9 Things I’ve Learned While Interning/Training at a Starting Strength Gym

9 Things I Learned At a Starting Strength Gym

Posted by Beau on Jan 12, 2016 in Articles | 0 comments

This holiday season, I had the great fortune of interning and training at a Starting Strength gym.  In this environment, I made several observations of what separates Westminster Strength & Conditioning (WSC):  A Starting Strength Gym from other gyms I have either been a member or trained throughout my extensive travels. 

Here are the 9 things I learned while interning and training at a Starting Strength Gym:

1.  Community – it takes a village to raise a child, and a Starting Strength village will make you strong. 

Where were you when Conor McGregor knocked out Jose Aldo?[1]  I know where I was:  in a room full of foreign people to me – all of whom had one thing in common, WSC.  

I flew home to Maryland from California, made a quick trip to Philadelphia to witness Navy’s 14^thconsecutive drubbing of Army, and then immediately made my way to a UFC 194 viewing party hosted by a close friend back home in Maryland.  Initially, the invite was disclaimed with, “(The party) will be mostly people from (WSC).  That’s who I hang out with these days.”  

Little did I know at the time, but the people I met that evening would be the same people I would see training at various times ranging from early morning to the evening.  This level of camaraderie is unique.  Camaraderie is regarded as a staple in the effectiveness of successful organizations – WSC is no exception.

2.  Training Logs –review an athlete’s training log and a story will unfold like reading the box score of last evening’s baseball game. 

Remember those classic Mead Composition Books[2]that were mandatory in elementary school?  You know the one – the black and white covered book that was rarely utilized, and, when it was, who really wanted to ‘creatively write?’  Well, they’ve returned and at a WSC their presence is nothing short but noticed.

3.  “Hard.  Simple.  Effective.” – mastery of fundamentals is a universal principle that does not require innovation – only dedication. 

The ‘Novice’ Linear Progression (NLP), detailed in length in Practical Programming, is the foundation of any strength program that is scalable to any athlete of any background.  The program is best summarized in those three words:  Hard.  Simple.  Effective. 

Squat.  Press.  Deadlift.  The mastery of these lifts will introduce an acquisition of strength unparalleled.  The development of strength is paramount for the crossover to all athletic modalities.  Given two athletes with equal ‘average’ genetics – the deciding factor in who wins regardless of endeavor is the one with superior strength.  

What makes WSC effective at NLP is how it is implemented – through its coaching.

4.  Coaching – not every ‘coach’ or ‘trainer’ can instruct and develop, but a Starting Strength Coach can do both in spades. 

A SS Certified Coach’s value to the NLP is immeasurable.  WSC currently has 5 certified SS Coaches with others in the process of being groomed simultaneously. 

No matter the time of day in which you train, early/late morning, late afternoon, or evening; there is always a SS Coach available for questions, a spot, or provide sufficient yelling that ensures a quality lift.  “Poor form in the gym is caused by insufficient yelling,” is one of many quotes by Rip and seeing that quote played out in front of my eyes is a huge take away. 

“Big Air.”  “Knees.”  “Stay Tight.”  Several cues that many have read or seen in a SS video; however, when these cues are yelled by a legitimate authority, they transcend the rep to higher quality – immediately.  Several times Beau would yell, and before you know it, the athlete would ‘find’ the few remaining inches required to squat below parallel.  Amazing.

5.  Battle of the Sexes – women are superior to men in the weight room.  Period. 

If you were to tell me this prior to my time at WSC, I would believe you were full of sh*t, and that exact thought process is why women are superior to men in the weight room.  Grinders.  Gracious.  Gratitude.  The 3 G’s which define women who train at WSC. 

Ever see an athlete discover and flourish in their pain cave?  I have.  Women have official residency in their pain cave like geriatrics have in Florida.  A level of determination as evident by witnessing several women train through injury and ailments was eye opening.  Conversely, men enter the pain cave by dramatically busting through the door and leaving as quickly as they entered.  The greatest difference – the intensity in which one arrives and the duration in which one stays.

Ego, men have plenty and will tell you they know about it, too.  Women, they have never even heard of the word or the idea.  The measurement of an individual’s ego is correlated to their ability to be coached.  From the novice to the national level power lifter, women trump men in their ability to be coached.

6.  Diversity – the barbell does not discriminate and is an equal opportunity employer. 

Just discussed is the subtle difference between the male and female athlete; however, a matter that is universal is the diversity of athletes you will find at a SS gym. 

Age.  Sex.  Ethnicity.  Athletic Background.  If you believe the barbell is not for you, I assure you there is someone training at WSC with a similar background as you.  There are many success stories at WSC and these are not success stories about the individuals who are training for national level competitions or those who represent the national team either.  These are people who want to improve their quality of life and just want to do one thing:  become stronger. 

Many feel that they must be ‘in shape’ prior to training.  This is a huge, huge misbelief.  These people will spend countless hours mindlessly on the elliptical or treadmill in pursuit of fitness.  WSC has taken many individuals from the couch to the squat and have scaled the barbell and movement to the athlete’s baseline. 

Everyone from the local high school athlete who is in his off season to the local college’s president was in WSC – squatting their 5s.  

7.  Monthly Dues – an opportunity for results comes at a price but the dividends are unrivaled. 

I received a text message inquiry from a friend, “How much does WSC cost?”  I responded with the monthly cost and the individual was immediately turned away.  Their response is that (Insert Name) Gym only costs X dollars. 

Recently, NPR Planet Money released a podcast that articulates well why most gyms do not want you to show up to their gym.[3]  In one word, the relationship between the customer and gym is summarized as:  indifferent.  (Insert Name) Gym is indifferent to your results, strength, goals, and frankly, just who you are as a person.

 WSC is not (Insert Name) Gym.  The monthly dues include everything aforementioned and more.  The moment you decide to afford the cost is the moment you decide to become strong.

8.  Squat.  And Squat Again.  –  Friends never let friends skip squat day. Ever. 

Mentioned prior in the note about NLP is the core lifts that compose SS (squat, press, and deadlift) – the King of these is the squat.  I have never been to a facility in which everything begins and ends with the squat.  New to the gym – you’re going to squat.  You will squat below parallel with your feet slightly wider than shoulder width apart and toes pointing out while driving out your knees.  Not only are you going to do this, you will do it for 5 reps, too. 

When you are introduced to the squat, you will learn HOW to squat.  Low bar.  Looking down.  Hip Drive.[4]  The cues mentioned earlier from coaching could be done in unison with a group of athletes who are all on the same program.  There’s no secret formula, there is no exercising legs, there is only training.  This training at WSC begins and ends with the low-bar back squat.

9.  (Extreme) Ownership – Culture is reflective of leadership and WSC’s culture is reflective of the owner – Beau Bryant. 

The greatest influential factor in what makes WSC a superior gym is the owner – Beau Bryant.  Beau’s fingerprint is on EVERYTHING.  Modest by his nature, Beau will disagree with everything I am writing; however, Beau has dramatically improved the quality of life of hundreds of people in the Maryland area. 

His commitment to his business, but more importantly the people of WSC is easily transparent.  You’ll find him wearing a Carhartt knit hat[5] in the winter months carrying around a white coffee cup at 5am every morning at WSC.  Watching athletes and through their lifts becoming stronger people is something Beau takes great pride.  Additionally, his athletes have great pride to perform for Beau, too.  There are times rest times are extended for Beau to come watch an individual squat (myself included). 

During a hectic holiday season, including the recent delivery of his fourth child (and first girl), Beau presented a nutritional seminar on a Saturday to a packed house.  Again, the owner delivered a nutritional seminar.  Not anyone else.  

A recent book on leadership titled, ‘Extreme Ownership’[6] is fitting of Beau and WSC.  A quote from the book, “there are no bad teams, only bad leaders.”  WSC is an exceptional team, community, and gym due to an exceptional leader – Beau Bryant. 

Thank you, WSC, for exposing me to such high quality, and remarkable people – who, at this very moment, are squatting with cues from Beau.

Strong Like You

Posted by Beau on Sep 3, 2015 in Articles | 0 comments

Many interesting things happen when you begin training with a barbell.  The very first time you push up against the steel to take the bar out of the rack a series of events at the cellular level are kick started and the body is never again the same.  Like a shock wave from a blast, these events cannot be stopped.  The body is forced to adapt, and adapting is what it does best. As the body stands with the loaded bar on the shoulders, force is sent from the feet through the bones of the foot, across the ankle joint, up the lower leg, through the knee joint, up the femurs, into the pelvis, up the structures of the spine and distributed across the shoulders where it meets the bar.  This wave of force causes changes in nearly every system it encounters as it travels through your body.  Like it or not, the body must make changes to accommodate this increased force.  It’s a potent medicine for change, that which modern medicine cannot duplicate.

The skeletal, muscular, nervous, respiratory, cardiovascular, and the endocrine system all begin positive changes to help make us stronger, more resilient, and harder to kill the moment we begin barbell training. And the changes are dramatic. But it is not done there.  While the body is a collection of systems these systems are intertwined and knit us together as a whole system.  Each influencing the others.  The nervous system sends signals to the muscles.  The muscular system pulls the bones about their joints forming a series of moving levers.  The harder they pull the more they must adapt, becoming stronger and stronger as they are forced to handle more force as the muscles become stronger.  Tendons at the musculoskeletal junctions become thicker and stronger.  Tissue modeling is happening. Protein synthesis, the actual building of tissue, is happening at nearly every level of the body.    

Many of you reading this understand these physiological adaptations we experience when we make the conscious decision to become strong.  Hell, the overwhelming majority of us step foot in the gym for the first time with a certain adaptation to one of our physiological systems in mind whether we actually think about it or not.  Even those of you who have never thought of these adaptations have probably began exercising at some point with the goal of “getting bigger”, “toning”, “sculpting” or “gaining definition”, all the result of muscular adaptation and actually gaining muscle mass. These physiological adaptations are just one aspect to barbell training, though.  Something else very interesting happens during those first few training sessions as we learn to squat press and pull.

What goes on in the mind is often overlooked, but it is an important aspect of training. We become mentally stronger and are able to break through boundaries we previously thought were impossible. It takes a lot of strength to finish a heavy set of five squats, knowing that our reward is an even heavier set of five the next time. What would make us want to do such a thing? And why would we begin in the first place? 

How We Become Motivated 

It is important to distinguish the different ways in which we are motivated to train. First, there is extrinsic motivation. This comes from something outside of you. It could be your friend who is always giving you a hard time. It could be a prize for losing the most weight. It could also be your doctor telling you to get “physical activity”. While these extrinsic motivators are pretty common in today’s world, they aren’t really all that powerful. When you go to the doctor, who tells you to “exercise and eat healthy”, how long do you feel guilty? Generally just long enough to drive home and eat a sleeve of Oreo’s that evening.

The second and much more powerful type of motivation comes from within. Intrinsic motivators might include actually enjoying training, having the sense of a challenge, or getting satisfaction at knowing you’ve made yourself better. Because it comes from within, it sticks with you and has a much more profound effect on your behavior. The key to training (and part of my job as a coach) is to tap into this side of motivation.

When we learn to use barbells to squat, press, and pull, many of these intrinsic motivators happen automatically. A few Mondays of heavy squats will tap into our competitive side and give us a sense of a challenge. How many times have we seen somebody fail a squat or press, only to be exponentially more motivated to get the lift the next time? And when the poundage on the bar continues to rise, we get a massive sense of improvement. We can actually look in our notebooks and see an increase in our performance from last week. This does not happen with most training modalities because it is hard to quantify improvement. And any improvement doesn’t last long because there is no planned progression over time.

Once we are motivated to train we begin to exude many of the characteristics that are associated with strength training. Improved confidence, reduced stress and anxiety, and improved cognitive function have all been linked to strength training. When these benefits are obtained, they stand out. You feel confident, and this in turn affects how you approach everything else in your life. It begins to get very interesting when we take a look at how this confidence changes the behavior of those around you.

Self Efficacy and Confidence

One of the big theories exercise psychologists use to examine how we pick up new behaviors is the Self Efficacy Theory. For our purposes, we can generally use self-efficacy synonomously with Confidence. We can break this down into a few parts, each of which shows how we might be influenced to begin training.

Past Performance – If a person has any experience with or knowledge of an activity, they will be much more likely to begin. This is why having a wealth of knowledge in a book (like Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training) or spending time with a competent coach makes you much more confident about beginning to train.

Vicarious Experiences – A person can watch someone else grow and succeed, which makes them feel that they can do it too. This is further enhanced if there are similarities between the successful person and the beginner. For instance, women will be more inspired by seeing another woman get strong and fit. An overweight person will be more inspired when they see another overweight person begin to eat healthy.

Verbal Persuasion – Having somebody tell you that they believe in you. This doesn’t have to be much. Just knowing somebody believes in you can be powerful. 

Becoming Who We Look Up To 

So we want to make ourselves physically better, and we believe we can do it. But what makes us choose one type of training over another? We often rely on what we perceive to be an outcome of an activity. Girls, you know this all too well. You think heavy weight training and you think pictures of massive female bodybuilders. I can explain the science of why you won’t get huge all day long, but you won’t truly believe me until you either see it in your own body or you see somebody else who squats heavy and actually looks good (this goes back to vicarious experiences and having a role model).

So you begin training. There is somebody else at the gym who looks great, or is wicked strong, or carries themself with great confidence. You look up to them. They even tell you they believe you can do it to. And on top of all that, you have a knowledgeable coach who makes you feel more confident about the lifts each week. Over a short period of time, you have a series of successes that blast that confidence level through the roof. You are, dare I say, intrinsically motivated.

This is where our ability to affect those around us comes into play. Whether we mean to or not, we function as role models to those around us. We get strong and confident, and people notice. A friend, spouse, child, parent, or random stranger can become motivated by simply seeing us go through the process. They begin to recognize that if we can do it, they can too. They begin to want to better themselves, and their  motivation to train kicks in. In a short period of time, that person that started out is now strong and confident and a role model for somebody else.

And honestly, we need more good role models in the fitness industry. September has been tagged Strength Month.  This is a perfect time to experience the benefits of barbell training.  Find a coach or friend that trains and ask them to help you get started.  For those that already train the challenge is simple.  Get a friend, family member or co-worker under the bar this month.  Its likely they already look up to you and admire what you do.  Help them get started.  Bring them to Westminster Strength and Conditioning motivated and ready to work hard. And remember that there is someone wanting to be like you.  Help them.  

 
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Build Strength – It’s Important

Posted by Beau on Nov 9, 2014 in Articles | 0 comments

The process of building physical strength is the same regardless of age or gender.  Strength is the basis for all other physical capacities and efficiently building a solid foundation of strength will have an immediate impact on all other aspects of your fitness.  An athletes ability to run faster, jump high, or hit hard is dependent on their ability to produce force against an external resistance.  As we age our ability to remain independent is largely determined by our ability to produce force.  Want to be able to stand up from a fall or decrease the likely hood of a fall?  Get stronger.  Need to carry groceries from the car to the house?  Increase force production by building strength.  The needs of an athlete and a 70 year old retiree are the same.  The quality of interaction with our environment is determined by our strength.  Get stronger and daily tasks get easier.  

The initial process of building strength looks very similar for everyone.  The squat, press and deadlift are the foundation of strength and represent the most efficient way to get stronger.  Everyone can do these lifts with proper coaching.  The ability to incrementally load them over time allows us to continue to get stronger for a very long time.  It doesn’t matter your age, the body will adapt to the increased resistance.  It works for everyone. 

Brenda is 67 years old.  She’s been using the squat, press and deadlift to increase her strength and remain independent.  Its never too late to begin strength a program.  Find a quality coach who understands the process of getting stronger safely and efficiently and get started.  

 
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Strength Training and Youth Athletics

Posted by Beau on Feb 2, 2014 in Articles | 0 comments

Somewhere along the way youth athletics have turned into a year around activity.  I’m an implant to Maryland so the popularity of Lacrosse was lost on me until I moved here in 2006.  Actually it wasn’t until 2010 when I opened up WS&C that I fully understood just how big lacrosse was in this state.  It didn’t take long before parents of all different sports began calling or stopping in looking for a strength program for their son or daughter.  Not all of them were lacrosse players but the overwhelming majority played lacrosse in the spring even if they were looking for training for another sport.

When I get a call the conversations usually goes like this.

Me:  Westminster Strength and Conditioning, how can I help you?

Parent:  I’m looking to get my son/daughter into a strength and conditioning program.

Me:  What sport do they play?

Parent:  Lacrosse.  (This is October, Lacrosse season is in the spring obviously)

Me:  OK, we can help them out.  We offer a program for athletes on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays at 4:30.

Parent:  They have club practice on Monday and Wednesday at that time.

Me:  Ok, how about we get them in on Friday and begin to teach him the lifts and we will see about moving him to Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings?

Parent:  He has games on Saturday and in a month he begins indoor lacrosse twice a week.

Me:  Oh, I thought lacrosse was a spring sport and he/she was in their “OFFSEASON” right now.  (If this conversation is face to face I will even use the scary hand quotes when I say “offseason”.)

Parent:  Between club, indoor, travel, and school lacrosse he/she plays all year around.

Me:  So when exactly should I get them stronger and is their priority to get stronger or play indoor lacrosse?

Parent:  Maybe we can get them in here once or twice a week after practice?

Me:  No, that won’t work.  I’m sorry; I don’t think I can help you.

At this point I will I will try to explain the concept of in-season, post season, off season and pre-season strength and conditioning, the reason for getting stronger, how getting stronger is best accomplished initially when sport play is at a minimal, and how that strength is going to impact their play and injury prevention more than playing another season on top of a season.

The parent always has an epiphany when I explain this all to them but then they get a look of defeat.  They understand it but there is nothing they can do about it.  They say things like “if he doesn’t play travel he will not play varsity ball, the coach requires travel play.”  They feel stuck.  After a brief explanation of the concept of strength and conditioning for an athlete they understand the importance of them spending time in the gym getting stronger but if they pull their child from the travel team a couple nights a week they may be hurting their chances to play in the spring.  I don’t think this is actually true for a couple reasons I will discuss later but this is what the perception is.

I’ve had this conversation so many times I thought that I would put something on paper so I can just hand it to them or direct them to this page and let them read it for themselves.  Maybe they can ask their coach to read it.  I’m certain it won’t do much good but I swear for my sanity it will at least help me out.  I’m just not sure how many more times I can do this face to face or in person and still look civil.

Before we get into the how and why of strength training for an athlete there are a few concepts you need to understand.  These are universal things that most strength coaches should understand but admittedly many may not.

1.  The strength level of an athlete can be classified as novice, intermediate or advanced.  Which designation the athlete gets has little to do with their actual strength and more to do with their ability to recover between strength sessions.  Using actual numbers on a bar to determine whether an athlete is a novice, intermediate or advanced strength athlete does not work because we all have different potentials for strength.  Some will squat 600 pounds and others will never squat that much.  Genetics play a big part but we will not go into explaining that here.

So what do we mean by recovery between strength sessions determining whether the athlete is a novice or intermediate strength athlete?  If an athlete squats a certain weight on Monday and he is able to add 5 more pounds to that weight and squat it on Wednesday, provided his sleep and food intake was adequate, he is a novice strength athlete.  Regardless as to how much weight is on the bar, that weight is so far from his/her genetic potential that they can recover from that stress in 48 hours or less.

When that athlete becomes unable to recover in that 48 hours provided they had adequate rest and food intake they are then considered an intermediate athlete.  Usually at this point we will then give them 5-7 days recovery between heavy sessions.  The line between an intermediate strength athlete and an advanced strength athlete become a little more blurred but we will leave it at the novice/intermediate level because very few if any athletes will ever reach advanced levels partly because they are splitting time between strength training and sport.

Carrie squatted 225 pounds as a 15 year old strength training in her off season preparing for basketball.

If you are a parent reading this or a coach at the high school level, I can almost guarantee your son/daughter athlete is a novice strength athlete.  It doesn’t matter how strong you think they are,  I’m here to tell you they are more than likely not an intermediate.  With this in mind the most efficient and fastest way to get them stronger is to strength train 3 days a week until they can no longer recover from those sessions.  Remember, at a time when kids are playing multiple sports strength training with efficiency is critical.  We don’t have much time to waste. We are lucky to get a couple months between seasons.

2.  Initially while you are a novice athlete and strength training 3 times a week, putting weight on the bar every session, you are better served only strength training.  When you are in the weight room and you squat, pull and press heavy we are stressing your body.  In essence we are making it weaker.  You get stronger during your time outside of the gym between training sessions.  This is the time when you eat and sleep to let the body rebuild after the stress from squatting, pressing, and pulling.   The athletes time outside of the weight room becomes just as or more so critical than his/her time in the weight room.

3.  You will inevitably encounter those in this industry who either does not understand these concepts or are willing to take your money and tell you they can properly strength train the athlete during season.  Either results will be less than lackluster or the lack of understanding of recovery capacity can lead to injury.  I have turned as many athletes away after a brief conversation with the parent as I have started on our program.  If you are in wrestling season and you want your child to strength train I will kindly decline our services.  Don’t take it the wrong way but also understand you will more than likely find someone willing to do it.  This does not make it right.

Now that you have a little background let us look at why your priority should be to build strength as quickly as possible and why things like agility, vertical jump training, conditioning, and an entire host of other things are really just a waste of a novice strength athlete’s time when said time is a rare commodity.

Jim Cawley gave us a pretty good list of what he termed the 10 domains of fitness.  Things like cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, agility, balance, coordination, and accuracy.  Depending on the athlete’s sport of choice they will need varying levels of each of these.  For instance, an Olympic lifter needs high levels of speed, power, strength, flexibility but really only needs enough cardiovascular endurance to be able to make it through his Olympic lifting workouts.  He doesn’t need the respiratory endurance to run 16 miles.  On the flip side a marathon runner doesn’t need staggering levels of speed, power, strength or flexibility but does require high levels of cardiovascular endurance.  This is not to say the marathon runner does not need some levels of speed, power and strength.  They do.  Running, regardless of distance still requires force production (strength) and still requires you to outrun your competition at the end of the race (speed/power).

The important concept to understand about the 10 domains of fitness is the fact that only one of those domains affects the other 9.  Strength will improve endurance, building strength is the first step in improving speed, it’s about the only way to improve power production in a novice, it helps agility and when strength is built properly, it will improve balance, flexibility, coordination and accuracy. For these reasons building strength should be the FIRST stage of athletic development.  It’s the foundation upon which all other desirable traits of an athlete are built.

I don’t know how many times I have had a parent stop in and explain to me that their child’s coach told them that the child needs to work on their agility.  The statement on the surface is probably true but the solution is not what the parent or the coach has in mind.  When they ask me to help them with their child’s agility they immediately think about ladders, cones, change of direction drills, jumps, skips, bounds and the endless other selections of agility drills. There is a major problem with this and it goes back to whether the athlete is a novice or intermediate strength athlete.  We already know that your child is more than likely a novice strength athlete, remember the picture of the 14 year old girl squatting 225?  Use her as a metric.

If the athlete is a novice strength athlete there really is no way to improve things like speed, power, and agility WITHOUT BUILDING STRENGTH FIRST.  Don’t believe me?  Think about this.  Your son weighs 170 pounds.  His max back squat below parallel is 150 pounds (this strength level is not uncommon and is representative of nearly every high school athlete that walks in our door).  You or the coach

Matt squats 365 for 5 training over the summer for his senior year of high school football.

would like to find an agility coach who can get the athlete to accelerate his 170 pound body as fast as he can and then decelerate it as quickly as possible and change directions.  How will this ever happen when the force displayed on his leg as he plants and tries to change direction is WELL OVER 170 POUNDS?  Remember, he can only squat 150 pounds with both legs yet we want him to decelerate 170 pounds and change directions?  No amount of agility training will change the physics dilemma.  The only way to improve his agility is to take his back squat to 350 pounds.   Every step on the road to a 350 pound squat is doing more to improve the athlete’s agility that any amount of agility training you can think of.

Need to improve your vertical jump?  This one is even easier.  The first step in improving a vertical jump is to get stronger.  Remember, we are talking about novice strength athletes here.  If we use the above athlete as an example, the biggest initial increase you will see to their vertical jump is by gaining strength.  Think about what is happening during a vertical jump.  The body is able to produce force quickly and overcome gravity for a short period of time to propel the body upwards.  It simply cannot do this without initially building strength.  Still don’t believe it?  How about this?  Below is a video of me dunking at age 36.

At the time of the video I weigh 235 pounds and stand 6’1”.  This was the first day I discovered I could dunk a basketball.  A glorious day by the way!  When I played basketball 20 years earlier in my “prime”, I was 6’1” and weighed 170 pounds but I COULD NOT DUNK.  Trust me it was not from a lack of trying, I practiced every day.  What’s the difference between then and now besides the fact I haven’t touched a basketball in about 20 years?  I was not strong enough then to dunk.  Fast forward 20 years, 65 pounds of muscle on my frame and probably 4 times the strength and I had no problems dunking.  Want to jump higher Get stronger.  But doesn’t getting bigger slow you down?  Seriously?  NO.  Don’t ever let someone tell you that gaining muscle will slow you down.

But there is actually a more important reason to focus on building strength first.  Building strength hardens the athlete.  It makes us less likely to get injured and as Mark Rippetoe would say “strong people are harder to kill”.  When we place a bar on our back, squat down with it and stand back up we are strengthening more than just our muscles.  Every system in our body must adapt to the load placed on our back and strengthen.  Muscle bellies merge to form tendons.  These tendons originate and insert into our bones to manipulate our bony levers to create movement.  As the muscles become stronger so do these tendons.  As the tendons pull harder and harder on the origins and insertion points on the bones, these attachment points become stronger.  As more and more load is placed on the bones they also adapt and become stronger, laying down new bone mass to accommodate the ever increasing load.  The ligaments and cartilage that articulate the joints of the body begin to adapt also and become more robust.  As the muscle mass above and below the joint becomes bigger and stronger the likely hood of injuring that joint becomes less.

Cory hits a 300 pound PC training for football tryouts.

It actually goes far beyond just bigger, stronger and more robust.  Last week I had a mother contact me about strength training for her son.  He is well over 6 feet tall and just turned 14 years old.  This basketball season he suffered a concussion.  He saw the neurosurgeon for evaluation and he recommended her son strength train.   Do strength training to prevent concussions?  Well yes, of course.  My guess is that her son probably didn’t get hit in the head by another player.  I’m guessing he fell on the court and his head bounced off the wood.  You see, lack of strength in the musculature of the neck is a problem when you fall.  It prevents you from stabilizing your head which in turn makes your head hit the ground with considerably more force.  Want a stronger neck?  Squat 350, deadlift 450 and press 200 pounds.  The neck, core and the rest of the entire body AND nervous system will have no choice but to become stronger.

You see how this building strength thing gets a little more serious when we are talking not just about increased athletic performance but about safety?   Increasing your child’s strength will do more to improve their safety in sport than any other thing you will do.  Are we ready to make it a priority?  I hope so.

So you get it.  Building strength is the first stage of developing the athlete.  You are starting to understand how important an “off-season” is for your child.  Not only do you understand the importance of having a few months off to build strength but you are starting to see how this will have a bigger impact on athletic performance and safety than playing the sport for an extra 2 or three months.  Maybe taking a break from the actual sport (working on skill development only) for a few months and putting on strength and size will not cost them a spot on the varsity team after all.  Maybe when the athlete returns to the sport with 15 pounds of added muscle mass, twice as strong, with increased speed, agility and power the coach might just find room on the roster for them.   Add to that fact, they will be decreasing the likelihood of suffering a concussion or knee injury and the answer seems pretty clear.

The initial movement from a novice strength athlete to an intermediate does not take that long.  If we focus on strength acquisition only during that first off-season we can get it done in 3-5 months.  During this time the athlete should be only strength training 3 times a week.  Remember, conditioning is of secondary concern and if we try to condition the athlete (who probably already has a pretty good base of conditioning from playing the sport nearly 12 months of the year) while building strength in the novice strength athlete; we only delay the process of acquiring strength.  Delaying the strength acquisition process is not something we can or should do; we only have a small window of time between seasons.  I promise you it’s not conditioning that an athlete with novice strength levels need.  It’s strength.  Lack of strength can be confused with lack of conditioning when an athlete’s performance suffers on the field but it’s rarely the case.  The winner of any engagement in sport will nearly always be won by the stronger athlete.  To take that a step further, the one aspect within the athlete’s control is their strength acquisition.  Our athletic ability may very well be determined but we can always work to be stronger than our opponent.

Why is an off season so important?  The more we try to do in our off season the less it resembles an off season.  At least during novice strength acquisition, the athlete should not be doing anything outside of the weight room except low intensity drills geared toward sports skill.  Remember earlier when we talked about recovery?  We actually get weaker when we strength train and recovery happens outside of the weight room.  Another way to think about this is to look at the athlete’s recovery functioning as a kitchen sink.  You have the faucet, the sink and a drain.  The drain is big enough to handle the water from the faucet turned on maximum output as long as the drain is clear and working properly.  The water pouring into the sink represents all the things the athlete is doing, in this case strength training.  The drain is their ability to recover (sleep and nutrition).

The more we pour into the sink, the more recovery we need and the more it takes away from our ability to recover from heavy strength training sessions.  As we progress closer to an intermediate strength athlete, the more managing the stimulus (amount of water) into the sink matters.  Playing indoor soccer twice a week while trying to recover from heavy strength training 3 times a week quickly begins to over flow the athlete’s sink.  When these ‘drain clogging’ events happen, strength acquisition becomes difficult or impossible due to the athlete’s inability to properly recover (empty the sink).   Remember, we are talking about novices only.  Once an athlete becomes an intermediate these things can be managed better because we are increasing the amount of recovery between heavy strength sessions from 48 hours to 5-6 days.  This is the time when we can add conditioning work or more sports play during a slower strength progression, because at this point, the athletes are ALREADY STRONG.

Hopefully this highlights why it may be beneficial to step away from the sport for a few months to focus on getting stronger.  It is difficult as a strength coach to watch an athlete who needs to be stronger not find the time to do it correctly because a coach is pressuring them to play in the off season.  Or the parent is worried about them missing a few months on the elite travel team because they think it will hurt their chances for a scholarship or to start on the varsity team.  These things are simply not true and are short sighted on both the coach and the parent’s part.  Taking the time to properly build strength now builds a healthier, hardened and physically stronger athlete later.  I promise it doesn’t take 12 months of playing basket ball to be a great basketball player.  Somewhere in there, the athlete will benefit more from building strength and becoming stronger than their competition.

Lastly, because it comes up often, I will touch on when your child is ready for strength training.

Weight training is extremely safe for kids.  The thought of it affecting the proper development of their growth plates is simply not true.  Kids that grow up on farms are accustomed to hard physical labor and lifting heavy objects at a young age.  Surprisingly, growing up “farm strong” does not equate to small, meek kids.  It’s actually quite the opposite.  These kids are some of the strongest and most physically capable kids you will find.  What I will tell you is to let the kid be a kid.  The time to start strength training is probably not when they are 12 years old.  There will be plenty of years to get them into a weight room.  We turn a lot of kids away because we feel time would be better spent letting them be kids.  Instead, encourage them to be outside, run, jump, climb and do things kids should be doing outdoors.  If you have questions about when your child may be ready for a structured strength program let us know and we can help determine if they are ready or not.

The Measure of a Man

Posted by Beau on Jan 24, 2014 in Articles | 0 comments

Anthropometry (Greek anthropos – “man”) and (metron – “measure”) “Measurement of Man”

In a previous life I may have spent some time working as an interrogator in Iraq.  It was fun, I enjoyed it and I was pretty good at it.  I often was asked to handle the more “difficult” subjects, apparently because I had a knack at getting someone to speak with me.  I’m not sure that any amount of training could prepare you for it.  I think success depended more on your observational skills and attention to detail than anything taught in a classroom.  I spent probably 8-10 hours a day in an interrogation booth practicing and refining my skills.  Amazingly enough, outside of that booth I did not practice my trade.  It’s pretty tiring to stay focused on people’s verbal language, body language, behavior  and tone while simultaneously listening to and formulating new questions and leading them down the road you need them on.  I’m a pretty quiet person in social settings, always have been.  I would much rather do more listening than talking.  You learn more that way.

The world of being a strength coach and the interrogation world have more in common than one would think.  I do much of the same thing minus the yelling.  No, wait, I do yell.  OK, minus the intimidation.  My coaching style is yelling without intimidation.  I observe, listen, formulate a plan and then help lead the athlete down the road toward their goal. The listening, plan formulating (programming) and helping lead the athlete down a path are pretty straight forward.  You can read about programming for the next 20 years and still have more to read.  Most of it works and success has been had a million different ways.  I leave the programming stuff for others to write about.  The one thing many coaches and even athletes miss is observation.  Observation happens immediately when I begin training a new athlete.  It’s the first thing I do when you walk in the door.  I observe.  Specifically, I observe your anthropometry.  It tells me most of what I need to know about teaching you to squat, pull or press.  I have even joked that I’m looking at your deformities.  I’m looking at your Barney Rubble torso and legs or your Olive Oil likeness and everything in between.

An article floated around social media not long ago that got me thinking about all this anthropometry stuff.  I’ll save you the details but it was an article that explained why people look differently when they squat.  The “measurement of man” is such a part of what we do every day at WS&C that it didn’t occur to me why this article was being shared around the interwebz so fast.   To most, it seemed like it was a totally new concept and many of these were coaches that work with athletes every day.  At first I didn’t understand how people were so amazed that we all have different anthropometry and that these differences affect how the barbell lifts look.  I mean, we all understand that some of us have size 13 feet and some have size 8 right?  We do understand that some have long legs and some have short legs?  Correct? Levis understood these concepts 150 years or so ago, so I assume that this is not ground breaking stuff to most of us in the strength field.  Then it hit me.  We all understand the differences in anthropometry between us, but many, including those that coach basic barbell lifts do not understand how those differences affect the barbell lifts or how to apply it to the lifts.

In the next few weeks after the article, I read a few more things posted on social media and even saw coaching that further confirmed my thoughts.  There are a bunch of coaches and athletes who do not understand how to apply anthropometry analysis to lifts.  If they did, I wouldn’t see things like “do not let your knees pass your toes” in reference to squatting or “do not let your upper body lean or fall forward” also in reference to the squat.  I would not hear them trying to get a lifter into a position they are simply not capable of getting into and still keeping the barbell over the middle of the foot.  Not to pick on anyone here because I’m pretty sure some of these writings were not meant to be an in-depth analysis of the squat but they were informational postings, seemingly, to educate.  If you read these things and tried to apply them you may be set up for failure.  Your anthropometry may require you to “let your upper body lean forward” in order to follow the “do not let your knees pass your toes”.

I’m not going to get into a crazy, in-depth analysis of the squat here.  Many people like Mark Rippetoe have already done that and if it interests you then you can order the book, Starting Strength Basic Barbell Training 3^rd Ed and read it.  As a Starting Strength Coach, I am required to understand this stuff beyond what is healthy for normal people and even most coaches.  I guess this is partly the reason I spend a lot of time thinking about this stuff.  Not to mention, our understanding of these things is why people travel a long way to have us work the kinks out of their squats, deadlifts and presses at WS&C.

What we will do is give you some practical working knowledge of how to apply your anthropometry differences and maybe that of others you are trying to help out to improve your lifts.  This will also help you call bullshit when a personal trainer tells you your back is too horizontal when you deadlift.  It will prevent you from coaching people into positions based on where you think their knees should be in relation to their toes and help you begin looking at diagnostic angles, body segments and bar position to understand proper positioning.

First we must understand that proper barbell technique will place the barbell directly over the middle of the foot.  To keep it simple, the middle of the foot is just in front of where you would tie a bow knot on your low top shoe, or about an inch from your shin as looking down from above.  Secondly, we must have a working understanding of the 3 diagnostic angles for the squat and the deadlift.  They are knee angle, hip angle, and back angle.  Next we have to look at the body as a series of segments.  The important segments here are the trunk, thigh, and shank.  The trunk is from about the base of the neck to the hip, the thigh comprises the femur, and the shank makes up the lower leg from the knee to the ankle.  Lastly, we must understand that when the bar is over the middle of the foot, whether at the bottom of a squat or the start of the deadlift, ANTHROPOMETRY differences (differences in segment length) will change the diagnostic angles.  For example, if I have long femurs and a long tibia (shank) but a short upper body (trunk), I will have more forward lean in the squat than someone of opposite anthropometry.  Furthermore, the more you tell me to stop my torso from leaning forward, the more my knees must travel in front of my toes.  Of course we can make modifications to lessen the impact such as widening the stance but we see where this is going right?  We see how coaching positions may lead us to chase our tail, right?

While comparing photos of actual femur bones turned the light bulb on for many people it really did nothing to show how these things change the actual look of the squat or the deadlift.  This is what amazed me about the article.  They showed that two people’s femurs looked drastically different and lots of people seemed amazed.  It was as if this thought had not occurred to them before.   So I’ll take it a step further.  Let’s take a look at the affect of those anthropometry differences have on an actual barbell lift so we can put this knowledge to good use.  This hopefully will give you a little better understanding of how to apply this to your own training and those around you.  If nothing else you can tell someone to get bent when they try to get your hips lower or higher in the deadlift.

The above photo shows a proper deadlift set up.  Not to get into the model we teach to set up a proper deadlift but there are a couple things to note.  Certain aspects will be universal REGARDLESS OF ANTHROPOMETRY differences between individuals.  If you notice the bar is about an inch from her shin.  You will need to trust me here, I set her up for the photo and even if I didn’t Lindsay is a damn fine deadlifter and set her shins an inch from the bar anyway.   The second thing you will notice is her shoulders are slightly in front of the bar.  This will always be the case for a couple reasons of which I will not get into here.

I have also labeled the diagnostic angles (knee, hip and back angle).  Of note is that the bar in proper position over the middle of her foot has ESTABLISHED the diagnostic angles.  This is important to understand.  If we tried to establish proper positioning by setting what we think are proper diagnostic angles, we very well may end up changing bar position.  You can see why someone telling Lindsay that her back angle is too horizontal will end up changing her bar position if they lower the hips, correct?  Remember, if we change one diagnostic angle the others will also change.  Lowering her hips will cause the bar to move forward og the middle of her foot in order to close the knee angle.   Action, reaction.

So let’s try to artificially change the length of Lindsey’s femurs and see what affect this has on our diagnostic angles.  The above photo shows the results of a slightly shorter femur on Lindsay.  Notice if we keep the bar over middle foot and shoulders slightly in front of the bar her back angle will open (less horizontal).

If we lengthen the femur we see the back angle close (become more horizontal).

Hopefully these three photos of the same lifter, positioned differently, gives you an idea in your mind of what differing anthropometry may have on diagnostic angles.  And just to be sure I have snapped a couple photos of lifters with drastically different anthropometry and thus, their  appearance in the deadlift setup changes.

The above photo shoes someone with normal tibia length and a shorter femur with a longer back segment.

The above photo shows longer tibia length, normal femurs and an average back segment.  Of note, Ashley has some pretty good levers that make her a solid squatter and a pretty good puller.

Here is a pretty good example of a longer than normal back segment and what this does to the back angle.

All of the above photos followed our model.  The bar is an inch from each lifters shins on set up and the shoulders are slightly in front of the bar yet we see a couple distinctly different looking deadlift set ups.

So the next time you are at the gym, take a minute and observe.  Observe the weirdness of people around you and see how that affects the diagnostic angles of their squat and deadlift  or pulls from the floor.  Look at their body segments and begin to work through what they would look like at the bottom of a squat or a deadlift.  Take note of your own anthropometry and use that to gain better positioning on your own lifts.

You are You and I am Me

Posted by Beau on Jul 18, 2013 in Articles | 11 comments

When we opened the doors of CFR and WS&C a few years ago one thing I was not expecting was a large portion of our membership would be females. I mean, we squat, press and pull heavy 5 days a week. There is no AC, only barbells and squat racks. I was a strength coach for the military and I assumed what type of person would be walking in the door. Very quickly I found this was not the case. Women love to pick up heavy shit and get strong. As a matter of fact, it’s much more fun coaching women on the major barbell lifts than men. So much so, I have jokingly said I should turn CFR into a women’s only gym.  Don’t worry guys, this will never happen!  However, they learn the lifts quicker, listen better, have less bad habits and generally move better than their male counterpart. I guess this is because most of them have never cleaned before so they listen to every word and work hard at mastering the details. The men quit listening when they hear the word clean and immediately start cleaning like the local football coach showed them. These habits are hard to break.

One thing I was not prepared for was the constant battle women face about how they should look. I never thought about this for a couple of reasons. I have a sister but she was quite a bit older than me and most of my memories are when she was graduating high school and getting married. I grew up with a brother 6 years older than me and thus never really had a female in the house concerned about body image. I know my mother would diet when I was a kid but I never remember her complaining to me about any serious body composition issues. My wife has always been athletic and when she began her strength journey, I never heard her mention her enlarging quads being a real problem other than finding pants that would fit. She was always more concerned with the weight on the bar and increasing it. Every now and then she asks me if her quads or butt look big, usually in a joking manner. I always tell her “Ah yeah, of course they do. You squat 260 pounds, they look great!”

I love my job and the absolute best part is when a female walks in the door for their free week trial on a Monday. Mondays are always squat day. I love teaching the squat. For me when a new member walks in the door it’s almost like a treasure hunt. The minute I have them descend into their first squat may be one of the most exciting things I do all day. It’s exactly like opening up a treasure box or a present each time. I get to see their first squat and I immediately know the work I have ahead of me. I immediately see the future. Every person’s squat is different and I can foresee 6 months down the road. I don’t see the shaky first squat in front of me with a 35 pound bar on their back. I see what will be an absolutely perfect Low Bar Back Squat loaded with 200 pounds in the near future. I see the them not as they are at that moment, whether skinny with no muscle mass, 50 or 100 pounds over weight or everything in between. I see what they will look like with hard work, consistent effort and a sensible diet.

I know what they will look like when they squat 200 pounds with confidence. Do you know what that looks like? It looks different for everyone. Much like each one of you look different to me at the bottom of a squat, you all look different than you perceive on the first day.  That’s the day when I see the future and envision you squatting 200 pounds or more. The one thing in common is to us, you all look great. You look just as your Creator intended you to look when He also hoped you would some day be strong and powerful. But that image in our mind doesn’t look like the magazine cover you saw checking out at the grocery store.  The airbrushed, photo shopped, muscle wasted, skinny fat model you wished you looked like, or had legs, shoulders or arms like.  Because you don’t look like her; your legs won’t look like hers. You are NOT her.  Be thankful.

If you haven’t noticed ladies, you are all built differently. Some of you carry more muscle mass than others. Some of you simply look at a barbell and gain a pound of muscle. You have large muscular quads when you walk in the door the first time and you have never even seen a squat. You have shoulders and traps like an athlete and you have never heard of a deadlift. Others walk in with little to no muscle on their legs and elsewhere. They are skinny and those first squats are difficult for them.  They wish they could squat like you and don’t understand why the empty bar feels so heavy. Both of you will be strong. Both of you will change physically but you will never look the same.  And you won’t look like that magazine cover.

Every single person who walks in our door creates a level of excitement that is difficult to explain. When a female walks in our door, I don’t see her as overweight or obese. I see a person with near perfect levers that will make her a good weightlifter. The only thing stopping her from fulfilling her potential and being great is HERSELF. I see a person who holds and easily builds muscle. I see a woman with big, muscular quads and glutes who will only get stronger and more powerful as time passes. I see a woman who has a strong back long before she has ever touched her first weight. I immediately start seeing the you that you were put on this earth to be. The strong, powerful, confident and capable you. I see a person that does NOT look like a fitness model on a magazine. I see a strong woman who not only is strong but looks strong. I see the you that you were meant to be, NOT the one society is telling you to be.

I was recently reading a book and a section really jumped out at me. The book, The Development of Muscular Bulk and Power by Anthony Ditillo, was written in the early 1970s. It was written for men who wanted to get into serious weight training. It was the author’s attempt at a basic beginner’s guide to gaining strength and size. It’s a pretty awesome book I would recommend to everyone. The part that jumped out at me was a section called The Forming of Realistic Goals. I will quote one of the most important things everyone should know and understand when beginning a journey to improve their health and fitness.

“Better to merely accept such an occasional occurrence as being the ‘scheme of things’ and after hashing and rehashing such pertinent facts in your mind you will sooner or later come to the conclusion that you are you, I am me, and ‘never the twain shall meet’. One of the most important things any trainee can learn is that we must work with what we have, not what we imagine ourselves to own or that which we feel we shall indeed possess at some later time.”

I could not say it better myself. This is an extremely important concept to grasp. If you are the woman who gains muscular size quickly and increases weights on the bar with relative ease, why try to be something you are not? It will only create disappointment and failure. Stop trying to look how the magazine or society tells you. Take what you have been blessed with and use it. Use it to become the strong person you were meant to be. Trust me, somewhere there is a woman who wishes she could be as strong as YOU or look like YOU.  Take your strengths and run with them. Focus on them and make them even better. Be proud to be you and stop trying to be someone you are not.

Few things break my heart more than watching a woman get stronger each day only to be derailed by what someone else tells her she should look like. Or worse yet, quitting because of an unrealistic or unattainable goal she has set for herself.  Let a stranger look at you in awe because you LOOK like you can squat 300 pounds. That is much better than them never noticing you because you have spent a lifetime hiding it instead of embracing it. Or even worse, a lifetime of striving to be someone you are not. Just do us a favor and roll with it.  Be BADASS and own how badass you are becoming.  BE YOU.
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Ladies, Are You Strong Enough?

Posted by Beau on Feb 22, 2013 in Articles | 0 comments

Kristen loading a stone at the Charm City Strong Woman contest in Baltimore

At Westminster Strength and Conditioning we have a lot of strong women. At our gym, we take it for granted too often because we are literally surrounded by women who to the general public or gym goer can do absolutely amazing things with a barbell. We have several women who deadlift over 300 pounds. It’s normal to see women in almost every class we have pulling in the mid to high 200s for sets of 5. Look around on squat day and see plenty of ladies squatting over 200 pounds. Women weighing in below 140 pounds squat close to or over 200 pounds for reps. We have women pressing 100 pounds and benching their body weight. They do strict chin-ups and dips.

 
When those outside of WS&C read this it’s easy to imagine huge women with bulging muscles hoisting massive weights above their heads or 20 year old athletes in their prime squatting insane amounts of weight. For those of you who have peeked in our doors, you know this could not be further from the truth. The overwhelming majority of the women at WS&C who lift huge amounts of weight are not 20 years old, they do not currently play a sport, most have a couple or more kids, are in their 30s, 40s or 50s and do not look manly or like overweight power lifters. Truth be told they look exactly as a healthy, strong woman should.  They are athletic and strong; they carry themselves with confidence. They are empowered.  It’s hard not to be confident when you go through your day knowing you are stronger than every person you talk to, even the men!

Nearly every woman that walks into our door for the first time has a glimmer of understanding that they need to be stronger. They understand on some level that they need to increase upper body strength, leg strength and what they usually term “core” strength. For many, I think they begin to recognize this fact as soon as they have kids. Up until that child starts running around and squirming like a squid when you try to leave the store, it’s easy to muddle through the “portable” months without a basic level of strength. Once you try to sprint down a 2 year old, sling them with one arm and carry 3 bags of groceries and a 20lb diaper bag, you quickly realize the need for greater strength. I’m pretty certain this is why about 70% of our members are women.  Nevertheless, there are actually a few more reasons to get strong if you are a woman other than being able to carry your children like a sack of feed.

Brenda pressing a log for at the Charm City Strongest Women contest

As a matter of fact, the most important benefits from strength training CANNOT be gained by other means. Running, biking, swimming, Body Pump, spinning, CrossFit, P90X, and Zumba cannot produce the most important adaptations for women that training with a barbell can and will produce. This is important to remember and understand. While exercise is great and I’m glad you are doing something, you must understand that if your exercise of choice does not involve progressive training with a barbell you are missing out on some pretty important adaptations to keep you functional and healthy later in life and make your daily tasks easier. Let me be clear. If you do one of the above mentioned exercise programs, I applaud you. You are moving and you are making yourself healthier. Keep it up. My hope is that this article dispels a few myths about women and strength training and allows you to gain a better understanding of the benefits of strength training.

 
So why is progressive loading (adding weight to a barbell as the trainee gains strength) with the major barbell movements (squats, deadlifts, presses) so important for women? And what adaptations occur during progressive loading of the squat, deadlift and press that do not happen with running, spinning, biking, Zumba, Body Pump or just about any other exercise program lacking in progressive loading of major barbell movements? There are several benefits but we will focus on two of the more important ones here (besides looking and feeling better of course, those are a given)!  Increased bone mass and increased force production (strength) are of utmost importance medically AND aesthetically speaking.   Lets talk about bone mass first.

 
I cannot think of many physical adaptations to exercise that would be more important for women than increased bone mass. Bone loss (osteopenia/osteoporosis) as you age is a pretty big problem . When your bones lose mass they become weakened and brittle causing them to break easier. We could toss up some interesting and compelling statistics but I think you all know someone near to you who has fallen and broken a hip, back, or arm later in life. You also know where the problem leads. Many times this is the event causing your grandparent or loved one to begin the discussion of long term care. At this point, it becomes increasingly difficult for them to care for themselves and continue to live independently. Here’s the thing, we can go a long way in preventing this type of situation both in the elderly and long before while we are still young. We will all begin to lose bone mass as we age. This is simply a fact of life we must face. But how we deal with it is what matters.

Angie back squats 230 pounds for work sets

Think of your bone mass as your 401k of bone health. The more you have now the more you are likely to have when you are 70. Remember, we will begin losing it as we age. If you have more to lose during the normal aging process, the more you retain as you age. Now add to the fact that strength training will also slow that loss and you have a pretty good chance of maintaining healthy strong bones later in life.  No broken hips in your future. So how do bones adapt favorably to strength training and why do they not with running, biking, swimming or many other exercise activities?
The body is an amazing system and adapts to all sorts of stress. The first adaptation most of us think about when we discuss strength training is to the muscular system. This is where images of Arnold pop into our head and this is enough to end the thought of squats, presses and deadlifts for most women. After all, they don’t want to look like Arnold. But the muscular adaptation is far from the only adaptation. The next in line, the skeletal system experiences some pretty radical adaptations to the same stress the muscular system adapts to. Muscles attach to bones. Muscles need those bones to produce movement. They pull at their attachments of the rigid bones and produce movement around joints. Muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones function as a system and adapt as a system to stress.

 
So why does weight bearing exercises produce favorable adaptations to bones and running does not? Why do you need to squat, press, and deadlift and carry heavy things to increase bone mass? We will keep this pretty simple so we do not get bogged down in the details but there are a few things about your bones’ ability to increase mass that you should know. When a bone experiences a sufficient stress, called Minimal Essential Strain (this could be bending, compression, torsion or even muscles pulling at their attachments) specialized cells called Osteoblasts are signaled to move to the surface of the bone. The Osteoblasts are responsible for producing new bone material to strengthen the bone and increase it’s Minimal Essential Strain. In essence, when you produce enough force to bend the bone slightly the body recognizes this and signals specialized cells to prevent that bending in the event the same force is experienced again. This is the skeletal system’s adaptation to stress.

 
How does this work in your exercise program? Let’s say you wake up one day and decide to “get in shape”.  Most people will pick a day, head outside and go for a run. During that first run when your heel strikes the pavement, the bones of your lower leg and femur experience a stress and the Minimal Essential Strain is met (your body weight impacting the ground), Osteoblasts are signaled and new bone formation begins. Perfect right? Well, almost. What happens several months later when you have run three times a week getting ready for the half marathon? Still laying down new bone mass? Probably not, because your body has already adapted to that stress. It’s not going to signal Osteoblasts to produce more bone material in the absence of a greater stress. I guess you could strap on a loadable weight vest and slowly increase the load as you run but who the hell would want to do that? How about bicycling? New bone mass? How about swimming? Body Pump? Or P90X? You guessed it. These activities are limited in their ability to continue to increase the stress applied to bones to drive the formation of new bone material. You may be getting “in shape” but you are not doing much for new bone growth and remember your bone health is like a 401k. More bone mass now means more bone mass later as you begin to lose it. We are in a race to build bone mass and there must be a better way.

 
So what do you do to continue to produce a sufficient stress to the skeletal system to lay down as much bone mass as possible or to slow your loss of bone and decrease bone turnover? You squat, press and deadlift while progressively loading these movements over time. When you place a bar on your back, squat down and stand back up you are producing force from your feet up through both legs, through the hips, through the spine and finally delivering that force to the barbell. Nearly every biological system in the body produces a favorable adaptation to this load, including your bones. You squat today with 55 pounds on your back and you have signaled Osteoblasts to begin bone modeling. Squat next week with 60 pounds and the process continues. The beauty of the barbell is we can continue this progressive loading for a very long time. Remember those women at our gym we mentioned in the first paragraph? They started with light loads and increased the loads over a couple of years. They have been modeling new bone material for years and as they continue to get stronger, they continue to add to their bone 401k. They are doing something today that will have a lasting impact on their bodies for the rest of their life.

We all know we need stronger bones. How about increased force production? Why is being stronger so important? For most of the same reasons having bigger, stronger bones is equally important. As we age, we will continue to lose strength. The beauty of strength is that it is a persistent adaptation. It takes several years to get strong because you are modeling new tissue. Again, remember our ladies in the first paragraph. It took them two years to get as strong as they are, but it will also take them a very long time to lose this hard-earned strength. This is quite different from your cardiovascular adaptation. We all know we can get in pretty good running shape in a couple months at most. We also know that when we take a break we lose that same adaptation pretty quickly (within weeks).

 
The second part of the importance of building strength is its application to everyday life. Most of life is a force production sport (strength) not a cardiovascular event. Think back to the example we used of chasing your kids and picking them up in the grocery store  then carrying them and three bags to the car. If you get winded doing this and mistake being “out of shape” with being weak, you would be wrong. If this is difficult for you, it’s because you are weak. Not because you are “out of shape”. When we increase your ability to produce force and make you twice as strong as you are, you will not see many (if ANY) of your daily tasks as a cardiovascular event. You will see them as strength events ALL made easier by being stronger. This may piss a lot of runners off which is not my intention, but NO ONE will care when you’re 80 what your marathon time was when you were 30. They will care if you have the ability to get up if you fall (strength), carry the groceries from the car (strength), stand up from a chair or a toilet (strength), and generally take care of yourself (strength). Remember, the more strength we build now the more we will have to draw from as we begin to lose it and the better we can slow the process of inevitable strength loss.

 
Of course the barbell is the best tool for gaining this strength for the same reason it works so well for gaining bone mass. We can continue to load the barbell incrementally over time. It loads the muscular system using the most amount of muscle mass over the greatest range of motion (the squat), and it’s the most efficient way to gain strength. When choosing exercises with a barbell to gain strength and bone mass always favor compound exercises that use the most muscle over the longest range of motion. This is the reason why the squat, press, and deadlift are the kings of weight bearing exercise. No other movement has the capacity to produce as much favorable adaptation to the biological system. So why are you not squatting, pressing and dead-lifting?  No matter how old you are it is NEVER too late to start.

 
For many women (and men) these movements can be a little intimidating to learn. Add to the fact that most personal trainers and many coaches have no idea how to teach (or execute) them let alone how to program them and many women may be hesitant to include them in their program. WS&C teaches dozens of women these movements every day but we want to expose even more of you to the benefits of strength training. For those of you who are not already members, we will be running a special women’s strength training clinic and follow up program to introduce you to strength training, teach you how to program them into your routines and build some serious strength over a few months. We are looking at a two day a week program that will meet in the mid morning and last about an hour. This program will be led by the strong female coaches at WS&C and will be a great, non-intimidating way to expose you to strength training, learn the lifts from the best coaches around, meet new people with the common interest of getting stronger, and build strength to improve your quality of life. If you are interested in this program let us know and we will get more information to you as we finalize the details.

 
If you would like more information please email us at beau@crossfitretribution.com.

The Ritual of Barbell Training

Posted by Beau on Feb 13, 2013 in Articles | 0 comments

I stood in a weight room the other day watching about 40 kids squat, press and deadlift. It was one of those rare occasions I wasn’t yelling something at a kid, “shove your knees out”, “chest up!”, “elbows in front of the bar!” All you could hear were the weights clanging, bumpers dropping, and yells from fellow lifters encouraging their training partner. I’m not sure why I wasn’t yelling at a kid but it was pretty nice for about 10 minutes. Just thinking and watching. As a strength coach in a crowded gym we don’t get much of that. So, in this rare opportunity I began thinking. What was I thinking about? I started to ponder why some kids excel in the weight room and some do not? Why do some kids gain 20 pounds of muscle, take their squat from 135 pounds to 400 pounds in 7 months, and become technicians of the lifts. Why do some of the others with access to the same program, the same advice, the same bar, the same steel, only gain a few pounds, take their squat from 115 pounds to 185 pounds, and just never make any more progress? This is what I was thinking about in the rare quiet of my own head in that noisy basement weight room.
I understand all the reasons we know so well. We all know them. Consistency, dedication, proper eating, proper recovery, GENETICS, mental attitude, and all the other things required to gain strength, size and power on a strength program. We know all these things are critical and we hammer them at every power athlete. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t talk to a kid about food, rest, recovery, focus, and consistency. There still seemed to be something else as I stood and watched these kids. What were the best performers doing in this crowd that made them different? Why did they look different as I stood and watched that day? Then it hit me. It hit me so hard that I could see it in every weight room I had coached in, including my own gym. The successful, the strong, approach the weight room and training in a very deliberate and focused manner. In the words of one of the best coaches in barbell sport, Marty Gallagher “one obvious difference between the athletically ordained and the athletically ordinary is the elite have an (innate?) ability to center and focus the mind on the athletic task at hand, whereas the civilian, the normal person, attacks weight training with the same approximate level of mental commitment they would muster for watering the lawn or brushing their teeth.” This was the difference.
Read that quote again. Let it sink in. It’s important to understand that although you are not trying o set a world squat record you are trying to get as strong as possible to improve your quality of life. Stronger now means stronger later. We only have so much time here, today, to get strong. We are all busy. We all have a million other obligations. Most of us make it to the gym 3 days a week or so for about an hour each. If I can do something simple that requires no extra time on my part and actually make my workouts more efficient why would I not do so? If I can reduce the likely hood of stalling on a lift simply because I have done everything right and make 100% use of that time I made it to the gym, why would I not do so? Whether you are an weightlifter of a powerlifter your task (the actual lift) takes as little as a second to tops about 3-4 seconds. If you have done everything right leading up to that 1-4 seconds you will not miss that lift.
As I stood there I noticed the kids making the most progress walked in every day and approached the same squat rack. Set their gear down in the same place. Adjusted the bar on the rack the same way they did 2 days earlier. As they stepped into the squat rack every movement was the same as the set before it. They placed their left hand on the rack, then their right, they stepped under the bar the same, carefully placed the bar in the exact same spot on their back. They took the same steps out of the rack. Their first warm-up set looked like their 3rd work set. They had ritualized everything they did from the time they walked in to train. If something threw off their ritual (their normal squat rack was occupied) you could physically see their discomfort. It upset them visibly.
The kids that made the most progress had what seemed to be an instinctual ability to ritualize what they did in the weight room. I as the coach didn’t teach it. They just seemed to do it; like all the best lifters I have coached. As I thought about it I realized I knew which kids were going to make the most progress by the end of the first week with a new group. It had nothing to do with how well they squatted on day one, it had nothing to do with what they looked like physically, it didn’t have much to do with genetics, it had everything to do with those that had the innate ability to ritualize the lift. You could see it developing by day two and by day three the ones that were going to do it had already started doing it.
So the next question I logically asked myself was can you teach someone how to do this? Can you teach someone to ritualize what you teach them during that first squat session? Can they begin to ritualize those first 10 cues you teach them about the squat and repeat the sequence two days later? Over time as they become more and more proficient at the movement will they continue to do it and add new steps to that process that have a positive impact on the lift? I think the answer to these questions is yes, many can (clearly many will never learn or apply this process) if you begin the process during the first coaching session.
Most of you reading this are not coaches so I will spare you the process I have used to get those without the innate ability to ritualize a barbell movement to begin doing so from day one. This article is for you the lifter who may approach the bar with the same focus you would any mundane task that needs little attention. This article is to get you thinking. All of you are familiar with the process of ritualizing something in your life. You all do it whether you think about it or not. Think hard about something you do regularly that if you get out of sequence it gets you get off track and gets the task harder. I know for me grocery shopping is a task I have ritualized. I will walk into the store with my list and attack it the same way every time. Veggie section, meats, milk for the kids, back in the other direction to hit the few things I need in the middle isles. When the process happens it’s smooth, I’m in and out in no time. The only thing I fear is the dreaded text from my wife while in the meat section asking to add Ketchup to the list. If I do not turn and get the ketchup as soon as I get the text I will likely forget it. If I turn and get it I will mess my sequence up (my grocery store ritual) and I will forget something else. I will spend 10 minutes stumbling around an aisle I do not even need to be down all because I got out of sequence. I know you have something, just think about it. You already know how to do this.
The next step is to apply it to your barbell training. Begin to ritualize how you squat, press, and pull. Place the same hand on the bar first in the same spot every time you squat. Place the bar in the exact same position on your back every time. Walk out of the rack and place your left foot in position then your right. If you do this you will never have your hands placed in the wrong position on the bar. You will never place the bar in the wrong position on your back. You will never miss a squat because you took too wide a stance. This is the start of the process. As you continue to ritualize you will add your own cues or steps to the process. You will begin to see all your lifts looking exactly the same. The first set to the last will look the same. Remember, when you do everything correctly you cannot do it wrong. Once you have set the lift up correctly you can’t miss it.
If you are a competitive lifter and do not ritualize your competition movements you may want to give it a try. You stand a lot better chance when adrenaline is high and the stress of the situation increases of successfully making the lift when you have ritualized the process. Stress and adrenaline can get us out of sequence and the more times you have done the exact same thing leading up to the lift the less likely you are to miss.
Check out one of the greats, Kirk Karwoski training his deadlift. Look at the first warm-up to the last. I think it is safe to say Kirk ritualized his lifts. The only difference between set one and the last is plates added to the bar. Kirk had the ability to treat his 60% warm-up the exact same way he treated a max attempt. In his mind the 60% lift might as well have been 900 pounds. He had the same mental focus and the same ritual.
Remember, when you do everything right you cannot screw up.

Texas Method Your Conditioning and Prowler Work

Posted by Beau on Jan 17, 2013 in Articles | 0 comments

We put together an earlier article about incorporating conditioning into your strength program.  We kept it pretty simple, gave a couple guidelines to follow and finished up with a few conditioning workouts that fit well with most strength programs.  This time we wanted to get a little more specific and show how we use the prowler in our programming.  Most of our intermediates will start off on some version of the Texas Method after a basic Starting Strength set-up has run it’s course and novice linear progression has been exhausted.  We do not add any conditioning while running a basic Starting Strength program.  All the athlete’s time and effort is dedicated to strength acquisition and recovery.  Once we begin TM programming basic conditioning can be added.

Over the last couple of years we have began using the prowler for our primary source of conditioning for the intermediate strength athlete.  The more we use it the more we understand just how effective the Prowler is at increasing work capacity, eliciting cardio vascular adaptation, aiding in recovery, and maintaining/increasing strength.  Pushing a sled seems to condition the athlete as well as any method we have used with the added benefit of virtually no risk of injury.  It requires nearly no coaching, form does not break down as the athlete gets tired, and our coaching time can be spent with other athletes under a bar while several athletes condition simultaneously.

When an athlete adjusts to the TM set-up we will begin adding Prowler work when conditioning is needed.  For those unfamiliar with the TM set up it’s a basic three day a week program of Volume/light/intensity work.  A basic TM set up looks like this:

Monday

5×5 work on main lifts (volume)

Wednesday

80% work on main lifts (Light)

Friday

5RM on main lifts (Intensity)

Sets and reps can change and we make all sorts of adjustments dependent on the lifter but the basic set-up remains the same.  Simple and effective.  It works so well we have set up our Prowler work based off the same structure, Volume/Light/Intensity.  We usually run prowler work on lifting days or on the off days based on the lifters schedule.  For the athlete able to train more than 3 times a week the best option seems to be to train the prowler on Tuesday (Volume), Wednesday (Recovery), and Friday or Saturday (Intensity).  Both seem to work well but you will need to see which works best for you.  Below will give you an idea of what a volume/light (recovery)/intensity set up would look like with the prowler.  This is only and example and you can also adjust to fit your needs.

Monday

5X5 on main lifts

Tuesday

Prowler work:

10 x 25 meter trips (with turn around at half way point) with moderate to heavy load.  Rest 2 minutes between efforts.

Wednesday

80% light work on main lifts

Prowler work:

3 minute on 3 minute off for 3 rounds with light load.  Prowler weight should not be heavy and athlete should be able to easily walk with the prowler for all the 3 minutes without stopping.  Light work in this time domain does an amazing job of recovering the athlete from Monday’s squat volume.

Friday

5RM on main lifts

Prowler work:

5-10 x pushes for max distance with rest as needed.  Load the prowler as heavy as possibly and push until the prowler stops.  Rest as needed and repeat.  The prowler should be loaded heavy enough that the distance covered is around 10 meters on the first effort before the athlete cannot push it.  These are all out short efforts much like the 5rm strength work.  Push as hard as you can until the sled stops.  recover fully and repeat.

The prowler intensity is surface dependent.  You will need to adjust loads based on the surface you are pushing on.  Higher friction surfaces will make the prowler harder to push and loads may be much lighter than on surfaces with less friction such as grass.  When you start using the prowler you will want to record the work in your training book.  Keep track of loads, distances and time so you can make linear progress over a training cycle.

If you have access to a prowler run this over the next 6 weeks or so and let us know how it works for you.

Big Goals for 2013

Posted by Beau on Dec 31, 2012 in Articles | 19 comments

2012 was an amazing year for CFR.  We continued to introduce more and more of our friends and family to the wonderful world of strength.  We have continued our goal of forging a stronger, healthier community in Carroll County.  As we prepare to start 2013 we anticipate even greater things at CFR.  It truly has been a great year and we owe it to you, our friends and family at the gym.

It’s no secret that our success depends on your success.  To help you make 2013 an awesome year both in and out of the gym we are going to help you get the year started on the right track.  Each one of you will establish a short term and a long term goal for 2013.  We will share these goals with one another and we will help each other reach our goals.  What makes CFR strong is the power of our community (you) and the support you give each other.  We will commit ourselves and push each other to achieve great things.  Here is how it will work.

Each of you will establish a short term goal (6 months) and a long term goal (before 2014).  The long term goal should be performance oriented (i.e., do 5 chin-ups, total 1000 pounds in a power lifting meet, run a tough mudder, compete in a sprint triathlon).  Ideally this goal will be an event or competition that requires a commitment such as an entry fee or registration.  This makes it much more real from day one and puts something on the line with an actual date on the calendar.  Once you have established the long term goal you will establish a short term goal to help you achieve your long term goal.  Your short term goal should serve as an azimuth check for your long term goal.  It should move you closer or support your long term goal.

Once the long term goal and short term goal have been established, you will need to make a list of implied tasks.  These are the things you must do on a daily and weekly basis to achieve your short and long term goals on time.  Some implied tasks may be proper nutrition, workout consistency, better sleep, or increasing your flexibility.  Here is an example of what the goals and implied tasks may look like for a female at CFR:

Long Term Goal:  Compete at the 2013 USAPL Maryland State Championships (November 2013) in the 132 pound class and total 600 pounds in three lifts.  Specifically a 200 pound squat, 265 pound deadlift, and a 135 pound bench press.

Short Term Goal (6 months):  Squat 185 pounds, deadlift 240 pounds and bench 120 pounds on June 15th (a mock meet).

Implied tasks:

- Miss no more than 4 training days every 6 months

- Increase protein intake by 30 grams per day and eat a paleo diet with an increase in starchy veggies.

- Attack each training session with intensity and focus

- Get 8 hours of sleep each day

- Purchase weightlifting shoes and a belt ASAP

The implied tasks are all things this individual will need to do in order to meet her short term goals and eventually, her long term goals.  The implied tasks should be evaluated every couple weeks to make sure they are being followed and working.  Adjustments to implied tasks can be made to keep pushing closer toward the short and long term goals.  By June 15th she will compete in a mock power lifting meet at the gym and will hit her short term goal which will put her long term goal well within reach for the November MD state championships.

This is only an example.  You will need to come up with your own.  If you are having trouble ask us.  We will help you establish your plan to ensure you start on the right track to achieve your goals.  We want you to achieve great things in 2013 and we want to help you get there.  Reach out to us and let’s start 2013 off with a big challenge.

You will need to establish both a short term goal and a long term goal within the next week (by Monday January 7th).  Please email your long and short term goals to beau82nd at gmail dot com or post them in the comments.  Sharing your goals and ideas in the comments section here will help inspire others.  We will consolidate them as a gym and post them at CFR for all to see.  You will be able to see each other’s goals and help each other work toward them in 2013.  We do not need your implied tasks but if you need help or would like to have us check them out, by all means email them to us.  If you would like to compete in an event (triatholon, tough mudder, powerlifting meet, weightlifting meet, 5k, strong man/women) and don’t know where to start, we will help you find one.

What do you think?  Are you ready?  Have your goals already?  Make them big!