My Straight-leg Situp experiment

As I haven’t started up with the new job officially yet, my content has been lacking since its driven largely by what the people I train teach me. Fortunately I thought I’d bring up a little somethin-somethin from my own workouts and see if any discussion ensues….

Back pain. Lumbar spine. Core stability. Even those outside the fitness industry have started to hear these terms mentioned together more and more. Crunches are out and core stability exercises are in. Almost. Straight-leg situps are being talked about more and more by fitness professionals, but the difference between these and regular ol’ crunches is where the movement is occuring. In crunches, the individual’s spine is flexing whereas in straight-leg varieties the goal is to get movement at the hips while the spine is thought of as a steel rod and shouldn’t move. I’ve played around with these too as I try to be aware of what those who are smarter than me are doing.

Here’s what I’ve run into though: I’ve been doing this core stability stuff for around the last couple years in my own training, and its made a huge difference. But when I try the straight-leg situps, I can’t play by the rules — my spine starts flexing, momentum would be needed, etc. My posture is also in some degree of anterior pelvic tilt. Still. So after all this core stability training, my body/posture still isn’t exactly where I want it to be. Now because of the core training I’ve done and this pelvic tilt issue, my reflection has me pretty happy with my ab strength, pretty happy with my low back strength, and getting happier with my hip mobility, BUH-UT my external obliques seem to have not come along as much as I want. Bottom line: normal straight leg situps for me? Not just yet. The problem is now I have to figure out how to get from where I am now to there, and maybe this is pretty secretive since I haven’t been able to find it in articles on the internet or even in products I’ve paid for.

Anyways, last phase I tried negative straight-leg situps. They hurt like hell when I did them, but after 4 weeks, did I notice much of an effect? Not really. Does this mean they don’t work? No, but since I break training up into 3 or 4 week blocks, maybe there is a better way out there which would allow me to follow a progression which is more timely.

Enter my current experiment: Cable-straight leg situps. Basically set up a straight-bar handle at the top of a cable machine and have at it. The point being to use weight to oppose your bodyweight ultimately making the effect of gravity less. Less gravity = an easier version. The goal will be to reduce weight each week to some degree. The other reason I like this version as a solution besides the fact that I’m performing the whole movement is that I can measure progress a lot easier since I can see how much weight I’m using each week. With the bodyweight negative SL situps, I couldn’t measure if I was going lower each week so determining progress would’ve been pretty subjective. In addition, it felt easier to maintain proper form with the cable version.

So thats my current experiment with the straight-leg situps. If you’ve found something else that works well to build these up, I’d love to hear these other perspectives.

Updates and Rotator Cuffs

First all, yesterday’s lower body lift went great! A) I’m starting to see my strength move back up to where it was at the beginning of the summer and B) It was deadlift day so nuff said! Heavy rows today?!…Is it Christmas?!

Anyways, last Saturday was my last day at SST…three years after I first started interning there (wow thats a while ago). And in telling our clients that I was leaving, I was reminded how nice and supportive people are, so I am extremely appreciative of that and will miss training them a ton!

That said, I am now onto the next chapter of my life, and like any optimist, Man, I’m excited!! No doubt, I will share my exploits on here for your viewing/reading pleasure.

As for today’s training info to contemplate, I’ve been re-thinking progression on rotator cuff exercises and to a certain degree the low trap/scapular (shoulder blade) stabilizer muscle training too. Do we just need to worry about starting with bodyweight resistance?

What’s making me consider this? When the athletes I’ve been training are too concerned with going heavier with these movements, they invariably would not feel the exercise where I wanted them to. So instead of feeling a muscle tighten behind their armpit, they’d feel it somewhere in their shoulder (dependent on the exercise). In response I would often re-demo the exercise while giving them the technique cues over again or trying new ones. What happened was I would be the one feeling the exercise working during my demo (with no weights) while they may or may not have when they tried it again. Now, I’m also aware that weight used is not the only possible reason why they were not feeling the movement where I wanted them to. Further to this point, I actually think rotator cuff exercises are one of the more abstract exercises to teach in that it isn’t about your arm moving a weight from point A to point B. Its about shoulder rotation, and everything from the elbow down (forearm and weight)  merely gets to go along for the ride. Unfortunately the former becomes the default plan of execution because the weight is in the hand, and based on our earliest exposures to strength training, we are taught to “lift the weight”.

So as you can see, I’ve gone back to the drawing board and now its going to be back to my laboratory and gym (what I really mean is “gym” and “clients”…)

All my Workouts for the Week

Unfortunately this has been one area of my lfie which I have been having a difficulty getting under control since I left university in April. Ultimately that has meant that all those gains I wrote about from last December to April when I left school are now lost and I have to start back almost at the beginning  with my tail between my legs.

Finally some good news though as I managed to get in a full 4-day workout week in, so I will again be posting about my progress from time to time as a means of a) keeping myself accountable as well as to keep you all updated on how I continue to use my body as my own personal lab experiment.

For those that are interested to know, I am using the program layout which Mike Robertson discussed in his latest article on T-Muscle >> Check out the article to see what I’m up to (I know you’re dying to!! :) ) I’ve made my own substitutions for some of the exercises but the program set-up and sets/reps are all the same.

I’ll be following Mike’s template for the next 7 weeks, and then moving on to a more focused strength/power-type program.

 

 

Here

2 Weeks of Change

2 weeks ago my coworker and mentor Pat called me out on my lack of blogging. I didn’t think much of it when he asked me where my posts have gone, but that night I realized I had fallen back into the trap of slacking off. Just a couple weeks earlier I got a wake up call at work that I NEEDED to start managing my time better and just be more organized and prepared. That night I went home and started implementing things that would get me moving in the right direction (which fortunately I’ve been able to keep up). After a couple weeks though, I had found all this extra time by being more prepared for my job which I did nothing with, and it was this little question about blogging which made me realize this.

The very next day is when I started back up with these “regular” blog posts.

I’ve been reading about how if you want to achieve your goals and dreams, you need to take action…which, because I’m a normal human being, is a lot tougher than to not take action. However what I’ve found is over the past couple weeks, I’ve started to get some momentum in this area and have changed my mindset about taking action/not taking action.

Every day, I ask myself these two questions now:

1) What have you done to get 1% better today? (as a coach, person, trainer — any area of my life really)

2) What have you done to get 1% closer to your goals? (again, this can apply to any area of my life)

To go along with these questions when I read things about training, business, personal development, etc, I have started to think about what I read in terms of “what can I take from this and apply now?”…rather than just “hmm, that’s interesting, but I don’t plan on acting on any of it”. I’m not waiting any longer for that perfect opportunity to make big-time progress with my goals and dreams. Instead I’ve changed my thinking to as long as I do something, I’m going to be closer to my goals than I was yesterday — it may not be a lot closer, but its closer nonetheless.

Blog on Tuesday, October 6th? Check.

Addressing your weakest link

Most people know the saying you’re only as strong as your weakest link. Once the weakest link is known (usually found through the assessment) though, how should we go about fixing it?? Relating this to athletes changes the options a coach/trainer has because there is always that ultimate goal of improved athletic performance to consider. With that said, what is the right thing to do?? Does a muscle need to be isolated? Does it just need to get stronger? Is more flexibility needed or is the muscle stiff?

If you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time, you’ll probably guess my answer: It depends. Don’t you just love gray answers???

It depends on the nature of the weakest link — is a muscle just weaker than others, is there a motor control issue that needs to be addressed, do they lack the ability to perform a basic movement skill well.

What does this all mean??

If the weakest link can be any of these things listed in the above paragraphs, how can we try the same approach to fix everything?? Does a screwdriver equally work for both a screw and a nail??

CB

Progress your Plyometrics!

Alright, I’m back at it now that I’m back at school to finish up exams and my 3 wisdom teeth are out of my life for good! Also with some time recovering from the surgery, I’ve been able to get back some energy which I really needed after writing 3 papers last week.

Since December one of the things I changed about by own training was adding in plyometrics. Now these were difficult to implement at my university gym, so I will talk about a more idea situation than what I did.

Basically we have 2 ways to make plyometrics more intense:
1. increase the magnitude of the effect of gravity
2. increase the demand on the Stretch-shortening cycle.

The first refers really to the hieght of anything you are jumping onto, off of, or over — this can be a box or hurdle usually. Anyways, when you jump onto a box there is a reduced effect of gravity since you are landing higher than your take off point. Think of when you jump, you go up and you come back down. Jumping up to a box obviously means your coming down part is shorter than the going up part, hence less of an effect of gravity on the landing. When you jump over an object your takeoff and landing will be at the same level and if you jump off an object there is a higher effect of gravity since your landing is lower than where you takeoff. Basically we manage this aspect of exercise intensity depending on safety and strength (which go hand in hand with eachother).

The second point is more sciency. The Stretch-shortening cycle is basically a physiological mechanism that allows your muscles to briefly store energy from a preceding movement to make the proceeding movement happen with less muscular demand. Using it is driven by the nervous system, so yes, we can train it. Oftentimes though athletes need to learn how to use this mechanism to be a benefit to their performance so we would start by doing consecutive jumps with a little bounce between that way theres not an excessive force absorbing demand on the muscles. Because the SSC happens very quickly, we just need to make individuals able to use it effectively — we can’t just throw them into the fire with the most advanced drill and hope their bodies will catch up before an injury happens.
Back to the progression — it will look like the above stage moving to consecutive jumps at a lower height which increases (think – jumping off a higher and higher box over time, or over higher hurdles — these make it more difficult to use the SSC efficiently).

Anyways I’m no Bill Nye the Science Guy (who remembers that great man??!!), but I hope you enjoyed this semi-science lesson on plyometrics. The reason I covered progressions is because most people generally can find where to start, but then results stop because they don’t progress difficulty or change things up.

Anyways its good to be back. With work starting up again in a couple weeks after school is finished, it should be nearing an exciting time for the blog since I’ll have much more hands-on stuff to write about!

CB

Reading week is upon me

Tomorrow morning I leave for Boston for a strength & conditioning seminar held by Coach Mike Boyle at his facility. To say I’m excited is an understatement! This is the first seminar I’m attending so I can’t wait to meet other coaches and trainers that I’m read and heard about over the last 2 and a half years.

Also I know that when I get back I’ll have both a lot of good blog content plus some further motivation to take steps towards achieving my goals as a coach.

I’m also looking forward to the presentations being given as they will add something to the programs I make, and will make me a better trainer because of it.

Most of all though, I’m looking forward to the networking since its not everyday I’ll have the opportunity to talk shop with so many coaches, most of whom are doing fulltime what I’ve done for a couple of summers between school terms.

I’ll share my experience at the seminar/Boston next week. Until then, take it easy guys!!

CB

Things I can Learn from my Barber

Bear with me for a moment and you’ll see what I mean:

In several posts I’ve made about my development as I strength coach, I’ve mentioned my interpersonal skills as an area that I am constantly working on so that I can be a successful coach and accomplish all of my professional goals. Just being better at opening up to people and developing relationships, that sorta thing.

Anyways this morning I was getting a haircut, and fortunately I got the “good barber” at the place in the mall. He’s actually my favourite guy there, and its not just because he gives good haircuts. Its because he talks to his customer. I’m not saying that to sound like I’m a lonely guy (I’m not, seriously!! :P), but I do enjoy talking to other people and hearing their stories.

What I take away from talking to my barber is that he asks some questions to get to know his customer: for me this was “are you in school or working?”, “oh your in school, do you go to Brock?”, and “so what are you taking at Brock?”

Basically from these questions, we started talked about weight training, which lead to a discussion on steroid use so taht was pretty cool. The thing I always pick up on is that he makes the effort to get to know something about you, like he wants to hear one of your stories too, and it just makes it a much more enjoyable time than sitting in a chair watching someone attack your thick wavy golden locks (lol) with some scissors.

When I interact with a salesperson or a employee of some business, and they don’t do this, it really stands out to me. I don’t want to do business with people that aren’t interested in their customers! Funny thing is, I see this with several trainers at the Brock gym, and thats where it really bothers me because if you’re a trainer, you’re in the people business! You better look and act like you like people!

And something I’ve always lived by is that the customer doesn’t care if you’re tired, having a bad day, etc…they might be having a bad day too, they always expect you to be at your best. Sometimes I would have to remind myself of this before training a group of athletes or a personal training client (since I am human after all :P), but I would always notice (especially with the groups of athletes) that once I started training them, I would forget about whatever was bothering me. Good times…

So moral of the story, if you’re in St Catharines, Ontario and you just so happen to need a haircut, go to the Barbers Chair in the Pen Centre and ask for Rick to cut your hair.
(Ah, word of mouth marketing at its finest!)

Happy Monday guys!!
CB

Time to get STRONG!!

Today I’m starting a new training phase (which I still have to write), and really it will look reasonably similar to what I was doing before christmas when I was just trying to pack on some weight. Up to 169 last Thursday, I’m happy with my weight gain progress, but as a coach working with athletes, my real goal is to be big and strong. I’ll admit, my strength is another area that needs some work!

Since I haven’t written down my program yet, I’ll probably post that tomorrow just to give an idea of what I’m actually going to be doing in the gym.

I’ll be keep a lot of the things I liked from training with my friend at home over the break like hang cleans, while making some other changes like going to a 4 day upper/lower split.

So there’s a sneak preview of my new phase!

Also my internet issues have been resolved here at school, so I won’t be going MIA from blogging for extended periods hopefully for a while!

Anyways, I hope everyone had a good weekend!

CB

2008 was pretty awesome!!

With 2008 going out of style in a little under 12 hours, its the perfect time for one of those oh-so-typical new years posts.

2008 was better than I could’ve envisioned at this time a year ago (which has seemed to be the trend for the last few years for me at least). Over the past year, some very exciting things have happened:

- Getting a personal training cert with an internationally recognized organization (the NSCA)

-Getting to work at SST over the summer! While I was there I had great bosses and co-workers to learn from and help me accomplish my goals I had set out for myself! I beleive this past summer, I learned more than in all my years of university put together. I was also placed in situations outside my comfort which forced me to adapt and grow — and they accelerated my development greatly. I really can’t say enough good things about last summer at SST!

- Changes in mindset. I don’t know when these happened but about three quarters of the way through the year I noticed some chnages in my mindset. One was with regards to money — a) my idea of “a lot of money” changed and b) I realized it is just a thing, without an emotional component.

Another change in mindset stemmed from the advice many successful fitness experts/entrepreneurs give: Successful people view spending money on advancing their careers as investments in themselves and realize the investment will pay for itself when the information is applied. Up until the later part of this year, I just thought spending money was spending money — I couldnt see how the payment would return to me multiple-fold. For some reason, this changed…being in school and not running my own business or anything, I’m not sure why it changed, but it did. Unfortunately I don’t have a better explanation.

- Accomplishing my muscle gaining goal. At the beginning of October I made a goal to reach 165 lbs by the end of this year. At the time my diet wasn’t spot on and I was fluctuating between 153-155. I told pretty much everyone I knew in order to have some accountability…especially since I’m a trainer. Anyways, I weighed myself a few days ago (Dec 27th) and was at 166, so goal accomplished! It was the first time I used this sort (or any sort) of strategy for accomplishing goals, and I feel that by being specific about my goal and telling everyone it gave me a clear and reasonable target to hit.         

- Starting a blog. This was some great advice given to me by Pat while at SST. Basically its given me an opportunity to practice my writing without worry of censorship. On top of that it has allowed me to put my thoughts down concretely which has made me think critically about what I have learned. Finally it has lead me to meet some great people through the comments which I wouldn’t have been able to interact with otherwise.

As I have said before, the discussion stemming from comments makes blogging far more enjoyable :)

What have you really enjoyed about 2008??

Thats all for today…enjoy ringing in the new year!!

CB

So long 2008