We bought our dog, Tank, in October of 2010 – and he’s since gone on to be not only man’s best friend around the house, but also an integral (and entertaining) part of the Cressey Sports Performance experience, as he comes to the gym with me just about every day.
In spite of Tank’s affinity for flashing people, he managed to win adoration of the family of one of our CSP athletes to the point that they decided they wanted to get a cream puggle just like him. Having spent months housetraining him and trying to get him to sleep through the night back in the day, my wife and I had plenty of suggestions for these folks to avoid making the mistakes we made. I mean, we never told him to eat paint chips, but puppies will be puppies, you know?
Anyway, that family is now all settled with their puppy, and it got me to thinking about the importance of learning from others’ mistakes is in the world of strength and conditioning programs. If I can help out one puppy owner, I might as well help out the thousands of visitors on this website each month! With that in mind, here are five strength and conditioning mistakes I corrected that have made a big difference for me:
1. Eating like a sissy in the post-training window – If you’re an up-and-coming lifter or athlete who can benefit from increasing muscle mass (and I definitely was), the post-workout period is not a time when you can skimp on calories. I really did not start making great progress until I was getting in over a thousand calories between my post-training shake and the meal that took place an hour later – and that was on the light side compared to what I’ve seen with some other guys. I can’t think of many things that drive me crazier than seeing one of our athletes finish a training session – and then sit around in the office for 2-3 hours without eating anything. I love having them hang out at the gym, but I just want them to do it with calories!
2. Not training for strength soon enough – I'm going to dumb getting bigger down as much as I can, yet still keep it mathematical. You've got to do "muscular damage" and then rebuild. If you don't do work, you don't get damage. Work = Force x Distance
Unless you plan on growing for the rest of your life (or find magical ways to keep adding range of motion to exercises), the easiest way to positively impact the amount of work you do is to apply more force - or be stronger. To that end, I'll make a bold statement here: for the first two years of lifting, your primary goal should simply be to add weight to the bar (provided you can do so in good technique and without pain). As long as we're talking about compound strength exercises, you'll be very pleased with the results. We have novice lifters at Cressey Performance who grow like weeds in their first two years of training with us - and I can't say that I've ever had someone ask me about "the pump." I wish I'd had someone to tell me to shut up when I asked about it when I was 18!
3.Spending too much time doing non-essentials – This one goes hand-in-hand with the previous observation. I really had no place doing curls, triceps extensions, and other isolation exercises when I hadn’t even come close to putting up good numbers on the important strength exercises. It kept me in the gym too long and interfered with my recovery on the really important stuff. The funny thing is that now that I have gotten a lot stronger, I really don’t have interest in doing much of the isolation stuff anymore – because I realize that the core strength exercises are the ones that really helped me progress.
4. Not being more athletic with my energy systems work – Growing up, I was an avid soccer and tennis player, and as a result of all my time on the field/court, I was reasonably quick and good with changes of direction. When my early 20s rolled around, I took a step back from those sports to pursue strength training "full time." A few years later, I was invited to play in a charity basketball game against a bunch of at-the-time Patriots players like Ellis Hobbs, Reche Caldwell, Pierre Woods, and Logan Mankins (among others). Don't let anyone tell you that NFL guys can't play hoops, because these guys mopped the floor with us. The outcome wasn't altogether surprising, but one thing that did open my eyes was how I just didn't feel as athletic as I used to be in spite of the fact that I'd gotten a lot stronger as compared to my high school years. I was putting force into the ground, but I wasn't applying it quickly - and I wasn't doing it in planes of motion in which I was comfortable. Not surprisingly, most of my energy systems work at the time (which really wasn't much) was being done on machines: ellipticals, versa-climbers, rowers, and bikes. I committed to cutting back on mindless repetitive motion cardio right away - and since then, just about all my energy systems work has been sprinting, strongman-type medleys, change of direction work, slideboard work, and medicine ball circuits (plus just a small amount of Airdyne work). The end result? A 37.2-inch vertical jump - more than 12 inches better than I was back at the time, and I'm at a higher body weight and just as lean as when I was doing all that "gerbil cardio." More importantly, I feel a ton more athletic - and I'm more likely to do stupid things for others' amusement around the gym.
5. Not finding a good training crew earlier – I’ve been fortunate to lift with some excellent training partners, from my days on-campus at the University of Connecticut, to South Side Gym, to the guys I lift with at Cressey Sports Performance nowadays. Before that, though, I was flying solo for quite some time. Let me tell you: good training partners make a HUGE difference. They pick you up when you’re dragging, help you select weights, provide spots/handoffs, and create an awesome social atmosphere that actually helps training progress. “Going it alone” doesn’t just refer to having training partners with whom you can lift, though. It also refers to having professional resources to whom you can turn – whether it’s a massage therapist when your elbows get cranky from all the gripping you do, or someone to help you out with your strength and conditioning programs. I’m not going to lie: I did some terrible programs back in the day when I didn’t know any better. If I’d had an unbiased party helping me out, I could have saved myself a lot of trouble. That’s one reason why I created The High Performance Handbook.
On one hand, it takes the guesswork out of training by providing the actual strength and conditioning programs as well as an extensive video database to help with technique on all the mobility and strength exercises. On the other hand, though, I designed it so that it would give folks a lot of wiggle room when it comes to adapting it to their unique goals and needs. It starts with an easy-to-apply assessment you can use to determine your unique needs. From there, you've got 4x/week, 3x/week, and 2x/week strength training programs; different supplemental conditioning options; and a unique mobility warm-up for every month of the program. Problems solved. Click here to learn more about The High Performance Handbook. It's on sale for $50 off through Sunday at midnight.
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Q: How does one find a balance between "technique/form/corrective/sissy work" and lifting heavy weights to make gains in a strength training program? I see both extremes, but am curious about what affects the balance between the two.
A: This is actually a great question, and I am actually surprised that I’ve never answered it before in over five years of writing on this site.
For me, it all comes down to five factors in each athlete/client: strength training experience, injury history, goals, time to commit, and training session structure.
In someone with limited strength and conditioning, more of the session is going to be devoted to technique work on entry level strength exercises. You don’t have to worry as much about lifting really heavy weights simply because beginners can make appreciable strength gains with as little as 40% of 1-rep max on exercises. The more advanced an athlete becomes, the less time you spend on technique work, and the more work you do with strength development and corrective exercise. Eventually, when an athlete has a lot of strength, you have to consider whether all the time and effort that would go in to adding 20 pounds to his squat would actually be better spent elsewhere – whether it’s with corrective work, power training at a lower percentage of 1-rep max, or in introducing new exercises. Effectively, it always comes down to finding someone’s biggest window of adaptation and exploiting it. That's one reason why I tried to make the Show and Go program so versatile by including 2x/week, 3x/week, and 4x/week training options alongside five supplemental metabolic training protocols.
If we are talking about someone with a lengthy injury history, though, the rules get thrown out the window. You are not only spending more time with corrective exercise, but also refining your strength exercise selection to work with this individual – so it might mean that you have to do more technique work to add in new strength exercises, regardless of that individual’s training experience.
One’s training goals impact the corrective/heavy lifting balance as well. If I’m training someone who simply wants to improve quality of life or stay healthy in athletics, I can be a bit more cautious on the heavy lifting side of things and hold back. However, if we are talking about someone who was put on this planet to get strong and wants to be the most badass guy in the gym, we have to lift some heavy weights to make that happen. So, while the second scenario in many cases requires more corrective exercise, we’re talking about a population that is willing to take more risks in training to get to a goal that might not be at all interesting to a more “low key” population. This does not, however, mean it’s okay to let strength-oriented people lift with atrocious technique. Doing so makes you an unethical clown who is more likely to get sued – not a professional.
Time to commit is another important consideration that many folks overlook. Very simply, if someone can only get in two exercise sessions a week, I’m not going to be spending a ton of time on corrective exercise with them. You’re much more likely to die from being fat and having diabetes than you are from having a cranky rotator cuff. I’ll gladly give these folks additional corrective exercise that they can do during their busy schedules (which are never as busy as they claim), but I won’t coddle them when they need to move.
The last factor, which is more about the training model than the athlete/client in question, is how one structures a training session. At Cressey Performance, athletes start their sessions with foam rolling and then proceed to an 8-10 exercise dynamic warm-up. For many folks – particularly young athletes – that is enough “corrective” work, and the remainder of the session can be devoted to technical instruction and increasing strength on exercises that are safe for them. Those with more accumulated wear-and-tear on their bodies will need more corrective exercise beyond what they’ll get from strength training alone – so we add in fillers (e.g., extra mobility work) between sets, and some additional corrective work at the end of the session. Since you have a limited amount of time with people, you may have to cut back on strength training or metabolic conditioning initially just so that you can get in this early corrective work to get them over the initial “hump.” Trust me: it will set the stage for long-term success rather than “short-term gain, long-term pain.”
There are two final points I’d like to make. First, in my experience, many experienced lifters/athletes have responded well to separating the heavy lifting from the corrective stuff. When they show up to train, they may be really fired up and ready to go – so the last thing they’ll want is to do some wall slides or spend five minutes getting some length in their rectus femoris.
These folks would be wise to do just enough warm-up work to prepare for their heavy training, and then add in some separate sessions to address movement inefficiencies – whether we’re talking additional foam rolling, massage, mobility drills, rotator cuff work, or something else. They can also add it in on the end of the session after the hardest work is done.
Second, for many folks, maximal strength can be tremendously corrective. Increasing strength in one area can reduce excessive stress in another area of the body. An example of this would be using the box squat or deadlift to learn proper hip hinging techniques, which would increase posterior chain contribution and take some of the burden off the quads in someone with anterior knee pain. Likewise, all other factors held constant, a stronger muscle is less likely to become degenerative. You can read more along these lines in two older newsletter of mine on the Law of Repetitive Motion: Parts 1 and Part 2.
Obviously, there are many things to consider, but this should at least get you headed in the right direction in finding the right balance in your strength training program.
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Yesterday, New England Sports Network (NESN) ran a feature on my work with Kevin Youkilis of the Boston Red Sox. In the background of the video, you'll notice several other professional athletes (including a pro soccer player and pro triathlete) doing their thing, too. What's perhaps more interesting, though, is that you'll even see some general fitness clients getting after it at the same time.
It reminded me of an interview Chad Waterbury did with me for his website a while back; the focus was what ordinary folks can learn from professional athletes, and how they're alike/different in the gym. I think that there are some valuable takeaway points:
CW: You work with a lot of high-performance athletes. What are three principles that apply equally to athletes and non-athletes?
EC: I think people would be surprised to realize just how similar the Average Joe or Jane is to a professional athlete – both socially and physically.
The lay population often sits in front of a computer for 8-10 hours a day, but many pro athletes have 4-8 hour flights or 10+ hour bus rides where they’re sitting – and because they’re taller, sitting is even more uncomfortable and problematic. Like everyone else, they spend time surfing the internet, Skyping, playing video games, and goofing around on Facebook/Twitter. The advances in technology have hurt everyone from a physical fitness standpoint – but brought the “Pros and the Joes” closer together, believe it or not.
They’re also very similar in that they want the most bang for their buck. Most pro athletes are no different than anyone else in that they want to get in their training, and then go to visit their families, relax, play golf, or whatever else. They really don’t have interest in putting in six hours per day in training outside of the times when they have to do so (namely, in-season).
All that said, if I had to pick three principles crucial to the success of both populations, they’d be the following:
1. Realize that consistency is everything. I always tell our clients from all walks of life that the best strength and conditioning programs are ones that are sustainable. It’s not about working hard for three months and making great progress – only to fall off the bandwagon for a month. This is absolutely huge for professional athletes who need to maximize progress in the off-season; they just can’t afford to have unplanned breaks in training if they want to improve from year to year.
If a program isn’t conducive to your goals and lifestyle, then it isn’t a good program. That’s why I went out of my way to create 2x/week, 3x/week, and 4x/week strength training options – plus five supplemental conditioning options and a host of exercise modifications – when I pulled Show and Go together; I wanted it to be a very versatile resource.
Likewise, I wanted it to be safe; a program isn’t good if it injures you and prevents you from exercising. Solid programs include targeted efforts to reduce the likelihood of injury via means like mobility drills, supplemental stretching recommendations, specific progressions, fluctuations in training stress, and alternative strength exercises (“plan B”) in case you aren’t quite ready to execute “Plan A.”
2. You must balance competing demands, and prioritize the ones that are the most pressing at a given time. Using our professional baseball pitchers as an example, their training consists of strength training, mobility drills, medicine ball throws, movement training, and the throwing program (which is near daily in nature). In the Cressey Performance system, when the throwing program ramps up, the medicine ball work must come down substantially, and the strength training tapers off just a bit. You simply can’t keep adding sets and reps without subtracting something else and making a tradeoff, as athletes only have a certain amount of recovery capacity, and it’s hard to fine-tune an exact movement like throwing a baseball if you’re fatigued from everything else.
Managing competing demands is arguably more challenging in the general population, as their jobs outside the gym are usually more stressful than those that face many professional athletes – meaning that the Joes and the Janes have less recovery capacity with which to work. It seems logical that when you add something to a program, you have to subtract something else – but I’m constantly amazed at how many people decide to just keep adding more volume when they can’t lose fat or gain muscle mass fast enough. Sometimes, you just need to change the composition of the program, not add more and more, thereby creating three-hour marathon training sessions. This leads to my next point…
3. The success comes from the overall program, not just the individual parts. In other words, synergy is everything.
The aforementioned pitchers can’t just go out and start a throwing program after doing nothing for three months. Rather, they need to work to enhance their mobility and get stronger, more reactive, and more powerful first. If they skip these important steps, they increase their likelihood of injury, make it harder to re-acquire a skilled movement, and reduce the likelihood of improvement.
In the general population, a good strength and conditioning program consists of tremendous interdependencies. Your deadlift technique and strength depends on the training you’ve done in the previous month, week, and day – and how thorough and targeted your mobility warm-up (or lack thereof, in many unfortunate cases) was prior to that day’s training session. Those trainees who have the best results are the ones that line everything up – from nutrition, to strength training, to mobility exercises, to movement training, to metabolic conditioning, to recovery protocols.
CW: It’s common for people to think they’re advanced when they’re really not. Can you mention a few things a pro athlete typically does that a weekend warrior shouldn’t do?
EC: I would strongly discourage non-professional athletes from holding shirtless press conferences in their driveways while exercising during contract holdouts.
Then again, I wouldn’t really recommend that to Terrell Owens or any professional athlete, for that matter, but I digress…
To be honest, in the context of resistance training, a lot of professional athletes aren’t really as advanced as you might think, especially after a long season that’s taken its toll on them. Many of them have a ton of similarities with our general fitness clients – but just have different exercise contraindications and energy systems needs.
I think the better comparison would be between novice lifters (less than one year of resistance training) and those with years and years under their belt. They have to do things quite a bit differently.
As a first example, the novice lifter can handle a lot more volume because he (or she, of course) is relatively neurally inefficient. If this lifter did the volume of an advanced athlete, he might actually undertrain on volume (and possibly overdo it on intensity to the point that it’d interfere with picking up appropriate technique).
Second, a really advanced lifter will often need to deload on intensity – meaning that when it’s time for a “backoff week” – he’ll often keep the sets and reps up, but take a lot of weight on the bar. It’s just about getting reps in. A novice lifter, on the other hand, is better off keeping the intensity up and dropping the number of reps.
Third, a novice lifter can often be more aggressive in terms of caloric intake because there is such a large window of adaptation ahead in terms of muscle weight gain. I gained 50 pounds in my first year of lifting, but nowadays – even though I’m five times as strong as I was then – if I can go up 3-4 quality pounds a year, I’m thrilled. Surely, lifters are the opposite ends of the experience continuum can’t have similar caloric needs – even if the more experienced ones are heavier. Skinny novice guys can sometimes get away with eating like absolute crap as long as there are enough total calories – and still end up getting bigger. I certainly don’t advise it, but it’s one more way to show that novice and experienced lifters are horses of different colors, and that you have to be honest with yourself on where you fall on this continuum so that you train and eat optimally.
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In today's post, we've got the second half of a Q&A response regarding how to determine the optimal number of sets and reps for strength exercises. In case you missed the first installment, be sure to check out Strength Training Programs: How Many Sets and Reps - Part 1. We pick up with factors 7-13:
7. Whether You’re Trying to Correct Muscle Imbalances – In Part 1 (Bulletpoint 4) of my five-part Correcting Bad Posture series, I talked about how I like to use a 2:1 pull-to-pushing ratio with those who have significant upper body muscle imbalances. In addition to upping the sets, you can also use higher rep schemes. So, something like this would be an easy way to accumulate more volume:
Effectively, you're not only getting more total sets in favor of "postural balance;" you're also getting more reps per set.
8. How Neurally Efficient a Client/Athlete Is – Some athletes – especially those who tend to be of a more slow-twitch muscle fiber predominance – always seem to need to get more sets in on their strength exercises. This is impacted in a lot of them by a previous history of endurance training – whether it’s high school soccer or a dedicated running career – that made them less efficient at tapping in to high threshold motor units. The same holds true for female athletes; they always seem to need a little extra volume on strength exercises; it’s almost as if they can’t ramp up to a max as quickly as men. I don't think you necessarily need to increase reps per set, but definitely ought to consider adding an additional set or two.
9. Whether You’re Trying to Achieve a Metabolic Training Benefit – Some programs use a concept called metabolic resistance training to improve cardiovascular conditioning and increase energy expenditure so that you can burn fat faster. Generally, in programs like these, you’ll need more sets and higher reps to elicit this training effect.
10. Whether You’re Dealing with a Post-Injury Client – In these folks, you want to keep the sets and reps down and gradually ease them back in to things. So, while a “normal” client might be fluctuating up and down to impose and decrease training stress, respectively, an post-injury client would be gradually increasing the sets and reps to match his/her capacity for loading at a particular time.
That said, you have to be cognizant of giving them sufficient volume to maintain a training effect and keep them from going insane. So, using the example of someone with shoulder pain, you might have to cut back on pressing movements, but you can really bump up the volume on horizontal pulling sets and reps.
11. What Else You're Doing - The base mesocycle of the Smolov Squat Program goes like this:
Sure, this is a ton of work (and very specific work at that), but quite a few lifters have used it with excellent success. You know what, though? Try adding a lot of extra sets and reps for "other stuff" and you'll fail...miserably. You can't specialize on everything all at once. If sets and reps go up in one facet of your strength and conditioning program, they have to come down somewhere else.
12. Whether Soreness is of Concern - With our in-season athletes, we want to avoid soreness at all costs. The easiest way to do this is to avoid changing strength exercises, but this isn't really feasible, as most athletes will get sick and tired of doing the same thing over and over again all season. So, we need to be careful about strategically substituting new strength exercises during in-season training. One way to make it go smoothly is to simply keep the sets and reps down in the first round through a new training program. Let's say that we were doing front squats in-season. We'd probably go something like this:
13. Whether or Not an Athlete is In-Season - If an athlete is in-season, less is more. I prefer to have our athletes leave the gym feeling refreshed after their in-season training sessions - so they might be completely finished with a lift after only 8-10 sets of strength exercises in session. You can get in more sets and reps during the off-season.
That wraps up the primary considerations that come to mind for determining the sets and reps in a strength training program. Of course, there are many more to consider. A closing suggestion I'd add is to try to review as many different programs by various coaches as possible. Chances are that you'll pick up some important trends that will help you to write your own programs.
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Q: I know this is a loaded question with hours upon hours of answers, but I'm trying to make some sense about the different kinds of ways/philosophies involved in writing strength and conditioning programs. I have read different articles and chapters in books that discuss program development, looked at programs at my current job, and can write a basic one for a new athlete. It's not the exercises; I'm familiar with plenty and love seeing something new. My problems come more with the sets and reps and when they change and why; I can’t seem to map out the actual progression of the program.
What philosophies, if one, do you follow and what basic rules do you find to be the most important when determining the sets and reps?
A: This is a loaded question! The best way to get better with programming is simply to write a ton of programs and see what works and what doesn't. However, with respect to your specific questions on sets and reps, what you choose to utilize is going to be dictated by:
1. The duration of a session - You won't be able to do 6 sets of 4 reps if you only have an client/athlete for an hour and want to accomplish other things. This is, in particular, a big issue in collegiate strength and conditioning programs because the NCAA allows only limited number of hours per week with athletes, and sport coaches and strength and conditioning coaches have to share this time. Additionally, it's a challenge for personal trainers in private training set-ups where clients may train in 30-, 45-, or 60-minute blocks.
I've written several times in the past about how I would never allow our business model to dictate our training model - and this sets and reps question is one reason why. At Cressey Sports Performance, we do all semi-private training, which allows for sliding starts and finishes. It allows us to get in all the work we need to do with clients - regardless of the sets and reps in question. Likewise, as you'll see in the rest of this two-part series, you'll appreciate that it's why we don't have one program standardized for everyone on the dry erase board; every single CSP client has a unique program because they all have unique needs.
2. Competing demands - The more variety (plyos, conditioning, medicine ball work, etc) that you want to add to a program, the less volume you'll be able to do on strength training. We have limited time and recovery capacity, so we can't just keep adding all the time.
For me, a good example is what happens over the course of the baseball off-season. Lifting volume is high when they get back, throwing is a no-go, movement training is 2x/week, and medicine ball is light. After the first month, medicine ball work goes up, lifting comes down a bit.
Then, at the start of January, medicine ball and lifting volume comes back down and throwing volume increases. We then get rid of medicine ball work almost altogether and go to 3x/week movement training as the season approaches, throwing intensifies, and guys do more hitting. So, it doesn't just depend on the exercises; it depends on the big picture.
3. Exercise selection - If you're doing more sets, you'll want to do it on "money" exercises like deadlifts and not curls, etc. Moreover, certain exercises lend themselves better to higher reps than others. For instance, we never front squat anyone over six reps, because technical breakdown often occurs with fatigue. You also wouldn’t want to do cleans for sets of 15!
Usually, it’s also good to just “call it” on a particular exercise and move on to the next if someone has already dropped the weight on subsequent sets and form continues to deteriorate. That energy is better spent on different exercises where technique can remain perfect even in the presence of fatigue.
4. Training age - As a general rule of thumb, the more experienced they are, the more sets and FEWER reps they'll need. At this point in my training career, I just won't get strong on sets of five. Here's another good follow-up read: Why I Don't Like the 5x5 Workout.
Conversely, beginners generally need more sets and reps to pick up on things. That doesn’t mean that you should just do three sets of 15 reps on everything with a novice, though. I find myself teaching squat and deadlift variations with four sets of five reps quite a bit; the load, however, is light enough that the lifter could usually do 10-12 reps. In other words, it’s just technique practice.
5. The Training Goal and Client/Athlete in Question – While taking heavy singles over 90% of one’s 1-rep max may be ideal for helping folks get strong, working at such a high percentage in some populations warps the risk: reward circumstances. Whether it’s older folks, those with injuries, or athletes who have a lot more to lose by getting hurt than they have to gain by adding five pounds to their squat, you have to take each individual situation into consideration. I always remind people that we lift weights to improve quality of life, not just so that we can talk about how heavy the weights we lifted were.
6. Whether You Want to Impose or Remove Fatigue – In a “loading” week, volume is going to be higher. If you’re deloading, though, that volume is going to be reduced. Aside from beginner strength training programs, volume should never be the same over several weeks in a row. I discuss several deloading strategies in my e-book, The Art of the Deload.
I’ll be back in a tomorrow with more factors that influence the sets and reps in a strength training program. In the meantime, if you're looking for a comprehensive strength and conditioning program to take all the guesswork out of things for you, check out The High Performance Handbook.
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If you've read much of my stuff, you've probably come to realize that I'm quite the shoulder geek. With that title comes a lot of questions at seminars and via email, and one of the more common ones is whether I think direct rotator cuff strengthening exercises are necessary for everyone. A lot of coaches say that they aren't essential, but I beg to differ for five reasons. Here's why:
1. Bad Posture - Nowadays, pretty much everyone has rounded shoulders - which means that the scapulae are winged out. When a shoulder blade isn't sitting right, the rotator cuff muscles that attach to that scapula are at a mechanical disadvantage because they are outside of their ideal length-tension relationship for creating force; it's analogous to trying to shoot a cannon from a canoe.
Incorporating some direct rotator cuff exercises not only strengthens muscles that you know will be operating at a mechanical disadvantage, but also educates a lifter about how the scapula should be positioned for ideal shoulder function.
2. Shoulder impingement is a physiological norm. - Research from Flatow et al. demonstrated that everyone – regardless of age, activity level, sport of choice, acromion type, gender, you name it – has direct impingement on their rotator cuff tendons. If you know a region is going to get beaten up regardless of what you do in your life, why wouldn't you opt to strengthen it proactively?
3. Rotator cuff tears are far more common than you think. - In consideration of the previous point, it should be no surprise that rotator cuff tears are actually far more common than one might realize - even if you look at asymptomatic subjects. Connor et al.discovered that on MRI, 40% of asymptomatic tennis/baseball players had evidence of partial or full-thickness cuff tears. The general population is no different; Sher et al. took MRIs of 96 asymptomatic subjects, finding rotator cuff tears in 34% of cases, and 54% of those older than 60. And these studies don't even include the ones who are actually in pain! It makes sense to strengthen these areas proactively - even if your shoulder doesn't hurt...yet.
4. Lots of people also have labral tears. - In the past, I've written quite a bit about Active vs. Passive Restraints. In the shoulder, the rotator cuff would be considered an active restraint, as it's something that can be strengthened to improve dynamic stability. The labrum, on the other hand, doesn't get stronger with exercise; it's a passive restraint that provides stability. So, if the labrum is torn or frayed (as it very commonly is in both lifters and overhead throwing athletes), then the active restraints - the rotator cuff tendons - need to pick up the slack.
5. The "Just do normal stuff and the rotator cuff will take care of itself" philosophy isn't working. - That's been tried for quite some time, and nowadays, as a society, we move like absolute crap and - as noted above - have a boatload of issues on MRI even if we're asymptomatic. With respect to the cuff, we've built the deltoids up to the point that they absolutely overwhelm the rotator cuff (particularly the supraspinatus), which is trying to prevent the humeral head from migrating upward into the acromion.
As I noted earlier in the week, I’m two weeks in to the new Lean Hybrid Muscle program and really enjoying it. It’s a pretty significant change of pace from what I might call my normal programming that’s geared toward predominantly increasing strength and overall athleticism – but it’s working extremely well. As the saying goes, “The best program is the one you’re not on.”
This temporary paradigm shift got me to thinking that it'd be a good idea to bring in the LHM creators, Mike Westerdal and Elliott Hulse, in for an interview to talk about whether this kind of cross-training is necessary in a strength and conditioning program. Here goes...
EC: Whenever you see people who are successful across multiple disciplines, you look for commonalities in the way that they prepare themselves. Mike, you’ve done well for yourself in powerlifting, and Elliott, you’re an accomplished strongman competitor. What do you believe to be the most important factors governing one’s success in strength sports? I figured that before we talk about what might need to be changed from time-to-time, we ought to talk about what should always stay the same.
EH: In my experience there are only a handful of tired and true principles that govern success and achievement in all areas of life. Whether you are a strength athlete or a stay-at-home-mom, the same principles apply. Like Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “methods are many, but principles are few.” So, instead of spouting off some of my training methods here, I will share three foundation principles that I tend to value and refer to most when taking aim towards any particular goal - strength or otherwise.
The first is CLARITY. It is paramount that we know exactly what effect we would like our actions to produce. You cannot hit a target that you can’t see.
The next is COMMITMENT. Most people have a vague and fuzzy idea of what they want, but even worse is that most think of these things as “nice-to-haves,” as opposed to “I-WILL-haves.” The difference between someone who is “trying” to win because it would be nice and the person who DOES win is commitment. Winners commit 100% to reaching their goal. They never have a backdoor to escape and never take “no” for an answer.
The third principle governing one's success is DISCIPLINE! I once heard that discipline is, “doing what you have to do, whether you feel like it or not.” I like to think of myself as a robot. Once I set my mind on a particular target, I must then put fickle emotion aside and continue to do everyday what I set out to do from the get-go...whether I “feel like it or not.”
MW: Elliott is a tough act to follow when it comes to success. A lot of people - myself included - like listening to him not only because of his strength and conditioning knowledge but also because of his general leadership when it comes to personal development in other areas of life as well.
Eric, this a great question. I’ve actually had the privilege of interviewing hundreds of different athletes for a book I published at Critical Bench. It included in MMA fighter, powerliftes, strongman competitors, bodybuilders, pro athletes and industry experts. I’ve thought a lot about this and really tried to figure out the common denominators when it comes to excelling in sports.
It almost never has to do with an exact training method or style. Guys get huge with heavy lifting and guys get huge with volume training. Powerlifters have attained world class status having trained with Westside as with Sheiko training. What it really comes down to is a few other factors that I’ll list below:
-You have to surround yourself with other successful people: people that are already in a place where you want to go. If you hang around with a bunch of lazy deadbeats you’re going to get dragged down with them. Instead, find people that are the best at what they do and try to make them a part of your life.
-To take this a step further you have to visualize yourself or imagine yourself becoming what you want before it’s ever happened. If you don’t already think you can bench press 600 pounds there’s no way that will ever manifest itself in real life until you brain can accept it as reality.
Now you may think this is hocus pocus talk, but when they asked Joe Montana what it felt like to win the Super Bowl. He said it felt like the other 300 times I won it. The reporter said, “300 times?” “That’s right” Montana replied, “I’ve been winning the Super Bowl in my backyard since I was 12-years old.”
-The next thing I see from a lot of successful strength athletes is sacrifice. Many things in life are possible, but you have to decide if what it takes to reach that goal is worth the sacrifice. The energy you exert on a certain sport may affect your energy levels for other areas of your life. During a heavy powerlifting cycle, I’m toast even when I’m not training. I find myself resting a lot more. So you have to ask yourself. What exactly do you want and are you willing to do what it takes to achieve the goal? So guys who get to the very top level often sacrifice things like certain social events, for example.
-My cousin is a successful business owner and recently gave me a valuable lesson that I believe can be applied not only to business, but also to strength sports. He told me to just keep showing up. It sounds pretty simple but most people don’t have the consistency to just keep showing up and stick with something until the end. Lots of small steps over a long period of time add up. Unfortunately, it’s very rare that you’ll find a secret shortcut or magic bullet. Just keep showing up and over time you’ll get better.
-My last point is similar to my first point. I mentioned surrounding yourself with successful people. You also need to eliminate negativity from your life and your training. If people are complaining about bad luck, aches, pains, circumstances and a host of other problems, you can’t let that stuff get into your head. I swear these things happen to these people because that’s what they think about and talk about all the time. Why not spend your time with people who are focused on where they are going and what they want?
EC: Great points - and definitely a lot of stuff that I've seen in my successful clients and training partners, too. Back to the subject at-hand, though: "cross-training" within a strength training program. How often do you guys intentionally deviate from your “normal” programming – whether it’s to shake things up for specific physiological reasons or just to get a little mental break?MW: As a competitive powerlifter I trained the same way for several years straight. This is not the fault of the sport, but I was doing the same kind of training for too long. I believe that the lack of conditioning and doing the same strength exercises for too long eventually led to me gaining some unnecessary weight and even contributed to a lower back and shoulder injury.
Now, I love powerlifting and if your only goal is one-rep max strength, it’s the way to go. I wanted to drop a weight class, heal up some injuries, and get some of my athleticism back, though, so it felt good to try a more hybrid program. If you compete in any specific sport you need to train for that sport. However, at this stage of my life I have multiple goals and feel that training for them at the same time is working since I’m not trying to be the absolute best at any skill set. I do want to compete again and when I do I’ll have to cut back on the conditioning and hypertrophy work and focus more on nervous system training again. For now, though, I’m really enjoying the feeling of being more well rounded and athletic.
EH: As a professional strongman I had followed a pretty similar program of power-building mixed with strongman implements for about 3 years straight, never “mixing it up.” This not only led to weaknesses in some areas of overall health and performance, but also created the muscular imbalances that caused me to tear my biceps tendon last spring.
Now, I am committed to working towards multiple performance goals within 12-24 month periods so as to avoid the lopsidedness that caused my injury. For example, I have gone from competing as a pro strongman to running a 10 mile “psycho race” called the Tough Mudder this spring. Next, I am going to qualify for the Crossfit games before building my lifts back up to compete in a raw power lifting meet in the winter.
This may sound crazy to most people, but I’m going to give it a try. It doesn’t mean that my new approach is the right one for everyone, but I’d like to see if it is possible to excel in multiple fitness qualities at once. And I do recognize balance as a foundational principle as well.
EC: How long do these “cross-training” periods typically last?EH: If you mean “periods” as in using hybrid training for only a portion of time during the year, then I would say “forever” – unless you are a professional athlete or bodybuilder who needs to excel in one fitness quality over another in order to compete in your sport.
If building a leaner, more functional and athletic physique is your goal, then I invite you to use this type of training all the time. The beauty of hybrid training is that you can adjust your parameters in order to emphasize one quality over another. For example, if building muscle mass is your goal, then you would continue to use more strength and hypertrophy work over conditioning – but without totally ignoring the latter.
MW: That would depend on who you’re asking. If you compete in a sport with a specific skill set like powerlifting this would be more an off-season conditioning program to do for a couple months. I see a lot of powerlifters train 12 weeks for a meet followed by two weeks completely off. Of course, there are deload weeks in the meet cycle as well. I’ve seen guys throw together three of these 12-week cycles back-to-back. After that, they usually know they need a break or their body forces them to slow down. Adding in some cross training workouts or hybrid training could be beneficial at this time for a couple months.
Now if you don’t compete in a specialized sport I truly believe you can train “Hybrid Style” all year long. You’ll feel good, look good and have great conditioning. If you decide to compete in any one area of fitness you’ll need to focus more on that area, though, to be competitive.
EC: How about when you return to your “conventional” programming? What kind of favorable adaptations (or unfavorable de-adaptations) have you seen?MW: The biggest advantage I can see when returning to powerlifting would be injury prevention. With the different programming, I get a chance to work on any imbalances and heal up any nagging injuries. The health benefits are there too. The reduction in body fat and the cardiovascular conditioning helps me perform better on dynamic training days.
The down side is that my one-rep max strength takes a bit of a hit and I have to get the nervous system re-adjusted to doing really heavy weights. I am really glad that Lean Hybrid Muscle has powerbuilding days so that I can maintain some strength.
In my case, coming from a powerlifting style of training, strength was down a bit. However, for someone that has never trained with triples, doubles. or singles they could absolutely increase strength while following this program.
EH: The fact is that if you are working toward excellence in one particular fitness quality and you incorporate too much training from a contradictory quality, your performance will suffer. I make no claims otherwise and my experience tells me it’s true.
So, the leaner more conditioned Elliott Hulse no longer has the strength to log press 365 lbs over head, I can no longer front squat 455 lbs. So, strength has been lost.
However, things are far more balanced, where now I can only front squat about 365, I can also run a mile under seven minutes and I don’t bend over panting for air after climbing a flight of stairs, like the bigger, stronger version of me did. Ha!
EC: Not a bad tradeoff at all! Thanks so much for your time, fellas.For more information on Mike and Elliott's strength and conditioning programs, check out Lean Hybrid Muscle.
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The baseball off-season is a lot of fun for me, but it also means crazy long hours, loads of competing demands, and quite a bit of stress. To take it a step further, though, most of my long hours are spent on my feet on the floor at Cressey Performance, which isn’t exactly conducive to making progress in a training program. Topping it off, we've gotten about 470 feet of snow in the Northeast this winter, which makes us all want to simply go into hibernation!
While I’ve gotten all my gym sessions in during this time, the reality is that in many cases, they were a lot more like “working out” than they were “training.” And, although I haven’t wasted away, it’s never a good sign when someone you haven’t seen for a few months asks you if you’ve lost weight when you haven’t been trying to do so – and that happened a few weeks ago.
The end result? I’m under 190 for the first time in over two years – and sadly, I’m not really any leaner (or stronger, for that matter).
Something clicked two weekends ago, though. Since the gym is closed on Sundays, I find it’s the best day for me to go in refreshed and get in a good lift. Thanks to a little rest, loud music, and a good training partner, I sumo deadlifted 500 for a set of five. And, it felt damn good!
It also made me realize how much of a pansy I’d been in the gym for the two months prior. With that realization, I headed home to put a program for myself on my to-do list.
The next morning, I woke up anticipating writing that strength and conditioning program (along with about a dozen others!), but before I could get to it, I found an email from Mike Westerdal waiting for me. And that email included an advanced copy of the new product he created with Elliott Hulse: Lean Hybrid Muscle.
For those who don’t know of Mike, he’s a strong dude, with competition bests of 640 squat, 630 bench, and 600 deadlift at a body weight of 242. And, through his website, criticalbench.com, he’s helped thousands of guys bust through their bench press plateaus, not to mention interacted with and programmed for a lot of experienced lifters. Elliott is no quack, either; he is a professional strongman and runs a hardcore gym in Tampa, FL.
I’ve often reminded my readers that that if you need a contract written, you’d go to a lawyer. If you needed your taxes done, you’d go to an accountant. Well, I’m also here to say that if you need a program to kick you in the arse when you’ve been training like a sissy, you go to qualified lifters and coaches who have consistently helped people get strong, burn fat fast, and put on muscle. And that’s what I did.
And, I’ve definitely received that kick in the arse. The past 10 days of training have been some of the more challenging I’ve encountered in over a decade of lifting. And, just as Westerdal assured me, it has been a nice change of pace from the powerlifting-oriented work I’ve done in the past. Here’s what I like about the program:
1. Concurrent Periodization – it might be high volume, but that doesn’t mean that you won't be able to increase strength. If your goal is changing body composition – and not just dropping fat or building muscle exclusively – it’s a great resource. Anybody can get you to lose weight with a high volume program, but not everyone can help you maintain or even increase strength and build muscle mass in the process.
2. Video Demonstrations – Mike and Elliott have links to every exercise featured in this strength and conditioning program, so if you don’t recognize one, you can quickly and easily check it out. I know my stuff in this regard, but it was helpful when I came across a few new ones that these guys must have invented themselves.
3. Versatility – I’m fortunate to have quite a few extra goodies – sledgehammers, farmer's walks handles, tires, turf, kettlebells, sleds, slideboards, kegs – at my fingertips, and Mike and Elliott are all about incorporating what you’ve got into the strength training program. I’ve used it to modify the interval work included in the program. They also give you a wide variety of strength exercises from which to choose so that you can work around injuries or specialize on your weak areas.
The benefits certainly go well beyond these three points (the nutrition component/meal plans are excellent, for instance), but in the interest of brevity, I’d highly encourage you to check out Lean Hybrid Muscle. It actually makes for a great follow-up to Show and Go, for those of you who are just wrapping up that program.
For more information, head over to the Lean Hybrid Muscle Website.
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Can I just add some sets and reps of direct arm work?
How about cardio? Would a few 30 minutes interval training sessions work?
What if I did extra rotator cuff stuff every day? Just a little tubing, you know?
I’m going to add two extra days of calves, abs, and forearms. It shouldn’t be a problem, right?
These are just a few of the common questions I receive from people for whom I write strength training programs (plus all the other components of a comprehensive program). And, it's these kind of questions that make me appreciate just how challenging it is to teach someone how to effectively write strength and conditioning programs - and why everyone gets all flustered when they first start writing training plans.
Very simply, most people don't understand the concept of competing demands. Everybody wants to add something to their weight training program - but not everyone is willing to take something away in order to do so.
How many elite powerlifters or Olympic lifters do you know who regularly do interval training as part of their quest to get strong?
How many elite triathletes do you know who just want to add a few sets of biceps curls along the road to improving endurance performance?
The answer is, of course, none. And, it's because - whether they appreciated it or not - these high-level athletes were effectively managing competing demands.
In some cases, different fitness qualities compete with one another; an example would be extensive aerobic training while trying to increase strength. You can't get strong quickly if you're doing hours of cardio each week. Somewhat similarly, in an overhead throwing population, it's challenging to regain shoulder internal rotation and flexion range of motion (ROM) and pec minor length when an athlete is throwing - so you have to do your best to get the ROM during down-time in their training year.
In other cases, you may have multiple qualities that contribute to an overall training effect, but you can't prioritize all of them at once. For example, my professional baseball clients need a host of different qualities to be successful, but the body has limited recovery capacity, so their training programs have to target their most readily apparent weaknesses - and do so at the right time of year. We cut back on the medicine ball and upper body strength exercises and volume when their throwing volume increases.
And, we can't do as much lower body strength exercises when guys are doing more sprinting and change-of-direction work. Stress is stress, so you have to apply it judiciously.
Taking this into consideration, I think that one of the best drills for someone looking to get better at writing programs is to take a full-on comprehensive weight training program with supplemental conditioning/movement training where someone is training 6x/week - and then cut it back to 3x/week. Assume that there is a whole lot of of "other" stress in this athlete/client's life - whether it's work, illness, family issues, or just being an in-season athlete - and figure out how to scale a program back in order to make it productive and safe for that individual.
Lots of factors have to be taken into account: the volume and intensity that individual can handle, how long each session can last, and what specific factors one needs to address most. A good example to check out would be the differences between the 4x/week, 3x/week, and 2x/week weight training programs (and accompanying optional supplemental sessions) in The High Performance Handbook.
There are loads of factors you have to take into account when you write a comprehensive training plan - from the weight training program, to soft tissue work, to mobility work, to movement training, to energy systems training. The most important consideration, though, is how they all fit together synergistically to make the program as a whole effective.
So, try the challenge I listed above and see how you do; I think you'll find that it's a lot harder to subtract than it is to add to your weight training programs.
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Following my recent article on T-Nation about various weight training program loading protocols (you can read it HERE), I received an email from someone asking me how I'd approach deloading for someone doing a 5x5 workout program. I've broken the paragraph up so that I can answer each of the inquiries individually:
Q: Let’s say on a horizontal push pull day your doing Bench press supersetted with 1-arm dumbbell rows at 5x5, do both lifts follow the same deloading strategies?
A: Yes, although I'll often leave an extra set or two of the pulling exercise in there because people really need it from a postural/muscle imbalance standpoint. So, in other words, we might just flip-flop things to be:
A1) 1-Arm DB Rows: 4x5/side
A2) Bench Press: 3x5
This, of course, would assume that we're deloading on volume and not intensity. It'd be a more appropriate strategy for intermediates.
Q: How do you adjust your assistance work, if at all?
A: Usually, I just drop a set, or sometimes cut the reps down by 2-4 per set. Here's how that would work, assuming that the normal set/rep prescription is three sets of eight on both exercises:
Example 1
B1) Chain Pushups: 3x6
B2) Close-Grip Chinups: 3x6
Example 2
B1) Chain Pushups: 2x8
B2) Close-Grip Chinups: 2x8
Again, this is an intermediate approach. More advanced lifters might keep the sets/reps up and simply reduce intensity.
Q: Also, a lot of times there will be the first two push pull lifts (4 lifts total) done at 5x5 (e.g., flat bench 5x5 and incline 5x5) do you deload both lifts or do you think two chest/back exercises at 5x5 is too much and just the primary lift should have that scheme and the incline would be an assistance lift?
A: Personally, I think that doing all your lifts at 5x5 in a single workout is overkill. I would rather see other rep ranges attacked after the first pairing. However, if you are going to do it, I'd go with the deloading approach outlined in the first response I gave (above).
For even more detailed information on how to approach backoff weeks appropriately, check out my e-book, The Art of the Deload.
Yes, although I'll often leave an extra set or two of the pulling exercise in there because people really need it from a postural/muscle imbalance standpoint.
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