My Powerlifting Deception

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 All of my weight training used to follow a powerlifting type model.  Heavy squats, bench, deadlifts, and overhead press.  In order to increase the weights I was using for each lift I used to spend a fair amount of time studying the respective technique of each lift and try to figure out different tips and tricks to make heavier weights seem easier to lift.



Now this was done in part from a safety perspective, meaning I was trying to learn how to handle these relatively heavy weights while putting myself at the lowest risk of injury.  But figuring out these tips and tricks was also done so I could lift the weights more efficiently.

I would try to "pull the bar apart in my hands" when pressing, altering the respective moment arm to the shoulder and elbow.  I would throw my body weight back while deadlifting--a tip I picked up after watching countless YouTube videos of some of the best powerlifters in the world--effectively attempting to use the inertia of the mass of my body to help lift the bar.  I would place the bar at a very specific position on my back every time I squatted in order to maximize the amount of weight I could add on top of my torso and still sit down and stand up.

The ironic thing about all of this is that I was not training to be a powerlifter.  Powerlifting was not my sport, basketball was, and I was lifting to get stronger and stay healthy.  I liked seeing a lot of weight on the bar and watching as that amount increased.  But the veil of deception that I was under for the longest time is that the more weight I would put on the bar meant I was automatically challenging my tissue more.  More challenge to the tissue meant more strength meant more weight on the bar.  At least that's how I had it in my head.

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Here's the funny thing, though:  I'm not sure how much of that weight was actually challenging my muscles in the way I wanted them to be challenged.  In fact, all of the tips and tricks I learned and applied were done in order to challenge specific tissue less to make the weight seem easier to lift.  For example, trying to pull my hands apart on the bar when I bench pressed created less mechanical challenge to my chest and more to my elbow extensors.  But why was I bench pressing?  To move more weight or to build a bigger, stronger chest?

Trying to rip the bar off of the ground and fling by body backwards when deadlifting certainly helped me pull 500, but how much stronger could I have gotten if I actually tried to lift and control the weight and the motion at every point along the way instead of trying so hard to fling the bar up that the inertial effects of the movement of that mass propelled the bar through part of the range?
And I definitely found the best bar placement spot on my back to create the most optimal moment arms to my knees, hips, etc when I squatted, but what kind of challenge was actually being presented to the muscles that controlled those joints?  Furthermore, how much was I challenging myself when I would stand up so fast that you could see the bar elevating off of my back by the time I was at the top of my rep?

There isn't anything inherently wrong with powerlifting or training to increase the amount of weight you can move, but what I have come to realize is if your goal is to improve the amount of tension (force) your muscles can generate, all of the tips and tricks to make lifting the weight more efficient by actually challenging the tissue less might need to go out the window.  You still want to set yourself in a specific manner to try to limit injury, but if the goal is truly to challenge tissue, then you need to create a different relationship of your joints to the forces of the imposed challenge, in which the pursuit of finding the most efficient way to lift the weight needs to be strongly reconsidered.

What is the goal of the challenge you have created for yourself?  Is it to move a mass with a bigger number on it or to challenge tissue to a greater degree?

Your body.  Your training.

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Making "Stupid" Smarter

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One thing I try work through in my head are ways to go about taking exercises that may be completely inappropriate for a client and manipulating the variables of the exercise in order to make it appropriate for their abilities and goals.  As a professional, I think this is an important skill to develop.

Maxing Motion

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Something I often fall into the trap of is having my clients move through all of their active range around a particular joint during a given exercise and magnitude profile.  I'm calling it a trap because I guess that is more or less my default right now, meaning that's kind of option A that I start with and then I might strategically choose to limit the range from there.  I guess I have an issue with this in my head because it seems to be the only thing I do it for.  I don't default to max resistance for every exercise and then scale back, nor do I think that way about speed/tempo, the duration of the set, or the effort I want put forth during the exercise.  So I think this needs to change in my head.



Most everything else I tend to drift towards moderate/easy for the first set or so then increase from there, so why with motion do I almost always start towards the most that my client can actively/comfortably attain?  Furthermore, even if I justified having them move through that much range with an easy load for the sake of warming up the tissue or practicing the motion, why do I almost always continue to have them explore that entire range once a greater resistance force is applied?  The irony is that the presented challenge in terms of resistance is usually only a challenge during a small part of the range, so how much challenge to the muscular tissue is actually being accomplished by moving through the rest of it?


I can certainly see viable reasons for moving through most of the available active range of a joint during specific exercises with specific individuals, but I'm not sure that it makes sense for me to keep seeing this as option A.  Instead, I think it is time to drop this piece that has been somewhat automatic up to this point and start to see not just the motion that is being performed, but the specific part of the motion that is performed, as a variable that needs to be strategically chosen and manipulated, as well.

Do you tend to default to moving through "full range" on your curls, squats, presses, pulls, etc, etc, etc?  Do you tend to default to maxing out on weight every rep, too?

Your body.  Your training.

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No Impact Doesn't Mean No Issues

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A lot of times I will hear people say that they used to run frequently for their exercise but then their joints started giving them issues so now they choose to do "low impact" or "no impact" forms of exercise like riding a bike or using the elliptical thinking that these choices are without consequences for their structure.  While not having to catch some multiple of their body weight with every step should be less likely to cause joint discomfort, what they often fail to realize is there can still be tremendous joint forces created while participating in these no impact exercises.  Furthermore, depending on how they are using the piece of equipment, different force scenarios may be presented, which may exceed the set point of certain tissues and lead to other issues not previously present.

Things that need to be taken into consideration are:

1) The position(s) you are in while using the piece of equipment.

• Is the elliptical pushing you into more hip flexion that you can actively get to?

• Are you being shoved into excessive radial or ulnar deviation while using the handles on the Arc Trainer?

• Are you in too great of hip/spinal flexion for too great of time while using the bike?

• Is the incline while walking on the treadmill forcing you into more dorsiflexion than you currently have?

2) How exactly you are using the piece of equipment and the specific joint forces that are being created.

• Are you pushing down on the StepMill steps when the machine is pushing them backwards?

• Are you pushing back on the pedals of the Arc Trainer at a point when the machine wants them to go down?

• How are you pushing into the pedals on the bike?

• Are you standing up or sitting down on the bike?

• What is the path of motion of the machine as created by its axis/axes and how are you using the machine relative to that path?  Moreover, what are the effects of your choice to use it in this manner?

3) Where is your focus while you use the machine and are you trying to use it in a way that exceeds the set point of the involved tissues?

• Are you pulling up on the pedals of the bike or pushing down?

• Are you using your arms, your legs, or both while on the elliptical or Arc Trainer?  In what manner are you using them?

• How much are you holding yourself up with the side bars while on the StepMill?

Not taking these things into consideration may lead to further joint and neuromuscular issues if what you are doing isn't a good fit for your body at that moment.

One way to improve the likelihood that you will be able to handle using these pieces of equipment without the potential negative consequences is to, first, receive a neuromuscular assessment via Muscle Activation Techniques™ to figure out what tissues are contracting efficiently and then to meet with a Resistance Training Specialist™ so they can guide you on what equipment to use and how to properly use it for your individual situation.

While many pieces of exercise equipment seem like they are self-explanatory, the reality is that each one presents an array of specific scenarios in which it is used most favorably.  If one of these scenarios does not match what is tolerable for your body at this point in time, you may be causing just as many, if not more, issues than you were with your running, regardless of the impact on your joints while using them.

Is your exercise right for your body?

Inter­ested in find­ing out more? Check out the “Mus­cle Acti­va­tion Tech­niques™” page.

Inter­ested in set­ting up an assess­ment time or dis­cussing this sub­ject fur­ther? E-mail Char­lie at charlie@selfmadefitness.com.

Your body. Your training.

Want to use this arti­cle in your blog, newslet­ter, or other plat­form? You may, but be sure to include all of the bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion found in the yellow box below!

Precision and Quality

 

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"The outcome of an exercise will only be as good as the precision with which the motion/position is performed and the exact way it is challenged.  It all boils down to the quality of each individual rep!"  (Purvis, Tom.  Resistance Training Specialist™ RTSm Science 1 Manual.  4:7.  2012.)

Above is one of my favorite excerpts found in the RTS™ course manuals.  These two sentences, for me, involve a huge portion of the process of exercise.

When I read this excerpt so many concepts come to mind--structure, progression, immediate/short-term/long-term goals, exercise mechanics, the exercise equation, satellite vs. zoom, communication, cuing, current status, current abilities, fatigue, length-tension, equipment selection--all things that should be taken into consideration when designing exercises and applying forces to the body.

How precise are you with your force application?

How precise are you with what you are moving and what you are holding still?

If you had to justify how you went about doing things with mechanics, physics, or physiological principles when you exercised or trained somebody, could you?

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If you had somebody watching over you taking notes and then questioning you afterwards, could you justify the earlier choices  you made?

What are the effects of your choice of exercise equipment on your ability to maintain the chosen position while performing the chosen motion?  Did those effects play into your choices?

If the concepts mentioned above do in fact determine the outcome of an exercise, what kind of outcome are you creating by either not considering all of the details or, if you are, not having the discipline to see to it that the details are maintained for the duration of the exercise?

If the positions, motions, or presented challenge are randomly chosen, can you expect the outcome of the exercise performed to be anything but?

I am by no means perfect at any of this, but I think it is something good to think about and remind myself of and question myself on on a frequent basis to try to ensure that I am providing the best exercise experience and process for my client and myself that I can.

What level of precision and quality do you expect and require of yourself?

Want to learn more?  Take RTS™.

Looking for a place to study some of these concepts in greater detail?  Join the Precision Human Performance study groups!

Your body.  Your training.

Want to use this arti­cle in your blog, newslet­ter, or other plat­form? You may, but be sure to include all of the bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion found in the yellow box below!

Principles or Methods?

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"As to methods, there may be a million and then some, but principles are few.  The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods.  The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble."

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

I love this quote, for a multitude of reasons, but first and foremost is its absolute truth.  You see, not so long ago I had a head full of exercises with specific names for specific body parts that had specific rules which had to be followed in order for each rep of the exercise to be valid.  You could say that I had my entire Exercise Index and then some on file in my head, with exercise variations just a flick of the proverbial Rolodex away.  Better yet, I was, as my RTS123 instructor, Greg Mack, said, a "Pez dispenser" of exercises, spitting out new flavors of exercise whenever the situation called for it.

There was a problem, though.  If I didn't have a flavor of pez that was palatable to a client, I was out of luck.  And even as I tried to expand my flavors, I would often times find myself dispensing the same handful of pez session after session.  I was a man of methods, and while I didn't realize it at the time, those methods were my downfall.

Methods:  How my brain used to work.  Image courtesy of innovativelyorganized.com

Then I started to learn principles.  The more familiar I became with the principles the easier it was for me to prescribe exercises that were appropriate for a specific individual at a specific point in time based on their neuromuscular and structural capabilities at that moment.  I started seeing the different potential lines of force I could create as well as the opportunities to manipulate moment arms to different joints.  Essentially, I went from having my ability to apply a force and conduct a training session dependent on how extensive my mental exercise index was to my ability to assess the current situation and individual and manipulate the physics of each in order to create the exact scenario I wanted.  Instead of having to memorize hundreds of methods to fit a range of possible scenarios I could encounter, I began learning very basic principles that would allow me to design and choose my methods accordingly.

Principles: How my brain is now working. (c)RTS123, Greg Mack, Weekend 2, Day 2

Since I began learning and applying these principles to my clients' training there has been nothing but positive feedback.  Clients are recovering better from their training and seeing greater improvement, as well.  And because I am no longer trying to fit all shapes of pegs into only square holes, people are actually feeling legitimately good after their training instead of beat up and drained.  Additionally, I am able to train specific tissues without stressing out and further degrading problem areas, such as injured backs, shoulders, and soft tissue.  It is not longer a matter of, "Let's see if this exercise (a.k.a. a complete guess) feels any better for you," but rather has become a scenario in which I can see potential correct answers and it is just a matter of me choosing which one is appropriate for them at this moment.

Since I am no longer subjected to the constraint of certain methodologies, I am able to apply whatever tool or movement is appropriate for the individual based on their abilities and goals without reservation or bias.  Do I still have exercises that I personally enjoy performing more than others?  Absolutely, but that is no longer an influence in what I feel others should do.

Almost all of us start any endeavor or practice from a methods-based approach as this is usually the easiest to learn in addition to being the most readily available information.  As discussed in RTS classes, most of us are short-order cooks before we are chefs, which is fine if all you want to do is cook foods that are on the short-order menu.  But if you have any desire to consistently create amazing dishes of all different types, you have to learn the principles of cooking and preparing food.

Many of us have things in our lives in which we desire to achieve a certain level of mastery, proficiency, excellence, or greatness.  While the methods will provide an introduction into the area, to reach where you are wanting to go you will have to learn the principles.  That will be the only way to truly start creating for yourself instead of living off the ideas that others, who (allegedly) understand the principles, have created.

Your Body.  Your Training.

Charlie Cates, MATs, CSCS
Self Made_®, Owner and Founder

Charlie Cates is a Muscle Activation Techniques_® specialist and a strength and conditioning specialist.  He is the owner and founder of Self Made_® (http://selfmadefitness.com/) in Chicago, IL.  He has worked with competitive athletes and everyday people of all ages and ability levels, from 9-year-old kids to NFL MVP’s to 85-year-old retirees.  He can be reached via e-mail at charlie@selfmadefitness.com.

This article may be reproduced with biographical information intact.

How Coordinated Are Your Clients?

One thing I have recently noticed with a few of my clients is they lack coordination. Not hand-eye coordination, per say, but total-body, rhythmic coordination. For example, I have been implementing a lot of jump rope into my clients' training sessions, and all of them have gotten significantly better at theskill of jumping rope. However, when I first introduced them to it, I was amazed at how many of my clients had no idea how to jump rope. In fact, some of them even told me that they used to try jumping rope as kids but stopped because they couldn't get the hang of it.

Another example is skipping. Have you ever seen a grown man who spends 40-80 hours a week in a cubicle try to skip? It is a sight to behold, my friends. First, he'll look at you like you're crazy when you tell him he's about to skip. Then he'll say, "Ha. I haven't done this since I was five." Exactly. That's the fundamental issue.

The problem with this lack of coordination and rhythm is that without these skills, movement becomes a lot more difficult. And when something is difficult, it is a lot less likely that people will find enjoyment in it and will often times not continue to perform these activities.

Think back to your days on the playground as a kid. Think about what you did during recess and why you chose to do those things. Very rarely will you find a case of uncoordinated kids running around trying to sports or other ball games at recess. Why? Because if they're not coordinated, they probably aren't very good at the games; and if they aren't very good then the games probably aren't much fun to them.

Exercise should be seen as playtime for adults, except here you have to do things that you aren't very good at because you are mature enough to understand that if you put in a little work you will get better at these skills and they will become easier and more fun. Here are some exercises you can do with your clients to improve their coordination:

• Jumping Rope
• Skipping (forwards, backwards, laterally)
• Ladder drills
• Footwork drills through cones
• Carioca
• Dance Dance Revolution (Joking. Kind of.)

If you want to add another layer of difficulty onto these drills you can toss tennis balls to them as they go through the drill and makes them catch them and toss them back.

The point of all this is to question whether our clients are in the physical condition that they are because they are lazy or because we, as trainers, are unable to provide an exciting environment for them to train. If we can improve our clients' coordination, then perhaps we will also improve how they view exerciseand it's relative difficulty and, in turn, allow them to get more out of their training.

Get big or die tryin'.

Strongman Training for the Everyday Athlete

One thing I have started doing with my personal training clients is strongman training. I'll have them do a variety of exercises including farmer walks, landing-mat flips (instead of tire flips), and heavy rope pulls. I'll work it in with the exercises they have become more accustomed too, and they are really enjoying it. Not only does it force them to do things they have never done before, but these exercises are often seen as more fun, or at least more entertaining. Instead of trying to hit a predetermined number of reps, going for a certain distance or time brings out a competitive spirit in them. These exercises are also often very taxing cardiovascularly for them, so they are able to get their conditioning in at the same time as their strength training.

These exercises don't take up the entire session, but rather are implemented once or twice over the course of two or three sessions. Examples of exercises I have done with clients are

• Farmer walks with dumbbells and kettle bells
  
• Battling rope pulls
• Heavy bag pushes
• Heavy bag carries
• Heavy bag flips
• Plate flips
• Landing-mat flips

The one common denominator between all of these exercises is that they all require a tremendous amount of grip strength. As I have said in previous posts, grip strength is something that is very much lacking in every day society, so this is another bonus.

If you are bored with your current training regimen or want to mix up your client's training, consider throwing in some strongman training.

Get big or die tryin'.