Exercise of the Week: Learning to Hip Hinge

One of the more difficult movements to teach a "newbie" to strength training is the hip hinge. We've talked about the importance of these movements in people who may have cranky knees or other issues that prevent squatting or lunging motions.

It's an important movement to understand as it serves as a precursor to an entire category of exercises for most trainees. Any RDL, deadlift, rack pull and even single leg deadlift variations all require proper hip hinging in order to protect the spine and ensure correct timing and sequencing in the pattern to optimize strength development.

I actually remember my first attempt at teaching the pattern to a high school athlete back in 2007. Another young coach and I spent a solid 10 frustrating minutes trying to turn a half squat into a proper RDL. Luckily since then I've gained a little experience and have found a few tricks along the way to help speed along the process. Here's one...

Kneeling Hip Hinge

By getting down on two knees, we prevent the possibility of driving the knees forward at all as you might in a squat. The only way to get down is to push the hips back. The one issue you might run into is keeping the torso vertical and pulling the shoulders back along with the hips when in reality you should see the shoulders come forward (with a neutral spine, of course) as the hips go back.

This might not seem to exciting from a strength building standpoint but it's important to get the patterning down before adding any serious load. In the meantime you can use various bridging variations to fill in the strength gaps while you're learning the new movement.

Happy Deadlifting!

Mistakes I’ve made and lessons I’ve learned in coaching and in life:

I turned 30 celebrated the 9^th anniversary of my 21^st birthday earlier this year and started thinking about some of the mistakes I’ve made as a coach and in life. A lot of coaches and motivational speakers try to teach from their mistakes. "Don't make the mistakes I did." While that can help sometimes, I believe people succeed often because of, not in spite of their mistakes. If you've read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell you've seen this before.

Here’s a list that I stopped at 31 but certainly not because I ran out of mistakes. I'm still working on improving a lot of these.

1.       Teaching hang clean to 14 year old introverted girl day 1:

The first program I ever wrote was for a 9^th grade athlete who was as shy as they came. The first exercise on that program was a Hang Clean. 4 or 5 older, male coaches stood around (just trying to help, mind you) critiquing and cueing and trying to correct. We didn’t see her after a couple of weeks at the most.

2.       Dropped medicine ball on face of client in supine position

In an adult bootcamp-style class I had the bright idea of using supine explosive chest passes (where I could catch, stabilize and drop the ball) as a station. A 26 year old woman at her first workout caught one in the nose with a 6 lb ball on the first rep.

3.       Had my uncle try to perform a split-squat and strain a hip flexor without screening the movement first

My uncle started to train with me at one point and day-1 I sidelined him for a couple of weeks.

4.       Trained people too hard

I once used prowler pushes for “Tabatas” (20 seconds on, 10 seconds off for 8 rounds) with personal training client. Luckily she was a good sport and I became good friends with her and her husband. I was even more fortunate that she didn’t have a heart attack as a result of my stupidity

5.       Trained people too easy

Better safe than sorry, but there were certainly times where I let athletes and clients leave a lot on the table or just got too soft with their programming

6.       Talked bad about other programs based on what I’d heard and not what I knew

It’s funny how much I knew before I knew anything at all

7.       Not asking enough questions

I feel like I got a great head start in the industry out of grad-school thanks to my mentor Lee Taft but I wasted a lot of years after I knew I was interested in strength and conditioning as an athlete of his by not taking advantage of his experiences to learn from.  I worked hard and did what was asked but it would have been a much simpler road if I recognized this at 18 instead of 22 or 23

8.       Not making mistakes

Yes, I made a mistake by not making mistakes. In other words I didn’t put myself out there or “Go ahead and be crappy” to take my lumps and learn some lessons. I was waiting for “perfect” when I should have been simply striving for “better”. 

9.       Being afraid to say “I don’t know”

When I was younger I felt like I had to have all the answers. People were really appreciative when I started saying “I have no idea”

10.   Slept in on clients one morning

Yes, this happened. Yes it was early but it as shameful and embarrassing.

11.   When things were busy, not allowing enough time for myself

I have a tendency to overestimate my superhuman abilities to effectively coach, program, educate (myself) and just schedule work in general. Instead of trying to find time for myself I should have been making it (This really shouldn’t be past tense).

12.   When things were quiet, not working hard enough to get busy

There was a lot more I could have been doing when I wasn’t busy to prepare myself for when I was.

13.   Not tracking results

I tend to trust programs I write based on stealing them from people much smarter than me.  This has worked well in the past mostly because I think I was lucky enough to meet the right people to be stealing from although my own philosophy and programming would have been much improved and accelerated if I started tracking more objectively (in addition to subjective assessments of movement quality) results on a regular basis.

14.   Listening to my professors who said I “didn’t need to take anatomy”

Because I didn’t ask enough questions when I was younger, I went through college with the attitude that “this is just what you do after high school before you get a job” without having a more specific target to shoot for. Teaching yourself anatomy is not something I would recommend and learning it earlier would have saved me a lot of headache down the road.

15.   Not listening close enough to client’s goals

Sometimes I get so caught up in what I think the client should be doing that I forget what they actually want. If they get the work on that I know will help them, will it really kill them if they want to do a couple tricep kickbacks at the end of a workout?

I've learned this lesson and it's now a running joke in our facility: 

Coworker: What do you want to do for lunch?

Me: Well, that depends Nick, what's the goal?

Coworker: The goal is to get full, Jon

16.   Gave away too much time to people who never appreciated the time that was given

This is one that’s hard to learn without the experience but it’s still a hard one for me to correct giving the field I’m in. I want to help people. The trick is ciphering out the ones who actually want it from those who think they should want it

17.   Worried too much about what other people thought to put myself out there and be myself – in coaching and in life

You can't please everyone - you hear it all the time but is a hard one for me to live by sometimes.

18.   Not setting goals after athletics

 

19.   Let myself get weak/out of shape and not putting my own health first
By not having clear long-term goals, once I finished college athletics why would I need to keep training? Getting out of the habit made it much harder to get back in, even after 7 or 8 consecutive years of good training

20.   Didn’t form good eating/cooking habits at a young age

21.   Had an athlete throw-up after Airdyne sprints

In fairness he told me he ate Taco Bell on the way to the workout – the mistake was not finding this out beforehand

22.   Took (and and still take) criticism from clients/athletes personally at times

23.   Spent too much time thinking I could change people instead of focusing more on the people that actually wanted to change

24.   Not  writing sooner

I put this off for years because I looked at writing articles as a way to teach but underestimated how much I could learn from the process

25.   Didn’t make enough decisions because they were the right thing to do and for the right reason based on my goals – made them because I thought other people thought they were the right thing to do

26.   Limiting my potential in my own head

I would look at people more successful than me and assume it was out of my control to get to the same position. As hard as I worked physically and academically I did this for years.

27.   Letting clients and athletes dictate workouts when they could have been pushed harder

Again, better safe than sorry but sometimes I need to trust my coaching instincts better

18.   Got excited and told a high school girl “Now that’s a good rack!” after the first time she caught the barbell correctly for a hang clean

First year out of grad school. Luckily she had a great sense of humor and now it’s just funny but damn – that was embarrassing

29.   Spent too much time talking during sessions about the proper way to train instead of letting the training talk for itself

I would get excited about learning something and instead of just applying it I’d have to explain it to people. They don’t care. They usually wanna sweat and trust me to train them well. That’s it.

30.   Not realizing being happy is a choice and being a slave to things outside of my control

 

BONUS: Not taking more computer and/or business classes when I had the chance.

Formatting a simple blog is a nightmare for me...someday I will be able to outsource all of this

Deadlifting & Training the Lower Body with “Bad Knees”

In the post-rehab setting we see a lot of adult clients who have knee issues ranging from general pain with use, to meniscal scopes, ACL reconstructions and knee replacements. Many of them understandably have been frustrated in the past trying to maintain a training effect without aggravating any of these lingering problems.

The trick can be finding functional, multi-joint exercises that carry a big “bang-for-your-buck” load of your training while still leaving you with the confidence to push yourself in a safe environment.

Here’s a basic approach to how we may go about exercise selection in this case:

1. Deciding what we can’t do. After our initial assessment (Functional Movement Screen, collecting exercise history, injury history, etc) we may find that loading (adding weight to) what we call knee-dominant patterns is a no-no. In my programs this might include split squats, lunges (forward, reverse, lateral), step-ups, single leg squats, squats and anything else that requires a large range of motion at the knee.

Again, this can be incredibly frustrating to see a long list of stuff you can’t do. Luckily there is plenty that you can do and that’s where we’ll focus your training.

2. If we’re lucky you will have been cleared by the assessment to load more hip-dominant patterns. These are lower body focused movements that require little to no motion at the knee. Examples of this include trap bar deadlifting (yes – deadlifting!), Single Leg RDL’s, RDL’s, bridges of all sorts, hamstring curls on stability balls or TRX, and any variations of these exercises that are appropriate to the client.

Minimal knee flexion required

This is the same exercise as above in my book. 

Where do you fit?

It should go without saying that all of these exercises are programmed with the experience and goals of the client in mind. Not everyone is doing low-volume, heavy deadlift sets but almost everybody I have is learning how to deadlift in some sense!

 3. So we just work on these hip-hinging patterns and ignore anything that puts the knee through a range of motion and we’re good, right? Not exactly. Going back to the screen, if we find there is no pain but considerable movement compensation (this is often the case) with basic movement patterns then we can take a step back and use regressed “corrective” type exercises to improve your patterns without loading until these movements are cleared (hopefully) or until we decide that there are issues that are beyond the scope of the coach. This may include something like TRX assisted split squats, which we use extensively in the early stages of training.

The handles allow us to "deload" the movement and

take stress away from the knee. 

If there is pain, and we’re not sure why, the client is handed off to someone with the skillset to deal with this – in my case they go across the room and see a physical therapist until I get the green light to train normally. If we get clearance, we work through a pain-free range of motion using clean form until we can work through the full-range. This may take a few days or several weeks before it becomes safe to load up but luckily we’ve been getting good strength work all along.

Exercise of the Week

For those of you who have mastered split squats and lunges and are looking for something more advanced, give this a try...

It's called a rear foot elevated split squat and is a great single leg exercise to give you a new challenge with your strength work. As an added benefit it works as a great self-mobilization on the back hip (think hip-flexor and quad stretching) so can help fight the negative effects we see from sitting so much. Just try to keep a flat (not too arched) low back.

A lot of people ask about keeping a vertical shin vs. letting the knee travel forward. I'm a believer in the knee being allowed to travel forward IF the heel stays down...and this is especially true in more athletic movements.

With strength moves, the higher the load used the more I will look for a vertical shin as the loads tend to be transferred more to the active restraints of the back (we're talking muscles- this is a good thing) as opposed to shearing at the knee. Again, under heavy loads look for a vertical shin. With faster, more athletic movements (even lunges) the knee will often, and should be allowed to, travel forward even beyond the toe.

You can load it with dumbbells or kettlebells in the goblet position, at your side, in one arm or by wearing weight vests.

How do I fit in my cardio work into my strength training?

In today’s work climate, clients and gym-goers often ask or present the problem of “trying to fit it all in” when it comes to their workouts. Three workouts a week at an hour apiece can be a luxury for most. So how do we go about designing a program given these obstacles?

First we need to define what “cardio” actually is.

In mainstream fitness we’ve divided two distinct populations into the “meatheads” and the “people on the hamster wheels”. Look around a big-box gym and you’ll get the idea. We’ve come to understand cardio as synonymous with treadmills, ellipticals and stationary bikes. It was sold as cardio-equipment, their programs promoted the “fat-burning zone” (which I think exists wherever unicorns come from) and you could do it while watching “The View” and flipping through the latest teen magazine. What’s not to like?

Well, for starters, it doesn’t work. And when I say “it” I specifically mean consistent, low-intensity, steady-state aerobic training with the goal of fat loss. In this case the tool doesn’t match the goal (the “why” to this question is a different article entirely).

So what can you do for a good cardiovascular workout?

Just about anything. Remember, your heart doesn’t know the difference between a treadmill, a bike, or a barbell. It simply responds to the stimulus you impose on it by working muscles; more working muscles (i.e. multi-joint exercises) are going to demand more blood be pumped and in a shorter period of time.

Some other factors that will affect your heart-rate response to exercise include intensity, duration of work and rest bouts (for intervals or metabolic strength circuits), and whether or not the exercise is new to you as familiar exercises will demand less work effort and therefore lower heart rates.

When it comes to fat loss, we know two forms of exercise are going to take priority and give us the best bang-for-your-buck with results. (Disclaimer: Without some improvement in nutrition this all becomes moot!).

How do I design a program that fits in both strength training and cardio?

It helps to understand a few basic principles.

1. Form trumps all. No matter what sets and reps are programmed you are only working to technical failure. In other words, we want to leave 1 or 2 perfect reps in the tank for each set.

2. Order of exercise is important. There are an infinite number of varying designs when it comes to writing exercise programs but all good ones share a few things in common. One is the order in which they do things:

                a. Some sort of massage/foam rolling

                b. Activation (waking up the glutes and/or rotator cuff usually)

c. Dynamic warm-up moving from slower to quicker motions (should include movement in all directions)

d. Core (many do this at the end; since it’s so important for back health, it makes sense to do it early on when you’re fresh. It can be worked into the strength supersets as well)

e. Power or strength work

f. Strength or Metabolic Strength circuits

e. Metabolic finisher

g. Recovery/Stretching/Nutritional component

It is important to do any intense cardiovascular at the end in order to garner any benefit from the strength and power work early on.

If you design a program in that order you are putting yourself ahead of 90% of the general population.

What might a good “cardio” program look like?

First, metabolic strength training should make up the meat of your workouts if you only have 2-3 gym sessions per week. These consist of metabolic circuits that can be continuous, alternating and non-competing exercises with minimal rest. After a sufficient warm-up you may pair together circuits like so:

1a. Goblet Style Squat (lower body-knee dominant) 3x15 (rest 15 seconds)

1b. One Arm DB Row (upper body-pull) 3x15 (rest 15 seconds)

1c. Front plank (core) 3x30 seconds (rest 15 seconds)

 REST 3 MINUTES

2a. One Leg RDL (Lower body-hip dominant) 3x10/side (rest 15 seconds)

2b. Push-Ups (upper body-push) 3x10 (rest 15 seconds)

2c. Bird Dogs (rotational core) 3x10/side (rest 15 seconds)

This is not a comprehensive plan but a snapshot example of what you could use to combine solid strength training along with your cardiovascular work. Counting the warm-up this program could be done in less than 45 minutes. It is based on a primary goal of fat-loss, not strength.

If the primary goal was strength, we would focus at least one exercise if not the entire strength portion on lower rep, higher rest plans and add intervals in later (at the end of the workout, or on alternate days if possible). It may look something like this: 

1a. Trap Bar Deadlift 4x5 (rest 60-90 seconds)

1b. Wall Ankle Mobilizations

2a. Dumbbell Reverse Lunges 3x6/side (rest 30 seconds)

2b. Push-Ups 3x8 (rest 30 seconds)

2c. Hip Flexor Pulse 3x8/side (rest 30 seconds)

3a. ½ Kneeling Cable Row 3x10/side

3b. One Leg Bridge 3x10/side

3c. Side Plank 3x20 seconds/side

4. Intervals: 15 seconds work/45 seconds rest for 12 rounds

Here we have more of a focus on a true strength exercise (trap bar deadlift) at a lower rep range, a mix of assistance strength exercises that cover most functional movement patterns and then a dedicated finisher focused on anaerobic power (short intervals with a 3:1 rest:work ratio).

Again, this is nothing close to comprehensive as far as physiology and programming go but hopefully it gives you a few ideas when trying to fit it all in to your own workouts.

The Power of Habit

I just finished listening the audio version of Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit (Many-a-audio book has helped me deal with evening traffic on our stretch of I-95), and there were some quality take home points that I will be applying myself and that are simple enough to pass on to clients that may need a little extra help towards reaching their goals.

All of us have, or have had, bad habits. Whether it’s wasting time at work, poor nutrition choices, skipping workouts, texting and using the phone while driving or procrastinating on things you generally don’t want to do. When it comes down to it, most of us are downright helpless if we say we want to give up a bad habit. That’s right…just quitting bad habits doesn’t work.

Just like a movement pattern, these choices become so natural to us that they eventually run on auto-pilot. The brain changes and it takes less energy and focus to continue doing whatever it is we shouldn’t be doing.

Sounds pretty crappy, I Know. So what can we do? 

With poor movement habits we also know someone can’t just choose to start moving better one day. In fact, Shirley Sahrmann estimates that it takes about 300-500 repetitions to learn a completely new pattern the right way but 3-5,000 repetitions to re-wire a pattern that is already poor. 

The same concept holds true for the choices we make. In order to give up a bad habit we need to do a couple of things. First we need to identify what cues lead us to our choices. What event, environment, person etc. do we associate with the poor habit? Do you spend time on Facebook as a means of putting off work that you might not want to do right now? Whatever it is you need to identify and acknowledge it. 

From here, we can make a decision to replace our poor habit with an alternative every time that cue presents itself. We can temporarily get away with quitting whatever it is we want to give up but eventually we just leave ourselves a void that will be filled again with whatever it was we were trying to get away from. We need a positive alternative that we choose ahead of time that will fill that gap. Repeating this process will eventually lead the brain to re-wire and a new, better habit will be created. 

One way to aid in this process is by changing your surrounding environment. From the time I was a teenager all the way through college I always had a TV in my bedroom. I became completely dependent on it to fall asleep. My sleep quality was awful and I never realized why. About 6 years ago I decided to get rid of it cold turkey. For probably three weeks I couldn’t sleep at all but eventually it got better and now it would be almost unbearable to try to sleep with any sort of electronic on.

One common habit we see here with clients is lack of a proper breakfast. Because we’re always on the go it becomes easy to grab a bagel or fast food on the way to work rather than getting a good source of protein. I admittedly struggle with this when I don’t plan ahead. I love to make breakfast, especially good scrambled eggs, but to do it right means getting up 30 minutes earlier which would put me in the 3 o’clock hour. I’ve been a morning person for years but I’m not completely crazy. So for me a recent choice as an alternative habit has got to be setting aside time on Sunday to get my (simple) breakfasts ready for the week so I can just grab and go and leave them at work. As an ectomorph I have trouble keeping weight on so getting a good caloric start to the day is really important.

What’s one habit that you would like to change before the end of the summer? What cue tends to lead to you acting out this habit? And what alternative activity can you fill that void with?

Thoughts from Providence Perform Better

Here are my initial thoughts from the Perform Better summit in Providence this weekend: 

-Perform Better manages to get better every year. Some organizations could learn a lot from them when it comes to putting on seminars. It's easy to see how great of a company they are when you see almost the same exact staff helping out with each seminar over the last 6 years. Turnover is next to nothing and that says a lot.

-The pre-conference (Thursday’s session) was worth the investment on its own. Great Strength Coach social after the lectures as well! Thanks to Anthony Renna for making that happen! 

-It’s amazing how hard it is to choose who to see each hour. I changed my mind 2 or 3 times at the last minute. It’s impossible to go wrong though with the quality of speakers on this tour.  

-Alwyn Cosgrove is still the most entertaining speaker on the Perform Better tour while at the same time being motivational, educational and flat out funny. 

-Overall, the rules of training haven’t changed much but some tools and application continue to evolve. The principles that Lee Taft instilled in me out of grad school still hold incredibly true to this day and maybe even more so with the movement towards more primal, natural movement (“don’t train kids like they are little adults; train adults like they are big kids”) 

-There still seems to be a misunderstanding in some circles of what the Functional Movement Screen is and what it is used for. It is not a performance test. It is not a fitness test. Judging it as one is like saying blood pressure is useless as a predictor of hair color. I’m pretty sure one isn’t related to the other. 

-It’s important to find specific performance goals for people who may not have a body composition goal to reach. “General Fitness” seems to be out if you’re trying to create a culture and motivate people to stick around your gym. There’s a market for training the “general fitness” client towards event-goals like mud runs, Spartan races, 5-10k races, etc. (Cosgrove). 

-I heard Bill Knowles speak for the first time. He had a great approach to getting an awesome training effect in the stages that are typically reserved for “physical therapy”. This is very applicable to my setting right now and falls in line with the “focus on what someone can” do belief system. This is great for increasing the amount of prep time before returning to “performance” to avoid rushing back. 

-Al Vermeil can play for my team any day.  

 

 

-A common theme from the weekend focused on the importance of proper breathing to not only enhance core stability but to allow improvement in mobility as well. Stretching doesn’t work to increase length in muscles (if it’s even needed). Proper strength training through full range of motion is more effective at lengthening a muscle than stretching, since stretching takes over 30 minutes one position to have an effect (adding sarcomeres in series to increase length). The combination of Charlie Weingroff and Art Horne really drove this point home (I hear Brandon Marcello’s hands on was great also). 

Rob Lewis on stage with Charlie

 



-Nick Winkelman is an incredible coach from Athletes Performance. I saw his hands on and heard great buzz from his talk on cueing and almost regret not seeing it. I still disagree with some ways that AP teaches multidirectional speed (shuffling specifically, from this hands on) but it’s impossible to argue with Nick’s effectiveness as a coach and motivator.  

-The reason I say I almost regret missing Nick’s lecture was because I was lucky enough to see Greg Rose’s hands on, focusing on developing rotary power in athletes.  I’ve seen Greg speak 3 or 4 times now and he always gives you simple and applicable take home points. 

This year, he went over his 4 tests used to reveal a power deficit were genius in their simplicity to administer and understand. For rotary athletes it’s expected that a seated medicine ball chest pass (upper body pressing power) and a supine overhead medicine ball throw (chopping motion) will be close to equal (in feet). The number in feet should mirror the athlete’s vertical jump in inches (lower body power).  The final test was a standing rotary “shot put” that allows for an explosive step as part of the throw. In a well-balanced athlete this number, in feet, should be 1 ½ times the distance of the first three. One of these numbers off? Now you know what area to address with training. Pretty cool! 

-Art Horne gave some great cues (verbal and tactile) for coaching breathing. “Fill up the Canister” is one I will be using immediately. His explanation of filling up the balloon in the front of the core with a breath to counter the pressure created from the back and sides (erectors and obliques) was a gem as well. We need 360 degrees of pressure when breathing – creating pressure outward is not enough 

-It’s funny to see young coaches (myself included-we’re going with the relative definition of “young” in this case) when they meet their biggest professional influences. And what might be funnier is meeting an attendee who is not in the profession and has no idea who these people are. Yes, there was one of these here. He decided it’d be a fun guy’s weekend to go a seminar with his trainer and attend a few workouts in Providence. Classic.

 

There is so much more that is left out of this wordy write-up but I wanted to get a few thoughts on paper before I forgot them! The networking that goes on at these things is unbelievable as well. Being able to meet and talk shop or at least interact with other coaches and presenters is what makes these things great. Can’t wait for the next one!

Nutrition Tip for the Day: Stay Local!

After taking a few days off early last week I spent the past four days in Providence for the most recent Perform Better Performance Training Summit. These events are always amazing for the content, energy, networking, socials and hands-on learning experience.

I've been rifling through my notes to try to avoid the normal post-conference effects of forgetting almost everything I thought I had learned. While I do this I thought I'd share a quick note from Chris Mohr who gave a talk geared towards dispelling some basic myths of nutrition.

One focus of the lecture was clearing up the debate of Organic vs. Non-Organic eating. Which is better?

Dr. Mohr's approach was great in that it focused on the big picture. In other words, don't get bogged down by minutiae when trying to make nutrition changes for the better.

He made a lot of good points but one that is easy to remember is that it's much better (from a nutrition standpoint) to eat locally grown produce as opposed to food items that had to spend time in shipping. If you can get food that was picked yesterday instead of last week , the nutrient profile will be much more favorable. Your body will make much better use of the locally grown food vs. the preserved item.

Was organic better? In some cases. But when in doubt keep it simple and go local!

Hierarchy of Fat Loss

Just a quick link for everyone today since I'm on vacation and on the way to the golf course :)!

Most of my clients' goals are centered around 1) avoiding further injury and 2) general fat loss goals. I wanted to address #2, and I could try to articulate the information as well as possible, the fact is Alwyn Cosgrove did it better than anyone several years ago and the content is still top-notch. Take a look!

Hierarchy of Fat Loss by Alwyn Cosgrove

Enjoy and have a great rest of the week,
Jon

Finding a Neutral Spine

Quick Tip: Finding Neutral

One of the first “exercises” I have almost all clients do is demonstrate to me what they think a neutral spine is. Generally we’ll do this in a quadruped position (on all fours) but the goal is to understand what a proper spine position feels like so it becomes easier to apply to almost every exercise we do. My goal is to get an immediate correction when I cue someone to “find neutral”. For most people this won’t come naturally so here’s a quick tip to help you understand what it should feel like.




This picture is of a person doing a “cat-camel” exercise which you may or may not have seen before. The middle picture is a good demonstration of a neutral spine. This is the exact method I use to teach core positioning. Here’s how it’s done:

1. In a kneeling position, round your back over as far as you possibly can (camel)

2. Next, create as much of an arch as you can so your belly button is as close to the ground as you can get it

3. Finally, find the middle!

That’s it! By finding the middle of these two extreme positions you are going to be very close to your neutral spine position. Pay attention to what it feels like…now try to recreate this feeling with each exercise you do!

Progressing Sets & Reps

Will Sets and Reps get more challenging?

I was emailed this question from a client a few weeks back and just wanted to address it here.

Each client that starts training with me has a different background, but I can generally place them in one of a few categories. First, there are those that have a lot of experience training under a high-intensity, high-volume program that has contributed in some way to an injury. Their visit to physical therapy is what puts them in front of me in the first place. These can be split into a couple of subgroups; one group that moves effectively and has a solid training background and a second group who has very inefficient movement patterns but pushed through these workouts without knowing any better.

Second, I may get a client who has next to no experience from a training standpoint. They are literally at square 1 and are eager to make changes (I love all my clients but these are some of my favorites!).

In any case, I am a big believer in the MED method to programming (Minimal Effective Dose). In other words, I want to see how little I can give someone and still make positive changes.

At the beginning of a training program, the volume and intensity are so low that someone might even be a little bored during the first week or two. We do this for a couple of reasons. One, I want to introduce new movements the right way to each athlete or client. If I ask too much of them, their form will be sacrificed and we’ll also be hindering results down the road.

Second, I use this time as an extended assessment period. By watching them move multiple times and seeing how each person responds in the 1-2 days following a workout I will have a good sense of how to safely progress them moving forward.

If they move well, don’t break a sweat and are not the least bit sore the day after a training session, it might be OK to progress the volume a bit quicker.

Whether this is the case or not, each person needs to demonstrate movement competency and earn the right to either do more volume (if the goal warrants this) or increase in the intensity.

Another reason we do it this way is for the psychological implications. Let’s say we start with too much volume or intensity and as a coach I know the best thing is to back them off. Many people will take this as a failure as they were unable to do what was asked of them (even though this isn’t the case – this is the coach’s fault). By starting with exercises that are easier, with lower intensity and low volume I am setting the person up for success early on. By mastering these exercises first without putting the athletes out of commission with muscle soreness, we’ve made it easier to progress moving forward. Even though we may end up at the same spot down the road, the feeling of taking steps forward is definitely preferred over pushing too fast, too early and then stepping back.

The goal as a coach is to make things as challenging as they need to be – and no more!

There are fairly complex ways to implement more challenging sets and reps but for the inexperienced trainee we can make a great deal of progress with low volume, simple progressions that ask a little more of you each week.

Part 2 Core Stabilization – What to do?

In the first part of this short summary for training the core, we reviewed the very basics of what makes up your core. Hopefully the difference in function between the inner and outer core (timing mechanisms) was clear. If the inner core muscles aren’t functioning at the right time, other muscles will try to fill in that stabilizing role – pretty cool adaptive capabilities of the body but not a good long term strategy as these compensations will lead to pain or other movement dysfunctions.

The main takeaway is that the core musculature is designed to function as stabilizers of the spine as opposed to prime movers. This distinction is what drives the exercise selection that we’ll go over here.

Before we get into actual exercises it’s a good idea to know what a strong and stable core looks like. To me, a person with a good functioning core is one who is able to hold a relatively neutral spine (from the low back all the way to the neck) while performing other activities. This should happen without thinking about “using your core”. A good inner core will work reflexively.

Here are some cues (other than “turn on your core”) that you can think about:

1. Stay Long through your head/spine
2. Keep your ears in line with your shoulders; Keep a “packed neck”
3. Brace like you’re about to take a punch
4. Breathe deep while staying as still as you possibly can

These apply to most, if not all, core exercises (as well as most strength exercises) that you will (should?) be doing.

When designing programs it’s a good idea to categorize each movement or exercise to help develop a somewhat balanced approach. In other words, we don’t want to have too much of one movement and not enough of another. It’s common to see routines with 10 pushing exercises and only 1 or 2 pulling, for example. If you just pick exercises from a list it’s easy to let this happen…if we pick the movement patterns in a balanced fashion first it then becomes easier to decide the best exercise to use. So for an upper body workout you might decide you are going to do 2 pulling exercises and 2 pushing exercises (we actually like to include more pulling than pushing but for the sake of balancing things out we’re going with 2 and 2). Now we pick 2 different exercises in each category and we’re good to go.

For the core we can break it down into 3 or 4 simple categories. We have 3 planes of motion; Transverse (Rotational - think twisting), Saggital (straight ahead – flexion and extension), or Frontal/Coronal (lateral flexion; think side bends, jumping jacks, etc.).



Since we decided that stabilizing is the best way to train the core though, how do we work these movement patterns without actually moving?

What we need to do is use exercises that create forces that need to be resisted by the same muscles used to create the motions we just identified. We train the core this way by “tricking” the muscles into reflexively stabilizing when they need to.

We have 4 categories of movements that we use for this based on each plane of motion (saggital gets 2):

1. Anti-Rotation (Transverse) – Think obliques
2. Anti-Flexion (Saggital) – Think back/glutes
3. Anti-Extension (Saggital) – think Abs
4. Anti-Lateral Flexion (Frontal) – Think sides

Here’s a couple videos of exercises in each pattern that you can use on your own if you’re new to the game. Refer to the cues above for execution:

Anti-Rotation

1. Tall Kneeling Anti-Rotation Press. The band or cable is producing a rotational force on your back and your job is to resist that rotation. 2-3 sets of 8-10 reps each side OR 3 reps each side with longer holds (10 seconds) are a good start. The narrower your knees, the harder this will be. It won’t take much resistance.



2. Bird-Dogs (Quadruped diagonals). Go slow. The goal is NO movement of the low back. You’ve got a full drink on your back that you can’t spill! 2 sets 6-10 reps each side is plenty in a single workout.



Anti-Extension

1. Front Plank. Hold for 10 second reps and slowly increase the number of reps you do. Keep your nose over your thumbs.



2. Stability Ball Rollout. Slow tempo, 2 sets for 6-10 reps. The further the ball is from you at the start the harder this movement will be.



Anti-Flexion

1. 2 Leg Glute Bridge. 2-3 sets of 10 reps



2. 2 Leg RDL/Hip Hinging Pattern. This is also one of our basic strength moves but the muscles that keep the back extended (actually preventing flexion) are hard at work here.



Anti-Lateral Flexion

1. Side Plank. Similar to the front plank you’ll want to work towards 10 seconds hold if you’re a beginner. Work up to where you can do 4-5 reps of 10 seconds on each side, in each set, before adding time.



2. 1 Arm Farmer’s Walk. Maybe my favorite exercise to program due to its short learning curve, functional carryover to real life, and the challenge it can impose on beginners and advanced lifters alike. Like the others, stay long and focus on keeping the shoulder blades locked down and back. Crush the handle!!!


I got yelled at by the ATC for not having my brace on before filming this

If you hit each movement pattern 2-3 times per week and 2-3 sets of each you’ll be ahead of most gym-goers when it comes to core function. Would love to hear your thoughts, questions, or suggestions on core exercise you like to do at the gym!

Have a great Thursday,
Jon

Core Stability

Core Stabilization Part 1: What is the Core?

In the last 15 years there probably hasn’t been a more over-used and misinterpreted buzzword in fitness than “core strengthening”. There isn’t an exercise program in the world that doesn’t stress the need for improved core function. It’s safe to say that having good core “strength” is important but how do we define it? What is it? How do we measure it? What exercise do we do to improve it? How do we know it’s getting better?

First Question: What is the core?

If you go to any gym and ask the first person you see to describe their core there’s a good shot they would use the term “6-pack” at some point in your dialogue. They might also jump down and demonstrate some high-quality sit-ups, crunches or maybe even some hanging leg raises for the “functional” crowd. It’s no surprise as this is what everyone sees and what the public is bombarded with on the cover of magazines on every street corner. But the 6-pack muscle (rectus abdominis – just 1 muscle that is divided into 6 parts by tendinous structures to give it that look) makes up a small part of what fitness professionals would define as a functioning core.



Through the work of researchers like Stu McGill, Shirley Sarhmann and Physical Therapists/Strength Coaches Gray Cook, Charlie Weingroff and a host of others we have seen a much better definition of what a core is and what it’s supposed to do.

For simplification purposes (or because my understanding of it is simplistic – semantics, right?) we’re going to break the core down into 3 parts: The Spine, the Inner Core and the Outer Core.

Dr. McGill uses a great analogy in his Low Back Disorders text where he compares the spine to a fishing pole that is being held upright by guy wires. Alone, the fishing pole is very flexible and also unstable. When all the guy wires are working together the pole is incredibly stable. Again in simple terms, your Inner Core is made up of these guy wires. These muscles need to work together and at the right time in order to keep your spine (low back, specifically) from losing its necessary stiffness and stability. To achieve this, the smaller inner core muscles need a combination of muscular endurance as well as proper neurological timing. In other words, it doesn’t matter how strong a muscle is if it doesn’t come on at the right time.


Not a great picture but you get the idea


So what’s the right time?

What we know from the research is that in individuals with low back pain/disorders there is a delayed firing of these Inner Core muscles where the Outer core muscles fire first; it should be the other way around. Inner core should be firing milliseconds before the outer core (I’ve tried measuring this with a stop watch but to no avail).

What’s the Outer Core? Again, in its simplest terms it can be thought of as a barrel that surrounds these guy wires. The sides of the barrel are made up of the obvious (“6-pack”) along with internal/external obliques, lats and other muscles that work to extend the spine (help it stand up). To finish the barrel we need a top and bottom though, which can often be forgotten. The bottom of the barrel is your pelvic floor muscles (kegals, ladies?). The top portion is completed by the diaphragm (the muscle you breathe with; not the birth control product).

Back to the mistiming of the inner core; if there is a delay your outer core muscles will take over and try to provide the necessary stiffness to the spine in order to protect it. Muscles that should be doing one thing are now doing another. In the case of the diaphragm if your inner core is not functioning well you can compensate and gain stability by holding your breath.

The chain reaction that is possible when compensations like this occur can have effects all over the body which is why we spend so much time training core stability with proper breathing mechanics. We don’t gain this function from sit-ups and crunches even if the muscles we “want to work” are firing.

Always remember the end-goal with the exercise. Does the exercise work with the goal and are you doing correctly in order to achieve that goal?

In Part 2 we'll look into actual core exercises and how we use them.

Tools - Understand them. Don't be one.

Do you remember the last time you wanted to have work done on your house? I rent so the answer is no for me, but play along.

When you first talked to the contractor the conversation probably went something like this:

You: Hi, I was wondering if you use screwdrivers.
Contractor: We sure do!
You: Great! What about sanders? Saws??
Contractor: Yup!
You: Awesome! How much does it cost? When can we get started?!

Sound familiar? I hope not.

I would hope the first thing you do in this situation is explain exactly what you want done…what result you want to come from their services. You trust the professional to choose the tools best suited for the job.

As ridiculous as that sounds I can’t tell you how many times we hear questions like, “do you do kettle bells?” in the fitness industry.

To (quality) coaches, the “kettlebell” questions sounds just as funny as the hypothetical conversation with the contractor.

“It’s not your fault. Listen to me. It’s not your fault” (Just imagine that in my best Robin Williams voice from Good Will Hunting)

The fact is you are bombarded by so much commercial advertising and gyms promoting whatever their new fanciest toy is in the gym that it’s impossible not to fall into the trap. The best trainers and gyms will promote the same way a contractor would – By demonstrating great results. What do you really want with an exercise program? Is it to use a TRX or to lose 10 pounds of fat? Do you want to do cone agility drills, or improve your defense for the upcoming basketball season? These are not necessarily mutually exclusive but they can be when used incorrectly.

The same holds true for individual exercises and drills – these are all just tools in the toolbox. Until we know the specific goal the tools don’t matter. Almost every piece of equipment, and every exercise, can be used to accomplish multiple different outcomes. Until we know what that outcome is we shouldn’t be deciding on what tools we will be using (or how we will be using them).

There are people making a lot of money by only using a single tool for an entire class/program (TRX, kettlebells, spin bikes, etc). Some of them do a good job using these tools to accomplish specific goals but many of them are simply taking advantage of the latest buzzword and running with it.

So the next time you think to yourself, “I need to do more cardio”, try to boil that down to what you REALLY want at the end of an exercise routine or program. Having a clearly defined goal will make it easier to ask the right questions and decide which tool is best for you.

Individualizing a Training Plan

Many prospective clients come in through our doors and wonder, “how will you make the exercises/training specific to me?” It’s a fair question and one we try to explain well before starting a training program.

Why do we need to individualize programs-can’t we find the exercises that work and have everybody do them? And if not, how do we go about choosing exercises and designing a program that is appropriate for each individual?

The simple answer to the first set of questions is an emphatic “No”, we can’t give the same exercises to everyone. This is what leads to hilarious-if-not-cringe worthy YouTube videos of inappropriate exercises given to ill-prepared clients and expecting the client to make the decision that it’s too intense. To me, this is poor coaching.

There are really no good or bad exercises-only good and bad applications of the exercise to each individual. People are often frustrated when they ask me if a certain exercise is good…my response is almost always, “it depends.” It’s not a cop-out. It’s the truth. Let’s take a quick look into what goes into choosing exercises.

Quick how-to on individualizing programs:

There are three main factors to look at before sitting down to write a program:
1. Injury & Health History/Movement quality (based on assessment)
2. Exercise History
3. Individual Goals

For me, every exercise, movement pattern and set & rep scheme is on the table when someone walks through the door. Once information is collected based on these three categories I can start weeding out certain movements (say, overhead pressing for those that tend to impinge easily, or have poor shoulder mobility).

The same is true for sets and reps; until I know your specific goal the sets and reps are hard to choose. If your goal is simply strength it would make no sense to have you performing workouts in the 15-20 rep range on a regular basis. Conversely, if your goal is strictly fat loss we wouldn’t be spending much time working in the 1-4 range very often.

I’ve had young athletes in the past get a little confused when they see athletes in other sports doing similar or the same exercises. I try to explain that most exercise is not sport-specific but rather species-specific. I stole this from Gray Cook, co-creator of the Functional Movement Screen. From a general training perspective, especially for those with less than 2 years of training experience, movements and exercises will be very general with individualization coming from elimination of movements and exercises along with sound programming from a volume and intensity standpoint.
So, two of you may have the same limitations from an injury history/movement quality standpoint but one may have 3 years of training to fall back on while the other is a complete newbie. In this case, exercise choice (movement patterns) will be very similar but sets/reps & intensity will vary.

The same holds true for metabolic work. Exercises will be similar person-to-person but the work and rest times will vary based on work capacity and ability to recover.

Every exercise we choose has a goal and is based on your ability to do them correctly (if we can’t, we regress) and pain free. So next time you’re trying to choose an exercise, ask yourself what the goal is of doing that specific move is. Does this accomplish that goal? If not it probably doesn’t fit in to your individual program, while it may be perfectly fine for another. If you’re not sure, ask!

Choosing Sets & Reps

Why Do I Choose Specific Set & Rep Ranges?

There’s a scenario that has come up often, and I can remember it happening even with high school football teammates of mine like 100 years ago (I decided there’s no reason to actually count anymore, being 30 and all). It goes something like this: “Coach wants me to do 3x5 (3 sets, 5 reps each set), but that’s only because he thinks I’m weak like everyone else…I’m a bad@** though, so I’ll just do 15 in a row.”

I might be paraphrasing.

The logical explanation or defense to the coach is, “I did the same amount of work in less time, and therefore I’ll get better results.”
Unfortunately, that logic is completely flawed. As a coach, we explain that if you could do 15 reps with a given weight, you should have used more weight to do a set of 5, rest or perform a 2nd exercise, then perform another set, and so forth.

This is satisfactory for most, but some still believe they don’t need rest and can “mentally push their way through it”. The fact is, if you are using the same weight for a set of 15 that you would for a set of 5, you are either cheating on the sets of 15 (too heavy, poor form) OR you are leaving something on the table for a set of 5. We can’t trump physiology in this case. If you are pushing yourself for a set of 5, there is no way you could use the same weight/intensity for a set of 15.

So why do we use different set & rep schemes? Isn’t 3 sets of 10 for every exercise good enough?

The fact is, we choose different sets and reps in order to tailor a program to specific goals and ability levels. We get different responses and results from each (neuromuscular, endocrine and cardiovascular responses are all different with different sets and rep schemes).

Below is a short breakdown of different qualities (goals) we can work on and what set & rep schemes we use to achieve each (For pure beginners this changes; anything will work with a newbie). These are very general and try to think of it as part of a continuum more than a hard and fast rule.

Beginners

No matter what the goal is, most of my beginners will start in very similar set and rep ranges. I generally progress from 1-2 sets of 15 reps at the beginning, and slowly work towards 3 sets where the reps actually drop down. Why?
By starting in a higher rep range, we can focus on form and mechanics but still get a training effect without too much risk.
By lowering the reps through progression we make it easier to increase the intensity (weight, exercise difficulty, etc.) while keeping the volume somewhat consistent (3x10 = 30 reps, just like 2x15 = 30 reps). By using heavier weights for the same number of repetitions, we have increased the total work done. Big win for progress!

I generally take 3 months to work through this progression in order to really hone in on exercise technique but still ensuring progress is made towards your goals. Once movements are more proficient I am more comfortable working in lower rep ranges and progressing things as outlined below.

1. Max Strength *

Set & Rep Range: 1-4 reps

Strength is literally a measure of how much force you can produce in a given movement. To get stronger it is necessary to lift progressively more weight (with proper form of course). The easiest way to do this is in the lower rep range. Why? As you start to add reps, other systems and limiting factors come into play (muscular endurance, mental focus, cardiovascular endurance etc.). At these low rep ranges your entire focus can be on producing as much force as possible.

Why do you need to do it?

Increasing muscular strength is great for many reasons if your goals are more general fitness related. For one, as we age bone density becomes an increasing concern. Strength training will be a huge foundation for curbing osteopenia/osteoporosis. Second, increasing strength will go a long way in increasing your work capacity (essentially you are increasing the size of your engine and it will make work bouts at lower ranges feel easier by comparison). In other words, the stronger you are, the more work you’ll be able to do in your metabolic strength sessions which will mean more calories burned in less time!

Be careful of: This set and rep range is best for advanced lifters and when done well can cause a ton of fatigue on the neuromuscular system. You won’t feel tired, or winded, but your ability reproduce these max effort lifts for the next few days will be compromised.

2. General Strength *

Set & Rep Range: 4-6

Now we’ve added a few reps but are still in a low enough range to focus on strength but is a little less taxing on the nervous system than the max strength range.

3. Strength*

Set & Rep Range: 6-12

This is a range where we can still use relatively heavy weights but increase the total volume and workload performed in a given workout. Example:

On Monday Johnny squats for 5 sets of 3 reps with 200 lbs. Total workload = 15 reps x 200 lbs = 3,000 lbs. This was a max strength-type workout.

On Friday Johnny squats 150 lbs for 3 sets of 10. Total workload = 30 reps x 150 lbs = 4,500 lbs. His total workload was higher, and most likely done in a shorter amount of time, although the weight used was lower.

4. Muscular Endurance*

Set & Rep Range: 12-20 or more

This scheme is reserved for metabolic workouts with lower weight but is extremely taxing in a different way. Here the focus is work capacity, or your ability to repeat a motion with good form, under load. How many times can you produce a given force before your muscles begin to fatigue? Here your ability to produce force isn’t as important as your ability to clear metabolic waste quickly enough to produce more energy to keep the set going without losing form. To elicit the desired response, the weight will be lighter (lower intensity) but still enough to the point where you only have 1 or 2 perfect reps left in the tank at the end.

“Wait a minute, none of those fit in with my goals of gaining muscle/toning/losing fat!”

Given these set & rep schemes, it is important to note that what seems to work best for muscle gain is a good combination of all of these. We’re not really sure why it works, but we know it helps to get a lot of volume, combined with max strength work and everything in between.

The same holds true for fat loss. ALL of these will aid. There will be a greater focus on Metabolic Resistance Training (circuits with higher rep ranges, specified rest periods, etc.) but it is all important to your goals!

So next time you look at your program try to think through each day’s sets and reps to have a good understanding of the “why” behind it!