|
| Acid Buffers are a very useful and under-rated supplement when it comes to increasing work capacity and tolerance to high intensity activity. If you're trying to avoid or improve "neural fatigue," this is where it is. The body will maintain its PH range in a narrow range regardless of how you eat, but the important thing is what your body has to do to maintain that proper PH. Sub-clinical low-grade acidosis increases cortisol and occurs in most people due to the increased consumption of grains and reduced consumption of veggies and fruits. It also tends to naturally occur in response to stress of any kind. This includes: caloric restriction, intensive activity, and lack of sleep.
Low-grade acidosis is, in my opinion, one reason why people dieting are more prone to lose strength. So how do you fix it? Eat your veggies and fruits. One pound of green veggies per 50 pounds of bodyweight per day is ideal. Vegetable juicing is a good idea. Additionally, a couple of extra grams of sodium and potassium bicarbonate (baking soda or Alka-Seltzer) can be useful, as can extra magnesium, glutamine (a teaspoon with each meal), and l-carnosine. If you pay attention to how you feel, you can eventually get to a point where you know when to supplement with extra buffers. The acidic state is associated with a “wired out” anxious stressed out type energy. The alkaline state is associated with relaxation. If you're feeling too relaxed, lay off the buffers. If you're feeling stressed, add them in. |
| Read more |
|
| Each week, a small army of high school athletes come to train at Cressey Performance. When you see athletes from several different towns on a daily basis, you start to notice many patterns. Some kids put their bags in one place every time. Others foam roll on a certain part of the turf. Some get covered in chalk, and others just sprinkle it on. A few wear their hats sideways.
These are just personal habits, though. They don't necessarily comment on significant trends - something I've seen a lot of lately. And, they're getting pretty disturbing. I'm not just talking about childhood obesity, teenage pregnancy, spending too much time in front of the TV, or anything like that. This trend is much worse.
You see, at some point, mankind de-evolved - or just "wussified" - and started perceiving Justin Timberlake as acceptable training music. I'm not kidding, folks. I get all excited when I hear Godsmack, Disturbed, Jay-Z, and Linkin Park on a new CD one of our guys burned. Then, just as one of our young studs gets himself under the giant cambered bar to dominate a heavy triple on box squats, his testosterone level magically drops to "Cry me a rivvvvvvvvvvvvvvveeeerrrrrr....."
Me: "Get the staple remover out of the office, Tony. He's stuck on the box and not coming up."
Tony: "I think we're going to need a spatula for this one..."
Honestly, people. Is it the soy in school lunches? The banning of dodgeball in gym classes? How did our young athletes come to think that the music you would play to seduce someone of the opposite sex (or, in my case, the music that would drive me to write a suicide note) could possibly be the same music that facilitates lifting heavy stuff?
Justin Timberlake is weak. Too weak to bench 135. Too weak to pick up his shoes to put them on in the morning. And, definitely too weak to motivate someone who is already actually relatively strong.
Don't get me wrong; I'm all for bringing sexy back. If you want to listen to JT, be my guest. Please just do so in a soundproof room in your secluded home when nobody is around. And please, turn the volume down and don't attempt to lift anything heavy for the duration of the CD.
Eric Cressey |
| Read more |
|
| In an untrained lifter, deadlifts are a guaranteed 15 pounds of muscle mass. Think about it: you’re using your entire upper back, glutes, hamstrings, core musculature, and forearms. If you haven’t done anything with these muscles before, they’re going to get bigger quickly. Put 100 pounds on a newbie’s deadlift and you’ll bump him up a shirt size in no time. This principle can also be applied to experienced lifters who haven’t deadlifted in the past; leg curls just won’t get the job done to the same extent that heavy deadlifts and rack pulls will. For added upper back emphasis, try snatch grip versions.
Eric Cressey |
| Read more |
|
| Here’s a random question for you: have you ever seen a fat soccer player competing at a high level?
Nope. It just doesn’t happen; you can’t get far in this sport if you’re carrying excess baggage – and the demands of the sport get you lean in the first place.
Now, here’s a follow-up question: have you ever seen a fat jogger?
Absolutely! They’re all over the place; heck, there are probably more fat joggers than there are lean joggers!
A recent study takes things a step further and shows that soccer is not only superior to jogging for fat loss (almost double the fat loss over the course of 12 weeks), but that it’s also superior for fitness gains and muscle mass increases – all while exercising at a lower perceived exertion because they were having more fun.
Take-home lessons?
1. As Alwyn Cosgrove and Craig Ballantyne (and dozens of other bright fitness professionals) have stated over and over, high-intensity work (interval training and lifting) blow aerobic exercise out of the water for fat loss.
2. Pick an activity that is fun for you. Play ultimate Frisbee, flag football, or just go sprint (racing someone is great). Long, slow, steady-state cardio is about as exciting as watching paint dry.
3. Build muscle mass and you’ll get leaner faster.
Eric Cressey
http://www.cresseyperformance.com |
| Read more |
|
| This blog is continued from part 1.
Rule #4: You can never have too much information. Ask a lot of questions and consider every angle — and know when to refer out to a professional more qualified than you to handle the problem in question.
Your Take-Home: It will never hurt to get diagnostics done on your knee from a qualified physician. Some of your problems could be related to a meniscus issue; it would explain some of the problems with weight-bearing exercise (although you would still be able to do some exercises in the standing position). That said, though, you still likely have a big window of adaptation ahead of you, so read on.
Rule #5: Think "correct" before you think "different." If an exercise causes pain, stop performing it. Evaluate technique before moving on, though. If performing the exercise correctly alleviates pain, keep it. Chances are that correctly performing the exercise will actually help correct the imbalance.
Your Take-Home: Have you considered that it might be the way that you squat that is the problem? Are you breaking the knees forward or hips back first? Perhaps front-squatting is a better option for you now. Is box squatting painful?
Rule #6: Make the athlete feel like an athlete — not a patient — both physically and psychologically. Tell them what they can do.
Your Take-Home: I can almost guarantee that deadlift variations, pull-throughs, various single-leg movements, and glute-ham raises would allow you to train pain-free in closed-chain motion if you performed them correctly and with appropriate progressions.
Rule #7: Before you go changing what's going on in the gym, figure out what you can do to improve what's going on outside of it. Think posture, repetitive motions, sheer lack of movement, sleeping posture, footwear, and even poor diet.
Your Take-Home: What is your footwear like? Is it appropriate for your foot-type? Are you taking fish oil? Glucosamine? Are there activities in your daily life that you do repetitively that could be avoided or revised to keep you healthy?
Rule #8: Soft-tissue work serves a valuable role in preventing and correcting imbalances, without making any programming modifications. Foam rolling and lacrosse ball work is cheap and effective. Just do it.
Your Take-Home: I’m willing to bet that you aren’t foam rolling or doing any work on your calves or glutes with the lacrosse ball. And, I’m guessing that massages aren’t a common occurrence in your life. All three are great interventions (the former two are very affordable, too).
Rule #9: Implement mobility and activation work in your warm-up. It only takes 5-10 minutes, which is a lot less time than it takes to recover from an injury. You'll be amazed at what shakes free when you enhance stability through full ranges of motion.
Your Take-Home: I’m guessing that you haven’t done anything to improve hip internal and external range of motion, hip extension ROM, or ankle dorsiflexion ROM. You should be.
Rule #10: As a last step, modify the training plan — and only on a small-scale, if possible. This is the most "sacred" aspect of an athlete's preparation, so you should butcher it as little as possible. The more you screw with things, the more the athlete is going to feel like a patient.
Your Take-Home: I’m guessing that the leg extensions are causing more harm than good. I would try some lower intensity rack pulls and/or pull-throughs, plus some split squat isometric holds. See how it goes.
I would also highly recommend picking up a copy of Mike Robertson’s Bulletproof Knees manual. Mike goes into far more detail in several hundred pages than I ever could with a single blog post.
Good luck,
Eric Cressey |
| Read more |
|
| Hello Eric, I just read “The Truth About Leg Extensions.” Because of my standing work , I can`t do any leg exercises that press under my feet (deadlift, squat, and leg press), more that once a week, without getting trouble with my knees. They get full of water and hurt. When training full-body, three times a week, I do leg extensions Monday and Wednesday and then squats on Friday. This way, I don’t have to stand up for 8 hours the day after squats. I just tried to do squats twice a week (Monday and Friday), also with bad results. So I am happy to have the Leg extension.
With Friendly Regards from Denmark,
Bent
A: You know, I can only imagine how challenging your life must be if you can only go to the bathroom once a week. I mean, honestly, not being able to squat down to the toilet more than once every seven days? You must have a pretty strong colon!
Kidding aside, I’m the last person from whom you will get sympathy. I regularly train clients and athletes anywhere from 7-13 hours per day – and those are on some pretty hard rubberized gym floors (rubber is on top of turf). I also happen to have supinated feet (very rigid feet that don’t like to cushion the body), so I regularly wear through the insoles I put in my shoes. Still, I do a wide variety of lifts – from deadlifts, to squats, to various single-leg movements – and sprint 2-3 times a week on top of that stimulus.
Now, getting to your issue…
First off, go check out my article, The Ten Rules of Corrective Lifting, at T-Nation. It will give you an idea of the direction I’m going to take with this reply. I would actually recommend opening it up in another window as I go through step-by-step what could be your problems.
Rule #1: Fit the program to the lifter, not vice versa. The best way to correct dysfunction is to prevent it. If you're blindly following cookie-cutter programs, stop.
Your Take-Home: Stop reading your favorite muscle magazine; it takes more than leg extensions and squats to build solid legs that are pain-free.
Rule #2: Learn to program for yourself. Establish a small group of people who will give you honest feedback on your programming ideas, and then use your intuition when it comes to modifying things on the fly.
Your Take-Home: Seek out the help of others who understand the dynamics of your knees better than you do.
Rule #3: Some exercises just aren't worth it. Don't bother with them; there are better options available to you.
Your Take-Home: Cough…leg extensions….cough.
See the rest of this article in tomorrow's update! |
| Read more |
|
| I've written quite a bit in the past about the importance of having good training partners. These are lifters who know you and your tendencies: how to get you fired up, what type of training to which you respond best, and when to hold you back.
Yes, a good training partner should know when to hold you back - just like coaches know when to play it conservative with their athletes at specific points in the season.
Tony Gentilcore has been my training parter for over two years now. I know his strength levels, injury history, and what style of training best suits him for particular goals - and he knows the same about me.
Last night, we were deadlifting for heavy singles on the trap bar, and Tony just didn't look good. Before he could even turn to talk to me after his last warm-up set (405 for a single), I told him to shut it down and do something else. His bar speed was down, and it just didn't look good. It was one of those nights to modify things on the fly and avoid getting hurt doing something stupid. So, he shut it down and went over to do some full squats with the safety squat bar for reps. He went on to get in some assistance work, and all the villagers rejoiced.
With inexperienced lifters, sometimes, you have to push through not feeling so hot, as you're still dealing with an athlete who needs to practice technique. Or, in the case of in-season lifting, you may need to do what it takes to keep strength levels up. Ultimately, it comes down to asking yourself, "Can I achieve a training effect safely?" If the answer is no, you modify. If the answer is yes, you consider whether you need to play around with the loading parameters. Do you go from sets of three to sets of five? Do you drop a few sets? Do you swap some resistance training for added mobility and activation work? Extend the warm-up? Pick a different exercise and maintain the loading parameters?
There are literally hundreds of potential modifications you can make. Only time, experience, and knowing the athlete in question will help you make the best decision.
Eric Cressey |
| Read more |
|
| In my off-season manual, I allude to several performance tests that I feel best demonstrate potential for athletic excellence. As a tag along to this, I've noticed several non-physical behavioral "tests" that show me an athlete is psychologically ready to commit to success. These issues are especially common in our high school athletes.
1. On the diet front, we ask our athletes to bring us two-day nutrition logs (one training day and one non-training day) so that we can evaluate how they can improve their diets. The more dedicated athlete, the sooner we get that back (if at all).
2. Also on the diet front, aside from those who are lactose-intolerant, athletes who complain about the taste of cottage cheese just never seem to "get it." These same individuals are usually the ones who dislike every flavor of protein powder imaginable.
3. Motivated athletes realize that if they fall off the wagon by eating some junk food, the entire day isn't "lost." They get back on track and call it water under the bridge. Less motivated athletes tend to just consider an entire day a way and have another bag of Twizzlers and a two-liter bottle of Coke.
4. One's response to injury is also always a good indicator of how bad one "wants it." The best athletes want to train through the injury - even though we don't advise it, obviously. With these individuals, we're big on showing them what they CAN do rather than just reaffirming what they CAN'T do. The idea is to continuously challenge them with movements that either a) allow them to train around the injury and b) movements that will help to rehabilitate the injury and/or prevent it from occurring again. The softest of the bunch usually skip the session because they want a pity party.
As much as a stereotype as it may seem, my experience with female athletes in particular has been that injuries tend to lead to complete abstinence from exercise in favor of partaking in slumber parties with Ben and Jerry.
5. Some exercises - deadlifts, squats, single-leg work - are flat-out challenging. I love it when guys show up to the gym absolutely ready to get after these movements. It drives me crazy when guys only get pumped up for bench day, and would jump at the chance to miss lower-body training sessions. The more you learn to love an exercise, the faster you'll improve with it.
Eric Cressey
www.CresseyPerformance.com |
| Read more |
|
LEARN
HOW TO
DEADLIFT
- Avoid the most common deadlifting mistakes
- 9 - minute instructional video
- 3 part follow up series
|
