If you don't tire out the nervous system, you can obviously train more often. However, at some point the CNS must be challenged if it's to become more resilient.
The more often you can stimulate a muscle without exceeding your capacity to recover, the more you'll progress. First, you must actually stimulate the muscles to grow. Sure, you can perform a few sets of easy exercises everyday (even several times a day), but if none of these "sessions" represent a challenge, there's no stimulation.
Then there's the aspect of exceeding your capacity to recover. You can be 100% convinced that super-high frequency training is the Holy Grail of muscle growth, but if you aren't allowing your body to recover, you simply won't progress! You must strike the perfect balance between stimulation and recovery to progress optimally.
So what frequency do I recommend? Again, it's an individual thing. It depends on training style and what's going on outside of the gym (i.e. that thing called "life"). But, assuming you're training according to my new principles, the optimal training frequency per muscle group is two sessions every five to seven days.
Those with a good recovery capacity or a stress-free life can aim for two sessions per muscle group every five to seven days. Individuals with an average recovery capacity or a more demanding life should shoot for two sessions every eight to ten days.
It isn't written in stone that every single muscle group has to be hit directly with this frequency. Indirect work (e.g. triceps getting some work when the chest is being trained) can also be factored in.
If you're to hit each body part twice every five days, or in other words, using a three-day cycle with one day off, a good split looks like this:
Day 1: Chest and backDay 2: Lower bodyDay 3: Arms and shouldersDay 4: OffDay 5: Repeat
Or if you're more of an upper/lower kind of guy:
Day 1: Lower bodyDay 2: Upper bodyDay 3: Trunk (abs and lower back)Day 4: OffDay 5: Repeat
These two options are for those with a great recovery capacity and little life stress (you must have both going for you).
If you have either a good recovery capacity or little stress then a six-day cycle will be a better option for you. You can go with any one of these three options:
Day 1: Chest and backDay 2: Lower bodyDay 3: OffDay 4: Arms and shouldersDay 5: OffDay 6: Repeat
Day 1: Lower bodyDay 2: OffDay 3: Upper bodyDay 4: Trunk (abs and lower back)Day 5: OffDay 6: Repeat
Day 1: Whole bodyDay 2: OffDay 3: Lower bodyDay 4: Upper bodyDay 5: OffDay 6: Repeat
If you're average (or below) in your capacity to recover and/or your life is a mess, you should bump it up to a seven-day cycle. You then have these options:
Day 1: Chest and backDay 2: OffDay 3: Lower bodyDay 4: OffDay 5: Arms and shouldersDay 6: OffDay 7: Repeat
Day 1: Lower bodyDay 2: OffDay 3: Upper bodyDay 4: OffDay 5: Trunk (abs and lower back)Day 6: OffDay 7: Repeat
Day 1: Whole bodyDay 2: OffDay 3: Lower bodyDay 4: OffDay 5: Upper bodyDay 6: OffDay 7: Repeat
Day 1: Whole bodyDay 2: OffDay 3: Whole bodyDay 4: OffDay 5: Whole bodyDay 6: OffDay 7: Repeat
Day 1: Pushing muscles (chest/shoulders/triceps)Day 2: OffDay 3: Lower bodyDay 4: OffDay 5: Pulling muscles (back/biceps/forearms)Day 6: OffDay 7: Repeat
Obviously, you might need to experiment to find the right approach for you. It's also possible that as your recovery capacity improves, you might be able to increase the training frequency.
In regard to two-a-days, what's been said still applies. When you're doing two sessions a day, you should be training the same muscle group(s) during both sessions, so you aren't increasing the frequency of training days per muscle. You're simply splitting up the amount of work into two micro-sessions instead of a single macro-session.
Principle #6: The Proper Rest Intervals are Goal Dependent
The amount of rest between sets is an often-neglected variable. I'm not the kind of guy who's super anal about this. If you take 65 seconds instead of 60, I won't have a heart attack! But, having some kind of guideline to use keeps you in line for the proper training effect.
The amount of time you rest between sets will affect several factors that are important in the adaptations brought on by your training. The length of the rest period:
Affects the partial or complete restoration of the short-term energy substrates necessary for maximal performance
Allows for the clearance of the metabolites accumulated in the muscle following intense muscular work (which can be either a good or bad thing depending on your goal)
Permits the CNS to recover
Slows down the elevated metabolic rate/heart rate (again, a good or bad thing depending on your goal).
1) Rest periods for strength: If your main goal is strength, the length of the rest intervals should be long enough to allow the nervous system to recover almost completely, but not so long that you lose what's called the post-tetanic potentiation (PTP) effect. The PTP effect refers to the phenomenon by which your contraction strength potential will be increased for up to five minutes after a heavy set because of a greater neural activation.
The peak effect (greater potentiation) occurs around two to three minutes after a near-maximal contraction. The effect then gradually loses its effect so that it's gone by around the fifth minute. So when training for strength, you should rest around three minutes between sets of the same exercise.
You'll still have the full potentiation effect with less rest, but you'll also have some neural and/or muscular fatigue which will counter the PTP effect. When you're doing a proper strength session, you should actually become stronger with every set of an exercise (until cumulative fatigue sets in after four or five sets).
Note that I mentioned three minutes between sets of the same exercise. If you alternate two exercises for opposing muscle groups, you can have less time between sets, provided that you still have the three minutes between sets of the same movement. For example, if you alternate the bench press and weighted pull-ups, you might do as follow:
A1) Bench press5 sets of 5 reps90 seconds rest
A2) Weighted pull-ups5 sets of 5 reps90 seconds rest
Which would look like this:
First set of bench pressRest 90 seconds
First set of pull-upsRest 90 seconds
Second set of bench pressRest 90 seconds
Second set of pull-upsRest 90 seconds
And so on and so forth.
So while the rest between sets is actually 90 seconds, you have around three to four minutes of rest before hitting the same muscles again.
By the way, the above alternating of two opposing muscle groups or movements is the best way to train for strength. And not just because I said so:
It allows you to do more total sets without training for too long.
It makes sure that opposing muscle groups receive the same training stimulus.
It has been shown that contracting a muscle group before working its antagonist will increase the strength in the later exercise.
2) Rest periods for size: When using the big compound movements for building size, we want to use rest intervals that aren't that far off from what we would use in a strength protocol.
As mentioned earlier, when you're using compound movements you don't want to create excessive CNS fatigue, so you should rest long enough to allow for at least a near-maximal neural recovery between sets.
The goal of the compound movement when training for size is not to burn, destroy, or annihilate the muscle, but to progressively use more weight in the proper size-stimulating zone (6 to 8 and 8 to 12 rep ranges). So when using compound movements for size, you want to take around two minutes between sets of the same exercise.
For the isolation work you perform, fatigue, especially cumulative muscle fiber fatigue, is the main goal. So rest intervals should be shorter. Not so short that your strength drops off too much from set to set, but you should try to gradually take less rest over time.
When training for size, a strength drop-off of 5% per set of isolation work is acceptable, and a total drop-off from the first to last set of 20% is a good target. In other words, shoot for a reduction in performance of 20% between your first and last set of an isolation movement. This reduction can either come from reps or load.
For example, if on the first set you perform 12 reps with 140 pounds, a 20% reduction could mean:
Doing 9 reps with 140 pounds on the last set
Or...
Doing 12 reps with 110 pounds on that last set
If you can't achieve a 20% drop-off in four sets of isolation work, it means that you're either not training hard enough or that you're taking too much time between sets.
For isolation work when training for size, the rest intervals should be anywhere from 30 to 75 seconds.
3) Rest periods for fat loss: When training for fat loss, you should always shoot for incomplete recovery, meaning that you must accumulate an oxygen debt from set to set. Your breathing should stay hard and heavy for the whole workout. If you can talk normally during a fat-loss workout, you aren't training properly! So the rest intervals should be shorter, even with compound movements.
How short? Well, again, this depends on your level of conditioning and work capacity. Since the goal is incomplete recovery, get back to work before your breathing normalizes!
During a fat-loss program, you should feel out of breath and almost nauseous during the whole workout (the nausea is mainly due to the increase in lactate/lactic acid production).
You should rest anywhere from 15 to 60 seconds between your sets with a tendency toward gradually reducing the amount of rest you take.
This isn't the end of the line. There are still principles to cover. Part 3 of Thib's opus magnum will explore progression and now often to change your program.Day 1: Whole bodyDay 2: OffDay 3: Lower bodyDay 4: OffDay 5: Upper bodyDay 6: OffDay 7: Repeat
Day 1: Whole bodyDay 2: OffDay 3: Whole bodyDay 4: OffDay 5: Whole bodyDay 6: OffDay 7: Repeat
Day 1: Pushing muscles (chest/shoulders/triceps)Day 2: OffDay 3: Lower bodyDay 4: OffDay 5: Pulling muscles (back/biceps/forearms)Day 6: OffDay 7: Repeat
Obviously, you might need to experiment to find the right approach for you. It's also possible that as your recovery capacity improves, you might be able to increase the training frequency.
In regard to two-a-days, what's been said still applies. When you're doing two sessions a day, you should be training the same muscle group(s) during both sessions, so you aren't increasing the frequency of training days per muscle. You're simply splitting up the amount of work into two micro-sessions instead of a single macro-session.
Principle #6: The Proper Rest Intervals are Goal Dependent
The amount of rest between sets is an often-neglected variable. I'm not the kind of guy who's super anal about this. If you take 65 seconds instead of 60, I won't have a heart attack! But, having some kind of guideline to use keeps you in line for the proper training effect.
The amount of time you rest between sets will affect several factors that are important in the adaptations brought on by your training. The length of the rest period:
Affects the partial or complete restoration of the short-term energy substrates necessary for maximal performance
Allows for the clearance of the metabolites accumulated in the muscle following intense muscular work (which can be either a good or bad thing depending on your goal)
Permits the CNS to recover
Slows down the elevated metabolic rate/heart rate (again, a good or bad thing depending on your goal).
1) Rest periods for strength: If your main goal is strength, the length of the rest intervals should be long enough to allow the nervous system to recover almost completely, but not so long that you lose what's called the post-tetanic potentiation (PTP) effect. The PTP effect refers to the phenomenon by which your contraction strength potential will be increased for up to five minutes after a heavy set because of a greater neural activation.
The peak effect (greater potentiation) occurs around two to three minutes after a near-maximal contraction. The effect then gradually loses its effect so that it's gone by around the fifth minute. So when training for strength, you should rest around three minutes between sets of the same exercise.
You'll still have the full potentiation effect with less rest, but you'll also have some neural and/or muscular fatigue which will counter the PTP effect. When you're doing a proper strength session, you should actually become stronger with every set of an exercise (until cumulative fatigue sets in after four or five sets).
Note that I mentioned three minutes between sets of the same exercise. If you alternate two exercises for opposing muscle groups, you can have less time between sets, provided that you still have the three minutes between sets of the same movement. For example, if you alternate the bench press and weighted pull-ups, you might do as follow:
A1) Bench press5 sets of 5 reps90 seconds rest
A2) Weighted pull-ups5 sets of 5 reps90 seconds rest
Which would look like this:
First set of bench pressRest 90 seconds
First set of pull-upsRest 90 seconds
Second set of bench pressRest 90 seconds
Second set of pull-upsRest 90 seconds
And so on and so forth.
So while the rest between sets is actually 90 seconds, you have around three to four minutes of rest before hitting the same muscles again.
By the way, the above alternating of two opposing muscle groups or movements is the best way to train for strength. And not just because I said so:
It allows you to do more total sets without training for too long.
It makes sure that opposing muscle groups receive the same training stimulus.
It has been shown that contracting a muscle group before working its antagonist will increase the strength in the later exercise.
2) Rest periods for size: When using the big compound movements for building size, we want to use rest intervals that aren't that far off from what we would use in a strength protocol.
As mentioned earlier, when you're using compound movements you don't want to create excessive CNS fatigue, so you should rest long enough to allow for at least a near-maximal neural recovery between sets.
The goal of the compound movement when training for size is not to burn, destroy, or annihilate the muscle, but to progressively use more weight in the proper size-stimulating zone (6 to 8 and 8 to 12 rep ranges). So when using compound movements for size, you want to take around two minutes between sets of the same exercise.
For the isolation work you perform, fatigue, especially cumulative muscle fiber fatigue, is the main goal. So rest intervals should be shorter. Not so short that your strength drops off too much from set to set, but you should try to gradually take less rest over time.
When training for size, a strength drop-off of 5% per set of isolation work is acceptable, and a total drop-off from the first to last set of 20% is a good target. In other words, shoot for a reduction in performance of 20% between your first and last set of an isolation movement. This reduction can either come from reps or load.
For example, if on the first set you perform 12 reps with 140 pounds, a 20% reduction could mean:
Doing 9 reps with 140 pounds on the last set
Or...
Doing 12 reps with 110 pounds on that last set
If you can't achieve a 20% drop-off in four sets of isolation work, it means that you're either not training hard enough or that you're taking too much time between sets.
For isolation work when training for size, the rest intervals should be anywhere from 30 to 75 seconds.
3) Rest periods for fat loss: When training for fat loss, you should always shoot for incomplete recovery, meaning that you must accumulate an oxygen debt from set to set. Your breathing should stay hard and heavy for the whole workout. If you can talk normally during a fat-loss workout, you aren't training properly! So the rest intervals should be shorter, even with compound movements.
How short? Well, again, this depends on your level of conditioning and work capacity. Since the goal is incomplete recovery, get back to work before your breathing normalizes!
During a fat-loss program, you should feel out of breath and almost nauseous during the whole workout (the nausea is mainly due to the increase in lactate/lactic acid production).
You should rest anywhere from 15 to 60 seconds between your sets with a tendency toward gradually reducing the amount of rest you take.
This isn't the end of the line. There are still principles to cover. Part 4 of Thib's opus magnum will explore progression and now often to change your program
Principle #5: Ideal Training Frequency
Training frequency per body part is the "single-set vs. multiple sets" of this decade. In the late '70s and early '80s, the raging debate was between proponents of single-set training versus those who preferred the high volume approach.
It was Arthur Jones vs. the Weiders; Mentzer against Arnold. The debate was never truly settled because, in some regards, both camps were right. But at the same time, neither of them were the indisputable truth.
The fact is that both low and high volume training have their own pros and cons and can be used effectively given the right circumstances.
The same can be said about training frequency. Just like with the volume debate, the frequency fisticuffs continue. I can guarantee you that one camp will never get to break out into "We Are the Champions" for the simple reason that both absolutist sides are right... and wrong!
There's no such thing as a perfect training frequency per muscle group. Only optimal training frequency based on the other training variables, your lifestyle, and your recovery capacity. There are, however, some broad guidelines that can be used to select the optimal training frequency that you need to use:
The harder you work a muscle group during a session, the longer it'll need to recover. If you typically perform super draining workouts (either via high volume or intensive methods), your training frequency per muscle group will need to be lower than if you don't kill the muscle every time you hit the gym.
The more muscle damage you create in a session, the more recovery time you'll need before the trained muscle(s) can be hit hard again. Muscle damage is mostly a function of mechanical work and eccentric loading. Most damage occurs in the 8 to 12 reps per set range (or sets lasting 30 to 60 seconds with a heavy load). When the eccentric portion of the movement is emphasized (via slower eccentrics, accentuated eccentric methods, or eccentric-only training) the damage is also greater.
This is why Olympic lifters can train on the competition lifts six days a week. Olympic lifters rarely perform more than five reps per set, and the eccentric portion is all but eliminated because the bar is dropped to the floor at the end of every lift. Low mechanical work plus no eccentric equals the capacity to train the lifts extremely often.
Training frequency is also dependent on the level of nervous system fatigue that's induced during each training session. If you don't tire out the nervous system, you can obviously train more often. However, at some point the CNS must be challenged if it's to become more resilient.
The more often you can stimulate a muscle without exceeding your capacity to recover, the more you'll progress. First, you must actually stimulate the muscles to grow. Sure, you can perform a few sets of easy exercises everyday (even several times a day), but if none of these "sessions" represent a challenge, there's no stimulation.
Then there's the aspect of exceeding your capacity to recover. You can be 100% convinced that super-high frequency training is the Holy Grail of muscle growth, but if you aren't allowing your body to recover, you simply won't progress! You must strike the perfect balance between stimulation and recovery to progress optimally.
So what frequency do I recommend? Again, it's an individual thing. It depends on training style and what's going on outside of the gym (i.e. that thing called "life"). But, assuming you're training according to my new principles, the optimal training frequency per muscle group is two sessions every five to seven days.
Those with a good recovery capacity or a stress-free life can aim for two sessions per muscle group every five to seven days. Individuals with an average recovery capacity or a more demanding life should shoot for two sessions every eight to ten days.
It isn't written in stone that every single muscle group has to be hit directly with this frequency. Indirect work (e.g. triceps getting some work when the chest is being trained) can also be factored in.
If you're to hit each body part twice every five days, or in other words, using a three-day cycle with one day off, a good split looks like this:
Day 1: Chest and backDay 2: Lower bodyDay 3: Arms and shouldersDay 4: OffDay 5: Repeat
Or if you're more of an upper/lower kind of guy:
Day 1: Lower bodyDay 2: Upper bodyDay 3: Trunk (abs and lower back)Day 4: OffDay 5: Repeat
These two options are for those with a great recovery capacity and little life stress (you must have both going for you).
If you have either a good recovery capacity or little stress then a six-day cycle will be a better option for you. You can go with any one of these three options:
Day 1: Chest and backDay 2: Lower bodyDay 3: OffDay 4: Arms and shouldersDay 5: OffDay 6: Repeat
Day 1: Lower bodyDay 2: OffDay 3: Upper bodyDay 4: Trunk (abs and lower back)Day 5: OffDay 6: Repeat
Day 1: Whole bodyDay 2: OffDay 3: Lower bodyDay 4: Upper bodyDay 5: OffDay 6: Repeat
If you're average (or below) in your capacity to recover and/or your life is a mess, you should bump it up to a seven-day cycle. You then have these options:
Day 1: Chest and backDay 2: OffDay 3: Lower bodyDay 4: OffDay 5: Arms and shouldersDay 6: OffDay 7: Repeat
Day 1: Lower bodyDay 2: OffDay 3: Upper bodyDay 4: OffDay 5: Trunk (abs and lower back)Day 6: OffDay 7: Repeat
Day 1: Whole bodyDay 2: OffDay 3: Lower bodyDay 4: OffDay 5: Upper bodyDay 6: OffDay 7: Repeat
Day 1: Whole bodyDay 2: OffDay 3: Whole bodyDay 4: OffDay 5: Whole bodyDay 6: OffDay 7: Repeat
Day 1: Pushing muscles (chest/shoulders/triceps)Day 2: OffDay 3: Lower bodyDay 4: OffDay 5: Pulling muscles (back/biceps/forearms)Day 6: OffDay 7: Repeat
Obviously, you might need to experiment to find the right approach for you. It's also possible that as your recovery capacity improves, you might be able to increase the training frequency.
In regard to two-a-days, what's been said still applies. When you're doing two sessions a day, you should be training the same muscle group(s) during both sessions, so you aren't increasing the frequency of training days per muscle. You're simply splitting up the amount of work into two micro-sessions instead of a single macro-session.
Principle #6: The Proper Rest Intervals are Goal Dependent
The amount of rest between sets is an often-neglected variable. I'm not the kind of guy who's super anal about this. If you take 65 seconds instead of 60, I won't have a heart attack! But, having some kind of guideline to use keeps you in line for the proper training effect.
The amount of time you rest between sets will affect several factors that are important in the adaptations brought on by your training. The length of the rest period:
Affects the partial or complete restoration of the short-term energy substrates necessary for maximal performance
Allows for the clearance of the metabolites accumulated in the muscle following intense muscular work (which can be either a good or bad thing depending on your goal)
Permits the CNS to recover
Slows down the elevated metabolic rate/heart rate (again, a good or bad thing depending on your goal).
1) Rest periods for strength: If your main goal is strength, the length of the rest intervals should be long enough to allow the nervous system to recover almost completely, but not so long that you lose what's called the post-tetanic potentiation (PTP) effect. The PTP effect refers to the phenomenon by which your contraction strength potential will be increased for up to five minutes after a heavy set because of a greater neural activation.
The peak effect (greater potentiation) occurs around two to three minutes after a near-maximal contraction. The effect then gradually loses its effect so that it's gone by around the fifth minute. So when training for strength, you should rest around three minutes between sets of the same exercise.
You'll still have the full potentiation effect with less rest, but you'll also have some neural and/or muscular fatigue which will counter the PTP effect. When you're doing a proper strength session, you should actually become stronger with every set of an exercise (until cumulative fatigue sets in after four or five sets).
Note that I mentioned three minutes between sets of the same exercise. If you alternate two exercises for opposing muscle groups, you can have less time between sets, provided that you still have the three minutes between sets of the same movement. For example, if you alternate the bench press and weighted pull-ups, you might do as follow:
A1) Bench press5 sets of 5 reps90 seconds rest
A2) Weighted pull-ups5 sets of 5 reps90 seconds rest
Which would look like this:
First set of bench pressRest 90 seconds
First set of pull-upsRest 90 seconds
Second set of bench pressRest 90 seconds
Second set of pull-upsRest 90 seconds
And so on and so forth.
So while the rest between sets is actually 90 seconds, you have around three to four minutes of rest before hitting the same muscles again.
By the way, the above alternating of two opposing muscle groups or movements is the best way to train for strength. And not just because I said so:
It allows you to do more total sets without training for too long.
It makes sure that opposing muscle groups receive the same training stimulus.
It has been shown that contracting a muscle group before working its antagonist will increase the strength in the later exercise.
2) Rest periods for size: When using the big compound movements for building size, we want to use rest intervals that aren't that far off from what we would use in a strength protocol.
As mentioned earlier, when you're using compound movements you don't want to create excessive CNS fatigue, so you should rest long enough to allow for at least a near-maximal neural recovery between sets.
The goal of the compound movement when training for size is not to burn, destroy, or annihilate the muscle, but to progressively use more weight in the proper size-stimulating zone (6 to 8 and 8 to 12 rep ranges). So when using compound movements for size, you want to take around two minutes between sets of the same exercise.
For the isolation work you perform, fatigue, especially cumulative muscle fiber fatigue, is the main goal. So rest intervals should be shorter. Not so short that your strength drops off too much from set to set, but you should try to gradually take less rest over time.
When training for size, a strength drop-off of 5% per set of isolation work is acceptable, and a total drop-off from the first to last set of 20% is a good target. In other words, shoot for a reduction in performance of 20% between your first and last set of an isolation movement. This reduction can either come from reps or load.
For example, if on the first set you perform 12 reps with 140 pounds, a 20% reduction could mean:
Doing 9 reps with 140 pounds on the last set
Or...
Doing 12 reps with 110 pounds on that last set
If you can't achieve a 20% drop-off in four sets of isolation work, it means that you're either not training hard enough or that you're taking too much time between sets.
For isolation work when training for size, the rest intervals should be anywhere from 30 to 75 seconds.
3) Rest periods for fat loss: When training for fat loss, you should always shoot for incomplete recovery, meaning that you must accumulate an oxygen debt from set to set. Your breathing should stay hard and heavy for the whole workout. If you can talk normally during a fat-loss workout, you aren't training properly! So the rest intervals should be shorter, even with compound movements.
How short? Well, again, this depends on your level of conditioning and work capacity. Since the goal is incomplete recovery, get back to work before your breathing normalizes!
During a fat-loss program, you should feel out of breath and almost nauseous during the whole workout (the nausea is mainly due to the increase in lactate/lactic acid production).
You should rest anywhere from 15 to 60 seconds between your sets with a tendency toward gradually reducing the amount of rest you take.
This isn't the end of the line. There are still principles to cover. Part 3 of Thib's opus magnum will explore progression and now often to change your program.Day 1: Whole bodyDay 2: OffDay 3: Lower bodyDay 4: OffDay 5: Upper bodyDay 6: OffDay 7: Repeat
Day 1: Whole bodyDay 2: OffDay 3: Whole bodyDay 4: OffDay 5: Whole bodyDay 6: OffDay 7: Repeat
Day 1: Pushing muscles (chest/shoulders/triceps)Day 2: OffDay 3: Lower bodyDay 4: OffDay 5: Pulling muscles (back/biceps/forearms)Day 6: OffDay 7: Repeat
Obviously, you might need to experiment to find the right approach for you. It's also possible that as your recovery capacity improves, you might be able to increase the training frequency.
In regard to two-a-days, what's been said still applies. When you're doing two sessions a day, you should be training the same muscle group(s) during both sessions, so you aren't increasing the frequency of training days per muscle. You're simply splitting up the amount of work into two micro-sessions instead of a single macro-session.
Principle #6: The Proper Rest Intervals are Goal Dependent
The amount of rest between sets is an often-neglected variable. I'm not the kind of guy who's super anal about this. If you take 65 seconds instead of 60, I won't have a heart attack! But, having some kind of guideline to use keeps you in line for the proper training effect.
The amount of time you rest between sets will affect several factors that are important in the adaptations brought on by your training. The length of the rest period:
Affects the partial or complete restoration of the short-term energy substrates necessary for maximal performance
Allows for the clearance of the metabolites accumulated in the muscle following intense muscular work (which can be either a good or bad thing depending on your goal)
Permits the CNS to recover
Slows down the elevated metabolic rate/heart rate (again, a good or bad thing depending on your goal).
1) Rest periods for strength: If your main goal is strength, the length of the rest intervals should be long enough to allow the nervous system to recover almost completely, but not so long that you lose what's called the post-tetanic potentiation (PTP) effect. The PTP effect refers to the phenomenon by which your contraction strength potential will be increased for up to five minutes after a heavy set because of a greater neural activation.
The peak effect (greater potentiation) occurs around two to three minutes after a near-maximal contraction. The effect then gradually loses its effect so that it's gone by around the fifth minute. So when training for strength, you should rest around three minutes between sets of the same exercise.
You'll still have the full potentiation effect with less rest, but you'll also have some neural and/or muscular fatigue which will counter the PTP effect. When you're doing a proper strength session, you should actually become stronger with every set of an exercise (until cumulative fatigue sets in after four or five sets).
Note that I mentioned three minutes between sets of the same exercise. If you alternate two exercises for opposing muscle groups, you can have less time between sets, provided that you still have the three minutes between sets of the same movement. For example, if you alternate the bench press and weighted pull-ups, you might do as follow:
A1) Bench press5 sets of 5 reps90 seconds rest
A2) Weighted pull-ups5 sets of 5 reps90 seconds rest
Which would look like this:
First set of bench pressRest 90 seconds
First set of pull-upsRest 90 seconds
Second set of bench pressRest 90 seconds
Second set of pull-upsRest 90 seconds
And so on and so forth.
So while the rest between sets is actually 90 seconds, you have around three to four minutes of rest before hitting the same muscles again.
By the way, the above alternating of two opposing muscle groups or movements is the best way to train for strength. And not just because I said so:
It allows you to do more total sets without training for too long.
It makes sure that opposing muscle groups receive the same training stimulus.
It has been shown that contracting a muscle group before working its antagonist will increase the strength in the later exercise.
2) Rest periods for size: When using the big compound movements for building size, we want to use rest intervals that aren't that far off from what we would use in a strength protocol.
As mentioned earlier, when you're using compound movements you don't want to create excessive CNS fatigue, so you should rest long enough to allow for at least a near-maximal neural recovery between sets.
The goal of the compound movement when training for size is not to burn, destroy, or annihilate the muscle, but to progressively use more weight in the proper size-stimulating zone (6 to 8 and 8 to 12 rep ranges). So when using compound movements for size, you want to take around two minutes between sets of the same exercise.
For the isolation work you perform, fatigue, especially cumulative muscle fiber fatigue, is the main goal. So rest intervals should be shorter. Not so short that your strength drops off too much from set to set, but you should try to gradually take less rest over time.
When training for size, a strength drop-off of 5% per set of isolation work is acceptable, and a total drop-off from the first to last set of 20% is a good target. In other words, shoot for a reduction in performance of 20% between your first and last set of an isolation movement. This reduction can either come from reps or load.
For example, if on the first set you perform 12 reps with 140 pounds, a 20% reduction could mean:
Doing 9 reps with 140 pounds on the last set
Or...
Doing 12 reps with 110 pounds on that last set
If you can't achieve a 20% drop-off in four sets of isolation work, it means that you're either not training hard enough or that you're taking too much time between sets.
For isolation work when training for size, the rest intervals should be anywhere from 30 to 75 seconds.
3) Rest periods for fat loss: When training for fat loss, you should always shoot for incomplete recovery, meaning that you must accumulate an oxygen debt from set to set. Your breathing should stay hard and heavy for the whole workout. If you can talk normally during a fat-loss workout, you aren't training properly! So the rest intervals should be shorter, even with compound movements.
How short? Well, again, this depends on your level of conditioning and work capacity. Since the goal is incomplete recovery, get back to work before your breathing normalizes!
During a fat-loss program, you should feel out of breath and almost nauseous during the whole workout (the nausea is mainly due to the increase in lactate/lactic acid production).
You should rest anywhere from 15 to 60 seconds between your sets with a tendency toward gradually reducing the amount of rest you take.
This isn't the end of the line. There are still principles to cover. Part 4 of Thib's opus magnum will explore progression and now often to change your program
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Sports Specific training..Necessary or not?
It is often asked by athletes, both amatuer and professional alike, if specific sports exercises are required, relevant or necessary to a sport or sporting movement, in order to improve the abilities of the athlete above that of the intermediate level. In order to answer that, one must look at the foundation or base level of the athletes preparedness. Below is a post from Pavel Tsatsouline in response to a Brad Nelson post about whether there is any need For Sports Specific training:
"In the Russian sports training methodology strength preparation is divided into general and special: GSP and SSP. A foundation of GSP is a must before one takes on specialized training. If you cannot squat two times your bodyweight or pull a lot, doing knee raises with a kettlebell hanging on your foot, a Russian sprinter SSP drill, will not make you faster; it will make you hurt. Skipping the hard and boring general strength training and going straight to the fun SPP is akin to going to college from grade school. It dooms you to failure. Once you reach a respectable level of general strength and earn the right to practice sport-specific strength training you have a decision to make. Either find a highly competent coach to prescribe you the right drills. Or forget about them altogether and stick with your general strength training. Unfortunately, SSP is not for amateurs. Poorly chosen exercises could do worse than fail to improve your special strength; they might mess up your skills. Basketball players who were given heavy basketballs had to learn that lesson the hard way. So stick with PTP (Power to the people)/ETK (Enter the kettlebell)/NW (Naked Warrior) or some other GSP approach and keep it simple."
So you must have a high base level of strength in order to move to SSP. Ubfortunately that is where the majority of intermediate and even some supposedly advanced athletes fall down. They are no-where near "double bodyweight squats" as Pavel mentions above. Get the strength down pat, Deadlift and get it heavy, Squat, do pullups and when you can do 15 strict ones add weight, learn the pistol and one arm pushup, Press a heavy kettlebell until you can do 5 reps per arm with a 32kg, use the high tension techniques and get STRONG.
As master RKC Brett Jones told me recently in a response to a post: "A wide foundation leads to a higher peak"
Go Train
Scott
"In the Russian sports training methodology strength preparation is divided into general and special: GSP and SSP. A foundation of GSP is a must before one takes on specialized training. If you cannot squat two times your bodyweight or pull a lot, doing knee raises with a kettlebell hanging on your foot, a Russian sprinter SSP drill, will not make you faster; it will make you hurt. Skipping the hard and boring general strength training and going straight to the fun SPP is akin to going to college from grade school. It dooms you to failure. Once you reach a respectable level of general strength and earn the right to practice sport-specific strength training you have a decision to make. Either find a highly competent coach to prescribe you the right drills. Or forget about them altogether and stick with your general strength training. Unfortunately, SSP is not for amateurs. Poorly chosen exercises could do worse than fail to improve your special strength; they might mess up your skills. Basketball players who were given heavy basketballs had to learn that lesson the hard way. So stick with PTP (Power to the people)/ETK (Enter the kettlebell)/NW (Naked Warrior) or some other GSP approach and keep it simple."
So you must have a high base level of strength in order to move to SSP. Ubfortunately that is where the majority of intermediate and even some supposedly advanced athletes fall down. They are no-where near "double bodyweight squats" as Pavel mentions above. Get the strength down pat, Deadlift and get it heavy, Squat, do pullups and when you can do 15 strict ones add weight, learn the pistol and one arm pushup, Press a heavy kettlebell until you can do 5 reps per arm with a 32kg, use the high tension techniques and get STRONG.
As master RKC Brett Jones told me recently in a response to a post: "A wide foundation leads to a higher peak"
Go Train
Scott
Monday, July 7, 2008
Todays Training
Maxwell daily dozen followed by Z-Health knee and hip drills.
Front Squat 5x5 reps
double swing 5x5 reps
military press 3x7 reps with the 28kg. (Felt really heavy today and I struggled with the last 2 reps on each set)
Overhead squats 5x5 reps with both 24's
Floor press with the 32's 5x5 reps.
Pressups (Feet Elevated) 3x20 reps
Rows 4x6reps with the 32kg
Not using any supplements at the moment and getting plenty of sleep and water. Split practice tomorrow
Scottie
Front Squat 5x5 reps
double swing 5x5 reps
military press 3x7 reps with the 28kg. (Felt really heavy today and I struggled with the last 2 reps on each set)
Overhead squats 5x5 reps with both 24's
Floor press with the 32's 5x5 reps.
Pressups (Feet Elevated) 3x20 reps
Rows 4x6reps with the 32kg
Not using any supplements at the moment and getting plenty of sleep and water. Split practice tomorrow
Scottie
This is very interesting. It was posted on Dragondoor.com
Praise the lard
By Monica Eng Chicago Tribune
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2004 Public Emily Archive
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2004 Wine Me Dine Me Archive
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CHICAGO - Vinka Peschak starts each day by knocking back a full cup of heavy whipping cream.
That’s at 8 a.m.
"At around 11 o’clock I take three or four egg yolks and make some kind of omelet with lard for breakfast," the Portage Park resident explains. Peschak, a native of Poland, eats her omelet with a cup of buttery boiled vegetables and a slender piece of almond toast slathered in more butter or lard.
Dinner is usually a fatty piece of pork or some kind of organ meat with lard-cooked french fries and more butter-soaked vegetables.
In the middle of the day she might have a cup of coffee, "but only with a lot of heavy whipping cream in it."
Peschak has been eating like this for more than five years. She is slim, energetic, and says, "I feel wonderful, never tired and never hungry."
She is not on Atkins. She is not on South Beach. Peschak, along with an estimated 2 molks worldwide, is on thillion fe Optimal Diet, a Polish eating plan that requires the consumption of prodigious amounts of animal fat - preferably lard.
The diet was hatched in Poland some 40 years ago by Dr. Jan Kwasniewski, who started developing it while working as a dietician for a military sanitarium in Ciechocinek, Poland. There he observed that many of his patients were sick, "not because of any pathogenic factors ... but the result of one underlying cause-bad nutrition," according to his English language "Optimal Nutrition" book. After experimenting on his family and himself, Kwasniewski concluded that the ideal nutritional combo came from eating three grams of fat for every one gram of protein and half a gram of carbohydrates.
After a couple of decades of refining this theory, Kwasniewski published his first book in Poland in 1990. But it wasn’t until converts came forward with their stories of weight loss and recovery from disease in the mid-’90s that the diet really took off in its native land and Kwasniewski’s books went into wide circulation. Today there are at least two magazines devoted to the Optimal lifestyle and Kwasniewski writes a twice-weekly column for the regional Polish newspaper Dziennik Zachodni.
It was one of these books that made it into Peschak’s hands in late 1998, when she was having lunch with other Polish women at a Chicago factory. "One lady who just came back from vacation in Poland showed me this book she got there and it made a lot of sense to me." A few weeks later, Peschak started the diet.
It wasn’t until more than three years later, though, that Chicago would become the North American capital for this eating plan. That’s when Tomasz Zielinski bought a little storefront on Milwaukee Avenue and opened Calma Optimal Foods. The first and only one of its kind in the nation, it operates as a deli, meeting center and, as of this spring, a restaurant for those on the lard-laden plan. Peschak serves as its manager.
Sometimes called the Polish Atkins, the Optimal Diet severely restricts the intake of carbohydrates and sugars, but differs from Atkins by de-emphasizing protein and beefing up, or more accurately porking up, the fat to a level that would have even made the late Robert Atkins reach for his heart.
250 GRAMS OF FAT PER DAY
On average, the diet recommends a whopping 250 grams of fat per day, about four times what the FDA recommended for the average person to maintain his or her weight and about 10 times the allowed amount of saturated fat.
So despite its popularity in Poland - Lech Walesa is reported to have lost 44 pounds and cured his diabetes on it recently - the mainstream medical establishment there and here is skeptical.
"I am very against diets like this," says Jadwiga Roguska, a practicing internist at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. "All high-fat diets are unhealthy in the long term and there is absolutely no benefit to weight reduction of this sort because it is threatenurse, hiing to health. ... Of cogh-fat diets will give you the benefits of energy and weight loss, but they are just not good for you."
Roguska based her comments on a brief overview of its principles, but Chicago physician Mark Sobor has seen it up close and has watched an increasing number of his patients in the Polish community embrace it.
"Kwasniewski is pure fat," says Sobor who practices in Jefferson Park and is also a licensed acupuncturist. "Eat fat non-stop. Everything is pure fat. The more fat you can take in the better and these people are fanatics about it. But the thing is they’re all skinny."
On a recent Sunday morning at the Optimal deli/center in Portage Park, Ill., about 30 mature, fairly slim followers of the Kwasniewski plan gathered for a weekly meeting and shared their stories.
There was the ginger-haired firecracker Irena Kozlowicz, 78, who went on the diet five years ago after Kwasniewski came to speak at the Copernicus Center in 1999. At the time she was suffering from chronic eye problems, asthma and pain in her knees.
"Now I can walk better than a young person," she chirps. "I can run up six floors of stairs and my grandson can’t catch me. He’s 17 years old. I meet young ladies and they are always tired and sweating, but I never am. I didn’t need to lose weight, but I lost 8 pounds. I am 78, but I feel like I am 50. I thank God for the diet."
Then there is Jozef Michael Ostrowski, 71, who says he has been on a variation of the diet his whole life.
"Since the occupation of Poland my parents could only afford pork meat and liver and blood sausage and lard," Ostrowspreter. ki says through an inter"It is not like I was following this diet precisely but generally. At that time I didn’t know this kind of natural food was good for me. I just knew that I could eat scrambled eggs with a thin piece of bread and lard and I would be full all day. I started eating regular food like McDonald’s and I could not handle the pain and so I went back to the diet and have felt better and better every day."
Zofia Pawlik, 56, started the diet last year when she went on an Optimal vacation, a retreat to the Wisconsin Dells to learn about the program and eat its foods. Over the course of a year, she says she has lost 10 pounds while improving her energy and overall health.
IMPRESSIVE RESULTS
Chicago physician Christopher Kubik wasn’t at the meeting, but in a phone interview he said that four and a half years ago he was overweight and suffering from fatigue and stones in the bladder. But within a couple of months of embarking on this high-fat journey he saw results.
"I was losing weigh gradually (he lost about 25 pounds in six weeks) but I felt fine. Since then, I didn’t have any more problems with stones, my skin complexion improved and I am still feeling a lot of energy," says Kubik, 57, who reports that he breakfasts on fried eggs, bacon and string cheese seven days a week. "So I experienced significant detectable improvement even though I generally had good health to begin with. While I was losing the weight I could feel the ketones as a metallic tasted on the mouth, but after I reached my optimal weight, (the ketosis) stopped. Now my weight has remained steady at about 185, which is in the upper limit of normal for my height."
Kubik, who also has degrees in public health and health law, says he does not actively promote the diet, "because it is not considered a standard-of-care and the medical community still recommends low-fat diets, and it is not something I could support if I were sued." But if patients ask, "I tell them that I am on it and have seen positive results."
Dr. Sobor has also seen a growing number of Kwasniewski converts who claim weight loss is only one of the benefits they’ve reaped.
Chester Matuszewski, 46, for instance says that four years ago he was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and was told that there was no way he could be totally cured.
"Every single joint imaginable in my hips, elbows, knees and hands hurt," Matuszewski recalled. Remembering something he had read in a Polish newspaper about the Optimal diet, he decided to check it out even though it seemed unappetizing.
"For years I thought that pork is not good for you and I didn’t like the smell, but I forced myself. ... After two months I started to feel better and I didn’t want to attribute it to the diet. But my friends also saw a difference in me and I had so much energy. Today after four years, I have no pain and no swelling and I am totally cured."
Sobor hears these stories all the time, but still has his reservations.
"I’m sure you’ve heard their claims that their joint pain is gone and diabetes is gone," he says. "And they say it because it’s true. You can apparently get a lot of benefits if you decrease your carbohydrate intake, and stop taking in all the white flour and stop taking in all the refined foods because you are not stressing your body out all the time with all of the insulin spikes and becoming hyperglycemic and hypoglycemic."
"But do I recommend the diet? I don’t know," he says. "I don’t think Kwasniewski is as good as Atkins or that it is something you should go on for a long time. Now the South Beach Diet, that is a nice diet with more flexibility. But this Optimal diet is the most radical of the low-carb diets."
Despite the popularity of the diet in its country of origin, it remains controversial there among traditional Polish nutritionists, who oppose its high cholesterol and fat recommendations.
"They don’t like it because they see it endangers their own positions as nutritional authorities," says Peschak.
NO POSITION FROM THE AMA
In the United States the Optimal Diet hasn’t yet caught the attention of the medical establishment. The American Medical Association doesn’t have a position on Atkins, much less Optimal. And Lisa Dorfman, spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, had not heard of it either.
Still, based on a quick description of the diet, she didn’t condemn it outright.
"I can see how this would be a very attractive program, certainly in the senior citizen community because these are nutrient dense foods and seniors don’t need to eat a lot of food," says Dorfman, a licensed nutritionist.
"And some of the foods are very nutritious albeit very high in fat and cholesterol. Liver is very high in iron and B vitamins, which would be lovely for senior citizens because they need those vitamins and are usually on a budget in that time of life.
"But for the general public I see where there could be potential problems. We just know that long-term high-fat diets leave one with a heightened risk of heart disease, stroke and hypertension. This is certainly not for children, teenagers or pregnant women.
"Most Americans are getting too much fat as it is and they are not getting enough activity, and they have incredible risk for heart disease because of a whole multiple list of factors including genetics and stress. And so I can’t imagine that adding fat and lard and cholesterol into the mix would be beneficial to that.
"But for this group of Polish seniors I think it’s adorable, especially if it was developed by someone from the old country. As a psychotherapist, I can see where they must feel like you’ve got to be healthy eating this because there is a psychological connection to eating these foods. It’s old country eating.
"Going back to the basics. It is different from the commercial processing chemical laden foods. I certainly believe these people are benefiting in some way, but it may be more than one way and it may be for certain groups and not for others is my gut hunch. It might not be appropriate for three-quarters of the population but maybe they’ve hit the nail on the head and this is perfect for them."
WHAT WILL IT DO LONG-TERM?
Although there is general agreement in the health community that lots of refined flours and sugars and their accompanying insulin spikes are not healthful, most conventional nutritionists are still not ready to embrace low-carb, high-protein and high-fat diets because of their perceived effects on the organs.
But could wear and tear on the liver, kidneys and heart be worth it for an older person to be free of the health risks of obesity?
"That I don’t know," Sobor says. "No one on Atkins has died of kidney failure yet, but you can probably find a nephrologist (kidney specialist) who says it’s good, one who says its bad and one who is in between. Because the truth is no one really knows yet."
"The final question is who dies faster, the people who are obese or the people who go on these diets. You would have to take 2,000 people on the diet and then 2,000 controls to see what is going to kill them first, the extra pounds or the extra protein load on the kidneys or whatever this diet will do to you. The pounds are going to do it in the short and medium-term. There’s no question about that. But the jury is out on the long-term. The final arbiter is death. If they live longer than you do, then they won."
What’s on the menu?
Here’s a sample daily menu from the Optimal Diet Web site (http://homodiet.netfirms.com)
Breakfast:
Two slices of headcheese loaf with mustard
One soft-boiled egg
Two cheese pancakes with butter
Tea with lemon (no sugar)
Lunch:
Two slices of baked blood sausage fried in bacon fat
Tea with lemon (no sugar)
Dinner:
Broth with two egg yolks
Hash browns
One strip of bacon
Daily total: 254 grams of fat and 2,923 calories
LARDING IT ON
While the diet’s guiding high-fat low-carb principles are not culturally specific, the way the diet is practiced in Chicago ends up being very culturally Polish-albeit with as much added saturated fat as possible, Amish raised and free of artificial sweeteners, antibiotics, nitrites or preservatives. Here’s what you’ll find in the deli cases, coolers and shelves of Calma Optimal Foods:
Polish specialties: Optimal versions of flaczki (tripe soup), bigos (hunter’s stew), borscht, Polish sausages, blintzes, even pierogi and paczki.
Organ delights: pork liver pate, brain croquettes, blood sausage, headcheese, brain with vegetable soup, and liver and tongue stew.
Desserts: Jell-O-whipped cream slices, low-sugar, high-fat ice creams, poppy seed cakes, and low-sugar cheesecake.
Dairy products, miscellaneous: heavy whipping cream, jumbo Amish eggs, Amish butter, nut-based breads, collagen soups, tubs of house-rendered lard, lard with bacon and beef tallow.
In a nod to the diet’s arrival in the United States, there’s even Optimal pizza, larded with extra bacon, butter-fried mushrooms and a butter crust.
- Chicago Tribune
By Monica Eng Chicago Tribune
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2004 Public Emily Archive
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2004 Wine Me Dine Me Archive
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CHICAGO - Vinka Peschak starts each day by knocking back a full cup of heavy whipping cream.
That’s at 8 a.m.
"At around 11 o’clock I take three or four egg yolks and make some kind of omelet with lard for breakfast," the Portage Park resident explains. Peschak, a native of Poland, eats her omelet with a cup of buttery boiled vegetables and a slender piece of almond toast slathered in more butter or lard.
Dinner is usually a fatty piece of pork or some kind of organ meat with lard-cooked french fries and more butter-soaked vegetables.
In the middle of the day she might have a cup of coffee, "but only with a lot of heavy whipping cream in it."
Peschak has been eating like this for more than five years. She is slim, energetic, and says, "I feel wonderful, never tired and never hungry."
She is not on Atkins. She is not on South Beach. Peschak, along with an estimated 2 molks worldwide, is on thillion fe Optimal Diet, a Polish eating plan that requires the consumption of prodigious amounts of animal fat - preferably lard.
The diet was hatched in Poland some 40 years ago by Dr. Jan Kwasniewski, who started developing it while working as a dietician for a military sanitarium in Ciechocinek, Poland. There he observed that many of his patients were sick, "not because of any pathogenic factors ... but the result of one underlying cause-bad nutrition," according to his English language "Optimal Nutrition" book. After experimenting on his family and himself, Kwasniewski concluded that the ideal nutritional combo came from eating three grams of fat for every one gram of protein and half a gram of carbohydrates.
After a couple of decades of refining this theory, Kwasniewski published his first book in Poland in 1990. But it wasn’t until converts came forward with their stories of weight loss and recovery from disease in the mid-’90s that the diet really took off in its native land and Kwasniewski’s books went into wide circulation. Today there are at least two magazines devoted to the Optimal lifestyle and Kwasniewski writes a twice-weekly column for the regional Polish newspaper Dziennik Zachodni.
It was one of these books that made it into Peschak’s hands in late 1998, when she was having lunch with other Polish women at a Chicago factory. "One lady who just came back from vacation in Poland showed me this book she got there and it made a lot of sense to me." A few weeks later, Peschak started the diet.
It wasn’t until more than three years later, though, that Chicago would become the North American capital for this eating plan. That’s when Tomasz Zielinski bought a little storefront on Milwaukee Avenue and opened Calma Optimal Foods. The first and only one of its kind in the nation, it operates as a deli, meeting center and, as of this spring, a restaurant for those on the lard-laden plan. Peschak serves as its manager.
Sometimes called the Polish Atkins, the Optimal Diet severely restricts the intake of carbohydrates and sugars, but differs from Atkins by de-emphasizing protein and beefing up, or more accurately porking up, the fat to a level that would have even made the late Robert Atkins reach for his heart.
250 GRAMS OF FAT PER DAY
On average, the diet recommends a whopping 250 grams of fat per day, about four times what the FDA recommended for the average person to maintain his or her weight and about 10 times the allowed amount of saturated fat.
So despite its popularity in Poland - Lech Walesa is reported to have lost 44 pounds and cured his diabetes on it recently - the mainstream medical establishment there and here is skeptical.
"I am very against diets like this," says Jadwiga Roguska, a practicing internist at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. "All high-fat diets are unhealthy in the long term and there is absolutely no benefit to weight reduction of this sort because it is threatenurse, hiing to health. ... Of cogh-fat diets will give you the benefits of energy and weight loss, but they are just not good for you."
Roguska based her comments on a brief overview of its principles, but Chicago physician Mark Sobor has seen it up close and has watched an increasing number of his patients in the Polish community embrace it.
"Kwasniewski is pure fat," says Sobor who practices in Jefferson Park and is also a licensed acupuncturist. "Eat fat non-stop. Everything is pure fat. The more fat you can take in the better and these people are fanatics about it. But the thing is they’re all skinny."
On a recent Sunday morning at the Optimal deli/center in Portage Park, Ill., about 30 mature, fairly slim followers of the Kwasniewski plan gathered for a weekly meeting and shared their stories.
There was the ginger-haired firecracker Irena Kozlowicz, 78, who went on the diet five years ago after Kwasniewski came to speak at the Copernicus Center in 1999. At the time she was suffering from chronic eye problems, asthma and pain in her knees.
"Now I can walk better than a young person," she chirps. "I can run up six floors of stairs and my grandson can’t catch me. He’s 17 years old. I meet young ladies and they are always tired and sweating, but I never am. I didn’t need to lose weight, but I lost 8 pounds. I am 78, but I feel like I am 50. I thank God for the diet."
Then there is Jozef Michael Ostrowski, 71, who says he has been on a variation of the diet his whole life.
"Since the occupation of Poland my parents could only afford pork meat and liver and blood sausage and lard," Ostrowspreter. ki says through an inter"It is not like I was following this diet precisely but generally. At that time I didn’t know this kind of natural food was good for me. I just knew that I could eat scrambled eggs with a thin piece of bread and lard and I would be full all day. I started eating regular food like McDonald’s and I could not handle the pain and so I went back to the diet and have felt better and better every day."
Zofia Pawlik, 56, started the diet last year when she went on an Optimal vacation, a retreat to the Wisconsin Dells to learn about the program and eat its foods. Over the course of a year, she says she has lost 10 pounds while improving her energy and overall health.
IMPRESSIVE RESULTS
Chicago physician Christopher Kubik wasn’t at the meeting, but in a phone interview he said that four and a half years ago he was overweight and suffering from fatigue and stones in the bladder. But within a couple of months of embarking on this high-fat journey he saw results.
"I was losing weigh gradually (he lost about 25 pounds in six weeks) but I felt fine. Since then, I didn’t have any more problems with stones, my skin complexion improved and I am still feeling a lot of energy," says Kubik, 57, who reports that he breakfasts on fried eggs, bacon and string cheese seven days a week. "So I experienced significant detectable improvement even though I generally had good health to begin with. While I was losing the weight I could feel the ketones as a metallic tasted on the mouth, but after I reached my optimal weight, (the ketosis) stopped. Now my weight has remained steady at about 185, which is in the upper limit of normal for my height."
Kubik, who also has degrees in public health and health law, says he does not actively promote the diet, "because it is not considered a standard-of-care and the medical community still recommends low-fat diets, and it is not something I could support if I were sued." But if patients ask, "I tell them that I am on it and have seen positive results."
Dr. Sobor has also seen a growing number of Kwasniewski converts who claim weight loss is only one of the benefits they’ve reaped.
Chester Matuszewski, 46, for instance says that four years ago he was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and was told that there was no way he could be totally cured.
"Every single joint imaginable in my hips, elbows, knees and hands hurt," Matuszewski recalled. Remembering something he had read in a Polish newspaper about the Optimal diet, he decided to check it out even though it seemed unappetizing.
"For years I thought that pork is not good for you and I didn’t like the smell, but I forced myself. ... After two months I started to feel better and I didn’t want to attribute it to the diet. But my friends also saw a difference in me and I had so much energy. Today after four years, I have no pain and no swelling and I am totally cured."
Sobor hears these stories all the time, but still has his reservations.
"I’m sure you’ve heard their claims that their joint pain is gone and diabetes is gone," he says. "And they say it because it’s true. You can apparently get a lot of benefits if you decrease your carbohydrate intake, and stop taking in all the white flour and stop taking in all the refined foods because you are not stressing your body out all the time with all of the insulin spikes and becoming hyperglycemic and hypoglycemic."
"But do I recommend the diet? I don’t know," he says. "I don’t think Kwasniewski is as good as Atkins or that it is something you should go on for a long time. Now the South Beach Diet, that is a nice diet with more flexibility. But this Optimal diet is the most radical of the low-carb diets."
Despite the popularity of the diet in its country of origin, it remains controversial there among traditional Polish nutritionists, who oppose its high cholesterol and fat recommendations.
"They don’t like it because they see it endangers their own positions as nutritional authorities," says Peschak.
NO POSITION FROM THE AMA
In the United States the Optimal Diet hasn’t yet caught the attention of the medical establishment. The American Medical Association doesn’t have a position on Atkins, much less Optimal. And Lisa Dorfman, spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, had not heard of it either.
Still, based on a quick description of the diet, she didn’t condemn it outright.
"I can see how this would be a very attractive program, certainly in the senior citizen community because these are nutrient dense foods and seniors don’t need to eat a lot of food," says Dorfman, a licensed nutritionist.
"And some of the foods are very nutritious albeit very high in fat and cholesterol. Liver is very high in iron and B vitamins, which would be lovely for senior citizens because they need those vitamins and are usually on a budget in that time of life.
"But for the general public I see where there could be potential problems. We just know that long-term high-fat diets leave one with a heightened risk of heart disease, stroke and hypertension. This is certainly not for children, teenagers or pregnant women.
"Most Americans are getting too much fat as it is and they are not getting enough activity, and they have incredible risk for heart disease because of a whole multiple list of factors including genetics and stress. And so I can’t imagine that adding fat and lard and cholesterol into the mix would be beneficial to that.
"But for this group of Polish seniors I think it’s adorable, especially if it was developed by someone from the old country. As a psychotherapist, I can see where they must feel like you’ve got to be healthy eating this because there is a psychological connection to eating these foods. It’s old country eating.
"Going back to the basics. It is different from the commercial processing chemical laden foods. I certainly believe these people are benefiting in some way, but it may be more than one way and it may be for certain groups and not for others is my gut hunch. It might not be appropriate for three-quarters of the population but maybe they’ve hit the nail on the head and this is perfect for them."
WHAT WILL IT DO LONG-TERM?
Although there is general agreement in the health community that lots of refined flours and sugars and their accompanying insulin spikes are not healthful, most conventional nutritionists are still not ready to embrace low-carb, high-protein and high-fat diets because of their perceived effects on the organs.
But could wear and tear on the liver, kidneys and heart be worth it for an older person to be free of the health risks of obesity?
"That I don’t know," Sobor says. "No one on Atkins has died of kidney failure yet, but you can probably find a nephrologist (kidney specialist) who says it’s good, one who says its bad and one who is in between. Because the truth is no one really knows yet."
"The final question is who dies faster, the people who are obese or the people who go on these diets. You would have to take 2,000 people on the diet and then 2,000 controls to see what is going to kill them first, the extra pounds or the extra protein load on the kidneys or whatever this diet will do to you. The pounds are going to do it in the short and medium-term. There’s no question about that. But the jury is out on the long-term. The final arbiter is death. If they live longer than you do, then they won."
What’s on the menu?
Here’s a sample daily menu from the Optimal Diet Web site (http://homodiet.netfirms.com)
Breakfast:
Two slices of headcheese loaf with mustard
One soft-boiled egg
Two cheese pancakes with butter
Tea with lemon (no sugar)
Lunch:
Two slices of baked blood sausage fried in bacon fat
Tea with lemon (no sugar)
Dinner:
Broth with two egg yolks
Hash browns
One strip of bacon
Daily total: 254 grams of fat and 2,923 calories
LARDING IT ON
While the diet’s guiding high-fat low-carb principles are not culturally specific, the way the diet is practiced in Chicago ends up being very culturally Polish-albeit with as much added saturated fat as possible, Amish raised and free of artificial sweeteners, antibiotics, nitrites or preservatives. Here’s what you’ll find in the deli cases, coolers and shelves of Calma Optimal Foods:
Polish specialties: Optimal versions of flaczki (tripe soup), bigos (hunter’s stew), borscht, Polish sausages, blintzes, even pierogi and paczki.
Organ delights: pork liver pate, brain croquettes, blood sausage, headcheese, brain with vegetable soup, and liver and tongue stew.
Desserts: Jell-O-whipped cream slices, low-sugar, high-fat ice creams, poppy seed cakes, and low-sugar cheesecake.
Dairy products, miscellaneous: heavy whipping cream, jumbo Amish eggs, Amish butter, nut-based breads, collagen soups, tubs of house-rendered lard, lard with bacon and beef tallow.
In a nod to the diet’s arrival in the United States, there’s even Optimal pizza, larded with extra bacon, butter-fried mushrooms and a butter crust.
- Chicago Tribune
An excellent Quote by Thomas Jefferson
Determine never to be Idle...it is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Great Books Part 2
Supertraining by Mel Siff
This is the masterpiece of the late great Mel Siff. As influential and comprehensive in the field of Strength and conditioning as anything you will ever read. A University education x2 and perhaps the only resource a trainer/coach/ fitness professional could ever need. A thought provoking life changer.
Some of my Favourite Quotes
The glory of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acquire it.—Francois de La Rochefoucauld
It's never too late to be who you might have been.—George Eliot
Chase after truth like hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat-tails.—Clarence Darrow
It's not the will to win that matters...everyone has that. It's the will to prepare to win that matters.—Paul "Bear" Bryant
When you are not practicing, remember, someone somewhere is practicing, and when you meet him he will win.—Ed Macauley
Nothing can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.—Sidney J. Harris
As I see it, every day you do one of two things: build health or produce disease in yourself.—Adelle Davis
Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago.—Horace Mann
Be fit for more than the thing you are now doing. Let everyone know that you have a reserve in yourself; that you have more power than you are now using. If you are not too large for the place you occupy, you are too small for it.—James A. Garfield
It's never too late to be who you might have been.—George Eliot
Chase after truth like hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat-tails.—Clarence Darrow
It's not the will to win that matters...everyone has that. It's the will to prepare to win that matters.—Paul "Bear" Bryant
When you are not practicing, remember, someone somewhere is practicing, and when you meet him he will win.—Ed Macauley
Nothing can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.—Sidney J. Harris
As I see it, every day you do one of two things: build health or produce disease in yourself.—Adelle Davis
Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago.—Horace Mann
Be fit for more than the thing you are now doing. Let everyone know that you have a reserve in yourself; that you have more power than you are now using. If you are not too large for the place you occupy, you are too small for it.—James A. Garfield
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Part 2 of Thibaudeau, Enjoy!
Principle #3: Keep Your Training Sessions Under 60 Minutes
Cortisol is a stress hormone that's released during bouts of training. Some is needed, but too much cortisol, especially if it stays elevated after the training session, can greatly decrease muscle growth and strength improvements.
Cortisol is catabolic, meaning that it leads to the breakdown of stored substrates. During exercise, this can be useful since it'll breakdown stored glycogen into glucose and stored fat into fatty acids to provide energy for the working muscles. However, post-training it'll continue to breakdown glycogen which slows recovery. It also breaks down muscle tissue into amino acids, making it harder to add muscle mass.
Furthermore, since both cortisol and Testosterone are both made from the same raw material (pregnenolone), constantly elevated cortisol levels will eventually lead to lower Testosterone levels.
Cortisol output during training has been correlated with training volume; the more work being done during a session, the more cortisol is produced. This is especially true when metabolic-type training (high reps, short rest intervals) is used.
To avoid overproducing cortisol, you want to keep your sessions short, around an hour or less.
Another reason to avoid long sessions is related to mental focus. Regardless of how much you love training, at some point your focus will go in the crapper during a long session. The work performed in that state will be unproductive and could even lead to bad habits that'll screw you in the long run.
You can train more than one hour per day, but split your daily volume into two workouts. In fact, splitting your daily workload into several shorter sessions is much more effective, as it leads to both lower cortisol production and higher Testosterone levels. It's been shown that when two daily sessions are used, Testosterone production is higher after the second workout than after the first.
When training twice a day, it's best to train the same body part(s) during both workouts. I like to take this opportunity to train different types of contractions or goals on both occasions. For example:
Option 1: Muscle Building Emphasis
AM: Compound movementsPM: Isolation work
Option 2: Strength and Size Hybrid
AM: Heavy lifting (2 to 6 reps)PM: Moderate loading (8 to 12 reps)
Option 3: Muscle Building or Strength Emphasis (Depending on AM Load)
AM: Concentric/regular liftingPM: Eccentric work
Option 4: Performance Training
AM: Explosive liftingPM: Heavy lifting
Option 5: Powerlifting or Olympic Lifting
AM: Competition movementPM: Assistance work
It'd be a mistake to immediately jump to the maximum amount of training you can do with two-a-days. There should be a progression toward that amount of training.
Week
Session 1
Session 2
1
40 to 50 minutes
20 minutes
2
40 to 50 minutes
20 to 30 minutes
3
40 to 50 minutes
30 to 40 minutes
4
50 to 60 minutes
None
5
50 to 60 minutes
20 to 30 minutes
6
50 to 60 minutes
30 to 40 minutes
7
50 to 60 minutes
40 to 50 minutes
8
50 to 60 minutes
None
To judge if a workout was productive, but not excessive, look for three things:
1. At the end of the workout you're tired but not drained.
2. You feel a pump in the trained muscle. The intensity of the pump will obviously depend on the type of training that you did, but you should feel the muscles that were trained.
3. Two to three hours after the completion of the session you should yearn for more training. If you're still tired or lack motivation to train after this amount of time, chances are the session was excessive.
Principle #4: Contraction Type Depends on the Movement
This goes hand-in-hand with the first principle mentioned. There are basically three ways of executing a movement when it comes to the speed of execution/type of contraction.
1. Constant tension movement: You never release the contraction of the target muscle group during the execution of the exercise. Basically, the muscle you're trying to stimulate must be kept maximally flexed for every inch of every rep of every set. Never let it relax, not even between each rep!
The goal of this type of contraction is to prevent blood from entering the muscle during the set. This creates a hypoxic state because oxygen can't enter the muscle. It also prevents metabolic waste (lactate, hydrogen ions, etc.) from being taken out of the muscle during the set. Both of these factors increase the release of local growth factors like IGF-1, MGF, and growth hormone which will help stimulate growth.
By the way, the use of isometric contractions also falls into this category.
2. Accelerative concentric, controlled eccentric: In this type of contraction, you're trying to accelerate during the actual lifting portion of the movement and lower the weight under control. You go to the exercise's full range of motion, but you briefly pause (around one second) between the stretch position and the following lifting action. This short pause will negate the contribution of the stretch-shortening cycle to the force production.
You see, three things can contribute to producing force when you're lifting a weight: the actual contraction of the muscle, the activation of the reflex known as the stretch-shortening cycle (also called the myotatic stretch reflex), and the fact that muscle tissue is elastic, much like a rubber band.
When trying to maximize the amount of actual work the muscle itself must perform, you want to minimize the action of both the stretch reflex and the elastic contribution of the muscle's structure. By doing a simple one-second pause before lifting the weight, you can accomplish that and thus maximize the amount of force that the muscle must produce.
When you're lifting the weight, try to contract the muscle as fast as you can. This doesn't mean focusing on lifting the bar as fast as you can. Rather, it means that you should attempt to tense the muscle as hard as possible right from the start of the lifting motion. This will maximize the recruitment of the highly trainable fast-twitch fibers.
Finally, when you lower the weight, do so under control. The eccentric portion of the movement is where most of the muscle damage occurs (micro-tears of the muscle fibers) and is a powerful growth stimulus.
3. Using the stretch reflex: With this type of lifting, you want to involve the stretch reflex and elastic component of the muscle. Thus, you want to lift the load as fast as possible. This explosive lifting will improve the capacity, over time, of the nervous system to recruit the fast-twitch fibers.
It isn't effective by itself to stimulate maximum growth in those fibers because you can't fatigue them sufficiently (the time of contraction and duration of the muscle tension per rep is too low). But by lifting this way on some movements, you'll become better and better at activating the fast-twitch fibers. When you're more efficient at doing that, every single other exercise becomes more effective.
So, when do you use each technique?
Every time you do an isolation exercise, use constant tension. Every time! The goal of an isolation exercise is to completely focus the stress on the target muscle. You want a maximal local effect, and to do that you need constant tension. Without constant tension, isolation exercises are pointless. This is actually one of the main reasons why isolation movements get a bad rap. People don't know how to do them properly, and as a result, they end up not being effective at stimulating growth. But when done using constant tension, they're very effective at it.
Don't try to use constant tension lifting with compound movements. Not that it's impossible, but it's a waste of time. The goal of a compound movement is to overload several muscles. By nature, you can't isolate a muscle during a multi-joint exercise, and attempting to do so will make the exercise much less effective than it should be.
With regular compound movements, you want to use the second technique: accelerative lifting, short pause in the stretch position, and a controlled eccentric. This will magnify the hypertrophic effect of the big movements by overloading the involved muscles as much as possible.
Finally, the explosive lifting is best kept for exercises such as the Olympic lifts, plyometrics, and various jumping drills and throws. While these movements won't directly build mass, they'll improve your capacity to stimulate growth by improving your neural efficiency to recruit muscle fibers.
This isn't the end of the line. There are still plenty of principles to cover. Part 3 of Thib's opus magnum will explore ideal training frequency and proper rest intervals.
Cortisol is a stress hormone that's released during bouts of training. Some is needed, but too much cortisol, especially if it stays elevated after the training session, can greatly decrease muscle growth and strength improvements.
Cortisol is catabolic, meaning that it leads to the breakdown of stored substrates. During exercise, this can be useful since it'll breakdown stored glycogen into glucose and stored fat into fatty acids to provide energy for the working muscles. However, post-training it'll continue to breakdown glycogen which slows recovery. It also breaks down muscle tissue into amino acids, making it harder to add muscle mass.
Furthermore, since both cortisol and Testosterone are both made from the same raw material (pregnenolone), constantly elevated cortisol levels will eventually lead to lower Testosterone levels.
Cortisol output during training has been correlated with training volume; the more work being done during a session, the more cortisol is produced. This is especially true when metabolic-type training (high reps, short rest intervals) is used.
To avoid overproducing cortisol, you want to keep your sessions short, around an hour or less.
Another reason to avoid long sessions is related to mental focus. Regardless of how much you love training, at some point your focus will go in the crapper during a long session. The work performed in that state will be unproductive and could even lead to bad habits that'll screw you in the long run.
You can train more than one hour per day, but split your daily volume into two workouts. In fact, splitting your daily workload into several shorter sessions is much more effective, as it leads to both lower cortisol production and higher Testosterone levels. It's been shown that when two daily sessions are used, Testosterone production is higher after the second workout than after the first.
When training twice a day, it's best to train the same body part(s) during both workouts. I like to take this opportunity to train different types of contractions or goals on both occasions. For example:
Option 1: Muscle Building Emphasis
AM: Compound movementsPM: Isolation work
Option 2: Strength and Size Hybrid
AM: Heavy lifting (2 to 6 reps)PM: Moderate loading (8 to 12 reps)
Option 3: Muscle Building or Strength Emphasis (Depending on AM Load)
AM: Concentric/regular liftingPM: Eccentric work
Option 4: Performance Training
AM: Explosive liftingPM: Heavy lifting
Option 5: Powerlifting or Olympic Lifting
AM: Competition movementPM: Assistance work
It'd be a mistake to immediately jump to the maximum amount of training you can do with two-a-days. There should be a progression toward that amount of training.
Week
Session 1
Session 2
1
40 to 50 minutes
20 minutes
2
40 to 50 minutes
20 to 30 minutes
3
40 to 50 minutes
30 to 40 minutes
4
50 to 60 minutes
None
5
50 to 60 minutes
20 to 30 minutes
6
50 to 60 minutes
30 to 40 minutes
7
50 to 60 minutes
40 to 50 minutes
8
50 to 60 minutes
None
To judge if a workout was productive, but not excessive, look for three things:
1. At the end of the workout you're tired but not drained.
2. You feel a pump in the trained muscle. The intensity of the pump will obviously depend on the type of training that you did, but you should feel the muscles that were trained.
3. Two to three hours after the completion of the session you should yearn for more training. If you're still tired or lack motivation to train after this amount of time, chances are the session was excessive.
Principle #4: Contraction Type Depends on the Movement
This goes hand-in-hand with the first principle mentioned. There are basically three ways of executing a movement when it comes to the speed of execution/type of contraction.
1. Constant tension movement: You never release the contraction of the target muscle group during the execution of the exercise. Basically, the muscle you're trying to stimulate must be kept maximally flexed for every inch of every rep of every set. Never let it relax, not even between each rep!
The goal of this type of contraction is to prevent blood from entering the muscle during the set. This creates a hypoxic state because oxygen can't enter the muscle. It also prevents metabolic waste (lactate, hydrogen ions, etc.) from being taken out of the muscle during the set. Both of these factors increase the release of local growth factors like IGF-1, MGF, and growth hormone which will help stimulate growth.
By the way, the use of isometric contractions also falls into this category.
2. Accelerative concentric, controlled eccentric: In this type of contraction, you're trying to accelerate during the actual lifting portion of the movement and lower the weight under control. You go to the exercise's full range of motion, but you briefly pause (around one second) between the stretch position and the following lifting action. This short pause will negate the contribution of the stretch-shortening cycle to the force production.
You see, three things can contribute to producing force when you're lifting a weight: the actual contraction of the muscle, the activation of the reflex known as the stretch-shortening cycle (also called the myotatic stretch reflex), and the fact that muscle tissue is elastic, much like a rubber band.
When trying to maximize the amount of actual work the muscle itself must perform, you want to minimize the action of both the stretch reflex and the elastic contribution of the muscle's structure. By doing a simple one-second pause before lifting the weight, you can accomplish that and thus maximize the amount of force that the muscle must produce.
When you're lifting the weight, try to contract the muscle as fast as you can. This doesn't mean focusing on lifting the bar as fast as you can. Rather, it means that you should attempt to tense the muscle as hard as possible right from the start of the lifting motion. This will maximize the recruitment of the highly trainable fast-twitch fibers.
Finally, when you lower the weight, do so under control. The eccentric portion of the movement is where most of the muscle damage occurs (micro-tears of the muscle fibers) and is a powerful growth stimulus.
3. Using the stretch reflex: With this type of lifting, you want to involve the stretch reflex and elastic component of the muscle. Thus, you want to lift the load as fast as possible. This explosive lifting will improve the capacity, over time, of the nervous system to recruit the fast-twitch fibers.
It isn't effective by itself to stimulate maximum growth in those fibers because you can't fatigue them sufficiently (the time of contraction and duration of the muscle tension per rep is too low). But by lifting this way on some movements, you'll become better and better at activating the fast-twitch fibers. When you're more efficient at doing that, every single other exercise becomes more effective.
So, when do you use each technique?
Every time you do an isolation exercise, use constant tension. Every time! The goal of an isolation exercise is to completely focus the stress on the target muscle. You want a maximal local effect, and to do that you need constant tension. Without constant tension, isolation exercises are pointless. This is actually one of the main reasons why isolation movements get a bad rap. People don't know how to do them properly, and as a result, they end up not being effective at stimulating growth. But when done using constant tension, they're very effective at it.
Don't try to use constant tension lifting with compound movements. Not that it's impossible, but it's a waste of time. The goal of a compound movement is to overload several muscles. By nature, you can't isolate a muscle during a multi-joint exercise, and attempting to do so will make the exercise much less effective than it should be.
With regular compound movements, you want to use the second technique: accelerative lifting, short pause in the stretch position, and a controlled eccentric. This will magnify the hypertrophic effect of the big movements by overloading the involved muscles as much as possible.
Finally, the explosive lifting is best kept for exercises such as the Olympic lifts, plyometrics, and various jumping drills and throws. While these movements won't directly build mass, they'll improve your capacity to stimulate growth by improving your neural efficiency to recruit muscle fibers.
This isn't the end of the line. There are still plenty of principles to cover. Part 3 of Thib's opus magnum will explore ideal training frequency and proper rest intervals.
The Deadlift. Why?
Franco Columbu with one of his tune up weights.
The Deadlift might just be the best exercise I have ever done. In 2001 when I discovered the genius of Pavel's Power to the People, I didn't deadlift. Within two months of following the program my arms had grown an inch, body comp changed, fat percentage went down 3%, upper back shape was changed into a V from being previously shapeless and i noticed improvement in my pullups for reps, my running speed and bench press performance for reps and for max weight. My standing military press went up a few pounds aswell. I believe the strengthening of my untrained posterior chain, co-ordination of many muscle groups in the one go and use of high tension from the heavy loads and techniques outlined in the book had the effect of bringing my whole body and CNS up a level so I had a stronger foundation for all my other lifts to spring upward from.
Do yourself a favour, Deadlift.
In Training
Scott
A Thought Provoking post below
From Aaron Schwenzfeier's blog
Deep Squatting and Lumbar flexion; a good thing?
There's always been lots of discussion about the lumbar flexion that may occur at the bottom of a deep squat. Most of the discussion/arguments are against allowing any lumbar flexion in this position.
For example, if an athlete back squats (loaded with a barbell) to top of the thigh parallel and can maintain a "neutral" spine, but going any deeper creates lumbar flexion (posterior rotation of the pelvis), then the athlete should squat no deeper than the position in which they can maintain the neutral spine position. The thought is that any lumbar flexion under load may be bad.
In my situation, I have always had athletes squat as deep as possible (maintaining proper foot pressure, and in neutral spine). Many times, as the athlete drops the top of the thighs past parallel, the pelvis basically 'tucks' under, creating some lumbar flexion. I've always coached the athletes to maintain a tall spine, but have never really worried too much about this little bit of lumbar flexion at towards the end range-of-motion... maybe I should, but I have yet to see it cause any issues.
And most of the time, this little bit of lumbar flexion, actually brings the lumbar spine closer to a more true "neutral" position or just slight flexion, as back squatting with load tends put the athlete in more of a lumbar extension position to start with.
Anyway... just the other day, I came across this interesting paragraph in Functional Anatomy of the Spine by Middleditch and Oliver:
"Tension in the thoracolumbar fascia can also be increased by motion of the arms, legs and trunk. Posterior rotation of the pelvis causes an increase in flexion at he lumbosacral junction and hence increases tension in the thoracolumbar fascia. Lumbar spine flexion also passively increases tension in the thoracolumbar fascia. Competitive weightlifters may flex or 'round out' the lumbosacral area and it is suggested that this affords some protection by increasing tension in the thoracolumbar fascia and posterior ligamentous structures, thereby contributing to stability in the low lumbar area (Dolan et al, 1994)."
Maybe that little bit of lumbar flexion under load is ok.
AS
Posted by Aaron Schwenzfeier at 1:48 PM
Deep Squatting and Lumbar flexion; a good thing?
There's always been lots of discussion about the lumbar flexion that may occur at the bottom of a deep squat. Most of the discussion/arguments are against allowing any lumbar flexion in this position.
For example, if an athlete back squats (loaded with a barbell) to top of the thigh parallel and can maintain a "neutral" spine, but going any deeper creates lumbar flexion (posterior rotation of the pelvis), then the athlete should squat no deeper than the position in which they can maintain the neutral spine position. The thought is that any lumbar flexion under load may be bad.
In my situation, I have always had athletes squat as deep as possible (maintaining proper foot pressure, and in neutral spine). Many times, as the athlete drops the top of the thighs past parallel, the pelvis basically 'tucks' under, creating some lumbar flexion. I've always coached the athletes to maintain a tall spine, but have never really worried too much about this little bit of lumbar flexion at towards the end range-of-motion... maybe I should, but I have yet to see it cause any issues.
And most of the time, this little bit of lumbar flexion, actually brings the lumbar spine closer to a more true "neutral" position or just slight flexion, as back squatting with load tends put the athlete in more of a lumbar extension position to start with.
Anyway... just the other day, I came across this interesting paragraph in Functional Anatomy of the Spine by Middleditch and Oliver:
"Tension in the thoracolumbar fascia can also be increased by motion of the arms, legs and trunk. Posterior rotation of the pelvis causes an increase in flexion at he lumbosacral junction and hence increases tension in the thoracolumbar fascia. Lumbar spine flexion also passively increases tension in the thoracolumbar fascia. Competitive weightlifters may flex or 'round out' the lumbosacral area and it is suggested that this affords some protection by increasing tension in the thoracolumbar fascia and posterior ligamentous structures, thereby contributing to stability in the low lumbar area (Dolan et al, 1994)."
Maybe that little bit of lumbar flexion under load is ok.
AS
Posted by Aaron Schwenzfeier at 1:48 PM
Training this morning.
Nice and quick with no rest.
Z-Health full body neural warmup 15 mins.
24kg bell. Swing, snatch, lower, press and lower. repeat x5 then change arms.
28kg bell. Same again
Jerk 2x 28kg bells 3x7 reps.
Finish with Hamstring and Hip flexor stretches in prep for split practice tonight.
Z-Health full body neural warmup 15 mins.
24kg bell. Swing, snatch, lower, press and lower. repeat x5 then change arms.
28kg bell. Same again
Jerk 2x 28kg bells 3x7 reps.
Finish with Hamstring and Hip flexor stretches in prep for split practice tonight.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Great Books Part 1
Power to the people by Pavel Tsatsouline. I discovered this in 2001 after reading a brief but impressive article featuring Pavel. After buying this book I began to look at training, Strength and Physical culture in a totally different light and the deadlift became the cornerstone of my training. An antidote to all other "Fitness" Books i'd read up to that point, this is a great tome of Strength from one of the best out there in the field. Available at http://www.dragondoor.com/
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