Craig Hysell, Author at Breaking Muscle

5 Fantastic Exercises You Should Be Doing After 40

Craig Hysell — Sun, 12 Feb 2017 15:00:00 +0000

For many of us, finding time to train the way we would like to dwindles as family and career responsibilities continue to grow as we get older. Without a doubt, life gets more awesome, but we also find ourselves scrapping for some personal time as schedules become increasingly busy.

So, here are five fantastic exercises – and how to do them – to help you maximize your time. These movements optimize shoulder health and posterior chain function. They also increase balance, coordination and trunk strength; keep your legs strong; and make sure your colon stays happy. (Yay!)

Turkish Get Ups

The Turkish get up (TGU) challenges mobility, balance, agility, coordination, and strength. It is a full-body core-to-extremity movement that exposes any athlete’s weak links. There is no place to hide in a properly executed TGU. It challenges everything.

The movement has a few moving parts that can often make it seem complicated. In truth, it isn’t complicated, but it is often executed inefficiently. Don’t be that athlete.

Beginner: Put this in your training toolbox as a warm up once a week. 3 minutes of Turkish get ups, alternating arms every 2 reps, at a light to medium weight.
Intermediate: Work up to a heavy single (per arm) in 15 minutes.
Expert: As many TGUs as possible in 6 minutes, alternating arms at 70% of your 1RM.

Good Mornings

Strengthening your spinal erectors and keeping your hamstrings strong and supple is important for any athletic person, but even more so for those of us who find ourselves relegated to a desk as we take on different career opportunities or are still in the field and doing “the backbone work” at middle age.

MAKE YOUR TRAINING ABOUT SIMPLICITY, ECONOMY, DISCIPLINE, AND FUN.

This movement is simple, but as most of us over forty have learned, that doesn’t mean it’s easy. It takes a barbell and the desire to execute the movement properly in order to make it matter. When done well, it’s a fantastic exercise to keep the low back, posture and hamstrings healthy and functioning properly.

Beginner: Use this movement in your warm up once a week (usually on a leg or pull day). 3×12 with a light weight, broomstick, or PVC pipe.
Intermediate: Use this as accessory work after a squat, clean, or deadlift day. 3×12 at medium weight. 2:00 active rest (walk around or combine it with something not hamstring, hip, spinal erector or upper back related) between efforts.
Expert: Work up to 1RM.

Box Squats

Squats are the one of most misunderstood movements in fitness. And the most argued.

But a properly executed box squat works for a ninety-year-old newbie as much as it does a thousand -pound squatter. It also quickly cleans up terrible technique; is safe on the knee, hip, and ankle joints; and guarantees the proper depth needed for a person to make optimal use of the squat in real life.

So, why don’t we see more of them? I have no idea. Avoid the common pitfalls by performing them correctly.

Beginner: Set a box to parallel (hip crease in line with knee) and squat to that for the time being. After three weeks, set the box to below parallel (hip crease just below knee). After three weeks of that, remove the box and go back to using it only one time per week.
Intermediate: Once a month work to a parallel sumo (or wide) stance box squat 2RM for six months.
Expert: Each minute on the minute for 10 minutes, perform 2 reps at 55% of your sumo stance box squat 1RM on Week 1, 60% on Week 2, 65% on Week 3 with accommodating resistance (bands or chains on the barbell). The accommodating resistance should add another 20% of weight at the top of the squat. (55% +20% of accommodating resistance = 75% at the top of the squat. This is a good thing.) Squat heavy on Monday (box or no box) and put these dynamic effort box squats into your regimen on Friday. See Louie Simmons at Westside Barbell or the conjugate method for more information.

Bent Over Rows

Your training program should have pull ups in them. You have no excuse for not having them unless you are missing both arms from the shoulder down, and even then there are some incredible adaptive athletes out there who still would figure out how to do pull ups. So, if you’re not doing pull ups, start doing pull ups. There are many articles and videos out there on how to begin.

AS YOU MATURE, OPTIMIZING YOUR TRAIINING BECOMES THE SECRET.

That said, the bent over row can help you be more effective with your pull ups, picking things up off the ground, developing a healthier upper back, and keeping your posture upright for all the desk warriors out there.

Beginner: Warm up. 3×12 bent over rows with a light weight, broomstick, or PVC.
Intermediate: Use as accessory work after a workout that was heavy in either pressing, pulling, or front squatting. 3×12 at a medium weight.
Expert: For Time: 21-15-9 front squats and bent over rows. Weights are 155lbs for men, 105lbs for women. An efficient athlete will get this done in under 7:00.

Get Inverted

Learning how to engage your body in an upended situation improves cognition (some even say mood – you get happier!), upper body strength, and body control. Getting inverted has also been shown to keep our colons happy and alleviate irritable bowel syndrome by stimulating the pituitary gland and loosening up some stuck bits down there. So, if you want to be your optimal self, change up the scenery.

Beginner: 0:15 headstands each minute on the minute for 7:00 once a week as a warm-up or cool down.
Intermediate: 3:00 freestanding headstand hold
Expert: 3:00 freestanding handstand hold

It’s All About Doing More With Less

Remember, as you mature, optimizing your training becomes the secret. Less is more only if the “less” you are doing gives you the most return on your investment of practice and time – which are both in short supply as schedules become more hectic.

Make your training about simplicity, economy, discipline, and fun. Know your “why.” The rest will take care of itself. Your choices will result in an ability to improve, rather than find you stagnating in the desire for a quick-fix solution.

What more can the 40+ athlete learn:

Bulls and Toby Keith – Fitness Lessons for the 40+ Athlete

The post 5 Fantastic Exercises You Should Be Doing After 40 appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

How to Achieve Big Athletic Goals After the Age of 35

Craig Hysell — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 10:00:00 +0000

To achieve a lofty athletic goal you usually have to be selfish with your time. This is easier when you are young and have nothing to lose and nobody to look after but yourself. But what happens when you get a little older and carry all those responsibilities to your family, career, and community? Can you still go big?

Absolutely. You just have to be smart.

If you really want to achieve your goal, sit down before beginning your journey and analyze your perspective, system, and ability to adapt (your “PSA,” for short). I’m going to walk you through each of these elements. If you follow this system, the only thing that can stop you is you.

Gaining Perspective

Do you understand what you are asking of yourself regarding your training goal? You know, accomplishing The Thing?

Perspective is about the cultivation of an attitude and how it shapes your reality, rather than having an opinion. Perspective is the intrinsic system from which we operate. Opinions are extrinsic and based off your perspective.

If you are going to do The Thing, you must first believe it can be done. And then you need to understand it does not matter what anybody else thinks. If you are lying to yourself, it will show up. You must have a ridiculous amount of passion for your objective.

“Seek counsel with people you trust in order to get an outside perspective on your progress. But in the end, know that you alone are responsible for what happens in your training.”

It takes constant practice to cultivate and maintain the proper perspective. When you are trying to achieve something outside your comfort zone, there are many highs and lows. Put these aspects of perspective in your toolbox in order to thrive:

Find your why. This is your reason, your conviction, and the rock on which all else you do is based. Without it you will fail when things get hard. Nietzsche wrote, “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”
Go all in. Half measures lead to mediocrity. Decide you are going to do The Thing and then figure out how to do it. Take the first step. And then the next. And the next. Until it’s finished. Pay attention to the three feet around you when things get hard. Fill yourself daily with positivity and strong motivation. Feed love and courage, not fear. Get rid of the negative people in your life. Stop watching the news and reading the paper.
Know what you are willing to give up and what you aren’t. There are certain things I have on hold when it comes to my training goals because I am not willing to miss out on time with my child. I am not saying this is right or wrong. I am saying I know how my athletic goals relate to my perspective on my life. I know my why. And yet still, I will do two things athletically in 2015 (at forty years old) that I have never done before. Know thyself so that ye may set thyself up to succeed.

Develop Systems for Success

Do you have a system to achieve your mission? Is what you are doing sustainable? Every great company has a system – a standard operating procedure (SOP) – that sets them up for success. This SOP is not deviated from until, after relentless study, a more efficient way is found to succeed. You need to have your own SOP and you need to follow it relentlessly for a great deal of time.

Ask yourself the following questions:

What am I training for?
Who is the best at teaching it? Can I afford that? Who is second best?
What do I have time for?
Where is my life at during this training period? Are things calm or in upheaval?
What is my why?
Where am I currently at physically? Where do I need to be to achieve my goal?
Do I have a time frame to meet these goals? Why do I have this time frame?
Is my goal realistic? If it is not realistic can I still manage to achieve it or should I relax slightly and settle into the discipline of training?

The mind is a powerful thing. I see many athletes set unrealistic timetables for their goals. This sets them up for failure. They get so beat down psychologically by their lack of perceived achievement that they give up. But, in fact, they are actually getting better every day. They are just too focused on the horizon to see right now. They quit because their system was poorly set up.

“There will always be a tough part to a great training program. And the bigger the goal you have, the tougher the grind.”

Set up markers and benchmarks in your training that complement your ultimate goal. Or, better yet, have a professional coach do it for you. Be patient. Have fun with the process.

And if you and your coach establish a training time, get your ass in there and train – no matter how you feel and no matter what is going on in your life (unless it is one of those big life emergencies that happen very rarely). Doing anything less is a disservice to you and the spirit of that which you are after. Honor the spirit of the thing you are hunting down and it will honor you.

Learn How to Adapt

Do you have the presence of mind to adapt when needed? This is a tricky business. You cannot deviate from your training plan too quickly or too often as nothing good will ever happen. There will always be a tough part to a great training program. And the bigger the goal you have, the tougher the grind. But on the other side of that grind are new discoveries and achievements.

Training age plays a huge role in knowing when to adapt and when to stick it out. Having a coach helps tremendously, too. It also takes the wise person to understand that you only fail if you quit. Everything else is just learning. Best to enjoy it all as much as possible.

“Perspective is about the cultivation of an attitude and how it shapes your reality, rather than having an opinion.”

Adapt to setbacks mentally (and only occasionally by altering your training regimen). Adaptation is the method by which we persevere. Getting your ass kicked is part of the process. Be cool with it, otherwise what you are doing would be easy and not worth a damn to you.

Seek counsel with people you trust in order to get an outside perspective on your progress. But in the end, know that you alone are responsible for what happens in your training. You have all the power and all the responsibility you need to achieve your goal. And when you achieve that goal, nobody will be able to take it away from you. You will carry it with you to the end. Congratulations, warrior.

Abandon All Self-Doubt

In 2011, Donnie Thompson set the world record powerlifting total at 3,000 pounds. He was 46-years old and came back from a massive back injury. Diana Nyad swam from Cuba to Key West (approximately 110 miles of open ocean) at 64-years old. It was her third attempt. The first two times she almost died. Age and adversity only play as much a part in your goal as you allow.

P.S. For those of you without responsibilities, this method can work for you, too. But you must possess the maturity and patience to proceed in this manner. (Most of us wait until we get hurt or beat down to adopt this mentality. But you could start early, and avoid most of that!)

Photos 1 and 2 courtesy of Shutterstock.

Photo 3 courtesy of CrossFit Empirical.

The post How to Achieve Big Athletic Goals After the Age of 35 appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The 5 Training Mistakes You Need to Avoid After 35

Craig Hysell — Mon, 10 Nov 2014 10:00:00 +0000

Aging, if done correctly, is full of beauty, comedy, wisdom and enlightenment. It’s a great ride with plenty of ups and downs. You can save yourself years of trouble, pain, and calamity by accepting that successful people adapt to aging, that the rules of biology apply to you, and that education is your best friend.

By all means, do not go gently into that good night, just make sure you rage against the dying of the light with the one thing we all forget to use in the beginning: our heads. Here’s are the top five training mistakes made after turning 35 and how you can avoid them.

1. You Still Believe You Can Do It Like You’re 25

We all know that the personal record days coming off a pizza-and-beer all-nighter are over. But even when we clean up our diet and lifestyle, we still want to train like we did when we were in our twenties. With all the same volumes, rep schemes, intervals, and non-recovery days, and all the sexy programs we see in the magazines and on the Internet.

This makes no sense. And you know it because you feel like shit and can’t “keep up” with “those damn kids” anymore.

Science tells us our metabolism is slowing down, it takes longer to recover (recovery is the unsexy place where growth happens in training) and changes in sleep patterns and circadian rhythms occur, which means you will probably sleep less at night and not sleep as deeply. All bad news for training.

So what do you do during this transitional period? Easy. Grow up.

2. You Still Think More Is Better

More training is not better. Smarter training and more recovery is better. Understanding this is vital to your continuous improvement.

Your training program must be a progression toward your goal, whatever that goal may be. Yes, training can absolutely have the appearance of randomness, but it absolutely cannot be randomly programmed.

“More training is not better. Smarter training and more recovery is better.”

Periodization in an intelligent must-have. Your program must allow for the proper rebuilding of broken-down tissue between sessions. This takes longer as you age, and you’re best off seeking the help of a professional when it comes to programming. Programming is as much art as it is science.

Mechanics and body alignment (i.e. mobility), as well as technique, play a huge role in your training sessions as joints age. Joint pain is not okay and is, in fact, a biomarker for injury. Don’t be afraid to seek out new strategies and new techniques. Play. Experiment. Adapt. Overcome.

Remember, abundance and complications are the way of youth. Quality and simplification are the challenge of adulthood. Think on this. Apply it to your training.

3. You Have No Respect for the Most Insidious Device Invented

This piece of equipment drives sedentary behavior, is practically unavoidable for most of us; is a major cause of those tight sensations in our hips and hamstrings; weakens our stabilizing muscles; ruins posture; increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity; and has been linked to cancer, depression and a shorter life expectancy.

RELATED: Posture Hack: How to Have Better Desk Posture (Video)

It is most likely right under your ass right now. It’s called a chair. How’s your posture right now?

Want to blow your own mind? Take a random day in your workweek and time yourself. How many hours did you spend sitting? Include your relaxation time at home. Now, before you decide to run out and be that treadmill-desk person, try a little management of the problem instead.

Start by getting up and moving around a little more throughout your day. Walk down to your coworker’s office instead of shooting an email. Cut your TV time down by a third. Have a team meeting with everyone standing or go for a walk and talk.

“Start by getting up and moving around a little more throughout your day.”

Your legs are the big movers. The contractions of these muscles increase fuel consumption and will mediate the collection of high levels of blood sugar in the bloodstream due to inactivity. This is a good thing. Move your big movers.

4. You Have Yet to Grasp Situational Awareness

Remember in college when you were so busy? What’s your reaction now when a twenty-something tells you how busy he or she is? Exactly.

There are many factors in your life that did not exist before now: children, bills, unexpected bills due to children, a job with increased responsibility and leadership roles, more stress, more relationships to manage, more creative and innovative opportunities, more responsibilities at home, more decisions to make each day and less time to make them, more stress, less sleep, and fewer hours in the day to be selfish.

This all must be accounted for in your training. Your training log should include a record of your stress level, how much sleep you got, and if you stayed on track with your diet. It doesn’t have to be a complicated log. Record them all on a scale of 0 to 3. Zero is horrible. Three is excellent.

The truth is there are no bad days training if you just accept that sometimes life is going to get in your way. Do what you can with what you have where you are.

Only have time for a quick warm up and 3 x 5 on the back squat today? Own it. Only have thirty minutes for your run? Do a light five-minute warm up and four sets of hard running for three minutes, rest for three minutes.

5. What and Who You Compare Yourself to Is All Wrong

It is dangerous when you compare your numbers and your look to the professionals who do it for a living or the person next to you in the gym who is ten to twenty years younger. These people do not have the same life as you. They don’t have the same responsibilities, complications, or genetic traits as you. You are not comparing apples to apples. You are being a juvenile idiot.

By all means, have goals, but respect that you’re not “who you were back then.” You’re not even who you were yesterday. You are you, right now, and the only person you should compare yourself to is you. Period.

Have Fun With Your Fitness

You must acknowledge that immediate gratification plays no role in your evolution, so enjoy the pursuit of a disciplined practice in the art of fitness. Have fun! Eliminate pressure. If you do this, you will learn that fitness can offer a lot more than just aesthetics and statistics.

And it will be these lessons that ensure your life will be full of grace, beauty, comedy, wisdom, and enlightenment. Avoid all five of these mistakes and you can get to the good stuff much more quickly.

Photos courtesy of CrossFit Impulse.

The post The 5 Training Mistakes You Need to Avoid After 35 appeared first on Breaking Muscle.