Confrontation Culture

Boston Strong. Oklahoma Resilience. We Are Sandy Hook-We Choose Love. Certainly these tragedies were all horrific, but they also brought out the best in their respective communities. Police and Fireman were heroic, but even ordinary citizens came together to help each other. Typically, in the face of adversity, good rises to the top, and the survivors become stronger than they were before. While sport culture is certainly different than community culture, lessons can be taken from how communities confront difficult situations.

The greatest organizations are not afraid to confront, even if it leads to tension. They embrace those moments as opportunities to improve and get better. Too many sports teams are afraid to confront; Do not upset the superstar. Stay away from giving honest, even if it’s difficult, feedback. Do not question the coach under any circumstance. Confrontation often leads to rocking the boat, and many captains are afraid to ride potentially rocky waves.

The truth is we become our best when confrontation is embraced. The word itself may cause you to think of negative examples, but the definition revolves around face to face clashing of idea. Does that sound so bad? Accusatory, finger pointing is not confrontation. It’s blame. Cultures that embrace confrontation believe that there may be a better, newer, smarter way of doing things. They strive to thrive when the going gets tough. Rather than simply surviving the rocky waves of the past, and storms that may be brewing in their future, they figure out how to keep the ship moving forward in that moment.

Confrontation cultures have open lines of communication, embrace questioning and believe there is no straight path to success. How are you using confrontation to better your culture? What ways can you encourage positive confrontation? Will you run away or run towards the storm?

Learn how to be a positive confronter and you will make a positive impact on your culture.

Want more from Brian? He's hosting upcoming classes at SAPT! Check out the schedule and description.

Bench Tips!

Far too often I hear people bash the bench press.

“It’s not functional.”

“It’s for egotistical gym-bros.”

“When do you have to lay supine on your back and press a load up in sports?”

“It’s bad for your shoulder.”

“It’s stupid.”

“Do you even squat.”

Blah blah blah… I’m not here to defend the bench press, because I don’t necessarily believe it needs defending. It’s awesome and if you disagree, good for you. This post is for those that ignore the hate (and are healthy enough) and want to improve their bench press. Maybe you compete in powerlifting, or you want a strong upper body, or you want to turn heads on Mondays at your commercial gym when you bang out some clean, full range reps with huge weights. Whatever your reason is, here are some tips to help you add weight to the bar.

Learn to Bench

Just lay down and press right? Wrong! There are so many technical aspects to the bench that are simply ignored, resulting in sub-par benching. The bench should be considered a full-body lift, by using your legs to drive yourself down into the bench, staying tight through your hips and abs, and squeezing your upper back hard to stay rock-solid during the lift. Your set-up on the bench will be very individual. Everything from grip width, back arch, foot placement, and even head movement will vary between lifters. The key is to find your perfect set-up and practice it over and over.

Use Your Lats! If You Don’t Have Any, Build 'em!

This is huge. The lats play a crucial role during the bench press, creating a strong foundation to push off of and controlling the bar bath. After you unrack the bar, you shouldn’t simply let gravity take over and let the bar fall to your chest. You should be actively pulling the bar down under control, concentrating on flexing your lats hard. A good cue here is to think about “breaking” the bar in half (external rotation torque!) as you lower it to your chest.

If you can’t feel your lats working during the movement, chances are you just need more lat work. Pullups, chinups, lat pulldowns, and rows all fit the bill. Keep pulling to improve your push!

Do Overhead Work

I believe that overhead work is extremely beneficial to improving your bench. The increased strength in your shoulders, triceps, upper back and scapular stabilizers you will build with vertical pressing will all go a long way in helping you push more in the horizontal plane. That being said, straight barbell overhead pressing is not for everyone. Some may lack the mobility to perform the movement or it just hurts to do. Never fear, there are always options. If you find that overhead pressing with a barbell bugs your shoulders or your back, try landmine pressing. You can still get in some quality overhead work with a more joint-friendly angle.

Straight Weight

Drop the bands and chains for a while and stick with straight weight. I think accommodating resistance is a great addition to your training, but if you’ve become accustomed to benching with chains and bands, it may be to your benefit to run a few cycles of training strictly using straight weight. By over-utilizing accommodating resistance you end up avoiding that bottom-range tension when the bar is on your chest. If your goal is to bench big numbers you can’t avoid that tension forever. Perform your heavy work, rep work, and even speed work with some straight weight for a while and rest assured that your strength and power won't wither away without the extra bells and whistles on the bar.

Pause!

I firmly believe that the strong drive out of the bottom position is KEY to improving your bench press. Even if your sticking point is fairly high up in the range of motion, doesn’t it make sense that if the explosion from the bottom was better you could ride that wave all the way up to lockout? I admit I have been one to analyze a bench press, take note of the sticking point and say “well, it looked like the sticking point was somewhere around a 2-board, so the best way to improve would be a ton of 2-board work.” Board work is great, but you can NEVER be too strong out of the bottom. One of the best ways to increase the strength out of the bottom is paused bench pressing, where you lower the bar to your chest, stay tight and hold it, then press it back up. By coming to a dead stop you kill some of the elastic energy you may have been relying on. Throw in some paused benching to your routine, and although you will undoubtedly have to cut down on the absolute load, you will not be disappointed!

Till next time, keep pressin' on!

SAPT Q and A: Question from a Runner and Help From Link

Oh wait, I meant, "Ask the SAPT Coach." Sorry, we were having a Zelda discussion with our interns the other day...

"Is there a benefit to doing your strength workout under time? If you get your cardio somewhere else do you really need to rush?" - Supa Fly Runner

Ok, that's not really the name of the questioner, but she's a really fabulous runner so that's her assigned pseudonym.

Great question yeah? As in all fitness-related question the answer invariably is: It depends. *insert head scratching here*

Huh?

However, for simplicity sake, I'll make the answer as straightforward as possible. I'm going to assume that there are two camps of people: 1- Team Runner. These folks run on a regular basis, either long distance or short. If they don't run, they find their aerobic work somewhere else: biking, swimming, swinging (that would be me), or some other modality specifically for cardiovascular/anaerobic training (sprints, hills, monster fighting, stuff like that.)

Morpha, the water temple boss, keeps Link running for his life. Great cardio!

2- Team Not-Runner. These folks do absolutely NOTHING (intentionally) to train their cardiovascular system (aka aerobic training). These could include general fitness folks who lift weights (either seriously or not... I'm looking at you Mr. On-The-Phone-While-Doing-Curls-Man), powerlifters who DON'T training beyond lifting (yes, I know weight lifting can be considered a form of aerobic training, but let's be honest, many powerlifters completely ignore their aerobic system. To that I say. "stop it." Oooo... future post! Sorry, I got distracted. Back to this one.) or anyone who just sits eating beans like this guy.

nom nom nom...

Answer for Team Runner:

Assuming that you are strength training for the purpose of getting stronger (which, I would hope is the reason), then no, you do not need to rush the workout. The purpose of training under load is to prod the body to adapt to the stress by getting stronger muscles. It's a bit more involved than that physiologically, but that's the basic idea of lifting weights. So, if one is rushing about with little rest between sets, the body won't be able to produce as much force (due to fatigue) thus one will be relegated to lighter weights. And light weights don't cut it when it comes to building strength. Solution? Rest as needed between sets to allow for near to full recovery so that the most force can be produced each rep (translation: heavier weights can be used). This has the added benefit of improving rate of force development of your muscles. If you don't want to read this lovely article by Kevin Neeld, then the bottom line is the faster muscles can produce the needed level of force (to say, run), then the faster you'll propel yourself across the earth. It's like the Bunny Hood in Legend of Zelda:

Yes! Link's rate of force development is increased ten-fold!

Focus on the purpose: increasing strength and don't worry about trying to make it a cardio session (if you're lifting heavy enough weights, you'll be winded anyway. ;) )

Answer for Team Not-Runner:

Even elite strength athletes need some sort of aerobic training. (as I alluded to, this will be a future post.) While the main movement of the day, be it a squat, deadlift, or press variation, should be completed with the needed rest periods in between, the accessory work can be sped up a bit. For those trainees who don't want to do any outside aerobic work other than their weight room sessions, which is totally fine, hustling a bit during the accessory movements or throwing in a weight cirucit every so often would provide a suitable aerobic training effect. Having an efficient aerobic system, namely the body's ability to use oxygen to produce ATP (the form of energy muscles need to function), is important both for recovery during training sessions and sustaining life. It would be unwise to ignore such things. This would be your heart status:

Not. Good.

Adding a little hustle to the accessory exercises will provide a decent aerobic training effect while still maintaining the goal of building strength during a training session. Training said system will help foster quicker recovery both during training and afterwards.

All that being said, again, it depends on what your training goals are but hopefully this post helps clear up the question of how to execute your strength training sessions.

Do What Strong People Do

Most of us in the pursuit of getting stronger and harder to kill often need guidance from those who have walked the walk and taken themselves to new levels of awesome. I think it’s important to see what they do and observe the common trends among those who consistently make progress and how they go about getting stronger. Before you come at me with an argument like “Herschel Walker simply did a ton of pushups and situps and benched over a trillion his first time in the weight room,” notice I said common trends. Herschel Walker is not common.

Lift Heavy, But Use a Full ROM

I’m sure you saw this coming. Lift heavy to get strong, duh. I hate to be Captain Obvious but it’s definitely worth emphasizing. You need to give your body a reason to adapt. Doing a light set of leg extensions would result in your body responding with a yawn, while a stimulus like a heavy 5 rep deadlift would receive a physiological response that’s more like “whoa, I gotta do something about this,” followed by anabolism.

With that said, lifting heavy is important, but not at the expense of cutting your range of motion down. Please don’t convince yourself that the benefits of a 405 quarter-squat outweighs those of a 225 squat to depth, because it doesn’t. Before we get into another “quarter-squat bashing” rant, know that this applies for any lift. Whether it be a pull-up, bench press, step-back lunge, or glute-ham raise, the goal should be to become strong through the entire range of motion (especially the hardest portion).

Practice Technique

Being able to demonstrate controlled basic movements properly with your bodyweight demonstrates strength, and being able to demonstrate that same movement under load demonstrates more strength. Yes, there are those that put up huge numbers with atrocious form, but I’m convinced that this raw brute strength approach can only get you so far. Without a dedicated focus on improving technique, you leave a ton of poundage to be desired on the bar. If you watch some of the strongest athletes at the top of their game, you’ll notice that their technique is impeccable. Watch the best Olympic weightlifters, powerlifters, sprinters, jumpers, and even strongman competitors. Have you ever seen the top guys in a keg toss event? Impressively fluid hip hinging technique.

Keep the Mission in Mind When You Lift

This was a big eye opener for me. When you get to the gym, your main focus should be set on accomplishing one or maybe two primary lifts. If you look down at your workout log and see that you’re scheduled for a heavy 3 rep deadlift plus some assistance work, don’t start worrying about the specific weight you’re going to be using for your DB Bulgarian split squats or the optimal set and rep scheme you should use for your hamstring curls. The heavy deadlift should be your primary focus, and you should put everything you have into hitting that main movement hard and clean. After hitting the main movement get some extra work in, but don’t overstress the assistance work.  I've been guilty way too many times of overthinking the small stuff to the point where my big lifts suffered.

Milk a Ton of Volume Out of Your Warm-ups

Don’t rush your warm-ups! Warm-up sets leading into your work sets are a great place to increase the volume on your lifts. Did you know many elite level powerlifters still do their first warm-up set with the bar? Next time that you throw 135 on the bar for your first warm-up, really think about what makes you overqualified to use an empty barbell...

Anyways let’s go back to the volume thing. Here we’ll compare two lifters working up to a work set of 250x3:

Lifter A 135x5 185x5 225x1 250x3 Total Load Volume: 2,575lbs

Lifter B Bar x10 95x5 135x5 185x3 205x3 225x1 250x3 Total Load Volume: 3,745lbs (Win)

The extra volume will result in increased total work accomplished by Lifter B, but will also give the lifter the opportunity to practice the technique for more than double the reps as Lifter A.

Don’t Fail

You wouldn’t want to fail an exam would you? When you’re lifting to increase your strength, it is not to your benefit to miss a weight. You’ll probably just make a lot of noise (especially if you bail on a squat), increase your chance of getting injured, and crush your confidence. Sure there are times when strength should be tested (1% of your time spent in the weight room), but when you're working on building strength (99% of your time spent in the weight room), you’d be better off using weights you know you can handle and using compensatory acceleration to move it FAST. That way you know you’re getting the most out of the load on the bar even if you underestimated it. If you overestimated it, however, getting stapled by a barbell isn’t going to make you any stronger or better-looking.

Recover

Those super strong athletes aren't super strong because they train, but because they recover from their training. Eat a ton of good food, drink plenty of water, get as much sleep as you can and make sure your program is well thought-out so you're significantly stronger next year than you are now.

Great Balance

The NBA, NHL, and PGA Tour all had pressure filled weekends. Athletes work countless hours to put themselves in a position to perform under that pressure. Sacrifices like missing Mother’s Day, birthdays, and weddings are often made this time of year. Greatness is a word engrained in every athlete’s vocabulary. The one’s who achieve it are applauded and revered. However, what often gets lost in greatness is the power of balance. Balance gives perspective, creates freedom in choices, and allows for the right decision at the right time. It may not be as glamorous as greatness, but it may be harder to achieve, and create more long-term value.

So while continued directed attention to greatness is important, sometimes a little balance goes a long way.

Whimsical Wednesday: SAPT's Version of Lembas Bread

Admit it, when you either read or saw lembas bread in Lord of the Rings, you really wanted some.

Yes!

There's several recipes out there for it, but I made up a protein and fiber-rich version for the nerdy-lifter that I am. *Disclaimer* I'm still tweaking the amounts, so this may not be perfect but it'll at least be a platform in which to launch your own version of lembas.

I used coconut flour as my base. Say wha? Yep, coconut flour is merely dried coconut meat ground up into a flour-like consistency. What's so good about coconut flour? I'm so glad you asked!

Tell me about coconut flour.

Benefits of coconut flour:

1. Very high in fiber, about 9 grams for 2 tablespoons, which is fantastic for, well, the whole poop thing. Compare that to the fiber content of wheat flour, which is a dismal 1-2 grams... ick. Perfect for keeping you regular while traipsing through Middle Earth.

2. It's gluten free which is helpful for those who have a gluten intolerance or allergy and still want to eat lembas. Or, even if you don't it's nice to give your system a break from the gluten of bread and other gluten filled treats. (it's everywhere...).

3. Contains the healthy fats of the glorious coconut. However, I'm not sure how much of it is actually retained in the flour version since it goes through a defatting process. Some of that fat is better than none though. This helps fuel those long treks across Mordor. How else do you think Sam and Frodo made it? Not on fat-free Snackwell's cookies!

4. Does not have the power to raise glucose levels like other flours (wheat, oat, etc) so those watching their blood sugar... rejoice! Steady blood sugar bodes well for sustained battles with orcs.

Now, onto the recipe. Sorry I don't have pictures. I didn't think to take any during the process.

- 1-1 1/2 cups coconut flour (depending on how big of a batch you want to make)

- 1-2 scoops protein powder-o-choice

- 1 somewhat-heaped tablespoon of coconut oil, melted

- Roughly 1 cup of almond milk (or regular milk). The amount will vary depending on the consistency of the batter you desire.

- 1 egg or 1 heaping tablespoon of nut butter. Coconut flour can be very dry, so the addition of either one will help cut that down a bit. Just know that the peanut butter will take away from the lembas-y taste. I don't think lembas had peanut butter in it.

- 1-2 tablespoons of agave or honey

- 1 teaspoon of vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 275 and grease a cookie sheet.

2. Combine the dry ingredients, flour and protein powder, and break up any lumps with a spoon.

3. Add the coconut oil, egg (or PB), vanilla, and agave/honey and combine well.

4. Slowly add the milk until the consistency no longer resembles wet sand. It should be more clay-like or maybe slightly watery clay.

5. Spread evenly in pan and bake from 15-25 minutes or until lightly brown on top.

6. Allow it to cool before either gobbling it up or wrapping it in nice big leaves.

There we have it. A LOTR-inspired protein bar for the athlete or hobbit on the go!