Some recommended reading for the day:
The Dynamic Method vs. the Repetition Method - A common question among resistance training beginners who've begun to "think outside the box" is whether they should bother using the dynamic method with their strength exercises if they aren't all that strong (yet). I answer this common inquiry in this blog post.
6 Mistakes: Fitting Round Pegs into Square Holes - This T-Nation article from a while back highlights some situations where it's important to not force something that just isn't there.
"My Coach Says I Shouldn't Lift" - This was one of those pieces that was just fun to write because it's such a ridiculous recommendation from a coach - but the sad truth is that it's happening all the time across the country. So, spread the word and help some kids out!
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The question of what weight to use in a resistance training program comes up very commonly not only among beginners, but also intermediate and experienced lifters. So, when I got this question from a reader recently, it gave me the kick in the pants I needed to cover this in a detailed write-up.
Q: I have a question about how to select weights to use within programs like yours that may fluctuate the sets and reps from week to week. For example, if it’s 4x3 in week 1, 4x2 in week 2, 4x4 in week 3, and 3x3 in week 4, are there are certain percentages that I can use based off my one-rep max? This would make it easier to know exactly what weight to use each week.
A: Rather than reinvent the wheel, I’m going to paraphrase a bit from chapter 2 of the Show and Go main guide. Let me preface this explanation by saying that the goal of all my programs – and indeed any good strength and conditioning program – is to get stronger. And, I fully expect you to do so.
Now, if that’s the case, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to select what weight to use based on percentages of one-rep maxes that were taken before the program even began. By the time you get to phases 2, 3, and 4, you aren’t going to have sufficient overload to make optimal progress.
So, to that end, I rarely assign training percentages. All sets should be to one rep shy of failure; basically, go hard but never attempt a rep that you won't complete on your own. Each session should be somewhat of a test of your new strength as you work up to heavier loads and listen to your body along the way.
As a frame of reference, on your first (main) exercise(s), just work up to your heaviest set of the day (in perfect form, of course), and then find 90% of it. Anything you did above that 90% number "counts" as a set. Anything done before it is a warm-up. So, imagine you had 4 set of 3 reps planned on the bench press, and you worked up to 300 on you heaviest set using the following progression:
Set 1: 45x8
Set 2: 135x5
Set 3: 185x3
Set 4: 225x3
Set 5: 275x3
Set 6: 295x3
Set 7: 300x3
That puts you at three sets (275, 295, and 300) above 90% of your heaviest load for the day (300). So, to get a fourth set in, you just need to get one more set somewhere between 270 (90%) and 300 (100%). By the next week, this 90-100% range may have shifted up by 5-10 pounds, so you have to accommodate it – and prescribing percentages on an old one-rep-max just doesn’t do the job justice.
It really doesn’t matter what rep range is in question – whether you’re doing heavy singles or a 5x5 workout. You can really apply it to just about every set in every training session when you're wondering what weight to use.
Here are a few blasts from the past that you definitely ought to check out:
Lower Back Pain and the Fitness Professional - It's amazing how many fitness professionals know NOTHING about lower back pain even though it will occur at one point or another in every single one of their clients.
Can Little Leaguers Strength Train? - It's a question I get all the time - and this was my first response to the inquiry a few years ago. I updated this and got a bit more detailed and geeky in a follow-up, The Truth about Strength Training for Kids.Solutions to Lifting Problems - This T-Muscle article is a must-read for anyone who wants to be able to stay the course even when setbacks occur along the resistance training journey.
Lastly, for those who are looking to shed some pounds over the holidays while everyone else is packing 'em on, check out these two free Holiday Fat Loss special reports from Joel Marion. Joel's got some quick and easy to apply tips you can put to use right away.
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As a lot of you probably know, I'm pretty much known as a "baseball training guy" - and rightfully so, as about 80-85% of our athletes at Cressey Performance are baseball players.
Most people are surprised to find that I really never played baseball at a high level. While I was super active in it growing up (my mother jokes that I actually taught myself to read with baseball cards), I actually had to give baseball up at the end of eighth grade so that I could focus on tennis, my "stronger" spring sport. And, to take it a step further, when high school ended, I went off to college in 1999 fully expecting to become an accountant. Seriously.
Around that same time, though, I had some health problems - and my shoulder was already a wreck from tennis. Those factors "beckoned" me to a healthy lifestyle - and that's when I made the decision to transfer to an exercise science program and focus on my new passion as a career. I did a double major in exercise science and sports/fitness management, and took part in internships in everything from personal training to cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation.
When I headed off to graduate school in 2003, I anticipated going in to the research world. About a month after I arrived on campus at UCONN, though, I caught the strength and conditioning bug and was hooked - for life. Interestingly, though, in those first few years, I really didn't work with baseball much at all.
It wasn't until I got out in to the "real world" that I just happened to start working with a few high school baseball players when I first moved to Boston. They were great kids, and I had a lot of fun training them - and they got great results that drew a lot of attention to the work I did with them. I was already a big baseball fan, and given my history of shoulder problems, I really enjoyed learning everything I possibly could about arm care - so it was a great fit.
The rest, as they say, is history. We now have 44 professional baseball players from all over the country here to train with us at Cressey Performance because they believe our expertise, environment, systems, and passion give them the best opportunity on the planet to be successful in their baseball careers. I have guys who swear by my resistance training, medicine ball, mobility, soft tissue, movement training, and throwing programs even though I never even played a single game of high school - let alone collegiate or professional - baseball. I've found my niche - but as you can tell, I never forced it.
What do you think I would have said if you had asked me in 1999 what my ten-year plan was? I would have told you that I'd be filing tax returns in early April, not following all our athletes on opening day around the country.
And, if you had asked me in 2004 what my five-year plan was, I'd have told you that it was to become a great muscle physiology research. I probably would have commented on how cool it was that the Red Sox won the World Series for the first time in 86 years - but wouldn't have had the foresight to note that I'd someday go on to train two guys from that roster who have 2004 world championship rings.
My point is that you can't force a fitness niche; you have to discover and then develop it. A lot of stars had to line up the right way for me to get to where I am with working with a baseball population, but as Thomas Jefferson once said, "I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."
Getting sick forced me to learn how to better take care of my body - and that led me to the fitness industry and strength and conditioning.
Having shoulder pain motivated me to learn more about shoulder health.
Being a "non-baseball guy" growing up forced me to do a lot more listening than talking with our athletes early-on, as I had to learn their culture. It also put me in a position to never accept stupid training principles (like distance running for pitchers) simply because they were "tradition" - because crappy training was never a "tradition" that I'd learned.
If I'd purposely gotten sick, whacked myself in the shoulder with a sledgehammer, and then read every book on baseball tradition that I could, do you think I'd be where I am today? If you answered "yes," put down the glue you're sniffing and start reading this again from the top.
Every business consultant in the fitness industry raves about how important it is nowadays to get a niche. Train middle-aged female fat loss clients only. Or, maybe it's 9-12 year-old kids. My buddy Eric Chessen even works exclusively with fitness for kids in the autism spectrum. I agree completely with these consultants' advice - but your appropriate niche won't magically appear unless you experience a lot of different settings and find the right fit for you, then follow up on it by educating yourself as much as possible by reading/watching everything you can, expanding your network of colleagues, and finding solutions to problems others haven't been able to solve.
If you are going to do something exclusively, you better be:
a) passionate about it
b) good at it
c) sure that it alone can financially support you
d) excited about the possibility of becoming an expert and contributing to the existing body of knowledge in that realm
e) willing to potentially pass up on opportunities in other realms
To be very candid, I just don't think that having specific 5- and 10-year plans is necessarily a good idea. Sure, it's okay if we are talking about financial planning, marriage, etc. - but when it comes to professional goals, there are just too many factors that can change things on a dime and turn you in a new direction. I love what I do now, but couldn't tell you for the life of me where I'll be in 5-10 years - and I happen to think that I have a pretty good grasp on where I'm going, as compared to the rest of the fitness industry. If I was just leaving college today, I'd definitely be taking it one day at a time!
How about you? What's your niche - and how did you discover and develop it?
Related PostsWant to be a Personal Trainer or Strength Coach? Start Here.7 Steps for Attacking Continuing Education in the Fitness IndustryHow Do You Find Time for Everything?
I got the following questions from a Show and Go customer this morning and thought I'd turn it into a quick Q&A:
Do high-top basketball shoes provide any significant stability and safety advantages over low-tops that would make me NOT want to buy low-tops? When I played hoops in high school my ankles rolled over at least once every few months, so it feels obvious that there's a lot more to the stability equation than the height of the ankle on the shoe.
Rather than reinvent the wheel, I sent him to these two articles:
Nike Shox and High HeelsThe Importance of Ankle Mobility
Then, I gave him the following advice: "I would never put one of my athletes in high-tops. The introduction of the high top and the addition of big heel lifts in sneakers is, in my eyes, the cause of the epidemic of anterior knee pain and the emergence of high ankle sprains. And, you're right that there is more to the stability equation than the height of the shoe: the muscles and tendons of the lower leg (particularly the peroneals) actually have to do some work to prevent ankle sprains. Put yourself in a concrete block of a shoe and tape your ankles and you are just asking all those muscles to shut down."
For more information on truly functional stability training for the lower leg and core, check out my e-book, The Truth About Unstable Surface Training.
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Here are some recommended reads from the archives for today:
An Easy Way to Rotate Strength Exercises - One of the biggest frustrations of training in a commercial or home gym is that there just aren't enough opportunities to create variety and fluctuations to the resistance training stimulus. This post highlights one simple way to double your exercise index.
A Carrot, an Egg, and a Bag of Ground Coffee - This one is more of a "meeting life's challenges" post as it applies to the fitness industry.
Five Resistance Training Myths in the Running World - If this doesn't interest you, I'm sure it'll at least interest a dozen of your friends who are running addicts! Please spread the good word - whether it's via Facebook, Twitter, or carrier pigeon.
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Looking for a masochistic new strength exercise to add to your resistance training program? Try the Dumbbell Bulgarian Split Squat from Deficit, one of my favorite movements for improving hip mobility while really challenging lower body strength and frontal plane stability. If you need to shake up your workout routine, this is a great place to start - assuming you don't mind being miserably sore!
As I mentioned in a blog earlier this week, my wife and I got a puppy last weekend. "Tank" is absolutely awesome and we (and all the CP clients) love him.
Like any puppy, though, it is going to take some time to housebreak him. While he's going to crap on the floor and pee on the carpet quite a bit over the first few months, we have faith in the fact that if we praise him like crazy and give him treats consistently each time he "goes" outside, he will get the point eventually and make great progress. This "faith" has been present in every single pet owner with whom we've talked over the past month.
Nobody uses electroshock routines to try to "get through" to the puppy faster, and there aren't thousands of supplements out there to expedite outdoor crappy progress. People are patient and trust in the system.
Wouldn't it be nice if those beginning strength training programs were like this???
I am fortunate to know a lot of people who have made ridiculous progress in the weight room and dramatically changed their bodies. And, I can tell you that just about all of them chalk up a big chunk of their success to just consistently busting their humps - both in the weight room and the kitchen - for years. I've never met a world-class bodybuilder, powerlifter, or other athlete that devotes a huge part of their success to a supplement they use, or radical training program they did in their first few years of training. It's funny, though; when I meet an up-and-coming lifter or athlete (and particularly professional baseball players), the first question is "what supplements should I take?" I generally recommend "Shut up and Train" in softgel form.
I've commented before on how I attribute a big chunk of my success to the fact that I didn't miss a single planned resistance training session in roughly eight years - and to end that streak, it took 32 inches of snow in 24 hours (and I made the lift up the next day).
Consistency is the most important thing – especially in beginners. You don’t need reverse undulating cybernetic periodization with quasi-isometric inverted wave loading and contrast training; you need to shut up and pick up some heavy stuff, as anything will work as you begin as long as you are consistent. Heck, I did garbage weight training programs straight out of bodybuilding magazines when I first got started and made great progress because there was no place to go but up. All that mattered was that for two years, I went home after lifting and shoveled down about 1,500 calories of quality food each and every time. My diet and training may not have been perfect (or even close to it), but they were damn consistent.
So, the next time you think that you start thinking that you're super special and physiologically different from everyone else, imagine me standing out in my backyard at 5:30AM freezing my butt off while I wait for my puppy to drop a deuce so that he can take one more step toward awesomeness while you spin your wheels. It might put things in perspective and have you back to the basics before you know it.
To take the guesswork out of your programming, check out Show and Go: High Performance Training to Look, Feel, and Move Better.
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Because Alex Maroko is a good buddy of mine, I decided to make this webinar available to you at absolutely no cost. If you want to learn about the thought process behind each strength and conditioning program I write - for athletes that range from baseball players, to basketball stars, to professional boxers, to Olympic bobsledders - then look no further.
If You Read Alex's Daily Emails, Use His Special Show and Go Half-Off Discount Link Below Today for Big Savings!
Nick Chertock was one of the "guinea pigs" that we put through my new program, Show and Go: High Performance Training to Look, Feel, and Move Better. While he's the first to admit that he's still a work in progress, Nick made some excellent improvements - and decided to make a very entertaining video about those improvements and his overall experience on the Show and Go program. Check it out:
Let it be known, too, that the next person to come up with a (entertaining) 6+ minute video montage on their Show and Go experience will receive a Cressey Performance t-shirt on the house.
For more information on this high performance training program, check out www.ShowAndGoTraining.com.
