4/5/14 Workout

Oh joyous day! I did several sets of back squats! I love me some squats and it felt like a big breath of fresh air doing them. First time for barbell squats of any kind since the knee went out. I got down to a fairly respectable depth (just below parallel.) The knee felt pretty good. There was some tightness/bruised-type feeling on the outside of the knee but only at the deepest depth. I followed that with deadlifts and some other fun stuff. Here’s what it looked like:

Squats: 95 lbs. x 5 reps – 115 lbs. x 5 reps – 135 lbs. x 5 reps, 5 reps, 10 reps
- Life affirming!
- Felt very solid.
Deadlift: 155 lbs. x 3 – 205 lbs. x 3 – 225 lbs. x 3 – 2625 lbs. x 3 – 290 lbs x 3 reps
1-arm kettlebell clean & press: 16 kg x 10 reps each arm – 20 kg x 10 reps each arm
Ab wheel roll out: 7 reps x 3 sets

I followed this workout with intervals on the bike: 1 minute on/1 minute off x 5 sets followed by several minutes easy pedaling, then I repeated it.

Relatively Good ACL News & 4/3/14 Workout

ACL News

I saw a non-surgical orthopedist yesterday and he walked me through my MRI. It wasn’t the worst news in the world. There were no bad surprises. I do have a grade III sprain aka a fully torn ACL. I have a grade II sprain of my MCL. No surprises there. The good news is my minisci are intact and undamaged. That’s great news! There’s also no bone damage. I’m really happy about both of these things. Surgery will be required but this injury could’ve been quite a bit worse.

I told him about my activities (staying as active and mobile as possible so long as I’m not in pain) and he approved. He said most people who get this type of injury sit down, prop up their leg, and move as little as possible. The muscles whither and their movement suffers. They go into surgery in bad shape and they come out worse. Recovery takes much longer under these circumstances.

This is no good. I’ll meet both meet with a surgeon and start physical therapy in two weeks. Some people have expressed exasperation and frustration at the pace of this process. I’m not one of them. I’m not the only guy wandering around Denver with an injury and this isn’t life threatening. I’m grateful that I have insurance, I don’t have some awful, exotic injury or illness and I’ve got people around me who can help. Anyway, the doc said surgeons typically wait on the surgery for two reasons: 1) We want to reduce swelling as much as possible and 2) We want to restore as much range of motion as possible. This stuff takes time and there’s no way around it.

4/4/14 Workout

Good morning: 135 lbs x 6 reps – 145 lbs x 6 reps – 155 lbs. x 6 reps x 3 sets
Super set 1
- pull-ups x 4 reps
- push-ups x 4 reps
- goblet squat x 4 reps: I worked up from 16 kg to 20 kg to 24 kg
- I accumulated 74 reps on pull-ups/push-ups but I didn’t time it.
- My squat depth is getting better and I’m very happy about that. My knee is tolerating the movement well.
Super set 2
- windmill: 16 kg x 5 x 2 sets – 20 kg x 5 – 14 kg x 5; What’s the windmill? Watch the video.
- stability ball leg curl: 13 reps x 4 sets
All’s well. Might get in a bike ride today.

Great Technique Videos: Overhead Press & Pelvic Tilt

I’m a big fan of the deadlift and the overhead press. Both exercises train movements that are vital for all of us who live on a planet with gravity. With the deadlift we pick up something heavy off of the ground. The press has us putting something heavy overhead. Both exercises feature minimal equipment (typically a barbell), they train the whole body and they require all sorts of balance, stability, mobility and coordination. While we could argue all over the place about this, I tend to think these two exercises give the most bang for your workout buck. If I were condemned to an eternity of being able to do only two exercises, I’d pick these.

Sometimes these movements are performed in a less-than-optimal way. These two videos do a great job of showing how to correct problems with each exercise.

Where's your weak link?

One big concept is on my mind and it’s been expressed by several experts that I look up to. In his book Movement, Gray Cook says “True champions will spend more time bringing up weaknesses than demonstrating strength.” The great powerlifting coach Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell says, “The Westside program is all about finding where you are weak and making it strong. Your weaknesses will hold you back. Kelly Starrett discusses the idea of “making the invisible visible.” With this statement he suggests we can use exercise to expose movement problems. (He talks about this concept here, here and here.) What does all this mean?

All these guys are telling us that rather than going to the gym and doing fun stuff that we’re already good at and simply making our strengths stronger (taking the easy route, really) rather we should find our weaknesses and work like hell to bring them up to speed.

A slightly different paradigm

I think most of us have an equation in our head regarding exercise. It might look like this:

I exercise → I get stronger.

(BTW, the word “strong” doesn’t just mean muscular strength. We can get stronger at swimming, biking, driving a golf ball, carrying bags of mulch, etc. “Stronger” means to improve an ability.)

There might be a few more dots to connect between those statements though. With regard to the earlier statements about weaknesses and making the invisible visible (i.e. make hidden weaknesses visible), we might see the equation thus:

I exercise → I expose weaknesses/pain/poor movement → I correct/improve my weaknesses and poor movement →I get stronger.

What often happens is that we find an exercise that we really like and at which we’re very strong. We really like that exercise! We do it and we demonstrate to ourselves (and let’s face it, others in the gym) how strong and able we are. Therefore our already well-developed ability gets stronger.

In contrast, I think a lot of us have discovered exercises that we really don’t like. The movement pattern feels awkward, painful or somehow asymmetrical or unbalanced. We have a poor ability to execute the exercise. In other words, we’re weak at this particular movement. We don’t do it well and we know it. Thus we rarely if ever explore this particular exercise. What happens? We probably get weaker and weaker at it.

So while something we’re already fairly good at gets better, a glaring weakness gets weaker. And what do we know about chains and weak links? At some point that weak link (poor movement pattern) is going to cause us a problem if it isn’t already. We may not even know how strong we could be if we fixed our weakness.

My rule of thumb is: “If it’s really difficult to do and you don’t like doing it, then you probably need to do a whole lot of it.”

My experience

A lot of my clients have movement problems and various aches and pains. Their weaknesses are often rooted in a forgotten ability to move properly and maintain their joints in proper position. We frequently need to dial back the exercise intensity and simply work on slow, proper, mindful movement. Sometimes this requires a frustrating level of concentration. It gets difficult. It isn’t always fun. This frustration may lead a client to say ” I just want to work out! I don’t want to think!” In other words, he or she want to revert to their hold habits, ignore their movement shortcomings and do what they’re already good at.

This is an important fork in the road. If a client chooses to continue to focus and do the hard work of correcting bad habits–to improve their true weaknesses–then he or she will almost certainly start to see lasting improvement in the near future. This client and I will likely have a long, productive and happy relationship. On the other hand, we have another type of client. He or she balks at the first sign of difficulty, ignores and avoids weaknesses, and in essence chooses to tread water and only marginally strengthen their limited strengths. He or she has picked an easy but limited route. In this case, our relationship is thankfully short.

The big picture

I’m going to go into some specifics in the next post, but for now I’d like you to consider the idea that the real way to get stronger is to seek out and wallow in your pathetic weaknesses. If you think you don’t have any, then add weight, reps, range of motion and/or speed to see if things start to come apart. Recognize where you start to fail and dedicate yourself to working on those weaknesses.

An FMS Discussion: Part I

The Functional Movement Screen is a subject I’ve been studying (and writing about) recently. I recently had the pleasure of traveling to San Francisco to attend the Functional Movement Screen (FMS). I got to meet some interesting, smart people and some great information found its way into my brain. So what is the FMS? From the FMS site:

Put simply, the FMS is a ranking and grading system that documents movement patterns that are key to normal function. By screening these patterns, the FMS readily identifies functional limitations and asymmetries. These are issues that can reduce the effects of functional training and physical conditioning and distort body awareness.

The FMS generates the Functional Movement Screen Score, which is used to target problems and track progress. This scoring system is directly linked to the most beneficial corrective exercises to restore mechanically sound movement patterns.

Movement patterns vs. Muscles

A key component of the Functional Movement Screen (FMS) paradigm is the idea of training movement patterns rather than individual muscles. For example, what muscles does the squat use? Pushups? The deadlift? For that matter, what muscles does basketball, gymnastics, swimming, or raking leaves use? The answer is a lot of muscles, and these muscles must work together in sequence to create movement. (A better question might be “What muscles don’t these activities use?) This concept of addressing and thinking in terms of patterns rather than muscles is important in terms of how our brain works. When we walk, our brain doesn’t say, “Fire the glute max, and medius, now the semimembranosus, now the semitendinosis, biceps femoris, now the gastroc, soleus…” The brain says, “Extend the hip.” The brain has a map of our movement patterns and it executes our movements based on that map. An analogy might be a song. When we hear a song we hear a song. We typically don’t listen to the individual instruments absent the other instruments. We hear a cohesive, coordinated song. While it may be appropriate and necessary to analyze individual muscles in some therapeutic processes, remember that our brain drives our movements via coordinated patterns. Very typically our pain and dysfunctional movement is due to faulty movement patterns in our brain. The FMS strategy helps restore those patterns.

Mobility first. Stability second.

World-class mobility and stability

Gray Cook discusses developmental movement from infancy on up. Babies start as helpless, wiggly blobs with no balance or coordination of any sort. At some point in their lives they may become gold-medal gymnasts, top professional tennis players, surfers, piano players, chansaw jugglers, stilt walkers–who knows what?! In other words they go from a highly mobile yet uncoordinated state to a much more stable and coordinated state. This ability to blend mobility and stability into movement is called motor control. (Unfortunately due to the Western lifestyle which is chock full of sitting, these former masters of motor control often turn into weak, rigid, unbalanced, uncoordinated zombies racked with pain. It’s not simply “age” that robs us of motor control. We choose to avoid moving–and then we become unable to move well.) The big point here is mobility precedes stability, and we certainly need both.

It’s important to understand that joint stiffness isn’t the same as stability. A joint often stiffens due to injury or lack of movement. If we are unable to effectively stabilize a joint, then that joint may stiffen as a sort of a plan B by the nervous system. A stiff, poorly moving joint is not a healthy joint. Why? Primarily a stiff joint brings on poor proprioception. In the grand scheme, a stiff joint is a poor transmitter of information to the brain, and a poor receiver of information from the brain. It doesn’t pay attention well. If you have trouble standing on one leg, it’s very likely that one or more of your joints are stiff. For an illuminating discussion of the mobility/stability concept, please read the Joint by Joint Approach from Gray Cook. The concept was born out of the observation that as we look at the skeleton from the ground up, we tend to see an alternating pattern from joint to joint in which one joint tends to be stiff and the next joint tends to be loose and sloppy. It might be a bit technical for some people but the big chunks of information will be digestible for most and it’s a very powerful concept when thinking about movement dysfunction.

Asymmetries

Might an asymmetry be hiding in this athlete?

A key part of the FMS is the recognition of and correction of asymmetries. Often when someone goes through the FMS we’re able to expose asymmetries in range of motion (ROM), balance, coordination, strength, etc. One side of the body is good at a movement while the other side isn’t. (The half-kneeling exercise often exposes an asymmetry.) Typically the test subject has no idea the asymmetry exists. He or she has been moving through life unconscious that they’re lopsided and out of whack. In other words, we’re helping create awareness.

But why do we care about asymmetries? Think about this: If we go to perform a squat, a deadlift, a jump, a press–some sort of movement that requires strength, power and coordination–but we’ve got one side of the body that can’t handle the job, do you think at some point we might incur an injury? If one side is mobile, stable, and strong while the other side isn’t, what do you think might happen? Could we see a situation where lifting something off of the ground might cause some weird torquing forces through the hips or spine? Hello herniated disk.

Next I’ll discuss the corrective process and use some of my own issues as examples.

New Developments: Changing Exercises & Squat/Deadlift Reading

The New Workout

A couple of posts ago I outlined my new strength program which I adapted from a Mike Mahler program. I stayed with those exercises for six weeks. Now I’m rotating most of those exercises out for new exercises that are as Pavel Tsatsouline says, the “same but different.” This means that the new exercises should look like and require similar movement patterns as the previous exercises. Here are my changes:

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I’m still doing barbell cleans but now each week I’m either doing cleans 2x/week and barbell snatches 1x/week or vice versa. I’m trying to learn to snatch the barbell and I’m pretty new to it. I’m still doing Renegade Rows and I’m trying to find time to do Turkish Get-ups 2x/week instead of just once. The TGU is very difficult so I figure I need to work on it more. (If you’re not good at something, you don’t like doing it and it’s real hard–then you should probably do a lot of it.) Similarly, I’m keeping the kettlebell windmills.

I plan to stay with this new scheme for four weeks and change it up again. I’ve also added weighted 45 degree back extensions 1x/week. I believe this plus the good morning will help my deadlift and squat numbers go up.

Why have I rotated the exercises? I’ll let powerlifting expert Louie Simmons of the Westside Barbell Club explain:

“Science has proven that training at a 90% or above for 3 weeks will cause physical and mental fatigue. With the Westside conjugate method we switch a core barbell exercise each week to avoid accommodation. “

Further, from a mental viewpoint, changing exercises keeps things interesting. I like doing new things. There are a ton of useful exercises out there. By cycling the exercises I get to stimulate the mind.

(BTW, Louie also says they at Westside “live on the good morning.” Seems that it’s essential for improving the squat and deadlift. Thus I’ll likely do some version of it for a long time to come.)

My sets & reps scheme is a variation on the Windler 5-3-1 protocol. It looks like this:

Week 1: 3 sets x 5 reps. I work up to a 5RM and do three sets

Week 2: 3 sets x 3 reps done in similar to the 3×5

Week 3: 5 reps – 3 reps – 1 rep

Week 4: Back off. I may skip lifting altogether or do something alone the lines of 1×10 reps at 50% of my 1 RM. The point is to take it easy and RECOVER.

Westside Barbell Squat & Deadlift Manual

Speaking of Louie Simmons and Westside, I recently got the Westside Barbell Squat & Deadlift Manual. There’s a wealth of fantastic info in there from literally the strongest group of people on the planet. (I look forward to reading the Westside Barbell Book of Methods and the Bench Press Manual as well.)

Most interestingly, I learned that those guys change their main exercises every week–but they very rarely do the standard issue competition powerlifts: the squat, bench press, and deadlift. They do variations on those exercises: box squats, board bench presses, good mornings and a billion other variations on the competition lifts. They use bands and chains to vary the nature of the resistance on the bar. Different bars are used and different speeds are used when lifting. Why? It goes to the concept Louie mentioned up above. All these variables are changed in order to prevent accommodation. If you’ve accommodated to the exercise then you’ve essentially gotten used to it and progress will slow.

Health & Fitness News: Cooked Food Grows the Brain; High-Carb Diet Contributes to Alzheimer’s; Lifting Weights Helps the Brain and Protects Against Metabolic Syndrome; Lactose Tolerance & Evolution; Tighten Your Left Fist to Perform Better

A wide range of interesting things have popped up in health-and-fitness news. You should know about this stuff!

Cooked Food Grows the Brain:

“If you eat only raw food, there are not enough hours in the day to get enough calories to build such a large brain. We can afford more neurons, thanks to cooking.”
– Dr. Suzana Herculano-Houzel, neuroscientist, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil

The human brain has far more neurons than our primate relatives such as apes and chimps. Relative to our body weight, we carry far more brain mass than our ape relatives, and we use far more energy to run our neurology than apes. Why? And how have we managed to acquire all the energy to manage this process over the past several hundred thousand years? It seems that the answers lie in humans cooking their food. An article from the Guardian titled Invention of cooking made having a bigger brain an asset for humans discusses the issue further. The article is informed by a study from the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

High-Carb Diets May Contribute to Alzheimer’s:

“Older people who load up their plates with carbohydrates have nearly four times the risk of developing mild cognitive impairment, a study out Tuesday finds.”
– USA Today

There’s more news regarding food and neurological function. USA Today reports on a recent study in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease indicates that a high-carbohydrate diet (as is suggested by the FDA) may contribute to early-onset dementia. Medline also reported on the study saying:

“Those who reported the highest carbohydrate intake were 1.9 times more likely to develop mild cognitive impairment than those with the lowest carbohydrate intake. Those with the highest sugar intake were 1.5 times more likely to develop mild cognitive impairment than those with the lowest intake.

Those whose diets had the highest levels of fat and protein were 42 percent and 21 percent less likely, respectively, to develop mild cognitive impairment than those with the lowest intake of fat and protein.”

The Medline report also makes the following important observation saying, “While the researchers found an association between sugar-laden, high-carb diets and mental decline, they did not establish a cause-and-effect relationship.”

I personally have lost weight by cutting carbs–particularly processed carbs such as cereal, bread, crackers, tortillas, muffins, etc–and replacing those calories with fibrous vegetables, fat and protein. I’ve become convinced that an FDA-type high-carb diet is probably not the ideal way to eat for most people.

Lifting Weights Helps the Brain:

“Where previously we had seen positive associations between aerobic activity, particularly walking, and cognitive health, these latest studies show that resistance training is emerging as particularly valuable for older adults,”
– Dr. William Thies, chief medical and scientific officer of the Alzheimer’s Association

Of course I love any evidence that suggests lifting weights is good for you. I have particular interest in evidence that weights help us beyond simply building muscle and bone mass. Mind Your Reps: Exercise, Especially Weight Lifting, Helps Keep the Brain Sharp comes from Time. The article reports on four studies presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Vancouver.

I’d like to know what loads are best used in preventing Alzheimer’s. Does any type of strength training prevent Alzheimers or are certain exercises better than others? What’s the minimal effective dose to derive the benefits? I hope someone is looking into these questions.

Lifting Weights Protects Against Metabolic Syndrome:

“Research has linked greater muscle strength and muscle mass to lower rates of metabolic syndrome. Since lifting weights increases muscle strength and mass, it might also help to decrease the development of metabolic syndrome.”
– Sciencedaily.com

Such a wonderful thing this weight training! Science Daily discusses research by the National Strength & Conditioning Association that indicates lifting weights protects against metabolic syndrome. What is metabolic syndrome? The article says:

“Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of risk factors linked to increased rates risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. People with at least three out of five risk factors — large waist circumference (more than 40 inches for men and 35 inches for women), high triglyceride levels, reduced levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL, or “good” cholesterol), elevated blood pressure, and high glucose levels — are considered to have metabolic syndrome.”

The proof keeps on stacking up. Lifting weights is a staple of healthy living. Are you currently on a strength training program? If not, why?

Lactose Tolerance & Evolution:

“Everywhere that agriculture and civilization went, lactose tolerance came along. Agriculture-plus-dairying became the backbone of Western civilization.”
– Slate

Humans are the only animals that consume milk beyond the age of infancy. (Not all humans actually. Two-thirds of us are lactose intolerant. Still, there are a lot more humans that drink milk in their adulthood compared to other mammals.) Why is this? What makes so many of us so different from other mammals? Are there advantages to lactose tolerance? The Most Spectacular Mutation in Recent Human History is from Slate Magazine. The article discusses the speed with which this genetic mutation spread and possible theories on why it ever happened at all. There are no solid answers to the questions here, but it seems that in much of the world, civilization and lactose tolerance have gone hand-in-hand:

“The plot is still fuzzy, but we know a few things: The rise of civilization coincided with a strange twist in our evolutionary history. We became, in the coinage of one paleoanthropologist, ‘mampires’ who feed on the fluids of other animals. Western civilization, which is twinned with agriculture, seems to have required milk to begin functioning.”

There clearly seem to be some advantages to a lot of people in consuming milk and/or other dairy products. There also appear to be some real disadvantages. Read the New York Times article Got Milk? You Don’t Need It for another view of milk consumption. The article states:

“Osteoporosis? You don’t need milk, or large amounts of calcium, for bone integrity. In fact, the rate of fractures is highest in milk-drinking countries, and it turns out that the keys to bone strength are lifelong exercise and vitamin D, which you can get from sunshine. Most humans never tasted fresh milk from any source other than their mother for almost all of human history, and fresh cow’s milk could not be routinely available to urbanites without industrial production. The federal government not only supports the milk industry by spending more money on dairy than any other item in the school lunch program, but by contributing free propaganda as well as subsidies amounting to well over $4 billion in the last 10 years.”

I think the Times article raises some valid points. Clearly many of our fellow humans do fine without consuming milk as adults. The FDA guidelines insisting that we drink milk are a bit bogus, and completely influenced by the dairy industry. However, in lactose tolerant adults, I’m not sure milk is a bad thing. I haven’t been completely convinced one way or the other. I drink milk sometimes but not often. More often I consume cheese and yogurt which are fermented versions of milk.

Make a Fist to Perform Better:

“Athletes who made a fist with their left hand did better under pressure than when they made a fist with their right hand…”
– “Preventing Motor Skill Failure Through Hemisphere-Specific Priming: Cases From Choking Under Pressure,” Journal of Experimental Psychology

I find this article from the Atlantic enormously interesting. The results are in the quote above. In this study, right-handed athletes (Righties only were tested.) performed better when they made a fist in the left hand. What’s going on here? The article states:

“According to the researchers, freaking out is primarily associated with the left hemisphere of the brain, while the right hemisphere deals more with mechanical actions. Meanwhile the cortex of the right hemisphere controls movements of the left side of the body, and the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body. So they figured that if you can purposely activate the right hemisphere — in this case, by making a fist or squeezing a ball with your left hand — it will improve physical performance and draw focus away from the ruminating left hemisphere.”

Interestingly, anyone who’s learned the RKC Hard Style of pressing has learned to make a fist in the opposite non-pressing hand. The effect is powerful. You get stronger when you do this! Maybe this study indicates why.

New Strength Program: Kettlebells & Barbells

Out of necessity, I greatly reduced my strength training as I was preparing for the marathon. As the stress of running went up, the stress of lifting had to go down. It was a bit tough to give up the weights, but it had to be done. Now I’m back to lifting and I’m loving it. It’s definitely refreshing to let the pendulum swing from the endurance end of the spectrum back to the strength & power end. My main goals are to see my numbers go up in the clean, press, deadlift, and squat.

I’m a big fan of both kettlebells and barbells. They’re quite different implements but both are very enjoyable to use. Used correctly, both tools can make you big, strong, and powerful. My current workout comes from RKC Mike Mahler and it’s called the Kettlebell and Barbell Solution for Size and Strength Part II. (Part I can be found here. I had to choose one. I picked Part II.) It’s a 4x/week workout with two days on/one day off/two days on/two days off. I like the workout 1) because I get to lift most days of the week and 2) because I get to use kettlebells and barbells in all workouts.

Each workout has one or two of the big lifts (squat, bench press, overhead press, deadlift) as the focus with other supplemental lifts included such as pull-ups, renegade rows, bent barbell rows, kettlebell swings and snatches, and core exercises such as the Turkish get-up, hanging leg raises, and windmills. I’ve modified the workout slightly to include barbell cleans, barbell presses, a one-arm dumbbell press, and pistol squats. Ballistic exercises like the kettlebell snatch and swings come at the front of the workout. The ballistic exercises help fire up the nervous system. The big-bang exercises come next, followed by pulling exercises, core exercises, and a finishing metabolic exercises that gets the heart rate up. I plan to cycle various exercises in and out over the course of several four-week blocks.

The scheme

The volume/intensity scheme is a version of Wendler’s 5-3-1 program. In essence, it looks like this: Each workout is centered around one core lift: squat, bench press, deadlift, and standing shoulder press. Each training cycle lasts four weeks, with these set-rep goals for each major lift:

Week 1: 3 x 5
Week2: 3×3
Week 3: 1×5, 1×3, 1×1
Week 4: deload

Then you start the next cycle, using heavier weights on the core lifts. Again, the Mahler program is a variation of this, and I’ve modified it further. Here’s my version:

Monday:

Double kettlebell swing: 5×5
Barbell deadlift: 2×5, 3×3, 6×1
Barbell overhead press: 3×5, 3×3, 5-3-1
Kettlebell Renegade Row: 3×6+ I’ll add weight once I get 10 reps on each side.
Kettlebell swings: 3×15, one- and/or two-arm swings. I’ve also used the rower.

Tuesday:

One-arm kettlebell snatch: 2-3×5-10 each side
Barbell cleans: 3×3, 5×2, 6×1
Pull-ups: 3×5. I’ll add weight once I get eight reps on the final set. (I’m bad at pull-ups. The cost of being tall….)
Bench Press: as per the 5-3-1 program
Kettlebell windmill: 3×5
Kettlebell front squat: 3×8+ I’m keeping this somewhat light.
Kettlebell swings 3×15 or farmer’s walks.

Wednesday: Off

Thursday:

Double kettlebell snatch: 3-5×5
Barbell hang clean: 3×3, 5×2
Back squat: as per the 5-3-1 program
One-arm dumbbell press: as per the 5-3-1 program. I clean the dumbbell from the ground and then press all my reps.
Barbell bent-over row: as per the 5-3-1 program, except I don’t do a 1-rep max in the 3rd week.
Hanging leg raise: 3×5. Mahler’s workout calls for 3×10 but I’m not up to 10 reps yet.
One-arm kettlebell swings, rower or farmer’s walks

Friday:

Double kettlebell swings: 5×5
Barbell cleans: lighter than Thursday
Barbell floor press: as per the 5-3-1 program
Weighted pull-ups: 3×3
Kettlebell Turkish get-up: 3×3. These are really tough at this point in the workout.
Pistol squats: 3×3, 2 or 1 depending how I’m feeling.
Kettlebell swings: I’m often smoked by this point so I may only do 1×10 or I may go as high as 3×15-20

Saturday/Sunday: Off

Observations

I’m on my third week of the program. I’ve made good progress. I think that since I was away from lifting for several weeks I have a lot of room to move forward. Plus, I’m eating more and I’ve recently started taking creatine which I haven’t used in a while. All of this should contribute to some decent increases in size and strength.

During the workouts I keep a mind to staying within my limitations. I don’t need to push to the red line during these workouts. I’ve written here and here about the risks of going too hard too often. I intend to work hard but I’ll stop well before the failure point.

I intend to cycle exercises in and out as this program moves along. I’m not sure when I’ll change them out though. Since I’m hitting most of these exercises only once per week that should mean I’ll be able to stick with them for a while. I know I need to change exercises when I start to plateau on a particular exercise. Likely substitutions are as follows:

Barbell snatch for barbell clean
Front squat for back squat
Good morning for deadlift
Weighted dips for bench press and floor press
Push press for barbell press

Depending on how things go and how I’m feeling, I may focus more closely on the deadlift. I still want to pull 500 lbs. some day. Maybe that day is sooner than I know.

Stuff to Read: Weightlifiting vs. Powerlifting, Hormones & Weight Loss

Powerlifting vs. Weightlifting

To a lot of people the terms “weightlifting” and “powerlifting” may sound synonymous. I assure you they are quite different activities. Both sports require the lifting of barbells with lots of weight attached, but the similarities stop there. (As an example, we can start with the highly ironic term “powerlifting.” In fact, powerlifting features almost no power whatsoever. Weightlifting on the other hand features lots of power. You had no idea did you?) For a very thorough and informative look at the two different activities–and to figure out which best enhances athletic performance–check out this article from TNation.com titled Weightlifting vs. Powerlifting: Which is Right for You?

Hormones and the Difficulty of Weight Loss

Losing weight and keeping it off is typically a very difficult task for a lot of people. The idea that it’s simply an issue of willpower is simply false nonsense. (Look here, here, here, here and here for previous posts on the issue.) Now there’s another study and another article to add to the pile of knowledge on obesity and weight loss. Why Dieters Can’t Keep the Weight Off is an article from Time Magazine that discusses recently published research from the New England Journal of Medicine. It goes into the issue of various hormones that essentially tell us we’re hungry. The levels of these hormones rise in people who are losing weight. Further, these same hormones tend to stay elevated post weight loss. The practical effect is that weight loss is difficult to achieve and maintain. It’s definitely not just an issue of willpower. Read the article for more detail.

Congrats to Linda Purcell: 135 lb. Deadlift

Quickly I want to congratulate my client Linda Purcell on very successfully deadlifting 135 lbs. for two sets of three reps this evening during our workout. (That’s the barbell with a 45 lb. plate on each side.) Linda is very enthusiastic about lifting and she always enjoys the deadlift–which may be my favorite lift too. Her form was perfect. The lifts were crisp and I think we’re still a long way away from her true maximum lift. Nice job.

Denver Fitness Journal

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

Strength & Power Conditioning