How to Fix Anterior Humeral Glide During Horizontal Pressing
One of the first articles I wrote was on Anterior Humeral Glide during horizontal rowing which you can find here. I won’t spend a great deal of time going over what AHG is as that would just be overkill and I’ll leave the area of redundancy up to the creators of American Idol.
In the following video I’ll take you through how to prevent AHG during horizontal pressing, namely during the bench press and pushup. Thanks to our intern Jarrett for volunteering for the video even though I kinda through him under the bus; sorry man! Also for another great cue to boost your bench and to stay out of AHG check out Stevo’s article, Quick Tip to Improve Your Bench Press: The other 50%+ of the Equation
50% OFF: The 50/50 Training Challenge
The 50/50 Training Challenge - 50% OFF for 1 Special Team!
If you're a regular reader of SAPTstrength, you've no doubt noticed our recent introduction of Mental Mondays which is leading the way to SAPT's additional focus towards mental preparation and coaching. Well, Mental Mondays are merely the tip of the iceberg in new service offerings that are directed at one specific portion of our mission statement:
Our mission is to provide quality comprehensive training products and services to help facilitate and educate our clientele towards athletic and intellectual success on every level from amateur to professional. To achieve our mission we will conduct business with the following responsibilities in mind: obey the law, take care of our employees, take care of our clientele, respect our competition, respect our environment, participate in our community...
I crafted that statement over 5 years ago. Happily, we've been adhering to this mission quite well. But, there is one main area that still needs work:
- "...help facilitate and educate our clientele towards... intellectual success on every level..." This one's now in our crosshairs!
Since we've recently teamed up with CAPE Performance Mental Coach Brian Levenson, SAPT is now capable of formally addressing the intellectual (or mental) success of our clients!
Our first official combined service offering is called The 50/50 Challenge.
This challenge is a grueling combination of physical and mental training challenges to help your team improve cohesion and learn to handle & overcome adversity. *Think of this as similar in end goal to ropes courses, but with a direct link to tangible performance indicators and much closer to sport itself.
Throughout this one-day physical and mental intensive session, you and the team's coaching staff will learn how to reinforce your team’s and each individual’s mental approach to all aspects of training.
Your athletes will finish the day with a thorough understanding of how their mental game impacts and affects everything from their rehab programs, weight training, practices, and - ultimately - wins and losses.
Uncover and discover a secondary layer of benefits reaped from your team’s regular practices, strength and conditioning program, and competitions as the 5 Primary Physical and Mental Training Themes converge throughout the day:
- Focus and Concentration
- Team Cohesion
- Preparation/Routine
- Energy Management
- Controlling Controllables
Coaches: Steve Reed and Brian Levenson
Location: The SAPT training facility
Date: We will try to stick to Saturdays (but this can be customized)
Time: 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM for this special offering
Cost: 1000.00 per team 500.00 for one special team!
Why the deep discount? It's simple, we've already booked some local NCAA D1 college programs and need the chance to get in a practice run to work out any kinks that may pop up!
If you want to take advantage of this offer, you must have a team that is available to come to the SAPT training facility for this challenge NO LATER THAN SEPTEMBER 1st!
Email, ME: sarah@studentathletept.com, to get signed up!
After all, you don't have to lose games to learn how to handle adversity!
Directed Attention - Part 2
If you missed Part 1 - check it out here.Part 2: Where to direct attention?
Nidiffer’s “Attentional and Interpersonal Style” shows the differences in directed attention. Athletes should take note of how the attention choices interact with each other and figure out where to direct attention:
The ability to control attention is something that has become a hot topic in society. In fact our society has become obsessed with focus. Many believe the world of smart phones, tablets, and social media have created multi-tasking jack of all trades, but masters of none. The lack of focus has created an ADHD epidemic with 5.2 million or 8.2% of American children aged 3-17 being diagnosed. The ability to direct attention to needed actions seems to be getting harder and harder for our youth.
While the inability to focus continues to garner attention, athletes need to have a strong understanding of what is needed to perform. There may be times to be very broad and internal with attention, but have the ability to change within moments to being narrow and broad—think a point guard who goes from scanning the floor to shooting free throws.
Athletes need to have a good grasp on their internal focus. Often it’s imperative for athlete’s to direct their attention to what they can do rather than what they can’t do. An athlete’s ability to internally direct their attention to needed actions rather than distractions is ultimately what determines concentration.
What are you going to direct your attention to today? How can you make sure you’re in control of your attention? Are you directing your attention to the steps needed for success or simply the end result? These are questions to ask yourself as you continue to learn how to control where your attention is directed. So the next time someone tells you, “FOCUS”, think about your attention and where to direct it.
Joint-Friendly Conditioning, Part 2: A Few Examples
In Part I I briefly discussed how the majority of conditioning programs people undergo - be it for fat loss or athletic performance - often aren't the most "joint-friendly" by nature and have the potential to provide an unfortunately high risk:reward ratio.
As a quick recap, here are two lists (albeit noninclusive lists) one has for improving their aerobic or anaerobic energy systems, that will be much more joint-friendly and reduce the risk of injury during the process :
Beginner ---> Intermediate
1) Loaded Carries 2) Sled Pushing/Pulling/Dragging 3) Jumping Jacks 4) Medicine Ball Work (primarily in the sagittal plane to start) 5) Airdyne Bike 6) Low-Level + Low-Repetition Bodyweight Drills 7) Dynamic Mobility Work
Intermediate ---> Advanced
1) Loaded Carries 2) Sled Pushing/Pulling/Dragging 3) Jumping Jacks 4) Medicine Ball Work (all planes of motion) 5) Airdyne Bike 6) Low-level + low-repetition bodyweight drills 7) Dynamic mobility work 8 ) Crawls 9) KB Swings 10) Burpees. Maybe. 11) Sledge Swings 12) Hill Sprints 13) Jump Rope 14) BB & KB Complexes 15) Low-Load Push/Pull/Hinge/Squat Patterns
Here are just a few examples on how one could utilize these options to create a sound conditioning workout.
Cardiac Output Circuits
These will improve your aerobic system by augmenting how much blood your heart can pump with each beat. The end result will be a lower resting heart rate (strong indicator of your overall "fitness") and greater efficiency of your cardiovascular system in general.
Perform the following in circuit fashion, keeping your heart rate roughly in the 120-150bpm range. Many people like to get way too crazy with these and push their heart rates through the roof (due to all the rage of high intensity training). Resist this urge, and take a moment to rest if your heart rate shoots above the desired range.
Pick one circuit and perform it for anywhere from 25-60 minutes.
Cardiac Output Circuit #1 (Day 1)
A1) SA KB (or DB) Suitcase Carry x :45/side A2) Bear Crawl x 30-40yds A3) BW Pushup x10 A4) Hands-elevated Yoga Plex x4/side A5) BW Split Squat x8/side A6) Walking Spiderman w/OH Reach to Hip Lift A7) Jumping Jacks x25 A8) Medicine Ball Overhead Slam x8-12
Cardiac Output Circuit #2 (Day 2)
A1) KB (or DB) Goblet Carry x :45 A2) KB Swing x10 A3) TRX Inverted Row x8-10 A4) Tiger Crawl x20-40yds A5) Prowler Backward Drag x30-40yds A6) SA KB Bottom-Up Overhead Carry x20yds/side A7) Medicine Ball Facing Side Throw x8/side A8) Sledge Swings into Tire x8/side
As you can see, the sky is the limit with what you can do with these. Extremely effective, versatile, fun, and, most importantly, easy on the joints. Ideally these would be performed on "off days," or roughly 5-8 hours outside of your normal resistance training window.
These will do wonders for helping your body's ability to dissipate delayed-onset muscle soreness, improving insulin sensitivity and capillary density (thus promoting blood flow and nutrient delivery), enhancing general physical preparedness, and aiding your psychological well-being to boot.
For those who simply hate dedicating anything more than ten minutes to conditioning, you could do something as simple as adding a "finisher" to the end of your weight training session. Pick 3-4 exercises, say, SA KB Racked Carry (x :30/side), Medicine Ball Cyclone Slam (x8/side), Sled Push (x30yds) and Jumping Jacks (x25) and do 2-4 rounds of it.
These won't have the same effect as the cardiac output methods listed above, but hey, something is better than nothing right.
And that's it. This is really just the tip of the iceberg regarding conditioning, but hopefully it at least gets you started thinking about ways you can achieve that "cardio" effect without having to bang your joints on a run or some crazy jumping fest.
I Want To Be Batman... (*spoiler alert*)
Almost all of us grew up dreaming of becoming a super hero; whether it was G.I. Joe, Superman, the Ninja Turtles, Spiderman, etc. When I was growing up I wanted to be just like Batman. I had all the Batman toys, I watched Batman the animated series, I constantly watched the movies Batman and Batman Returns, I even safety pinned a towel around my neck and pretended to be him. At that point I probably couldn’t tell you why. Maybe it was the cool gadgets, or that he was a normal man who could kick ass, perhaps the sweet batcave and huge mansion, who knows but I wanted to be him. Luckily, at the ripe old age of 25 I finally figured out why I want to be him after all these years, because anyone can truly be Batman… I know that might seem like a weird statement but its true. I don’t mean that as far as jumping from building to building, taking down mob bosses and psychopaths, or striking fear into the hearts of criminals. Anyone can be Batman in the sense of what he stands for and the ideals he instills. After watching the last installment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman Trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises, I found myself in an extreme amount of deep thought. I was truly inspired by the trilogy and wanted to understand why I felt so strongly about all three movies, why they hit such a chord with me. I decided to watch all three movies again and pull out quotes that I felt really exemplified the essence of what batman is and what he stands for and how it can apply to everyday life.
Batman Begins
“If you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, then you become something else entirely…. A legend, Mr. Wayne.”
Henri Ducard says this to Bruce when he has found Bruce lost in the shuffle, searching for a way to become something more. We were all like this at one point in our life, being 25 I’m young and still feel like this. When you’re young you search for a way to do something great, to be something more. The problem is that somewhere down the line you start to believe that you’re not great or that you have nothing to offer. If this becomes your mindset then not only do you become lost in the shuffle, you may stay lost your whole life. I don’t know about you but when it’s all said and done I want the people most important to me to know I stood for something more, that I made a difference. And that’s the point of the quote; devote yourself to something bigger than you and you can truly help people and become something else entirely. Why do we know about people like Louie Simmons, Jim Wendler, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Mel Siff? Because they devoted themselves to a purpose bigger than them; they stayed out of the shuffle and on their own path. We can all do this it’s just a matter of choosing too.
“It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.”
Batman says this to Rachel towards the end of the movie as almost a thank you to her for never giving up on him. Deep down I believe I am something more, that I’m a good person, that I have the potential to do great things. These are all just feelings though, not actions. I found myself asking do I put these feelings into action in my everyday life and the answer was no, or really, not as much as I could. Too many times do we make excuses for why we don’t live the way we believe we actually are. How often have you not held an elevator door because you were in “too much of a hurry?” How often have you half-assed your job or your workout because “you just weren’t feeling it today?” I’m not trying to be high and mighty because I’m guilty of this as well and I’m tired of it. As corny as it sounds Batman doesn’t do this so I’m not going to either. Because like I said I can feel that I’m this or that but that’s not what counts that’s not what defines me; my actions define me. I can realize my potential, I can do better… You can do better.
The Dark Knight
“Endure. You can be the outcast. You can make the choice that no one else will face - the right choice. Gotham needs you.”
Alfred says this to Bruce when he feels Joker’s rampage has become too much for Gotham to handle and believes turning himself in is the only way to end it. In life when problems arise there will always be an easy way out, and a lot of people will take that route. Can you be different? Can you make the decision that no one else can? This is something we should all strive for because when it comes down to it the easy way out usually only benefits one person, yourself. This opportunity really hasn’t come full circle yet for me but when it does I hope and I feel that I can endure, I can be the outcast where other people cannot. This problem may arise for you and the hard solution might be one that causes people to not think as highly of you, it may cause you to lose a friend but the strength to endure may help those people in the long run. Maybe it arises in the form of a job opportunity that pays a boat load of money but you have the choice of another job that may not pay as much but where you know you can make a real difference in people’s lives. It can come in any form really but we all have the ability to endure we just have to realize it.
“Because he's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now...and so we'll hunt him, because he can take it. Because he's not a hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector...a dark knight.”
Commissioner Gordon tells his son this when he asks his father why the police are chasing Batman at the end of the movie. This goes hand in hand with the other quote from above. The right decisions may not always be the easiest but that’s not the point of a right decision. The point is to make the decision that will benefit your life, your family, and your friends later down the road. They may not like you for it but you didn’t make the hard decision to be liked you made it because you knew it’s what they deserved. I imagine this is something parents are confronted with on a daily basis. I can’t imagine what it’s like to watch your child as you tell them something that might crush them but you know it’s a decision that had to be made. I hope I can be as strong as my parents were and some of the parents I know when it comes time to make a decision that has my kid questioning whether or not I’m truly their “hero.” But sometimes parents and mentors aren’t heroes; they’re silent guardians, watchful protectors.
The Dark Knight Rises
“There’s a point far out there, when the structures fail you. When the rules aren’t weapons anymore, they’re shackles, letting the bad guy get ahead… “
Commissioner Gordon says this to Detective John Blake when Gotham finds out that it was really Harvey Dent (Two-Face) who killed those people instead of Batman. TDKR brings everything back home and relates a lot back to Batman Begins and this quote does just that. Bruce Wayne couldn’t work within the constraints of the law in order to shake people out of apathy. He saw Gotham’s judicial system as a constraint and their rules at that point in time were letting the bad guy get ahead. This goes back to what I was talking about toward the beginning. We know when we are young that we can do great things but soon the rules we feel we must follow become shackles and we no longer feel we are great, we become lost. It’s up to us to overcome these rules, these shackles, we just have to figure out how and if you don’t it’s only a matter of time before you start losing belief in yourself. I have faced this before in terms of a career. When it came down to making the hard decision I realized that if I went the easy route then the rules that would have been put in place by the structures over me would have prevented me from becoming something more. I would have become lost in the shuffle. I chose to take the hard route and devote myself to an ideal. As a side note, this is why I’m so happy with the people I work with because they’ve all been faced with these decisions before. They made the decisions no one else could have.
“A hero can be anyone- even a man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting their coat around a young boy's shoulder to let him know the world hasn't ended.”
Batman says this to Jim Gordon when he asks Batman who he really is because Gordon feels Gotham should know that it was Bruce Wayne who gave them everything that he was as a man. I’m going to go a little more in depth in just a little bit about why this quote sums up the whole point of the trilogy. You may not know it but you could be doing something heroic everyday of your life. You could be helping someone and not even know it. I recall a couple weeks ago I was having a conversation with one of our athletes and she was talking about some rough stuff she was going through and all of a sudden she started to cry. I felt awful I really had no idea what to do. I felt helpless and all I wanted to do was to help and I didn’t know how. All I did was give her a hug and told her that everything will work out, it may not work out like you want it to but I promise it will work out. I still felt I could have done more, I don’t and still don’t feel what I said was heroic by any means. But maybe what I did was something simple and hopefully reassuring to her. The point is that we can all have an impact on people every day if we just take the time.
This was a long article I know, but it was an article I really wanted to write. You can view it as corny, I don’t care. In the time we live in, there are so few opportunities to be inspired and these three movies were one of my opportunities. As I read different articles about the trilogy when attempting to shape this blog post I stumbled across a blog by just a random guy who I believe really summed up the main theme of this trilogy and really my main reason for writing this post. He said “A major theme in the story is “Who was Batman? He was just Batman; the person under the mask doesn’t matter, because ANYBODY can be Batman.” We hear this several times, and it speaks back to the longstanding concept in the Nolan trilogy that a symbol is eternal and cannot be killed or destroyed, and that is what Batman became — an eternal symbol for Gotham, a symbol that would be anybody.” I couldn’t have said it any better.
We all have these ideals inside of us, these feelings, and this potential to do great things and to make an impact. Right now though, those things are all just underneath and are irrelevant, because it’s not who we are underneath, but what we do that defines us.
Joint-Friendly Conditioning, Part 1
Aerobic training, energy systems work, metabolic training, get-sexy-for-beach time. However you want to put it, it's loved by many, and even if for those who don't love it, it needs to get done.
Unfortunately, the large, waving red flag I continually see soaring above the majority of people's conditioning* routines, is that they quickly leave their victims injured and broken, rather than better equipped for the arena of athletics or simply leaner and healthier.
*Note: I realize this term means completely different things to different people, and entire books could be written (and have been) on the matter. However, for the rest of the post, for all intents and purposes "conditioning" will be used to simply imply anything elevates your heart rate up for the purpose of enhanced work capacity, performance, fat-loss, or health.
Traditional running programs boast one of the highest injury rates among participants to date, and the incalculable group exercise classes and exercise DVD sets out there have people performing lunge jumps, broad jumps, repeated box jumps, and other so-called "plyometrics" until they're blue in the face. Or, until their patella tendon shoots out front side of their leg, whatever comes first I suppose.
As as aside, please keep in mind that when I use the term "injury" I'm not so silly to presume that all of you out there undergoing a common conditioning regimen are going to become paralyzed or some equivalent of being blasted by the Death Star's ray gun, but it could be something as simple as tendinitis, tendinosis, back pain, or any developing some sort of "achy" joint in general.
So, given that you're likely either A) an athlete, or B) someone who cares about feeling, looking, and moving better, this begs three questions, along with the part of this article that you actually care about:
#1. How do you perform conditioning routines that reduce the risk of injury occurring during the process?
#2. If you're currently currently suffering any form of injury, how can you still become a mean, lean, fighting machine despite your achy knees, back, and/or shoulders?
#3. If you're a competitive athlete, how do you obtain enhanced work capacity, yet spare your joints and central nervous system in the process?
In general, you're going to want to avoid exercises that place high stress on the joints, and movements that, when performed under a state of fatigue, aren't likely to degrade in form. So running, jogging, flat-ground sprinting, and repeated jumping and bounding (incorrectly dubbed 'plyometrics' by the fitness gurus) are going to be considered "higher risk."
Oh, and I can't believe this should even need be addressed, but the olympic lifts for high reps are out, too.
So, what to do? Below are a few of my choice, joint-friendly conditioning options (feel free to chime in any of your personal favorites below), which I've divided into two "spectrums:" Beginner ---> Intermediate and Intermediate ---> Advanced. There's obviously overlap between the two categories, and everything isn't black and white, but hopefully this will help you get a decent idea of some of your options to toy with.
Beginner ---> Intermediate
1) Loaded Carries (Farmer Walks)
A bread-and-butter movement. Quoting the man Dan John himself: "The loaded carry does more to expand athletic qualities than any other single thing I've attempted in my career as a coach and athlete. And I do not say that lightly."
Virtually anyone can do them, the majority of the variations are extremely joint-friendly, and not to mention they get the heart rate up at an alarming rate. The other week I took my farmer walk implements to the local high school track and walked 800 meters with them. The next day I no longer wondered what loaded carries were good for.
Below is a real quick video on a bunch of different variations you can use if you don’t have access to implements. Note that you can certainly use a dumbbell instead of a kettlebell for a large majority of these.
Bill Hartman also wrote an excellent recent post on how loaded carries make for quite a remedial exercise selection. Check it out HERE.
2) Sled Pushing, Pulling, Dragging
This has to be one of my favorites, by far. Easy on the low back, shoulders, and knees. It’s relatively “dummy proof,” it teaches one to simultaneously flex one hip and extend the other, and produces very little post-workout soreness (extremely important for athletes in particular). Just last year, when I was dealing with a nagging leg injury that made squatting problematic, I was still able to push it hard on the sled while concurrently healing my injury.
3) Jumping Jacks. Who said it had to be complicated?
4) Medicine Ball Work. Note that I'd recommend sticking to overhead slamming until one knows how to use their hips (not low back) to do wall throws.
5) Airdyne Bike.
6) Low-level + Low Repetition Bodyweight Drills in Sequence
7) Dynamic Mobility Work
Intermediate ---> Advanced
1) Any of the list above (sled work, farmer carries, jumping jacks etc.). It's all scalable, after all.
2) Crawls!
People usually make fun of these until they try them. They're deceptively challenging when performed for reasonable distances, and the beauty of them is they can literally be done anywhere.
See the video below for numerous demonstrations. I’d recommend starting with just the bear and tiger crawls, and make sure you’re keeping a stable spine throughout. The chicken, kangaroo, gorilla, spider, and scorpion wouldn’t be advised to those with injuries.
3) KB Swings
4) Burpees. Maybe. Just be sure you're achieving full hip extension at the top and not looking like a pile of doo-doo as you land from the jump and transition into the pushup.
5) Sledge Swings
6) Hill Sprints
7) Jump Rope
8 ) Barbell (and Kettlebell) Complexes
9) Low-level Push/Pull/Hinge/Squat Patterns
I'll be back on Friday to briefly discuss a few options on how to string these together.
(Update: You can see Part 2 HERE)
