When you exercise on a regular basis, you know how your workouts suffer on days when you don’t sleep well. It’s also much easier to recover when you do sleep well. As coaches and athletes, we spend a lot of time planning out and performing workouts, but there has been a recent shift to place more and more emphasis on recovery from workouts. After all, a workout is only as good as a workout you can recover from.

Electrical muscular stimulation, compression, soft tissue work, cupping, and ice baths might be pieces of the recovery puzzle, but none can compete with sleep as the most beneficial recovery technique, along with nutrition and hydration. This is where sleep hygiene comes in.

The Role of Sleep Hygiene

Sleep hygiene is the habits and practices that are conducive to sleeping well on a regular basis. In this article, we’re going to discuss the best ways to ensure a great night of sleep so you can recover from your workouts well, increase your productivity throughout the day, and improve your overall health.

We spend one-third of lives sleeping, so we really need to make the most of that time by maximizing the both our sleep quality and sleep quantity. In terms of exercise recovery, when we sleep our bodies repair broken down tissue, normalize stress and growth hormone levels, help us maintain healthy body fat levels, and increase our body’s ability to utilize oxygen and process fuel during exercise.

Honestly, we need to work on improving our sleep the way we work to improve our strength, endurance, or power in the gym. Most of you already know you that you need to get more sleep, but you also need to focus on the quality of your sleep.

You Must Get Enough Sleep

Let’s start with the length of sleep you need to recover and function well throughout the day. This is both the easiest and hardest place to start because time is a fixed asset in all of this.

The amount of sleep someone needs depends on the person, but a decent rule is 7-8 hours. Recent research on athletes shows that 9-10 is optimal, but we have to weigh what is optimal versus what is realistic. Research on athletes has shown that those who get less than 6 hours of sleep per night experience detrimental effects, so let’s stick with the 7-8 hours a night as our goal.

It doesn’t work if you sleep 6 hours a night during the week then 10 on the weekends, but monitoring your sleep debt is a good way to make sure you aren’t falling into a pattern of missing sleep. By keeping track of your sleep, you can compare your sleep numbers to how well you’re doing with your workouts or even with your fat loss or muscle gaining program.

This has been very helpful to me as a new dad this year because I’ve been able to average 7.8 hours over the past 9 months of my son’s life. Yes, there were nights where I didn’t get much sleep, but I tried to nap and sleep a little more when I could to make up for it. In order to get the sleep you need, you must set some rules when it comes to sleep.

Rule 1: Give Yourself a Bedtime

If I slept less one night, I set a hard rule of when I was going to bed the next night. Figure out what time you need to put the kids to bed, stop working, stop watching TV, get off the phone, or whatever else you do before bed and start getting ready to go to sleep.

It’s best to try to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day in order to establish a good rhythm for your body.

Rule 2: Sleep In When Possible

If I don’t have to go to work at my normal time, I’ll sleep in an extra 30-45 minutes to make sure I get enough sleep or to get some extra sleep to add to my positive debt. Use a sleep tracking app and it can really help focus hitting those sleep numbers.

We live in a time where working late and getting up early is glorified, but it really isn’t something to be proud of. Sleep deprivation is linked to overtraining, weight gain, depression, even car accidents.

So change what you need to in order to get those 7-8 hours a night. I’m sure if you audited your evening and morning and really looked at what you spend your time on, you’d see that you can work towards getting a little more sleep if you don’t already get it. Like I said, you only have so much time in a day, you need to prioritize your sleep.

Rule 3: Avoid Stimulants Before Bed

You can start improving your sleep quality by avoiding caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, and other chemicals that interfere with sleep.

I try not to have any caffeine after 4 pm. I know that seems early if I’m going to heading to bed at 10 pm but caffeine does affect your sleep whether you feel buzzed and energized at 9:30 or not. Caffeine, nicotine, and other stimulants are understood to be bad for sleep, but a lot of people think alcohol is helpful because it can make you sleepy.

While alcohol is a depressant and makes you tired sometimes at first, after a few hours it acts as a stimulant, increasing the number of awakenings and generally decreasing the quality of sleep later in the night. Limit your drinking to one to two drinks in a day and try not to consume them 2-3 hours before bed.

Rule 4: Create a Sleep-Promoting Environment

You need to turn your bedroom into a sleep-promoting environment. Keep it quiet and dark. When people tell me they have a hard time sleeping I always ask if there’s a TV in their bedroom and the answer 9 times out of 10 is yes.

Get the TV out and use nightlights or dimmer lamps when getting ready for bed. My wife and I typically get ready for bed using a small table lamp in our room before bed. Light has a lot to do with our sleep cycle. Before alarm clocks, we went to bed when it was dark and we got up when it was light. Our bodies continue to do well in modern times by increasing the amount of natural light we’re exposed to during the day and decreasing the amount of light we’re exposed to at night.

This is where electronics come in, or should I say, get thrown out. One of the greatest things you can do for your sleep quality is to stop using electronics before bed—at least a half hour if not an hour or more. The more the better, honestly. It’s tough for me running my online personal training company, being a full-time personal trainer, teaching at a college part-time, and producing a podcast so I’ll be honest, I’m not the best at this one but I do stop watching TV and checking my phone about 30 minutes before bed.

Blue light from electronics actually decreases your body’s production of melatonin which is essential to sleep. What does increase melatonin though is natural light like candlelight or very dim light, which makes sense because it mimics the sun setting and our bodies respond to that. Stopping the use of electronics close to bedtime also allows us to reduce the noise before bed. Again, noise is like a stimulant, and that’s not helpful when we’re trying to wind down.

Another thing that helps promote a good sleep environment is keeping your room cool—67-68 degrees is best. Again, think about the sun going down at night. It gets cooler outside and that helps signal our bodies to wind down. Your body temperature actually drops a degree or two during sleep so a colder room helps with this. Some studies say 60-67 degrees is optimal for sleep but I really don’t think my wife will let me turn the thermostat down anymore, so 67 degree works for me.

Rule 5: Develop a Pre-Bed Routine

So we’ve talked about what not to do before bed, let’s get into what you can do to help you sleep better. You need to ease the transition from waking to sleeping gradually, so do things that help you relax like reading or taking a bath or a shower. Do some foam rolling or mobility work, drink some herbal tea, or anything else you find relaxing.

I like to take a prepare my overnight oats for the next morning, make my son’s bottle, brush and floss my teeth, and take a shower every night before bed. This routine relaxes me and the familiarity of it allows me to basically start turning off my brain so when I lay down, I’m out cold immediately.

My son’s routine is diaper, PJs, bottle, snuggles on my shoulder, then down to sleep for the night. This routine helps him sleep through the night most nights and if he gets off this routine, it really screws with his sleep. So we establish patterns to help our kids sleep, we really shouldn’t stop as adults, they just include different things.

Rule 6: Resist the Late Nap

Something else that can set you up for a bad night of sleep is napping, especially too close to bedtime. I know this sounds weird because more sleep is usually better, but napping too late in the day throws off the natural sleep rhythm and gives you kind of a half charge that keeps your body too wound up when you want to turn in for the night. I know some people need to nap because of busy work schedules, but the earlier you can nap, the better.

Rule 7: Eat Smart Before Bed

My last meal is usually a snack around 9 pm and normally is fruit and Greek yogurt with nuts or seeds. It’s not hard to digest and keeps me from waking up hungry in the middle of the night. Plus it helps me hit my daily calories.

Snacks can definitely help you sleep better, but it needs to be the right kind of snack. A pepperoni pizza 20 minutes before bed is not a solid choice. Any foods that cause indigestion or are basically difficult to digest should be avoided—nothing too spicy or sugary, and remember, no caffeine, so avoid chocolate before bed.

Also, try to stay hydrated throughout the day, but taper your water intake off as the evening goes on. You want to be hydrated, but not so much that you have to keep waking up to use the bathroom. If you get thirsty at night, keep water by your bed. When you wake up in the morning, drink a big glass of water and you’ll be off to a good start.

Rule 8: Work Out Regularly

A recent study noted that people with minor sleep disturbances improved after four months of brisk walking just 30 minutes four times a week. I know I keep going back to it, but back when humans got up when it was light out, we worked physical jobs until the sun went down, then we went to bed.

This is how our bodies are designed to work. We are supposed to be active throughout the day in order for our bodies to want to calm down and sleep to repair, regulate, and recharge at night. It doesn’t have to be anything crazy, just get some kind of physical activity during the day, even if it’s in short, 10-minute bouts several times a day.

Ideally, you should be doing a solid strength and conditioning program with mobility and prehab work for a host of other reasons, but just walking and moving around more during the day will help you sleep better at night.

Sleep Is Recovery

Keep in mind, sleep is the pinnacle in your post-exercise recovery, so take this just as seriously as your workouts and nutrition.

Beyond helping you recover and get fitter, sleep quality is essential in stress management which is one of the key factors in determining your longevity. The healthiest, longest living adults are the ones who sleep well and manage their stress correctly.

The post Clean Up Your Sleep appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Substantial evidence supports the use of exercise as a therapeutic tool to improve impairments in back flexibility and strength. Exercise is safe for individuals with back pain because it does not increase the risk of future back injuries or work absence. In fact, patients can see a 10-50% decrease in back pain after exercise treatment alone.

A sedentary lifestyle is often associated with low back pain, due to muscle imbalances from poor posture. But in this article, I’d like to talk about low back injuries among active individuals, and how to optimize your recovery while still training.

Posture and Activity Come First

Before we go any farther, let me remind you that I am not a doctor or physical therapist, and this article should merely be used as advice, and not a prescription for a rehab program. If you have a low back issue that you think may be serious, make sure you talk to your doctor about what kinds of things you can and can’t do, depending on your situation.

Secondly, I’m going to be talking about dealing with minor low back strains sustained during activities like weight training and sports. If you have a back issue that stems from poor posture or a sedentary lifestyle, that’s a different topic in itself, but I’ll briefly touch on it.

Being physically active is one of the absolute best things you can do if you’re inactive and living with low back pain. First, you need to learn what good posture is and how to maintain it throughout the day. Let’s have a quick primer on good posture and how to hold it:

1. Stand up with your feet underneath your hips and toes straight forward.
2. Squeeze your butt tight and brace your abs like you’re pulling your ribs towards your waistband, but don’t slouch.
3. Brace like you’re waiting to be punched in the belly.
4. Now with that bracing, stand tall and pull your head back so it doesn’t trail forwards. Your spine should now be neutral (meaning not flexed forward and not arched backwards) and you should be standing tall with your eyes forward.

Deviations from this position, combined with bad posture while sitting and lying down, can lead to tightness in the low back and associated pain.

Once you know how to hold proper posture, you need to continue to focus on it while performing a full-body weight training program. Besides challenging muscles, using weights challenges your posture, and overcoming the weights to maintain good spinal position is key to keeping your low back healthy and strong. Your program should include a proper warm up, hip and middle back mobility, stability work for your trunk, and resistance work using compound movements like squats, deadlifts, lunges, presses, and other exercises that involve large muscle groups working together. You also need to work on your flexibility with proper foam rolling and other mobility work, along with static and dynamic stretching.

Now let’s move onto the topic of minor low back injuries that arise while lifting weights. A while back, I sustained a minor low back tweak, and at first didn’t focus on recovering correctly. I spent too much time dealing with the pain before systematically addressing my back pain and the root cause of my injury. After following this protocol, I recovered well, came back stronger, and have been able to use my minor setback to help others deal with similar issues.

The 5 Phases of Recovering Your Back

My injury came about after feeling a twinge on a heavy pause squat, followed by a trip to a trampoline park later that week. The episode left me in so much pain it was hard to sleep. Without an MRI I can’t be sure, but I believe I strained a low back muscle directly next to my spine where it met my sacrum (possibly multifidus or rotatores). I had pain in the left side of my low back that radiated outward while standing. It was accompanied by sharp pain while sitting or squatting.

The tightness and pain limited spinal flexion and made it difficult to lift anything. I was cleared of a possible disk injury by a chiropractor, so I surmised it was a muscular issue that stemmed from not holding a stable midline while squatting and jumping. I knew I needed to slowly and systematically work my way back. That’s when I came up with this 5-phase recovery program. While it is specific to my injury, you can modify it to your situation and slowly get back to your pre-injury strength.

Phase 1: Manage Pain and Restore Mobility

In order to get back to moving correctly and reduce your pain, you will have to stop doing the activities that cause it. Pain is your body’s way of saying it doesn’t like you moving a certain way. After an injury, even proper movement can still hurt, if the tissue hasn’t healed and the surrounding muscles have locked down to protect it.

In this phase, I cut out all jumping, deadlifts, squats, burpees, running , rowing, kettlebell work, basically any spinal flexion, standing overhead presses, and performed no metcons or circuits with my lower body. I know it seems excessive, but reinjuring yourself while recovering is an issue that’s probably all-too-familiar for a lot of you. I only performed upper-body movements, cycling, swimming, water exercise, walking, using a stepmill, and plenty of hip and leg mobility.

For my back-specific rehab, my go-to movements were:

• Single leg toe touches to drill proper hip hinging
• Clamshells, fire hydrants, and other gluteus medius work
• Hip raises and other gluteus maximus work
• Plank variations to work on midline stability
• Reverse hypers, and light back extensions to reintroduce some movement in my back, as long as they didn’t hurt that day.

This movement menu was huge for me during this time. I found core and hip movements that didn’t cause pain, and helped resolve my postural issues on certain lifts. I use these same exercises now as prehab, or preparatory exercises before my lifts, to make sure I move in good positions and stay safe while getting stronger.

Self-myofascial release (SMR) techniques were extremely effective, in the beginning stages especially, as they helped me gain back some mobility after the muscles around my strained muscle had locked down to protect it. I foam rolled my hamstrings and glutes daily, and used lacrosse balls to mobilize my thoracic spine and to rollout out my quadratus lumborum (a low back muscle to the side of my injury which was along my spine). If you’re experiencing tightness in the muscles around the strain, SMR can provide relief while not challenging the affected tissue like static stretching might, depending on where your injury is located.

During this time I also purchased a dual transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) and electric muscle stimulation (EMS) unit. The TENS setting was used to provide immediate relief to the pain, while the EMS later on allowed me to provide some bloodflow to the area, since I wasn’t able to move it.

Heat was also effective in calming the pain and tightness, and was a great relief right before bed and in the car on the way to work in the morning. Mind you, these last two methods are mainly for symptomatic relief. They don’t fix the issue, only rest and corrective exercise can do that.

As for rest, I took three full days off to start, so my body could focus on relaxing and healing. I didn’t want to rest so long that I became immobile, which is often the problem people have when they rest completely after injuries. After those three days, I returned to the gym with just upper body and core stability movements until phase one was completed.

Sleep is huge when you’re recovering from an injury. Just think about how your dog recovers when they hurt their paw: they sleep. I aimed for nine or more hours a night during this phase of recovery. It meant going to bed early, but I knew it’d greatly decrease the amount of time I spent recovering.

Regarding my nutrition, I focused on high-quality foods with tons of vitamins, minerals, and water during my recovery, as well as high doses of fish oil to control inflammation. Increasing my fat intake helped with growth hormone production, and upping my protein aided in repairing the damaged tissue. I was also less active during this phase, so I didn’t need as many carbohydrates. I cut out all alcohol (which I didn’t have much of before anyway) and all sugar so I could focus on high quality foods.

How long you need to stay in phase one of your recovery is individual, so do not put a timeframe on your recovery. Instead, commit to a minimum amount of time to spend in a phase (at least a full week). I continued phase one until I experienced zero resting/daily activity pain. After that, I tested my squat and deadlift form. When you’re coming back, tightness is fine and to be expected, but movements must be pain-free before moving to phase two.

Phase 2: Endurance and Stability

Even though you can put some lower body lifts back into your program at this point, your priority needs to be on absolute perfect mechanics throughout each rep. I still didn’t do any jumping or plyometric exercises, no kettlebell swings, cleans, or snatches, no slamballs, barbell back squats, or fast bilateral hip flexion or spinal flexion, and no circuits using my lower body. I did keep up with my upper body movements, but added in bodyweight and light kettlebell squats, deadlifts, lunges, and step ups, with a focus on pause/tempo reps.

With my workout routine, I had two lower body sessions per week, and still focused on upper body in lifting my sessions. I wanted to make sure my legs had plenty of time to recover, even though I wasn’t really challenging them that much. I performed high repetition sets (15-25) to drill the pattern without compromising my spinal position.

I kept up with my SMR, and increased the difficulty and range of motion on my rehab exercises while backing off on the TENS/EMS unit, and only using heat once a day. My sleep went back to eight or more hours, (mainly because getting nine hours a night is difficult) and my nutrition stayed the same as phase one, but I did add dextrose back in my post-workout shakes, now that my workouts were increasing in intensity.

At first, I did have some slight pain in my lower back after my lower body lifts, so I continued phase two until I had zero pain on all kettlebell squats and deadlifts. At that point, I tested my barbell front and back squats and deadlifts, and since they were pain-free, I moved on to phase three. But again, I’d advise you spend at least a full week reestablishing mechanics and stability.

Phase 3: Strength Endurance

The third phase was freeing for me, because I was able to reintroduce barbell lower body work and even running. I still stayed away from jumping, high velocity kettlebell lifts, and fast hip and spinal flexion. I still performed circuits only with upper body lifts.

My rehab continued with tons of planks, back extension and reverse hyper holds, and band antirotation drills to make sure I was holding a stable midline during all movements. My hips were loosening up, so the volume of my hip drills went down, since at that point I was able to squat lower and lower and work on my lower body lifts without pain . Rehab drills are great, but there’s no substitute for full range of motion, functional movements.

With phase three, SMR is used less as a pain management tool, and more as a method to restore resting length of the muscles, now that they are being challenged in higher repetition ranges at moderate loads. I was also able to add in more mobility and stretching drills, now that my entire posterior chain was starting to feel more human and less like steel. Even if you don’t have pain, recognize the importance of mobility and SMR’s role in it.

While the TENS/EMS unit was helpful before, once I started being able to challenge my entire body in the gym, I found I used it less and less as my lifts got better. You could still use it if you have the time to, but I didn’t see much of a difference on the days when I used it as opposed to the days when I didn’t.

In my routine, I was back to lifting with my entire body, but I stayed humble and tried to keep lower body weights light and controlled. Rushing recovery by trying to PR on your way back is the quickest way to stay stuck in an injury cycle.

Sleep stayed at eight hours, and I returned to my usual flexible dieting, with an eye on my sugar intake. Fish oil went back to the usual maintenance dose.

In your own recovery, I’d suggest you continue phase three until full control is established on all squats and deadlifts. Spend no less than one week working on these lifts. Full control here means zero deviations from your best form at lighter loads. There is no point in adding weight if you can’t control your spine throughout the full range of motion on lower body lifts.

Phase 4: Hypertrophy and Strength

Here’s where it started to get fun. Now that I was back to full body lifts, I moved into low, moderate, and high repetition ranges, while still focusing on control. I was back to sprinting and doing circuits with my lower body. To add weight on my lifts, I used bands on squats and deadlifts, and slowly brought the weight up. This was key in my recovery. By attaching resistance bands to the bar on squats and deadlifts, the weight is heaviest at the top of the movements where I knew I could control it, and lighter at the bottom where the spine is more at risk.

I still avoided any movement that caused pain, even if it was in the plan for that day. I also used caution with plyos, and used soft surfaces for box jumps. I completely avoided any lift with a hard deceleration or eccentric portion. Rehab exercises became prehab at this point, and were still incorporated in all of my warm ups. It actually got me into a good habit of doing preparatory movements in all of my workouts, and since then, has shaped the way I warm up my clients.

My workouts were written to gain the size in my lower body back after all of those weeks off. I still wasn’t pushing the weight a lot during this time, and made sure my routine was split enough to allow for full recovery. An upper/lower split is great for this, so you can still drill the movements multiple times a week, while giving yourself a full recovery between lower body sessions, where your lower back is taxed the most.

I continued to use bands in phase four to add resistance before adding weight until my strength was established on squats and deadlifts. Take your time on this phase to make sure you get the endurance and size back in your legs before you get back into the heavy stuff in phase five. Three to four weeks is not that long, considering how important your base strength is before adding intensity.

Phase 5: Reestablishing Maximal Strength and Power

Finally we’re at the end of recovery. In this phase, you shouldn’t have any symptoms from your injury. The focus is to gradually get your strength back on your big lifts, improve your ability to decelerate, and increase your rate of force production. Use a basic linear progression program, start light, move with intention and focus, and add a little weight to the bar each week as you slowly rise from the ashes like the barbell phoenix that you are.

Don’t skip your prehab. I kept it up and still incorporate posterior chain activation, core stability, and hip mobility into all of my warm ups before squatting or deadlifting. Not only will you increase your activation and awareness before loading up a bar, you will keep your hips and spine healthy and performing well so you don’t end up injured again.

Use SMR to stay nice and supple, and use your TENS/EMS if you feel like it helps you recover. Keep up the good sleep and nutrition habits that you developed over the first four cycles. I can’t stress enough how important sleep and nutrition was to my recovery and subsequent strength gains after my injury.

When you first start out in phase five, give it two weeks before you put plyos back in workouts and increase the load on your circuits. Remember, you have the rest of your life to train. Take it slow, and gradually work your way back. Phase five is more of a maintenance phase, than a rehab phase. After a month or two in this phase, you can go back to whatever program you like.

I moved into another strength program, but it did take me almost six months to get my squat close to what it was prior to my injury. Now, a year later, I’m squatting for 10 repetitions what used to be difficult for three reps before my injury. This is largely due to the lessons I learned throughout my recovery.

Train for the Long Term

All in all, it took me about eight weeks using this protocol to return to normal lifting. Occasionally afterwards I’d feel some tightness during an exercise, and I’d modify the movement to make sure I had complete control, and stop if I ever felt low back pain.

The biggest takeway from all of this was how important it is to focus on posture while lifting. I always thought that I kept my posture in mind, but the more I evaluated my movement, the more I saw small flaws that needed to be fixed. This didn’t mean that I stopped squatting, deadlifting, or pressing overhead; it just meant I lightened up the weight and focused on my form, while really hammering core stability work both in warm ups and after my lifts.

Looking back on my injury and how it’s shaped the way I program for my athletes, I’m kind of glad it happened. If I hadn’t tweaked that muscle, I wouldn’t have learned what it takes to recover from back injuries, and how to use those same prehab exercises in my programming to ensure the safety of everyone that I train. If you’re reading this while suffering from a low back injury, I sincerely hope this article can help you systematically address your pain and get back into your usual lifting again. Just stay patient, and listen to your body.

The post 5 Phases to Recover From Your Low Back Injury appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

I won’t call myself an expert at any of these movements, and the scars on my feet and legs from the skimboarding confirm this, but I love the process of learning new skills. While everyone learns differently, and each skill has its own unique set of challenges, this model has helped me as an athlete and as a coach.

The Model of Skill Acquisition

Let me start with giving credit to Dr. Mike Jacobs from Shepherd University. Dr. Jacobs developed something called the Shepherd College Teaching Model and taught it to myself and many others in a course called “Perceptions of Motor Learning.” He was passionate about this teaching strategy and used it to teach himself everything from sailing to recovering his abilities after suffering a stroke. While I started teaching myself various skills as a child, this model got me thinking more about the process of learning a new skill and gave me inspiration to create a model of my own. So, without further ado, here’s my Model of Skill Acquisition.

1. Familiarize Yourself with the Skill

Do you know what the entire movement looks like? As simple as this sounds, you have to have seen the movement and have a basic understanding of it before you can work towards doing it. Visualization is key. Imagine yourself performing it from a third person point of view. This is why I always demo movements for my class since before I give instruction. They need to see what we’re working towards. If you want to learn a skill, make sure you watch someone perform it correctly, then visualize yourself with the same form to gain an understanding of what you need to do.

2. Use Imitation

Imitation is how I taught myself how to play the drums. After just a year of lessons, I’d sit beside the radio and play along with what I was hearing. I joined bands with absentee drummers and I played the parts they wrote. Before long, I was able to make up my own parts because I had the basic framework down. That was 19 years ago, but when I want to learn a new song for church I’ll watch a video of a drummer doing it before we practice, then repeat it and add my own style to it. This learning model is kind of specific to movement, but elements of it can be applied elsewhere.

3. The Method of Progression

Can you break the skill down into steps, understand each step, and start at the very beginning? These steps are called progressions. You need to figure out the most basic components of a movement and start there, regardless of if you think you’re ready for further skills. I’ll explain more later about why it’s important to start at the beginning even if you think you don’t need to. Proceeding a step at a time is important to make sure that you fully understand and have competency at each point throughout the skill.

The progressions should start with you having full control of the skill and along with way—each progression should be slightly harder than the last while all still resembling the final skill. Each skill is different and you may have months, to years, of progressions. The key is patience. You have the rest of your life to learn, so take your time and learn the skill correctly.

4. Find a Frame of Reference

Do you have a frame of reference or mental bank of experiences to compare the task to? This isn’t always as obvious as it seems. I was able to compare skimboarding to skateboarding and even backflips to box jumps, but sometimes you have to get creative. Being a drummer, I learned jump rope double unders by comparing the quick movement of my wrists to drumming. One of my favorite comparisons is likening the pull on a kettlebell or dumbbell snatch to “zipping up a jacket.” I also learned better handstand alignment by just standing up straight, with my arms overhead, making a mental note of what it felt like, then inverting the entire thing.

5. Gain Mechanics

Do you have the mechanical ability to perform further progressions? Some skills require a physiological adaptation to occur before progression. You may have to wait for your body to adapt by getting stronger, more powerful, faster, more flexible, etc. This varies skill to skill and changes the amount of time it takes to learn certain skills. Straddle and pike press to handstands took me a while because the strength and flexibility required to perform them took more time for me to gain. You need to be patient here. It doesn’t always happen overnight.

6. Learn How to Access Your Progress

Can you tell if you’re doing it right or wrong? Do you know how to fix it if you’re wrong? This is a big one. I spent a lot of time early on in my CrossFit days performing handstands and Olympic lifts incorrectly. I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong since I was accomplishing the end goal, but in reality I wasn’t very proficient with the skills as a whole. Once I was aware of what I was doing wrong by listening to coaches, other athletes, and videotaping myself, I set out to fix it. One of the toughest things as a coach is correcting someone when they don’t think anything is going wrong. For this step, you really need to be honest with yourself and use the resources available and find a good coach for help.

7. Fail with Intent

Are you practicing to succeed or learning to fail? Failure always happens, but it shouldn’t be the majority of your attempts at lower progressions. This is why we have progressions. You don’t want to ingrain a neuromuscular pattern of failing a movement. However, some skills require you to keep failing until you get it. Like the difference between snatches and double unders with a jump rope. With snatches, you will want to perform the movement with a PVC pipe or empty bar long before you add weight so you don’t fail any reps or have compromises in your form. Double unders are a different story. There’s not too many ways to break them down, you just have to move your hands faster to get the rope around twice while you’re in the air. In order to do this, you have to fail over and over, and over, again.

8. Practice Consistency

Once you succeed, can you repeat it consistently? While practicing parkour, I remember listening to a freerunner who said that it’s not enough to do the skill once—you have to be able to do it consistently. I say this all the time when it comes to weight training. You have to be able to perform the movement with perfect form repeatedly before going heavy. With skill acquisition, lucky and unlucky attempts, good days, bad days, and outside influences make it tricky to be consistent—but until you are, you shouldn’t move on to another progression. This step is also where I stress the importance of both quality and volume in your practice. You have to practice repeatedly to learn most skills. Practice correctly, consistently, and often.

9. Progress and Regress the Final Skill

Once you have mastered a progression by being able to repeat it consistently without thinking, can you add difficulty? If you’re struggling or need extra work, can you regress the movement? Adding difficulty is the true test of whether or not you have a skill. Once I learned backflips, I started doing them outside, doing wall flips, and trying to get higher with them. Once I learned handstands, I learned freestanding parallette handstand push ups, presses to handstand, and handstand walks. Slacklining took me a while to learn, but now I can do some basic tricks on it. Now that I have double unders with a jump rope, I often practice triple unders.

All of that being said, I still work the progressions of each movement to make sure I keep my skills sharp and always practice good patterns. I still work on jumping drills, do handstands against a wall for balance, and I still do jump rope single unders. I regress to practice every skill I’ve learned, not just for my own good, but I feel like it helps my coaching.

10. Teach Your Skill

Can you teach it to others? This is the true test of knowledge and application. If you actually have and know a skill, you should be able to teach it, even if you aren’t world’s best communicator or coach. I’ve found skills that I knew but had trouble coaching, and when I stepped back to figure out how I could better communicate, I realized that I needed to go back through the progressions again. With things like handstands and Olympic lifts, I realized that I had skipped some important progressions. Upon re-learning movements, I became better at them and was better able to teach them to others. Once you learn something, I highly suggest you try to teach the most basic progressions to your friends and family.

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