Accountabili-buddy
Great teams hold each other accountable. They are held accountable not just by the coaches, but by the players as well. It’s the players that don’t allow one player to be bigger than the team. The players ensure each player is doing their job. The players often dictate the culture. The players enforce the standards, expectations, and rules of the team. So, as a player, do you have an accountabili-buddy? The accountabili-buddy is a “buddy” or teammate, who will hold you accountable no matter the situation. It needs to be someone you respect, who won’t be afraid to put you in your place when you are acting against your own standards. Teams that have accountabili-buddies are better able to police themselves and meet their daily expectations.
Who is your accountabili-buddy? Who can you rely on in stressful stituaations? What other systems are in place to ensure accountability exists on your team?
How to Squat When Squatting Hurts
It’s your favorite day of the week, SKWATZ day! You’ve been looking forward to it all week and you’re ready to go, but when you get under the bar you realize something’s off… Your insert joint/muscle groupis tweaky. Before you burn down the gym in a sad and frustrated fit of rage consider some options that will still allow you to get some quality squat work in.
Angry Knees
Sitting into a deep free squat with bum knees is not fun. If you feel like your knees really don’t enjoy sitting into deep flexion at the bottom of a squat try going to a box. Using a box to sit waaaaaay back makes it much easier to attain that vertical shin to take a ton of stress off the knees. It shifts the demand of the movement into your hips much more and you can still work the squat without sacrificing the well being of your much-needed cartilage.
How high of a box?
Whatever height allows you to move in a pain free range of motion. If that means that the box is 4 inches above parallel then so be it.
Above parallel?! But every awesome squat guru says squat low! BLASPHEMY!
Keep in mind that this is a “work-around” for the time being, and as your knee starts to feel better you can slowly increase the range of motion by lowering the box and eventually incorporating free squats again.
Bum Shoulders and Elbows
Getting into a tight back squat requires cranking your shoulders into what can be an uncomfortable and vulnerable position. If you feel like putting the bar on your back is really irritating your shoulders or elbows try a front squat with a clean grip or a “cross-arm” grip. This position can be much more upper-extremity friendly.
This is where specialty bars also come in handy. A safety squat bar is an awesome tool to have access to. It allows you to sit the bar on your back while keeping your arms relatively relaxed. A giant cambered bar is also a great option as well.
Lower Back Whackness
If your back starts to get all uppity when you sit back into your squat, contrary to popular belief, you do not have to give up lifting weights and take up ping pong (a chiropractor actually told me this before…).
Again, try a front squat. Moving the load to the front can help “turn-on” the anterior core and help keep the spine more stable during the squat. Also, the nature of the movement allows for a more vertical torso angle, which goes a long way in reducing the sheer stress applied on the spine compared to a back squat, especially a “powerlifting-style” back squat.
You can keep moving the load even more forward by opting for a goblet squat, using a kettlebell or a dumbbell. You don’t need to be heaving around a barbell with the plates clanging to achieve the stimulus you so desperately crave.
Be Smart!
Remember, sometimes you aren’t just tweaky or a bit banged up. Sometimes you’re injured and you need to take a break, see a health professional, and get your body back in order.
RunFAST - SAPT's Secret Program Development
I’ll be honest, I’ve got a secret... it’s about a new program SAPT is developing. We’ll actually be launching all the info about it next week, but I’ve got to let on about it at least a little! I’m simply way too pumped up and have had a little too much coffee to keep this under my hat any longer.
It’s so exciting and will introduce yet another innovative, high-octane training method to the area via our resident performance coaching geniuses at SAPT.
This is the type of program that is born from those really special places that foster high-levels of both creativity and respect. An incubator for ideas where art and science merge. The type of place that values quality, service, and creativity above all else. That’s where these kinds of innovations come from.
The program is called RunFAST... that’s all I’m going to mention, as I think the name tells enough.
And, I have to also tell you this new innovative approach we’ll launch next week is just the tip of the iceberg. I wish I could let on about all our projects. But, for the moment, I’ll simply leave you with SAPT’s Big 3: Purpose, Vision, and Mission. Read into them as you like...
Our Purpose: Strengthening bodies and minds to support excellence in life.
Our Vision: People of all ages, abilities, and resources will have access to, appreciation for, and engagement in regular physical fitness training that will lead to improvements in all aspects of daily life.
Our Mission: To develop, research, and share our comprehensive approach to physical fitness training that fosters long-term engagement, promotes excellence in life, nurtures human relationships and inspires the lifelong pursuit of health through exercise.
Please stay tuned to next week on the blog... we’ll be devoting the whole week to RunFAST details!
SAPT at Rock the Pink Festival!
We'll be out at The Side-Out Foundation's Rock the Pink Festival this weekend at Occoquan Regional Park in Lorton, VA.
If you head down there, be sure to drop by our booth. We'll be offering an a la carte menu of performance screens and will be giving out special promotional codes for discounts on training packages!
Once the rain clears later today, we'll be in for a beautiful weekend of volleyball!
Squatting: It's Not Just For Muscle Building (another poop post)
As regular readers of both SGW and SAPTstrength, you all know I love talking about poop. Not only is a never-ending source of entertaining jokes, it's also a splendid indicator of your overall health. I think just about every athlete at SAPT has heard the cue, when learning how to squat, "push your butt back as if you're about to poop in the woods," (this nearly always garners a smile and often a chuckle out of the trainee). Well, we're going to explore, literally, squatting as if you're pooping in the woods (except the "woods" is actually your bathroom).
Why in the world would one want to squat instead of sit while relieving oneself? Well, first off, humans have been doing it for thousands of years to great success. The phrase "cop a squat," didn't just appear for no reason! There's a few exceptions in history, some snooty Pharaohs and upper-crust Romans, but we'll ignore that for the moment because up unti the 19th century, nearly everyone squatted when they released their bowels. Really, it's mainly a Western thing to sit while pooping, and, currently, roughly 1.2 billion people squat instead of sit to do their business.
Confession: I'm one of those 1.2 billion. And I highly recommend it!
Ok, Kelsey, thanks for that sharing of information but is there any real benefit to squatting? Glad you asked!
1. It reduces "straining" because it opens up the recto-anal angle (how's that for a phrase?!)- Sitting constrains that passageway and requires more straining to push the fecal matter through. This could be a solution for those who, after adjusting their diets (ahem!), still struggle with constipation. In fact, Israeli Dr. Berko Sikirov, ran an experiment (several in fact) showed that squatting relieved constipation:
"Primary (simple) constipation is a consequence of habitual bowel elimination on common toilet seats. A considerable proportion of the population with normal bowel movement frequency has difficulty emptying their bowels, the principal cause of which is the obstructive nature of the recto-anal angle and its association with the sitting posture normally used in defecation. The only natural defecation posture for a human being is squatting. The alignment of the recto-anal angle associated with squatting permits smooth bowel elimination. This prevents excessive straining with the potential for resultant damage to the recto-anal region and, possibly, to the colon and other organs. There is no evidence that habitual bowel elimination at a given time each day contributes considerably to the final act of rectal emptying. The natural behavior to empty the bowels in response to a strong defecation reflex alleviates bowel emptying by means of the recto anal inhibitory reflex."
2. The same good Dr. Sikirov also demonstrated, albiet with a smallish sample size, squatting relieved hemorrhoid symptoms in a group of pained sufferers. Here's a table indicating the changes. According to the Mayo Clinic, half of Americans by the age of 50 have experienced hemorrhoid symptoms. Here's a lovely article from Slate about such things.
3. It takes less time to poop. Once again, our pooping hero Dr. Sikirov examined the benefits of squatting with a group of willing volunteers. He split them into three pooping groups: one used a 16-inch toilet, a 12-inch toilet, and the last squatted over a plastic container (don't want to know how that clean up went). Unsurprisingly, the squatting group reported an average of 51 seconds poop time compared to the average 130 seconds of the two sitting groups (I imagine this was the time it took from pants down to finish, not including wiping). He also asked the participants to record the ease of passing; the squatting group reported using the least amount of effort.
So, how does one squat to poo if there is no squatty potty available?
- You can squat over your toilet with your feet on the seat, perch if you will. I don't really recommend this as it can be precarious if you're a) taller than 5 feet or b) have terrible hip mobility.
- You can purchase an actual Squatty Potty, which is a little step stool you can put underneath your feet to get you into a squatted position.
- Forgoing purchasing anything (this is the option I chose), you can just scoot back with your upper back against the tank of the toilet and pull your heels up to the front of the seat. This is actually fairly comfortable (as long as your hips are ok).
There we go. Ladies and gentlemen, I challenge you to try squatting for a week and see if you have any improvement in your business time.
It's nice to take care of your butt.
Rate of Force Development Part 2: Training to Increase RFD
Last post, I went over some of the terms and definitions of rate of force development (RFD). I also mentioned motor units (MU) and if, at this point, you have no clue what I'm talking about, go back and read it. It's right here. Why should you care about increasing your rate of force development? Because power sports (which is every sport to some degree) is dependent upon the ability to produce high levels of force at any given moment, like running away from a T-Rex.
Good motivation for increasing rate of force development.
There are two main ways research and experience backs up to train RFD: explosive strength training (Newton et al. Med. Sciences Sports Exer. 1999) and maximal load training, i.e. picking up heavy stuff. (McBride et al, J. Strength and Conditioning Research 2002). It should be noted that most of the research has been done with isolated muscles/movements (it's a lot easier to test the quadriceps muscle in a leg extension machine than the various muscle groups in a deadlift) and so it can be a little tricky to apply to real life. However, where science has holes, the experience of coaches fills the gap!
First: force = mass x acceleration Keep this in mind...
Explosive training (speed work) is taking a sub-max load (say, 50% of your one rep max) and moving it as fast as possible, with good form obviously, for 1-3 reps per set. That's key- as fast as possible. Those high threshold motor units, the ones that produce the most force, are recruited to move that weight fast by contracting quickly. Even though the load is light, the acceleration is high. By challenging your system to move loads quickly, we increase the force production by increasing the acceleration part of the equation. This is one way to increase RFD. Typically at SAPT, we program 1-3 reps for 6-8 sets with a strict :45-:60 rest period. Why the rest parameters? We want to keep the nervous system "primed" and if the rest period is too long, we lose a bit of that ability to send rapid signals to the muscles.
Maximal load training, aka picking up some freakin' heavy weight, will typically be above 90% of your one rep max, also we keep the rep range between 1 and 3 (mainly because form can turn to utter poo very quickly under heavy loads if the volume is too high). This untilizes the other part of the force equation, mass. If the acceleration is low, the mass has to be high in order to have high force production. Once again, neural drive is increased and those high threshold MU's get activated. The threat of being crushed beneath a heavy bar can do that.
Recruit! Recruit! Recruit!
Bottom line: As the RFD increases --> the recruitment threshold of the more powerful motor units decreases --> more force is produced sooner in the movement --> heavier weights can be moved/athlete becomes more explosive in sport movements.
Think back on poor lifter B from last post who had a really low RFD during his 400lb deadlift attempt. Being the determined young man that he is, he trained intelligently to increase if RFD through practicing speed deadlifts (to get the bar off the floor faster) and maximal training, (to challenge the high threshold units to fire). Pretty soon, instead of taking 3 seconds to even get the bar off the floor, it only takes 1 second of effort and instead fo straining for 5 seconds just to get the bar to his knees, he's able to accelerate through the pull and get it to lock out in just under 4 seconds. Success!
Conquered.
For sake of the blog post, we could assume he always had the capability of producing enough force to pull 400lbs, but could produce it fast enough before his body pooped out. Now, with his new and improved RFD, 400lbs flies up like it's nothin.'
Another thing to keep in mind is the torque-angle relationship during the movement. Right... what?
All that means is the torque on the joints will change depending on their angles throughout the movement, thus affecting the amount of force the muscles surrounding those joints have to produce. For example, typically* the initial pull off the floor in a deadlift will be harder than the last 1-2 inches before locking out due to the angle of the hip and knees (at the bottom, the glutes are in a stretched position which makes contracting a little tougher than at the top when they're closer to their resting length.) Same concept applies to the bench press, typically** the first 1-2 inches off the chest are more difficult than the last 1-2 inches at lockout. The implication of all this being the muscles will have different force-production demands throughout the exercise.
Knowing this, we can train through the "easier" angles and still impose a decent stimulus to keep those higher threshold motor units firing the whole time. How?
With chains and bands! Yay!
Aside from looking totally awesome, chains provided added resistance during the "easier" portions of the exercise to encourage (read: compel) muscles to maintain a high force output throughout the movement. Watch Conrad, The Boss, deadlift with chains:
At the bottom, when the torque-angle relationship is less favorable, the weight is the lightest and as he pulls up, the weight increases as glutes must maintain a high level of force output to complete the deadlift. No lazy glutes up in hea'! Bands produce a similar effect. Check out the smashingly informative reverse band bench post Steve wrote here.
There are other ways, but quite frankly this blog post is reaching saga-like proportions so I'm going to cut it here. And remember kids:
*unless your name is Kelsey Reed and you have a torso 6 inches long... but can't lock the pull out.
** unless your arms a crazy long.
