Monthly Archives: August 2014

Good Fitness Reads for the Week: (8/31/2014)

I hope you are enjoying your weekend! Time to catch up on some fitness reading.

This week’s edition will catch you up to speed with strength tips and articles by myself and others.

Enjoy!

 

Strength tips

*There are two types of training mentalities people possess.

There are those who always want to push the limit, do one more set, extra reps and more weight.

Then there are those who consistently do too little and find themselves doing the opposite.

I would fall into the first category like many strength sport athletes, and while the former may seem like the better mentality, they both have their drawbacks.

Try to have people around you who can give you reasonable advice.

If you are always pushing the limit, pick a training partner or coach who will tell you when it’s time to back off.

On the other hand, if you need to do more work, pick someone who will motivate you to push yourself further than you thought possible!

The goal is the same, not to train too much, not to train too little, but to train optimally.

 

*A small leak can sink a great ship.

Rest and let your minor nagging injuries heal so they don’t become a major problem later.

Rest, recover and come back stronger!

 

*Absolutes are rarely true.

There isn’t only one way to successfully get strong, diet, warm up, improve athletic performance, etc.

There are many ways to be successful, be careful not to pigeonhole yourself into believing there is only ONE way to do something.

Be open-minded and consider your options when picking a training program, diet, or anything else.

Find the approach best fit for YOU, that will allow YOU to be most successful.

 

*Today’s sample lower body [squat emphasis] workout. This workout will focus on the squat, giving you a lot of practice to work on your technique. Pick weights you know you will hit. Bet $1000 that you will hit every rep of every set!

Warm up

Set/Reps

1. Barbell Squat 3 X 5

2. Paused Squat (3 second) 2 X 5

3. Front or Goblet Squat X 10 – 12

4a. KB Reverse lunge 3 X 8/per side

4b. Paloff Press w/3 second Iso hold 3 X 10

 

*Train yourself like you would a client.

Many of us need to learn how to take our own advice for our own training. Too often coaches and lifters are guilty of taking unnecessary risks in their training that they would never allow their friends or clients take.

Be smart with your training. If you wouldn’t want your someone else doing it, you probably shouldn’t be doing it.

 

* “The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack in will.”

 

Articles by Adam

Emotional State of Lifting

 

OTHER PEOPLES READS

 

  1. Random Thoughts on Sports Performance Training – Installment 5 via Eric Cressey
  2. What No One Ever Told You About Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) And What It Really Means via Tom Venuto
  3. How to Get Stronger via Tony Gentilcore
  4. Best Ways to Audit Your Program via Dan John
  5. What Are the Best Glute Exercises? via Bret Contreras
  6. How do rest periods affect strength gains? via Chris Beardsley
  7. Fitness Myths that NEED to Die: The Paleo Diet Edition via Jordan Syatt
  8. Warm-up via Mike Robertson
  9. 9 ways to deal with hunger on a diet via Lyle McDonald
  10. Can plyometrics improve power? via Chris Beardsley
  11. Neanderthal No More Part I via Eric Cressey and Mike Robertson
  12. Why Bodybuilders are More Jacked Than Powerlifters via Bret Contreras and Brad Schoenfeld
  13. Why the Box Squat is Overrated via Tony Gentilcore
  14. Myths of MMA Conditioning via Joel Jamieson
  15. 6 Steps to Fixing Your Clients’ Broken Diets via Mike Samuels
  16. Your Problem With Sugar is THE Problem With Sugar via Joy Victoria
  17. All about coffee: Is it good for us? Or a disease waiting to happen? via Brian St. Pierre
  18. All About Food Porn via Ryan Andrews
  19. Q&A: Speed Work – Robertson Training Systems via Mike Robertson
  20. Fitness Myths that NEED to Die: Spot Reduction via Jordan Syatt
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4 Tips You Need to Know for a Bigger Bench Press

4 Tips you Need to Know for a Bigger Bench Press

  • Setup properly and get as tight as possible.
  • Train and utilize the muscles in your back.
  • Press the weight explosively, keeping proper form.
  • Work on your technique and weak points.

“How much do ya bench?”

Always the first question every lifter is asked by their friends. If you’re a big squatter or deadlifter, this is not the question you want to hear. If you struggle in the bench press like many lifters do, you may just need to make a few adjustments.

Here are four tips that will help you bring up your bench and make you a whole lot more eager to answer that question.

1. The Setup:

Drive your heels through the floor, trying to push your head back towards the spotter. You shouldn’t actually move towards the spotter because your traps will be driving into the bench creating stability. Keep your feet planted in the ground and drive your knees out. Whether you prefer to bench on your toes, or flat footed is up to you.

Flex your glutes, HARD, like you are trying to crack a walnut between your butt cheeks. Keep your glutes flexed and planted on the bench! Create tension through your entire body!

Arch your lower back hard to the ceiling. Try to bring your bellybutton to the ceiling. Minimize the distance the bar has to travel.

Try to drive your upper back into the ceiling the entire time. Arch your upper back hard to the ceiling. This step is often forgotten. Just because you are arching your lower back hard does not mean your upper back is arched as well. This will create  more tension and shorten the range of motion.

Tighten your lats and tuck your shoulder blades into the back pocket of your pants. Flex your lats hard and pull your scapula down to keep your upper back tight!

Try to melt the bar between your fingers! Grip the bar in tight to your thumb. If you’re not sure where to start, grip with your pinkies on the rings. Remember to SQUEEZE the bar as tight as possible!

Take a deep breath and remember to hold it until you have finished your rep. After you complete a rep, you can rebreathe. Breathe through pursed lips, short breaths. You do not want to expel all your air and flatten out on the bench. You can also try to hold your breath as long as possible. Try getting five reps without rebreathing.

When setting up, you want to create as much tension as possible throughout your entire body! The tighter and more stable you are on the bench, the better your press will be.

2. Train the Upper Back and Lats

Your back will play an important role during the bench. As the bar descends you will want to drive your upper back through your chest, pulling it closer to the ceiling and the bar. By doing this, your chest will reach its highest point, meeting the bar. This will minimize the range of motion and create tension.

Pull the bar into you. During the eccentric portion of the lift, when you are lowering the bar to your sternum, try to drive your elbows into your lats, rather than relying solely on gravity to bring the bar to your chest. Control the bar down and touch it your chest lightly. This will help you support the weight using the muscles in your back as intended.

Keep your elbows pointed at each other to ensure that your they’re in the proper position: not too flared, or too tucked. If done correctly, you will feel the muscles in your back working hard. The closer the bar gets to your sternum, the more tension you will feel in your lats and mid back, giving you a  pop off the chest when you press.

3 Exercises I like for building a strong back:

– Rows (barbell, dumbbell, t-bar, chest supported, cable, TRX, etc.)

– Pullups/chin-ups

– Pulldowns

There are many other great exercises you can do. These three exercises are great for developing size and strength in the lats and upper back.

3. BE EXPLOSIVE!

When the bar reaches your chest, keep as tight as possible, grip the bar as tight as possible, and press the weight as EXPLOSIVELY as you can! Remember not to flare your elbows too early, you will put undo strain on your shoulder and put yourself in a disadvantageous pressing position.

4. Train your weaknesses and practice your technique!

If you consistently fail pressing off the chest, you can try:

–          Paused presses off the chest for a 3-5 second count

–          Dead bench

–          Full range of motion rep work

If you fail towards lockout:

–          Board presses at your sticking point

–          Bench press with chains

–          Slingshot bench press

Especially for beginners, I recommend getting a lot of practice doing full range of motion bench pressing with submaximal weights so you can master your technique.

*Video of one of the worlds best benchers, Kirill Sarychev, putting it all together and benching 719lbs raw!

Want a bigger bench? If you have are looking to increase your bench or improve your programming, email me at: adamnpine@gmail.com and put “BENCH QUERY” in the subject line.

 

 

 

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Good Fitness Reads for the Week: 8/17/2014

I hope you’re enjoying your weekend! Time to catch up on some fitness reading.

Before we get to the goods, I want to let you know about a new article I’m working on, so be on the lookout this week for ‘4 Tips You Need to Know for a Bigger Bench Press’!

Strength tips:

*Stop training through your nagging injuries. If you are training and aggravating the same nagging injury day in, day out, it will never heal and probably get worse.

This does NOT mean you should stop training all together. Continue doing exercises that don’t cause pain. For example, if doing barbell squatting causes your hip to hurt, take some time off barbell squats and replace it for a movement targeting similar muscle groups that you can do pain free.

Your squat isn’t going to improve if your hip never heals and your hip won’t heal if you continually irritate it doing barbell squats.

Let pain be your guide. If something causes you pain, don’t do it.

 

*Your training should be efficient. More isn’t always better. To achieve your goal, you should aim to train smarter.

Strive to train optimally, not to beat your body into submission.

 

*Stop over-thinking your powerlifting equipment

We have so many options when it comes to belts, shoes, knee wraps/sleeves, wrist wraps, etc. Lifters are becoming neurotic when it comes to finding the best piece of equipment.

There is no perfect knee wrap or Olympic shoe that will add 200lbs to your squat.

Instead, place that focus on improving your technique, programming, recovery and diet. These are the changes that will improve your performance.

 

*There are no tricks to getting strong.

Don’t waste time searching for the right supplement to burn fat or get you jacked overnight.

Train hard, train smart, and stay consistent with your diet.

 

*If you are going to the gym to lift weights you should be warming up to allow your body to perform at its highest level and to reduce the risk of injury.

The goal of the warm-up is to prepare ourselves to perform the activity we are about to do (lift weights, football, sprinting etc.) optimally and safely.

We need to be mindful of this when warming up. If you are performing: foam rolling, breathing drills, dynamic/static stretching, any or more combinations of all these things, that is fine. Like your strength training, be smart and efficient. It is unnecessary for most people to be warming up for 30 minutes.

If you are doing all these things and it is taking up a large chunk of your session AND you continue to feel tight during and/or after lifting, you need to identify the reason.

Perhaps you need to address other issues: technique, mismanagement of volume/intensity in your programming, improving your warm-up, or something else.

Remember why you are warming up, and try to perform a warm-up that prepares you for your activity efficiently.

 

*The setup is a crucial part of your lift.

Lifters often rush through their setup, causing them to continually practice and develop bad habits.

Treat every set is an opportunity for you to practice and perfect your setup.

If your setup is improper, you are not giving yourself the opportunity to perform the lift to the best of your ability.

 

*One bad training day is just that, one bad training day.

It’s only one workout!

We all have days where our training doesn’t go as planned. Bad training days often have more of a psychological impact on us than physical. One training day does not determine the success of your
training cycle.

You can do better next time. Now you have even more of a reason to go in and kill it in the next session. Eat well, rest, and often you can have some of your best workouts following a bad one!

 

*Work on mastering your technique.

People often automatically associate missing a lift with a muscular weakness. I missed (insert lift) at lockout, I need to work on (insert variation). Sometimes this is the case, choosing the correct variation and focusing on bringing up the weak area can improve the lift.

Another common reason people miss lifts is their technique. Work on perfecting your technique and many of your ‘weaknesses’ will improve.

 

*Don’t convince yourself you will be bad at something based on your body type.

If you believe you won’t be successful at a lift because you’re not ‘built’ for it, than you won’t be. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy, you’ve already decided that you are going to fail.

Instead of convincing yourself that you’re not going to be good at the lift, put extra work into improving it. It may never be your best lift, but that doesn’t mean you still can’t be good at it.

“The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.”

Good Reads:

  1. Rigid vs. Flexible Dieting | BodyRecomposition – The Home of Lyle McDonald via Lyle McDonald
  1. Body Fat Percentage Pictures of Men & Women – BuiltLean via Marc Perry
  1. 5 Strength Training Tips for Females – Robertson Training Systems via Mike Robertson
  1. Does metabolism vary between two people? | Examine.com FAQ via examine.com
  1. Low-Carb vs Balanced-Diets: The Debate Rages On via Brad Schoenfeld
  1. [Video] Konstantin Pozdeev. Detailed interview.

  1. RTS Forums – Quick Study: A Conversation With 2014 IPF Junior World Champion Mikelina via Adam Palmer & Mikelina  Belaineh
  1. Is nutrient timing dead? And does “when” you eat really matter? via Brian St. Pierre
  1. Paleo, vegan, intermittent fasting…Here’s how to choose the best diet for you. via John Berardi

10. What is the best squat stance? via  Adam Pine

11. All About Eating Slowly via Brian St. Pierre

12. Front Squat – Robertson Training Systems via Mike Robertson

13. Metabolic Rate Overview | BodyRecomposition – The Home of Lyle McDonald via Lyle McDonald

14. » New Study on the Anabolic Window of Opportunity via Brad Schoenfeld

15. Eating when you’re sick: Should you feed a cold? Or starve a fever? via Ryan Andrews & Brian St. Pierre

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

-A

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