The Thinking Tire

“Sometimes you can’t think about it. That will only hold you back. Sometimes you just have to do it.” –Charleston DeLa Cruz

This past summer I was lucky enough to have an internship at Todd Durkin’s Fitness Quest 10 in San Diego, CA. Not only was it a great work experience, but also I was able to make friends with a great group of employees and fellow interns. Midway through the summer Todd gave the interns the freedom to design and run a Sunday morning fitness class for the general population. We were supposed to come up with a name for the Sunday classes, as well as a theme for each of them. At first it seemed like everyone was a little self-conscious about their ideas because not much was said. At that moment there was too much pressure to try to come up with the perfect name and idea that everyone was drawing a blank. With everyone filtering their “bad ideas”, we were not able to feed off each other's creativity and enthusiasm. Needless to say, there were no good ideas generated at that time.

Seth Godin says if you believe you can’t come up with good ideas it is because you are going about the process all wrong. Rather than just trying to think of good ideas, you should try to think of bad ideas. By thinking of as many bad ideas as possible, eventually you will end up with an idea or two that isn’t so bad. Then you can even take one of those ideas and make it into a good idea. The process of coming up with good ideas sometimes needs to start from the ground up. Sometimes bad ideas need to either get out of the way before a good idea will emerge, or will directly lead to a good idea.

Behind the Fitness Quest 10 facility there is an alley with different pieces of exercise equipment. One, for example, is a 400-pound tractor tire. Although the tire’s original purpose was for flipping and climbing on, on this day it was used for something new. I went back there with another intern, Charleston DeLa Cruz, sat on the tire, and we started coming up with ideas. No matter how bad they might have seemed, we said them. Not only did we have a lot of fun laughing at the ideas and using them to fuel even funnier ideas, we also ended up coming up with a few good ones at the end! What we discovered was so powerful that we had to share it with all the other interns. We called it “the thinking tire.” Whenever we needed to come up with an idea, relax from work, or get mentally ready to push ourselves in the weight room, we would go to the thinking tire. It was a place where negative thoughts could not get in the way of what we were trying to do.

Not everyone needs a tire to sit on, but having a place in your house, car, work, or gym where you can feel empowered and free just by sitting there can help you erase the negative thoughts that often can get in the way of accomplishment. When you are there, tell yourself that there are no bad ideas, negative thoughts are not allowed, and you are capable of doing things you never thought you could. Soon your brain will be programmed to feel empowered when you sit there, and you will be breaking through plateaus, both in the weight room and in life.

Tony Cates is a business management major at Edgewood College in Madison, WI.  He is a certified personal trainer, performance enhancement specialist, and the S&C Coach for Edgewood College Men’s Basketball.  He can be reached at catestony@gmail.com or (608) 852-7433.

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Exercise Intensity and Your Joints

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It is a well-known law of physics that force equals mass times acceleration (F=ma), but what does that have to do with your joints and your exercise?  A huge trend in the fitness industry right now is training at a very high intensity both relative to how fast you normally move throughout your day as well as how fast your body is physically able to move at that given point in time.  Whether it is doing plyos in P90X and Insanity, trying to "train like the pro's", or just simply lifting weights without regard to tempo, people's bodies may be trying to handle forces that they just are not ready for.

I say "may" because some people may in fact be very well-prepared to handle such forces and there may be specific times and reasons in which you would want to impose those forces on them, but in reality those people and times are probably few and far between.

In regard to forces and movement, there are internal forces that are generated by the muscles and external forces that are placed on the body from a multitude of sources including gravity and external forms of resistance (bands, weights, tubes, etc).  Without getting too deep into the physics, the result of these forces, in terms of the joint, is additional forces within the joint, known as joint forces.  These joint forces, if not appropriately applied and progressed, can have detrimental long-term effects on the structure of individual, possibly leading to conditions such as arthritis.

The key phrase from above is "appropriately applied and progressed".  If you have the physical capability to handle such forces, you have a lot more freedom regarding what you can do without as high of a risk of chronic pain and/or dysfunction.  The vast majority, however, do not, and therefore it has to be questioned whether programs which require such high forces to be generated and applied are actually doing your body any good in the long term.

Peter could definitely burn more calories by training at high intensities, but what is it doing to his structure?

Looking at the physics, it seems that in order to decrease the quantity of joint forces, there has to be a decrease in both in the internal and external forces, in particular the external forces as the internal forces seem to be a response to the external forces placed upon the body.  This can be done by either decreasing the mass that is moved or the amount of acceleration used to move the mass.  For the sake of this post, I would like to expand on the latter.

Next time you lift or train, I would like you to consider how fast you are moving.  This is particularly useful when moving forms of external resistance, such as lifting weights.  For the athletes out there who think they have to lift fast in order to move fast, I would say this:  First, if lifting is your only form of movement training, you are in trouble.  I am all for moving fast when it is appropriate, so consider other forms of movement training in which you are not overcoming an external load, i.e. only using your body weight.  Second, far and away the easiest means by which to completely screw up your season and/or career is to get injured.  While arthritis is not something that develops in a year, I am not sure of an acute injury that isn't caused by the body being unable to handle an excessive amount of force while in a specific position.  While you can certainly build up this threshold, this will only be effective if, once again, the forces are appropriately applied and progressed.

For the non-competitive athlete or for those who are not training for performance, I really question whether it makes sense to ever train at high speeds unless you have been properly prepared to do so.  The reality, though, is that most people sit all day and, when they do move, move relatively slow.  Even if you were at one time able to perform at a high level, if you haven't been doing that for even just a year or so, there has to be some time to build yourself back up before attempting to move like you once did.  Understand that being physically able to do it and being physically able to handle it are two different things.  A lot of people have the ability to push themselves really hard but very few are actually prepared for it.  I realize that training at a higher intensity is a more effective form of fat loss, but know that there is a tradeoff to doing so.

Be smart about your progression and apply it appropriately.  When it comes time for you to train hard and at a high intensity, by all means do it if it is in line with your goals because if you don't you will eventually lose the ability to, but make sure your body has first earned the right to do so.

Get big or die tryin'.

Charlie Cates, CSCS
Self Made_®, Owner and Founder

Charlie Cates is a strength and conditioning specialist and the owner and founder of Self Made_® (http://selfmadefitness.com/) in Chicago, IL.  He has worked with competitive and everyday athletes of all ages and ability levels, from 9-year-old kids to NFL MVP’s.  He can be reached via e-mail at charlie@selfmadefitness.com.

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The Walk On

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This is far and away one of Jim Wendler's better articles as he describes the ups and downs of his experience as a walk-on football player at the University of Arizona.
The Walk On by Jim Wendler
Get big or die tryin'.

You Make The Decision Right

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Tired of things not being exactly how you want them to be?  Perhaps it is time to change your mindset about what can and cannot be.  Check out this article by Kyle Newell for more.

You Make The Decision Right by Kyle Newell

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Decrease Tempo to Increase Grip Strength

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Something I have been implementing over the last month of my training is a slower tempo during my accessory lifts. Instead of not really being conscious of how fast I am decelerating the weight, I have made it a point to control the negative on a three or four count. By this I mean when the weight is moving with gravity I try to control it for three to four seconds for each rep as it moves through the range of motion being worked. This has allowed for many different physiological adaptations to occur, and one of the most noticeable to me has been an increase in grip strength.

If you are struggling to find the discipline to consistently train your grip with additional exercises, I would strongly recommend slowing down the tempo of your current exercises. Basically, this will force you to hold the weight for a much longer (usually at least twice as long) period of time. You won't have to throw in any additional grip exercises if you don't want because you will have trained your grip for twice the amount of time as you normally do. As your grip adapts and/or as you find specific things within your grip training that you need to work on, you can start adding additional work in.

I find this technique works my grip best with lower body exercises using dumbbells, back exercises, and biceps exercises. Your grip may still be worked if you slow down the tempo of your other exercises, but I have found it most noticeable with the ones I listed. You will almost certainly have to lower the weight you are using for these exercises because there will be a greater time under tension for each set, so that is why I recommend it for your accessory lifts as opposed to your core lifts where you are lifting heavier.

If you are looking for a different way to train your grip or if you find yourself heading out of the gym without getting your grip training in, try slowing down the tempo of your current routine.

Get big or die tryin'.

Charlie Cates, CSCS

Self Made_®, Owner and Founder

Charlie Cates is a strength and conditioning specialist and the owner and founder of Self Made_® (http://selfmadefitness.com/) in Chicago, IL. He has worked with competitive and everyday athletes of all ages and ability levels, from 9-year-old kids to NFL MVP’s. He can be reached via e-mail at charlie@selfmadefitness.com.

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7 Single-Leg Exercises You've Never Tried

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If you are needing to mix up your lower-body training routine, check out this article by Ben Bruno for some great ideas for single-leg exercises.

7 Single-Leg Exercises You've Never Tried by Ben Bruno

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Food Trends... What's (Still) In, What's (Still) Out

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Conflicting opinions about what you should and shouldn't be eating in order to optimize your health and physique can be found everywhere. Check out this article by Poliquin Editorial Staff for no-nonsense article about what is and what isn't good advice.

Food Trends... What's (Still) In, What's (Still) Out by Poliquin Editorial Staff

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Muscle Mechanic Improves Life Quality

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Here's a cool article in the Chicago Sun-Times about a local MAT® specialist, Steve Dam.

Muscle Mechanic Improve Life Quality via the Chicago Sun-Times

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Pre-workout Drinks

Pre-workout drinks: Making lazy kids motivated and disrupting sleep quality and recovery since the airing of those first N.O.-Xplode advertisements.

By: Tony Cates, CPT, PES

We have all heard of them. Those drink powders containing various combinations of amino acids, stimulants, electrolytes, and herbal extracts. They can turn almost anyone who is tired and unmotivated into a raging mule in the weight room. In an aspect of life where a commitment to consistent hard work is the only means for success, they give hope to the overpopulated crowed searching for shortcuts and instant gratification. Though I will agree, imperfect action, or action with the assistance of chemical substances, is generally far better than perfect in-action, the abuse and addictive nature of these glorified energy drinks is something I feel deserves to be addressed.

The primary goal of a pre-workout drink is to give you more strength, power, energy, and endurance during a workout than you would otherwise have. What could be wrong with that? Better workouts lead to improved fitness and faster results, right? Generally, I might agree with this statement, except for the fact that better workouts are only being achieved through artificial means. What most pre-workout drinkers fail to take into consideration is that recovery from workouts is arguably more important than how much work is actually done during the workout. For instance, if I train more in one session than I am able to recover from, I will not be getting the full benefits of my hard work. This is where I find the primary problem with pre-workouts drinks.

Not only do pre-workouts allow users to train beyond their capacity to recover, they further prevent recovery by hindering proper sleep patterns. Caffeine, the primary stimulant in most pre-workout drinks, negatively affects the sleep cycle. The degree to which this is done depends on the time, relative to bedtime, that the caffeine is ingested, as well as the individual’s tolerance to stimulants. Whether you notice it or not, caffeine is likely disrupting your sleep, and with sleep being one of the most critical aspects of recovery, it is hindering not only your ability to recover, but your ability to progress, as well.

By taking a pre-workout product, people not only have a greater ability and desire to train beyond their capacity to recover, they actually reduce their ability to recover at the same time. This in turn leads to increasing numbers of people over-training and suffering injuries related to over-training and over use.

Perhaps it is time to re-think what actually makes sense when it comes to pre-workout fuel.

Tony Cates is a business management major at Edgewood College in Madison, WI. He is a certified personal trainer, performance enhancement specialist, and the S&C Coach for Edgewood College Men’s Basketball. He can be reached at catestony@gmail.com or (608) 852-7433.

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How To Get What You Want

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There are three warriors standing at the edge of a river. Two of the warriors decide to jump into the water. The question is, “How many warriors are now standing at the edge of the river?” Check out this article by Martin Rooney for the answer to this question as well as others you may have about why you are unable to get what you want.

How To Get What You Want by Martin Rooney

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Progression

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Proper progression is a key to appropriate adaptation, but it is so very poorly understood. Ever since I started lifting I would try to increase the weight I would do every week by five pounds for each lift, sometimes more. I felt this was an objective way of marking progress from week to week, a way of proving to myself that what I was doing was “working”. If I didn’t increase the weight on a specific lift that week, I almost felt a sense of failure or disappointment in myself because I thought I wasn’t getting any stronger, or at least not at the rate I “should” have been. When I started training on SMS roughly two and a half years ago (the exact date was Saturday, October 31, 2009—don’t ask me why I know this) I found a way to regulate how much weight I would use for my core lifts and applied what seemed to be an appropriate progression. But I was still missing a similar regulation for my accessory lifts, so I resorted back to the five pounds per week increase. However, after learning more about preserving the integrity of joints, I am no longer convinced this is a uniformly appropriate progression.

What I am now doing with my accessory lifts (lifts that are done in addition to or to improve my core lifts—squat, bench, deadlift, and military press) is I use the first training week of the phase to figure out a challenging but appropriate weight for my accessory lifts. The SMS program series is broken into four-week phases, constituted of three hard training weeks followed by a deload week. Instead of bumping up the weight for these lifts each week, I keep it the same throughout the entire phase. Yes, it does feel easier week-by-week and I do feel like I could add more weight as the weeks go by. However, by keeping the weight the same throughout the phase I have been recovering significantly better between training days. This allows me to feel better heading into my core lifts each day in the sense that I don’t feel nearly as taxed or drained from the day(s) before. Since your training is only as affective as how well you can recover from it, this improved recovery seems like a pure gold to me.

In RTS_® we talk about something called MicroProgression_®. MicroProgression_®, according to the RTS manual, is the smallest reasonable step[1]. It is not walking distance X to jogging distance X. It is walking distance X to walking distance X + one more step, if the one more step is appropriate for that individual. Maybe, it is walking distance X to walking distance X + standing for one millisecond longer. You get the picture. Progression is not five pounds per week if five pounds per week is not appropriate. And do not confuse ability with appropriateness. Just because it can be done does not mean it should be done.

This is something it took me a while to accept. The problem here is that ability in terms of progression is far too often dictated by neuromuscular ability and completely disregards structural integrity. People train intensely for years and push through fatigue and muscle soreness. Then one day they wake up and that soreness has moved from their muscles to their joints. Unsurprisingly, that joint pain doesn’t accumulate overnight, but rather over years of letting their muscles tell them when they have had enough.

Let me clarify and say that I love training hard. I love pushing myself and feeling exhausted and accomplished. I am in no way trying to demonize this. The problem is when this is done inappropriately, which for most people it is. It is fairly well understood that there has to be a certain amount of stimulus in order to create an adaptation. What is not well understood is how truly appropriate the stimulus is for the individual in the immediate present, in the short term, and in the long term. Our attention is so heavily focused on the first two time frames that we often completely disregard the third. This isn’t about taking it easy now so you can feel good when you are in a nursing home at age 70. This is about training intelligently now to improve the function of your body so you never have to be in a nursing home and can feel great throughout your entire life. This is about not having to get knees and hips and shoulders replaced in your mid-50’s and again a decade and a half later. This is about being able to do what you did when you were twenty at age forty and beyond.

My MAT_® instructor, Matthew Bernier, says, “What is the difference between a callus and a blister? What is the difference between increasing tendon strength and developing tendonitis? What is the difference between developing thicker, more durable cartilage and developing arthritis? Progression.”

I don’t know if not increasing the weight of my accessory lifts by five pounds per week will save my body in the long run, but I do know that since I started doing this my body feels better than it has in a long time, both from a neuromuscular and structural perspective. I feel stronger than I ever have, am moving better than I ever have, and actually feel really good after I finish training instead of longing to go pass out in an ice bath. Because of this, I have to believe that what I am doing now is more appropriate than what I was doing before.

Understand as best you can what you are doing to the human body both now and in the future, constantly question if you can do less to achieve the same or better results, and be ready to work really, really hard when it is appropriate to do so.

Get big or die tryin’.

Charlie Cates, CSCS

Self Made_®, Owner and Founder

Charlie Cates is a strength and conditioning specialist and the owner and founder of Self Made_® (http://selfmadefitness.com/) in Chicago, IL. He has worked with competitive and everyday athletes of all ages and ability levels, from 9-year-old kids to NFL MVP’s. He can be reached via e-mail at charlie@selfmadefitness.com.

This article may be reproduced with biographical information intact.

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[1] Syllabus for Part 1 of the RTS 123 Course. Purvis, Tom. 1997.

Training Waves for the Squat

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If you are looking to break through your current squat plateau, check out this article by Louie Simmons for information regarding speed strength and strength speed waves used at Westside Barbell.

The Squat by Louie Simmons

Get big or die tryin'.