Iron Zen

I'm not a very spiritual person. It's not that I don't believe we humans have a spiritual side -- it's just that I don't think about it that much. But sometimes I do.

I've heard meditation described as entering a state in which the ego is dissolved. The line between you and the world dissolves and you feel the energy of the universe flow through you.

I don't meditate, but I get that feeling sometimes, too. I get it through lifting. When you've pushed your body to its absolute limit on an especially heavy lift, or on the last rep of a particularly tough set, sometimes you push so hard that all you can see is a mass of color, and all you can hear is a high-pitched whine.

Your feet feel like roots, planted into the earth, immobile. Your body feels simultaneously like it's dissolving into the world around it and like it's permanent, immobile, legs and back and shoulders forever locked in support of the weight on the bar.

That feeling -- the complete unconsciousness of anything but the energy flowing from the world through you and into the bar, and the way that flow of energy negates your normal sense of yourself as a being independent of and distinguishable from the universe around you -- is, as the kids say these days, freakin' sweet.

I'm sure that the more scientific among us would (accurately) describe this feeling as nothing more than a brief period of semi-consciousness caused by momentarily interrupted blood flow to the brain due to extreme exertion. But those people are just killjoys. I call it iron zen.

It's why I love deadlifts and power cleans. For some reason, the heavy movements from the floor produce the intensity necessary to get this feeling much more often than squats or presses. I think that presses just aren't strong enough movements to produce the intensity necessary to reach iron zen, and I'm not yet proficient enough at squats -- during heavy squats I'm usually focusing too hard on keeping my form to give the all-out effort necessary for iron zen.

But however you reach it, it's a great feeling, it's a sign of a damn good training session (excuse my French), and it's a perfectly valid excuse for we non-spiritual folk to take a minute to think about the connection between mind and matter.

"I'm doing arms"

It happened to me today. I was in the one and only squat rack at the gym (squatting, of course), when a 30-something guy in a sleveless t-shirt came up to me between sets.

"How many sets do you have left?"

3

"You mean you have 3 sets left to go?"

Yeah, you can work in if you'd like.

"Nah, thanks, I'm doing arms."

As he wandered off in search of a more bicep-friendly environment, I was left shaking my head. Besides the fact that this guy wanted to do bicep curls in the squat rack (don't get me started), the phrase "I'm doing arms" just annoys the dickens out of me.

Training only your arms is pointless. In the real world, your arms never work in isolation. Training movement patterns, not body parts, is the way to get stronger.

Instead of "arms," train pulls: pullups, chinups, rows. Instead of "chest," train pushes: bench press, overhead press, pushups, dips. Instead of "legs," train... well... legs, but use functional compound exercises: squats, deadlifts, cleans.

The phrase "I'm doing arms" aggrivates me because it reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of this basic concept of strength training. To get strong, you must move heavy things in a way that closely mimics the movements you'd use to move heavy things in real-life scenarios outside of the gym.

Maybe I should be more understanding. Maybe I should try to offer a tidbit of friendly advice next time this happens. Or maybe I'm just a crotchety old man in training. But at least I'll be a crotchety old man capable of physically throwing those young bicep-curling whippersnappers off of my lawn instead of meekly shaking my cane at them.

Griptastic!

I've been bad about blogging lately. But, fortunately, I've been good about working out. So all is not lost.

Also, reading over some posts, I think I need to change my "voice" on this blog. I'm coming off as if I'm trying to be an expert or an authority here, which I'm not. I'm a guy who loves lifting and wants to write about stuff I learn or find interesting while doing it. So I'll stick to that.

Anyhoozle, Nick at Beyond Strong recently posted a couple of videos of interviews with strongmen Andrus Murumets and Zydrunas Savickas. The interviews are great.

One thing I found to be interesting was Andrus' statement that he trained his grip by hanging from a thick bar for as long as he could. This seems brilliantly simple. Grip is one place where static strength and muscular endurance is hugely useful, and this is a simple, straight-forward way to develop that.

So I decided to implement it at the gym today. Since I train at a typical commercial gym, there are no fat bars in the gym. In fact, there's only one true pull-up bar. But I improvised a thicker bar by taking the neck pad that some folks (who I like to call "pansies") use for squats and put it over the pull-up bar.

I think it worked very well. I did sets of hanging for about 45 seconds, and my forearms were definitely working hard. The pad makes the exercise harder by increasing the diameter of the bar, and I think the fact that the pad is soft and can spin around the bar if you end up inadvertently twisting adds to the difficulty, as well. The best part was that it gave people another reason to give me those "what the hell?" looks I have come to know and love.

Grip strength is useful for everything from deadlifts to pullups to holding grocery bags and, if you're male, the all-important handshake intimidation ritual. It's also something to which I've never really devoted enough attention to, so I'll be doing these hangs and some gripper work a couple of times a week.

Why you should squat

Many people hate the squat. They're scared of it. It hurts. It's hard. They avoid it at all costs, with excuses like, "it hurts my knees," "I don't want to screw up my back" and "I like the leg press better."

But the truth is, you should squat. Are you old? Squat. Overweight? Squat. Young and still growing? Squat. Do you have bad knees? Squat. Unless you have some sort of terrible spinal condition that precludes any and all weight-bearing activities, you should be squatting in some way, shape or form.

The squat is often called the King of Exercises. This is because the squat develops strength throughout the entire body like no other exercise can. Squatting with a barbell on your back not only works your legs, but also your torso and upper body (shoulders, chest, back and arms). The muscles of your legs are the prime movers. The muscles of your torso must contract strongly to support your spine during the movement. The muscles of your upper body are used isometrically to keep the bar in position on your shoulders. This kind of large-scale muscle recruitment isn't achieved with any other exercise, with the possible exception of the deadlift.

Strength training causes your body to release testosterone and human growth hormone (among others), which help in building stronger muscle, bone and connective tissue. Generally speaking, the more muscle you use in an exercise, the more hormones are released by your body. Because the squat works so many muscles, it elicits a very high hormonal response, and thus is extremely useful in building total-body strength. If you don't squat and your bench press is stuck, try adding squats in to your routine!

There is no substitute for squatting. Leg extensions and leg curls don't even work your entire leg. Leg presses look similar to the squat at first glance, but completely remove the torso and upper body involvement, as well as minimizing the use of the hamstrings and glutes. These exercises also eliminate the flexibility and balance needed for and developed by the squat. Balancing a heavy object on your back teaches you to stabilize yourself in a way that can't be replicated on machines.

And, wonder of wonder, squats can actually help people with limited flexibility or joint problems. As briefly mentioned above, it takes a certain amount of flexibility to perform a full squat. People who are inflexible can become more flexible simply by squatting as well as they can, which will stretch out and strengthen your muscles. Flexibility and strength will quickly improve as squat form improves.

Often, people with "bad knees" or a "bad back" simply have weak knees or a weak back. These areas hurt because they don't have the muscle or ligament strength necessary to perform daily tasks (lifting, climbing stairs, etc.). Squats, correctly performed, strengthen both of these areas. Krista at Stumptous has an excellent explanation here.

Of course, the one caveat that goes with any exercise recommendation is that the exercise must be done with proper form. If you've never squatted before, start with an empty barbell and learn the technique before adding weight. There are plenty of online resources detailing proper squat form. Here's a quick rundown:

• Start with the barbell securely positioned on your shoulders and kept in place by your hands, your back straight and your feet shoulder-width apart with toes pointed slightly out.
• Sit back like you're descending into a chair behind you. Your back should remain straight and your knees should stay pointing out in the same direction as your toes as you sit back.
• Descend until the line between your hip and knee is parallel to the floor or lower. This means that the TOP of your thigh should be parallel to the floor.
  
• Push evenly through the heels of your feet to stand back up, being sure to raise your hips and your chest at the same rate. Raising your hips first and then your chest can lead to injury.

Squatting is hard, both mentally and physically. But make squats a staple of your routine and you'll reap the rewards.

Training 2-21-08

Squat
3 x 5 x 270
2 x 3 x 270
10 x 225

Push Press
4 x 155
2 x 5 x 155
2 x 4 x 155

Press
5 x 115

Power Clean
5 x 3 x 170

Pullups
3 x 5 x 52.5

Dips
3 x 5 x 100

Comments: Missed 4th rep on 4th set of Squats by just losing tension at the bottom. I think form is getting better, though (sitting back into the hole and using rebound in hams & glutes). And don't have Push Press down yet. Added sets on to make up for sucking on Squat & Push Press, which is ok to do occasionally, but don't let it develop into an excuse for missing reps. Power Clean tweaked my left hamstring again, but got through and it should be fine. Pullups were tough, but all legit deadhang to chin over bar. 100 pound Dips!

Stop me before I curl again!

Ah, the bicep curl. According to my extremely un-scientific observation, it's probably single most commonly performed weight training exercise in America. The devotees of the curl have come up with dozens and dozens of variations on the basic barbell curl: ez bar curls, dumbbell curls, hammer curls, isolation curls, preacher curls, reverse curls... the list goes on and on.

The curls is so popular because many young men have the "Curls for girls" mentality. They think that building big biceps will make them look strong and attractive, and they think that curls will achieve this goal.

I won't debate the "big biceps" point. If you think that huge biceps and teensy weensy shoulders, chest, legs and back make you look great, then go for it. However, curls are not the best way to build biceps.

Why aren't curls the best bicep builders, you ask? Because they don't stimulate the bicep through its entire range of motion, they don't use heavy loads and they don't use the bicep in a functional way.

Range of Motion

The curl involves holding a weight your hands with your arms extended straight down, and then moving your forearm up until the weight comes to your shoulders. In a curl, the elbow is moved through the entire range of motion and the shoulder moves very little. This movement does not use the bicep to the fullest possible extent, since the bicep is involved in both elbow flexion and shoulder flexion (shoulder flexion is when you move your upper arm upwards and in front of you). For an exercise to work the bicep through its full range of motion, it should involve movement around both the elbow and the shoulder.

Heavy Loads

Most people can't handle much weight on curls. Even if someone does curl a lot of weight, that amount of weight is much less than that person could handle on other exercises that work the biceps. (see the list below!) In strength training, more weight lifted = more muscle built, so if we are to stimulate bicep growth, we need to use exercises with which we can use the biceps to move heavy loads.

Functionality

The curl is also not a very functional exercise. A functional exercise is an exercise that is very similar to a real-life movement and helps to strengthen and/or improve that movement. Functional movements are the most useful for adding on muscle mass and strength. Deadlifting, for example, is an awful lot like picking up something heavy off of the ground. Outside of the gym, however, you will hardly ever perform a curling motion.

So, what are some bicep exercises that work the bicep through its entire range of motion, use heavy loads and are functional? I'm glad you asked!

Chinups

Grab a pullup bar or other sturdy overhead support with a supine grip (palms towards you). Pull yourself up until your chin is above the bar. Lower yourself until your arms are completely straight. Repeat.

With a chinup, you're using the bicep to flex both the elbow and the shoulder, you're moving your bodyweight (or more, if you add weights!), and your arms are doing exactly what they'd do if you had to climb up or over something.

Bent Over Barbell Row

Keeping your back straight and your knees slightly flexed, bend over at the waist and grab the bar on the floor in front of you. Grab the bar in an overhand grip and pull it straight up towards your Xiphoid Process (that spot right above your abs, at the bottom of the sternum).

Once again, you're moving both the elbow and shoulder joints, you're using a load much heavier than you would curl, and you're performing an action that looks a lot like picking something up off of the ground.

There are a couple of other exercises that are also very helpful in building the biceps, even though they don't involve all 3 aspects mentioned above (full range of motion, heavy loads, functionality):

Deadlift

With a bar at mid-shin level, place your feet slightly narrower than shoulder width apart with the middle of the foot directly under the bar. Keeping your back straight, bend at the knees and hips to grab the bar. Your shoulder blades should be directly over the bar and your back straight. Extend your knees until the bar is above them, and then extend at the hips until you are standing completely upright.

This exercise doesn't involve any movement around the elbows and very little around the shoulders, but it works your biceps isometrically under an extremely heavy load. And exercises don't get any more functional than a good heavy Deadlift.

Press

Hold a bar on your front shoulder and chest, with your chest up and your elbows slightly in front of the bar. Press the bar directly over your head until your arms are fully extended, then return the bar to the starting position.

Yes, the press hits the triceps much harder than the biceps, but remember that the bicep is involved in shoulder flexion, which occurs rapidly in the early part of the press. Again, weights used on the press are much heavier than weights used for curls, and the Press works specifically on the shoulder flexion use of the biceps, which is usually the least-trained aspect of the bicep.

Sure, if you're big into bodybuilding, you'll need to do a few curls for that "pump." But if curls and curl variations are your only bicep exercises, your "guns" will always be more like Noisy Crickets.


For those of you who don't know what the Noisy Cricket is.

Training 2-16-08

Squat
3 x 3 x 240

Press
3 x 3 x 125

Power Clean
3 x 2 x 135

Pullups
12, 9, 9

Comments: A little stiff from sprints yesterday, especially in the left hamstring. Squats felt a bit tough for a light day -- apparently those suckers are hard no matter what. Did 80% of Push Press weight for strict Press, and it felt about right. I'm starting to really like Power Cleans. Aiming for 12, 10, 9 on Pullups next week.

Leave the gym a little crazier than when you arrived.

Most trainees think like Arnold. The bodybuilder/movie star/governor was famous for his exhausting workouts. He'd go to the gym, destroy himself for a couple of hours, then have to call a friend to pick him up because he was too weak to drive home.

That kind of work ethic and willingness to push yourself to the limit of your physical capabilities is admirable. But it's not the best way to train if you're looking to gain strength.

Want supporting evidence from a dead guy? Here's a quote from "Modern Weightlifting," written by British strongman Edward Aston in 1935 (read the full text here):

In training for a weight-lifting match it must be borne in mind that hard work does not necessarily mean success (...) therefore his work requires to be chosen with care, and only those exercises given him which will fit him for his contest, without over-taxing and drawing on his reserve energy.

Translated from the old-school, this means that your exercise selection and volume should be such that you don't run yourself down. Keep the volume low enough that you can fully recover between workouts. Don't clutter your workouts with frivolous exercises -- keep them short enough that you don't run yourself down. (But make sure they're intense enough to actually do some good!)

My personal marker for a workout that hits the sweet spot between too little work and too much work is when I feel more psyched up and crazy leaving the gym than I did going in.

It sounds a little weird, but some of you will know the feeling. When your volume and weight selection are right, when you've selected the right exercises, and when you push yourself as hard as you can on every rep, you leave the gym feeling stronger than when you went in. Of course, we all know that this isn't really the case -- you are always weaker immediately after exercise than before -- but that rush you get after finishing the last heavy rep of a good workout is one of the best feelings in the world.

Training 2-14-08

Squat
5 x 5 x 265

Push Press
2 x 5 x 155
3 x 4 x 155

Power Clean
5 x 3 x 165

Pullups
3 x 5 x 50

Dips
3 x 5 x 95

Comments: The music in my gym SUCKS. It consists primarily of dance remixes of early-90's pop music. Squats felt much better today because I brought my iPod and cranked up my own music loud enough to drown out the crap. Push Press was disappointing, but I'm hoping it'll come up quickly as I get the movement down. Power Cleans felt really good. Pullups were a bit tough, but ok. Dips, as always, made me feel like a badass.

A question: timed sets & training for power

I'm in the midst of re-thinking my training program for 2 reasons:

1 - I've been on this program since November, and it's probably about time to mix things up a bit.

2 - I have an outside shot at being a contestant on American Gladiators (!), and if that happens, I want to be as physically prepared as possible.

I've already determined that I'm going to switch to lifting on Monday, Thursday and Saturday with conditioning work on Tuesday and Friday. What I'm thinking about now is keeping Monday and Thursday as high intensity, low volume strength days but switching Saturday to be a lower intensity, higher volume, power-based workout.

I think that timed sets might be appropriate for this power workout. I'd select a weight and amount of time for each exercise, then see how many reps I could get done with the weight in the alloted time. For example, instead of doing 5 sets of 5 reps, I'd do 4 sets of max reps in 30 seconds. I'd make progress by trying to beat my total reps from last time. Since Power = Work/Time, I'd be increasing my power output by keeping the time the same and increasing the number of reps performed from workout to workout.

So my question is this: has anybody out there had experience with timed sets? If you have advice on the best way to use them or other ideas on training for power as opposed to strength, I'd love to hear about it!

Training 2-9-08

I did sets of 10 on Squat and Press today, partially to switch things up and partially because I just wasn't really "feeling it" today.

Squat
4 x 10 x 205
4 x 205

Press
4 x 10 x 95
9 x 95

Power Clean
5 x 3 x 160

Chinups
3 x 5 x 52.5

Dips
2 x 5 x 92.5
4 x 92.5

Comments: Lack of sleep, eating like crap and stress have been screwing with my recovery lately. I went in planning to do 5x5 on Squat, but only got 2 of my first work set, so I switched to sets of 10 with less weight. They were tough! Press was supposed to be 5x10 anyway, since I'm now rotating between sets of 10, 5 and 3 as part of the Timed Total Tonnage approach. Power Cleans felt good -- I'm getting the whole jump thing down by concentrating on stomping my feet back down after the jump. Chinups were easy. Dips felt lopsided -- I need to finish the Egoscue Method and get to work fixing my posture.

Train Movements, Not Muscles

The human body is a complex machine. I'd go so far as to say that no one in the world really has a full understanding of how it works. So it's understandable that many people are confused when it comes to the best ways to exercise in order to improve the body.

One problem is that beginning lifters tend to think in terms of muscles instead of movements. They walk into the gym thinking that they need to build stronger triceps or quads or focus on some other specific muscle group. But that's not how your body works.

Your body works as a unit. No single muscle or muscle group works independently of the others, so it makes little sense to train a specific muscle or group independently.

Instead of focusing on muscles, training should focus on movements: pushing, pulling, squatting, etc. Training movements will exercise your body in the way that it works in real-life scenarios: as a complete unit working to exert force on an exterior object. This will lead to better strength gains and will actually prevent or correct many of the strength and physique imbalances that lifters typically try to fix by focusing on a specific muscle.

So what does that mean for your workout? It means forget the exercises that isolate one muscle (bicep curls, tricep pull-downs, etc.) and instead focus on the exercises that use a large number of muscles in a coordinated fashion (Squat, Deadlift, Press, etc.). These large-scaled coordinated exercises are called compound movements.

If you took two people whose muscles were capable of exactly equal amounts of force production, but one trained with isolation exercises while the other trained with compound movements, the person who used compound movements would be able to move more weight around in real-life scenarios.

Think of it this way: if you're trying to lift a couch (my favorite example!), it doesn't matter how strong your hamstrings, glutes, quads, back, shoulders and grip muscles are. What matters is how strong your Deadlift is. Why? Because the Deadlift is a coordinated movement involving all of the muscles that you'd use to pick up a couch. Not only does the Deadlift increase the strength of all the muscles used, but it also trains them to work together. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts!

Training 2-7-08

Squat
3 x 5 x 265
2 x 4 x 265

Bench Press
2 x 5 x 235
4 x 235
3 x 235
4 x 235

Deadlift
5 x 335

Chinups
0 x 100
1 x 100
6 x 50

Dips
5 x 100

Comments: My past few workouts have been too slow. Today we were filming for my American Gladiators audition stuff, which slowed it down. But overall I need to work on keeping my focus and blowing through the work with intensity. Lost reps on Squats and Bench, losing reps on Deadlift feels close. Chinups and Dips were mainly to get video for AG.

Step Away from the Machines

Let's get one thing straight from the very beginning: lifting weights and exercising on machines are two completely different activities. The Nautilus Bench Press machine is not equivalent to the plain ol' barbell Bench Press. If the exercise involves a stack of weights and a pin, or any sort of lever, gear or pulley, then it's NOT WEIGHTLIFTING.

I've posted once already about why free weights are superior to machines, so I won't rehash it all here. The short version: machines control the way you move, enable you to lift more weight without being stronger, increase your risk of injury, and do not build strength that is applicable in the real world.

So why do people continue to use machines? Ego. People want to be able to claim that they can "Bench" an impressive-sounding amount of weight, so they use machines for the simple reason that machines do some of the work for you, thus allowing you to lift more weight than if you used free weights.

I bring this up because Token Asian Roommate was a bit annoyed that a mutual friend claimed to have lifted more weight than TAR can. Of course, this friend was using machines. I told TAR not to worry about it, that the person used machines and that his inflated numbers were just that: inflated.

To drive the point home, we did a little experiment after our workout. We had already Bench Pressed for 5 sets of 5, but I took him over to our gym's Bench Press machine. He got on the machine, and I loaded it up with 140 pounds. He did 2 reps. I moved it up to 160 and he got 1 rep. Not too bad for a guy whose max on the barbell Bench Press stands at 115 pounds.

To further prove my point, I loaded the machine up to its maximum weight of 400 pounds and proceeded to do 5 reps. If I had 400 pounds above me on a barbell, it would crash to my chest the instant I unlocked my elbows, and I'd be headed to the hospital.

So, to conclude: working out on machines is not the same as lifting weights. The "strength" you build on machines will not translate to free weights or to real-life movements. If you're using machines now, switch to free weights. You might have to check the ego at the door and use less weight at first, but stick to free weights and you'll get stronger than you ever could by using machines.

Training 1-30-08

Squat
5 x 5 x 255

Bench
5 x 5 x 230

Deadlift
5 x 330

Pullups
12, 9, 7

1 Arm DB Snatch
3 x 5 x 70

Comments: Morning Squats again. Bleh. 4 and 5 were ugly on most sets, but they got done. Bench Press 5x5 felt easy! Solid Deadlifts, the weight came up easy. Glad to continue progressing on Pullups. Again, DB Snatch for torso strength and overhead stabilization.

Friday's a light day -- I'll keep the weight the same and go 3x3 instead of 5x5. Why, you ask? Find out on Friday!

You're in Control!

When you're lifting weights, it's easy to think of it as you vs. the bar. You're trying to get an exercise done, and the bar is your enemy, trying to drag you down and stop you. But this isn't the case.

The bar (and the weight on it) does nothing. Absolutely nothing. It is not a force trying to oppose you in the completion of your movement. It's simply a piece of metal that you push and pull around in an effort to get stronger.

This may seem blindingly obvious to some of you, but the revelation that I'm not fighting against the bar when I work out came to me almost like an epiphany in the middle of a hard set of Squats the other day.

As I struggled to stand up with the bar on my back, my first thought was along the lines of "I'm not going to let this bar beat me." Then I suddenly realized that there's no way the bar can beat me. I'm not competing against it. I'm the one who put it on my back. I'm the one who controls where it goes. I'm the only active agent in the me-bar system. I'm not struggling against the bar, I'm struggling against myself. I'm fighting against the fatigue in my legs. I'm fighting against the pain in my shoulders. I'm fighting against the part of my brain that says "Heavy thing on your back! Drop it! Drop it!" I'm fighting against the ever-present temptation to just give up on a rep or a set or a workout because I'm tired or I'd rather watch TV or I just don't feel like it.

In other words, working out isn't a test of me vs. the bar. It's a test of me vs. me. Just as the workout tests my muscles, it also tests my fortitude, discipline, concentration and determination. If I fail on a rep, it's not because the bar beat me. The bar can't beat me. If I fail, it's because I let myself fail.

Of course, this philosophy can't be taken to extremes. If I went to the gym and loaded up a bar with 900 pounds, there would be no way that I could Squat that weight. That's not due to a lack of determination or a lapse in concentration. That's because I was stupid enough to load up a weight I couldn't handle.

This shift from thinking in terms of me vs the bar to thinking in terms of me being in complete control of my workout helped me finish that set, and it helps me to keep my focus on the task at hand in the gym. It brings home the fact that I'm responsible for my own workout, and that "having an off day" doesn't happen unless I let it happen.

Training 1-28-08

Squat
5 x 5 x 250

Press
2 x 5 x 145
2 x 4 x 145
3 x 145

Power Clean
5 x 3 x 155

Bent Over Row
5 x 5 x 170

Overhead Delcine Situps
3 x 8 x 45

Comments: Squats felt almost easy, probably because my previous 2 sessions were in the early AM. Lifting in the afternoon is so much better! Nothing wrong with Press, weight is just getting heavy. Power Clean form was problematic at times: I tended to want to pull with the arms when I got tired. Focusing on keeping the back locked and driving up off of the floor helps on Rows. Couldn't quite hold the top position on the last situp like I'd wanted to.

Recovery!

When you lift weights, you're making yourself weaker. The act of lifting weights results in tiny tears in the muscle and a good deal of systematic fatigue, meaning that you're weaker immediately after a workout than you were immediately before. You know the feeling -- you walk into the gym feeling like you could lift an elephant, and you're barely able to hold yourself upright when you walk out.

So how, then, do you get stronger? The damage done to your muscles while working out is repaired by your body's recovery systems. And since your body is smart, it knows that it needs to repair the damage and also add a little extra muscle, since you, being dumber than your body, are going to just go back to the gym and try to tear your muscles up again in a day or two.

It follows, then, that proper recovery is as important to strength training as working hard in the gym. Yet, for some reason, it's completely overlooked by many lifters. So here's what everyone should know about recovery:

Rest

The most basic tenet of recovery is that you need enough time between workouts for your body to recover. For most folks, this means taking at least 36 hours between every session.

Think of working out as giving your body homework. After the workout, your body starts doing the homework you've assigned to it by repairing and building muscle. If you only let your body get halfway done with the homework you've already given it before assigning more, then the homework piles up and your body can't keep up. Assignments are forgotten and never turned in, and you don't get stronger or maybe even get weaker because your body can't keep up with your break-neck pace. But if you give your body ample time to complete the homework before assigning more, you get stronger.

Sleep

The rebuilding "homework" you give your body by working out is best done while sleeping. Ideally, you'd get 8-9 hours of sleep every night. This isn't possible for many people, but you should try to get as much sleep as you can.

You can also improve the quality of your sleep, and therefore the quality of your recovery, by making a few changes in your bedroom. Keep the room as dark as possible at night by covering windows and removing any devices that give off light. Unplug electronics and keep battery-powered devices out of the room. The radiation given off by TV's, cell phones, radios, and all electronic devices can negatively impact your sleep. Try to establish a regular bedtime and wake-up time. Turn off the TV and dim or turn off as many lights as possible half an hour before bedtime. Don't eat foods with a high glycemic index before bed, as the blood sugar spike will keep you up.

Eat

Your body uses the building blocks in food to build muscle, bone and connective tissue. So if you don't eat (and eat well), your body doesn't have the materials necessary to make itself stronger.

There are lots of different theories on the best foods to eat. You might need to do some research on your own to find the plan or theory that works best for you. As a starting point, here are the basic rules I eat by:

- Get at least 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight per day. Protein is the basic building block of muscle, so if you want to get stronger, you have to make sure your body has enough protein. Some protein sources are better than others, because they are more similar to the proteins found and used in the human body. In general, protein from meat is better than protein from dairy products, which is in turn better than protein from vegetables.

- Drink milk. Mark Rippetoe, author of Starting Strength, says that beginners should drink 1 gallon of milk a day to gain size and muscle. I don't drink a gallon a day, but I drink milk with every meal. Milk has a good balance of carbohydrates, fat and protein. It also contains something called Insulin-like growth factor, which has been linked to strength gains.

- Eat enough. Throw that silly old 2000 calories a day rule out the window. A better rule of thumb for active people (such as those undertaking a strength training program) would be to aim for a caloric intake somewhere between your bodyweight times 15 and your bodyweight times 18. For example, I weigh 198 pounds and I aim to eat between 3000 and 3500 calories a day to fuel my body while maintaining my weight. Track your eating habits with a tool like fitday. If you find that your weight is moving in a direction you don't like, modify your caloric intake in small steps until you get to where you want to be.

- Avoid processed foods. Processed foods have much lower nutritional value than the whole foods from which they are derived. My personal rule is based on the paleo diet: if I couldn't, in theory, walk outside, pick it up and eat it, then I shouldn't eat it at all. If you don't want to go to that extreme, just do what you can to replace processed foods with whole foods in your everyday diet. Instead of chicken nuggets, eat chicken breast. Instead of V8, eat veggies. Instead of applesauce, eat apples. Instead of twinkies, eat more apples. You get the drift.

Move

You might have heard the term "active recovery." The idea is that you move around enough to get blood pumping through your muscles and loosen up your joints, but not enough to assign further recovery "homework" to your body's recovery systems. Getting your heart rate up and moving your muscles through a full range of motion on your "off" days helps your body recover more efficiently.

Your active recovery could be anything from taking a walk to an easy 20 minutes on the exercise bike or a heavily scaled-down Crossfit workout. The point is not to let yourself be a couch potato on your off days -- get up and do something!

Proper recovery is essential to gaining strength. You can overcome a couple of days of insufficient sleep and poor nutrition by just gritting your teeth and forcing yourself through a workout, but you need to establish good recovery habits if you want to have long-term success.

Training 1-25-08

Squat
5 x 5 x 245

Press
5 x 5 x 140

Power Clean
5 x 3 x 150

Chinups
3 x 5 x 50

Dips
3 x 5 x 90

Comments: Squats were only decent, form-wise. Today's convenient excuse is that it's hard to focus first thing in the morning. Press was much better, because I had more recovery time between sets and because Token Asian Roommate was finally back in the gym and I had the "oh crap, my friend's watching so I have to do well" thing going on. Need to go into a deeper squat for the rack on Power Cleans. Chinups were easy. Dips were long overdue and felt great as a finisher.

Lifting fast vs lifting slow.

Back in November, I wrote about why you should always lift fast. I stand by that post, though I should have made it more clear that what's important isn't the actual act of moving the bar with lots of speed, but the intent to do so. You're trying to throw the bar up as fast as possible, but the amount of weight on the bar means that you can't throw it around and it's actually moving at a reasonable, controlled speed. But I digress.

Last night, I started reading Power to the People by Pavel Tsatsouline. (The cover is horrific -- whoever designed that should be fired.) One of the very first assertions made in the book is that in order to get stronger, you have to lift SLOW. The idea is that strength is a product of muscle tension. When you lift something, the contraction of your muscles is the driving force. Pavel contends that lifting slow allows you to concentrate on contracting your muscles throughout the entire movement, leading to greater gains in strength.

The idea seems to be very similar to the concept of "time under tension," where bodybuilders lift slowly in order to maximize the amount of time their muscles are contracting, in theory leading to more hypertrophy. But Pavel claims that lifting slowly will give you strength WITHOUT gaining lots of muscle mass.

This is diametrically opposed to what Rippetoe and the guys at Westside Barbell preach. My previous post about lifting fast and power production is based on Rippetoe's analysis in Starting Strength, and the Westside guys split their training up into Max Effort (as heavy as you can go, 1-3 reps) and Dynamic Effort (lighter weight, as fast as you can go) days. These guys are at the top of the game when it comes to Strength Training, and they advocate lifting fast.

I'm interested to hear what Pavel has to say about lifting speed later on in the book, though. I don't think I could ever be convinced that slow lifting is inherently superior to fast lifting for strength training purposes, for the reasons in my previous post, but I'm willing to be convinced that the occasional "slow lift" day could be useful or that a week or two of slow lifting could help break through a plateau.

Goals for 2008

I've lifted weights since my Freshman year in high school, and I've always enjoyed it. But since I got serious about strength training about three months ago, I've been having more fun than ever in the gym. Instead of lifting just because I like it, I'm lifting with a plan and a purpose.

So to keep that sense of purpose and give myself something to plan towards, I'm establishing some strength training goals for 2008. Some will be easier to achieve than others, but my aim is to achieve all of them by December 31, 2008.

The first goals are in the form of single-rep maximum effort lifts, in pounds:

Squat: 405
Deadlift: 500
Press: 200
Bench Press: 315

I'm also aiming to increase some bodyweight skills. These goals are in consecutive repetitions without rest:

Pullups: 25
Pushups: 50
Handstand Pushups: 10 freestanding

Right now I'm focusing on my Squat and Press goals. I want to be able to get those by the spring, and then I'll focus more on my Deadlift and Bench Press goals. I believe that the pullup and pushup goals will come naturally as a product of my current training program. I need to practice handstands at least once or twice a week to progress towards my handstand pushup goal.

If I manage to hit all of these marks before the end of the year, then I'll just come back and set higher goals.

Happy new year to everyone, and I wish you success in achieving all of your goals for 2008!

Why Ego is my Enemy

Ego: an inflated feeling of pride in your superiority to others

Ego makes me want to lift weights that are heavier than I can handle, leading to incorrect form, injuries, and no progress.

Ego makes me too proud to ask for advice from people who know more than me, either because I'm secretly jealous of them or because I think I'm too good to need advice.

Ego makes me too proud to learn from people who know less than me, too. Just because they know less doesn't mean they don't know something I don't. Or I could be wrong in assuming they know less -- I won't know until I listen to them.

Ego makes me think that I'm special, that I can handle things other people can't. Sometimes this is true. Usually, it's not.

Ego gives me a big head. So do steroids. That means, logically, ego also shrinks my testicles. If you don't think about that one too much, it almost sounds like some sort of wise saying or something. Confucius say, "Ego shinks your testicles."

Ego prevents me from clearly assessing my strengths and weaknesses. And if I can't see myself accurately, I can't improve myself optimally.

Ego keeps me from doing everything I can to get stronger, since I already think I'm a badass.

Ego makes me a jerk. And if I'm a big enough jerk, nobody at the gym will help me out if I'm stuck under a heavy bench press.

Ego makes me dismiss the way other people train if I don't agree with it or understand it, when I should be trying to figure out why they're doing what they do and learning from it.

Ego makes me self-satisfied. It robs me of my fire, my desire to improve myself and work as hard as I can to get stronger every day.

Ego makes me scared to try new things, because I might fail at them. And failing, while great for growth and learning, is terrible for one's sense of superiority.

Ego makes me refuse to admit when something's not working. Stubbornly, I keep plugging away despite not seeing any results because I know I'm right.

Conclusion: Do my best to ignore my ego. Lift smart. Learn. Work hard. Be honest with myself. And then work harder.

The Difference Between Strength Training and Bodybuilding

Many people seem to think that lifting weights is lifting weights is lifting weights. That's not the case. There are lots of different weightlifting protocols -- the 5x5, the "gym rat" 3x10, HIT, etc. Each protocol produces a different effect in the trainee, and each protocol can be sorted into 1 of 2 general categories: Strength Training and Bodybuilding.

To understand these categories, we must understand the goals of each. In Strength Training, the goal is to get stronger. To put it more precisely, the goal is to increase the amount of weight that you can lift for a single repetition. This is achieved by increasing the power production capacity of muscle fibers and by improving the ability of the nervous system to recruit those fibers.

In Bodybuilding, the goal is to increase the visible amount of muscle on your body. This is achieved via hypertrophy (the process by which the body creates new muscle cells and/or increases the size of existing ones) and by reducing body fat.

There is some overlap in these two goals. In the process of building strength, you will begin to appear more muscular. In the process of building muscle, you will start to get stronger. But the two are not the same.

There are a number of easily noticeable differences between Strength Training and Bodybuilding programs:

Rep range:

To build strength, you need to lift heavy weights, weights that you won't be able to lift for a whole lot of consecutive repetitions. This means that most Strength Training programs will use sets of no more than 8 repetitions. Most commonly, you'll see sets of 5 or 3, and more advanced Strength Training Programs often call for heavy singles (sets of 1 rep).

For hypertrophy, you want to cause as much muscle fatigue as possible. This means more reps with lower weights. For this reason, most bodybuilding programs will use sets of at least 8 reps, often going as high as 20 or "to failure," which means as many reps as you can possibly do with the weight.

Exercise selection:

Strength is most efficiently built through movements that mimic real-world actions: picking things up, pushing things around, etc. This means that Strength Training programs rely heavily on compound movements: complex movements involving more than one joint. Examples would be the Squat, Deadlift, Bench Press, Overhead Press, Power Clean, Bent Over Row, Pullup, etc.

In competition, bodybuilders are judged on a set of criteria that include muscle definition, proportion, etc. For this reason, bodybuilders often try to isolate specific muscles in order to precisely manipulate their physique. Isolation and machine exercises such as tricep pull-downs, preacher curls, pectoral flys, leg extensions and calf raises are often found in a Bodybuilding program.

Programming:

Your body works as a unit. When you pick up a heavy box, you're using almost every muscle in your body. Therefore, Strength Training programs usually train the whole body in one workout, though some Strength Training programs use a split in which the upper body is worked one day and the lower body is worked the next. Your body needs time to recover from these kind of large scale workouts, so Strength Training programs usually involve 3-4 workouts per week.

Because they want to fatigue a specific muscle or muscle group as much as possible in order to induce maximum hypertrophy, bodybuilders often only work out one specific area of the body (chest, back, shoulders, triceps, biceps, abs, legs, etc.) per day. Therefore, Bodybuilding programs are often designed so that the trainee works out 5-7 days a week, working a different area of the body every day. Bodybuilding programs don't have as many rest days built in because each workout stresses only a small area of the body, creating less systematic fatigue and necessitating less recovery time.


Not all programs are created equal. It's important to define your goals and pick a program that matches those goals. If your main goal is to pump up your "beach muscles," pick a Bodybuilding program. If you're training for a sport or you just want to be the strongest guy you know, follow a Strength Training program.

In Defense of the Deadlift

The Deadlift is one of the most misunderstood exercises in the history of strength training. People think it's dangerous. They say that you'll mess up your back by doing it. Many corporate gyms won't even allow you to Deadlift. And if you do Deadlift as a regular part of your training regimen, you'll inevitably be approached by at least one person who "knows" that the Deadlift is dangerous and tries to convince you to give it up.

First, let's address the safety issue. Compared to other recreational sports, strength training has an incredibly low rate of injury. People think of soccer, for example, as being safer than weight lifting, but participants average 6.2 injuries per 100 hours of playing soccer versus 0.0035 injuries per hundred hours of weight training. Even badminton has a higher rate of injury than weight training, with 0.05 injuries per 100 hours of play.

Now think about the safety of specific lifts. If you're going to get injured while lifting weights, it's probably going to happen when you're trying to lift too much weight and you lose control of the bar. A Bench Press would be the worst lift for this to happen on, since a loss of control means the bar crashing to your chest, and possibly remaining there if you have no spotters or bad spotters. If you go too heavy on a Deadlift, on the other hand, all you do is drop the weight. A worst-case scenario would be the weight rebounding off of the floor and smacking you in the shin.

So with the Deadlift's potential for catastrophic injury now realistically assessed as being very close to 0, we address the issue of "messing up your back." Yes, your lower back will probably be sore after a workout involving Deadlifts, but only in the way that your chest is sore after a workout involving Bench Press. A correctly executed Deadlift will NOT injure your back. Ever.

The only way to injure your back by Deadlifting is to perform the lift incorrectly, in which case you're not really doing a Deadlift, after all. In a correct Deadlift, your back stays straight throughout the entire movement while you lift the weight by extending at the knees and hips. If your back stays straight, you can't hurt it. Period.

Since correct form is the most important factor in safely Deadlifting, you should learn all you can about correct form. Read online articles. Watch video of correctly performed Deadlifts. Ask a personal trainer who has a Powerlifting or Olympic Lifting background. If you're serious about strength training, buy Starting Strength and read it cover to cover. Do whatever you need to do to feel confident in your form. If you have the equipment, periodically video yourself performing the Deadlift so you can check your form. You can even post the video online and ask for feedback on your technique.

"You Deadlift like a girl." "Thanks!"

The Deadlift is an extremely useful lift that has gotten a bad rap thanks to idiots like this guy. Correctly executed Deadlifts are one of the best ways to build strength in the series of muscles known as the "posterior chain": glutes, hamstrings and back. They also teach you how to correctly and safely pick up heavy objects from the floor. The Deadlift is an extremely useful exercise for everyone from the 17 year old who wants to get stronger for sports to the 70 year old who just wants to be able to perform everyday tasks without pain.