Grip, Dip, and RIP!
Obviously, we’re talking about DEADLIFTS! If you haven’t heard it before, “grip, dip and rip” typically refers to the set-up and execution of picking up heavy barbells off the ground. Grip- Grab the bar and squeeze it tight. Dip- Dip your hips down, get your back flat. RIP!- RIP that bar off the floor!
I’m a big fan of the phrase. It takes an extremely technical lift like the deadlift and boils it down to three simple words that happen to rhyme. Awesome. Of course, when teaching someone how to properly pick up heavy things, more effective cueing is going to be necessary. However, if you’ve been deadlifting for a while and your technique is in check, sometimes you need to stop obsessing over the MILLIONS of details involved in the technique and just RIP that bar off the ground and into lockout.
The Dip
Although each cue deserves a blog post of its own, what I want to talk about specifically is that crucial point between the grip and the rip. That moment immediately before you pull when you set your position can make or break your lift. So what really goes on in that short duration in your deadlift set-up?
Bracing and Setting Your Lower Back
The moment you set your hips into position is also the moment when you should be bracing as hard as you can through your abs. With your hips in place and your abs as tight as possible, you set your lower back into a neutral position to protect your spine from the high sheer and compressive forces you’re about to hit it with.
Applying Tension in the Hamstrings
Pulling your hips down into position while simultaneously flattening out your lower back will place a significant amount of tension on your hamstrings, which is a great thing to have happen right before your deadlift. By creating this pre-stretch, you will be able to take advantage of the stretch reflex that we humans so thoroughly enjoy. When the muscle spindles in your hamstrings are stimulated by the stretch they will freak out and wake up all the contractile units, who will all jump on-board the deadlifting train and say “alright boss, LET’S DO THIS!”
One thing to keep in mind regarding the pre-stretch on your hamstrings is that the longer you hold that stretched position the more the reflex potential will be diminished. Think about it in terms of another lift: what’s easier, a touch-and-go bench press or a bench press with a 3 second pause on your chest? So when you dip down into position on your deadlift and feel tight, PULL! Don’t hang out at the bottom for too long.
Setting Your Upper Back
Another key component in preparing for a nice deadlift is setting your upper back. This means shoulders down and back, sufficient t-spine extension, neck packed, and using your lats. During my “dip” on the deadlift, I also like to roll my shoulders from a shrugged position into a packed position while doing my best to extend through the t-spine. I also like to apply some external rotation torque on the bar with my hands because I feel like it helps me “turn on” my lats.
All of THAT in the Dip?!?
Yep, all of that happens in the dip. It’s a lot of detail, but as I mentioned earlier, don’t get caught up in trying to go down a HUGE technique checklist before every pull. Trust me, you’ll drive yourself crazy because you will always be able to find an aspect of the lift you didn’t do with absolute perfection. Just work on fixing a couple form issues at a time and keep on grippin’ dippin’ and rippin’!
Set/Rep Schemes: Is 3x10 King?
We received a question recently about set/rep schemes (for SAPT-ers, those first two columns on your program sheet) and I thought it would be a fabulous blog post. "What's the right formula for number of sets and number of reps for an exercise? I'm so used to hearing '3 sets of 10,' is that right or wrong?"
Excellent question, especially since the coaches at SAPT don't really program 3 sets of 10 on a regular basis. Hasn't this been a burning question on your mind? Of course it has, so let us dive in.
First, a brief history lesson. The famous "3 sets of 10" actually came out of the brains of two fellows named Dr. Thomas Delorme and Dr. Arthur Watkins. They were the first ones to develop a structured weight training protocol based on progressive overload. They wrote a paper (1948), and later a book (1950-ish), detailing their research findings. One quote I thought was rather lovely:
“The number of contractions per bout is arbitrarily set at ten. If fewer repetitive lifts were required, the resistance could be increased. Whether ten is the optimum number for rapid increase in strength has never been established in terms of criteria other than the empirical practice of weight-lifters. It is probable that the number closely approaches the optimum.”
See? 3 sets of 10 reps is not set in stone; it's just the numbers the good doctors worked with and recorded their results. You can read about it here, if you want.
Now, moving onto why we've expanded upon Drs. Delorme and Watkins' work. Subsequent research as led to insights on how muscles work and grow stronger. In the effort of remaning true to the KISS principle, I'll list a small snippet of the knowledge out there. Keep in mind that this is merely a scratch upon the surface of what goes on physiologically during weight training. (such as, energy systems used, hormonal responses and what types of conditions elicit the various physical responses of the body. It will blow your mind. Mine is continual blown up every time I read more about muscles. )
Ahem,
- As load increases, reps decrease and vice versa.
- As total exercise volume increases, intensity will decrease and vice versa.
- Muscles will adapt to the demands placed upon them (SAID principle).
So how does that help us coaches (and self-trained folks) determine set/reps. Well, as always, it depends.
If your goal is strength (which, by the way, it should be), you'll want to stick to lower rep ranges (1-5) with weights closer to your 1 rep max. I shall NOT be diving into percentages and what percentage matches with what rep scheme as I've found they're wildly different person to person. Generally, the closer you approach your 1 rep max, the less repetitions you can perform. As a coach, the exercises that stay in this range, typically, are the money-makers: squats, deadlifts, chin/pull ups, and presses.
If your goal is strength, which it should be, (no, this is not a typo. Strength is the KING of physical adaptations.) using the 6-8 rep range lends itself well to assistance lifts such as single-leg work, rows, pushups, anything-that's-not-your-main-lift, again, you can lift a heavier load for 6 reps than you can for 10, so... strength means picking up heavy things. This rep range affords a longer time under tension (meaning the muscles are working longer than say a 2 rep deadlift set), therefore building up their strength-endurance a bit instead of, say, a max-effort strength.
Now, this is not to say that you can't get stronger using the 3x10 protocol (assuming you're increasing the load), but it tends to only work for a little while, and it works best with beginners. In order for muscles to adapt to lifting heavy things, you have to impose that demand upon them by lifting heavy things. It would be more effecient to lift a lot of weight a few times than a little weigh a lot of times (this goes back to the energy system and hormonal response thing I mentioned earlier. This will be a future post... but for now, from a physiological standpoint, you'll get stronger faster lifting more weight a few times.)
Comic break.
Another reason, outside of the strength reasons, SAPT coaches use sets less than 10 is technique. We've found that having someone, especially a beginner, perform sets of 10 squats just ends up in fail. Form goes out the window as muscles get tired and attention wanders. There's a lot going on in the big lifts (chest up, butt back, toes up, on your heels, brace... etc) and it's difficult to keep it all in your head when you're first learning for extended sets. Thus, sets of 5, for our beginners, works out nicely. Our more experienced athletes stick with this rep range as they progress, well, because they're lifting heavier things.
Brain overload...
We do program sets of 10, but usually it's a corrective or mobility exercise, such as a facepull or wall slide, or sometimes we'll throw in some reverse crunches so our athlete's can "feel the burn."
In the end, we stick to the lower rep ranges to either practice technique (beginners) or elicit strength adaptations (experienced). As the smart Drs. said, the reptition number was arbitrarily set at 10. Later, research found that strong people lift heavy things a few times. The set/rep combinations are endless; train for strength, keep it simple, and have a fun workout!
Colorado Dreamin’
Last week I had an awesome opportunity to spend a few days snowboarding, relaxing, and getting beat up by trees in Winter Park, Colorado. Having spent most of my time here on the East Coast it was amazing to witness the breathtaking scenery and culture out in Winter Park. If you like snow and want to get away, I definitely recommend visiting! The Mountains are Huge… Like Really Huge
Growing up I’ve frequently visited the local mountains within a few hours of Northern Virginia, and they now seem like mole hills in comparison to the mountains out west. In the handful of days that I was there I did my best to explore as much of the mountain as I could, but despite my efforts the last day of my trip came and I realized I only hit a tiny fraction of the skiable terrain (which turned out to be over 3,000 acres).
Altitude is No Joke
I’m by no means an elite level athlete, but I feel like I’m in decent shape. So when I began walking up a flight of stairs and started breathing heavy I couldn’t help but think… “HUH!?”
The base of Winter Park is about 9,000ft above sea level, with the highest peak being 12,060ft. Compare this to Northern VA’s ~500ish ft above sea level.
I could almost FEEL the decreased oxygen levels in the air, which is a big reason for some endurance athletes using altitude training to improve performance when competing at lower elevations. The idea is that the body will start to acclimatize to the thin air and adaptations will occur, such as naturally increased erythropoietin (leading to increased red blood cells), increased number of blood vessels, and increased buffering capacity. In other words, improving the body’s oxygen delivery system. It is still a controversial training method and I cannot say from dedicated experience that it “works” (I was there for five days and I doubt my mile time improved).
If you’re planning a trip to a location of high altitude I’ll pass along the advice that the locals told me: “Drink a ton of water and don’t overexert yourself.”
Elbow Dislocations are a Rare but Awful Injury
Like other sports and activities, injuries are just an unfortunate slice of the snowboarding pie. A friend of mine took a hard fall while bombing down a hill at probably 45 mph, and didn’t get up as quickly as I’d hoped. During the tumble his shoulder ended up locked into internal rotation with his forearm trapped between his back and the ground, all while skidding across the snow.
This resulted in the bones in his elbow (humerus, radius, and ulna) separating from eachother. Despite the severe pain and gross looking elbow he handled it like a champ and we were able to get him to ski patrol.
According to a veteran in the ski patrol department, an elbow dislocation is one of the highest ranked injuries purely from a pain scale perspective. Apparently it is a very rare injury as well, at least on the slopes. With close to 40 years of ski patrolling under his belt, he has only seen two elbow dislocations during his career.
Pizza and Honey is a Match Made in Heaven
After a hard day of riding we went to get some food and ended up at the resort’s pizza parlor. When I walked inside I noticed something strange: there was a bottle of honey at the tables.
Confused and afraid, I demanded answers. The response was simply “Um… to put on your pizza? Duh.” I drizzled some honey on my pizza and was very pleasantly surprised at how delicious it was. It was even better with honey+sriracha.
My friend’s injury was a bummer, but otherwise I had a great time in Winter Park. The community is extremely friendly (no one locks their doors!), the food is great, the mountain is amazing, and the scenery is really out of this world. I definitely cannot wait to visit again!
Getting Dunked On
Fingers are pointed, laughs are boisterous, and a sense of embarrassment often fills a basketball player when he gets dunked on. I previously wrote about the reaction to Guard Brandon Knight getting dunked on by Center DeAndre Jordan. Brandon Knight: Dunked ON!
Having worked with basketball players at the high school, college, and pro level I have noticed that the “getting dunked on” phenomenon is something that exists at all levels of basketball. The act of dunking on someone should have more to do with the dunker rather than the player who was dunked on, yet players around the country often focus on the defender.
After the Knight dunk, NBA players took to twitter to voice their opinion:
Harrison Barnes, the rookie starting Small Forward for Golden State said, “Why jump B Knight?”
LeBron James said, “Hey coach Spo I'm gone have to just give those 2 pts up!! Hahahaha! Damn Brandon Knight. Gots to he more careful!”
Shelvin Mack, who recently signed a 10-day contract with the Atlanta Hawks said, “Why did he jump?”
Brandon Rush, who has played 2 games this year due to a season ending injury said, “Brandon Knight, no bro.”
Knight, who graduated from high school with a 4.3 PGA and was the Gatorade National Player of the Year, took the ribbing by his peers in stride by making light of the dunk. He also took the ball to the hoop on the very next possession and got to the foul line, where he made 2 free throws.
The perception that Knight did something wrong by making an attempt to block a shot is crazy to me. He was simply doing his job by playing defense. Great players are willing to take risks and fail. What if the 6-3 Point Guard was able to block the 7-foot Center? Surely that would have been impressive, and more importantly, it would have stopped 2 points from going in the basket.
It is with that in mind that I decided to lookup some of the greatest basketball players of all time and see if they’ve been dunked on. I found footage of Jordan, Barkley, Duncan, Ewing, Mutombo, O’Neil, Wade, Bryant, and James all getting dunked on. You can checkout my video here …..
Turns Out, the Legends Get Dunked On, Too!
So it turns out that Knight is actually in quite good company. And maybe, just maybe, he took his first step toward greatness. So the next time a guy gets dunked on, how about we give praise to not only the dunker, but also the player who was dunked on. After all, it certainly is an act work acknowledging, but for completely different reasons.
Lessons of the Jaw: A Few Thoughts on the Body's Intradependence
As you read this, I'm either in surgery or in the recovery room. For those who don't know, I am having lower jaw surgery to correct a severe over (also called "open bite") and cross bite. That being said, blogging might be a bit spotty (more so than usual) over the next couple weeks, but I'm going to do my best. Seeing as this surgery has been on the forefront of my mind for quite a while, I thought I'd share a bit of the physiology connections I've learned over the past year or so. It's actually pretty interesting how dependent the body is on it's collective parts. So dependent that something up in my face affects the rest of my body rather dramatically. We'll do bullet points because I really like them.
Lesson 1: Pain is sneaky. Sometimes the origin and/or cause is not where you think.
I've known I would need this corrective surgery at some point for quite a while now. About 3 years ago, I experienced severe and prolonged pain in my tempromandibular joint (TMJ), the hinge joint of your jaw that connects the lower to the upper. I didn't have the means to have surgery at the time and the pain receded a bit, so I put it on the back burner. Just over a year ago, I started having migraine/severe headaches in the front of my head that would last for days, even weeks. Medications didn't help. Then I started to have shoulder pain on my right side. This made me think something else was going on since I knew I wasn't doing anything that would aggravate my shoulder.
I popped over to this site and discovered that a tight sternocledomastoid can cause both pain in the head and shoulder. Sure enough, I had knots the size of marbles all along these muscles. Guess what? The SCM connects right up behind the ear, near the TMJ, thus a misaligned jaw (being used for thousands of reps per day) will definitely cause some tension in the poor ol' SCM.
Lesson 2: The suboccipital muscles are really, really important.
I also had pain in the base of my skull on a regular basis, thanks to irritated suboccipital muscles. I trolled around to find some information and perhaps home treatment to help manage the pain symptoms. I came across fellow strength coach, Patrick Ward's post here. Readit, seriously, it applies to everyone. It'll blow your mind how important those little muscles are to your overall health. Patrick Ward goes into the implications of tight suboccipitals and their effect down the stream, such as posture in general and neural control over postural muscles. I found it interesting that "voluntary trunk control" was one of the muscle functions affected. Guess what? I struggle with bracing my right side. I know that sounds weird, but I can not get as "tight" on the right side without really thinking about it. Might be why I have a collapsed disc to the right side?...
Lesson 3: It's seriously all connected.
Then I came across this paper (you don't have to read the whole thing unless you're super-into-science and research papers) that linked symptoms of TMJ dysfunction and jaw pain with the suboccipital muscles. Check out pages 13 (yup, I have all those symptoms, including impaired vision) I should also note that I've suffered from vertigo since I was 13, so perhaps, once my jaw/bite is corrected and those muscles are no longer strained, I might see a decrease in symptoms. Page 15 which connects hypertonic (too tight) neck muscles with TMJ muscles dysfunction and pain, and 17 describing short cervical muscles and posture and how they research has found correlations... craziness. Upper cross syndrome, a posture <--- description used by those in the health field, is either a creator of tight neck muscles or the result of tight suboccipitals. It's a bit of chicken-egg questions, but either way, they tend to coexist. So, if you have a hunched posture, try massaging the base of your skull, that might help loosen some things up!
Lesson 4: Pain eventually conquers proprioception
We recently had an in-service where we learned about the neuromuscular implications of injuries in regards to training athletes. The main point I retained was, if muscle tissue is acutely damaged, such as a sprain, or chronically irritated, such as repeated spraining of said ankle, the muscle spindles, which reside in the tendons, will no longer respond accordingly, much like Ariel responding to her father's command to stay away from land... Poorly.
Muscle spindles are proprioceptive organs that control the stretch-reflex, for example when the doctor taps your knee and your leg kicks forward a bit, the muscle spindles are rapidly stretched (when the mallet hits your patella tendon) and they respond by sending a signal to your brain to flex the quads (thus, pulling your knee into a bit of extension).
So, damaged muscle tissue, specifically the muscle spindles and especially chronically damaged tissue ("damaged" doesn't necessarily mean an acute injury, but a chronic posture, like your shoulders slumping and your neck protruding forward as you peer at the computer screen) tend to lose their ability to provide valuable feedback to the body in the form of proprioception (where your body is in space i.e. balance). Instead, pain signals are sent. This is bad on two fronts: 1) it hurts 2) lack of proprioception means loss of muscular control, be it voluntary or involuntary.
I don't know too much on how to restore muscle spindles and transfer them back to being proprioceptive and not pain oriented, but I do know that a) removing the irritaing stimulus (in my case, setting my jaw in the correct alignment) b) improving tissue quality through manual therapy (professional or at home) and c) retraining the muscles to move how they should (i.e. standing up straight instead of slouching, or going back to the ankle example, walking without a limp or favoring the ankle).
Lesson 5: Implications for training.
Another random fact, there's a correlation with a cross bite and scapular winging (the shoulder blade sticking up instead of laying flat on the rib cage). Winging impairs overhead movement, messes up the rhythm of the humerus and shoulder girdle and makes picking and lifting heavy things a bit problematic. I've done just about every exercise under the sun to fix my wing, to no avail... maybe surgery?
Anyway, as a coach, just by looking at my own situation helps me work with our athletes here at SAPT. If at first the basic, usual cues don't fix a problem, like "pulling yourself to the floor" during a push up to fix a winging scapula or "crack a walnut" to prevent knee pain during the squat, then, maybe there's an underlying issue that demands a different approach. Maybe some dedicated soft tissue work is in order to correct a nagging pain or it might be severe enough to refer out to a physical therapist or doctor. Whatever the case, if after working with an athlete diligently doesn't solve the problem, probably time to delve a bit deeper. (and check their bite! Kidding.)
Ryan Wood at Aggressive Strength’s SPF Powerlifting Meet
About a week and a half ago a good friend and former SAPT coach Ryan Wood competed in his most recent powerlifting meet. I once again served as his “handler” for the meet. A “handler” is basically the lifter’s personal assistant throughout the meet, helping him/her into and out of their powerlifing gear, assisting with warm-ups, wrapping knees, and basically taking care of all miscellaneous business so that the lifter can focus on three things: squatting, benching, and deadlifting!
Here is a recap of his performance that earned him first place in the 181 single-ply division!
SQUAT
The squat is definitely Ryan’s best lift. He opened up with an EASY 390, and cruised right through his second attempt of 425. From there we called for 450 on his third attempt, which flew up surprisingly fast. 3 for 3 on the squat, with a 19lb PR!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoTmBoQgmN0
BENCH
My biggest concern with Ryan’s bench was waiting for the “rack” call on the attempts. Failing to wait for the head judge to give a “rack” call before placing the bar back onto the hooks will result in a missed lift, no matter how pretty the actual bench press looked. Some of Ryan’s training partners let me know that he was falling into the habit of racking the bar too early, so with every attempt I made sure the last thing he heard from me was “wait for the ‘rack’”.
His opener of 295 looked like dynamic effort work (it was lightning fast), and proceeded to hit 325 with no problem. His third attempt was 350, which was a grind, but he pushed through it and locked it out. All commands from the judge were obeyed and he went 3 for 3 on the bench, with a whopping 48lb PR!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ4outaCFG0
DEADLIFT
Ryan will be the first to tell you that the deadlift is his arch nemesis. It is continually improving, but has always been a weak point in his powerlifting repetoire. He opened up with 375, a very clean pull. Second attempt was 405, which wasn’t too slow, but it definitely drained him. We called for 425 for his third attempt, and although he gave it a good ride the bar wouldn’t budge past his knees. 2 for 3 on the deadlift, but still walked away with a 2lb PR!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jllGgE5dwGc
TOTAL
All in all Ryan ended up with a 1205 total, a 69lb total PR, and 1st Place in his division! His consistency and hard work during his meet prep paid off, and got to leave the meet with some new numbers in the books, a plaque, and some new goals to achieve in his next meet. Big thanks to all those who came and showed support!
