Max Effort Planks
I decided to continue the “core” training theme that Stevo started yesterday. Oh and by the way I strongly dislike the word “core” because it’s such a huge buzzword but everyone knows what it means so I guess I have to use it. Anyways, I’m going to get straight to the point with this and not bore you with all the science that goes behind why core training is so good for you. One of the best ways to train your core are planks. Planks are the greatest thing since sliced bread because you can come up with a million different variations and depending on how hard you brace they will always be hard. However, in the recent past with my personal programming and for the more experienced athletes that I program for I had been staying away from any real direct core work. Why you ask? I honestly questioned its effectiveness. Keep in mind that I’m talking about VERY experienced lifters, not people with a young training age. I believe people who are beginners to intermediate should be resisting extension and rotation all day every day. In fact I think recess in elementary school should consist solely of planking and banded Pallof Presses (I’m joking but that would be wild to see). I just didn’t know if it was that effective for our more seasoned athletes and for myself because of the already insane amount of core work that occurs during the other exercises they do, especially during squatting and deadlifting. In my mind I kind of saw it as overkill (I feel like I’m going to get hate mail for saying all of this). But alas I always have our athletes’ best interests at heart and started to think about how I could start implementing core work back into the programs but do it in a way that would give maximum benefits. Enter the Max Effort Plank. This is by far my new favorite exercise both for me and our upper level athletes. There is really not much to it. It’s simply a perfect plank performed for 10-20 seconds with as much weight as you can do while keeping the form in check.
Who Should Do It: Please keep in mind that this should only be done if you are of a high training age. The main criterion for being able to do a max effort plank is being able to hold a perfect bodyweight plank for at least a minute without ANY degradation in form. This means chin tucked and neutral spine (posterior pelvic tilt, non-kyphotic t-spine). You can use a dowel rod and make sure your entire spine is keeping in contact with it to maintain honesty. Shaking is not a concern of mine; if your bracing hard enough you should probably be shaking.
The Benefits: Simply put, it’s going to make your stronger, and it makes you feel like Zeus. You can pile on the weight for only a short period of time allowing you to brace hard as if you were getting ready to pull or squat heavy. I feel it’s a little more strength specific rather than endurance specific like when doing 3 sets of 45 second perfect planks. The short duration and heavy load allows for a much more strength oriented core exercise and since implementing this exercise my deadlift, squat, and bench have felt a whole lot better. I feel so much stronger even just unracking the weight in my squat and bench and in the set-up of my deadlift plus the athletes I’ve given the exercise to have echoed the same feeling.
How To Implement It: I usually program direct core exercises on lower body days so it’s usually two days a week. I pick one of those days to be a “max effort day” and the other to be a “supplemental day”. This allows me the best of both worlds; I get a core day just for overall strength as well as a more endurance oriented day for overall health purposes (I feel both are equally as important). The heavy planks occur as 3 sets of 10-20 seconds waiving down from start to finish of a training block (meaning week 1 at 3X:20, week 2 at 3X:15, week 3 at 3X:10). On the supplemental day is when I program my more endurance focused core movements. Usually 3 sets of 30+ seconds of side planks or maybe 3X8-10 of banded Pallof presses with a 5 second hold. I’ll also throw in a dynamic core movement such as a reverse crunch for 3XAMRAP or a barbell rollout for 3XAMRAP.
Again, please observe some caution when doing this. Like I said I tend to only give this to people with a little more experience. If you are programming this for yourself or for kids/adults with a young training age I encourage you to stick with a lot of bodyweight core exercises for longer durations. This will ensure proper form and a proper progression.
May everyone’s days be filled with the resisting of rotation and extension.
Growth Hormone Response to Resistance Training
Lots of research has been conducted on how to elicit the greatest growth hormone (GH) response in the body. There are actually several GH isoforms, but by far, the most commonly studied is the 22-kD molecule that consists of 191 amino acids. If you’re attempting to get some more size on your frame, then you should be concerned about your body’s GH response to your lifts.
Rules of Thumb:
- GH is maximized via concentric muscle action, specifically.
- Men and women have similar GH responses to resistance exercise. However, women naturally have more GH at rest than men do.
- The idea the GH response is limited in “older” individuals is a fallacy. GH response is primarily linked to EFFORT, not age.
- Planning is crucial. If you are “winging-it” in the gym, you’re probably wasting your time - in terms of muscle growth. Everything is important: sets, reps, intensity, total volume, rest time, exercise selection. So, very difficult (some may say “insane”) set/rep schemes are in order. Ex. 10x10 @ 70% with 2-min rest or 6x15 @ 60% with 3-min rest.
Cocktail trivia you can breakout for your meat-head minded friends: growth hormone is secreted from the anterior pituitary, which receives its “orders” from a neural response initiated by higher brain centers – like the motor cortex – as they react to certain muscle actions.
One last tip: A Cup-O-Strength may be required to make it through 6x15 squats… hey, can’t hurt, right?
It All Starts With the Grip
I decided to give my on camera prowess a go today and talk about an awesome squat grip. It’s a thumbless, pinkyless grip that I’ve seen great results with. I learned this from a strength coach that I used to work under who currently trains at Tampa Barbell. I suggest giving this a shot if your shoulder and t-spine mobility is as bad as a T-Rex. Lay off me about my on camera ridiculousness; I felt like Ricky Bobby, wasn’t quite sure what to do with my hands. 
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On another note, I am preparing for my first geared (single-ply) meet in April. In all my other competitions I have competed raw and really had no idea how different lifting in gear would be. I got my bench shirt in the mail the other day and decided to try it out. Needless to say, it was rough. And after trying it out I don’t want to ever hear people say using gear is easier, it’s not. Out of all the things I’ve done in the weight room it was by far the hardest and most taxing. My bench shirt repeated yelled at me, “I PWN NOOBS”. Check out the video of my epic fail; couldn’t even get it to my chest.
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Excellent Strategy for Upper Back Development
I really don't think there's a such thing as "too much upper back work." In fact, I'd go so far to say that undergoing a training plan (be it athletic performance training, running, bodybuilding, etc.) without paying special heed to the portion of your torso that you don't see in the mirror is akin to constructing a house on a foundation of sand.
Keeping it brief, here's a simple, truncated list of what upper back work can do for you:
- Improve posture
- Augment your "big lift" training (upper back weakness is often a limiting factor in how much you can deadlift, squat/front squat, and bench press)
- Ward off shoulder issues
- Offset all the slouching we do on a daily basis
And, perhaps what most of the majority of the crowd cares about: Enhancing one's aesthetic. For the ladies in the crowd, nothing exudes more confidence than standing "tall" with the shoulders pulled back. For the men the crowd - with some added assistance from farmers carries - you can at least come close to emulating Tommy Conlon's trap/upper back development which totally PWNED in the movie Warrior (see picture on the left).
Yeah, exactly.
Alright, let's get to it. Here's an awesome strategy to give your upper back some much-needed attention:
Pair a bilateral 'pull' with a unilateral 'push,' and double the number of sets for the pulling exercise.
As soon as I heard this strategy from Eric Cressey I knew it was brilliant, and, upon implementing it in my own training, I wasn't disappointed.
What does it look like?
Pick a bilateral, horizontal pulling exercise (chest-supported row, barbell row, TRX row, cable row, etc.) and pair it with a unilateral pushing exercise (single-arm dumbbell press, single-arm overhead press, single-arm pushup, etc.). I recommend putting this pairing first during an upper body day, so the first two exercises would look something like this:
A1. Seated Cable Row, Pronated Grip
A2. SA DB Bench Press, Neutral Grip
HOWEVER, here's the kicker.....set up the set-rep scheme something like this:
A1. Seated Cable Row, Pronated Grip: 6x8 A2. SA DB Bench Press, Neutral Grip: 3x6/side
THEN, sequence the movements as follows: Seated Row --> SA Bench (left side) --> Seated Row --> SA Bench (right side) --> Seated Row --> SA Bench (left side) --> etc. etc. etc. clap yo' hands, fist pump x1,000.
I've been using this with enormous success for the past eight weeks or so in my own training. Why is this so awesome?
1. It's an easy way to keep your pulling vs. pushing volume in check. Most All of us tend to favor pressing over pulling, so setting up the sets/reps like this forces us to remain honest.
2. It's a fantastic way of getting in a lot of good horizontal pulling without feeling too fatigued. Since you essentially take a "mini break" between each set of rows to do your pressing exercise, it activates the antagonists of the back musculature, leaving you feeling a bit more rested by the time you get back to the row.
3. You're still providing plenty stimuli for the pressing muscles via the single-arm variation. Not to mention, the single-arm pressing exercise is an excellent method of receiving the added benefit of core stability training. Your have to brace your abs and glutes HARD to keep your torso from shifting side to side. (Note: If you're wondering why I have my arm out to the side like an idiot in the video, it's 'cuz I'm trying to counterbalance. Don't knock it till you try it....geeze....)
4. It just flows well. You can knock out this pairing in relatively little time while still getting a lot of work accomplished.
To put things in perspective, let's say you just do this during one of your upper body days for two, 4-week training blocks. Assuming you keep all your other pull/push pairings of equal volume (which I wouldn't...but let's just go with it...), that gives you an extra 240 reps of pulling over a mere 8-week period! Just by making that simple adjustment in your programming.
Even if you go with a "6x6" set-rep scheme for the bilateral pull, that still gives you 144 more repetitions of pulling over pushing, and we're talking only two months out of the year.
As long as you keep up with your deadlifts and other cornerstone lifts for the backside, imagine what will happen if you cycled this in and out of your training year round?
Press Around the Pain
If a bigger bench press is your goal there is a chance that at some point you will experience some type of elbow pain. This is usually brought on by the intensity, volume, or frequency at which you are bench pressing and most likely the combination of the three. What results is inflammation of the tendon near the olecranon. If left untreated the situation could become worse and result in tendinosis. When this problem comes about you have three options: You can take time off and let it recover, you can work through the pain, or you can find ways to work around the pain. Even though the smartest thing to do is take some time off, most people aren’t going to do this. Taking time off will reduce the stimulus to the area which will allow inflammation to subside and the area to heal.
Most people, including myself, are stubborn so if you refuse to take time off your next best option is working around the pain. This is what I did and I’m still making gains in my bench press while also reducing my elbow pain. The following are some of the ways I did that and I encourage you to implement them as well if you don't want to take the time off necessary to recover.
1. Take Out Elbow Dominant Accessory Work
Usually, what you’ll find, is that most elbow pain does not flare up during pressing exercises. Rather, the pain occurs during accessory movements that make the elbow the main point of action. Accessory movements such as triceps pushdowns, skull crushers, supine triceps extensions, and seated overhead triceps extensions should be avoided. These types of isolation exercises cause the elbows to take the brunt of the work and cause pain in already irritated elbows. Try substituting partial range of motion pressing movements, close grip pressing movements, or a combination of the two for your accessory movements. Things like a 4 board close grip bench press is a great one. As well as partial pushups to sandbags or to a 4-5 board works great as well. You’ll find that these movements will cause less elbow pain because the work is no longer completely centered on the elbow but spread out to the chest and shoulders.
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2. Hammer Your SMR and Mobility Work
When engaging in a high volume/high intensity press focused program, it is likely some serious adhesions will build up in your triceps. And if you’re not staying up on your shoulder and t-spine mobility, the problem in your elbows may get even worse. I learned these two lessons the hard way. Since making them a priority my elbows have gotten better, I still have a long way to go. Spend 5 minutes on your days off and after hard sessions rolling your triceps and anywhere around the problem area. I’ve found using the cardboard cylinder from the plastic wrap that athletic trainers use to wrap ice bags with to be an awesome tool to use for SMR. It’s small which allows for a little more concentrated roll and much more handy and easier to manipulate than an actual foam roller.
As I stated before it’s important to hammer your shoulder and t-spine mobility as well. Just like knee problems arise from poor hip mobility the same goes for elbow problems and lack of shoulder mobility. Poor shoulder mobility basically impedes the ability of the triceps to aid in shoulder extension and when coupled with excessive elbow dominant exercises the end result is inflammation and pain. Take time to work in some static stretching drills for your pecs, lats and rotator cuff. I found that working this in after your SMR sessions yields the best results. Be sure to also incorporate some t-spine extensions either on the wall or on a foam roller throughout your sessions as well in order to get that upper back a little more mobile. Try to accumulate around 5 minutes of total work for your shoulders and t-spine.
3. Use a Thorough Warm-up/Prehab work
In order to help work around your elbow pain, it’s imperative that the area have a good amount of blood flow before you slam it with heavy doubles or high volume accessory work. The same goes for your warm up and prehab work as it does for your accessory work; lay off the movements that isolate your elbow. Use full range pushups, band pullaparts, facepulls, rotator cuff circuits, etc. to warm up before pressing. These will not only get your elbows ready but also your upper back, shoulders and chest as well. One exercise I just recently started using that is a variation of an exercise I learned from Mark Bell is what I nicknamed the Elbow TKE. I’ve been using this almost every day for the past couple of weeks to warm up my elbows for not only pressing movements but for squatting, deadlifting, and just general blood flow work as well. This is an awesome exercise to isolate your triceps without putting direct pressure on the elbow.
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Keep on pressing my friends.
Mid-Point Goals
I want to give a few personal updates on my training these days. I am just over the half-way point with this pregnancy (21 weeks) and last week we found out we're having a boy (yay!). Since I've already been through this process once before I know that the next 20 or so weeks can become quite physically trying. So, I've reassessed my progress to this point and have created some new goals.
First 20-weeks goals:
- Build a solid aerobic base ahead of time - ACCOMPLISHED. With Arabella I had NO IDEA how important aerobic exercise would be for my day-to-day tasks. I ended up having to play "catch-up." You'd think this would happen late in the pregnancy when you've gained a bunch of weight... surprise! It doesn't! It happens very quickly as the result of increased blood volume. The aerobic training helps your body adapt more quickly. For Baby #2 I began a conditioning program (geared towards 800m runners) about 1 month before we started trying to "get pregnant" - it has worked wonders. Weight gain has been slower and I've felt much better.
- Address my body's areas of breakdown ahead of time - ACCOMPLISHED. I've learned that, while pregnant, I need to take special care of my lower back via simple strength movements like the bird-dog, address calf weakness and overall foot health, and can train with more vigor than I did with Arabella (again, I realized this about half-way through with her). The result is that while my back flares up from time-to-time, it is under control and overall I feel much more like myself in terms of strength and health. Regarding foot health, I won't know if I've been successful until after the baby is born.
Second 20-week Goals:
- Continue to prioritize low- to moderate-level conditioning but without laying the foundation for wicked plantar fasciitis. I'm shifting towards Prowler sled pushes 2x/week, stepper or bike or smililar low impact activity 2x/week, and 1 or 2x/week of actual running. Believe it or not, with Arabella I ran 3-4x/week (with low impact on off days) up until I was 38 weeks pregnant. For my Prowler pushes I will do a "trip" for every week pregnant I am - today I did 21. Took about 30 min.
- Keep up with lower leg pre-hab to keep my feet and calves strong enough to safely continue to propel my heavy(er) body when I'm running.
- Maintain pullups and chinups in my training regime. Sadly, these will not be body weight. BUT, on the upside, they can be called "Banded + 25lbs Pullups" by the due date - I'm sure somewhere in there things even out. With Arabella the stretch placed on my torso from the hang position was too uncomfortable/borderline painful to keep in (even banded). So, I'm hoping to keep them in throughout, if possible. Same approach as the Prowler: 1 rep for every week pregnant.
- Lastly - and, okay, I recognize this borders on the ridiculous - but, if everything goes smoothly and all the variables line up in the best possible way. Then my goal is to beat my time in "active" labor. Arabella took 55 minutes. I'm after a PR with this little guy.
One final note is that I'm not entirely a crazy person, I do certainly understand the limits of my body and the safety of the baby comes first. So, as with #1, I know when to dial things down if my body isn't feeling quite right. And, the above is by NO MEANS my recommendation to pregnant women looking to stay active throughout their pregnancies. Rather, this is the by-product of a body (mine) which has been trained consistently at a very high level for about a decade.
I categorized this post under "Awesome" and "Chest Thumping" because, well, staying active throughout a pregnancy is really, really tough. So, anyone who manages that feat should feel it is both awesome and a serious point of pride!
