Change of Pace

I'm taking a break from the normal 3 and a half training days per week focusing on the big three for a 5 week challenge/rehab program.  After some friends tipped me off to a new Dan John article on the program, I decided to give it a go.

The program involves 20 training sessions, 4 per week for 5 weeks.  You could do it 2 days on and 1 day off, but I like having the weekend "off" since I tend to play around in the garage gym Sunday afternoon.  In each training session you will complete 500 kettlebell swings.  That's right 500, it's not a typo.  They are to be executed in 5 rounds of 10, 15, 25, and 50 rep sets.  Between sets you can add a barbell or other lift to round out the program.  The barbell lift should be executed in sets of 1, 2, and 3 reps.  A bodyweight exercise could be done for 2, 3, and 5 reps between sets of swings.  A beginner could just forego the extra lift per workout if the overall workload is too much.

The workout I completed this morning looked like this:
KB Swing 55 lb bell/Press 135lb barbell

5 Rounds for total time:
10 Swings/1 Press,
15 Swings/2 Presses,
25 Swings/3 Presses,
Rest 1 min.
50 Swings.
3 minutes of corrective work (stretching, rolling, etc.)

1 down, 19 more training sessions to go.

Here's my rationale for the break from my normal training, in bullet point fashion for you speed readers.

• I'm currently eating a paleo-ish diet with my wife which will inevitably lead to me leaning out a good bit.  I expect to lose about 15lbs this month without going hungry.  Doing a workout that will encourage me to shed fat while maintaining and possibly building lean mass is a great complement to the diet.
• I'm in pretty lame cardio shape.  You just don't need very much cardio to be a powerlifter.  That being said, I'm okay with a little balance and this program hits what I want.  I can do cardio while training for strength without running.
• Since I injured my hip a year ago in a powerlifting meet my left side has been lagging.  I'm looking at this as an opportunity to retrain my body to fire the whole left side with 10,000 reps of 55lb kettlebell swings.
• I can hold onto some strength and build up some weak points in the process.  I plan to use standing overhead presses, front squats, L-sit pull-ups, and bench presses as my lifts to offset the swings.  Each of those will be building a particular weakness for me to prepare me for better overall performance upon my return to regular training in November.
• 5 sets of 3 minutes of corrective work mixed into the training session.   I'm notoriously bad at doing mobility work on my own.  This builds in some opportunities to rehab some pain I have and get healthy.

Anyone want to take the challenge with me?  Comment below and join in at the facebook page to share your experience with other movers and shakers.  (I almost said swingers, but that wouldn't have been correct...)

Do It Anyway

Yesterday was a bad day for training.  I was up too late the night before, so my sleep was cut short.  I really don't like it when I don't get enough sleep.  I didn't eat enough the day before.  You can't blame anyone but yourself for those problems.  I've been working more and later and earlier and I'm a little tired.  So is everyone.  So after that set up, here's how the day went.

Alarm went off early AM.  I didn't want to get up, had time to sleep in.  Did it anyway.

I was hungry, but didn't feel like making breakfast before I went to train.  Did it anyway.

Low energy, not feeling very motivated to even drive to the gym.  Did it anyway.

Wanted to cut the warm up short because I just wasn't into it.  Did it anyway.

My training partner showed up, he was feeling pretty beat up and didn't want to work that hard.  Did it anyway.

Finished our main lift for the day and didn't feel like doing our assistance work.  Did it anyway.

What did I learn from all of this?  That it doesn't matter that much how you feel.  It's what you decide to do that matters.  No one on the platform, the field, the court, or the office cares that much how you feel today.  They care what you do.  At the beginning of college football season in the US there are zero fans who care how their team's head coach feels about the game this weekend.  If their team isn't winning, they want him fired.  If players don't produce, it doesn't matter to the fans and coaches that they didn't sleep well last night or eat enough to support training and playing.

What can you take away from my bad day?  That you aren't going to have the best training session of your life every time you enter the gym, and that doesn't really matter.  Some days are going to be really bad, and that doesn't matter.  What matters is that you do the work.  Consistently.  Day-in, day-out you show up and work hard.  You're tired?  So is everyone else.  You don't feel like it today?  Quit tomorrow.  Never let what you want right now get in the way of what you really want.  Don't be ruled by the tyranny of desire.

I'll see you at the gym.

23 Hour Rule: You Can't Outwork a Bad Diet (Part 1)

In the last installment of the 23 Hour Rule, I introduced the idea that what you do outside of the gym matters for your progress in the gym and in competition.  Since many training programs call for about 3 hours of work per week in the gym, we found that the ratio of time outside of the gym to time in the gym is about 56 to 1.  What that means to the average gym goer is that your training is just a drop in the bucket of life.  While you can accomplish a lot, and I do mean a lot, in just 3 hours a week of training, you cannot undo 165 horrible hours in that short of a time.  So where are we going with that idea today?  Your diet.

When people say diet, what they usually mean is some fad they've adopted for weight loss.  As I've mentioned before, I think weight loss by itself is a terrible goal because it's too short sighted.  What do I do once the weight is off?  Generally, I go back to the habits that resulted in me being overweight enough to make radical changes in lifestyle.  That doesn't do anyone any favors.

What I mean when I say diet is the habits you have around food consumption.  Most Americans eat a diet of convenience, meaning they eat what is easy.  That results in most people being overweight or obese.  (That's not hyperbole, click the link.)  The idea seems to be that, I work so hard and I'm so busy that the only way to get the 3 meals a day that I NEED, is to hit the drive through for a couple of them and then microwave something out of a box when I get home.  How else can I possibly survive?

Before we go any further, I need to challenge 2 ideas mentioned above.  The first is that eating should be easy.  That is entirely dependent upon what you mean when you say it.  If easy means carrying around a 3rd grader worth of body fat and using the CPAP when you sleep, then that doesn't feel very easy to me.  It sounds like making an already full life more difficult.  If it means you can generally attempt to shake off any and all personal responsibility for what goes into your body, then I don't see how that will end well.  What about having sustained energy to get you through your busy day?  What about being healthy and looking healthy?  That sounds a lot easier when I start to think in the long term.

And what about the people who depend on you?  Many of my readers are parents.  Is it going to be easier to teach your children to eat by your example and see them thrive, or to feed them from drive-through windows and watch them join the ranks of the overweight and obese?  I understand that you're very busy, but are there things that could be trimmed out for a healthier lifestyle?  This is in no way an attack on already very busy, tired, and overworked parents... I am one, and we only have 1 kid in our house.  Instead, it's a call to evaluate your habits, and look for ways to make better habits, both for your benefit and for those who depend on you.

The second idea I want to challenge is that you absolutely must eat at least 3 meals per day, every day, for the rest of your life to survive.  Humans are survival machines.  No matter what belief you subscribe to, we've been around for a long time.  There were long periods of scarcity throughout human history where people lived off of less food than some people eat in a week for long periods of time.  If you don't have 3 meals a day, you will not die.  If you do not eat for the next week, you will be just fine.  This means that if your option for a meal is low quality food or don't eat, you certainly have the option to not eat until a better choice comes available.  Life in the first world means that a better choice will come available in about as much time as it takes to drive to the nearest grocery store.

Start evaluating how you are eating.  In my experience, people tend to thoughtlessly form their dietary habits.  Give it a little thought, and stay tuned because in the next part we'll talk a little more about what to eat to support your training and your healthy lifestyle.  Following that post there will be some thoughts on how to make healthy eating a little more convenient for you.  

If you need a little help with your diet sooner than the next post, you can reach me through the comments or my email disruptivefitness@gmail.com.  Further, there are other goal oriented trainees and trainers hanging out at our facebook group who would love to get you know you and help you out.  As always, thanks for reading and supporting this blog!

Enjoy it!

I've been under the weather enough that I haven't even been able to get out to the gyms to coach.  Without being dramatic, I really miss being under a heavy bar and seeing others struggle and succeed.  Being sick for the last week has given me some more perspective on training.  Enjoy it!  You don't know what might happen to remove you from the training hall for a few days, a week, or forever.  Be in the moment.  You aren't doing workouts just to do workouts.  We don't exercise here, we train.  Each time you enter the gym, it's a sacred space where you set aside the day and just live for an hour or so.  Hopefully, it's not the only part of life where you get to do that, but it's certainly one of the easiest.  Have fun with your training.  Train with people you like.  Make all the progress you can in the time that you have.  Most of all, just simply appreciate that you have a body and mind that can do the things we do day-in and day-out.

From now on, when presented with a workout that looks rough, erase phrases like, "That sucks!" and "I don't want to do that" from your vocabulary.  Instead look at every hurdle as an opportunity to learn something about yourself and improve.  You're doing everything you can to be more awesome every time you slay the dragon in front of you.  So never stop fighting.  When faced with the choice between training and watching one more episode of whatever on netflix, cancel your netflix and get to the gym, or on the trail, or the road, etc.  Work your tail off while you have time to do so, because there is a time coming when you will not be able to train like you do now.

While my illness is a minor and very temporary set back, it provides some focus.  What is important to me and why?  I'll tell you this, the first priority is not the gym.  I haven't been able to play with my infant daughter or spend much quality time with my lovely wife for most of the week due to my consistent elevated temperature, and that's a way bigger bummer than missing a training session or two.  It's reminded me that I do really enjoy lifting and coaching, and besides being bored out of my mind on quarantine, I'm beyond ready to get back to the gym.  I hope I'll see you there!

Exercising or Training?

When you think of the word exercise, what comes to mind?  Walking in circles in the woods carrying heavy stuff on military duty?  A thought experiment?  If you're like me, the first thing that comes to mind is the cardio theater.  25 treadmills lined up facing televisions to keep you entertained while you burn calories.  That concept alone is pretty crazy.  Think about this: if you are reading this blog, you likely live in a place where calories are so available and affordable that it's nothing to you to spend money on a gym membership to go and burn them.  That logic should shake you up a little bit.  Are you just exercising so you can burn calories, essentially wasting the energy that you consume on a daily basis?  I hope not, that's a pretty circular and pointless exercise, at least to me.

So what's the alternative to exercising and burning calories?  Simple, it's training.  So what's the difference?  As I noted above, exercising is essentially just moving around aimlessly.  Training is working towards a goal.  What is the point of basic training?  It is to produce something, a baseline capable soldier.  When you talk to a triathlete who is preparing for a big race, they will tell you they are training for it.  A strength athlete getting ready for a big meet?  S/He's training.

Consider why you're heading to the gym in the first place.  It is not my goal to get the exercisers out of the gym, although that could free up many occupied squat racks.  (Unless you own it, don't curl in it.)  Instead, I want to infuse their exercising with purpose and transform them into trainees.  If you want to think more on setting goals to give your training value, I recommend that you start here, with my article on setting SMART goals.

Need help figuring out how to apply the SMART principle to your training?  I'm always happy to help.  You can reach me through the comments or my email disruptivefitness@gmail.com.  Further, there are other goal oriented trainees and trainers hanging out at our facebook group who would love to get you know you and help you out.  As always, thanks for reading and supporting this blog.

23 Hour Rule: Sitting is the Slow Death

You're a gym rat, addicted to training.  You work hard in the gym on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis.  We're lifers here, there's no end to training until there are at least 6 feet of dirt holding you down.  You're doing everything right for about 1 hour a day, but what about the other 23?  When I taught school, and now as a coach and trainer, I often refer to the 23 Hour Rule.  You cannot undo 23 bad hours in 1 good hour a day.  This is especially true since most people only train 2-3 days per week.  That means that you have an accumulated 165 hours per week outside the gym with 3 in the gym.  That's a ratio of about 56 to 1.

There are a variety of things that the 23 Hour Rule applies to in everyday life.  Today we're going to key in on posture.  In the gym, position is power.  That means that if I am able to move correctly as I squat, run, jump, and pull, I will have greater output and therefore greater results.  It also means that I can do all the things I enjoy doing in the gym for the rest of my life instead of creating overuse injuries from poor movement over long periods of time.  Remember the ratio above, if you train for about 3 hours per week, your time outside the gym to time inside the gym ratio is about 56:1.  That means if you are moving with poor posture 56 times more often than you pay attention to movement you are never going to be able to correct that with just time in the gym.  If you spend a great deal of that time in a seat, the resulting posture is even worse.  Will your training time help?  Absolutely, if you are paying attention to position and form as you train.  (You are doing that right?  New gym personal records aren't worth being injured and missing training and future personal records.)

The Problem

Most Americans spend most of their time sitting down.  That would be great if it wasn't for the fact that your body was made for motion.  The only time you should be stationary for extended periods of time is when you're asleep.  It also means that you can very easily go a full week without bending any of the joints from your hips down to your ankles past 90 degrees.  You wake up and roll out of bed, walk to the breakfast table and sit down.  You get in the car for your commute to your desk where you sit for the next 8-10 hours.  Back to the car to the living room where you sit for the remainder of the evening before going to bed and doing it all again.  Why is this a problem?  Because it teaches your body that it only needs to move through these abbreviated ranges of motion.  That means very tight hips and ankles and knees that have to be unnaturally mobile.  This leads to lower back pain, hip pain, knee pain, ankle pain, pain pain, and all kinds of other things that you do not want.  In gym talk that means your squats will be terrible, you won't be able to get into position to deadlift correctly, you'll probably run and jump poorly, and you'll always have to contend with pain.  I think you can see that this is an undesirable situation.

The Solution

Move!  No seriously, get up from your desk every 15-20 minutes, even if it's just to stand up for a minute before returning to your chair.  Get a bluetooth headset so you can walk and talk.  Even better, get a standing desk and be a trendsetter in your office.  You'll be amazed how much more alert you are as you shake off the malaise that is the result of hours upon hours of sitting.  When you get home at the end of the day, don't just plant yourself on the couch for the remainder of the evening.  Go for a walk, play in the floor with your kids, do the 1 or 2 projects you've been avoiding around the house because you're just "too tired" to do anything else.  A moving body is a happy body.  And if you reduce the ratio of sedentary to active and good positions and posture to bad position from 56:1 to almost anything else, you'll see the benefits.

Stay tuned for more thoughts on the 23 Hour Rule as we move forward.  We'll cover more topics regarding posture, nutrition, recovery, and a handful of other things to which the 23 Hour Rule applies.  In the meantime, get up and move around.  Right now.  As always, you can interact with this and other topics in the comments or by emailing me at disruptivefitness@gmail.com.  If you'd like to get a notification in your inbox when there is a new blog or video available, enter your email in the box to the right to subscribe.

What should I eat? (New Video)

If you would like to see what I encourage my clients to eat, check out this video below.  It's so simple that it doesn't make much sense.  There are no silly rules, no confusing macro nutrient timing issues, just easy to follow advice that gets results.  You don't have to eat 6 or 8 times per day.  You don't have to weigh or measure your food.  If you will start here, you will see results.  Take the 30 day challenge that I issue in the video below and let me know how it works for you!

I apologize for the image quality, the lighting was pretty poor in the gym this morning.  I'm certainly open to suggestions as to how to make better quality videos, and the next phone I but will have a solid camera in it for sure.