Lovin it !

I haven't fired up as many updates as I would like but since its the 12th weekend here in Belfast and the place is a ghost town I've got a bit of free time to chew the fat and talk shop!

The title of this blog entry is Lovin it. Why I here you cry. Well its nothing to do with Micky d's. I just had a truly awesome workout earlier and my workouts lately have all been really good. In fact I wager that my last 2 workouts have placed in my top 10 list of all time best workouts.

There are a few ingredients that come to make a good workout. Large compound lifts, timed rests and fun stuff. Heres how today looked -

Push press - 5 x 5 - 2 mins rest

I think 5 x 5 is a super rep range as it keeps it heavy enough that you are lifting weight but you stay away from the really heavy stuff which can be a bit harder on the system. I train quite often and don't want to be pushing sets of 3 or less too much. The push press is one of my all time favourite exercises. The military press is a stricter version of the push press where you rely less on the legs and keep the feet together military style. At the mo I start light and end up peaking around my 3rd set and go lighter so that I never stray far from my 5 reps target. Other times I pick a weight and stay on it for the 5 sets. It just depends on how I feel.

Wide Grip chins with Fat Gripz attachment - Bodyweight x 4 sets - 90 sec rest - 3 sec negative

When I first got the Fatgripz I went from doing weighted chin ups to struggling to get 6 with body weight. The thickness of the bar completely killed my grip. Today I managed 11 wide grip reps on the Fatz although its not a super wide grip, more like just outside shoulder width.



This is my fore arm unpumped - wish I had of taken a shot a few weeks back as they definitely feel a lot fuller although the tape measure only has them at 13 1/4


So thats my vertical push and pull done. I dont super set the above although I do have a light upper day which has some higher rep/ super set stuff in there.

Weighted thick grip dips - 6 - 8 reps and try to control the negative to the sound of 3 secs.

Again I add fat gripz to the bars and hang some weight off my waist. I used to feel a lot stronger on these but with the added tempo and other stuff prior I tend to use around 4o kg for 8 reps. Some would class the dip as a vertical push as the body moves vertical but the movement patterns is in relation to how the arms move away from the body. The dip is similar to an extreme decine bench press.

Thick grip rows - 6 - 8 reps on a seated cable row with a bicep curl superset.

I rest 90 secs after my rows and do a seated bicep curl with 24 - 28kg dbells before shooting back to rows. After all of the above my grip is fried and the guns suck the last bit of energy out of me.

My heavy upper day lasts almost an hour and covers - vertical push, vertical pull, horizontal push, horizontal pull - to cap it off I throw in some side raises OR scaption OR rotator cuff - some days I may even do some tricep pushdowns - disco muscles baby yeah :p

This has to be my favourite type of upper body set up. If I get bored with an exercise I just replace it with a similar move ie push press could be swapped for dbell press etc as long as the movement pattern stays as a vertical push. This is just an easy way for me to keep some form of balance in there.

COVER MODEL FINALISTS

The annual Men's Health Cover Model comp is here again! Just 10 finalists this year and it seems none of the guys come from a fitness career background. The standard format is that votes go in now, awards happen in august and the winner appears on the cover around sept/ oct time.

CHECK HERE TO VOTE

W.T.F?

Its not often I come across a new barbell exercise but thanks to Youtube I stumbled across this move. I just don't know what to say except I don't think I will be performing these anytime soon.

ROUNDTABLE 'Q5' - OLY LIFTS FOR NEWBIES

The Round table has a few new faces throwing in their 2 cents. Thanks again as always to ye brave knights. Thanks too for the emails I get from guys who appreciate the round table layout. Our goal was to keep this user friendly and not turn it into a complex list of fancy words that confuse the layman. It seems to be working.

Anyways lets kick it all off -

INTERSWEAT -

"How beneficial would you say Olympic lifts are for the average guy in the gym or the new guy?"

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RHEINALLT - A qualification – I love the Olympic lifts, I love performing them, and I love what they can produce in an athlete. However the average guy has enough trouble performing the basic lifts properly, lacks the dynamic flexibility and glute function to squat and deadlift effectively and the shoulder health to press properly. Chuck in some self taught cleans or snatches and at best they’re wasting time lifting too light a weight for too many reps, and at worst they’re reinforcing dysfunction or hurting themselves and possibly others around them.
Watch elite weightlifters in the flesh and the movement is lightning fast, jaw dropping, the average guy doesn’t have the strength, let alone the ability to express it that quickly; anyone who’s tried teaching Olympic Lifts will be able to tell you how frustrating it is (even teaching elite athletes) – most people cannot move that quickly!
Consider also that most gyms don’t have bumper plates and don’t allow dropping the weight – which if you’re lifting any appreciable weight is a necessity.

In short I would recommend the average guy work on his squats and deadlift and by work, I mean perform them perfectly, using the right muscles at the right time.

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ED ACHE - The benefits of the Olympic lifts for the average gym goer or the nubie aren’t worth the time it takes to learn them. For me, that time would be better spent doing lifts that would benefit their training.

If they play sport, however, then its well worth them investing the time (and money) to learn them properly, they will increase their explosiveness and overall strength. See when you play sport it’s all very well being strong but if you can’t develop that strength in a given time frame then it’s pretty much useless. That’s where the Olympic lifts come in, the plyometric element to them helps increase the rate at which you can produce force.

What most people overlook (me included) is that Olympic lifting is a sport in itself so the chances of you leaning to do them with correct form without proper coaching is pretty slim. I’m currently spending 4 sessions a week trying to work on my snatch form, I’ve had coaching from some pretty clever people and that’s helped no end. But I’m probably getting 1 in 25 with passable form, as soon as you put more weight on the bar it becomes very unforgiving. If you want to learn how to do them find yourself a decent coach and go from there, I’m happy to look though any videos people send me and tell them where to improve their Olympic lifts.

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D* - For the new guy, not great. They don’t have the technique or confidence to pull off what are pretty complicated moves. The risk of injury is too high – they don’t have the tendon strength, flexibility and stabilising muscle support to perform them properly. Add to that most gyms just aren’t set up for them, and it’s not a recipe for success.

For someone with a few months training under their belts, I think they are an excellent tool for all purposes. I’m not talking about 1RM efforts, but rather multiple, low rep sets. The conditioning and power benefits are immense.

I’m not convinced all Olympic lifts have their place in a commercial gym, but there’s no reason that all variations of the clean and press can’t be incorporated. Also, dumbbell versions of these Olympic lifts are safer and can be carried out with minimal instruction.

The benefits of carrying out lots of clean and pressing include improved grip strength, development of minor stabilising muscles, improved aerobic conditioning and generation of power. These things translate directly through to many sports, and anyone participating in football or rugby would see improvements in their performance by including C&Ps in all their variations.


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TENTIGERS - Never really done them to any great extent, so i don't think they are necessary as such for the average guy or new guy.

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GABZ - It would depend on what their goals where. Explosive power is useful in a lot of sports, but many Olly lifts are very technical and take a long time to get any serious weight on if, like me, you're not very coordinated. Kettle bells have a lot of the same benefits but are a lot easier to learn.
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WOLF - For a beginner, I would not recommend Olympic lifts, I would advocate concentrating and good form with the big 3 lifts, keep it simple and you can't go wrong.

When you have some experience of weightlifting, and how your body works to do different things, I would say now is the time to decide whether Olympic lifting is suitable for you. I don't believe it is suitable for everyone, and it will be up to the individual whether Olympic lifting will help them achieve their goals.

If your goals are pure strength, fitness, power, being a good Cross fitter, just getting in shape, having a functional body, then I think Olympic lifts could be beneficial for you. I'll leave other honorable members of the round table to advise on these goals as they have more experience than me. I shall talk about what I know, or what I have made it my mission to know as much about as possible. That's building a balanced, symmetric, muscular physique. Pure aesthetics.

For this aim, I don't believe that Olympic lifting is beneficial. Olympic lifting is all about being functional, fast and powerful, none of which matters if you want to look good in your swimming trunks. Olympic lifting won't build more muscle than a proper bodybuilding routine (it will probably build less) in fact the only time at which I may consider it would be on a cut, but I would have doubts as to whether my hard earned muscle mass would be adequately maintained without the calculated muscle stimulation of a bodybuilding program.

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LION'EL JACKSON - To begin, first we must realise just how technical, and how difficult Olympic lifts are to perfect. The amount of coordination, core-strength, speed and agility required are enormous, and that's without even getting into the overall strength aspect of the lifts. For a newbie to perfect this, he/she would require many, many hours of coaching and monitoring, as well as adequate rest periods and correct nutrition. This may be something that is out of reach of the average guy.

I'd like to use an analogy. I personally think that it would be akin to telling a person on their first driving lesson, to drive through the town centre and then out onto the dual carriageway. There's a lot of risks involved due to the lack of experience and adequate coaching, and someone could get seriously hurt.

In the time that's spent perfecting the technique, the newbie could have learnt how to perform all of the standard compound lifts correctly, and could be increasing the weight. The Olympic lifts (snatch and clean and jerk) would have to be performed on a low weight, if any weight at all initially, for the technique to be perfected. This would limit the amount of HGH released. We must also realise that many of the average newbies that walk into a gym are there for one reason: to build muscle. Olympic lifts are not for muscle gain, they are for explosive and 'functional' strength.

So in conclusion, no, I don't believe that Olympic lifts are something that should be incorporated into a newbie's routine, as I do not feel it would be beneficial.

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MYSTERY GUEST - Not at all, for Olympic and pro athletes with time and coaching at hand in the weight room they can spend the time need to learn the lifts effectively, plus they have the space and plates to do so, this is a luxury the average gym goer does not have. There are plenty exercises that can be adapted to ensure high rate of force development that the Olympic lifts bring.

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NEILS 'ROUND TABLE' ROUND UP

Handing a barbell to an average gym goer and getting them to perform Oly lifts is like picking Edward scissor hands to be on your team for a water bomb fight - fecking useless.

First off - the Oly lifts are the Snatch and the Clean and Jerk. (Power lifts are the back squat, bench and deadlift. It is a bit stupid that powerlifting is named powerlifting when in reality power equates to speed and you could do the powerlifts as slow as you like . . anyways . . )

I wont go over what the guys have covered in detail so I will just list the things that put me off using these 2 lifts.

1 - Technically fecking difficult.
2 - Time required to learn could be spent elsewhere.
3 - Average gym is poorly equipped.
4 - Average gym goer is dysfunctional*

* If you cannot perform a squat or deadlift correctly then you should not be trying the Oly lifts or their variations. If you have an imbalance and combine that with poor lifting technique at speed you will end up injured - not cool.

Better alternatives -

1 - Jumping.
2 - Kettlebells
3 - Powerlifts
4 - Thai bo (yeah Im joking)

Why are these better alternatives? Its super easy to jump. Kettlebells are great for teaching you how to work the hips. Powerlifts from a coaching point of view are much easier to teach as you can stop the client at any stage and reinforce technique. One thing I would say is that adding in variations of Oly lifts are great fun but again these require supervision. Powercleans, for example, are a great lift but again not much use if your spine looks like Robin Hoods bow.


If your back looks like this mid deadlift - you're fecked.





















If you are going to get explosive with variations get them in early in your routine. Nothing like some clean and jerks after an hour of legs to give you the sudden urge to visit the physio.

To come back to the average gym goer they dont know how to activate muscles. Take a guy who has been training by himself for 6 months and you can almost guarantee that he has been following a machine based split routine the whole time. His chest and upper traps will be dominant. His stabilisers will be fast asleep. His back will have had less work than a school teacher in July and his grip strength will be weaker than an MP's expenses form. All in all the average gym goer should be moving body weight and dipping his toes outside of the saggital plane.

To wrap it up. Leave Olympic lifts for the Olympians!

PS - I will add a list of round table entries and relevant MH discussions to a side bar in the very near future.

To check MH for round 5 discussions just click me.

Weight Belts

I know a lot of you probably don't wear a belt, at least I hope not, but there will be a few that train with guys that do. I personally never liked the feel of a belt on me and after hearing so many stories about how they weaken the back I never bought one. 13 years later and with a lot of reps and sets under my belt (excuse the pun) I have no back injuries. I would be interested in hearing how many guys wear belts and if so why?




Dr Stuart McGill, hes got your back







Stuart McGill, the main man when it comes to back health, has a pdf excerpt on his site looking at the use of belts in performance and work settings. One point he makes is that guys wearing belts will attempt to lift about 19% more weight than normal. The idea being that a belt somehow gives you that safety net. In my experience many guys that I see training with belts on are the same guys that dont really seem to care as much about technique - coincidence?

You can check out his site and the pdf here.

NASM - CES

I passed the Corrective Exercise Specialist exam with the National Academy Of Sports Medicine!

I just rattled through it and found out I passed with 88% and about 50 minutes to spare! Chuffed.

To give you an idea of the lingo here is a passage copied from the book.
"A practical example can be seen during the descent of a squat. If the ankle is restricted and unable to move, the hip will move more.5 If there is a lack of sagittal plane dorsiflexion at the ankle due to an overactive gastrocnemius and soleus and an underactive anterior tibialis, the LPHC will be forced to increase forward flexion to alter the body’s center of gravity to maintain balance. This may also require increased activation of the hip flexor and abdominal muscles to pull the pelvis and trunk into more forward flexion even though from a mechanical perspective the movement is gravity assisted. The under-activity of the erector spinae and gluteus maximus to maintain an upright trunk position produces the compensation of an excessive forward lean. The gluteus maximus and latissimus dorsi along with the thoracolumbar fascia work synergistically to form the posterior obliques sub-system.6,7 As a compensatory mechanism for the underactivity and inability of the gluteus maximus to maintain an upright trunk position, the latissimus dorsi may become synergistically dominant (overactive) in order to provide stability through the trunk, core,and pelvis.4 Because the latissimus dorsi crosses the inferior angle of the scapulae and inserts onto the humerus it can alter the rotation of the scapula and instantaneous axis of rotation of the humeral head within the glenoid fossa. . . ."

What does all of that actually mean? It means I have some shit hot new words for my next game of Scrabble. It also means that I have to find ways of breaking down the complex into Laymans terms so that clients can make use of the advice I give them.

Every since I began training people I have wondered about ways of improving their technique and tackling imbalances. For the PT's out there who follow the blog I highly recommend this course for addressing dysfunctions with clients. If this sort of stuff floats your boat also check strengthcoach.com for podcasts with Gray Cook - the main man when it comes to Corrective Exercise!

ROUNDTABLE - 'Q4' - BIGGEST MISTAKES?

You should all know the drill by now. A bunch of us get together and tackle some of the most frequently asked questions we come across. Intersweat has once again kindly gathered up the questions and answers. As always I will throw my 2 cents in at the end to cap it off. To check back over previous RT topics check here -

1 - Q1 - Size and Strength
1 - Men's health discussion
2 - Q2 - Genetics
2 - Men's health discussion
3 - Q3 - Supplements
3 - Men's health discussion

Ok, what question do ye have for us sir brave knight?

INTERSWEAT -

"What are the biggest mistakes that people make in trying to get big and strong at the same time?"

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RHEINALLT - Lack of consistent application of sound training and nutrition principles. The basic principles of getting bigger and stronger as they apply to nutrition and lifting are simple yet there are questions everyday on ‘which protein powder, rate my program’ etc.

Take the time to understand the basics of nutrition (especially) and physiology, and then apply them.

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ED ACHE - For me the single biggest mistake is rest periods. So many people do their set then sit about and chat, or wait till they feel ready again. They’d be much better off timing 2-3mins then going again. So rather than doing 3x10 with a mobile phone call for your rest, do 4x8 2mins timed rest. Also people not taking their training seriously, using the gym as somewhere to socialise rather than come in and get the work done, it’s called a WORKout not a chatout.

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D* - The biggest mistake? Having too many goals. If you want to get big, you don’t necessarily have to get that strong. Take BBing as an example; these are some of the biggest guys around – but would they stand a chance against Mariusz in an all-round test of pure strength?

That’s the whole reason we have strength and hypertrophy rep ranges. Yes, there’s a cross-over between them. You get strong, you’ll get bigger. You get bigger, you’ll get stronger. The thing is, there are plenty of big guys around who can’t squat a decent weight, or can’t manage a single chin up. Likewise, there are loads of smaller guys who can lift weights far in excess of what their appearance would suggest.

Ego plays a role too. You have to lift within your limits, pushing at them whenever possible, but listening to your body and backing off when you need too. It doesn’t matter what Big Dave is doing in the corner. You are not Big Dave; you are YOU, and you need to work within your own parameters. Too many people get obsessed with what other people are lifting, rather than concentrating on what they are doing themselves.

My experience, and my approach with clients, is to develop strength first and worry about size later. For complete newbies, strength training will lead to decent size gains anyway. It also means that they have a decent bedding of strength by the time they decide they wish to move to a dedicated hypertrophy programme.

Another big mistake is in assuming that training alone is what will achieve results. Just as important are diet, rest and managing stress levels. The amount of people I’ve seen who have been training fairly hard and getting nowhere, then sort out their diets and literally move to a different level is testament to that, whatever your goal.


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TENTIGERS - Not enough rest, not enough food, and letting their ego get away with them and not cycling their lifts and trying to lift heavy all the time thus ending up either injured or disillusioned.

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MYSTERY GUEST - Too much focus on big and not enough strong, people associate higher rep burn and feel of higher rep schemes (12+) as hard work and getting bigger, this is fine if you aspire to be built like you just finished in the top 10 of the London marathon. People like the feeling of the pump and once they get that they go home, I even had a young trainee tell me as much.

Building that base of strength is so very important to getting bigger, the stronger you are greater potential for mass you generally have because it means you can handle heavier loads on those hypertrophy exercises. People shy away from strength work for a number of reasons, bad form is harder to compensate for with heavier loads, it is hard, it can be boring (3-5 minute rest periods anyone?) and generally many don’t understand how to cycle or periodize exercises for purposeful strength training going back to what I mentioned before about strength being a motor skill. Hypertrophy is easier because it’s a matter of picking an exercise and hitting the magic set rep scheme that ensures enough trauma and adaption by the muscle “structure”.


NEILS 'ROUND TABLE' ROUNDUP !

If a Gurkha pulls out his knife he cannot put it back in the sheath unless it causes some serious blood loss. My training diary is much the same. When I pull out my diary people know they are about to witness the ultimate workout of supreme justice. I cant put that diary back in my bag unless it has been witness to some serious iron pumping. To answer the question and some up some of what has already been covered - I feel people disregard the basics AND fail to acknowledge that muscle growth and strength gain require hard work.

Many guys have access to great routines. We have the likes of T nation to thank for that. Guys also have access to the most up to date cutting edge nutrition and supplement info the world has ever seen yet many fail in their endeavors to get strong and buff.

For me training hard has to be the forgotten variable. When I train I have my journal set out. I know my tempos, rest periods and my next three meals once the weights hit the floor. You could have the best routine in the world backed up with the best powders and potions money can buy but without balls like kettlebells and a heart like a lion mid shag you are never going to get big and strong!

Ok so you train hard, now what?

1 - Nutrition first and foremost - - - > better meals = bigger wheels
2 - Timed rest periods. You should not look like you are mid flow in a circuits class.
3 - Compound lifts, large muscle groups.
4 - Isolation work should be for addressing weakness and imbalance.
5 - Leave the ego at the door. Build up to one rep maxes. Dont try them everytime you train FFS.
6 - Learn as much as possible about periodization as you can and deload / take time off as soon as you feel the need.

Once again you can follow up this blog entry with discussion on the Men's Health forum.

13 things + some more

I have been training 13 years and thought I would knock up a blog entry on 13 things I have witnessed as a gym user, forum user and Personal Trainer. I ended up going off on one here and to be fair probably could have racked up 100 points!

1 - Fat personal trainers never have as many clients as those in good nick. If you are a trainer and have a 6 pack you will be busier than a PT with a belly.

2 - People that read magazines or books while doing cardio are never in great shape.

3 - Guys that do single arm pec deck and dumbbell bench presses really need to focus on foundation lifts.

4 - Wearing tracksuit bottoms ALL of the time just proves that you are packing some pretty poor pepperami sausages for legs. Do less curls.

5 - Grunting is only cool if you are lifting something that makes the bar bend.

6 - Women need to stop following routines devised by their mates hairdresser.

7 - Training for more than an hour = too much time spent chatting and arsing about.

8 - 1/4 reps with half a bus may look good to you but to everyone else you just look like a dick. Unless you are a competitive powerlifter trying to strategically outwit your golgi tendon organ I will label you an idiot.

9 - If you cannot lift the weight off the floor then you dont deserve to do shoulder presses with it.

10 - Some reps can be spotted. Warm ups should not require spotters.

11 - Muscle tops should not expose nipples. Erect nipples?- - - - - -> even worse!

12 - Bouncers need to try different routines.

13 - Traps are not just lumps under your ears. Most people do far too much upper traps and ignore the rest of this large muscle group.

14 - Driving to work / sitting in work / driving to gym / sitting in gym on spin bike + machines / driving home / sitting at home = shitty back. Train standing up.

15 - If you don't know how to train - do not attempt to coach your wife / mate / other gym users.

16 - The Smith machine is great for inverted body weight rows and calf raises. That's about it.

17 - If you are on the same workout that you were on this time last year, odds are good that things have plateaued.

18 - Its a nice day. Go for a walk outside FFS.

19 - 3 guys plus one Smith machine = endless hours of chest and shoulder exercises.

20 - If you are on a body part split do not train chest on a Monday night. Do legs instead so you don't have to wait on stuff.

21 - If you park in the disabled spaces to get close to the gym yet proceed to go for a walk when you get in there - you are an idiot. Please do not have unprotected sex.

22 - Everyone does crunches. Very few have abs. Anterior core work is best done without flexion.

23 - More back, less chest.

24 - More hams, less quads.

25 - Chinese whisper workouts lead to injury. Do not copy others. You may miss the details that make the exercise safe.

Erm, so there you have it. My 13 + things that I have noticed in my 13 plus years as a gym junkie!

Feel free to add your own. I may even change these or add to it down the line.