Strength training for teens.

I've been asked by a lot of people lately if their young teenagers should be lifting weights or not. I always return the question "Sure, why not?" and the inevitable answer is something about stunting a kids growth. 

Frankly, if you are worried about how your kid is growing, there are other things to consider. It never crosses a parents mind that they allow their young teen to go out and play football and hit and be hit; go play basketball, jump as high as they can, and land poorly; or play baseball and try to throw a 5 ounce ball as hard as they can, over and over and over. These are the things that are going to mess with a kids body; not a properly executed strength and conditioning program.

So, yes, please take your young athlete to see a QUALIFIED strength and conditioning coach. No, just having a CSCS does not make someone qualified to be your child's coach. Observe the attitude around the gym, observe the way this coach handles his athletes and try and see if exercises look like they are being supervised or are the athletes going all Lord of the Flies in the weight room?

A safe, supervised well thought out strength program is suitable for any kid old enough to be able to concentrate on something like that. It's never too early to start to ingrain proper movement patterns for squatting, hinging (deadlifts), pushing, sprinting and jumping/landing. There is a right way and a wrong way to do everything; and the right way is always the safest way. Even unloaded, or very lightly loaded olympic lifts are a great way to get your kids involved in strength training at an early age. It seems to work in other countries. 

If you introduce your kids at an early age with the right coach, they should have lots of fun and success with their training. Success here is paramount. I believe that learning how to weight train at a young age will give kids a feeling of accomplishment that you are hard-pressed to find in other areas of your life. If you set your goal at squatting 135x5, the first time you hit it you feel like a fucking beast. Like you could carry the weight of the world on your back. The best thing about hitting a goal in weight training? There is another one right in front of your face. There is no getting away from it. Weights keep you honest; the iron doesn't lie. You might be able to squeak by in history without studying, and you might be able to swing basketball practice on raw talent...but if you aren't in the weight room as often as you should be, everyone in there is going to know it when you don't hit your next goal. The confidence and self-efficacy this will build in your child will be worth its weight in gold later on in life.

Now, go keep yourself honest. Lift something heavy!

A word on supplements.

Supplementation is something almost every guy I talk to about strength training and fitness asks about. 

"So...you take protein?"

"Is creatine going to kill me? I heard it killed some football players!"

"I'm gonna take NO X-Plode so I can get jacked!"

"The Super-Jacked-Hyper-Metabolic-Giraffe-Lung I'm taking made my preacher curl go up 10 lbs!!"

Thanks, Jackie Chan, I couldn't have said it better myself!

Here's the way it breaks down, ready? Most supplements are horse-shit. The vast majority of them aren't worth the bottle they are sold in. 

Why are there so many, then? Because fools keep buying them, looking for the magic elixir. Everyone wants to be bigger, stronger, leaner or have the ability to sustain an erection for 4 hours.

Wait, wrong supplement...

NEWS FLASH: the only magic elixir is hard work. If you want the results, you gotta put in the time under the bar. 

Wit all that being said; yes, there are supplements that are legitimate and worthwhile. The thing to remember is that they are called supplements for a reason; they are not intended to be the basis of your diet, but to take care of any deficiencies you might be experiencing in your healthy, well balanced diet. 

EVERYONE, man and woman, should be taking a high quality multi-vitamin and fish oil capsules. The benefits of these two supplements are far reaching and well documented. I even wrote a paper a few years ago on the benefits of the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids and their effects on the attenuation of dementia. 

Most people should be taking some sort of greens supplement as well, something like Superfood or Athletic Greens will go a long way in address anything you're not already getting from your diet. 

People who are engaged in a steady, well rounded (read: not sucky) strength and conditioning program should probably consider taking a Creatine Monohydrate and a BCAA supplement. They are both essential building blocks of muscle, and recovery times will greatly decrease when taking these supplements. No, they won't kill you. 

The majority of people who are working out consistently will also want to be on a protein supplement of some sort. The goal for a person who is working out should be to consume 1-1.5 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight. Simply, if you weigh 185 pounds, you should be striving to consume at least 185 grams of protein in a day. You know what? That's pretty hard. I have a tough time doing it, and I really work at it. Thats why we have supplements! Everyone has had a protein shake before, so keep doing it. Theres a million and one types of protein out there, so just make sure you buy yours from a reputable source. Next question? Whey or casein? Whey is a faster digesting source of protein, which is why most people take that after their workout. Casein is a much slower digesting enzyme that is easily found in cottage cheese. For this reason, a lot of guys will house some cottage cheese right before bed, so their system has something to work on all night. 

(Yes cottage cheese is kinda gross. Just eat it, it will make you diesel.)

Women, the only thing you really need to do differently from the men is to make sure you get a quality Calcium supplement that has around 600 IU's of Vitamin D in it for proper absorption. 

The last supplement I want to talk about is glucosamine/chondroitin. This is a joint supplement that has been believed for some time to help re-grow/repair cartilage in aching joints. There have been several studies done on the effects of this supplement (they usually come packaged as one pill), with varying results. Some say it works, some say its snake oil. My personal experience with it is that I feel better when I am on it. I've had several professors say the same thing to me about their experience. Maybe the placebo effect is at play? Regardless, it will not hurt you if you take it; so if you can afford it, go for it!

Remember, it's not the supplements you choose to use, but the hard work you put in in the kitchen and in the gym. Now go lift something heavy!

Tips and tricks for a good diet

Ah, diet. You old bastard, you. The thing that everyone needs help with, and is least likely to actually take the steps to fix. Why? Easy; bad food tastes good.

Animal Style!!!!

Really. Fucking. Good.

I'll admit it; I give in every once in a while and crush a burger and fries from BK or Wendy's. Not McDonald's though, forget that noise. 

I manage to keep a pretty tight diet most of the time; every once in a while you DO need to enjoy yourself though. What are some strategies I (and most people) use to keep on track?

1) Go to the grocery store. Buy lots of food. If you have food in the house, you are more likely to eat it.

 

2) Prepare your food ahead of time. This doesn't mean cooking it all at once, but it could mean that. If you make a huge pot of chili on Sunday night, you can eat it for the rest of the week. What I really mean, is take the time to get everything ready to cook. Right now in my fridge I have 3 pounds of snapped green beans and 4 nights worth of steak tips cut up and being marinated in separate baggies. When you know that all you have to do is go home, pull out some tupperware and throw it in a pan, you will be much more likely to make that for dinner instead of stopping at the burrito joint.

3) Bring food with you wherever you go. Going to work? Bring lunch and 2 snacks. Going to the movies? Sneak carrot sticks in your purse instead of Goobers. Your friends house to watch the football game? Bring your own meal so you won't be tempted to grab wings and fries with them. 

That is basically what I'm eating tonight; except I'll eat 3 times as much and no rice. 

So, now you're in the habit of going to the grocery store...what exactly should you be eating? A very popular trick is to do as much of your shopping as possible around the periphery of the store. This way you will walk through the produce aisle, the meat aisle and the dairy case. Thats really about all you need. 

1) Meat

2) Veggies

3) Eggs, cheese, milk, yogurt, cottage cheese. 

(Yes, you can go buy deli meat and bread to make sandwhiches. Just make sure you get the better brands of deli meats.)

Basically, eat REAL foods. As legendary coach Dan John says "eat like a grown up". If your meals all consist of a protein source, a pile of veggies, and some carbs now and then, you'll be just fine. If your meals come out of frozen boxes with pictures that tell you what it is supposed to look like, you're headed down the wrong path. 

Another tip...stay away from foods that have had calories extracted from them. I recently saw a commercial for Trop50; Tropicana's new orange juice that only has 50 calories per serving. What the hell? I didn't realize orange juice was making people fat all these years, I assumed it was the chicken alfredo and egg McMuffins! 

A little test I like to run with clients is to ask yourself "If I only ate this for a month, would I gain or lose weight?" Nobody gets fat drinking OJ. Nobody gets fat eating a steak and broccoli. Everyone gets fat eating chicken parmesan and steak and cheese subs. 

Now, go have a nutritious snack and then go lift some heavy shit!

Wait, what? Seriously?

According to this recent article on Boston.com, Massachusetts leads the country in gym memberships per capita (1 out of 4 people have a gym membership). Well, shit, you could've fooled me!

Go walk around this city for the afternoon; tell me if you would've guessed that we lead the country in gym memberships. I wouldn't have thought so.

 (Although, to be fair, Boston wins just about everything in this country.)

The rub here is that having a gym membership 100% doesn't reflect user-ship. The total number of members at the gym I work at is, I believe, over 2000; but we certainly don't see 2000 unique visits to the gym each month. More likely, we probably have 500-700 members that come through to exercise on a regular basis. The rest either never utilize their membership, or only come in to work out sporadically. This is, in essence, how a commercial gym makes the bulk of its money. People who sign up and never utilize the facility. 

Why does this happen so much in Boston? I have a few theories. The first is that we have a LOT of large corporations with offices in the city. These large corporations, as well as smaller ones, are all jammed into a pretty small financial district. Nearly every single one of these companies offers some sort of discount on gym memberships (there are 2-3 gyms very close to this area). Employee's see it as silly to not take advantage of 60% off of a membership, so they sign up. They go once, realize the gym is packed nuts-to-butts and hate it; never go back. Conversely, I think a lot of people sign up for a gym near their home, thinking they will go work out once they get out of work. 

Nope. When they get home from work, they get changed. Sit on the couch to have a snack, and doze off. Or decide that its the best time to get caught up on "So You Think You Forgot About This Asinine Celebrity But They Are Trying To Be Relevant Again By Making An Ass Of Themselves". Or, they have the best intentions of going to the gym, but their friend invited them to happy hour or to dinner, so they go to that instead. Boom, more gym memberships not being used. 

My last theory is a simple one: people buy gym memberships here because the weather sucks, but they also don't use them because the weather sucks. 

The weather in Boston is usually gorgeous and sunny or shitty and rainy. We don't really have a lot of gray area. On a sunny gorgeous day, Suzy will choose walking to dinner on Newbury Street with her girlfriends and doing some shopping over going to the gym. On a rainy shitty day, Suzy will say "well, damn, it's awful out...I just got home, I don't want to leave the house again!" Either way, she isn't coming in to work out. 

As an amazing trainer (cough cough wink wink), I like to think I could help all of these people achieve some sort of health or fitness goal...but they have to come to the gym first!

Walk to the gym...pick up something heavy!

Attitude

In light of some recent ups and downs in my life, I've had a pretty wavering attitude toward a lot of things. Thankfully, I have some really strong friends that I can lean on in a time like this. These people always have the right things to say to me to get my head straight. When you're going through a time like this, it is easy to lose sight of the really important things in your life; hopefully you have friends around you to be able to keep you focused and take inspiration from.

When I get into these moods/funks, I like to go find inspirational quotes and see what I can take from them. I figure if someone smarter and more successful than I once said it, there must be a lesson I can take from it. One quote I really like is:

"Every day, and in every way, I get better and better."


I gather a lot from this; and try to think about it every day. What did I do yesterday? How can I improve myself just a little bit more than yesterday? I don't just mean physically; but mentally and emotionally as well. 


Did I skip my multivitamin yesterday? Maybe I didn't read the newspaper, so I'm not up on current events. Did I only do a 20 minute walk with the dog instead of 30 minutes? Half-assing your homework is no good. Did you make a snarky comment to someone instead of a friendly compliment?

If you really take a look at yourself, you will find a little thing you can change on a day to day basis. I'm not suggesting you sit there and break yourself down; but be conscience of it. If you make a small change every day, it will eventually add up to a big change in your life. 


This is something I'm going to be working on as much as possible; I know I'm not perfect, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't strive for it. The same goes for you.


Think about it.

My Alpo Experiment

A recent post by renown strength coach and Star Wars fan, Tony Gentilcore, has lit a fire under my ass.

Technically, it lit a fire under my ass to light a fire under someone else's ass. A teammate on the volleyball team with I play with over the summer.

This guy is a tremendous athlete. Jumps through the roof. Hits harder than nearly anyone I know. As a 15 year old was clocked at 70 mph with a baseball. His major downfall? He is nearly 6' tall and weighs a measly 147 lbs. He is one of the few guys on earth who would consider Justin Bieber to have a hypertrophic physique. 

Uh, sweet tattoo, bro. Please put a shirt on.

Needless to say, I've been on his ass for some time now to gain a few pounds. Despite my efforts; he comes back with the same tired excuses. "I just can't gain weight", "I eat and eat and eat", "I'm just a skinny guy". Waaaaaahhhhhhh.

Tony's/Dan John's idea makes sense to me. The plan is to gain 15 pounds by the END of January. If he doesn't do it, he will be eating a can of dog food. If he does, I'm gonna do it. I'm setting him up for success; he is still in college with access to college food/beer, access to a weight room, I've written him proper programming and am available for advice 24/7. I've also made it an extremely public wager; challenging him on his Facebook page. 

My idea for this bet is purely selfish; I want him to make me eat the dog food. I want people to see the challenge and help push him to make me eat it. If he gains 15 pounds, and his relative strength increases along with it, he will be a far superior athlete than he is already. He will jump higher, hit harder and be less susceptible to injury. When he gets better, our team gets better. Simple as that. 

Four and a half months...I'll keep you updated.

In the meantime, I hope he is going to go lift something heavy!!

Unsettling side effect of working in a commercial facility...

By far, the most awkward/awful part of working in a commercial gym is the locker room.

Not the locker room itself...but the contents. Just grossness. Things I shouldn't be exposed to.

Yeah...along those lines. 

Clearly, I'm not suggesting I walk through the locker and check everyone out. But, I have to go pee sometimes, and apparently old guys are very comfortable doing everything naked in the locker room. Gotta shave before work? They do it naked in the locker room. Pat's crushed the 'Phins last night? They stand around and talk about it naked...with their foot up on the bench. 

This is certainly the most unfavorable side effect of working in a commercial gym setting. One which would be a little less gross if they would all take my advice...

...AND GO LIFT SOMETHING HEAVY!!

School is sorta lame, I think?

I'm pretty sure that I'm right. School is sort of lame.

No, I'm not suggesting we need less schooling for the kids in our country; I'm referencing the program that I am currently in. 

As a student who is in a concentration called "Fitness Instruction and Management", we really don't spend a lot of time on the "Instruction" aspect of fitness (frankly, we don't spend a lot of time on the management end either). I understand that all of the physiology classes and stuff are necessary, but I would think we should spend a little bit of time in a practical based setting learning things that will be applicable in the real world. Lets face it; very few of us will end up doing YMCA Step Tests with a client or an athlete at any point. Even less specific than that, very few strength coaches out there (short of the Olympic level) will be conducting VO2 Max tests with their athletes; it's just not necessary in order to improve on field performance. Also, the Trans-theoretical Model is good to know; but very rarely can be really "applied". 

VO2 Max is not a limiting factor here...

I am one of the lucky ones; I've been a trainer for almost 2 years now and have gotten some really valuable hands on experience with my clients. I know the best way to teach a squat is the goblet squat, and I know the most effective way to get a female client up to full pushups isn't incline pushups. How many of my fellow students are aware of these facts? A very small minority, from what I've seen. The most practical class we've had this far is called Conditioning for Performance, and it was taught by one of my favorite professors. Each week we met once in the classroom and once in the weight room. During the practical portion of each week the professor got some great speakers to come in: Mike Boyle (Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning), Eric Cressey (Cressey Performance), John Sullivan (former owner of Excel Sport and Fitness) and an Olympic lifter named Ben Fuller (one of the biggest men I've ever met). Carl Valle (from www.elitetrack.com) was a speaker, but he only spoke to us in the classroom because he deemed that we didn't know enough to be met with in the training facility. Lame. These were amazing speakers to have available to us, but there is really not much for us to learn from them. An hour with EC or Mike Boyle doesn't even let you get a whiff of the knowledge they posses. Boyle talked about, mainly, plyometric exercises and EC talked about (of course) assessment stuff. I remember specifically spending about 20 minutes on external rotation of the humerus.

The internship program in my concentration is, I suppose, intended to take care of all this "practical learning". The flaw in this system is that the internship is the last thing you do at the University. The other issue is, what reputable strength and conditioning facility or gym would to take an intern that had no marketable skills? What good is a training intern that can't train anyone? I guess you could be pretty hand re-racking all the weights. To be a proper asset as an intern or employee, and to learn as much as you can, one should show up on day 1 with as many applicable skills possible. 

Classroom learning is useful. It's nice to know where your masseter muscle is or what the oxygen dissociation curve is. But I challenge the importance of knowing that versus knowing why your desk-jockey client has shoulder pain when back squatting, and dumps the bar in the hole when front squatting. 

Learning is always good, I just think my fellow students need to learn more about picking up heavy shit.

Now go do it!!

One of the most important aspects of working out...

...MUSIC!!!

Hey Assholes...you're doing it wrong.

Anybody who says that the music they listen to during physical activity is inconsequential is doing something wrong. There is no way you can have a good workout (running, lifting, a sport, shoveling snow) with shitty music playing.

Disclaimer: I pass no judgement on a particular persons' choice of music; with a few notable exceptions. You should not be listening to Justin Bieber, Kevin Federline and most country music. If I see that you are, mockery shall ensue. 

With that being said, everyone likes different kinds of music, but for a good workout there are a few necessities. Fast. Drums. Bass. Loud. Thats about it. If your music can satisfy those requirements, you are starting out above baseline...good music should be able to help you transcend your mood and put you into a different place; mentally, physically and emotionally. You should have music that can relax your mind; music to get you fired up; and music to let you zone out. Here are some songs that really help me get my mind right.

Pretty Lights - "Hot Like Sauce". I didn't listen to any house/techno stuff until I was introduced to it pretty recently by a good friend; now I can't get enough. I listened to this song before every game at my recent volleyball tournament and got into my zone perfectly every time. One of my current favorite songs!

Jay-Z and Kanye West - "H.A.M". Not exactly a musical masterpiece...but it gets me fucking amped out of my mind. Just crazy amounts of adrenaline pumping. Great song to listen to during a lift.

Lupe Fiasco - "Fireman". Lupe is just a beast and he destroys this freestyle. This track gets me all sorts of pumped up. The beat is killer. His lyrics are killer. Great track to warm-up with.

Bassnectar - "Seek and Destory". From the Metallica album "Kill em All". Now this is fucking lifting music. A great remix by a talented DJ. It just makes you want to work hard; and thats the whole point of exercise, isn't it?

What are your favorite lifting songs? I hope you enjoy mine; spreading music you love should be enjoyable. Now, crank that shit up and go lift something heavy!

It's go time.

Well, my summer just finished. Every year for 14 years I have participated in the North American Chinese Invitational Volleyball Tournament. We play a different style of volleyball, with 9 guys on each side of the court; this produces a much faster style of play with longer rallies and more explosive scoring. We practice 3 times per week starting in early June, and play 4 tournaments between then and Labor Day weekend. There is a great cultural aspect to the sport, and I love playing every summer.

Not a Nike ad...should be though!

We had a pretty good summer, finishing the National tournament on Labor Day weekend in the top 8 out of 60 teams. The level of competition can be pretty intense, with a handful of teams having players who have played pro in the US and Europe, as well as several D1-level college players. 

Now that the season is over, it's time to get better for next year. First up? Recovery. I usually take 10-14 days off before I start lifting; all of the jumping and landing I do over the summer really stresses my body.  The good news is, I feel pretty good right now. I might just make it a week before I start lifting again, because I really really really miss it. 

After 3 months of playing ball, I'm pretty lean, but have def lost quite a bit of muscle mass. I know my strength levels have gone way down, and I know I've got a lot of work to do before next summer comes back around. Goals include a 405 deadlift and the ability to dunk (either a basketball or a volleyball). Lets get it!!

What are your goals? Start now; if anything is going to stop you, don't let it be the start!

Go lift something heavy!!

New favorite shoe?

I think it's happened. I think I found a shoe that I like more than the Nike Free.

I know, you're thinking "no fucking way...this clown is Mr. Nike Free."

Well, it appears to have happened. I'm not forsaking my Free's at all, in fact I'm already looking at another pair to purchase (idiot). However, this new shoe that I have seems to cover just about every base possible.

Introducing, the New Balance Minimus Cross Trainer.

Yes, I got then in Snoop Dogg blue. Announce yourself with authority, I always say.

The Minimus Cross Trainer is nearly as flexible as the rest of the Minimus lineup, but maintains a bit more stability in the midfoot of the shoe, making it perfect for cross trainer (or even ::sigh:: Crossfit). With these shoes on, I feel as if there is just about anything I could do. Flat enough for deadlifting, low enough that my foot won't roll over the outside of the show while squatting and light enough that I'd feel great doing plyometrics or a sprint workout in them. Free's are great all around sneakers, but the heel lift tends to be a little much for deads. They are high enough that I can roll my foot over the outside of the shoe while squatting. Amazing for sprint workouts; but really have negative lateral support. 

The Free's still feel amazing to me; light, flexible and comfortable. No reason for me to give them up completely, but I can't say enough great things about these shoes. Go buy them!

Then lift something heavy!

Vomitastic!!

I'll forewarn you. What you are about to see is real. Somewhere, a "trainer" really thinks this is a good idea to perform. View at your own risk.

Are you ok? I hope no one was eating while they watched that. If you were, I apologize; take a minute to clean up your keyboard.

Better? I'm not. What an awful awful decision to have a client perform this exercise. Not only that, but they called it a 360 squat. Last time I checked, 360 degrees was a full rotation. If you only jump and land halfway, then its a 180. How's your geometry, brah?

I was hoping that everyone was now up to speed about unstable surface training, but if you aren't, here's the deal.

Doing an exercise (squat) on an unstable surface (Bosu Ball, Airex pad, Versa Disc, etc) doesn't serve to do anything except make you weaker and slower. The idea behind strength training is stronger and faster. If you are able to squat 315 normally, and then get on a Bosu Ball and squat 135, what function does this serve? You're using a submaximal amount of weight and decreasing the amount of force you are able to produce. Cool. Where do I sign up?

So, Bosu 180 Jumps? You cant use any weight. Sucks. You produce less force, resulting in a submax height jump. Shitty. Increased chance of slipping/falling on the ball and hurting yourself? Check. Shitty.

Now, there are much better ways to perform similar exercises. Take out the Bosu Ball, perform the exercise with appropriate intensity and you have something worthwhile. Frankly, any plyometric exercise sans unstable surface is going to be a really good idea.

Keep it simple. Pick up something heavy.

Yesterday

Yesterday was a pretty cool day. I had a pretty good Push Press workout, felt really good. Went and did a Yoga class afterwards with a client and a co-worker, good shit. Then I met my internet idol and shot the shit with him for 10 minutes. No big deal.

In all seriousness, meeting Mr. Gentilcore was pretty cool. This guys is as close to a celebrity as you get in this industry without being a sell-out no-talent wanna-be-a-trainer hack that no one respects.

What? A sellout? Me?

This man co-owns a nationally respected strength and conditioning facility, writes one of the most popular strength and conditioning blogs around and gets published in cool magazines. Pretty badass, I'd say. 

Meeting him was good because it definitely helped me realize how much more work I had to do, both intellectually and physically if I want to get where I wanna go in this industry. Meeting someone of his caliber was a big eye opener, a really good wake up call. No matter how smart you think you are, there is always somebody smarter.

Now, its time to work out. Find something heavy. Pick it up.

Squats or Deadlifts?

Does it matter?

Regardless of which one you choose, it is better than doing chest and arms 5 times a week.

So, you know you should be doing them both, but in what ratio? Let me make some suggestions.

I teach both lifts to all my clients, in some form or another. However, I deadlift them much more often and with much  more intensity than I squat them. Why? Correcting imbalances. We are a nation of quad dominant people. When someone "does legs", it usually means they spent some time on the leg press trying to give themselves a hernia. Afterwards they went to the leg extension and, if they actually did a free weight exercise, did some lunges. They may have spent some time on the hamstring curl machine, but who knows. Assuming they did ham curls, their leg workout was a 3:1 quad:hamstring ratio...which isn't very good. Add to that running on the treadmill (quad dominant) walking up and down stairs (if someone actually does it) and spending time in shoes with big heel lifts and you have a recipe for quad dominance.

By deadlifting my clients more often, I look to equal out this imbalance. We certainly don't ignore the quads, however. I program in lots of lunge variations, goblet squats, overhead squats and single leg squat variations. These are all exercises that use a sub-maximal load when compared to back squats.

Another positive about deadlifting more often is that it goes a long way to help correct kyphosis caused by spending lots of time at a desk or computer. Although, as recently pointed out, it is not the end all and be all of postural corrections (Eric Cressey is smart). It does go a long way in putting loads of muscle on someones posterior chain, which is a place ignored by most Average Joes. The deadlift also strengthens one of the weakest point on most peoples bodies: the lower back. People tend to stay away from low back exercises because they "don't want to hurt themselves". Well, NOT doing low back exercises is just  as damaging in the long run. You are much better off doing safe and worthwhile exercises.

What an attractive, smart and humble guy.

The last big reason I deadlift my clients more than squat them, is that it is just a touch safer. I recently heard someone say "train the deadlift, perfect the squat". Suggesting that you can work around slight mistakes in form with a deadlift; worse comes to worst and you will really only injure soft tissue. A mistake in form with the squat can result in ligamentous or cartilaginous aspects of your body.

DISCLAIMER: This is not a free pass to go deadlift with shitty form, you still need to work with perfect form as much as possible. But in a max effort, a little bit of leeway is allowed in the deadlift.

People like to say that squats are bad for your knees. Those people are stupid and should be mocked. Correctly executed squats should not be detrimental to your knees. However, some of us have a pre-existing condition in our knees called "beat the shit out of them for a long time playing sports". For those of with said condition, squatting often leaves us feeling pretty beat up. For those people, deadlifting is the answer. It will allow you to keep lifting heavy with minimal stress on your knees, or you can even choose variations that will allow for a little more quad recruitment (snatch grip deadlift, trap bar deadlift). 

So, in my opinion, the average joe would probably get a little more benefit out of deadlifting than squatting. This is not to be taken as an infallible truth, simply as an opinion. 

Whether you want to squat or pull, go do it...and make it heavy!!

SkinnyFat Girls

This is an issue that has been plaguing us for decades. Skinnyfat girls. They are everywhere. It starts at the top, in the fashion magazine. As the saying goes, shit rolls down hill.

This is usually a result of someone being "skinny" based on how they look in clothes. They will eat 1000 calories a day, smoke 2 packs of cigarettes and walk on a treadmill for 3 hours in an effort to be "skinny".  They achieve the desired size, but do it without a second thought about muscle mass.

This is where we get the skinnyfat look. You are all skin and bones. Skin just falling right off of you. Shit is gross. Girls like it because they can fit into skinny jeans, and dresses look good on you. Clearly skinny fat doesn't mesh with bikinis, though.

I mean, seriously? Who thinks that looks good?

The good news is that Nia Shanks recently released a product that will help us eradicate skinnyfat girls forever! Lean Muscle Mass for everyone! Beautiful Badass is a program specifically aimed towards women that will help gain lean muscle mass, decrease body fat, and look amazing. If you don't believe it, go take a look at Nia. She is walking proof.

Go find something heavy, and get it off the floor!

Squats

Just quit your bitching and do them.

100 reasons to squat

When you just don't have it.

If you've been exercising for any amount of time you know that some days you just don't have it.

Gassed. Pooped. Running on empty. Exhausted. 

Regardless of how you say it, it means you are having a tough day. It happens to everybody, myself included. Sometimes you can crush a Spike Energy drink, a Red Bull or even a cup of coffee, and feel good enough to get through you workout. 

Then, there are those other days. You just don't have anything in you. What do you do? Do you go ahead and try and grind out the workout? Do you pack it up and head home? 

If you decide to stick around, what happens? You try and grind it out; your warm up sets feel heavy, your feeler set feels like a max effort, and you get stapled by what was an easy training weight the week before. You get frustrated and wanna work through it, you try and push harder on the next set and tweak a muscle. Now you have had a shitty workout and hurt yourself. Fantastic!

Or, you could just call it quits and head home. Then, you would feel like a slug because you didn't get in a workout. You'd call yourself lazy and weak. You'd beat yourself up about it and feel like shit. 

The other option, is to just do SOMETHING at the gym. Maybe you go through your first big lift (squats, deads, bench, push press, etc) at a much lower percentage than you are used to. Get your blood flowing and your muscles working, then see how you feel. If you feel like dog shit still, then beat it. Go home. Discretion is the better part of valor. If you feel ok, then try out your next exercise. Play it by ear. 

Auto-regulation is a great thing when used appropriately. I'm all for toughing it out and working through things, but sometimes its really just not worth it to push through that shitty feeling. 

Find something heavy. Pick it up. 

The Crossfit Post

It had to happen sooner or later. There was really no avoiding it. The irresistible force meets the immovable object. I had to talk about Crossfit at some point. The following is purely my own opinion, based on my very limited personal experience with the Crossfit system.

A history...
Crossfit is a training system developed in the mid-90's in California by Greg Glassman. It is a system focusing on General Physical Preparedness (GPP) that has been popularized within the military, police forces and fire departments. Classically, the Crossfit system utilizes a sort of turbulence training effect by having each Workout Of the Day (WOD) be something completely different. Today might be 5 sets of 3 conventional deadlifts, and tomorrow might be 13 muscle ups, 50 burpees and quarter-mile run. They also have "Benchmark Workouts", named for various Crossfit superstars as well as military Crossfitters who lost their lives in service. These serve as a way to measure your progress in the system.

The system revolves around 10 basic fitness tenents: endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, agility, balance, coordination and accuracy. All of their workouts revolve around these basics, and many workouts involve multiple facets. WODs will include cleans, snatches, deadlifts, squats, gymnastics moves, running or medicine-ball work. The idea is to prepare you for anything you might encounter.

Crossfit originally gained popularity through its home page, where anyone could go and see what the WOD was, and follow it on their own. In the last 2-3 years, Crossfit Affiliates have begun springing up all over the country, in massive numbers. The Affiiliates are simply privately owned Crossfit gyms; basically a franchise. People are now more inclined to go to these gyms and pay the membership costs in order to workout with like-minded folks. As of late, many of the Affiliates have begun to do a really good job with supplementing the WOD with progressive-overload style strength and conditioning. Crossfit also holds an annual "Games" where affiliates/individuals from all over the world get together to compete and see who is the best.

The Pro's. 
The most important thing I have noticed about Crossfit is the camaraderie it builds amongst its participants; I LOVE that about Crossfit. The people you work out with become your friends, your teammates and your foes. Working out with these like-minded people pushes you to work harder, thus getting better results. You cannot underestimate the drive that you get from working out in a gym with a great work ethic. The system has Benchmark workouts built into it as a measuring stick, you can always go back and check your progress against yourself. Crossfit also exposes people to many different aspects of fitness; olympic lifts, power lifts, endurance and gymnastics themed stuff.

Crossfit provides a fantastic place for a former athlete to work out that has a similar atmosphere to the weight room in college. Loud, noisy, sweaty: everyone is there to work. If someone goes in the corner and pukes, so be it. Shit happens.

Cons.
My orginal "Con" regarding Crossfit goes back to how they gained popularity: the homepage. The workouts provided on the homepage can be followed by anybody; any ass-clown at their local Golds Gym can check it out, and then try and complete the workout. The argument against this, is that anyone can look up any workout and go try it and hurt themselves. This is 100% true, but Crossfit workouts become especially dangerous when you use the combination of high reps and technical lifts that are common in their workouts. For example, here is todays WOD.

As an advanced workout? Not bad. For Joe Schmo at Golds? Not a great idea. Overhead squats are a pretty technical lift, and then couple that with an energy sapping explosive lift (squat snatches), an extremely metabolic exercise (double unders) and one of the tougher core exercises out there (toes to bar) for 5 rounds as fast as possible, and that sounds like a recipe for disaster. A Crossfitter will always say "well, the workouts can be adjusted based on level". True, if you go to an affiliate. If Tommy Toughnuts at the gym wants to try a CF workout, and sees that on the homepage, that is what he will try....and he will most likely get crushed, if not hurt.

The technical aspects of many of the lifts, combined with the high rep nature is what many strength and conditioning coaches will point to when asked about CF. Most coaches agree that the technical aspect of the Olympic Lifts require them to be performed at a high intensity with short rep ranges (usually 1-5) that will prevent a breakdown of form. CF, however, feels differently. A recent workout was 3 rounds, round 1: 21 reps, round 2: 15 reps, and round 3: 9 reps. The circuit was 24" box jump, 75# power snatch and chest to bar pullups. So, by the end of the workout you will have completed 45 reps of each exercise, in as short an amount of time as possible. 45 power snatches, as fast as possible? Not a recipe for perfect form, if you ask me.

The other aspect of CF that bugs me is the apparent lack of programming. It appears that the WODs are put up in a fairly random style. I understand that this is where the GPP style of training comes in, but how are you expected to improve if you have no room for the progressive overload system? If you never know when you will be deadlifting again, you cannot improve at it. In fairness, a lot of the affiliates have done a great job with adding in a "strength" component to their workouts. Athletes will often complete the strength portion of the workout prior to doing the WOD. This gives them some time to work on technique and use the progressive overload system to add weight to the bar. The strength portion will often be lifts used to "assist" the athletes in the WOD. For instance; the strength exercise will be a front squat; that way the catch/downward movement phase/drive (essentially a front squat) will never be the weak link.

Maybe I was wrong about Crossfit...

Wrap-Up
Maybe there are some holes in my theory; like I said, I've never really done Crossfit (I would like to spend some time at a Crossfit gym, though). That is the secret to CF, I believe, being at the gym with other Crossfitters. No, I don't think Crossfit is a system for everyone. I think that everyone should spend some time using progressive overload, as well as the conjugate system for a while to build their baseline level of strength. If you are obese, you need to spend some time working on your metabolic conditioning as a baseline. Throwing someone who has no baseline level of fitness into a CF class doesn't make sense; they still need to work on the basics.

However, I actually do think Crossfit has a lot of benefits; especially now that the Affiliates are so accessible to everyone. This makes it a much more legitimate, in my opinion, player in the fitness industry. Left unguided, someone could really hurt themselves attempting to keep up with WOD on the homepage. Under the supervision and scrutiny of coaches, it is a million times safer. Also, it is nice to see that Crossfit coaches are now coming from the strength and conditioning world; if you peruse the site, a lot of them are now coming with legit NSCA and ACSM and NASM certifications, to back up their Crossfit certs.

Above everything else, you just can't overlook the benefits that the atmosphere and culture has on its participants. I really think an athlete will get more out of a shitty program in a great enviroment then a great program in shitty enviroment. Its just tough to give it your all with 45 year old guys benching 65 lbs and 25 year old women doing 3 lb bicep curls behind you.

In the end, as long as you're lifting heavy shit, you're on the right path. If you do crossfit, or 5/3/1 or Show and Go, you're still doing something!

Planet Profit

So, there has been a lot of talk in the fitness industry about Planet Fitness and their whole advertising campaign as of late. They have a line of commercials portraying some stereotypical bodybuilders in a less-than friendly light.

Frankly, I think it's pretty damn insulting. If Cressey Performance or Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning was to put out a commercial showing them leading an obese person out the door, suggesting that this wasn't the place for them, the shit would hit the proverbial fan.

Fat people would be lined up around the block complaining that this was discrimination, and they should be allowed to work out wherever they want, they are just like everybody else, etc etc. Which is all totally, true, mind you. I think any "fitness" club should allow anyone to work out wherever they please; I don't even agree with women's only facilities. I've worked out in a lot of gyms in my life, and I rarely have seen a situation where a guy was really leering at a girl.

I can't help but feel like Planet Fitness's real intention is not Fitness, but revenue. As this article states, Gym Rat Control, they are run by a very shrewd businessman. The whole idea is that they target people who are not, shall we saw, fitness enthusiasts. These are people that "want" to have a gym membership but know they will rarely use it; so they go buy the $10 per month membership. This allows them to feel good about having a membership, but they also won't cancel when they don't use it because it is only $10 per month. This way, Planet Fitness gets TONS of members who never use the gym and will never cancel their monthly. Boom, instant revenue.

By excluding gym rats, i.e. people who will actually use their membership, they cut out the costs that are involved with a gym that gets heavy usage: cleaning, more staff, equipment. In terms of a business model, its a great idea. As it relates to fitness; its awful.

There is a saying in sports, "to get better, play against people that are better than you." If you only play against people you know you can beat, your game never gets better. If you go down and play against some guys who dunk on you and drill 3's in your eye all day, your game will step itself up. If you only work out in a gym full of fat people, you will never really get fitter. If you are working out around people that are bigger, stronger and leaner than you then maybe you will find some new motivation. Maybe you can <gasp> ask them for help, and can learn something new! Being the fittest person in a gym full of fat people is like winning a gold medal at the special olympics.

Now, go lift something heavier than anyone else in your gym!

THAT Guy at the Gym

Every gym has one. He is that guy. Everyone knows who he is, for better or for worse. He is there 6 days a week, working out. That guy has many qualities, and no two are alike. Some gyms, god bless their souls, have more than one. We have several impostors, but only the one takes the cake.

That guy is tough to explain. The main characteristic is that he is a guy who is, actually, in pretty good shape, regardless of the sanity behind his workout routine.

Our own that guy (lets call him DB) is actually a really good guy. DB is a smart guy, who has time to read up on fitness stuff. He knows enough to wade past the Muscle Mag and Flex magazines, and finds decent blogs to read and gets his info from pretty good sources. DB has no background in Exercise Phys, which makes it tough for him to sift through the endless amount of crap available to read on the internet.

One of the things that makes DB that guy is his status as a beginner to exercise; as long as he sticks to something for 2-3 months he will get some sort of results. This makes the TRX workouts fantastic, and the navy seal circuit training a killer, and the Oompa Loompa designed KB program he is doing now is the greatest thing ever!

Another interesting trait to our DB is what he thinks counts as "ok" at the gym. Theres the time he broke his finger on a plate shadow boxing in the weight room. There is his endless chatter, which mimics a house full of chickens. Above all, though, is the smell. Our DB thinks that rocking the same pair of gym clothes all week is "ok" because he is at the gym, its ok to smell. I agree, being sweaty at the gym is a great thing; and yes, for some people that makes a little funk goes along with it. However, smelling like the inside of a horses asshole does NOT need to occur at the gym. If I can tell you are in the facility by catching a whiff of your stink-trail, that is not a good thing.

This individual had been at the gym for about 2 years before he came to me to use one of his free sessions. I had observed him do his bodyweight circuits, and TRX circuits and his Charles Staley High Density routines, and I decided to teach him the good shit: we went right for squats and deadlifts. You know what? Homeboy didn't know either one. His squat lacked proper depth due to some flexibility/mobility issues. He had never deadlifted and had trouble with lower back rounding. He kept telling me, "oh, I can feel that my left glute medius isn't firing, thats making this really tough, my hip keeps hiking, my quadratus lumborum isn't activated, wah wah wah". 

Excuses are like assholes, they all stink and everybody has one. 

Now, let me say, that some people have legitimate injuries or malfunctions that will not allow them to perform certain movements. He is not one of those people. He reads too much and thinks he knows too much to let him do a strength movement correctly without injuring himself. DB is a great example of a guy that started at 0 as beginner, jumped right over the basic stuff and landed at level 5 with all the High Density workouts and speciality circuits. 

I can't stress enough the importance of starting with the basics. Having a baseline level of strength will make everything you do after that much more effective. Plus, the basic lifts are the best for any level of lifter. Seriously.

Now, go lift something heavy. But make sure you bring new gym clothes with you.