Breaking out of your comfort zone II: Comfort Lifts?

Recently I've been thinking about what I keep consistently the same in my training. Things I always do, I always practice, and I always stress - largely because of the fact that they are things I am good at. They aren't always the weak points I need to stress, nor strong points I need to emphasize for competition. Sometimes they are just things I am good at, so it's rewarding to do them.

I'm starting to think these might qualify as comfort lifts.

I'd define a comfort lift as any exercise you do primarily because it's a demonstration of your strengths (literal strength, or something else like power, skill, or endurance) or just out of habit. It's not necessarily getting you to your goals - although it may in fact be - but you do it anyway.

Do you have "comfort lifts?"

It's probably easier to observe in others. People who always do 15 minutes of treadmill cardio at the end of their workout, with no variation in resistance, intensity, or incline. People who always do chinups instead of pullups because their biceps let them knock out more reps. People who always do the same rehab work long after what they are rehabbing is gone. For my part, I can justify every single one of my lifts and exercises - but that's what I mean by "easier to observe in others." An objective outsider could probably spot what I repeat despite it no longer having meaning, or work on because it's rewarding and not because it's productively improving my game or my strength.

I think this goes back to the fundamental question of "Why?" - Why are you doing that exercise? What is it getting you? Why aren't you doing a variation of that exercise, or swapping it out? Why are you doing sets of 5 instead of 10 for exercise X? Why three sets and not four, or four sets and not three? You may not be able to objectively answer, but the examination alone can be valuable. Think of how you'd answer another person looking at your workout and asking . . . why?

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5/3/1 + Kettlebells

Mike Mahler recently put an interesting program combining kettlebells and 5/3/1

Mahler's Aggressive Strength Fitness Tips #1

It's a good example of combining a solid basic progression for the main lift, plus using a conditioning and strengthening approach for the accessories. Neat.

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Spiking kettlebells

Martin Rooney just put up a video of himself and Jussi Jokinen, spiking kettlebells outside.

Obviously, you'll want to find an outside area that no one cares about. This will do a fair amount of lawn damage.

This reminds me of Ross Enamait's dumbbell shotput post.

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Breaking out of your comfort zone I

I think of a comfort zone as being an area where you are reassured by, and at ease with, both the doing and the results of doing the activity. You know how it'll be to do it and basically what you will get.

What is your comfort zone in exercise?

Is it steady state cardio? Three sets of 10 reps? Singles and doubles?

Is there a way you always exercise, either by design or default, without varying it?

Are their lifts you always do in the same manner, for the same reps, or even for the same weight?

Training is about adapting to new stimuli, so the idea of a comfort zone of exercising is a counter-intuitive one. You are essentially trying to force adaptation by doing the same thing over and over.

Over the next few posts, I plan to talk about "comfort" and its role in changing and challenging your body.

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Book Review: Knack Weight Training for Women

By Garcia, Leah
Published 2009
244 Pages

This book is aimed squarely at women. Each page is color-coded for difficulty and level of the exercise, has a nice little "Zoom" box with more information or just helpful workout information in general, and has both text and illustrations for the workouts.

The exercise choices include mostly "money" exercises - squats, pushups, lunges, etc. But equally they'll have you kneeling on swiss balls and doing curls, triceps kickbacks, lower-back rotational exercises, wobble-board squatting, and other marginal exercises. Plus there are a lot of isolation exercises most women (and men, for that matter) won't need right off the bat, like concentration curls, flys, and triceps extensions.

The exercise form is consistently good. Squats are to full depth, pushups are elbows tucked, etc. The pictures are excellent too but could use multiple angles.


Rating:
Content: 4 out of 5. The book covers all the ground it claims too, and does it pretty well. But it mixes the necessary with the not-so-useful so thoroughly it's hard to pick out what you really need to succeed.
Presentation: 3 out of 5. A very attractive book, but all the color coding, snazzy pictures, and descriptions don't make up for all the page flipping you'll need to do to make sense of the workout plans.

Overall: Not a bad book overall, and it's very attractive. But it seems hard to use - I flipped pages all over trying to make sense of the workouts. It's not very simple and straightforward, so you need to really dig before you have any idea what to do. Useful but not necessary if you've got another workout book to use.

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Coaching Cue: Stand Tall

One coaching cue I shameless stole from . . . someone, somewhere, is to "stand tall." At the top of a lunge, a step-up, a squat, a deadlift, during a press - you always want to "stand tall." What does that mean? Proper erect posture, with your head facing straight ahead, shoulders down and back, chest "open", and your glutes locked.

What's nice about "stand tall" is most people have a strong mental image of standing up tall like this. Cue them with it, and they'll stand properly at the top of a step-up (no lean or hunch or looking at the feet), they'll come up straighter out of a lunge (instead of making it a lean-over lunge), and they'll activate their muscles properly.

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Why we lift weights

My friend Tom recommended this article to me.

Pumping Iron to Prove Something

It's a good and succinct summary of why people train.

Tom's comment about symbolic rewards and their value is a good one too - ultimately it's a piece of paper or a hunk of metal, but it's given to you to remind you of the work and sacrifice and achievement that earned it.

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