Breaking Plateaus: the MilitaryPress

I’m a big fan of the military press (aka the press, the standing press, the overhead press). I like putting the weight overhead. It’s a challenging total-body exercise that in my mind probably delivers more useful strength and skill than something like a bench press. I’d like to press 200 lbs. which is my body weight. For that reason, I tend to lift heavy and I typically don’t go above five reps per set. My progress stalled for a while so I went on the hunt for ways to move it along. This led me to read up on all kinds of interesting ways to break through plateaus. (Admittedly, a torn ACL didn’t help my pressing. My press was slowing down though prior to the tear.)

To get stronger we generally need to add weight to whatever it is that we’re lifting. This is the simplest, most obvious way to get stronger. It’s inevitable though that at some point our progress will slow and we’ll have to find other ways to move forward in our strength training. Here are a few methods I’ve used to improve my press:

Weight: A lot of people tend to lift in the same rep range. I often see people in commercial gyms lifting in the 10-15 rep neighborhood. A good way to make progress is to add weight and move down in reps. The 5-rep and below range is good for getting stronger. In contrast, if we’ve been lifting in the low-rep range, there might be a benefit to reducing weight and adding reps.
Speed: We can subtract weight and move faster. To get fast we need to move fast. If we reduce the weight (40%-60% of your 1-rep max) and move very fast then we get a very different type of powerful stimulus to the muscles. I’ll talk about this more below.
Different exercises and movement patterns: If progress stalls on the barbell military press then we might want to switch to an incline barbell press, or a dumbbell military press, or a seated military press, or a behind-the-neck press. You see my point? Choosing an exercise that’s the “same but different” can help us make progress in our main lift.
Bring up weak points: I’m not much of a fan of bodybuilding-type training in which individual muscles are emphasized. That’s not to say there isn’t a place for this approach. If we look at the particular muscles involved in a given lift then we might use exercises to isolate those muscles and make them stronger and/or add mass. For instance, we could use tricep extensions in order to strengthen that piece of our press. Similarly, we might look at supporting musculature–the upper back for instance–and target those muscles to a stronger foundation from which to press.

Here’s some more on my experience with dynamic effort, “same but different” and some bodybuilding work.

Dynamic Effort

Speed and strength live in the same house. They are very close acquaintances. They have a lot of physiological similarities. Training one tends to help the other. Fast twitch muscle fibers are our strong and fast fibers. They should be trained with heavy weights as well as high velocities.

As we add weight to the bar, the bar slows down. We create more force but we don’t create speed. If we want to train speed then we need to lighten the load considerably and move a lot faster. The Westside Conjugate Method addresses both strength and speed during the week. Max Effort (ME) day has lifters lifting very heavy weights and generating a lot of force but at a slow velocity. Dynamic Effort (DE) day has the lifter using much lighter loads moved at a high velocity. This creates explosion.

Incorporating a dynamic effort day into your lifting may help you break through any current plateaus you may be experiencing. If you’ve never employed the DE method, then you probably have a nice well of untapped potential and you’ll likely see impressive results fairly quickly.

I’ve from pressing 135 lbs. for 2 reps to 145 lbs. for 3 reps in about four weeks since incorporating the DE method. Cool! As advocated by Louie, the DE day came 72 hours after the ME day. I typically did 10 sets of 2 reps, adding 5 lbs. each week.

At no time did I become anything like exhausted by the DE work. That isn’t the point. Speed is the point. If you get tired then you’ll slow down. Don’t expect to experience a typical workout feeling with DE work.

Louie wrote an article titled Westside Military Press Training for Mike Mahler’s Aggressive Strength site. Here are the tips:

Do the seated press with dumbbells. Choose three weights for example 100 lbs, 75 lbs, and 50 lbs. Work on setting a repetition record with one dumbbell weight. the reps should range from 10 to 25 reps.
Do dumbbell extensions or barbell extensions for special work along with rear, side and front raises.
Do barbell pressing in the following manner. Ten sets of three reps in a three- week wave. 70% the 1st week 75% the second week and 80% the third week. Pendulum back to 70% and start over. Second day 72 hours later do max effort work.
Use chains on the bar or JUMPSTRETCH bands to accommodate resistance. (Editor’s note: Usually as the bar gets close to lockout you will naturally slow the bar down. The bands keep the resistance on all the way to the end).
Work up to new PR in the incline press.
Do rack lockout work on the high pin where 10%-15% highest weight can be done.

Developing the Overhead Press is another good article on Mahler’s site. If you like to press then read it!

The Conjugate System can get a little complicated and hard to understand. For a very good and concise explanation of the system, check out Jordan Syatt’s article The Westside Conjugate System: A User’s Guide.

Other ways to train speed (either lower or upper body) include the following:

jumping
medicine ball throws
plyometric pushups
power pull-ups: Do these explosively for 1-3 reps.

Same but different

I’ve varied the way I press–but I’ve kept pressing. In the book Easy Strength, Pavel Tsatsouline talkes about the “same but different” concept. With this concept, we take the main lift we’re working on–the press–and find some way to change it just a little. We offer a little variety to the nervous system, we learn a slightly new skill, and we can improve our main lift.

A similar process is proposed by Bill Starr in the book the Strongest Shall Survive. This system employs a heavy/light/medium approach to lifting where the exercises are changed slightly between each workout. For example, the back squat is used on the heavy and medium days and the front squat is used on the light day. Presses alternate from the bench press to the military press to the behind-the-neck press. Read the book to learn more.

In my case, I’ve incorporated the standing behind-the-neck press as well as seated dumbbell or kettlebell presses in which I sit on the floor with my legs straight out in front. I do these for reps.
Here are some examples “same but different” changes we could incorporate into our press routine

military press to behind-the-neck press to incline press
standing press to seated press
handstand or incline pushups
dumbbells and/or kettlebells in place of the barbell

Other things

I’ve also incorporated back-off sets after my heavy pressing days. I reduce the weight considerably and press for 10-12 reps. I expect this to help build some mass.

I’ve used dumbbell rear delt flyes to help build my upper back. I do these for 8-15 reps typically and I vary the weight each workout. This is the type of bodybuilding isolation work that I haven’t done in years.

Finally

I’ve just scratched the surface with this stuff so I anticipate continued progress. As my ACL heals I expect progress to accelerate quite a bit. This has been a very interesting process. I’ve enjoyed learning about and applying these concepts, particularly the dynamic effort work. I just recently started a little bit of jumping. I expect this to help my squat and deadlift. I plan to keep a speed day as part of my workout plans.

Coaching Movement: Internal vs. External Cues

I recently listened to an interview with Todd Hargrove of BetterMovement.org at the Well Rounded Athlete. At about 21:30 in the interview, Todd discusses the idea of internal cues vs external cues as they pertain to learning new movement skills. I found it to be a fascinating concept and one that pertains very strongly to my current study of the FASTER Global curriculum.

What are internal and external cues?

Internal cue: The athlete focuses on his/her body parts and how they move.
External cue: The athlete focuses on affecting something in his/her environment. He/she focuses on the outcome of his/her movement.

Below are some examples of internal and external cues from an NSCA article titled What We Say Matters, Part I.

(What We Say Matters, Part II is also very interesting. I won’t discuss the whole thing but it goes into feedback frequency, or how much information coaches should give athletes while they’re learning a new skill. Turns out a good bit less feedback is better than giving feedback 100% of the time. Coaches and trainers should definitely read it. On to the internal/external cues.)

Table 1provides examples of internal versus external focus cues for different movements and note that analogies can be considered external cues.

	Internal Cue	External Cue
Sprinting: Acceleration	Extend your hip (knee) Activate your quad (glute) Stomach tight	Drive the ground away Explode off the ground Brace up
Change of Direction	Hips down Feet wide Drive through big toe	Roof over head Train tracks or wide base Push the ground away
Jumping	Explode through hips Snap through ankles Drive hips through head	Touch the sky Snap the ground away Drive belt buckle up
Olympic Lifting: Snatch	Drive feet through ground Drive chest to ceiling Snap hips through the bar Drive feet through ground Drive chest to ceiling Snap hips through the bar	Push the ground away Drive/jump vertical Snap bar to ceiling Snap and drop under bar

Which is best? Internal or External?

The article cites research that demonstrates internal cues to be more effective than external cues. More evidence comes in an article from Strength and Conditioning Research (a great resource) titled How Much Difference Do External Cues Make? The following studies are cited and they’re summarized:

Marchant (2009) – the researchers found that an external attentional focus led to greater force and torque during isokinetic elbow flexion movements while simultaneously decreasing muscle activation as measured by EMG.
Porter (2010) – the researchers found that directing attention toward jumping as far past the starting line as possible had a much greater effect at increasing broad jump distance compared to focusing attention on extending the knees as fast as possible.
Wulf (2010) – the researchers found that an external focus led to increased jump height with simultaneously lower EMG activity compared to an internal focus of attention.
Wu (2012) – the researchers found that an external attentional focus let to increased broad jump distances despite not affecting peak force production compared to an internal attentional focus.
Makaruk (2012) – the researchers found that 9 weeks of plyometric training with an external focus led to greater standing long jump and countermovement jump (but not drop jump) performance compared to training with an internal focus.
Porter (2012) – the researchers found that an external focus far away from the body led to greater results than an internal focus or an external focus near the body in terms of standing long jump performance.

“So in general, the main factor that is associated with external focus is an increase in performance. Also, there may be a tendency for reduced EMG activity at the same time. This is interesting, as it may be a mirror image of what happens with internal focus.”

The reference to reduced EMG means that with an external focus, more muscles are actually relaxed during the movement. The benefit to that is that the muscles acting in opposition to the movement are more relaxed, thus allowing for better movement. If too many muscles are contracted then we may move slow.

How does an external rather than internal focus result in superior outcomes? The NSCA article cites work by Dr. Gabrielle Wulf, Director, Motor Performance and Learning Laboratory at UNLV:

“Wulf et al. (17) defined the hypothesis, stating that focusing on body movements (i.e. internal) increases consciousness and ‘constrains the motor system by interfering with automatic motor control process that would ‘normally’ regulate the movement,’ and therefore by focusing on the movement outcome (i.e., external) allows the ‘motor system to more naturally self-organize, unconstrained by the interference caused by conscious control attempts.’”

From other research by Wulf in another article:

“Wulf et al. (2001) explained this benefit of an external focus of attention by postulating the ‘constrained action hypothesis’. According to this view, individuals who utilize an internal focus constrain or ‘freeze”’their motor system by consciously attempting to control it. This also seems to occur when individuals are not given attentional focus instructions (2). In contrast, an external focus promotes the use of more automatic control processes, thereby enhancing performance and learning (3,5).”

To me this suggests that the external cueing allows us to tap into reflexes, reactions and movements controlled by the autonomic nervous system. I think any athlete has experienced the situation where we think too much and our performance falters. We think very hard about the individual components of what we’re trying to do and the result is we don’t ski well, we don’t drive a golf ball well, we miss an Olympic lift. In contrast, we’ve been in that “zone” where things just happen. We don’t think, we do. Everything is coordinated and we’re barely aware of what we’re doing. It seems that the external cues are the best way to get to our ideal way of moving.

Is there a place for internal cues?

So the research tells us that external cues are superior to internal cues. Does that mean we should do away with all internal cues? That issue has been discussed in an article by Bret Contreras titled What Types of Cues Should Trainers and Coaches Provide? and an article by Sam Lahey titled the Science and Applications of Coaching Cues. They’re both in agreement that internal cues are sometimes the best way to go when coaching. As often happens, the coaches in the field have some disagreement with researchers.

Contreras does a very good job in discussing his observations of when internal cues might be superior to external cues, particularly when it comes to getting an athlete or client to feel his or her glutes. This is from his article:

“When I train beginner clients, it takes me considerable time to get their lumbpelvic-hip complex working ideally during squats, deadlifts, back extensions, and glute bridges. In my opinion, external cueing is not ideal for improving form in the most rapid manner possible. My belief is that internal cueing will get the individual to where you want them to be in a much more efficient manner.

This applies to preventing lumbar flexion in a deadlift, preventing valgus collapse in a squat, or preventing lumbar hyperextension and anterior pelvic tilt in a back extension or hip thrust.

1) Palpating different regions of their body to make them aware of the various parts involved and what those parts are doing,

3) Having them stop approximately 3/4 the way up on a hip thrust and practicing anterior and posterior pelvic tilt so they can understand how to prevent anterior tilt from occuring,

5) Being ‘hands-on’ during their performance and manually helping place their pelvis in proper position, manually setting the core in neutral, manually pushing the hips upward to ensure full ROM is reached, and poking the glutes to make sure they’re on and the hammies to make sure they’re not overly activated, and

I don’t believe that this heavily ‘internal’ approach can be improved-upon by a purely external cueing approach.”

I tend to agree with Contreras. I’ve often found that I need to bring awareness to one piece of the overall movement puzzle (glutes are the best example). I want clients particularly aware of glute contraction at the very top of a squat, deadlift or kettlebell swing. Contracting the glutes tightly at the top of these movements is important for keeping the pelvis and lumbar spine in good, safe position and for getting the most “oomph” into the lift. Before I teach these exercises, I want the client to know what it feels like to squeeze their glutes. I simply want them to know what the glute contracting feels like. I don’t need them to move fast or lift heavy. In this case, an internal cue seems to be the best way to go. I’m not sure of a more effective cue than saying “Squeeze your butt as tight as possible,” when I want to make someone aware of their glutes.

(Though now that I think about it, “Squeeze a quarter between your butt cheeks as tight as possible” might actually be an external cue that would work very well.)

Contreras also cites the cues “chest up” and “knees out” during the squat as simple, effective and commonly used internal cues that often work well during the squat. Again, I agree with him that phrases like this are usually effective enough that we don’t necessarily need to construct similar type phrases with an external focus.

Finally, Contreras says that he typically uses more internal cues with beginners during the initial instruction period. As the athlete gains experience and expertise, he moves on to more external cues with the idea of getting maximum performance. That process matches what I’ve seen and experienced with my own clients and athletes.

Thoughts

The task for coaches and trainers is to use language to express to an athlete how he or she should move. We may use a description that makes perfect sense to us, yet is completely confusing to the athlete. If that’s the case then we need to pick another description of that movement. Further, a description that’s crystal clear to one athlete may make no sense at all to another. From what the research says, using these external cues is probably the best way to get our athletes and clients to move the way we want them to. We may however need several different external cues to paint the best picture in the athlete’s head. If an internal cue works best then we should use it.

What I’ve learned from reading these articles is that:

Less is more. Too much coaching confuses the athlete. Fewer/simpler cues are best.
Directing the athlete’s mind outward will by-and-large get the best performance out of him or her.
Some degree of internal cueing may be necessary from time to time. We don’t want to throw the baby out with all the internal cueing bathwater.

I think we coaches would do well to think of several ways of describing exercises. A good time to do this is during our own workouts. How many ways can we describe moving a barbell or kettlebell? What is important during a push-up and how can we verbalize those points? What are some external cues to describe good running technique? Or weightlifting techniques?

This whole concept of cues is another example example of that the real target with exercise is from the neck up. The brain is the real target here, not the muscles, joints or bones.

“The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.” ― Neil deGrasse Tyson

I want very much to be on the side of science. The scientific method is perhaps the most powerful and influential tool in all of human existence. A long line of dedicated scientists have blessed us with electric light, the eradication of smallpox and polio, a steady food supply, clean water, air conditioning, and every bit of computer technology ever known just to name a very few things. That said, I will admit my own confusion and I will admit adherence to various practices and ideas that don’t hold up to vigorous scrutiny. (I’m trying to do better.)

Mention the word “science” to some people and they’ll take it as a dirty word. Some don’t like the pointy-headed image of scientists telling us certain unfortunate truths (climate change is man-made for instance.) Others among us have been scared by genetically modified food (GMOs) and vaccines. This is unfortunate for a lot of reasons. Many of us walk around in needless fear for instance. More specifically, fear of vaccines has led to needless outbreaks of disease. Famously, Steve Jobs delayed rejected science-based cancer treatment for complimentary/alternative medicine (CAM.) According to his biographer, Jobs regretted this decision.

Some people think that “science” equates to “Western medicine,” or “pharmaceuticals.” Not true. There’s plenty of non-scientific practices and methods employed by modern medicine and the pill companies. In fact, good, thorough, rigorous science can expose the ineffective or dangerous aspects of medicine and drugs. In Bad Science and Bad Pharma, Ben Goldacre has done a great job discussing the misuse and abuse of science by both complimentary/alternative medicine and the pharmaceutical industry.

Skepticism

Skepticism is useful. This is a questioning point of view. A skeptic requires solid evidence before he or she believes something. Being skeptical means you’ve set a high bar for your beliefs. You don’t accept information at face value. Nor do you accept anecdotal evidence or information gained from an “experiment of one.” Healthy skepticism can save us money and may save our health. Here are some things that I understand about skepticism: When we hear about a “miracle cure,” “secret trick to whatever-it-is-you’re-dreaming-about,” “startling breakthrough” or “what the doctors don’t want you to know,” the skeptic in us should come to life and pay close attention to what we’re being told. It’s probably nonsense!

(BTW, skepticism doesn’t equal cynicism. Skepticism is not a negative thing. A skeptic simply asks for valid evidence to be shown.)

Correlation and Causation

Today I wore green shorts. I didn’t throw up. Green shorts prevent nausea! They protect against throwing up! I know it to be true because I was there and I witnessed it. That’s proof enough for me. “I know what works for me.”

Does this sound familiar? Does this line of thinking make sense?

Here’s another example: Someone gets acupuncture for seasonal allergies (or any other ailment you care to think of) and some time soon after they feel better. Someone could see this as “proof” that acupuncture “works” to cure allergies. So every time this person feels their allergies come on, he or she gets acupuncture and soon the symptoms are gone. This could be fairly convincing to a lot of people that acupuncture works very well at curing an illness.

Acupuncture correlates to the resolution of the illness. But did acupuncture cause the illness to go away? Here are some things to think about: Why do we seek treatment for an illness? Typically people seek help because the symptoms are too tough to deal with. Guess what usually comes on the heels of our bad symptoms whether or not we seek treatment or not: We feel better! There’s a normal course that most illnesses take and it doesn’t usually end with us in the grave. Rather, our immune system fights off the illness and we feel fine, acupuncture or no acupuncture. Chiropractic adjustment or no adjustment. Homeopathy or no homeopathy. So what would we say if someone got acupuncture and they felt worse? What if someone did not receive acupuncture and he or she felt better soon anyway? All of these are possible outcomes. We might think that acupuncture doesn’t have much relationship to illness at all.

Fitness

“I consider corrective exercise to be the alternative medicine of the fitness field.”
– Coach Nick Tumminello

That statement has given me a lot to chew on, and I am coming around to agree with him. The fitness universe abounds in various systems and methods that promise better movement and less pain. All of them are sold by people with impressive credentials who use technical and scientific-sounding terminology. I have absolutely fell under the spell of some of these systems.

Now I look back and realize that either a) I should’ve been more skeptical towards some of the claims I’ve heard or b) because I was searching desperately for a solution to my 10-year-long chronic back pain, I was ready to believe many things told to me by those who spoke with certainty–even though I tiny voice in the back of my head may have been questioning those claims.

Tumminello has written a series of posts on his blog that discusses the psychological factors that make us susceptible to faulty thinking. He’s aimed this series at the fitness community but he really discusses psychological tendencies that all humans seem to share–no matter how smart or well-informed we are. Why Smart Trainers Believe Stupid Things: Part 1 discusses bias toward positive evidence. In Part 2 we learn how “authorities” can use jargon and inflated language to sway us. Part 3 goes into regression to the mean (discussed previously) and why it’s easy to believe a given treatment may “work” when in fact the thing the treatment was meant to fix has simply run its natural course. Psychological reasons why coaches will never stop arguing; training debates are a waste of time; and the fitness industry will never be united (long title) is very similar in tone and content to the previous articles.

These articles were very illuminating to me. If you’re a critically thinking fitness professional, they may help sharpen your thinking quite a bit.

New Thinking

As I’ve said, I’ve swallowed some nonsense and falsely ascribed amazing results to methods that simply didn’t do what I believed. The health & fitness field is perhaps more awash in phony gurus and foolish hocus pocus than almost any discipline on earth. (Religion may take 1st place.) From medicine to food to exercise–especially corrective exercise–there are numerous minefields out there. Misinformation and half-baked nonsense is widespread on the Internet so I must be careful what to believe.

The best snake-oil salesmen blend truth with bull$hit. (Dr. Oz comes to mind.) I need to examine each statement and claim from the person making it. I shouldn’t give the benefit of the doubt to anyone based on their credentials, popularity or status.

Rather than seek out information that confirms my beliefs, I need to look for evidence that actually disproves what I believe. (That’s a tough one!) I should be prepared to set aside my beliefs when solid evidence contradicts those beliefs.

There are a lot of cases where making leaps in thinking leads to inaccuracies. Nutrition is rife with this type of thing. The fat-causes-heart-disease idea seems to be in this category. A researcher may expect that A causes B–animal fat consumption causes heart disease for example–but this conclusion may be based on animal studies or educated guesses. What should happen isn’t necessarily what actually happens, yet many of our Federal dietary guidelines have been based on assumptions, not evidence.

I need to be (more) aware of my biases and my emotions. I should be aware of my herd mentality and I shouldn’t be afraid to ask questions. If a proponent of something wonderful can’t or won’t answer my questions, or uses excessively big and complex language in their explanation, I should beware.

Other non-BS resources

I’ve found some useful resources for evidence-based information. There must be many more out there. Here are a few:

Genetic Literacy Project: Lots of good information on GMOs.
Science Based Medicine: A wide range of medical information. From vaccines to chiropractic to acupuncture, nutrition, evolution, veterinary medicine and a lot more.
Soma Simple: This for manual therapists, physical therapists, pain management people and coaches. It’s a very high bar to cross if you want to put out your ideas. The group here demands evidence. I’ve learned a ton about pain science here and I’ve been made aware of a lot of the exercise baloney that’s out there.
Evidence Based Fitness: Bryan Chung does a great job of discussing and laying out the research facts on the latest fitness research.
Exercise Biology: Similar to Evidence Based Fitness. Anoop T. Balachandran discusses the evidence pertaining to strength training, pain, nutrition, supplements and more. His post on pain should be required reading by all trainers and coaches.
How to Detect Bullshit: My article wouldn’t be complete without a link to this fine piece of writing from Scott Berkun. I might need to read it several times.

Size Matters Not: A Case for Strength Part III

Who should be strong and why?

Clearly athletes benefit from more strength, but what about someone who doesn’t label him or herself an “athlete?” Well, strength is like money in the bank: No one ever complained about having too much. No matter who you are, you will benefit from more strength. Here’s a list of who can benefit from strength and why:

Endurance athletes
Paula Radcliffe holds the women’s world record in the marathon. That looks to be about 150-160 lbs. that she’s squatting.

Plenty of research exists showing that the ability to put more force into the ground, into the pedals or into the water will make you faster. For runners, heavy strength work enhances the spring-like qualities of the Achilles tendon and other connective tissue that aids in running. More strength can help the endurance athlete maintain good form as he or she tires during an event.

No one is too old to be strong! This image is from a Tampa-area senior powerlifting meet.
Senior citizens
I mentioned previously that proper strength work creates stronger bones. That’s good for anyone with bone density issues. Beyond that, strength goes hand-in-hand with balance. Strength enables you to better keep yourself from falling and it will help you get up if you fall.
Martial arts champ Gina Carano is strong enough to beat you up.

Do you want to look good?
It’s interesting, when you get strong, you tend to look strong. Posture often improves as part of the process. For a lot of people, heavy strength work works nicely to stimulate the metabolism, especially if they’re new to heavy lifting. Further, multi-joint exercises like squats, push-ups and the like do a great job of creating impressive arms, shoulders, legs and all the rest.
Do you do any manual labor?
Any kind of yard work, house work, moving and carrying stuff, putting stuff overhead, shoveling snow, going up and down stairs etc. will be a lot easier if you’re stronger. The work you do in the gym should enhance your life outside the gym. Exercises like squats, presses and deadlifts loaded with enough weight will definitely help with manual labor.

Do you like to feel good?
Strength training carries some impressive and interesting psychological effects. A review of literature from the University of Georgia found the following psychological benefits from weight training:

“The weight of the available evidence supported the conclusion that strength training is associated with reductions in anxiety symptoms among healthy adults (5 trials); reductions in pain intensity among patients with low back pain (5 trials), osteoarthritis (8 trials), and fibromyalgia (4 trials); improvements in cognition among older adults (7 trials); improvements in sleep quality among depressed older adults (2 trials); reductions in symptoms of depression among patients with diagnosed depression (4 trials) and fibromyalgia (2 trials); reductions in fatigue symptoms (10 trials); and improvements in self-esteem (6 trials). “

(From my observations: For some magical reason, deadlifting a new 3-rep max has a much more powerful and positive effect on the mind and emotions than does curling 2 lb. periwinkle dumbbells for 30 reps.)

How to get strong

Reps and sets:
In a nutshell, the way to get stronger is to lift heavy. How heavy? Look at the chart. If the training objective is strength then we’re looking at lifting something for fewer than six reps. The weights used are 85% of your 1-rep max (1RM) or greater.

Effective set/rep schemes include: 2-5 sets of 5 reps, 3 sets of 3 reps, 5 sets of 2 reps and 6 sets of 1 rep.

Exercises:
The best strength-building exercises are multi-joint exercises. They include but aren’t limited to the following:
- squats
- deadlifts
- overhead press
- bench press
- rows
- cleans
- snatches
- push-ups
- pull-ups
Olympic silver medalist Allyson Felix can deadlift 270 lbs.

A solid strength workout can be built around one or two, maybe three of these exercises (squat, overhead press, row for example). There’s no need to do them all in one workout.

In contrast, single-joint exercises like bicep curls, tricep extensions, leg extensions/curls and calf raises aren’t as well suited to enhancing strength. They have their place and they can be included in your strength workout but never at the expense of the big lifts.

Most of these exercises except for push-ups and pull-ups should be done with a barbell. Other implements like dumbbells and kettlebells can certainly be used but a barbell is the ideal tool for this type of work. As push-ups and pull-ups become easy, weight can be added.

Remember, the idea here is to increase your strength. That means weight should be added to the exercises from week to week. You can also add reps to the already-challenging weight you’re lifting. Accordingly, you should track your weights, sets and reps. You should strive for progress.

Finally, good form is vital! Heavy lifting is quite safe when done properly. If you’re hesitant then you should seek out a good strength coach or personal trainer. It’s difficult to learn how to do these exercises without good coaching. Reading a magazine article or watching other people in the gym probably won’t quite cut it.

To wrap up

I hope I’ve convinced you of the value of strength. When we’re strong we tend to look and feel strong. Through strength training we can build a strong healthy, useful body without any worry of looking overly muscular. Remember, you can get very strong with virtually no risk of looking “too big.” Sorry, I’m wrong. It’s impossible for you to get “too big.”

Seeing progress in the gym builds confidence and enthusiasm and gives purpose to our workouts. We should expect progress from exercise. Watching the weights go up is a great way to quantify our work in the gym.

Strength has real-world use. It enhances athletic performance and allows us to better take on life’s daily challenges. Strength can keep us safe too, especially from falls and injuries.

Finally, for you to get strong you must lift heavy!

More resources

I didn’t invent any of this information presented here. If you’re interested in learning more, here are some books and online resources for you. There are lot more resources out there. Don’t get confused though: To get strong, pick up something heavy! (Have I said something like that already?)
- Books
  - Power to the People, Pavel Tsatsouline
  - Starting Strength, Mark Rippetoe & Lon Kilgore
  - Practical Programming for Strength Training, Mark Rippetoe & Lon Kilgore
  - Easy Strength, Dan John & Pavel Tsatsouline
- Online

Size Matters Not: A Case for Strength Part II

In Part I of this series I suggested that you should see progress in your exercise routine. Further, I broached the idea that muscular strength and muscular size are not necessarily the same. Finally, I argued that getting “too big” is nearly impossible for you to do. This is Part II of the conversation.

Big vs. strong. What’s the difference?

Muscle bulk is what a lot of men (especially young guys) want from their exercise program. For many of you though, your fitness goals don’t include bulking up. Most women I encounter want to get leaner and essentially smaller. Obesity is a big problem in America so many of us definitely don’t need to consider enlarging ourselves. Endurance athletes don’t need to haul around extra muscle as it can hinder performance. Because of all this we see a lot of people lifting rather light weights for very high reps (15-20 or more). The problem is, you can’t actually get stronger this way.

Let me offer this thought to you: You can get stronger–without getting bigger! You can learn to create more force with your muscles without much if any additional muscle growth. The two circumstances are not the same. Strictly speaking, bigger muscles can be stronger than smaller muscles, but strength is much more than that. Strength is also very much the result of changes within the central nervous system (CNS). Here’s more on that.

Neurology of strength

Zoe Smith is a record-setting British Olympic weightlifter.

It’s helpful to understand a little bit about processes by which we get stronger. Besides some potential muscle growth, what happens when we strength train? Without getting overly science-y, here’s a description:

Better intramuscular coordination:
This is learning to use more of an individual muscle. Muscles are made up of muscle fibers. Those muscle fibers are innervated (“fired”) by nerves. The nerve plus the muscle fibers it innervates is known as a motor unit. Untrained individuals can recruit only so many motor units for a given task. Effective strength training enables us to recruit more motor units within an individual muscle.

Strength training also changes the rate at which our motor units fire. Untrained people fire their motor units more slowly than trained people. Proper strength training can enable us to fire our motor units very quickly. The result is we can be stronger and/or faster and muscle growth is unaffected.

At the same time, strength training also teaches us to synchronize these motor units to fire together. All of this is skill, and it has nothing to do with muscle growth.

Better intermuscular coordination:
This is better coordination of muscle groups. In looking at almost any common human movement (sitting to standing, running, reaching, pushing, pulling, lifting something off the ground, climbing stairs, etc.) multiple body parts move together. Proper exercise selection (multi-joint exercises like squats, lunges, rows, presses, etc.) plus appropriate loading of these exercises enable us to develop stronger movement patterns rather than just a stronger quad, calf, bicep, etc. This again is a way of becoming stronger without enlarging the muscles.
What else?
Effective strength training gives us stronger connective tissue. Ligaments and tendons become stronger just like the muscles. Our bones also get stronger if we load them effectively. A good strength program is a very effective way to protect against injury and increase bone density in people of all ages and abilities.

Examples of Stronger, Not Bigger

The majority of sports actually don’t require athletes to be particularly big. American football linemen need to be big in order to

Greek weightlifting legend Pyrros Dimas. Incredibly strong but not stereotypically massive.

shove opponents out of the way. It’s a similar situation with sumo wrestlers. Shot putters need to be big so they can put a lot of mass against the shot. Beyond that, very large athletes are often at a disadvantage. They can’t generate as much power relative to their body weight. They can’t endure as well. Thus, for many athletes, some degree of increased muscle mass may be a good thing, but being “too big” is not an advantage. Strength however is always in demand.

German Olympic weightlifter Julia Rohde. Strong–not huge.

Most sports involve sprinting of some sort. More strength helps an athlete sprint faster. Does more bulk help? Only up to a point. A massively muscle-bound body doesn’t help.

Weight class athletes such as boxers, weightlifters, martial artists, and wrestlers must stay within a certain weight range to compete. Now, we’ve all seen the stereotypical massive superheavyweight weightlifter or powerlifter. Look at the lighter weight classes of these sports though and you won’t see such hulking physiques. You’ll see lean, strong athletic physiques. These people are always looking to get stronger and more powerful without getting bigger.

Gymnasts are excellent examples of athletes who must be very strong and

US Gymnast Danell Leyva is very strong but not overly bulky.

powerful yet clearly don’t benefit much at all from enormous amounts of muscle bulk. Have you ever seen a gymnast that was “too big?”

So there are numerous examples of people who require great strength but have no need of excessive muscle. How exactly do they get there? I’m glad you asked! Stay tuned for Part III of this series.

Thoughts on Posture: Part II

In the previous post, I discussed a few thoughts, ideas and myths surrounding our posture. A key concept is that posture actually isn’t tied very strongly to back pain. There are still good reasons to learn and practice good posture though.

Proper posture while lifting

Let’s think of a squat or deadlift. In these exercises, the legs are the engines that drive the exercise. They provide the “oomph” to move the barbell (or whatever implement) we’re holding in your arms/hands. The trunk is the transmission between the engines and the arms/hands/object.

The deadlift done wrong (left) and well (right.)

Keeping the spine braced in a neutral position ensures the best, most efficient transfer of force from the legs into the barbell. If the spine twists or bends then we leak force and risk injury.

Glutes, abs and shoulder muscles are engaged. Keep it this way during a push-up.

Similarly, look at a push-up. Here, the arms and the shoulders are the drivers and the rest of the body is the implement we’re moving. We again want to keep the trunk rigid and braced, not loose, deflated and floppy. With proper technique we get a more thorough range of motion and stimulate the working muscles more. By doing a push-up in good posture, you’ll essentially get more out of the exercise than if you do it with poor posture. Risk of shoulder and back injury is reduced too.

Bad push-up! No!

We can expand our view of posture out to any number of sports from running to golf to tennis to whatever else you like. In the vast majority of our sports, we want to keep solid posture so we can most effectively transmit force (usually) into the ground and into something like a club, a ball or an opponent.

In the grand scheme, good solid posture will enable you to lift more weight which will enable you to reach your fitness goals faster and more effectively. We can also make our sporting movements more effective through the use of good posture. You’ll avoid injury too which will allow you to train longer and more consistently.

Posture and safety.

Okay, in the last post, I mentioned that pain isn’t strongly linked to posture. Yet in this post (above) I’ve suggested that braced, neutral posture while lifting can help prevent injury. Am I contradicting myself? Not entirely.

If we load our joints at the far ends of where they can move then we do risk doing damage to joint tissues and this may bring on pain. So we want to avoid excessive spinal flexion, and/or spinal extension, and/or spinal twisting when lifting. Yes our spine can and should bend and twist, just not under heavy load. Rather we should put the spine in neutral and brace with the trunk muscles before we lift.

Posture for looks

Why do most people work out? Looks, no? For most of us, looks is somewhere on our list of reasons we exercise. We want to look lean and strong. Adopting good, erect, tall posture will instantaneously improve our appearance. Incredible! Tall posture makes us appear leaner and stronger. Slumped posture makes us look pudgy and weak. Look at the pictures and you be the judge.

(Ironically, when I look around the gym, I see lots of people exercising in very bad posture. Presumably they want good looks yet they engage in activities that only reinforce bad posture. Crunches may be the most effective way of promoting slumped, head-forward-style bad posture.)

Posture and confidence — (Yes posture and the brain are linked!)

Power Posture!

The same tall posture described above makes you feel better and more confident. Don’t believe me?

He looks like a leader.

Here’s the abstract from a study looking at this phenomenon (emphasis is mine.):

“Building on the notion of embodied attitudes, we examined how body postures can influence self-evaluations by affecting thought confidence, a meta-cognitive process. Specifically, participants were asked to think about and write down their best or worse qualities while they were sitting down with their back erect and pushing their chest out (confident posture) or slouched forward with their back curved (doubtful posture). Then, participants completed a number of measures and reported their self-evaluations. In line with the self-validation hypothesis, we predicted and found that the effect of the direction of thoughts (positive/negative) on self-related attitudes was significantly greater when participants wrote their thoughts in the confident than in the doubtful posture. These postures did not influence the number or quality of thoughts listed, but did have an impact on the confidence with which people held their thoughts.”

Here’s an excerpt from an article in Scientific American on the same subject:

“More impressively, expansive postures also altered the participants’ hormone levels. Using salivary samples, Carney and colleagues found that expansive postures led individuals to experience elevated testosterone (T) and decreased cortisol (C). This neuroendocrine profile of High T and Low C has been consistently linked to such outcomes as disease resistance and leadership abilities.”

and

“Together, these recent discoveries bolster the notion that power is grounded in the body. Not only does power change the body, but altering one’s postures changes one’s power, or at least the psychological experience of it.”

Finally, for a little more about the power of posture, here’s Amy Cuddy discussing the topic in a TED Talk:

Thoughts on Posture: Part I

Mom often told us to “stand up straight.” (Did she ever explain how to do it though?)Look around you and you’ll see some spectacularly “bad” posture. Slumped spines are all around us.

How important is posture with regard to pain? For a long time, various schools of thought have insisted that poor posture causes back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain and all sorts of other ailments. The fact is though posture and pain don’t really correlate all that well. Research by pain scientists have observed the following:

people in pain showing poor posture
people in pain showing good posture
people without pain in good posture
people without pain in bad posture

So we see that posture really isn’t strongly linked directly to pain. Further, we can’t really tell the chickens from the eggs: Did poor posture bring pain or did pain bring on poor posture. Or maybe we see both poor posture and pain in someone yet they really don’t have anything to do with each other. Sort of like hair and headaches. We often see them both in the same person yet we know they don’t really have anything to do with the other.

Todd Hargrove at BetterMovement.com wrote a great post on all of this called Back Pain Myths: Posture, Core Strength, Bulging Discs. He writes the following:

“In one study, researchers looked at the posture of teenagers and then tracked who developed back pain in adulthood. Teenagers with postural asymmetry, thoracic kyphosis (chest slumping) and lumbar lordosis (overly arched low lack) were no more likely to develop back pain than others with “better” posture.

Another study looked at increases in low back curve and pelvic angle due to pregnancy. The women with more postural distortion were no more likely to have back pain during the pregnancy. A systematic review of more than fifty four studies found no good evidence of a correlation between posture and pain. Leg length inequality seems to have no effect on back pain unless it is more than 20 mm (the average leg length difference is 5.2 mm). Hamstring and psoas tightness do not predict back pain.

These results are particularly striking given that many studies have quite easily found other factors that correlate well with low back pain, such as exercise, job satisfaction, educational level, stress, and smoking. Although some studies have found a correlation between back pain and posture, it is important to remember that correlation does not equal causation. It may be pain is causing the bad posture and not the other way around. This is a very likely possibility. People will spontaneously adopt different postural strategies when injected with a painful solution. Big surprise!”

What am I trying to say here? That posture doesn’t matter and that we should ignore it? Nope. I’ll give you some reasons to pay attention to posture:

Proper posture while lifting makes you stronger.
Proper lifting posture keeps you safe.
Tall, erect posture makes you look better.
This same tall posture makes you feel better and more confident. (Yes, the brain and posture are strongly linked!)

I’ll get into these topics in the next post.

What makes a great trainer?

The Personal Training Development Center (PTDC) has a lot of useful, informative articles for personal trainers. Are Personal Trainers Missing the Point is a recent piece with which I agree. The key observation is this:

“The ability to correctly coach exercises is slowly becoming a lost art in the training world, despite that it’s the most fundamental component of being a personal trainer/coach.”

The article advocates for trainers to teach the squat, deadlift, bench press, standing press and pull-up. (I would ad the push-up to the list.) It’s also suggested that trainers learn to teach regressions and progressions of these exercises. These exercises are the essentials. They have been and still are the basic building blocks of effective exercise programs and they offer the most return on investment of a client’s training time. Read the article to learn three steps to becoming a better coach.

Running recovery

Alex Hutchinson writes for Runner’s World and the Running Times. He recently wrote an article called the Science of Recovery. He briefly discusses six methods: antioxidants, jogging (as during a cool down), ice bath, massage, cryosauna and compression garments. Anyone who trains hard–runner or not–may find the article interesting.

Pronation

Pete Larson at Runblogger.com gives us Do You Pronate? A Shoe Fitting Tale. Here, he describes overhearing a conversation between a confused shoe store customer and the mis-informed employee who tries to educate her on pronation. Contrary to what many of us believe, pronation is not a dire evil problem to be avoided at all costs. Larson says it well:

“The reality is that everybody pronates, and pronation is a completely normal movement… We might vary in how much we pronate, but asking someone if they pronate is like asking them if they breathe. I’d actually be much more concerned if the customer had revealed that no, she doesn’t pronate. At all. That would be worrisome.”

If you’re a runner then I highly suggest you learn about the realities of pronation.

Supplemental strength

I love strength training. I love all the subtleties and ins & outs of getting stronger. One area that I’m learning about is supplemental work (aka accessory work). This is weight training used to bring up one’s strength on other lifts (typically the squat, deadlift, bench press or standing press). With supplemental work, we’re looking to find weak areas and make them stronger.

Dave Tate at EliteFTS is one of the foremost experts on all of this. Thus, his article Dave Tate’s Guide to Supplemental Strength is very much up my alley, and it should be up yours if you’re serious about getting stronger. He discusses several categories of exercises and how to incorporate them into a routine. Below, the term “builders” refers to exercises that build the power lifts (squat, bench press, deadlift):

Always start with the builders. Do not start with the main lift.
Examples: Floor press, box squat. Sets: 3-5. Reps: 3-5.
Move to supplemental exercises — exercises that build the builders.
Examples: 2-board press, safety-bar close-stance squat. Sets: 3. Reps: 5-8.
Accessories — Either muscle-based (for size) or movement-based (for strength). Use supersets and tri-sets, as needed.
Examples: DB presses, biceps curls. Sets: 3. Reps: 10-20.
Rehab/Pre-hab — Whatever you need, nothing more or less. Examples:
External rotation, face pulls. Sets: 2-3. Reps: 20-30.

This is just a little bit of the article. It’s very detailed. There may not be much here for recreational lifters but for coaches and those of us who have gotten a little deeper into our lifting, it’s a superb article.

4/24/14 Workout

This was a challenging workout. We’ve changed barbell exercises from the deadlift. This new exercise is something like the first pull of a power clean in which we pull the barbell up to the high hang position and hold for five seconds. I’m calling it a “high hang hold.” That was followed by a bunch of double push jerks and 1-arm snatches. I realized I can better work on my technique with the 12 kg bells rather than the 16 kgs.

High Hang Hold: 225 lbs x 3 reps x 5 seconds – 260 lbs. x 3 reps x 5 seconds – 295 lbs. x 3 reps x 5 seconds
Double push jerks: 12 kg x 200 reps
1-arm kettlebell snatch: 12 kg x 150 reps done continuously
Bike ride: 1 minute on/1 minute off x 5 times repeated twice.

I Met My ACL Surgeon and Workouts: 4/15/14, 4/17/14, 4/19/14 & 4/22/14

ACL business

Last Thursday I met both my ACL surgeon and my physical therapist. Both come through Kaiser Permanente.

After my conversation with surgeon Dr. Kurt Spindler of the Cleveland Clinic, I had several important questions to ask regarding ACL reconstruction. I wanted to make sure my surgeon has thorough experience and continues to do ACL reconstructions on a regular basis. I wanted someone familiar with athletes and I wanted someone who would be closely involved with my rehab.

Dr. Melissa Koenig answered my questions very thoroughly. I feel that I’m in very good hands with her. She was complimentary and supportive of my efforts thus far to maintain as much mobility and strength as I can prior to surgery. She thought I’d do quite well.

Workouts

Several workouts to document. Here they are, including one long (for this time of year), wet, tough bike ride.

4/15/14
- Squat: Worked up to a 3 RM at 225 lbs.
- Double 1/2 snatch: 16 kg x 10 reps x 4 sets
- Double push jerk: 16 kg x 10 reps x 4 sets
- 1 arm snatch: 20 kg x 5 reps each arm x 3 sets
- 1 arm clean jerk: 20 kg x 5 reps each arm x 3 sets
4/17/14
- Deadlift: Worked up to 1 RM: 265 lbs. x 3 – 315 lbs. x 3 reps – 335 lbs. x 1 – 350 lbs. x 1 rep x 5 sets
- Kettlebell rows: 40 kg x 5 reps x 3 sets
- Double jerk: 16 kg x 80 reps in 10 minutes
- 1 arm snatch: 16 kg x 80 reps in 10 minutes
- Bike ride: 20 miles
4/19/14: Somewhat light/easy workout. Bike ride afterwards.
- Power clean: 115 lbs. x 5 reps – 135 lbs. x 5 reps – 145 lbs. x 5 reps – 155 lbs. x 5 reps
- Squat: 95 lbs. x 5 reps – 115 lbx. x 5 reps – 135 lbs. x 5 reps – 135 lbs. x 5 reps – 155 lbs. x 5 reps – 185 lbs. x 5 reps
  - I got to full depth on the squat for the first time since the knee.
  - In speaking with my physical therapist, he recommended working on my knee flexion.
  - A decently weighted squat is a pretty easy way to get the knee to flex!
- Superset x 3 sets
  - Pull-ups: 4-3-2-1 reps each set
  - Stability ball leg curl: 15 reps
- Superset x 4 sets
  - ab wheel: 6 reps
  - face pull: I used a thicker on each set for 15 reps – 15 reps – 12 reps – 12 reps
- Bike ride: 41 miles and it was tough! Rode from Denver to Golden, over to Morrison and back into Denver via the Bear Creek Trail. Got rained on. Cold, wet, tired and hungry by the end. Food and alcoholic beverages were quite tasty afterward.

4/22/14
- Split squat: 95 lbs. x 5 reps each leg – 115 lbs. x 5 reps – 125 lbs. x 5 reps x 3 sets
  I don’t do these often enough. I’m glad the class instructor is having us do these. I’ll probably squat on the weekend.
- Push Press: 115 lbs. x 6 reps – 120 lbs. x 6 reps x 3 sets
- Double kettlebell jerk: 16 kg x 100 reps done in sets of 10
- 1 arm kettlebell snatch: 16 kg x 200 reps done in sets of 5 each hand. I paused at 100 reps. Tough but very doable.
- stability ball leg curl: 20 reps x 4 sets

My double jerk position needs more work. I still need better lat and probably tricep flexibility to get in proper position. It’s a work in progress and I’m making progress.

Denver Fitness Journal

All Things Health and Fitness by Kyle Norman, MS, CSCS, FMS, RRCA Running Coach

Observations