Sarah Walls 4/11/12 Sarah Walls 4/11/12

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.

Sarah Walls 4/10/12 Sarah Walls 4/10/12

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!

Sarah Walls 4/9/12 Sarah Walls 4/9/12

Good Fitness Stuff to Read for the Week 4/9/12

Who Does MR Train? - Mike Robertson

If you train a celebrity or professional athlete, does this automatically bump you onto the list of best coaches/trainers in the industry? Are the strength coaches who work primarily with high school athletes worse athletic performance enhancement than those who work with the pros? Here Mike Robertson does an excellent job elucidating this issue, and bringing the topic to the forefront.

A Letter to My Younger Self - Jim Wendler

Here Jim Wendler (auther of the 5/3/1 method, a fantastic program I completed for six months myself, and the one that Sarah is currently doing) puts together a fantastic piece that I wish every high schooler would read. Even if you're not currently in high school, do yourself a favor and click the link above. Outside of the last sentence in the article, I found myself nodding in agreement to nearly everything Jim writes in his letter to his former self.

4 Tips for Learning New Exercises - Ben Bruno

Given that I've been deadlifting every day to improve my technique and performance in the lift, this post really hit home with me. Here Ben shares some excellent points on how to learn a new exercise, ranging from how often to do it, when to do it, and what intensity to do it at.

Sarah Walls 4/6/12 Sarah Walls 4/6/12

Steve & Kelsey Compete in a Wife Carrying Contest

I just returned from a trip to Pennsylvania and was trying to think of a very brief yet entertaining blog to post before heading into SAPT for the day. What immediately came to mind was to share a snippet of something AWESOME that Kelsey and I got to participate in last weekend: A wife carrying contest. What are these weird and wild things I speak of, you ask?

Well, some good friends of ours are getting married, and, instead of holding a women-only bridal shower (which is typically done....I think...) as part of the pre-wedding festivities, the couple wanted to have a large group, co-ed get together. Since their goal is to move to Finland after they get married, they desired to host a Wife Carrying Contest in honor of the national game of Finland.

Needless to say, the event was hilarious, fun, and challenging all at the same time (more than one couple took a spill upon the man tripping and falling headfirst).

Annnnddd......Kelsey and I took the gold medal, so you can rest assured your SAPT coaches did you proud! (Kelsey wrote a post on training for a wife carrying contest HERE, if you're interested)

Fortunately, someone grabbed an action shot of us, so I have proof that I'm not making this entire contest up:

"Why are you carrying Kelsey upside down like that" is probably the question you are asking me. Well, there are typically four ways to carry the woman (piggyback, over-shoulder, fireman carry, and upside down), and since the upside down method is the one typically used by the national champions in Europe, I figured I'd be foolish not to carry Kelsey like that. Naturally.

Here are a few wife carrying contest rules:

The course has two dry obstacles and one water obstacle (typically a meter deep).
The minimum weight of the wife to be carried must be 108lbs. If the wife does not weigh this much, then she must wear a backpack/rucksack on her to make her weigh at least 108lbs.
The contestants only run the race two at a time (so you only have two couples running at once). The best time is then taken to determine the winner.
The winner receives the wife's weight in beer.
And, perhaps my favorite: The wife to be carried may be your own, the neighbor's, or "you may have found her farther afield", but she must be at least 17 years of age.

I'm heavily considering traveling to Maine (the North American wife carrying contest is held up there) to do this because, well, I don't think I really need to explain why this would be so epic.

Anyway, I'm done for now, hope you all have a great weekend.

Sarah Walls 4/5/12 Sarah Walls 4/5/12

Are You Really Squatting Correctly?

We all know the cue of “drive your knees out” when squatting but have you ever had someone observe your squat or watched yourself on camera when squatting? If you haven’t you’d be surprised to find out that your knees are probably tracking incorrectly. When coaching the squat to our athletes and clients for the first time I notice two things that happen. The first thing is the knees just do not drive out at all leading to improper tracking and you get something that looks like this…

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As you can see from the video the knees never track with the middle of the feet and you are left with a continuous valgus collapse. This is due to a number of reasons (poor glute strength, lack of body awareness, tight adductors) but mostly because people grow out of the habit of squatting correctly because they simply stop doing it over the years. Yes, it is true that if you don’t use it you lose it. We all at one time possessed the ability to squat correctly we just don’t do any up keep and then quickly forget how to do it.

Anyways, after seeing this I'll tell the person for the next set that as they lower they need to actively drive their knees out or “towards the wall”. This is when I notice the second thing that typically goes wrong during a squat which you can observe from the video below.

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This time you’ll see that yes the knees actively drive out but they drive out way to much at the beginning, they will shoot in as they get close to the bottom, then will shoot in once they switch to the concentric portion. Cue face in palm…

So what do you do now? When it comes to this I will simply ask the person what they feel is going on with their lower body throughout the movement. Undoubtedly they will say it feels weird or it feels like they are actively driving their knees out. I’ll go on to tell them what is actually going on and/or film them to show them. Most of the time I don’t need to film because I will explain what I want to see happen on the next set. I'll say, “On the next one I don’t want you to drive your knees out until you feel you are half way down. Once you feel you’re about half way I want you to really overcompensate by driving your knees out about twice as hard as you feel you need to”. What I’ll get out of this is exactly what I was looking for which is the knees tracking with the “middle” toe of the foot throughout the whole movement as you can see in the video below.

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It’s amazing how well this has worked but also a little crazy. It takes someone literally trying to overcompensate twice as much from what they think “feels right” in order to get them to squat correctly. I’ll ask the person how that felt and they will always say “really weird!” My immediate response is well that’s actually exactly what it should look like and eventually the more you do it the more it will start to feel right.

I encourage you to have someone look at your squat who knows what they are doing or have someone record you so you can make sure you are squatting correctly. If your knees aren’t tracking correctly you probably won’t get much stronger and you will also be setting yourself up for injuries later on.

Hope this helps!

Sarah Walls 4/4/12 Sarah Walls 4/4/12

Straight Bar vs. Trap Bar Deadlifts, Part 2

In Part 1 we discussed the main differences between deadlifting with the trap bar vs. doing so with the straight bar, and also examined the primary muscles recruited through each pull. Part II will touch on some of the training implications - aka the, “How does this affect ME?” question. I like lists, so what follows are, in list form, some key points surrounding each deadlift variation.

The Trap Bar

1. I previously stated that the trap bar tends to be easier to learn how to deadlift with, and while I still stand by that claim, it doesn’t mean the trap bar can’t be royally screwed up if unaware of what to feel or look for.