Exercise & Your Body's Circadian Rhythm
Anyone who travels across time zones regularly knows quite well about the challenges of trying to quickly get your body on-board with it's new schedule. With the constant quest being to find the perfect combination of rest, food, relaxation, etc. to ease the transition quickly.
So, is there an answer?
A recent study from the University of Kentucky examines the role of "zeitgebers" - or time cues - in helping to reset the body's internal clock.
As it turns out the body has several tried and true time cues. The most common, strongest, and well-known is the role of night vs. day (or dark vs. light). Meals are also an important and well-known cue to help set the body's circadian rhythm.
But, as it turns out, scheduled exercise is also an important time cue:
These data provide evidence that the molecular circadian clock in peripheral tissues can respond to the time of exercise suggesting that physical activity contributes important timing information for synchronization of circadian clocks throughout the body.
What's the best way to quickly adjust to a major time zone change?
- Make yourself sleep when it's dark and wake when it's light outside.
- Eat meals at regular times (Usually have lunch in NY at 1pm? Then eat lunch at 1pm London time, too).
- Stick with your usually scheduled training times. Don't fall for waiting for your body to tell you 11pm "feels right" for training, that will prolong the adjustment process.
Hmm, that list above looks suspiciously like good advice to follow whether your traveling or just looking for good information on how to make the most out of your day and maximize energy levels!
Congrats to Carson Eschmann at the USAPL Richmond Open!
This past Saturday I, along with some of the SAPT crew, traveled down to Richmond for the USAPL Richmond Open powerlifting meet. The entire event was a blast, the energy in the room was infectious, and it was a great opportunity to support fellow competitors and network with some strength coaches in the Northern Va area. I had the privilege of coaching one of our high school athletes, Carson, through his first powerlifting meet down in Richmond. And he rocked it!!
(SAPT intern Tadashi is on the far left, and Carson is in the right-middle. Ignore the other two clowns)
Even though Carson only trained 3x/week with us leading up to the meet (and sometimes less, due to college visits and illness), he set PRs on all of his lifts, and went 9 for 9 on his attempts; something that I think can only be appreciated by those who have competed themselves and have faced the rigors of competition judging. I might also add that he shined above all of his peers with regards to exercise technique, and placed first in his age group/weight class.
Here is a brief video showcasing his 3rd attempt for each lift:
I was going to list a few of the reasons why what Carson set out to do/accomplish is so remarkable, especially considering he is still in freaking high school! Mike Robertson already wrote an EXCELLENT article over at t-nation.com on the topic, however, so I'll direct you there:
7 Reasons Everyone Should do a Powerlifting Meet
(^^^Click Me^^^)
Read the above article, and then give Carson a high five when you're done.
SAPT coach Ryan Wood also competed, and did awesome, but I'm pretty sure he's going to discuss his meet for his blog post on Thursday so I'm not going to steal his thunder now (even though I totally could.....muahahah).
On another note, I place 100% blame on Carson for causing me to split the entire backside of my favorite pair of cargo shorts. Not because his deadlift is so awesome (even though his deadlift certainly does cause many an unsuspecting victim to destroy his or her back of the pants), but because, while in the warm-up room, I was helping Carson get ready for his opening deadlift attempt, and, while leaning over like so, felt+heard a very distinct:
riiiiiiipppppp
moving from top to bottom down my shorts:
Yep. I had to then spend the entire rest of the powerlifting meet (and the remainder of my weekend in Richmond) walking around with a gaping hole in the backside of my shorts. Curse you, Carson!!!
Friday Musings 4/13/12: Powerlifting Meet, Baseball, Sheep Shipping, and Something You Can Help Me With
1. I'm really excited to head down to Richmond tomorrow morning to support Coach Ryan, as well as student-athlete Carson, in their powerlifting meet tomorrow as they throw some heavy things around. Ryan wrote a brief write-up on his meet prep, along with including a video of his opening attempts, HERE if you're interested. We're also really pumped to support Carson, who, as a HIGH SCHOOLER no less, has been training his butt off and will boldly be stepping out on to the platform for his first powerlifting meet ever. Carson trains more intensely than just about anyone I know, and I have no doubt he's going to do well.
There are also two other things that make me excited about my trip to Richmond. The first is that I'll have a chance to hang out with my older brother and his fiancee, to catch up and all that good stuff. With regards to the second reason I'm excited about my trip to Richmond....well, something that not many of you may know is that I have a little side business in the sheep shipping market. It will be interesting to see if I can gather any new customers (needing sheep for pets, bodyguards for the house, or training for the sheep fight club) during my stay outside my usual sheep-shipping grounds of Northern Va.
2. This past Tuesday, Kelsey and I had the privilege of getting to watch a lot of our high school athletes battle it out in a baseball game (Yorktown vs. Washington-Lee). The one frustrating component of working as a strength coach is the fact that you have to work evenings, which is the very same time that most of the (high school) games take place, so it's always tough to find a game one of our athletes are playing in that we can actually attend.
Last night, we were able to see a ton of SAPT athletes get after it:
- Red Dowdell (home run)
- CJ Herold (home run)
- David Palmer
- Bennett Nagurka
- Daniel Whitaker (3 for 3 and a two-run triple)
- Graeme Fineman (pitching as a freshman on Varsity)
- Lucas Dolan
- Andrew Long (pitching as a sophomore on Varsity)
- Justin Snow (two hits and four RBI)
- Seth Whitmore (doubled)
- Luke Fichter (two hits)
Needless to say, it was awesome to see the guys "in their element" outside the walls of the weight room, getting after it on the field. We look forward to similar/related opportunities in the future!
3. We recently started a newsletter for all our "in-network" SAPT people, and we're working on making it so that any of you reading can sign up for it on the website (I know I know, we're behind the ball a bit), so stay tuned! With this we're hoping to provide training tips, news updates, and content that we don't post on the blog.
4. Lastly, I've been experiencing a bit more "writer's block" than usual lately.
Normally, even though I definitely don't consider myself a "writer" per se, when I open my laptop to write, ideas flow to me fairly seamlessly (at least that's what I like to tell myself). Lately though, I've been in a rut where I just can't seem to get my thoughts together and/or choose a topic that I'm satisfied with.
As such, if any of you would like to see any particular topics covered here on the blog, please let me know!
Feel free to drop something in the comments section, or email me (steve@studentathletept.com) with anything.....no, really, anything.....that may interest you to see discussed on here.
2012 USAPL Richmond Open: Opening Attempts
The 2012 USAPL Richmond Open is a couple days away and I’ve officially switched into competition mode. This has been a very up and down training cycle. I’m attributing this to trying to get used to my gear and my own impatience. This is my first geared competition (single-ply) and I spent FAR too much time trying to get a lot of weight out of my gear. I rushed into trying to get a lot of support out of my gear which in hindsight was the worst thing I could have done, why? People spend years trying to figure out and use their equipment correctly; I tried to figure it all out in about 11 weeks. This took all of my energy and focus off the NUMBER ONE thing…. Getting stronger! Instead of spending those 11 weeks trying to get the most weight out of my equipment I should have just been trying to get stronger. After all this time I’ve gotten VERY little help out of my equipment and didn’t get much stronger at all. It was extremely impatient and immature of me to do that and trust me when I say I have learned from my mistakes. I know now that learning the gear will come I just need to focus on getting strong. With all that said I’ve sat down and examined everything that has gone on and what I hope to accomplish out of the meet and it’s quite simple…. Perform to the best of my abilities and get at least an 1100 pound total. I put all of this behind me a couple days ago and am now completely focused on the positive. I can tell everyone one thing, no one will compete as hard as me and no one will leave it all on the platform like I will.
Opening Attempts...
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It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
-Theodore Roosevelt
Only Four Exercises? A Confession to Make
I've got a confession to make. But first, I need to briefly touch on something..... You know the 80-20 rule, aka, the Pareto Principle? You know, the phrase which states that, for many events, 80% of the effects stem from 20% of the causes? I've referenced the 80-20 rule in my writings before to hit on the point that, within the sphere of physical training, 80% of your results are going to stem from 20% of the exercises/modalities you choose.
For example, let's say we have Person A and Person B. Both A and B possess identical genes, have the same training history, etc. etc. etc., and we have each of them perform the following workouts:
Person A: Squat --> leave gym Person B: Squat --> romanian deadlift --> lunge --> reverse hyper --> lying leg curl --> leave gym
I'm willing to bet that if you were to compare the results of Person A and Person B, the results of A would be pretty darn close to B. In fact, in some cases, the results of A may be even better than B.
Which leads me to my confession: Many times I will give my athletes and clients new exercises solely for the purpose of keeping things "fun" for them, as opposed to doing it because it's intrinsically necessary for their success in the gym.
"Woah, woah, WOAH there Mr. Reed, shouldn't you always do what is best for your hard-working athletes and clients?" you are probably asking me right now.
Well, in a way, I am giving them what is best for them.
You see, there are a couple little facets of human nature pertinent to this discussion. I like to call one of them "boredom." The other characteristic is something I like to refer to as "always looking for the silver bullet" (not as concise as the first one, but I hope you catch my drift). It's the very reason why the popular fitness magazines continue to sell. Because the editors are smart, understand how to prey on human nature, and know that if they place just the right promises on the cover, then their magazines will fly off the shelves like water during Y2K.
And the strength coach walks a fine line between managing these elements of human nature (i.e. continuing to give the athletes enough variety to keep them interested in their training), and giving the athletes what they need for success (which may be just doing 1-3 exercises per day, albeit manipulating the volume/intensity throughout the training cycle).
If the athletes aren't having fun, they aren't going to want to come back to train. If they don't want to come back to train, then when they do show up to train (because their coach/parent tells them to, or because they do it for the same reason they know homework is good to do), they are going to do so begrudgingly and give a half-hearted effort while in the gym. And then everyone loses out anyway.
It's a similar concept to general fitness enthusiasts. If they don't believe their program is going to give them more sculpted arms, or reduce their body fat, then these things probably won't happen! If they DON'T BELIEVE that they won't reach their goals without constantly doing new exercises, and making things as hard as possible (if it's not hard, it can't work, right???), then they'll be lucky to see their desired results anyway.
This actually reminds me of when we prepared Jason for his selection and assessment with the US Special Forces. After his first wave of training, he approached me and, to his credit, was very honest and blunt and expressed to me his concern about a few things in his programming.
In essence, he doubted that what we were giving him was actually going to get him from Point A to Point B.
I looked at him, and responded with, "If you don't believe in the program we are giving you, then it's not going to work regardless. Trust that what we are providing is going to help you succeed, and you will succeed."
Needless to say, he nodded his head and from that moment on grabbed the bull by the horns throughout the remainder of his training. You can discover the end results of his training by reading his testimonial in the link above.
Anyway, my point in all this is that oftentimes we get so lost by majoring in the minors, that we forget the "bread and butter" of what makes our training a success. For me personally, I've found that by focusing on four exercises at a time give me the best results. And every time I try to add more, it causes me to stray off the straight and narrow path toward my goals. For the past 10 weeks, these four exercises have comprised 95% of my training time:
1) Deadlifts 2) Inverted Rows 3) Sled Pushes 4) 1/2 Kneeling Landmine Presses (perhaps the only "press" variation I've found that has yet to irritate my cranky shoulder)
And you know what? I've continued to get stronger, and I've never felt better.
So I guess I'd revise the Pareto Principle to say that, in the realm of physical training, it's more of a 90-10 rule or, heck, even a 95-5 rule. There are of course exceptions to this, and no I wouldn't have a beginner perform only four exercises per training cycle.
I was kind of all over the place in this one, so let me try to best sum up my points:
1) Less is more. A very small percent of the exercises you choose (assuming you choose them wisely) are going to be responsible for the large majority of your results. 2) Even though #1 is true, sometimes the strength coach has to throw the athletes and clients a bone (or three) to keep them interested/having fun. Training should be fun, and even if my programming is partially motivated by helping those under my watch enjoy training for the sake of training, then I see nothing wrong with this. After all, not everyone gets off to doing inverted rows ten weeks in a row. 3) I'm not saying that one never needs to do direct ab or arm work. Don't be silly. 4) If you don't believe in the program you're doing, then it's not going to work, no matter how "perfect" it is.
Video: KB Clean & Jerk
The Kettlebell Clean and Jerk
What is it? An easier to learn and more forgiving variation of the classic barbell clean and jerk.
Why I like it: Primarily as a great variation of a CNS primer. Drop in a few sets of 3-5 repetitions per arm before hitting the core movement for the day's training session. By the time you work your way through your warm-up and this primer and arrive at the main movement, you'll feel great and be ready to go!
Got any technique tips? Of course I do: The first portion of this movement begins as a KB Swing, but you should only take the swing up to waist level (not shoulder/eye level). From there rotate your catch arm through an upper-cut style movement pattern to then "catch" the kettlebell. Be conscious of moving your arm around the KB as this will soften the impact of the "bell" against your forearm. From here, explosively push your body away from the bell as you accelerate it overhead.
Kelsey took my post idea for the Turkish Get-up yesterday, so I had to switch it up. Did anyone notice Steve and I literally answered the same question twice last week? Clearly, I didn't read his Monday post... trying not to do that two-weeks in a row!
