Q: I'm about to start Phase 2 of Maximum Strength and I'm wondering if there's a recommended substitute for the bar rollout. The plates at my gym aren't completely round. Should I suck it up and buy an ab wheel or is there something simple I can do instead? I appreciate your time!
A: You've got a few options. The first, as you noted, is to buy an ab wheel. They're awesome and we use them a ton at Cressey Performance - and they're very affordable at Perform Better.
Another option is to simply set up exactly the same as you would with a bar rollout, but instead, just do an isometric hold at end-range for 10-30s, depending on your fitness level.
If you can't quite do it at end-range, just bring the hands in toward the knees a bit and gradually work your way out as your stability improves.
Get Maximum Strength!
It's a busy day at CP and I've got a big fantasy football draft tonight, but fortunately for me, Kevin Cox, age 36, of Denver, CO provided some good blog material for all of you:
Eric,Maximum Strength quickly become one of my favorite purchases. Personally, I felt you did a great job of detailing the why's and how's of your program. I found it refreshing to see a book that focused on performance and promised "hard work" rather than promise results in only minutes a day.
I was more than happy with my results after 16 weeks.
Body Weight: Pre 220lbs, Post 210lbs
Broad Jump : Pre 84", Post 97"
Bench Press: Pre 230lbs, Post 265lbs
Squat: Pre 300lbs, Post 345lbs
3-rep Max Chin-up: Pre 250lbs, Post 265bs
Deadlift: Pre 340lbs, Post 405lbs
The mobility work and active recovery circuits were awesome. Toward the end of my 16 weeks there were times when I was feeling run down and I really believe staying on track with the circuits, mobility and flexibility work is what kept me in the game.
Pick up Maximum Strength for yourself.
Q: My question concerns the combination of your Maximum Strength program and HIIT workouts. Comments I have read by you indicate that HIIT training is detrimental to progress in your program. Could you explain why? Thanks for all that you do.
A: Give this article a read; it should answer your questions:
Of course, some things change if you are a guy who is more focused on getting lean, maintaining/improving cardiovascular fitness, or conditioning for a particular sport that warrants a lot of interval training. It's the give and take between maximal strength and performance in some other discipline.
There are a lot of elite strength and power athletes who couldn't run a mile in under 12 minutes - or even finish a mile at all! These are the folks who either a) have to keep body fat levels in check with diet, lifting, and very low intensity supplemental activity or b) not worry about body fat levels much at all, as strength and power are the name of the game.
For more information, check out Maximum Strength.
1. My girlfriend is good at pullups.
2. Nice front squat, Clark (430).
3. Not to be outdone, here's a 350 bench and then an easy 315x3 from me.
4. Last night, I managed to convince one of our new high school pitchers that the YMCA dance was good for shoulder health (Y=lower trap activation, M=pec minor stretch, C=external rotator stretch, A=lat stretch). He totally went for it - but when I asked him if he knew the dance, he looked at me like I had two heads. I guess I'm finally getting old and recognizing the generational gap between my high school guys and I...
5. My girlfriend and I are moving back to the city next week. I'll be ten minutes from Fenway - yet my commute to work is only five minutes longer. Not too shabby - and it'll be nice to be back closer to all the action.
6. Here is a great review on Maximum Strength and Art of the Deload.
7. I've been here (to a degree). Not making weight is the worst feeling in the world - and I can only imagine how rough it is when it's for the Olympics. My heart goes out to him. Poor guy.
8. As a bit of an experiment, we're moving to lighter medicine balls with our guys for our throws over the next few months - particularly with our overhead variations. It'll be interesting to see what happens when we jack up the speed and lower the load a bit - and if it works, I'll need to brainstorm a bit more on which loads are appropriate for which exercises.
9. Speaking of medicine balls, one of my online consulting clients told me the other day that they have "several" BOSU balls at his gym, but ZERO medicine balls. People really don't have a clue what functional is anymore, do they?
10. In the most random thought of the week, if you want to be my friend on Facebook, put your shirt on in your profile picture. If you're that in love with yourself, you probably don't need friends, weirdo.
Have a good weekend!
Q: I had a question about Maximum Strength. I just read it and it’s great, but my question is: if someone was lifting for bodybuilding purposes and needed to add a good deal of mass how much would this program help?
A: I think it could help a lot - in a longer-term, indirect way. Many aspiring bodybuilders are too weak for their cross-sectional area, so taking some time to increase strength before returning to the classic hypertrophy zones almost exclusively can have some great benefits. The truth is that although pro bodybuilders often get ripped on for being weak, most of them are pretty strong dudes – and certainly much stronger than the Ordinary Joe walking around on the street.
For more information, check out Maximum Strength for yourself.
Q: I've just bought your book Maximum Strength. I think it is wonderful. I've seen noticeable changes in just 2 weeks on the program. The only problem I have stumbled on is my weak knees/hips. My knees get very sore when I do the squats and make a grinding noise when i bend them. I was wondering if there was any sort of stretching or warm up i could do along with the designated one that would strengthen them and help me gain the maximum lower body results.
A: Give this a shot for the knee:
1. Do reverse lunges instead of walking lunges in Phase 1.
2. Box squat on both days (easier on the knee) and wait until phase 2 to front squat. When you box squat, do it barefoot or in a shoe without heel-lift (Nike Fress and Converse All-Stars are good) - not in regular cross trainers.
3. Deadlifts, pull-throughs, rack pulls, etc. should be fine.
I think you will be okay with the knee, but if you feel any tweaks, skip that exercise, add a few sets to the next one.
The foam rolling and mobility stuff in the book should get it on track pretty quickly, but I'd still highly recommend Bulletproof Knees for you as a resource to use in conjunction with Maximum Strength. This would definitely be a useful investment for you, as there are a lot of drills that you can use to complement the MS program to keep training hard as you get healthy.
For more information about Maximum Strength, head HERE.
It's that day of the week again, folks. Here we go...
1. Last night, Dan Toledano hit a 405 bench - his first 400+ pound bench. Congratulations, Dan. If you keep this up, you might actually get around to kicking that Star Trek fetish and meeting a girl who has all her teeth and is interested in your for more than just your Jedi Gym training background:
2. Speaking of bench presses, I got a question the other day about whether I thought that wrist wraps interfere with forearm hypertrophy. I doubt it, if you'd just using them to bench and possibly squat. For me, the benefit completely outweighs the cost, as the diameter of my wrists is right about six inches (that's small, folks). So, for me, the wraps allow me to stay healthy for the long haul - even they don't offer too much in terms of poundage increases. You can find some great wrist wraps at APT.
3. If you want to laugh like crazy - and don't mind the occasional rattling off of obscenities, here's a great blog from Cressey Performance client, Michelle Elwell. I could just post a hyperlink, but I'm not going to lie: the title is worth typing out:
http://www.michellethinksyoureanasshole.blogspot.com
Michelle is awesome - definitely one of our favorite clients. Yes, it's because we're afraid to not like her, but that's not the point. Read, laugh, and if you're one of the a**holes to which she's referring, clean up your act, a**hole.
4. There is some awesome feedback on some tremendous results from a Maximum Strength follower HERE. You can pick up a copy through my website.
5. Here is a great read about how saturated fat isn’t all that bad – and how low-carb diets outperform low-fat diets (again!).
6. Great quote from Mike Boyle:
“Soft tissue work, whether for chronic muscle strains or for tendon issues, is like weight training. Treatment is actually a stimulus. In effect, what the therapist is doing is irritating the tissue to produce a chemical response. The chemicals produced are what begin the healing process. This why soft tissue work is often painful and can leave you feeling similar to a workout the next day. According to Dr. [Donnie] Strack, soft tissue mobilization (think massage) stimulates the formation of fibroblasts, which help take immature, and randomly aligned Type 3 collagen (found in tendinosis) and changes it back to a stronger, more parallel mature Type 1 collagen. In other words, massage changes the quality of the muscle fibers.”
For those of you who don’t know, Mike Boyle heads up what is definitely one of the best information sources on the ‘net for those interested in strength and conditioning and fitness. They have a 14-day trial offer in place for just $1 – so I’d definitely recommend checking out StrengthCoach.com. You really don't have anything to lose.
7. I got my act together and organized all my baseball content in one place. You can check it out HERE.
8. As a surprise birthday present for my girlfriend, today, I’m taking her horseback riding*. She rode a lot when she was younger, and hasn’t been since she was a teenager. I, on the other hand, have never been on a horse, so it’s safe to assume that when I get on that critter, I’m totally screwed. I doubt that powerlifters and horses get along, so send some good vibes my way – and put in a vote for me for boyfriend of the month.
*Honey, if you actually read my blog, you could stop asking me what the surprise is by now. Don’t worry, though; if I had to put up with me all the time, I probably wouldn’t read this blog, either.
Have a great weekend, folks.
Here's a "Guest Blog" of sorts from Personal Trainer Kaiser Serajuddin, who recently read Maximum Strength:
"Writing a testimonial for Maximum Strength is a great way to get your name on a blog read by thousands of people, but I wanted to give my views on the book to deliver the personal trainer’s point of view. I know a lot of other trainers besides me follow Eric’s work for principles and ideas to apply to our clients. And beyond that, I’m an athlete myself constantly looking to improve my performance. In both areas, I found this book valuable.
"What we have here is a no-nonsense plan to get straight-up results. Most people today are looking for the appearance of outstanding fitness and health without the reality; for ripped abs or bulging shoulders, and every book is written for this sometimes gullible audience. That’s traditional bodybuilding, which won’t necessarily work for everyone. Here we have a different point of view, where the iron is our measure of success. Incidentally, it’s probably a much more sound system to gaining mass than what most others are following.
"I have to count myself in the boat of disillusioned weightlifters. It’s something Eric talks about in the book, which describes me and I’m sure a lot of other people: guys endlessly yo-yoing between bulking and cutting, and ending up right back where they started. That’s why it’s time to implement a different plan.
"Talk about the right information at the right time! In the past few months I switched over to a lower volume powerlifting model, and have been achieving excellent results. Now, enter Maximum Strength to help me focus it. If you read that new-age stuff, this is the “law of attraction” at work. If you’re experiencing some of the same frustrations – for example, your strength, size, or performance hasn’t improved in a while – it’s probably time for you to open up to something new too.
"Like all of Eric’s writing, this book is based around sound science and principles proven to work in Eric’s practice, not just gym rhetoric. This is especially important from a trainer’s perspective. First off we have an ethical responsibility to deliver proven systems to achieve results with our clients; and for those of your clients to whom it applies, Maximum Strength is such a plan. A solid method to follow and tracking system with principles to back it up is important. You’ll get that here.
"Another thing to keep in mind for a trainer is a comprehensive approach. Beyond just strength, Eric keeps an eye on flexibility and joint health here. The description of soft-tissue work prior to exercise with the use of a foam roller is one area I found valuable. I already knew about the importance of pre-competitive soft-tissue preparation, but it took this book for it to sink in.
"It’s true that Maximum Strength isn’t as sexy as some of the other books out there. Eric chose not to hire a fitness model and instead demonstrated all the exercises himself. And he inexplicably decided to keep his shirt on, and didn’t tan, shave, or oil up for the photo shoot. We’ve all read all of those books. What you have here is a way to achieve measurable results, which is what I’m sure most people are going for.
"It’s also very readable, and not overly detailed. Knowing Eric’s work, there’s a lot of reasoning behind the progressions and choice of exercises he’s laid out, but he chose to save us all eye-strain and kept the plan simple.
"You’re not used to getting info of this quality in the general fitness section of the bookstore (maybe it was misplaced?). However, it’s an excellent book that, as an athlete, I’ll be using for performance; and, as a trainer, I’ll be using the principles and exercises with my clients. Thanks, Eric."
You can pick up Maximum Strength HERE.
"In Maximum Strength Eric Cressey outlines a system of scientific and user-friendly principles that will build a body that's strong, muscular, mobile and healthy. That's a tough combination to pull off, but this book does it. Whether you're an athlete or weekend warrior, you need this book."
-Chad Waterbury
