Strength Basics on Vacation

I'll be traveling for the next two plus weeks, without regular access to the internet and enough time to blog. So until 9/14, please read up on the archives, check my linked sites, and enjoy your September.

Another Cool Plank Variation

Jim Smith aka Smitty posted a guest blog over on Ask Joe on DeFranco's Training about a plank variation. It's very detailed as to why to use it and how to use it. Short version? Actively-band resisted planks on a glute-ham raise!

Here it is:

Real "Core Strength" for Athletes

Very cool! I hope I get to try it soon...

Smoking and Training

There is an excellent article over on Stronglifts about smoking and training.

If you know anyone who both smokes and engages in fitness-improving activities, it's worth forwarding along. Smoking is so counter to all of the work you put in improving your health...yet so hard to quit. The Stronglifts article gives some good reasons to try and recommends a book to help you along. I'm not a smoker, but I've seen many people try to quit...every little bit helps.

Why?

Here is a quick test to perform on your workout:

Why are you doing those exercises? Why those reps? Why that many or that few sets? Why that much or that little rest?

You don't have to do all of them in one go. Try "why these exercises?" first. If you can't answer why, or your trainer can't...that's a problem. You have goals, right? Your exercises need to be a component of getting you there. Don't do things in the gym that don't lead to your destination.

For an example, let's do my workout from today. I have a strength coach, so I didn't choose my workout, but I understand the reasons for each component - because if I don't know I asked "why?"
Bench Press - there to develop maximal strength. Some back-off sets were done with a long pause on the chest, to work on keeping me tight at the bottom and to improve my ability to generate power from a dead stop. Why is that? I frequently have trouble with heavier bench presses because I get loose at the bottom. Dead-stop practice ensures I'm more skilled at dealing with that.
Lat Pulldown - with a wide grip on a thick bar. The thick bar is to help my grip strength for MMA. The wide overhand grip is to help develop my back's pulling power with minimal help from my arms.
Rickshaw Shrugs / DB "Power Cleans" - thick handled rickshaw shrugs to develop my neck/upper back strength and my grip all at once, plus DB "power cleans" to make sure my rear deltoids (the back part of the shoulder) gets sufficient exercise to grow stronger.
Kettlebell Snatch - to develop my power generation from the floor, and done with enough reps and short enough rest to develop some power-endurance (can I keep generating power as the workout - or my fight - goes on?).
Fat Bar Curls - to balance out the triceps exercises done earlier - bench pressing! Also a thick bar, for more grip work. Had I been doing underhand pulldowns or rows, you probably wouldn't see this - it wouldn't be needed!
Kettlebell Figure 8s - helps develop coordination, and the ability of my "core" (abs and lower back) to resist torque. Ability to generate and resist rotation is very useful in grappling sports.

All of the are there for a reason, nothing is thrown in just because. Nothing lacks a reason, and no "what do I need" lacks an exercise to cover it. Ab work? Figure eights did that. Pushing? Bench pressing. Pulling? Pulldowns and shrugs and cleans. Power endurance? Snatches. All-important grip work? Pretty much everything was thick-bar today to ensure a solid grip workout. It's all fun stuff to do, for me, but that's secondary. If I hated snatches I'd still have to do them, because...well, you know why.

So look at what you are doing and ask "Why?"

Book Review: The Gym Survival Guide

By Cook, Gregg and D'Almeida-Cook, Fatima.
280 pages
Published 2008
$12.95

The Gym Survival Guide: Your Roadmap to Fearless Fitness is a beginner's guide to life at the gym. It's an in-depth look at everything from choosing a gym to negotiation fees, a class-by-class analysis of group fitness, a guide to machines and tools and toys found in gyms, and more. It covers goals, progress, basic programs, and other "need to know" information once you know what everything is and how to whittle down the costs.

The book gets high marks for its easy presentation, good illustrations, and especially for myth-busting. Little box-out texts wave aside the myths - why high room temperature isn't making you use more calories, why the fat loss zone is a myth, and so on. They pull out useful information to put in boxes as well - why isolation exercises are less time-efficient than compound exercises for many purposes, how to bring your wet clothes home from the gym, what to bring with you, etc.

The book loses a lot of points, though, for a few areas:

- it recommends you start with machines for safety.
- it has a lot of Smith machines lifts, all touted as safe.
- In utter disregard from your safety from fellow gym members, it lists biceps curls as a squat rack exercise. No, you can curl a barbell anywhere, you can only squat in the squat rack. You don't need a rack to curl, so why not use the squat rack and stop people squatting?
- it doesn't suggest much about lack of gym safety from non-weight exercises.

I did find the outline of all the equipment to be useful - I learned what some of the odd items in my own gym were, things I'd never touched because I wasn't sure what they are for. Now that I know, I'll still avoid them (balance boards, low-weight resistance balls, that weird stretching seat, etc.) but I know what they are. For a total beginner, this book can really demystify the gym.

Rating
Content: 3 out of 5. Could have been a 4 but for some bad advice, mentioned above. Lots and lots of myth-busting.
Presentation: 5 out of 5. Well organized, plenty of boxed-out text and useful illustrations, easy to read.

Overall: For a total beginner going to a commercial gym or YMCA or something similar, this is a good starting point. If you're doing more than dipping your toe in the fitness waters, it's not enough. Worth reading for the first group, with strong caveats, not for the second.

Mike Robertson podcasts

I'm not sure if I linked to this or not, but Mike Robertson has been doing podcasts recently. They usually feature an excellent interview subject and a high signal-to-noise ratio.

http://robertsontrainingsystems.com/podcast/

Highly recommended.

Pushups and Pullups, oh my

T-Muscle just published a nice little article by Chad Waterbury. It is called Big Back, Big Chest, Real Fast and it's basically a high-volume bodyweight routine.

Six days a week, for three weeks, 50 pullups and 100 pushups a day - however you want to do them (all in a row, sets of 10, sets of 5, whatever). You do that for three weeks and then take some time off.

It looks a pretty direct method for increasing strength-endurance and (according to Chad Waterbury) muscle size as well. 50 pullups a day is a lot, so is 100 pushups, even split up. The only thing it lacks is any lower-body workout at all. I'm not sure why it isn't even addressed, but there you go. You could add bodyweight squats to the routine - my head says 150+, because they get easy to crank out pretty fast - or just ignore your legs for three weeks while you do this.

It's hardly the first routine like this - it's a lot like doing Simplefit or Crossfit's Cindy for 10 rounds a day (one round, 5 pullups, 10 pushups, 15 squats). It certainly will have an effect - 3 weeks of this is 1800 pushups and 900 pullups. That's about 900 pullups more than most people, and 800+ more than me and I love pullups...