Take out the dishes first

One thing about strongman work, it's easy to relate to real-world strength. A 500-pound deadlift or a 200-pound overhead press is impressive, but unless you lift, it's hard to fathom what that means. Watch a guy drag a truck, or lift a car, or pick up a log and press it...you have some idea of what he could do outside of training.

Case in point, Rob pressing a dishwasher overhead. No, seriously.

One can only hope that he took out any breakables first. If you try this at home, I'd also advise not telling your significant other you're pressing the appliances overhead . . .

Link Recommendation: Mass Made Simple

I'm still very sick, so just another cheap link for today. But it's a good one - mass gain by Dan John, using a nice combination:

Complexes
5/3/1 progression compound lifts
High-rep back squats (similar, but not the same as, Super Squats.)

Sounds like a winner, and he says it's working for his teams. Hard to see why it wouldn't, if you did it heavy and ate well enough. If you know how to do the lifts and have enough time under the bar to determine your maxes (for doing 5/3/1) it should work for beginners as well as more experienced lifters.

Here's a quote to get you started, one that needs to be etched into the brain of every beginner struggling to put on mass or add weight to the bar:
You need to do two things to get stronger: add weight and do more reps. The answer has never been: lift light weights for high reps, or lift heavy weights for few reps. The answer remains: Lift heavy weights for high reps.

Mass Made Simple

Pullup Exercise Progression

I'm sick, to the point that I can't really concentrate enough to post. So I'll just put up a link today, to an excellent video of progressively harder exercises leading up to pullup. It's Diesel Crew so you know it's good.

The Ultimate Pull-Up Video

Book Review: Basic Weight Training for Men and Women

by Thomas Fahey
5th edition, published 2004
224 pages

Basic Weight Training for Men and Women reads like a short textbook for a personal training exam. But it seems aimed at beginning and would-be lifters hoping to learn the how and whys of lifting right down to sliding-filament theory of muscle contraction. The anatomy and skeletal muscle information is rather brief, but there is enough to get started.

The real basics - what is weight training, what does it do for you, what body changes you can expect, etc. - are covered in the first three chapters. They lay a solid base for the chapters that follow. Boxed-out "Myth" and "Fact" text, in gray, help dispel myths and explain pertinent facts for the new lifter. Highlighted caution text is also similarly helpful, making sure you won't skim past a useful point.

Further chapters address how to get started, including choosing a gym and negotiating fees, Buyer Beware caveats when shopping around, how to assemble a basic routine, and so on.

The basic advice is generally 3 sets of 10 repetitions, although this varies for some situations and examples. But the book's prescription for beginning exercises is the bodypart-defined exercises, head to toe, 3 sets of 10, 8-10 exercises, full body that you'll see as a basic everyroutine in beginning books. Nothing solidly innovative or interesting here. If you've read those recommendations before you won't marvel at these, either.

The section on periodization is quite good, giving a brief overview of the subject. Its big failing, in my mind, is that the example shows someone who almost can't possibly need anything except a linear program - a person who bench presses 3 x 10 x 50 pounds (!) on a "heavy" day probably does not need a heavy/medium/light weekly microcycle, for example. Perhaps in the case of a senior citizen, but the periodization example says nothing about this. It's a case of what I often cringe at - complicating things before they need to be. It's likely anyone with a 1-rep max around 65 pounds could just gain by increasing the weight workout to workout, not varying intensity up weekly. So the example is well-generated but uses a subject inappropriate for such training complexity. What's especially odd is the section starts by saying such cycling is for elite athletes.

Six chapters follow, covering weight training by bodyparts - chest and shoulders, arms, back and arms, abs, and lower body - and power and speed training. These include line drawings of the muscles involved (good) and of the exercise (generally, poor and hard to follow). They cover free weight and machine exercises, equally weighted, in both sections. Some bodyweight exercises are included as well but not in any great weight. The technique descriptions are a little light on specifics, and the pictures just don't help. You will need a separate book covering weight training in more detail if you intend to execute the lifts described.

Some of the exercises included and covered are ones that deserve a big red warning flag - upright rows, behind-the-neck pressing (a good exercise, if you're suited for it), machine lower body flexion exercises, and leg extensions. To be fair, leg extensions come with that red flag, warning about knee issues from weighted extension. But the others do not, and deserve equal warning time.

The diet section is pretty much the USDA food pyramid; if you think the USDA's recommendations are spot-on, you'll love it. If not, you'll probably want to move on soon.

The appendix at the end contains some tables of results for common fitness tests, such as a pushup test, 1-minute bent-knee situp test, and so on. You can use these to see where you rank against sex and age normalized standards.

One oddity to the book is you'll find some very impractical advice that sounds good...but just isn't very. Like, to weight pullups, you can put "sandbags" in your pockets. How to make them? DIY them by putting sand into old socks. Ugh, that's going to be a big mess and create a very tiny weight increase. You're better off using a backpack with books in it hanging from your waist, or a dumbbell hanging from a piece of chain. Another one is the previously discussed cycle for a very weak lifter.

But on the upside, the book is filled end-to-end with great quotations (opening each chapter), advice for beginning lifters (start slow, record your progress, steadily make it all harder), busted myths, and good information. It's a useful resource as long as it's not your only resource.

Rating:
Content: 4 out of 5. The information is largely valuable and accurate, and it goes a long way to knocking exercise myths.
Presentation: 3 out of 5. The writing is very clear and readable, but the pictures illustrating exercises are often less than clear.

Overall: An excellent basic text if you're just getting started on weight training and need a comprehensive - but short and readable - resource. It's not ideal as a manual to pick up and just use for training. Worth reading for beginners and beginning professionals, but you'll need to move on to other books if you're looking for more specifics on any given subject.

This review is of the 5th edition; this book is already up to a larger and newer 7th edition (published 2009). The newer version might prove to be a much better volume, but I still have reservations about the diet and machine-training advice.

Link Recommendation: The Tao of Martin Rooney

T-Muscle has recently put out a few articles that feature Martin Rooney of the Parisi Speed School.

I rather like this one: The Tao of Martin Rooney: 12 Principles for Getting the Body You Want

I this article has great value for just-past beginner trainees. You know enough to start tweaking and changing, but you need a set of core principles to go on. Twelve principles is more than I think is necessary - you can boil it down to "eat well, lift heavy, and rest often" and perhaps add "listen to your body" as well. But every one of these has a good take-home point to them.

It's a quick read, but it's stuff worth keeping in mind - you need to train consistently, rest on your rest days, etc. Stuff that bears repeating.

Pistol Squats

Another of my favorite exercises: the one-legged squat, aka the pistol or pistol squat.

What is it? The pistol is a squat down on one leg, with the other leg held forward.

The pistol is an excellent test of balance and strength, and it can build your strength up pretty quickly once you start doing them. But there is one big problem with it - you need to be strong and balanced enough to do one before you can start knocking them out.

The simplest progression I've seen is to start with the Pistol Box Squat. Medhi over at Stronglifts has a nice article on using boxes to build up to an unsupported pistol. The short version is, you sit down to a box with one leg out, and then stand up from the box. The box ensures you go to the same depth on each rep, provides a safety net if you lose your balance and fall backwards, and also always you to train your strength up from its weakest point - a full stop at the bottom.

Once you've mastered the basic pistol box squat, you can move up to the free-standing box squat.

This isn't the only progression to the pistol, however. You can also look at the article on the pistol over at Beastskills. It provides another progression up to a pistol, as well as advanced pistol versions for those strong enough to knock off free-standing pistols with ease.

Why do I want to do these? Besides being a cool party trick, it's also a great single-leg strength builder. Practically all sports involve single-leg strength, so you can even up any discrepancies in strength between your legs with single leg work. While Bulgarian split-squats, lunges, step-ups, and sled dragging are all excellent, the single-legged squat provides a different challenge. Pistols also are great for when your access to external resistance is minimal. Get strong enough and balanced enough for a single rep and you can start using these for a handy no-equipment leg workout.

Plus, honestly, they're fun. Do one or two...once you start repping them out, you'll feel stronger and you'll enjoy doing them. Sure, the full pistol is hard, but you've got a couple ways to build up to it now. No more excuses not to at least try it!

Training Hurt Part V: Training Around the Problem

T-Muscle just published an article on "work-arounds" for training. It is written by Nick Tumminello and it is called Three Work-Arounds for Physique Success. It's about more than "physique" training, though.

Why should I read this? The author addresses three training situations. The first two situations address training around an injury limitation - the first is a chronic injury, the second an acute injury.

The first scenario, the chronic one, is a client with knee injuries that prevent him or her from squatting or lunging without pain. Remember that you want to train through discomfort but you generally don't want to train through pain. One is a sign of pushing hard, the other is the body's warning system telling you to stop! Do the first and you'll push back the limits of your body; do the second and you'll create new limitations.

The second example is of an acute hand, finger, or wrist injury that prevents a lifter from grasping anything while training. This is a very clever use of some specific gym equipment - arm slings meant for ab work! You can DIY your way around these, as well, by using ropes, towels, and/or weight belts/harnesses to replicate the loading.

The third example is interesting as well - how to de-adapt someone from a particular form of training, so you can use it for fat loss again later. But it is somewhat off-topic for this post. It's worth considering in a different respect but it's not training around an injury, but adapting to previous success.