Weightlifting makes us happy!

Does Strength and Conditioning have Anything to do with Bodybuilding?

2017-03-28T15:53:00.000-04:00

DOES STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH “SHAPING UP”?

Yes, strength and conditioning are the root activities from which bodybuilding, body sculpting, sports training, cross-training, functional training, weightlifting, and powerlifting were born. All sports training originates from training soldiers for war (Perrottet T., 2004), Ancient sportsmen/sportspeople saw the high cost of war and wanted to create an alternative. Athletics were born and a new way to prove which nation had the most capable warriors with them. Athletes were people from the city of Athens. These people trained full-time and received sponsorship and everything today’s “athletes” receive. They were superstars.

Get stronger and run faster,

Bodybuilding, powerlifting, and weightlifting used to live in the same camp. Athletes would do weightlifting for athletics. They would do powerlifting for strength. Finally, they would do bodybuilding for assistance movements. I am a powerlifter by design. I wanted to be a bodybuilder until I realized I would never achieve 300lbs. of muscular bodyweight. I am quite strong, so I entered a powerlifting competition and won. I competed for years in powerlifting. A friend was a weightlifter and we bonded over the similarities and differences between these two awesome sports. He gave me some reading material and I studied as good athletes and coaches do (Roman, 1988). I fell in love with weightlifting. Years of powerlifting and short arms designated me a powerlifter. My nephew, however, was built to be a weightlifter. I coached him and he won two USAW School Age National Weightlifting

Weightlifters are better athletes than most.

Championships. He runs the forty faster than most NFL players and Hussein Bolt (Bolt accelerates after 40 meters btw). He jumps like a kangaroo. He was never quite heavy enough to do well internationally at a senior level even though he finished 4^th in a Pan-American Championship. He is heavy enough to match his height and weight with proper leverages now. We will see how this goes as he is still in college.

I digress. The camp split years ago. Weightlifters specialized in quick athletic movements. Powerlifters specialized in absolute strength related movements. Bodybuilders (BB) focus remained on the artful aesthetics of the human form. These camps are quite resolute in their beliefs and USAW lifters miss more jerks than they should because someone told them bench-pressing was a bad thing.

Kids need to train like athletes NOT bodybuilders!

Use the snatches, cleans & jerks to remain athletic. Use squats, bench presses, and deadlifts to improve strength. Finally, using BB movements to strengthen parts of the more complex gross motor movements (full body, multi-dimensional) and the human body develops more fully. All training sciences worth their weight are based on weightlifting training in the former Soviet Union. There isn’t any new science worth much in scientific terms. This point may be arguable; it may not be. I encourage anyone interested in this topic to reach out to me and we can discuss in a friendly, civilized, way. If we still disagree, one of us was doing more talking than listening.

The ultimate point is if one trains like a weightlifter, powerlifter, and uses BB movements to fix weak links the outcome is far superior to one faction or another. We need to reunite the camp and train like soldiers even though we most likely will not go to war. A soldier in war has no reason to do a sculpting movement unless that movement will foster a broad development systemically. Crunches are a sculpting movement designed by an athlete with a bad back!

Be a lifter in the weight room. Do BB movements in extra workouts to foster growth on the gross motor movements. Bodyweight management, fat management, which most Americans require these days remains a matter of nutrition. Nutrition is between 20-80% of the solution depending on one’s goals and which internet guru one reads/watches. Stay strong everyone!

Will

Will2bstrongdc.com

References

Perrottet, T. (2004). The Naked Olympics: the True Story of the Ancient Games. New York: Random House.

Roman, R. A. (1988). The Training of the Weightlifter. Livonia, Michigan: Sportivny Press.

TEN QUALITIES OF A GREAT COACH OR TRAINER

2017-02-22T13:04:00.000-05:00

WHAT IS REQUIRED TO BE A GREAT PERSONAL TRAINER

A lot of people are training others these days. I have seen generations upon generations of “trainers” come and go. Some understand the requisite skills and others never seem to understand that training someone is a service first and foremost. I maintain that one must have trained for something to fully understand this practice. Doctors and Lawyers study and study and study some more but they are not replete possessing knowledge alone. These businesses are called practices with good reason. No two clients’ needs are the same. A great personal trainer or coach must be able to think on their feet. I say intelligence is the ability to compare the current topic with all of one’s experience and knowledge.

Great personal trainers...

Skills are great; a great coach must be proficient, experienced, and beyond on a case by case basis. All of these skills are founded solidly on the substance of integrity:

1. Service oriented

2. Socially perceptive

3. Well spoken

4. Well read

5. Active listener

6. Intelligent in decision making

7. Coordinated

8. Exceptional time managers

9. Persuasive

10. Critical thinking

Ø Integrity – this means being trustworthy, honest, truthful (logic), reliable, and dependable. Do what you say and say what you do in action. Everybody says they will “do their best” while their actions speak to the truth of the matter. If you make a mistake, admit it. Correct the action and keep working on the solutions.

Ø Service oriented – means we must be aware and adjust according to the group or individual we are dealing with. Psychology, sociology, sales, and marketing all fall under this category. If one ignores psychology or sociology sales and marketing are for nothing. Deal with people on a case by case basis and the sales and marketing efforts will follow. Make certain you are dealing with the wants and needs of your clients. Care what they want. They will trust you if you care.

Ø Socially perceptive – a great coach mirrors their athletes to a large degree. If one reads the unspoken cues given by the athlete both are better off. Social cues may be in the form of body language, questions, and statements. Many athletes have asked me questions over the decades I have spent coaching and in the early years, I addressed them as simple Q & A delivering more information. I later learned to seek the root of the questions. Why did the athlete ask me that question tells me more about the services I am or should be delivering than the answers I may have provided? This doesn’t mean we should not answer the questions. Gain perspective and look at the solutions through your clients’ eyes. It will pay off in results.

Ø Well spoken – means we must take care with our words. My favorite movie scene is from The Princess Bride. I paraphrase here, “You keep using this word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” Strength is a great example of words used by trainers which mean something completely different than the scientific definition of the word. Strength is the ability to produce a maximal force. If a coach uses a different definition of the word strength I am happy. Because someone has to come in second place. The literature used this definition when the best research was done. Recently the personal trainer faction that has taken over strength and conditioning swaps strength, endurance, strength endurance, and muscle size interchangeably. We cannot find high-quality products at a swap meet.

Ø Well read – this should go without saying. When I started training folks in 1987, I used MUSCLE & FITNESS, FLEX, and IRONMAN magazines as my sources of substantiation. While I may have gained evidence on how to sell those publishing companies’ nutritional supplements I most certainly did not gain any scientific insight. I gained this from institutional sources. These sources are not without fault, certainly not. But the data is available for analysis. I now understand that Mr. Olympia is not going to give the world his training plan if he wants to remain the top contender. The Internet is classified the same way the old magazines were. It is hearsay. Those writing and posting on the Internet are selling something, including me. I have given hundreds of articles and posts to prove my earnest desire to help you make good decisions in training. Make certain the sources you “buy’ from are doing the same. A great coach reads and understands materials while making beneficial decisions on your behalf before sharing this information with you or anyone else.

Ø Active listeners – listen and silent use the same letters. If your trainer interrupts or ignores your questions find another trainer. Listening is more than 85% of communication. I talk during training sessions. former coworkers have told me to “shut up when you're training people”. I understood where this person (not a trainer) was coming from. He may have believed I was not allowing my clients to share in the conversation or concentrate on a set of repetitions. I never speak within a set unless it is a simple cue or to tell someone to STOP for safety purposes. This ties in with being socially perceptive closely. Most of these qualities tie in together just like all knowledge ties together equating with intelligence. Listen and make adjustments accordingly to be a great coach or trainer.

Ø Intelligence and decision making – intelligence is the ability to compare data with everything one knows. It is not just a matter of possessing information. It is a matter of relating information to a situation. Decision making is the reasonable application of knowledge. I can tell the story of strength all day and if I do not understand the changing leverages within the first and second pull on a clean or snatch with regard to limb length the strength factor never applies. Intelligent doesn’t (does not) mean knowing it all. Intelligent means being present and making problem-solving decisions within one’s current limits.

Ø Coordinated – means everything I have just written. Gain new knowledge, listen to your athletes, make good decisions, study, practice, do not use bad information, pay attention, use non-verbal cues, and always be aware of your environment. Coordination is intelligence in a nutshell.

Ø Exceptional time management – means doing what needs to be done when it needs to be done. I hope at this point everyone reading this can see how this all ties in with integrity. If I am still actively motivating the barbell upward during a pull I cannot possible reverse under the bar to receive it, right? The amortization phase does not matter if I am behind in the timing. This applies to meeting people where they are in a fitness category also. Lets’ say I am in the gym and need three more clients to pay my bill. If I am stressed about the bills and in a bad mood I may turn someone off in our first meeting. Focus on what you are doing. Multitasking is physiologically impossible. There is a very good reason the SA Node exists. If we were responsible for thinking about our heart rate, we would not survive. Anyone saying they multitask well is talking about switching quickly and possible effortlessly between tasks. Nobody can do two things at once. Be on time and keep looking forward because changes do not happen in the past.

Ø Persuasive – means convincing someone to do something they are resistant to or unwilling to try. We all have comfort zones. A lot of Americans live in this zone. This is why so many American are overweight, pre-obese, obese, and morbidly obese. When I was competing in powerlifting my Body Mass Index (BMI) was in the mid-thirties. This index does not apply to athletes but if someone is not an athlete it is useful in making changes in their approach to life. If I had been in an office, eating my worries away, and going home to a twelve pack every day with a BMI of 35 someone would have needed to educate me on the wear and tear of the extra weight on my cardiac muscle and the circulatory issues I was sure to experience. This would have required a very persuasive person. I have been called stubborn and it is accurate. I am stubborn. Most weightlifters and powerlifters are stubborn. My name is William. I am willful. Persuading someone to do something they have not done or are fearful of doing requires trust. I hope we all see the pattern of harmonization by now.

Ø Critical thinking – is the essence of problem-solving. One’s ability to analyze the situation, sift through possible solutions and choose the most reasonable plan is a combination of inborn, cultivated, and multiparty abilities. Critical thinking is fostered. It is a matter of intelligence, cooperation, and education. One’s critical thinking does not matter if they are not listening.

Lifting weight is complex.

This list is only ten factors long. I could write until my abilities fail. Failure is not productive in the present. We must study the reasons for failure and adjust the plans accordingly to avoid failure. We must not invite failure to the party. Training to failure is training to fail. Make the systems adapt without the homeostatic data that failure makes you stop and save energy. Stop a set with 1-2 reps left before failure or form breakdown occur. This is training. It may take longer to build muscle training this way but the gains will be more permanent and injuries far less likely. Strength is only partially about muscle anyway.

Ø Doc

GET STRONGER

Contact me if you want to discuss any of this information.

CHILDREN SHOULD LIFT WEIGHTS!

2017-02-06T17:59:00.000-05:00

CHILDREN SHOULD LIFT WEIGHTS!

I have always advised people to allow their children to lift weights. The most important part of this advice is, and I cannot stress this enough, WITH APPROPRIATE AND QUALIFIED SUPERVISION.

address inactivity
teach them enduring activity
counter disease
make them stronger and healthier

Kids should only lift with qualified instructors and or coaches!

Here is a link to the National Strength and Conditioning Association's position statement regarding children lifting weights.

- Doc

Get stronger!

www.docs-gym.com

SPORT

2017-02-06T14:51:00.000-05:00

THE DEFINITION OF SPORT

For an activity to be considered a sport it must satisfy four standards. These criteria are as follow.

It must have a competition.
It must have a social comparison.
It must have universal rules.
It must have an uncertain outcome.

Call a competition what you will, a struggle, a race, a meet, or a match. Competition illuminates the better entrant. This point rarely goes contested (ha-ha, get it…).

Sports have standards which must be considered.

A social comparison means there are two parties who interact as a result of the competition. If nobody watched sports, there would be no point in the clash. Originally sports were invented to compare soldiers. The contests were less costly than the alternative, war. From these contests, the Olympic Games were born. This is where athletes gained their name; a citizen of Athens, Greece (Perrottet, 2004).

Universal rules happen to be the standard I am opposed on most frequently. Look at it like this, if we have a football (soccer for the Americans nobody plays American football in China) game in China played by different rules than a game played in Brazil the two games cannot be compared fairly. NFL and NCAA rule differ in American football. The games are not the same so they cannot be compared equitably. World-wide, common, general, and unanimous are several synonyms for universal.

The WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) is classified as entertainment because there is no uncertain outcome. It is scripted to degree or totally. If the game is “fixed” or “rigged” it is not a sport.

This is the working scientific definition of sports in the sports sciences realm. Scientists once stated that the world was flat. We must explore these standards and expand on our identifiable definitions of sports. Without standards, there are no baselines. Without baselines, we have no points of comparison.

The social comparison more often than not concludes in argument. Different opinions result in disagreements. This is why competition exists. To end the comparison of opinions with conclusive evidence. The New England Patriots are the best team in the NFL this year. I was rooting for the Falcons but somehow knew it was not to be so. Up 21-0 I was ever so confident. The Falcons’ strength and conditioning coaches need to do more work on the strength side of things. They ran out of skills and concentration when they ran out of strength. There’s an opinion for you!

- Doc

Get stronger!

http://www.docs-gym.com

References

Doc. (2017, February 6). docs-gym.com. Retrieved from docs-gym.com.

Perrottet, T. (2004). https://books.google.com/books?id=B2VPMUBAxUUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PR17#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?id=B2VPMUBAxUUC&source=gbs_navlinks_s.

LISTEN AND USE OTHERS OPINIONS, MOST OF THE TIME.

2017-01-24T09:58:00.000-05:00

OPINIONS?

People are interested in their opinions without exclusion. Discussions are born of opinions. It is my opinion that facts are important too. If we cannot change the opinion of another with irrefutable facts, they are not listening. If someone is not listening to you, STOP STRUGGLING TO COMMUNICATE WITH THEM! Without listening there is no communication.

It's just my educated opinion...

- Doc

Get stronger!

www.docs-gym.com

WHY?

2017-01-20T19:59:00.000-05:00

WHY?

Why do I insist that strength is health? I can list all kinds of data explaining why strength leads to health. Circulation, posture, endocrine responsibility, etc. Nobody really cares and a lot of people who do care may disagree with me. So I am going to tell you why I focus on strength as the center of my physical, mental, and emotional fitness training.

Get ready!

A formal sports sciences definition of strength is the ability to produce a maximal force. How much force does the average American have to produce on a daily basis? Nearly none! Why should everybody decide to teach themselves to produce greater forces? I will tell you.

Strength allows us to walk wherever and whenever we want to go. I do not know many people who could walk 50 miles starting right now. A strong person could with the right supplies. A strong person can walk calmly or briskly. Strength gives one confidence, courage, and fortitude. If one is high strung it brings peace. If one is lazy it brings liveliness. Strength is the foundation physically, psychologically, and emotionally. It doesn’t matter what we are doing, strength drives us. It doesn’t even need to be a physical activity. We need strength in all of life.

There are basic human needs according to Tony Robbins (TEDTalks, 2007). We have the need

· To be certain – it gives us confidence

· To be uncertain – it gives us variety

· To feel significant – it makes us unique and different

· To connect and love – no explanation required

· To grow – if we do not grow we die even without the formal act

· To contribute beyond ourselves – sharing is important and satisfies the other needs

Strength provides solutions for all of these needs. Needs drive actions according to Mr. Robbins. My endocrinologist told my parents to “make him a diabetic or an active little kid”. I chose strength training as my partner to battle diabetes. I survived two car accidents that would have killed me had I chosen another concentration. One emergency room doctor told me if I hadn’t trained traps that day I would have died or spent the rest of my life in a wheelchair. I had a scratch on my chin. There was an imprint of my head and shoulders in the windshield of my FORD THUNDERBIRD. This is why I pursue strength and help others do the same efficiently. I did not have a common cold for more than 30 years. I stopped training for less than one and had pneumonia. Move your body every day and reap the benefits.

This is why, for me. Choose your why and pursue it to the end. Getting stronger requires no explanation. “Why do you want to get so strong?” If I have to explain it to you, you will never understand. Why not?

- Doc

Get stronger and reap the endless benefits!

www.docs-gym.com

References

Talks, T. (2007, January 16). YouTube TED Talks. Retrieved from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpc-t-Uwv1I

THREE FITNESS TIPS

2017-01-19T15:53:00.001-05:00

FITNESS TIPS

It goes without saying in our society these days if you have not been working out for any considerable amount of time go and get checked out by your Medical Doctor. Make certain there isn’t anything that you have going on medically which may cause you problems in any setting; especially training your body.

You can try other things.

That being said, let’s get to the tips.

1. Lift weights every cycle. I tell people interested in physical fitness they need to lift 2-3 times per 8-day period to match their circadian rhythms (STAFF, 2012). Our bodies are not on a 7-day cycle. The shortest cycle our circadian cycles is 14 days for physical repair, replenishment, and expulsion. I know 7 is a common denominator of 14 and 28 but stay with me. Training is emotional and mental as well (Roman, 1988). The emotional rhythm lasts 28 days and the mental rhythm lasts 33. This is why I recommend an 8-day cycle. It allows us to get away from the 7-day cycle with the least offensive response. Muscles recover at different rates for different people. smaller muscles (biceps, triceps, abdominals, CORE, calves, forearms, and individual deltoid factions) recover in 1-3 days. Larger muscles (deltoid complex, back muscles, pectoralis, glutes, hamstrings, quadriceps, and concerted efforts on multi-joint movements) take 2-5 days to recover if training them individually or at high intensities (intensity means weight on the bar in scientific terminology; short rest is a matter of duration). Training daily is what elite athletes do. This is what I do as a coach and athlete. reach out if you want to communicate with ME. Training involves distributing work over an appropriate cycle so as to train again as quickly as possible causing no harm. Elite athletes train multiple times each day and performance enhancing drugs are not the sole reason they can do this.

2. Eat nutritious food. If mother nature didn’t make it for you DO NOT EAT IT! With as few steps as possible between natural state (raw) and eating the human body functions better on natural foods. Processed food is bad for you. If you don’t know that fried chicken is not conducive to a healthy cardiovascular system you need to educate yourself.

Eat well.

Nutrition also stands head and shoulders above anything occupying second place in terms of usefulness in managing one’s weight. If you are too heavy eat smaller meals every three hours for no fewer than five meals each day. Eat for what you plan to do. Running five miles will require more carbohydrates, fats, and proteins (macronutrients) in addition to the micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) which help those macronutrients digest and be distributed more efficiently (another reason to eat natural food). These nutrients require support just like your larger muscles require support. Gross motor movements require smaller muscles to support and distribute the forces being produced by their larger more powerful siblings. If you want to gain weight eat for what you want to accomplish also. This being said eat every three hours, no fewer than five meals each day, for what you want to accomplish. This plan requires us to eat for where we are for 1-2 days and where we want to be for 3-5 days. With no baseline eating day(s) we just get fat, or skinny, or remain the same. Eating frequently increases the metabolism. It also tells the system it is in low danger of starvation and there is no reason to store fat. The movement tells the system it should shed unnecessary weight (fat if we are eating as described here). Stop and smell the roses every once in a while. Do not eat 10,000 kcal a day if you are not using them; also, do not eat 500 kcal a day if you are an adult. Nutrition is the key to appropriate levels of adipose tissue (body fat). Eat natural foods (Richmond, 2014)! Drink water all day too (3-4 oz. every 15 minutes all day).

3. Live a balanced life if you are not competing; use balanced life activities as recuperative aids if you are competitive. Being a competitive athlete requires commitment. Everyone was surprised last summer when Michael Phelps told the reporters how much he ate. This is more common than lay people think. I know people more than a foot shorter than him ho eat 2000 kcal more than him daily.

Tennis is great fo agility and athletic movements.

They lift, he swims, American footballers on the line eat that much too. Elite athletes must plan their nutrition and it is a full-time job. Anyway, this section is about not pretending you are Michael Phelps if you are not planning an Olympic Games appearance. Take a vacation. Eat a cheat meal if you are disciplined enough to get back on the plan. Try another sport. Don’t get mad at me I am just suggesting alternatives to spending your youth in pursuit of something you are never going to compete in outside your Box. If you are a competitive athlete go ahead and use water-skiing as an outlet where you have some fun and exercise in addition to XXXX (lifting, eating, running, swimming…). Use something other than your stationary bicycle to do cardio

- Doc

Get stronger and lead an exciting life!

www.docs-gym.com

References

Richmond, C. (2014, APRIL 14). PREVENTION. Retrieved from PREVENTION: http://www.prevention.com/food/healthy-eating-tips/23-ways-to-eat-clean/slide/18

Roman, R. A. (1988). The Training of the Weightlifter. Livonia, Michigan: Sportivny Press.

STAFF. (2012, JANUARY 17). BLISS RETURNED. Retrieved from BLISS RETURNED: https://blissreturned.wordpress.com/2012/01/17/your-three-natural-body-cycles-this-is-known-as-the-circadian-rhythms/

Get ready for the beach now and get in shape now!

2017-01-17T15:51:00.000-05:00

GET READY FOR THE BEACH NOW!

The beach is calling you. It is saying get in shape now.You will be ready to show everybody how hard you’ve worked to have a great body. Does this message speak to you? Are you one of the get in shape at a specific time of year people? Or, do you work hard all year, year after year, to make the best version of yourself? I hope the latter instead of the former.

I have always believed in making changes as soon as I realized I had a weakness. New Year resolution schmezoluson. BS, and I don’t mean Back Squat which is how this acronym reads in my training manual. Why make yourself better for a few weeks at the beginning of each year only to fall by the wayside in March? Do it! Do it now! Make the exclamation and shout to all the world I am here and I am awesome! It doesn’t matter if you believe me. This is how I feel and I will prove it daily to myself and everyone around me. If I were training right now I would look like the Tasmanian Devil from the old cartoons.

Rashe-fraschits...M&#$% F*@+!%s

How difficult do you believe it would be to get in shape for Memorial Day if you had been working every day since 2010...with rest and recovery days as necessary of course”? Get in shape now and stay in shape for the rest of your life.

-Doc

Get stronger and keep getting strong indefinitely!

www.docs-gym.com

5 WAYS TO INCREASE YOUR STRENGTH

2017-01-16T16:35:00.001-05:00

5 WAYS TO INCREASE YOUR STRENGTH

1) Lift weights in addition to your body. Calisthenics are great. They will only help you become relatively strong. Relative strength, a clinical term, measures what one can do with their body. Strength, also a clinical term, is the ability to produce a maximal force. If someone can do more chin-ups than another they are relatively stronger. Let’s call them athletes A and B. If B out-chins A for 1-repetition (rep) B is stronger. By the way, if B outperforms A for 1-rep B more than likely out-perform A for reps also. The activation patterns are not established for maximal force production unless heavy weights are lifted for low reps. The athletes who do a wide range of reps are generally stronger than those who remain in a single range. Common rep ranges and their focus are:

a. 1-6 – strength

b. 1-3 - power

c. 6-10 – hypertrophy (muscle mass)

d. 10-15 – circulation (both electrical and blood)

e. 15+ - rehabilitation

Looking good is great.
Her hamstrings would be fuller if she were a strength athlete.

Endurance is built relatively in the weight room. It is built specifically for one’s event training. Marathon runners get strong enough to run and recuperate quickly in the weight room. They improve their running with technique work and time management skills, including endurance, during their running sessions. These training sessions should be separated for optimal results. Athletes in weight classes improve their strength with lower reps so they do not add mass; just activation ability.

2) Use the above chart to determine the repetitions used for a certain goal. Start with a lower total volume (rep total) daily, weekly, and monthly adding volume over the course of the year. Make an excel spreadsheet and plan your work. The instinctive “training plan” is not training at all. Training is a plan. If we want to get stronger we use repetitions between 1-6. If we are the body weight, we want, we keep reps low and practice for other events separately. Doing higher reps on technical movements like the snatch, clean & jerk, squat, bench press, or deadlift is dangerous and I advise against reps greater than 6 on these. The best weightlifters and powerlifters in the world do high rep work on assistance movements only (Barbell, 2017). Also watch Elliott here (Hulse, 2013). The bottom line in Elliott’s vlog is if you want to look like a powerlifter, be a powerlifter. This is where bodybuilding was born. People wanted to look like weightlifters. It has grown into a more artistic practice since those days. If one wants to be something practice that thing. Be a weightlifter and powerlifter in the weight room. Practice your other activities, especially your primary, separately.

3) Make yourself healthy first and foremost. We have all heard of homeostasis? It’s a noun meaning the tendency of a system, especially the physiological system of higher animals, to maintain internal stability, owing to the coordinated response of its parts to any situation or stimulus that would tend to disturb its normal condition or function (website, 2017). There are limits regulated by sensors called mechanoreceptors in each muscle tendon unit. Muscle spindles regulate the muscles length and tension. The Golgi tendon organ regulates the same in the tendons attaching muscles to the skeleton. These limits protect us. If I were to go into a gym and produce the same forces I produced during my best lifts years ago I would literally pull my body apart. More strength is created in the coordination of these structure than any gains in muscular size have ever produced. Neuromuscular coordination creates strength and adding muscle is secondary. Anyway, if a muscle cannot meet the demands of the system the system fails. If a muscle cannot properly regulate the relationship it endures with its antagonist all development in that relationships location ends. The antagonist must be understood on both sides. If the culprit does not or cannot realize the needs involved in the relationship there is a stalemate. And I can’t say this frequently enough, all development stops, the quadriceps are supposed to maintain a 3:1 ratio of strength with the hamstrings at the knees. If this ratio is out of balance to or fro one of two things will happen. 1) an injury occurs as a direct result of one partner not meeting the needs of the situation. 2) the relationship is repaired and development continues. These ratios must be maintained for development to move forward. This is an extremely simplified description of these events. Sometimes there are system-wide involvement requirements and these movements are called full-body movements. The snatch, clean, jerk, squats, bench presses, and deadlifts fit this description but to name just a few.

4) Eat nourishing foods. I say this all the time if mother nature did not make it do not eat it. Cake, bread, breading on fried food, candy, chicken nuggets, deli meats, cheese, Hungry Man Dinners, jelly (unless you made it at home), broccoflower (look it up, its freakish), and anything else we alter with more than natural elements like fire, plants, and seasonings. If health is an imperative don’t eat man made “foods”. I live in Maryland. I love fried chicken and will continue to eat it. I adjust the rest of my meal planning when I have some of this delightful creation. I know some who would rather die than quit chocolate. Eat chocolate. Do not consider it food unless you are stranded on a dessert island. Eat plenty of food and eat it in preparation for what you will do. If I train agility and become more agile in a vertical path, will I be more prepared if a car is not stopping at the crosswalk than if I train agility afterward? Eat for what you will do not for what you have done. This is how Americans got so fat.

5) Do not compare yourself to others. I was an elite powerlifter in my competitive days. I never cracked the code for elite international status. I knew of some things I could have done to improve my performance but chose another path because I was diabetic. Drugs are part of sports. I knew more than 10 people who died over the last decade who used those drugs and none of them were my age. Most were younger. Who cares if you are the best at the Wheaton Athletic Club? Most people don’t care if you are the best in the world if your passion is different than theirs. Follow your passion. Love it. Do it. Stop talking about it unless someone asks you about it. My point is, I would not trade my experiences in lifting for anything. I wish I were still competing and may again.

Doc

Get stronger!

Check out my website here!

Works Cited

Barbell, W. (2017, January 5). You Tube. Retrieved from You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2TgPE7uxNQ

Hulse, E. (2013, January 1). http://www.youtube.com/user/elliottsaidwhat. Retrieved from You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFHmofPNFWI

Website, D. (2017, January 16). homeostasis. Dictionary.com. Retrieved from Dictionary.com: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/homeostasis

Top ten list for healthy and happy 2017

2017-01-15T09:15:00.000-05:00

Top ten list for fitness

There are many elements to physical fitness. We are providing a top-ten list to guide those who are new to these practices. The operative word is practices.

Nutrition – if mother nature did not make it do not eat it.
Nutrition – eat animal source protein with each meal.
Nutrition – eat every three hours from waking to retiring (usually this equates to no fewer than five meals per day; eat for where you want to be for 2-3 days and where you are for 1-2 days calorically).
Training – lift weights no fewer than three times each week.
Training – do cardiovascular workouts for, well, the heart and lungs and the efficiency required to beat 50-160* times per minute throughout your lifespan (NUTRITION is the key to weight control, not cardio!).
Training – learn to relax your muscles after activating them furiously.
Living – lead a well-balanced life. Investing in a fitness program is something each of us needs to do on a daily basis. Do other things you enjoy also (just not the things making you unhealthy!).
Living – think about making yourself a strong athlete not skinny, muscular, bigger, smaller, or anything appearance based. The look of an athlete only comes to those who train like an athlete.
Living – maintain a work/life/fitness balance. Many people claim “passion” and sacrifice everything else. Keep your fitness as a part, yes a permanent part, of your well-rounded life.
Do what you like! I will sell the benefits of lifting weights all day every day to anyone willing to listen. It is a healthy practice when done properly and everyone should add resistance to their program at least 2-3 times weekly. If you absolutely hate lifting heavier things tough! We all have to do it or suffer the consequences (osteoporosis, osteopenia, bad posture, poor circulation, and the list goes on). People who want to be elite lifters are required to do more than 10 workouts each week. Not everyone requires this level of commitment. Run if you like running and lift to supplement running. Swim if you…

Stay physically fit and always improve!

- Doc

http://www.docs-gym.com

Quadruple Extension 4E

2017-01-14T17:47:00.000-05:00

Quadruple extension 4 E

In athletics, we rely on quadruple extension (4E). 4E is the active extension of the ankles, knees, hips, and back. All primary, secondary, and support musculatures are involved.

Training is rooted in athletics. Training is preparation for competition. Athletics were invented as a form of comparison for soldiers without the supreme cost of war. The winner of the ancient Olympics was the best soldier too. He remained alive. Training was formalized much later using the sciences but many ancient athletes trained in an elementary fashion.

Many in the fitness industry today say triple extension; which is accurate but not precise. Triple extension is incomplete. Based on the misinterpretation that the back is solely a stabilizer. The back must be fully active, in its’ limited range of motion (ROM). I am not telling anyone to round their back and rely on extensor strength to recover lost positions; oh no! I am telling everyone to actively extend the back, do not just brace it, in any athletic feat to a large degree. Watch this video for an explanation from superior athletes/coaches for reference, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2TgPE7uxNQ (Barbell, 2017). If the back changes position during a lift in powerlifting, weightlifting, and strongman, said lifting weights is no good more often than not. There are freaks of strength out there who may round their backs doing a 1000lbs deadlift but they should not be imitated in lifting. They should be copied in training assistance movements. These movements made them freaks of strength. My point is rather simple, train 4E which includes a triple extension.

Lifting weights is integral to training athletes. Even 20 years ago there were coaches in many professional level sports telling athletes lifting weights would slow them down and make them muscle-bound. This is when coaches believed bodybuilding, weightlifting, and powerlifting were synonymous. Jerry Rice and Walter Peyton proved them wrong in the 1980s. These coaches are mainly in high school settings now. Any personal trainer with a hint of education knows this is hogwash these days. Those interested in arguing this point are seeking disagreement as for their recreation or do not care to study sports sciences. That’s fine, let them be. Go to your local weightlifting or powerlifting gym and challenge the top athlete to a 20-100-yard race. Some may be surprised. I would lose to the best lifter in most WL or PL gyms now. I would have given them a race during my competitive years. I had one weightlifter on my team who matched Deon Sanders time in the 40-yard-dash as a teenager. Running is 4E.

We use 4E running, jumping, squatting, sitting, and anything else associated with moving through space. Train these actions and make yourself better. Squats, deadlifts, cleans, snatches, jerks and any variation of these will be in any elite athletes program. If one’s position falters in any established movement, dissect the movement, uncover the culpable muscle(s), and train it/them until stronger. Once they are stronger in the movement the system is stronger.

Make yourself stronger, for 1-5 repetitions, and practice the speed movement additionally. This is strength and conditioning. More than 5 repetitions will not make us stronger only bigger. The new muscle is not available for recruitment during strength movements for months. It takes years to maximize these recruitment patterns. Focused strength training is well below five repetitions. Adding muscle is for those requiring more useful mass. Sometimes this requires more muscular mass and other times a better recruitment pattern will suffice. This mass is determined by the athletes’ height and leverage. Maximize strength before adding mass.

A former client told me, "you should write a blog". At that time, I didn’t even know what a blog was. Researching the topic, I read an article stating “if you like to rant, write a blog”. My rant is over for today.

- Doc

Get stronger!

http://www.docs-gym.com

Pulls-are-better-than-kettlebell-swings-here's-why

2017-01-13T15:40:00.003-05:00

I believe the pull or even the high pull is better than the kettlebell swing, here’s why?

Weightlifters, strongmen, and powerlifters have been performing the pull for decades (being conservative here) maybe centuries. The pull develops an ability to quadruple extend (4E) (ankles, knees, hips, & back) maintaining a weight in line with the center mass (CM) and developing strength applicable to 4E (sports movements). Building coordination close to the CM is imperative for any operation near or far. There is an old saying: “a waterfall starts with a drop of water”. If one cannot operate close to CM well, operating further away is impossible to accomplish with any proficiency.

The pull and high pull are performed with a barbell. These are strength movements. Dumbbells, kettlebells, and other riggings are lighter versions of the barbell. These are finesse movements. The objective doing clean pulls, snatch pulls, deadlifts, and other pulls is to produce more force (strength) without more technical transitions involved in the full movements such as during full cleans and snatches. The weight travels away from CM on these and is, therefore more stressful; in a negative way. Managing training and competition lifts is the root of sports sciences and where champions are built. High-class athletes do clean pulls with no more 120% of their record clean or snatch (Roman, 1988, p. 62). The height of the heavier pulls decreases significantly above 100%. Learn how to keep the barbell (weight) close to CM with heavier weights doing pulls. Kettlebells are too light to be considered useful. Practicing sending the weights away from CM has an application for throwers and fighters. They must also learn to keep weights close first and foremost. Sending weights away is detrimental for the rest of society. Keeping weights close is fundamental and should always be the foundation of training.

If athlete A can 4E with 200kgs in 1.2 sec and athlete B can 4E with 50kgs in 1.2 sec, both travelling 20” with limit weights, athlete A is stronger, more powerful, and more athletic than athlete B. Strength and conditioning are practicing weightlifting (inclusive of powerlifting movements as assistance) in the weight room for strength and practicing specific needs-based sport skills as conditioning. We teach strength first and the results are almost not comparable. We create champions.

Unless one is a champion boxer, MMA fighter, or bowling professional do not use swings in training. Even this group should do 80% pulls vs. 20% swings. Then, the swings will be more useful in creating speed. Power cleans and power snatches are enough to produce requisite power in beginners and intermediates. After 7-10 years of training is when a high-class athlete should start using “the pulls” in training. This is when training becomes more diverse in order to avoid over-use injuries. Use the book in the references to learn what training actually involves. Be patient it gets down to the nitty-gritty-down-and-dirty-details most Kinesiology Textbooks skip.

Get STRONGER!

Doc

References

Roman, R. A. (1988). The Training of the Weightlifter. Livonia, Michigan: Sportivny Press.

Give AND receive help

2015-10-10T18:23:00.001-04:00

Being a coach I have given help to those in need for more than twenty-eight years. We build strengths and weaknesses in our profession. If we only develop strengths we cause problems. If we only build on weak points we do not advance; we are only working on the current level. We want the entire system to move forward. We want to be our best. We want to improve ourselves and others.

I have told my training clients for years that life is easy when we know what is wrong. Once one is really, really, good at something finding weak points is far more difficult. This is why many people, at the beginning of their physical journey, hire personal trainers at the local fitness center. Athletes have more experience than average people. Athletes need a coach with wider experience than the average personal trainer. Once again we need gyms. Personal trainers are a temporary solution. Use personal trainers when you know what is wrong as an athlete. Athletes need coaches who have trained (many personal trainers these days have never trained for anything. There is a huge difference between exercise and training.

If you help others in your profession CLICK HERE and watch this video. Helping others doesn't mean ignoring your needs. Find others at an appropriate level and take their help. Many go it alone and never take help when it is offered. We all need help in one category, or more, from time to time (the entire journey). Stay strong and...

Get stronger doing YOUR workout!

WILLIAM

2015-09-23T23:47:00.000-04:00

Get stronger doing YOUR workout!

Swim to a better body!

2015-09-04T11:22:00.000-04:00

Many people believe their way is the only way. I have gone back and forth this way ever since I started training in 1979. We all need something to improve our bodies. If you don't know what you need seek a qualified professional for an assessment. If I am not learning my new task I am not open to improvements. Learn what the new task can give you by doing it. Get help from an expert in that field and practice, practice, practice...

Swimming lends many things to bodybuilders, powerlifters, and weightlifters. Cardiovascular fitness is not the least of these benefits. Swimming demands we rotate (internally & externally), extend, flex, elevate, and depress our shoulder structures and joints. Swimming frees us from all the limited ranges of motion lifting weights requires at times.

This video is dedicated to swimmers. As lifters we can quickly see why lifters should be teaching lifting and swimmers should be teaching swimming. This post is dedicated to people getting out of their box and finding a professional coach in another discipline to help you improve in your sport. The slide squat is also known a s a side lunge. In all overhead movements the bar should finish over the crown of your skull (he only recommends this on the overhead lunges).

Find a swim coach. Tell them you want to learn three strokes. Inform them that you lift, in whichever discipline you follow, and you want to liberate your shoulders, torso, and hips from the repetitive nature of lifting weights. Take only swimming instruction from them! If they take you away from the pool find another swim coach.

Get stronger doing YOUR workout!

Personal training is dead

2015-08-29T18:55:00.000-04:00

A lack of integrity has killed personal training.

Watching “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” I realize that personal training is dead. Just because something is difficult does not make it useful. Try this, sit in your car with the engine running. Stay in park. Now depress the gas pedal. Do this as long as you wish. One hour or one minute it doesn’t matter. Where are you now? Exactly where you started.

Have you ever noticed the people who train for appearances are always injured? People who do “functional training” are always weak. People who only do cardio are always sick and weak. This is because it is not functional strength training no matter what. Strength is always functional. Accessory work in strength training includes cardio, mobility, and multiple joint full body movements.

Single joint movements, cardio, “functional training”, and any other term the personal training community has made popular are accessory work. Accessory work supplements the main directive. It cannot replace the WORK one must do to become physically excellent.

How often will you go into this position?
Functional training is for what you do!

Pick a sport and train for it. You will be better in more fitness categories than anyone in CrossFit or any class at your local fitness center including the instructor.

How long do you believe this weight will make you stronger?

Go to buy a car. Sign all the paperwork. Agree to pick the car up at the specified time. Now, the dealer shows up with a bicycle. Is he a person with integrity? Go join a fitness center. Hire a personal trainer. Tell the trainer you want to become stronger. Now, the “trainer” has you perform 10-12 repetitions on each exercise. Is this a person with integrity?

Don't buy the bike when you agreed to buy a car.

Personal trainers have a lack of integrity because they read allegations written by similarly unqualified people with more initials after their name. “A study proves it.” Studies support ideas they do not prove them. The “scientist” is most likely a similar fitness minded person looking to bolster his income. He thinks kettlebells, while severely limited in weight and thus strength benefits, are great for developing power. Do you want to improve your power output? Get stronger and train with appropriate percentages. The real science supports this and the sample size is in excess of 300,000 elite athletes over more than thirty years. This is strong support.

Get stronger doing YOUR workout!

Listen to this and think about the current state of fitness "training".

Get stronger and follow your dreams!

2015-08-22T16:59:00.000-04:00

The thing about average is it does not matter. Nobody cares about anyone but themselves.

"There is do and there is do not. There is no try"

-Yoda

Nobody will help you reach your goals unless they share your goals. Do not settle for mediocrity. CrossFit is the epitome of mediocrity. They are more fit than the person using EQUINOX. Who cares who the champion of average may be? Be exceptional. They will not come and support you when you prove yourself. They will not answer your questions when you ask them. They choose to ignore your success so they can comfortably remain average. They live in a box.

You must do everything yourself. Accept this truth.

Get stronger doing YOUR workout!

We need gyms

2015-08-10T23:15:00.000-04:00

We need gyms

Elite athletes need gyms. There is a world full of fitness centers. Fitness centers are designed for the sedentary. They do not meet the needs of athletes let alone elite athletes. Gyms are few and far between. Find a gym that nurtures your wants and needs. Do the work. Earn what you want and need. Don’t be a part of the crowd. Be a part of a family.

Marketing is a great field of practice in business. Marketing leads (pun fully intended) to sales. Sales are necessary for business success. Sacrifices are made to meet quotas. Quotas create the sell-out. There is more to a gym than marketing. Gyms operate on a philosophy marketing cannot fully comprehend.

We may entice new members to see things our way in a gym. This happens in a practice so much larger than marketing I cannot even begin to describe it. Just like why I compete. Gyms operate on a philosophy born centuries ago. It is not new. Some people want to improve and prove where they stand. This is competition. Gyms support healthy competition. Competition is never friendly. Someone must lose. Don’t let sportsmanship confuse you. Gyms breed good citizenship. This is the foundation of athletics. Read the Olympic credo. Watch “Pumping Iron”. These people support everyone around them until the competition begins. Then they do their best to see where they stand. Proving

they are better.

Let’s start building gyms again. We need gyms in the world. They are not boxes. Gyms see things the way they are and adjust to make things better. ROGUE advertises they want to reinvent strength. Keep running. Strength doesn’t need to be reinvented. It is stronger than anyone coming from their perspective. Being stronger, faster, and more agile than the average person is easy. Being physically fit is easy. Some have low expectations. That’s fine. Some of us want to show the world what we can do. We don’t care what the box across town is doing. They are not in our class. We want to show the world we are worthy of their consideration. We want the competition to say “damn they’re here”.

CF is a marketing wonder. They have people doing things their way. Their goals are mediocre. That’s fine too. Just stop claiming to be elite when your champions can’t even qualify for a nationals in a real sport. Get mad at this post if you want. I don’t talk trash. I have lost more friends telling the truth than you will ever have. My loss.

If someone doesn’t support my way of doing things they will continue thinking a college career is a high level of achievement in sports. Aim high in a gym. If beating someone at the college level is all you want, fine. Don’t compare this to high levels of competition. It’s the middle. Professional sports are the top of the middle.

Gyms create excellence. We need gyms to lead the way. CF does not create excellence. They are reinventing things so they don’t have to compete with real champions. They don’t have a chance. They are a business not a gym just like professional sports. Nobody else is doing what they are doing so they are the best. Who cares? I train athletes. One of them is stronger, faster, and more agile than everyone in the NFL, NBA, MLB, and any other pro sport and he can prove it. He was created in a gym.

Gyms are needed.

Get stronger doing YOUR workout in a gym!

Training makes us free and freedom is happiness

2015-08-05T17:28:00.000-04:00

It’s about freedom and happiness

Training is a matter of freedom and happiness. Be happy. Be free. This is what training is all about. Any sales person worth a nickel will tell you people do everything they do to be happy. The new BMW makes the yuppie happy. The new pair of shoes make the fashionista happy. It doesn’t matter what we want; we think it will make us happy.

Define success for yourself. Do not live in a box designed by someone wanting everyone else to do their work for them. Do not live in a box at all. Live free and be happy pursuing your dreams. Remember you can have anything you want but you cannot have everything you want. Pick something for crying out loud. Go after what you want.

Make certain your leaders are leaders and not just bosses. A leader listens. A boss tells you what to do with little to no concern for what you want or have to offer. Do not live in a box (pun fully intended). There is no good that comes from living in a box. Leaders teach you how to get what you want.

Training science can be simple. Training science can be far more complex than rocket science also. Choose your path. Hire a professional. Work your body harder than anyone you ever meet. When you meet someone who works harder study them. Learn to work harder with your nucleus allowing evolution. Then work even harder. That is how it works.

I have met a few people who worked harder than me over the years. They were using ergogenic aids invariably. I am happy with my status in the scheme of things. At my peak my workout seemed conservative to many. Sore was never a goal after I learned it was micro-trauma (injury). Strength does not result from injury. I have been stronger than 99.985% of all men on earth. I am stronger than 96% now and I am old. This makes me happy and free. All I wanted was to be stronger.

Find your why. Pursue it with everything you have. Wake up each day and know nobody anywhere is working as hard as you on their goals. If you are following your goals you may or may not find others to support your efforts. Either way keep going. People worth keeping around will help you as much as another can. Keep them in your life. Those who disagree even when they have little information on the topic are not worth the time or energy they consume. Stay away from them. Life is short. Get what you want and need. Do not allow the crabs to pull you back into the bushel basket when you follow your heart. Do not be fooled into believing their focus should be yours. It is about freedom and happiness. It is not about money.

You cannot buy freedom or happiness. Just do it. Let’s redefine some things in need of meaning. Strength doesn’t need to be redefined; success does. Success need to be defined for everybody pursuing a dream. Be successful and get out of the proverbial box.

This is happiness.

Get stronger doing YOUR workout!

Do YOUR workout!: Set goals and work on them - daily

2015-08-02T13:04:00.001-04:00

Do YOUR workout!: Set goals and work on them - daily: My goals for the end of 2015 and why you should write yours down too We all have goals. Write them down and look at them daily. This gi...

Set goals and work on them - daily

2015-08-02T13:02:00.000-04:00

My goals for the end of 2015 and why you should write yours down too

We all have goals. Write them down and look at them daily. This gives us focus and a reminder at the same time.

· Open Doc’s Gym – commercial gym

· Publish an app for mobile devices

· Qualify 5 athletes for the national championships

· Help 10 people lose 10lbs of body fat

· Get back to 200lbs. body weight

· Get back to 600lbs. squat

· Get back to 400lbs. bench press

· Eat six balanced meals each day

· Be positive

· By-pass negative

· Focus on my goals and do not listen to anyone saying I can't do something (unless it's a cop, haha...)

I work on each of these, at least mentally, each day. If I fall off track I get back on track. I have diabetes so I have been practicing discipline since the age of two. Even if you don’t have the blessing of a medical condition you need to build a practice daily. It is developed just like neuro-muscular connections (coordination, timing, power, muscle mass, balance…).

Write your goals down and put them where you will look at them daily, or several times daily. Remind yourself what you want. Build discipline. Tell yourself you will do it. Do it!

Get stronger doing YOUR workout!

Lose fat not weight

2015-08-01T13:24:00.003-04:00

We want to lose fat not weight

A healthy level of body fat makes the human body functional. Males should hold at least 15 % fat. Females should hold 20% body fat. These numbers seem high if you have been in fitness circles. These are healthy levels of fat.

Females need fat to be healthy. Females reach their first menstrual cycle at 12% body fat. There is no age constraint here. Girls are reaching their first menstrual cycle younger and younger and there is a direct correlation between this and obesity

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/121/Supplement_3/S208.full

http://www.dietandfitnessresources.co.uk/info_charts/body_fat_chart.htm

There are more studies than the fitness industry want us to see. They want everyone thinking they are unhealthy so they can sell their snake oil remedies. I will give you a baseline plan to eat healthy and manage body fat store later in this post.

We have all heard of the “athlete” holding 4% body fat. I say these are bogus claims. The human simply cannot hold less than 6% and be healthy. If anybody is 4% body fat they are most likely asleep. They would not have energy for anything else.

http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/id/QAA53794

http://www.healthchecksystems.com/bodyfat.htm

Zig Zag dieting

Let’s say you want to lose fat and you are 10lbs overweight. You require 2500 kcal daily. You only eat twice daily and exercise twice weekly for thirty minutes.

§ 3-4 days eat 2200 kcal

o Eat this amount over 5 or more meals

§ 1-2 days eat 2500 kcal

o Eat this amount over 5 or more meals

§ A meal is carbs, fat, and protein from natural sources

o Nothing processed eat what Mother Nature made

§ Exercise daily – take a walk, take the stairs, park a mile from work, walk to see if your coworkers want to have lunch rather than sending an email, walk before your first meal and see the results, I think you get the point.

§ Take a multi vitamin and mineral supplement several times daily with food

o Change the brand with every bottle of pills

§ Drink water and nothing else

§ Train with weights to increase your metabolism (muscle is metabolism so eat and train like you want to gain muscles)

§ Work up to the place where you train daily (work with a trainer 2-3 times per week minimum and work on your own 4-5 times per week)

§ Eat for what you will do not what you have done

o Eat for the following 2-3 hours of activity

o If you will sleep eat no carbs

o If you will workout eat more carbs

o If you will sit at a desk eat fewer carbs

§ Carbs are the way to manipulate the size of the meal

§ Protein and fat should remain relatively similar

§ I recommend more fat and protein pre workout so when this food is in a usable form it has been broken down (digested) sufficiently when the windows of opportunity for replenishment open post workout

§ No post workout meal is recommended with the exception of eating for what you will do for the following three hours

§ This plan will allow you to lose fat, gain muscle, and remain energetic throughout your day

To gain muscular weight we must do the same planning going upward with the weight and not downward. Let’s use the same person from the previous example.

§ Eat 2750 kcal for 3-4 days

o Eat 5+ meals daily every 2 ½ to 3 hours

§ Eat 2500 kcal for 1-2 days

o Eat 5+ meals daily every 2 ½ to 3 hours

§ Train basic weightlifting movements 5 days per week

o Train single joint movements 3-4 days per week

§ Supplement as you see fit

§ All the rules set above for the weight loss goal apply here in the opposite direction

http://drsquat.com/content/knowledge-base/zigzag-diet

Do not attempt to lose weight. Lose body fat only. Do not attempt to go below 10% body fat as it is both impossible and unhealthy. Anyone claiming to be less than 10% body fat is not telling the truth. They may appear to be that low but it is not possible. They store fat intra-muscularly (a well marbled piece of meat is my example). Why do you think the strongest people always appear to be holding more fat? They store fat extra- muscularly. Their muscles are so dense they cannot store fat there.

http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ije/2014/309570/

People with intra-muscular fat stores are weaker than their counterparts with extra-muscular fat stores so they are unhealthy.

Get stronger doing YOUR workout!

Be creative and productive

2015-07-29T13:17:00.002-04:00

Creativity and productivity

Training success is a matter of efficiency, passion, and hard work. I have followed many people 0n my journey. Goals are of supreme importance. Patience is a close second. Education is important if you are staying drug free. Education combined with ingenuity is what excellence is made of. I watched a TED Talk video and thought it worth sharing. Here is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBF-76EPl00

Behrokh Khoshnevis makes a lot of very good points and quotes some great people in this video. I will relate this talk to training.

Creativity

Creativity is the artistic touch I have written about in previous posts. Formal education, in sports sciences, is vital if we are to elevate our athletes above the fray. Coaches must be able to see individual needs. This attention to details produces results. Creativity is a broad topic. Intention passion, and vision lead us down the path of enthusiasm according to Behrokh Khoshnevis. Then, imagination and education carry us to creation. He states that creation moves civilization forward. Great athletes are educated and creative.

Great athletes become great coaches. Great coaches can see things average coaches miss. But this is not all. Great coaches adjust after seeing the needs. The sciences must be understood for the needs to make sense. Where the great coach exceeds their competition is in the artistic touch he/she applies to the adjustments. It takes an artist’s eye for details; others cannot see these details.

The sciences are solid in strength and conditioning. Athletes have been training with these techniques for decades, centuries even. Many believe that CrossFit is the realization of imagination. It isn’t. Don’t get me wrong I am happy they are doing full body movements. They just don’t understand the repetition. CrossFit just gave it a new name. Take a look at these texts and see where CrossFit was born:

Paugh, J. (1728). A Physiological, Theoretic and Practical Treatise on the Utility of Muscular Exercise for restoring the Power to the Limbs.

Webster, D. (1976). The Iron Game. Scotland: John Geddes Printers.

Roman, R. (1988). The Training of the Weightlifter. Livonia, Michigan: Sportivny Press.

Medvedyev, A. (1989). A System of Multi-Year Training in Weightlifting. Livoni, Michigan: Sportivny Press.

Zatsiorsky, V. (1995). Science and Practice of Strength Training. Human Kinetics.

Siff, M. C. (2003). The Origins of Strength Training Science. In M. C. Siff, SUPERTRAINING. Denver, CO, USA.

These late editions are the foundations of everything included in CrossFit and everything else in training today. Read these books and see where we have been before you create something “new”. Real athletes and coaches have been there. Competitions are the proving ground and always will be. Use these as your foundation. They taught us everything we have ever considered. Until we pass the 300kg clean and jerk our science is conclusive.

Creativity, science, and not steroids, produce world and Olympic champions. Athletes who win championships are practicing the format outlined by (Roman, 1988), (Medvedyev, 1989). Nobody can beat this practice. American scientists often reject these studies. Keep your eyes opened and your imagination keen.

“I’ve never let my school interfere with my education.”

- Mark Twain

Creativity takes place in the gym not the lab. The lab work has been done. Our work is not finished. I have rejected formal theories on purely logical terms. Their rejection is not logical. It is egotistical. The best sports science programs are outside the United States. If scientific truths are unavailable we must use intuition. Intuition doesn’t make elite athletes alone. Work is required.

Hard work is dogma in the U.S. “Work hard and you can accomplish anything!” Just do it! Just do what? Oh, work hard. If hard work accomplishes anything why are so many people not getting the results they should see? There is a time and a place for hard work. I say working moderately for a long time is better than putting in 110% (which only exists in the future in sports sciences). Working hard means being consistent, in the moment, and recognizing your mistakes then adjusting for them.

Productivity

A formal education will make us work really hard for someone else’s dream. This is the American dream for business owners. This is why the cost of a college education has increased over 1000% since 1978. You are in debt. You love what you went to school to study. Now, you need to live with your parents after graduation because the pay ratio is ridiculous. For output to amount to anything requires diligence. If I am working hard and no one is helping me I should receive all of the profits. Productivity is for business owners. Passion is for individuals.

If you are truly passionate about what you do, work for yourself. Pay the bills and make all of the profits yours. Do not allow some suit in New York to benefit from your passion. His passion is money. That’s why he takes the lion’s share of your hard work monetarily. Oh, you love what you do so you will do it for 30%? The overhead is covered by membership fees. PT is pure profit.

Ø type A personality – talks about productivity

Ø type B personality – talks about passion

Type A people are passionate about you being productive and making them a very good living. If a type A talks about passion step back and observe. They want you to equate productivity and passion. Their passion is money NOT fitness. If you are passionate and concerned with productivity do it for yourself.

Type B people are passionate about what they do. They do it 7/365…366 in a leap year. Follow your dreams and make them real. Be an introvert. Think it through and through. Introverts are better thinkers and better listeners than extroverts. Introverts are better individual athletes. Extroverts need a team. Be the team. Pursue your dreams. Make it happen.

Success

Success has little to do with money. You cannot buy health. You cannot buy happiness (…but it is easier to be happy sitting on a jet ski!). You certainly cannot buy strength because it is the same thing as health. Stop hating your job if you are staying. Love what you do because that is happiness. Everything we do is to be happy. I have set and achieved many goals down the roads I’ve travelled. I have not squatted 800lbs, yet. I am alive and strong and that goal gives me a reason to wake up every day. I have a little more than 100lbs to reach this goal. It leads me. I wasted years trying to pursue money and people. Yet, when I look at my feet the road is there. Like an old friend. We can pick up where we left off with no hard feelings. Success is relative. Happiness is success.

Creativity and productivity are interwoven. One may be productive without being creative. Assembly lines exist to this end. Creativity determines one’s ultimate productivity. Create what you want and produce a life worth living.

Get stronger following YOUR dreams!

Eight things I have learned in 28+ years of personal training

2015-07-28T12:13:00.000-04:00

Eight things I’ve learned in twenty-eight+ years of personal training

I have been a personal trainer for more than twenty-eight years now. There is “new” information sprouting up every day. I will share some insights in the field. These tips will help anyone seeking a personal trainer and personal trainers.

1. Full body movements

We need to train full body movements (squats, deadlifts, cleans, snatches, jerks, walking, running, and jumping). We will not train all of these in a session there is not enough energy to do so. Training each several times per week is mandatory. I used to train people on a bodybuilding model and they did not see results as quickly or permanently as training on a weightlifting model.

To coin a popular phrase, these movements are functional. Functional training has been around from the beginning. It is not new. We used to call it training. A group of rookies wanted to claim the term and invented “functional training”. Their version is very specialized. Nobody should specialize until they have trained for ten years or more. Any elementary or middle school physical education teacher will agree. All training is functional. If it not functional it is exercise NOT training.

2. Fitness is fiscal

We are all familiar with the term fitness. Fitness is meeting the demands of every-day life with ease and having a reserve for emergencies. That said, is fitness the same for a triathlete and a weightlifter? Fitness managers have homogenized fitness. They sell the idea that everyone should meet the same criteria in being fit. Criteria, standards, or norms are not what training is about.

Training is about surpassing adjectives.

Training is about being yourself. Nobody wants to be the same as anybody else. We want to be the best not equal to. Training is done individually and it is about outclassing your competition. Even if your competition is an earlier version of YOU.

3. Competition

There is no such thing as friendly competition. There is good sportsmanship. Sport is about good citizenship first. Manners are on the way out with PC (political correctness). Competition is about dominion. I want to break my competition’s heart to the point they never want to compete with me again.

That is competition. Stay local if you want to get along with everyone. That is a meet not a competition.

Do not compete in the gym. It takes you off track.

4. Quality

I read “Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” years ago.

http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Motorcycle-Maintenance-Anniversary/dp/B0091N5MR8/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1438095026&sr=1-5&keywords=zen+and+the+art+of+motorcycle+maintenance

Mr. Pirsig questions if there is a definition for quality. He states we all know what quality is or believe we do. The point is simple in my mind. Quality is a personal issue. Quality for one is not quality for another.

Fitness is a matter of quality and we should not take another’s definition as our own unless we are looking for a group to be a part of. Take in all of the available information. Sift it through your filter. Keep that information which aligns with your philosophy and discard the rest. The theory is we cannot forget something we can only squander the ability to recall it.

5. My personal workout won’t work for you

I am a powerlifter. I have trained a wide variety of athletes over the years. I have trained everybody from triathletes to weightlifters. Training another with my training protocols is careless. I individualize my athletes programs after I assess their wants and needs.

The best marathon runners train like powerlifters in the weight room. All athletes should train like weightlifters and powerlifters in the weight room. Do the workout designed for you and work with your coach to make the work plan and outcome unlimited.

Fitness is individual and your workout should be too!

6. Abs, CORE, & midsection

When I started training I wanted to be the next Arnold Schwarzenegger. I read books and magazines to gather information. I read I could train the “abs” as much as I wanted. I was always very strong in this area and warmed up with as many as 2500 reps in a workout doing sit-ups. Recently I read a study from some PhD from Indiana saying we should never do more than 6 reps on any spinal flexion movement or we would inevitably rupture a disk. For six weeks I did 2500 sit-ups to warm up for my bodybuilding workouts. I later became a powerlifter and squatted and deadlifted 3 times my bodyweight in every weight-class. I have never hurt my back! Pilates, Yoga, CORE, abs… pick your poison. The terminology “midsection” works just fine.

New people in my field are inventing new names for things at an alarming rate. They take ownership and credit they do not deserve. They are not qualified to rename anything. Always ask your “trainer” the origins of the name they use for parts of your practice sessions.

CORE is a particularly useless term. It implies the midsection structures are the driving force behind the training. They are the medium at best. The hips drive everything and the midsection is the medium between the force production and the realization of the weights moving.

7. Appearances

One of my best coaches said “the strongest person in the room never looks like the strongest”. He is correct. My statement is further down this road, “the strongest person in the room is the fittest person in the room”.

Fitness is relative. If I athlete A is stronger than athlete B and they decide to compete in a variety of events athlete A will win. Assuming they have time to train for the events.

Train to be a certain way. It is exercise if you are working to look a certain way. Training is chronic. Exercise is acute.

8. Wants and needs

I have made the mistake of training people’s needs I lieu of their wants in the past. A six pack is not functional. I have attempted to describe the wants, needs, and functionality for clients in the past. I no longer do this.

Fiscally we must train client’s wants and their needs. Most personal trainers fall on the opposite side of the fence. They train people’s wants in lieu of their needs. This is dangerous physically.

As professionals we must train people for what they want and what they need!

Get stronger doing YOUR workout!

The gym

2015-07-26T18:19:00.002-04:00

The gym

The gym should have a barbell and a squat rack.

Get stronger doing YOUR workout!