Home Posts tagged "Cardio Strength Training"

Exercise and Stress: 6 Strength Training Tips for When You’re Already Overworked

As a business owner, I can say without wavering that there are a lot of times when I admittedly get stressed out and wish there were more hours in the day to get everything I have on my plate done - and still have time left over to spend with my wife and family.

And, while I haven't managed to figure out how to add more than 24 hours to the day, I have started to find a few ways to better manage my time - and, more specifically, my strength training program.

You see, many people use exercise as a means of relieving stress - and I think that's absolutely awesome.  Unfortunately, when you already work 10 hours a day on your feet in a gym, it's hard to see things that way even when all the equipment is right at your fingertips.  To that end, the stressed-out strength training tips I note below will be applicable to folks in any occupation, not just the fitness industry.

Tip #1: Increase training frequency, but reduce training duration.

I find that when I'm busy, I can find 30 minutes here and there, but getting 60-75 minutes free at a convenient time is tougher.  One thing I'll do is simply up my training frequency to 5-6 times per week instead of just four sessions.  Rather than having sessions that include four pairings (7-8 strength exercises), I'll just have two pairings (3-4 exercises).

If you've read anything from Chad Waterbury or Joel Marion, you'll find that both of these guys are fans of strength training as frequently as possible, provided that you can recover from those sessions.  Somewhat coincidentally, sometimes the best way to utilize this frequent strength training approach is when you're already stressed and recovery is compromised!  I still get in all my "work" over the course of the week, but it's spread out a bit more so that it's convenient and less taxing.

Tip #2: Leave the gym feeling refreshed.

Also on the "less taxing" front, I think it's important to leave the gym feeling "refreshed," not exhausted.  While it might feel good when your legs are trashed at the end of a training session, you really don't know how well you're going to recover from that challenge until the days that follow.  Doing 15 sets of 9 reps might have sounded like a good stress buster at the time, but when you can't walk up the steps to work the following day and are falling asleep at your desk at 11am because you couldn't sleep with your legs cramping all night, hindsight definitely becomes 20/20.

Don't get me wrong; there's a time and a place for doing crazy stuff.  Your most stressful days aren't that time, though.

Tip #3: Train early.

This is something that I've grown to love with the baseball off-season in full swing and my day starting earlier.  Normally, I'd train alongside the rest of our staff at 10:30AM, but at that time of year, I may have athletes at 9:30AM MoTuThFr.  So, I get in at 8:15AM to get my lifting session in.  Why?

First, lifting early requires planning.  You need to go to bed early and prepare your stuff for the next day.  So, in the process, you make time instead of finding time.  That's huge at a stressful time when you're inclined to miss a session altogether.

Second, most people I know (at least the adults out there) have better energy in the morning than after a long day of work.  That said, many people take a few weeks to warm up to the idea (and feeling) of training early.  If you're going to make the switch, give it a few weeks and be consistent with it; you'll find that you get more and more comfortable with morning training with each new session.

Third, I'm a firm believer in the adage that one hour of sleep before midnight is worth two hours of sleep after midnight.   When you train in the morning, you've got to get to bed earlier or else it simply isn't going to happen.

Get better sleep quality and just about everything else in your life will improve.

Tip #4: Outsource things to keep training fun.

I'll admit that many times, after a long day in a strength and conditioning facility, the last thing I want to do is follow my own weight training program.  I spend all day getting other people organized on that front, so a bit of chaos in my own strength training is sometimes welcomed relief.

About two months ago, believe it or not, I asked one of my pro baseball players (who was hanging out in the office at 7pm one night) to put a lower body program up on the dry erase board for me.  It turned out to be one of the better training sessions I'd had in weeks.  The same goes for any conditioning I may do; often, I'll just pull Robert Dos Remedios' book, Cardio Strength Training, off the shelf and give something a shot.

Variety may be the spice of life, but when it comes to training, that variety usually needs to come from someone else.  It might be why so many fitness professionals have really enjoyed my Show and Go program; it not only demonstrates some of my programming approaches, but also gives them a change of pace in their own training, as a recent blog post showed.

Tip #5: Use less variety.

Normally, I am all about strength exercise variety within a training session.  However, when you're pinched for time, sometimes you can just throw that out the window and it's the best decision.

Think about it: for every additional exercise in a day's session, I add a warm-up set as well as the need for equipment set-up.  If I keep my training day to 2-3 strength exercises and just increase the volume on each, I can usually do just as much (if not more) work in less time.  You get variety over the course of a training phase and career; you get a training effect within a single session.

In other words, don't be shy about doing 5 sets of 3 on deadlifts, then 4 sets of 8 on dumbbell reverse lunges from a deficit - and then calling it a day for your lower body training - especially if you're trying out the frequency recommendations I noted earlier.

Tip #6: Use deloading periods.

At the end of the day, when it really comes down to it, stress is stress.  Sometimes, when life is beating you down, adding training stress to that personal/professional stress is the worst that you can do.  As a general rule of thumb, the more training experience you have, the more likely you are to need some down time from the gym when the rest of your life gets super hectic.  If you're new to the iron game, though, chances are that some exercise will help you manage the stress much more effectively.

For more information on how to attack deloading periods, check out my e-book, The Art of the Deload.

These six strength training tips are obviously just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to exercise and stress, but hopefully they'll be enough to get you headed in the right direction.  Additionally, what strategies have those of you out there implemented for training during stressful times?

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The New Era of Interval Training

Most of you already know by now that I'm not a fan of "traditional" cardio. Step aerobics classes have ruined enough knees, Achilles tendons, and hips. Ellipticals don't allow you enough hip flexion to avoid developing hips like a crowbar. Most people don't need to sit on their fat a**es on bikes, either because most people, well, they sit on their fat a**es enough as it is. In short, as I've noted in the past in my discussions of The Law of Repetitive Motion Part 1 and Part 2, take a small amplitude of motion and repeat it thousands of times and you're going to wind up with some issues sooner than later.  And, to take it a step further, you're going to get efficient at this motion - and over the course of time, burn fewer calories (especially if you're doing steady-state cardio and not interval work). It's not like I haven't made suggestions on other stuff to do, either.  Try Sprinting for Health, Rethinking Interval Training, or When Things Get Boring, Turn to Cardio Strength Training.  I also recently raved about the emphasis Chad Waterbury placed on movement on his great new fat loss program, Body of Fire. And, if you need one more example, here was a little fun I had with an impromptu conditioning session on Sunday afternoon at Cressey Performance: Alternating Lateral Lunge Walk with Keg paired with Inchworms.

I'd already done some cable woodchops, t-push-ups, face pulls, slideboard, easy sprinting progressions, and medicine ball throws in a circuit format that day (pair up two exercises with low resistance and rotate back and forth without stopping for three minutes).  It's not rocket science because we aren't building rockets; people just need to move more. Please enter your email below to sign up for our FREE newsletter.

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When Things Get Boring, turn to Cardio Strength Training

...turn to Coach Dos!  What do I mean?  Read on. The last week was the final week of my fiancee's residency (ended yesterday), and needless to say, she was REALLY ready for it to be over.  The days were getting longer for her, and it was sapping her energy before she came in to exercise at night after the workday.  Even with all of Cressey Performance's specialty training implements - slideboards, medicine balls, sleds, turf for sprinting/movement, farmer's walks, TRX, kettlebells, cows for tipping, an Airdyne bike, speed chains, and tires/sledgehammers - and her choice of music on the stereo, she still was looking for some variety for her interval training session that night. So, I delved into the trusty Cressey Performance office library, and pulled out a copy of Robert dos Remedios' book, Cardio Strength Training.

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I was honored to have contributed a bit to this book, and it came out really well.  Sure enough, it got the job done for us last week, as we used a few new exercises to shake things up using a kettlebell and TRX.  It's a really solid book at a great price; I'd highly recommend you check it out.

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Stuff You Should Read: 12/23/09

I'm a bit tied up with holiday preparation stuff on top of the regular CP goings-on, so I thought I'd use today to throw out some recommended reading for the week: Cardio Strength Training - I just got my copy of Robert dos Remedios' new book in the mail.  I was honored to have contributed to it, and it's an awesome resource with a ton of protocols and exercises that you can implement to make conditioning a lot more interesting.  For those of you looking to drop some fat in the new year, this is a must-have.

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Only One Body - This is an excellent post from Mike Boyle that really helps to put things in perspective.  Quick read; check it out! Medicine Ball Madness - This old newsletter talks a bit about how we attack medicine ball training with our baseball guys.  In 2010, I'll be presenting on this concept in a lot more detail at my Perform Better appearances.
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