Inspiration

Once my back heals (it kills!), hopefully next week, I am going to start on some suspension training and the two pics below represent inspiration for me in my suspended mayhem training. I might even try to purchase a pair of rings, but if not, screw it, I made rings by tying the rope in a circle slip knot.  These guys are my idol! They exemplify the meaning of "BEASTS!"

Moral Support During Training

The other night I was watching the women's olympic pole vault (mainly because gymnastics was not on). At any rate the coach, Rick Shur was extremely unsupportive. After winning the silver medal with only 4 years of pole vaulting experience under her belt the 'coach' says:

It’s the same old same old, you’re losing takeoff at the big heights. (shrug) Whaddaya gonna do? (shrug, looks away) Gotta learn to keep takeoff. You got caught at that meat grinder. I did not - and I told 10 people - I didn’t wanna be caught in a meat grinder between 65 and 80. You had to, though. You weren’t on, your warmup didn’t go well. You were at 55. You got caught up in that meat grinder. Whaddaya gonna do? (shrugs, looks away) Whaddaya gonna do? (shrugs, looks away) Didn’t have the legs. Her legs are fresh. Hey, it’s a silver medal. Not bad for someone that’s been pole vaulting for four years. (looks down at his blackberry)


The poor gal was at a loss. I was really upset for her. Here she is having just one an olympic silver medal (not a feat to be reckoned with) and this d. baggerston is treating her like she had lost, dropped out, or did not even qualify! It got me thinking about the importance of a support system when you are training. A support system for athletes and super-athletes typically comes from their coaches, but for the rest of us (Giles we know you are a super-athlete ;-) we need to rely on others. It's not always easy to find a supportive, understanding (because real training takes time), and caring individual. In another life, I had a wife that was allergic to exercise (no seriously, she was allergic to her own sweat!)  So imaging trying to get this person to understand your dedication to training and the importance that fitness training holds to you. Well, to say the least, it falls on deaf ears. So who can/should you be able to turn to. Your family. First off, your kids (if you have any) whom should also be encouraged to start training at a young age; they are never too young to impart the guidance for a lifelong journey and the benefits associated with fitness training. Second, your parents, if they care (or for example, if you live with or visit them). Sometimes when you visit family (not mine, or my in-laws) they can monopolize a lot of your time. You might want to, and plan to, wake up early and take a run, hit the monkey bars at the local town park, or do some calisthetics. They have other plans for you: like all those odd jobs that needed doing, but were able to wait until your visit. It is important to impart to your family the importance of a good training session to you and make them understand that it is like eating, breathing, sleeping - you must do it to function, even if that is a little stretch of the truth. 


But the single most important person you likely need support from is your romantic partner - wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, etc. You most likely spend the most time with this person and any time spent training means time away from them. I am lucky enough to have a train-a-holic wife that I adore and who can out-train just about any dude I know. We actually train together every weekend. It is awesome. If you are not lucky enough to have a training partner then it is important to not let them take you down in any bad habits - bingeing, eating poorly, or skipping workouts. One way to convince them is to inform them that out of shape people don't get laid, then kindly joke about how little you have been trying to hump her, him, them! ;-) Best of luck finding the training support/partner you can. And note, that having support is a two-way street. You need to give back and help them realize their fitness goals/dreams as well. As my other post suggests, I truly believe that the couple that "plays together stays together" and what is more fun the training?

Training in Planes of Body Movement

The body can move essentially in 3 planes - sagittal, coronal, and transverse (see image).  There are exercises that can be executed in each of the 3 planes to target different major muscle groups. For example, an exercise that targets the sagittal plane might be the squat, snatch, lunge, or shoulder press (i.e. exercises that move up and down and/or front to back). Exercises that hit the coronal plane might be dumbbell lateral raises or side lunges, or alternatively plyometric side lunges. And, exercises that might hit the transverse plane would typically involve twisting motions such dumbbell axes, rotational shoulder exercises, ball twists, or wall balls.  

I am trying to incorporate this type of science into my body weight training by incorporating multiple move exercises that not only cross planes, but also tap the isometric holds associated with gymnastics style training. I am going to try to execute 3 sets of 2-4 supersets that will hit each of the 3 planes in a different manner. For example hitting the sagittal plane by executing handstand pushups or snatch and jumps. You could superset that with wall balls and side lunge plyometrics. You might also superset pull / chin ups (sagittal) with hanging twist leg raises (end of video) and star jumps. By combining exercises like this I hope to increase strength, agility, endurance and general fitness. 

You could also incorporate suspension training into this metric for training. For example, do suspended chest press or row. Super set with rotational raise and hanging side plank. Killer. 

One typical workout

I usually start with hard exercises that hit large muscle groups and try to get my heart rate sky high.  So, I typically start with some gymnastics inspired exercises such as handstand pushups and L-seats. I will also include some combo moves that hit either chest (twisting pushup) and core, or back (dyno pullups) and core. The latter can be accomplished by hanging in the pull/chin up position in an L-seat like position. This way, when you pull/chin you are actually holding the L-seat. On a normal day I would do 1 rep with L-seat and alternate with a standard pull/chin dyno move (see post below). For these types of body weight exercises I do as many reps and sets as I can and skip rope for at least 30 seconds (typically a minute or more) between sets. If you are not sweating and panting after this then you are not pushing yourself hard enough. (You could also substitute box jumps, which I was recently introduced to, in place of skipping rope. It should have the same effect). 

After the gymnastics inspired training I move to some more typical weight-lifting exercises to build overall strength and stability. For example, I will deadlift (typically 3-6 sets of heavy weight) and interleave another large muscle group / core muscle group exercise (e.g. wide to narrow grip clap pushup).  On any given day you could replace the deadlift with a number of other great exercises such as bench press. (For the bench press do flat or inclined, personally I have never seen any benefit from the decline bench press and as a personal opinion it seems the people who do decline bench only do it because they cannot push 'real' weight on flat or incline press. This is my opinion and many will disagree.) I also substitute power cleans, clean and jerk, overhead squats, or clean and snatches.

When all that fun is over I typically run or do some sort of interval training. I think my wife and I are going to start doing wind sprints.

At the end of the day, I realize I am never going to appear on the cover of a magazine (e.g., Men's Health) and just try to have fun at the gym. My general M.O. in life is love what you do: I love my work, I love my workouts, etc. When I stop loving my workouts then I will switch workouts, but given my general competitive nature, I probably won't get bored of these gymnastics until I can conquer some of the moves or until I die trying.

Another (similar) smoothie recipe

OK, get your Magic Bullet out again, here goes another recipe for a post workout/bedtime smoothie:

Into the Magic Bullet toss the following items: 

1 medium ripe banana (potassium)

1/4-1/3 cup seedless raising (fiber)

1-2 scoops vanilla protein powder (I use off the shelf GNC brand, but any brand will do)

15-30 grams of unsweetened shredded wheat (I also like shredded wheat and bran) (fiber)

1 cup (or so) of skim milk (Vitamin D, protein, calcium)

Handful or so of Ice (H2O = hydration)

0.5-1 Tablespoon of natural (local preferred) honey

Blend thoroughly and enjoy! Note: about half the raisins will not be chopped up and sink to the bottom, so you might want to use a spoon to get some full raisins into your mouth without choking)

Don't hurt your back, It sucks!

Tonight while dead lifting I pulled my back, which has been hurting off and on since I moved back to the States. It sucks really bad. It was debilitating. A lesson to be learned here: rest! I overtrain, as a rule! But hurting yourself and not being able to train, well that just sucks! I think I will take one day off and see how I feel Thurs.

UGH!

Current Workout

Here is a summary of my current workout, etc. It's important to note that from my workout I am trying to achieve just a few simple things: agility, strength, flexibility and the ability to eat and drink as much as I like, come the weekend, without turning into a fat bastard (so that Austen still wants to get it on!) No, seriously, I eat loads. Here goes: 

Breakfast: 2-5 cups of regular coffee; bowl of low sugar cereal (bran flakes, raising bran, unsweetened shredded wheat, etc) sprinkled with 1 scoop of protein powder and some sort of berry or fruit (e.g., blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, figs, banana, etc).

Mid-morning snack: 1 hard-boiled egg or low sugar granola bar or handful of nuts (usually almonds or peanuts)

Lunch: typically a sandwich on whole grain or wheat bread. Typically something like turkey breast, cheese, tomato and mustard. Fruit or vegetable. Crisps or pretzels.

Afternoon snack: coffee; one of the following: piece of fruit, handful of nuts, half of a smoothie, cottage cheese, etc. 

Dinner: typically consists of a piece of lean meat (e.g., chicken, lean beef, or fish), a lot of vegetables (including salad), and a low calorie/low sodium rice-type carb, sometimes we use corn as our starch.

Evening snack: home-made protein smoothie (see recipe at http://smp-training.blogspot.com)

Post-workout: Protein shake with water

Drink plenty of water throughout the day

Workout: 

Mornings - I would like to workout in the am, but I usually abstain until the afternoon when I can go to the gym with my wife. Plus I do have a job to get to...

Cardiovascular training: I really like to get my heart rate up and sweat. I will typically not do a standard cardio exercise, but rather I will incorporate my cardio workout into my strength training by doing supersets or doing a type of cardio between weight/strength training sets. Almost every workout I start by skipping rope for about 2-5 minutes using both leg, swapping leg, and one leg jumps. I then continue to skip rope between sets of my first strength training exercise for about 30 seconds to 2 minutes, depending on how tired I am and how heavy I am breathing. Speaking of heavy breathing, that is another metric I use for analyzing my workouts efficacy. How many times do you see guys in the gym sitting around, talking on the mobile phones, chatting up their mates or the ladies.  It seems like they take 4-8 minutes rest between sets. Not me. I try not to rest more than 2 minutes between exercises and only rest 2 minutes if I cannot get on a machine or find a piece of equipment that I need. Typically, I will rest between 30 seconds to 1 minute. If I have completely caught my breath before I start my next set, then that is a signal to me that I need to change things up; make things harder or more intense. 

Other various cardio that I do...

Running: I will run (if my wife forces me) for about 15-30 minutes - somewhere between 1 - 5 miles (actually I do like it)

Wind sprints 3-6 sets

Shadow boxing

Bag work/pad work w/ partner

Interval running (sprint for .20 mile, then walk for .05 mile, repeat 4-8 times or until you die!)

Stationery bike

Elliptical

To start I will do some stretching (whole body stretching) such as front bends, chest stretch, back stretch, etc. I will also incorporate some activation exercises (shoulder rotations in all directions, hip rotations, shoulder swings, etc.) as well as a few short jumps to warm up my knees (I have terrible knees from playing ice hockey my whole life).

Pick one exercise from A and combine with one exercise from B to make a superset. Do 2-3 superset of 3-5 sets of as many reps as you can do / individual exercise (does that make sense?) For example, L-seat to planche handstand to dumbbell twisting pushup.

A - Skills (2-3 per workout)

Freestanding handstand
Pike Press / Ball Pike Press Practice

Wall handstand hold for as long as I can
Pushup-muscle up to planche to crab (while staying off the ground repeat planche hole for 3-5 seconds to crab hold for 3-5 seconds; work to increase time in each and number of rotations between positions.
Crab to Handstand. (unable to do)
Head-Stand to Hand-Stand - and reverse
L-Seat to Planche Hand-stand

Hand-Stand Pushup (on wall rep 1 catch air, then 5 or more reps against wall)

Handstand puship (freestanding - as many as I can without falling)
Straddle to Planche Hand-stand (I have just started to do this one and it's ugly)

Handstand wall walk

B - Body weight strength/power

Pushup (almost any variation of pushup will do, but I am keen on the dumbbell twist pushup lately)

Dumbbell (light) Thrust and Snatch

Box Jumps

Vertical jumps

Mountain Climbers

Star jumps/Jumping jacks

C - Suspension Training

In all honesty, I have not started this yet, but I have created a suspension trainer from rope I purchased at Home Depot. This weekend I will ask Austen to film me so I can show what my system is like and how I am using it. More to come on whether I like this or not in future posts. 

My plans: suspension chest flies/presses combined with swing over rows or reverse lateral raises

Suspended dips

Suspended chin/pull ups

Iron Cross!

I don't work body parts anymore. I try, as wrong as it probably is, to hit a little of everything on just about every workout. So choose the ones you like here, but always choose one that you have a hard time at. If you only do exercises you are good at, strong at, etc you will never progress. I like to challenge myself to do new exercises in order to shock my body. (Note: some exercises are cross listed because the exercise likely hits more than one body part).

1 -Legs
-Deadlift

-Straight legged deadlift
-Calf Raises (usually on the side of a machine)

-Dyno calf raises = calf raises were you generate so much power under your legs that you actually launch yourself into the air a couple of inches

-Overhead Barbell squats

-Clean and Jerk

-Clean and Snatch

-1-legged (no weight) squats on core training stability device

-Pistols

2 -Abdominals and Core strength
-L-seat

-Hanging L-seat with pull-ups or chin-ups

-V-ups

-Plank

-Swiss ball plank (arms on ball)

-Swiss ball plank (legs on ball)

-Swiss ball plank (arms and legs on ball)

-Pike ups (lay stomach down, legs hanging in suspension trainer, arms on core stability device - pike up so your body is an upside down V, hold for 2 seconds, release slowly (breathe), no fewer than 12)
-Leg Raises (6 inches drill)

-Side bends (weighted or partially inverted)

-Wall Balls (grab a medicine ball and a wall. Stand about 2-4 feet from the wall with your shoulder facing the wall. hold the medicine ball out in front of you and twist away from the wall. return the twist back toward the wall resulting in the propelling of the ball into the wall. catch the ball when it bounces off the wall and repeat, then switch sides)

-Hanging L Pull/chin ups (hang, raise your legs and hold, not do as many pull/chin ups you can do without dropping your legs)Other various core exercises - back raises, standard crunches, twisting sit ups, etc

3 -Back
-Chin Ups (weighted 20-30k, aiming for 1/2 my body weight)
-Wide Grip Pullups (weighted 10-20k, aiming for 1/2 my body weight)
-Towel Pullups (unweighted)

-One-hand chin ups (holding other forearm for stability/grip)

-One-hand pull ups (holding other forearm for stability/grip)
-Dyno chin/pull ups (see this link)

-Hanging L Pull/chin ups (hang, raise your legs and hold, not do as many pull/chin ups you can do without dropping your legs)

-Occasionally I will do bent over rows (alternating over and under hand grip)

4 -Chest
-Pushup Dynos (either the standard clap push up, wide to close grip, or simply dyno pushup with elevated legs; moving toward dyno push up with legs suspended in suspension rope trainer)
-Planche Shoulder Pushups
-Wide Ball Pushups

-One-arm pushups (be careful not to hurt shoulder)

-Standard bench press (at least 3 sets of 6 reps at 100k, or more)

5 -Shoulders
-Barbell Upright Row
-Hand-Stand Push-ups (first rep=catch air, then as many reps as I can do; also working on wall walk handstand push up)
-Hand-Stand Push-ups (one handed, aided with the other hand on a medicine ball)
-Shoulder Rotations
-Cable Shoulder Rotations
-Lat Raises (front, back, or side)

-Clean and Jerk

-Clean and Snatch

-Overhead squats

-Dips (weighted 30-50k)

6 - Arms

If your arms are not blown away by the stuff above then I would recommend the following which should not only target your bis and tris but also aid your stability and balance

-1-legged biceps curl

-1-legged bent over biceps curl or triceps extension

-1-legged overhead triceps extension

-Swiss ball dumbbell skull crushers

-One arm regular and reverse grip triceps pushdowns (superset the two grips, killer)

-Standing biceps curl while holding one leg straight out in front of you

OK, now get ready to hear some chuckles and snickers. Your average body builder, gym going mate does not do half of these exercise and does not see the worth. Just tonight I was doing the crab to planche and a few guys playing basketball looked at me like I had 4 heads. I later saw them trying (and failing) to do the same move. The exercises listed here do not require much - a room with walls (wall balls, wall handstands, etc), a jump rope, two arms and two legs (and that's debatable), determination and a sense of humility. That being said, I have overcome my embarrassment and shyness about this training regime and feel better than ever. At the end of the day this is a really fun way to train; you have goals - to hit a new move (see A) and most of them are really tough. I like the challenge and I like the feeling of being able to do things with my body that were previously insurmountable.  I also notice that by training in this way my traditional lifting strength has not waned, and in fact appears to have increased a bit. 

Train on or get out the way of the Revolution!

The couple who plays together, Stays together.

Today I used my wife as a guinea pig for my training regime. Turned out that we trained each other a bit and we had a great time kicking each other's ass. 

We did handstand holds for 20 seconds followed by pushup (set 1), 20 second handstand pushup followed by jumping thrust and snatches (2 sets). In between each set we skipped rope for 1 minute; 3o-45 seconds rest between sets. Then we did 3 sets of walking lunges with medicine ball twists followed by mountain climbers (25 reps). After that torture was over, we did over hand pull-ups to failure followed immediately by one-legged balanced two-arm bicep dumbbell curls, again to failure (3 sets). To wrap up Austen, my wife ran and I did the slide board (which emulates ice skating). 

To be honest, I was a little worried to be working out WITH my wife, not the least of which because she is one of the fittest people I know, but also because working out can get tense and might incite an argument. Think this situation that you might encounter while working out with a buddy: "Push you pussy, push! One more rep or I am going to kick your ass". I think Tom Myers might have actually said that to me once during a workout, I believed him and he CAN kick my ass. That kind of workout motivation with your romantic partner, however, could go awry.. to say the least. It didn't though. And afterward we were both really tired, sweaty, and enjoyed working out together. It's also pretty darn hot to see your main squeeze working out harder than the mirror muscle meatheads as well. 

A little healthy competition...

About a week or two ago a friend of mine posted a link about catching air during a handstand pushup. He is a best, but he attributed some of his success to "seeing (or in this case reading about)" another person reaching success at getting air. I thought I would comment on this because I think it is really quite accurate and quite interesting. 

OK, if anyone reads this blog then you are totally sick of hearing about the role of testosterone (T) in training and fitness, but it's the truth. If you are male (or female for that matter) testosterone is good for you. And competition increases testosterone. There are now at least a 1/2 dozen articles showing that competition increases circulating testosterone levels in males.  Most of this research has been conducted by world renowned evolutionary psychology Prof. John Manning and colleagues and shows that winners actually reap the gains of increased T. An example of some of the findings: pair two males in a 100m sprint and at the end of the race the winner will have significantly higher T levels than the loser. Pair two chess players and the same is true. It even occurs during video game play. 

Competition is what male Homo sapiens were designed to do. From a strictly biological sense competition was what our ancestors did to get laid (yes the world revolves around getting laid, sorry it's true). Those males who successfully outcompeted (i.e. hunted better, fought better, mate guarded better) got lucky, which allowed for their genes to be passed onto to subsequent generation - evolution!

It is also a well-known fact in the animal racing world that competition increases general performance. High power race horses and dogs train with loser dogs in the hopes that the winning will somehow get engrained into their essence and assist them becoming the "greatest". Thing sparring - not only does it hone your technique, but it generates a little healthy competition. It's good for us. 

So a little healthy competition is good for us, what to do? Well train with partner. Do wind sprints and race. Play 2 on 2 basketball or join an indoor football team. Or, join a gymnastics (martial arts, fencing, etc) squad and actually compete. It should only make you a better athlete all around.