Today, I am NOT referencing technique, activation, biomechanics, posture, form, etc. I am talking about FRAME OF MIND with regard to possible/impossible. The most rapid progress I ever made in deadlift was a time I worked out with about 5 guys who all had about the same build as mine but routinely picked up another 100lbs than I, at LEAST. As far as I know, all of us were without super supplements at the time. I have no ethical or moral concerns about PEDs. I just am referencing that we were all playing by the same rules. So I couldn’t pin my deadlift weakness on the typical scapegoats. I was slightly taller than these guys. They logged a few more years of lifting than I. That was about it. Now, I learned nothing new in technique during that time, nothing new about set up or bracing. In fact, a few guys had bad bracing. But what I did learn was that the weight on the bar wasn’t IMPOSSIBLE. That visceral realization put another 100lbs on an already decent deadlift in an advanced lifter. I cannot stress this enough. Find a way to make the seemingly impossible into the evidently possible or even probable. That’s the best part of my job, frankly. When I have someone whose idea of weights is 5lb dumbbells, and we get them to squat or deadlift 100 to 400lbs, WHO they are changes. THAT is how to lift. Lift in a way that changes WHO you are. Simply lifting weights is great. But when lifting offers you a revision of self is when you “get it.” When you redefine yourself as “I am the person for whom no physical task is impossible,” there is deep purpose in training. Seek that. Yearn for that. Reach that. Then any load to be lifted in life is not only within reach, but it is already in hand.
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A friend once told me that her physical therapist believed overhead pressing would soon become a thing of the past. As if we would all just collectively agree it’s a bad idea for all of humans, soon we would ban the exercise and leave that ability in the archives of former human movement. These sorts of non sequitur and ill-informed ideas are pervasive in the science of movement.
To an extent, I get it: most of the population has so detrained proper movement, it’s easier to give up than to correct it. But, come on. Are we going to tell kids to stop raising their hands in class because they might hurt their shoulders? Handstand. Shot put. Olympic lifting. Just ban it all? Obviously, we need to take a look at opening up the axilla, not closing it more. Adhesive capsulitis and basically all shoulder issues are resultant from excessively closing the armpit, not exploring the overhead position. This truth should be evident to people. In orthopedic injuries, joint degeneration, and general pain syndromes, for some odd reason people have difficulty connecting their irritation to the FACT that they UNDERUSED the structure. Take any structure for an example. People with hip pain don't have a history of too many squats. But, they reason, nonsensically, they better continue avoiding squats. People with back pain don't have a history of doing too much back strengthening. But, they reason, nonsensically, they better avoid strengthening the back. People with knee pain don't have a history of too much leg strengthening. But, they reason, nonsensically, they better avoid putting any duress on the knee, though that avoidance is precisely what caused the problem to begin with. MOST people with shoulder pain have not trained the shoulders hard. They aren't disproportionately gymnasts, manual laborers, competitive rowers, rock climbers or boxers. They are people who sat at a desk and didn't do jack for years. The obvious implication should be DO SOMETHING. Instead, since they feel irritation when they introduce this wholly new phenomenon of USING the shoulder, they take that to mean, "I better stop using the shoulder." No. Your problem IS from not using the shoulder. It won't be remedied by avoiding using the shoulder. You got here by avoiding using the shoulder. I took a long hiatus from behind the neck press because I had unimaginable pain in the neck and shoulder. But slowly I could come back to a moderate weight. One should be able to manage skeletal range. Don’t jump to it if you’re stuck in forward and closed postures. But for goodness sakes, endeavor to IMPROVE. Lindsay Melanson (@lahltn) comes along, limbless all life, and puts in the WORK.
******************************************* It is so easy to forget how good you have it. It is so easy to focus on perceived limitations. It is just so average, so basic, so weak to accept the victim narrative and preach that your circumstances are a pretext for inaction or a pretext for select outcomes. ******************************************* Find a way where smaller minds can see no way. Find the original video here: https://youtu.be/ceCVF-qR2h8 Video here: /www.instagram.com/p/BvNiPafDxEW/.
There’s a reason why you see people wearing belts, and wrist wraps, and knee sleeves, and so on, when they go after big weight. The uninitiated and novice may call it cheating, not understanding that some of it is simply prudent planning. Think ankles in basketball, wrists in boxing, etc. Even for pressing here, a belt increases tension through the torso with an obvious increased effect of contractility. Generally, I’m an advocate for as little support as possible with as full a range of motion as is reasonable. But when we combine various factors, the load can be immense: the extreme decline affords a great way to call upon an integrated effort from lats and pec, which can equate to a 1.5 to 2x heavier load than flat bench on decline, depending on the modality. The bridged decline invokes the hip extension tension much more thoroughly than an anchored decline bench. The belt increases tension. The slingshot keeps compression in the axilla. I have long had unnaturally strong triceps and lats; so I can go substantially heavier than a strict flat press where the pec is stressed more. For a lot of people, this is a way to put the pressing structures under much greater load for that much greater stimulus. What did I miss? Wrists. My friggin wrists held up ok. But just ok. Barely ok. The right is a little... flared. For years I scoffed at guys wrapping wrists for any press beyond 300lbs, while I routinely went well beyond that. The kicker is always that muscles themselves can be ready to produce a force which connective tissue won’t yet be prepared to handle for another 6-7 months. Keep that in mind. Whatever your newfound athletic capacity, recall that certain structures in the body are not yet going to be ready for that for another 6-7 months. Powerlifters often discover this with the bicep and hands. Olympic lifters discover it in the shoulder complex. Larger muscle groups progress rather rapidly in comparison to smaller structures and the low oxygenated/low blood flow tissue like ligaments and even the tendons themselves. Whatever muscles you have today, remember, you still have the ligaments of your 7-month-ago-self. I have impact trauma from childhood accidents.
Nearly ten years (‘97-‘08) of chronic hip and back issues were ultimately resolved by virtue of slowing down and reassessing activation and mobility. Some time in there I incurred a meniscus tear on the left. On the same side I had an adductor tear. Finally, we found my sciatic nerve had been adhered to part of the hamstring. And after Lyme disease, the stability in my right knee vanished, leaving me with a very complicated locking issue where it would get “trapped” in different positions. There was a lot of work and patience to get me back to heavy squat, full ROM lower body work (videos here: https://www.instagram.com/p/BvJcMdyHy3m/). The answer was never in avoidance of training, but revision of approach. You aren’t going to improve tissue problems by getting weaker. Movement and proper strengthening is the solution. This is my gait analysis (video here: https://www.instagram.com/p/BvHHNQhHii9/). I obsess over biomechanics; and I can still get something out it. I got an encyclopedia’s worth of data from the Biomechanics Lab at Northwestern Health Sciences University. They’ve analyzed Olympic athletes in their sprint patterns, weightlifters in squats, and people rehabbing in just how they stand or walk. Go and check them out: https://www.nwhealth.edu/research/sweere-center/biomechanics/
Over the years, I’ve heard people tell me about an “assessment” they did at a running shoe store. Those are a joke compared to even what I do in an initial movement pattern assessment. But it’s total nonsense when stacked up against something like this. Don’t skip the vital step of figuring out how your body moves. Recently, I met with a prospective client who is a figure competitor. She’s been on stage. She’s been lean. But her movement is a complete mess. She told me she trained with an IFBB coach; and I was just sad. Getting shredded is great and all. But if you can’t move properly, what’s the point? Every cue I gave her in terms of foot mechanics, varus/valgus awareness, and even lat activation, was NEWS. Just because you haven’t gotten hurt YET, haven’t had foot surgery YET, haven’t had knee or hip replacement YET, doesn’t mean you move correctly. I can attest to these findings. For optimal life, simply strengthening even just once a week is beneficial and may, in fact, prove MOST beneficial for the average populace. Certain cell turnover rates don’t change. That is, you cannot replace tendon, or increase ligament and bone density faster than about 6 months. So, if we compare the result of someone training 6 days per week, twice per day, for 12 weeks, to someone training once per week for 12 weeks, we won’t find statistically significant differences in connective and skeletal tissue at that time. Moreover, if we fast forward 3 years and find the high frequency person quit at week 12, while the once weekly participant is still going once per week, what we will find is the once weekly person outrageously more powerful, mobile, healthier and dramatically changed versus the twice per day fanatic. On paper, we may think, “high frequency person got 144 training sessions in versus low frequency got 156: not that different.” Actually, it’s COMPLETELY different. Imagine this were monetary investing. One person saved A LOT of money for 12 weeks, overextended himself, and then spent all the savings (and more). He’s in debt. The other person saved a manageable amount every week for three years, never spent a cent, and is increasingly putting more into investment every week. People falsely think they have to be like the first person. But even the first person wishes he would’ve been like the second. Paper here: https://www.jyu.fi/en/current/archive/2019/02/resistance-training-even-as-little-as-once-per-week-benefits-older-individuals 1. Where you can get.
2. Around where you can start. 3. Don’t do this please. see video here: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bu_-X6jHPEy/ Video 1 - how you may one day be able to train abs, if you understand how to train them appropriately (and, if you don’t understand trunk flexion and the difference between hip and spine action, please look back at my prior posts on abs or check the website) - this is a version of the weighted dragon flag; I have 6lb ankle weights on each leg; my primary concern is maintaining the flexed trunk position while changing hip angles in order to lengthen the lever length (increase force need) and decrease the lever length (decrease force need). Another variation would be to fix yourself at the hip and move into and out of maximal trunk flexion. Previously, I showcased that while non-weighted in Secret to Abs, part 1. Video 2 - with one caveat, this is about where you can start once you’re past the beginner stages. I prefer to keep my legs out in order to lose mechanical advantage, lengthening the lever, and requiring more force. The hip is immobile. The spine is bendin, so there ain’t no pretendin. The distance between ribs and pelvis is closing. Most people can control this if you bend at the knees fully and draw them all the way into the chest while you peel the hips off of the bench. The version I show here would be a several step progression from there. Video 3 - leg raise - take note of the space between my mid back and the bench. That IS abdomen stretch. So what is a simple leg raise like this doing? Good question. I suppose after 100 to 1000 consecutive reps, I may finally feel the abs because they’ve been stretched for so long. But they aren’t contracting anymore than your bicep is when you hold groceries in your outstretched arm. What is certainly working is the psoas major, minor, and ileacus. And the first has its origin on your T12 through L5 vertebrae. I don’t know about you; but I’d like to work abs and not back pain when I work abs. Likewise, the way people do Roman chair and toes-to-bar is generally NOT intelligent ab training. It’s hip flexor and low back pain tolerance training. It’s fascinating to watch people speak from abject ignorance, never hazarding to run a single scientific experiment themselves. And they will opine with great indignation about fasting and diets which they’ve never really studied or attempted.
I have DONE IT ALL. I did low fat, high fat, keto, paleo, raw vegan, vegetarian, supplemental shakes, purely whole food, carb back loading, IF, sustained fast, cyclical ketogenic dieting, elimination diets, bug eating, anti inflammatory nutrition, macro counting, bodybuilding nutrition, mass gain, cut down, maintenance, performance nutrition, you NAME IT. No seriously. Name one. I’ll try it. And then I’ll make a rather balanced assessment AFTER. Ten thousand client hours later, I’ve got a pretty good dataset from clients as well, all of whom have benefited from varying tactics. No one eating style is my religion. I’m a pragmatist. Frankly, entomophagy and raw organ meats from humanely treated grass fed herbivores and wild game are probably best. But then we get into the debate about convenience, sentience, ethics, sustainability and what people WILL DO. Regardless of where you are trying to cast your lot, remember, you could just NOT EAT. There are hundreds of thousands (if you’re lean) or millions (if you’re not so lean) of stored calories on your body. You’ll be alright. Really. Your thyroid won’t die. You’ll make glucose just fine. Your lean tissue doesn’t just waste away. The food industry and supplement companies may get a little slow down. That’s about it. It’s simple. And even if your goal is to get bigger, you’ll get by for a few hours or days here and there throughout the year. Your immune system will thank you. In the fourth grade, I once received a C on my report card in spelling. This was confusing because I was a linguaphile. As far back in that year as I could remember, I had received only perfect scores on each test. So I went to the teacher. She showed me her gridded notebook, where she fastidiously recorded everything with great precision, pointed to my C, assured me that no mistake occurred, and closed the book. I asked her to open it up again. She did. We looked more closely and found that the lines were so tiny that at the very end of the ledger she had accidentally switched my tabulation with a student whose last name landed them right beneath me in the notebook. The human eye, after all, can jump around when figures are right next to each other. The teacher apologized, corrected the mistake, and life went on.
I wonder if the mistake hadn’t been so obvious and egregious if I or she would’ve ever known. What if I had a bunch of different test scores, some Bs, some Cs, and so on? If I hadn’t been so confident in my perfect scores, if I hadn’t been insistent, if she hadn’t been willing to question herself, what would have happened? And she was quite organized and rigorous. And this was such a straightforward process. I wonder if/how she handled the other student thereafter. Any test for which your blood is pulled is variant. That is, the same person will have different values the same day. The same lab, when conducting two tests, will have different values with the exact same sample. That’s to say nothing of insufficient draws, contamination of samples, or patient mix-ups, all of which do happen. The result is stacked against “normative” outcomes, a statistical term, which itself begs various questions about objective value and analysis. One lab value every 6-18 months is not really how data collection works. You need more data to determine trends. The fact of the matter is that there is currently a reproducibility crisis in science, where the MAJORITY of published outcomes cannot be reproduced by anyone. Some tests are incredibly reproducible (ie - tests for lead concentrations in blood are over 90% reproducible) while others never were (ie - cell size IgG tests). Before you pat yourself on the back or dread the meaning of a “bad” value, remind yourself that this is just data. I’ve done a cholesterol panel three times in the same day with three substantially different results. And of course this is what should be. The body is in different states at different times. |
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