With more and more focus on body, mind, and soul, more people are focusing on the “experience” of working out and not just the workout itself. Creating environments that make you feel happy and stress-free is important for your peace of mind and if you are happier and feel more at peace, then you are much more likely to stay motivated to continue to workout.

Where is your happy place? For some, it may be a martial arts school where you have a strong social network. For others, it may be a luxurious, state of the art yoga studio, and for others, it may be getting outside with nature.

Get Outside with Nature

Getting outside with nature is my happy place and now that the weather is getting warmer and the sun is shining it is a perfect way to get your daily dose of Vitamin D, too! Because there is usually less equipment outside as opposed to a gym or fitness center, most outdoor workouts are focused on working with your body weight.

I have spent a lot of time getting creative and designing bodyweight workouts that are really challenging and focus on perfect form with focused attention to really work the muscles when heavy weights aren’t available—it’s just a matter of being creative. Outdoor workouts also allow you to focus on building muscular endurance, power, cardiovascular fitness, and stability because there are endless ways that you can move your body.

Changing up the speed, number of reps, order of exercises, and rest periods all contribute to having an awesome, challenging, and inventive workout while being outside and connecting with nature.

Sophia’s Killer Outdoor Workout

I want to share with you a type of workout that I do when I am outside. These workouts challenge all aspects of fitness and burn up loads of energy to help you stay lean. The idea is to perform this workout in a circuit format going from one exercise to the next to the next with no rest so that your heart rate is elevated the whole time.

This challenges your cardiovascular system and helps to build muscular endurance. The fast pace jog or sprint at the start helps to build power and kicks off the pace for your body to work hard in the anaerobic phase before the aerobic phase kicks in. Working this way in both energy systems is taxing on your body and consequently burns loads of calories, not just during the workout, but afterward.

These types of killer workouts only take about 20 mins and will give you a plethora of many more fitness benefits than any slow boring jog or static bicep curls would. Just remember to exercise with mindfulness and focused attention, perform each exercise at a moderate pace, and limit the rest periods to reap the full benefits.

Warm-Up

• 2 minute fast paced walk, jog, or sprint (depending on your level).

1. Step-Ups

1. Keep your weight through the heel of your step-up leg.
2. Keep your chest up.
3. Squeeze your glute when you are performing the step up.
4. Lower yourself down slowly.

Aim to do 20 each leg.

2. Push-Ups on a Bench

1. Maintain a straight shape from your head to your toes.
2. Draw your belly button into your spine to contract your core.
3. Lower yourself to the bench so your chest touches and push back up.

Aim to do 20 reps.

3. Mountain Climbers

1. Start by placing your hands on the floor.
2. Bring one foot in closer to your chest.
3. Replace with the other foot.
4. Keep switching feet while maintaining a static posture in the upper body.

Aim to do 20 reps each leg (40 total).

4. Cycle Sit Ups

1. Start by sitting on the floor with your back off the floor.
2. Prop hands up behind your head and keep elbows back. Be mindful not to crank on your neck.
3. Bring opposite knee to elbow together.
4. Then switch to bring other knee and other elbow together.
5. Do this while always keeping both feet off the floor.
6. Maintain this posture with your back off the floor and your abs activated while you keep switching legs and elbows.

Aim to do 20 reps each leg (40 total).

5. Plank Hold with Toe Taps

1. Maintain a straight shape from head to toe and draw your belly button into your spine
2. just like in the push-up.
3. Bring your leg out and tap the toe.
4. Alternate sides while maintaining square hips and shoulders (no tilting).

Aim for 10 toe taps each side.

Perform each exercise back to back with little or no rest. After completing one circuit, do rest for 2 minutes and then repeat the whole circuit 2 or 3 more times through, depending on your fitness level. Enjoy!

The post Being Zen While You Workout: Killer Outdoor Training appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

What is it you feel whenever you fall off the wagon? It’s usually disappointment, discouragement, and perhaps a touch of self-loathing. These emotions are like quicksand to forward progress unless you know how to work through them.

What is important to understand is that it is human nature to avoid pain (of any kind) like the plague, and that these emotions carry some degree of mental pain with them that can make it difficult to (want to) try again. This is why we fail so hard sometimes. The most important question to ask amidst these emotions is this: why do I feel this way? The answer lies with our expectations.

The Truths About the Wagon

First truth: falling off the wagon now and again is a totally natural, and necessary part of the process of making any kind of lifestyle change.

Second truth: real progress comes from the learning that happens (if you let it), and getting back on the horse. The key is to glean insights from your mistakes and incorporate them so you fall off less often.

Third truth: a little understanding up front about what “falling of the wagon” really is can empower you to avoid some missteps, keep your spirits higher overall, and ultimately help you become more successful at reaching your goals.

The Heart of the Issue

Disappointment and discouragement at their cores are simply a (negative) disconnect between what what we expect and what actually happens.

• Disappointment/Discouragement = the (negative) disconnect between expected results and actual results

What’s nice about taking this step in your thinking is that it begins to empower you. There are aspects of this formula that you can actually control to improve your odds of success. Let’s take a quick look.

What we can control:

• Our expectations and how we go about setting them. The due diligence we put into determining what we expect and whether or not it is reasonable.
• Our efforts towards our results, at least to some degree.
• Our attitude towards any form of resistance that may present itself.
• How flexible we are with our ambitions and expectations.

We cannot control:

• Outside factors that weigh-in on our outcomes. This could be a whole slew of things. For example, bad weather that keeps you from going to the gym, sickness, or needing to take care of an ailing family member.

This is great news! You have a say in the matter. Taking it one step further, falling off the wagon, then, tends to fall into two main pitfalls: poor expectation (goal) setting, and inflexible (all-or-nothing) mindsets. Here’s what you can do to improve on both fronts and minimize the chances you’ll fall all the way off the wagon.

Sharpen the Axe

Before you create any kind of specific goal or expectation, do your research. You need to know that what you are trying to accomplish is both reasonable and achievable within the timeframe you have in mind. If you cannot confidently qualify your expectations as such, then you need to adjust some variables (timeframe is a big one).

An excellent example of this is the all-too-common weight-loss scenario. There are hundreds of diets, products, and programs out there promising quick results. Lose 20 pounds in a month, they say. They prey on your emotions and insecurities and cause you to jump in before doing your homework. Here’s the thing, you can probably lose 20 pounds in a month if you wanted to. The real question is what are you losing exactly (hint: it’s probably not all fat loss) and how sustainable is the weight loss. Most of these programs rely on extraordinary measures to provide these results, and often a lot of the weight lost initially is only water weight that comes right back on with the reintroduction of more carbohydrates and saltier foods.

That being said, dig in, build your understanding, then set your goals and expectations.

Consider Outside Help

Sometimes, it can make the process a whole lot smoother (and quicker) if you seek out some help from a friend, mentor, or professional who has experience you are lacking. Seeking guidance can save you tons of time on the research side of things and help you dodge the common pitfalls many make.

Also, we are not great at judging our own ability, so it can be incredibly insightful to have an accurate, outside opinion to help you shape your expectations.

Set Milestones (Intermediate Goals)

When we build something up in our minds, such as our “ultimate” goal, it can begin to feel overwhelmingly big. Sometimes, especially with your eyes on something that will take some doing, you can get so focused on the end goal that you think you are completely off track with a minor setback that, in reality, is just a curve in the winding road. To fight overwhelming feelings and make yourself more embracing of the inevitable curves in your journey, try breaking your goals down into bite-sized chunks. Creating these milestones to aim for along the way will keep you far more engaged, in the moment, and mentally strong.

Embrace the Middle Ground

Building off of the the idea of milestones, an easy way to derail your success is to have an inflexible mindset that doesn’t allow for mistakes or missteps. Expecting perfection or an unrealistic level of excellence is a formula for disaster. Instead, plan up front to make mistakes at least 20% of the time. When you goof up? Chalk it up to your 20% and choose to do better the next day. It is not a reflection of who you are or how you’re doing overall (unless you let it be).

Also, realize that our actions and choices exist on a spectrum. They are not black and white, best and worst, all or nothing. If you struggle with this, consider the following continuum and how it relates to your current situation or decision:

• What would you say is the absolute best choice in your scenario?
• What about the worst?
• Now think about a choice you have made or your current situation. How does it fall on the spectrum?
• Finally, take a moment to consider two more choices: one that is slightly better than what you did, and one that is slightly worse.

Go Forth and Be Awesome

Photo by Bev Childress

Treat these ideas as tools you added to your toolbox for any lifestyle change you may want to make (or are making). Remember, you will stumble from time to time—but that’s okay. You are prepared, resilient, and ready to conquer whatever you have in front of you. Now, go get it!

The post The Truth About Falling Off the Wagon appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

What happens when you think of mobility? Does your image change? Perhaps you think of someone sitting into a deep squat, or the BJJ person moving easily across the floor on his knees.

What do you think of when someone talks about flexibility? Is it the ability to bend over and touch your toes? Or maybe it conjures up images of ballet dancers and yogis, easily dropping into the splits.

What happens when you think of mobility? Does your image change? Perhaps you think of someone sitting into a deep squat, or the BJJ person moving easily across the floor on his knees.

Mobility and Flexibility, Defined

In the literature, flexibility is generally considered how much passive range of motion you have.¹ If you were to lie on your back and I were to pick up your right leg and move it towards the ceiling, the point at which the leg stops moving would be considered your passive flexibility.

Mobility, on the other hand, is how much range of motion you can actively control. If you were to stay on your back and use the strength of your right leg to lift it up, flexing at the hip, the point at which you couldn’t move the leg anymore would be considered your active range of motion, or your mobility.

Interestingly, your experience of both of these measurements would be different. Let’s say you are someone that is fairly flexible. When I pick your leg up and move it towards the ceiling (and maybe your foot even moves towards your face since, in this scenario, you are that flexible), it will probably feel pleasant. As I approach the stopping point, the stretch will feel “good.”

When this hypothetical version of you picks your leg up on your own, you will feel a strong sense of work in your thigh muscles. It will feel a lot less pleasant (unless you regularly work on strength), and your leg probably won’t go as far as it did when I moved it. You may even find yourself shaking a little bit and cramping as you approach the point at which you can’t lift your leg any higher.

Now let’s pretend you are someone that’s less bendy, stiff, in fact. If I lift your leg up in this scenario, as I approach the stopping point, you would look a bit uncomfortable. The sensation of the stretch would be unpleasant, and the stopping point would feel firm, as though the muscle might tear from the bone if I were to push any further.

When you’re stiff and you lift your leg on your own, it will still feel like work, but chances are high your stopping point will be close to what it was when I lifted your leg. You may not shake as much, and the sensation of work will feel less anxiety provoking than the sensation of stretch.

The Flexibility/Mobility Spectrum

Most people fall somewhere between these two extreme examples on the flexibility/mobility spectrum. The person with a lot of natural flexibility but not much strength needs more mobility; the person with limited range of motion but good control might need more of both, depending upon his goals (it seems unfair, doesn’t it?).

In truth, the person with limited range of motion is going to acquire more flexibility and mobility as soon as he introduces new movements into his life, just like the flexible person will begin to acquire more active strength as soon as she begins adding strength based movements into her routine. When it comes to maintaining strength and mobility for everyday life, adopting the attitude of the generalist (a little bit of ground based movement, a few exercises that are concentrated strength and mobility exercises, and a little bit of restorative work), will do wonders for most people.

Assess Your Goals

When you are considering your flexibility/mobility needs, it’s useful to assess specific positions based on your goals. For instance, let’s say you are more on the bendy side of the flexibility spectrum. You would like to gain more usable strength and feel a little more stable. You have no trouble dropping into a deep squat and find it quite comfortable. However, you find things like hanging knee raises and tuck holds difficult. How can you use something you are good at, like the squat, to help your knee raise?

Controlling the descent (aka eccentric exercise) and isometrics are excellent ways to begin improving strength in the squat. One of the things bendy people tend to struggle with is isolating movement at specific joints; slowing things down and paying attention to position can be extremely helpful for building usable strength.

Eccentric work improves force development and may reduce risk of injury, in addition to being an effective way to improve mobility.² An easy way to improve eccentric strength is lowering into the squat on a slow count of eight, pausing every once in a while to assess your strength in different positions, and returning to standing for a slow count of eight. Perform six times and assess how your legs feel.

Another example of eccentrically strengthening the hips can be found below. Make sure you slide the knees towards your upper arms and away from your upper arms slowly. Also, notice how my torso position doesn’t change throughout the motion. I am isolating the movement to the hips, forcing the muscles in my torso to keep me still. I chose to demonstrate a fairly small range of motion, close to my end range of hip flexion. You can make the motion as small or as big as you would like, as long as you isolate hip flexion.

An isometric contraction means to hold a position in an active way, feeling the sensation of your muscles working. One of the reasons feeling the muscular effort is important is because it improves proprioception.³ Proprioception, remember, is your sense of where your body is located in space. When you hold an isometric contraction, your brain has a chance to register the exact position of where the limbs are located in space, making it easier to sense your position when you are moving and, ultimately, improving your mobility.

Examples of isometric contractions include holding a wall sit position at different angles, pausing and breathing for a couple of breaths at different points when you are lowering down into the squat, and pausing at different points when you are sliding the towel in towards the back of your arms. Hold long enough that you feel the work, but not so long that you can’t get out of the position and return to the starting position. Then contraction should be strong enough that you feel it, but not so strong that your entire body starts shaking uncontrollably.

One last thing that may benefit the bendy person is periodically making the movement as small as possible. Making the movement small allows you to begin feeling how you do the movement. It also allows you to investigate performing the movement with fewer body parts involved or with more overall control.

Practice for the Stiff Person

What about the stiff person? His situation is a little bit different. For those of us that tend towards tightness (and I am one), finding a sense of comfort in the position can often make more of a difference than focusing on the work of the muscles. Let’s take a closer look at what this means.

Let’s say you can’t squat because your hips are tight (at least, that’s what you tell yourself). Your ankles probably feel a bit tight as well, and chances are high your mid-back also feels tight. All of these things work together to allow you to squat, so you probably need to spend time working on isolated mobility at various joints and find calmness during the movement. For real. It seems silly, but learning to relax and breathe more fully will change your life and loosen things up before you embark on an in-depth flexibility routine. When the nervous system is down-regulated, it gives you a more accurate starting point of your flexibility and mobility needs.

The other thing you need to learn to do is get comfortable in the position. Those of us that tend towards tightness are a little hypersensitive to new positions, probably because they come along with so much discomfort. So we try to cram ourselves into a shape, only to have all kinds of mechanoreceptors scream, “Stop! These joints don’t bend this way!” We ignore our nervous system, stay there for a while, and are discouraged when progress is insanely slow.

There is a better way. Instead of hanging out somewhere that is extremely uncomfortable, touch the position and move out of it. And then touch it again. Gradually, your nervous system will begin to realize the position isn’t threatening and it’s okay to be there. Your mobility and flexibility will improve.

With our squat example, movements like monkey and frogger (or traveling ape and lateral squat walk, depending upon whose stuff you are reading), work really well to introduce the position and get out of it. The videos below show me moving forward in a squat and sideways in a squat. When I hop, I am moving away from the shape, only to return to it when I land. I spend a moment there, and then hop again.

This doesn’t mean the less flexible person wouldn’t benefit from isometric work and eccentric work. However, introduce isometrics and eccentrics at first in ranges that are comfortable, and don’t try to get a maximal contraction in the isometric. Bendy people tend to use lots of joints to transition from one place to the next; stiff people tend to use lots of muscles to contract one area. Attempting to maximally contract in a position you aren’t very comfortable when you are stiff might make you feel worse later.

Let’s say you want to introduce isometric work in the squat. Come part way down, stopping before you get to the point that feels like you are holding on for dear life in an effort not to fall over, and pause for two or three breaths. Better yet, do something in the position. Move your arms, shift your weight a little bit side to side, or rotate your head a little bit. It will distract you from the sense of work and reduce the perception of threat. Gradually, you will begin to feel more comfortable and less like your muscles are on fire. Challenge yourself to go slowly regularly, as though were exploring your sticking points. If you find areas that you rush through, consciously slow it down, deliberately moving through that area.

Determine What You Need

As I said, most people aren’t quite as extreme as the examples above. So how do you know what you need?

First, establish what you are trying to do. Now ask yourself:

• Am I comfortable at the starting position?
• Am I comfortable at the end position?

If the answer to either of those is no, you need to work on building a sense of ease in the positions you want to transition between. This can involve moving in and out of the position, holding different parts of the position while doing something else, and/or exploring the shape you want to make in different ways, like lying on your back, standing, or hanging. You need to work on flexibility as well as mobility.

If the answer is yes, you can easily make the shape at the start and finish of the movement, ask yourself how you transition. When you move slowly, what happens? Can you not go as far? Do multiple parts of your body move to allow you to transition between the two movements? Where do you rush through the movement? And perhaps most importantly, can you make the movement really small? You have the flexibility needed for the skill, but may not have the mobility required to support the path between beginning and end shapes.

Move More

Instead of overthinking which muscles are tight and which are loose, or which need to be stretched and which need to be mobilized, ask yourself what you are trying to accomplish during specific tasks. Can you be in the beginning shape and the end shape comfortably? Can you move slowly and with control from start to finish? At the end of the day, simply moving more in a variety of ways increases mobility; however, specific athletic goals require more flexibility and mobility than others. Be honest with your assessment of your abilities and gradually and consistently work on the elements of the shape you are trying to make. Like all aspects of fitness, there aren’t any magic bullets, but a little bit of work and a lot of patience can go a long way. And don’t forget to breathe.

References:

1. Kisner, C., Colby, L.A., & Borstad, J., (2018). Therapeutic Exercises: Foundations and Techniques (Seventh Edition). F.A. Davis Company: Philadelphia.

2. O’Sullivan, K., McAuliffe, S., & DeBurca, N., (2017). The effects of eccentric training on lower limb flexibility: a systematic review. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 46, 838-845.

3. Bourguignon, M., Piitulainen, H., Smeds, e., Zhou, G., Jousmaki, V., & Hari, R., (2017). MEG insight into the spectral dynamics of isometric muscle contraction. The Journal of Neuroscience, 37(43), 10421-10437.

The post Flexibility Versus Mobility: What Do You Need? appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Priorities and habits dictate our life. We make plans from a thirty-thousand-foot view on our lives. We are living the marathon and not the sprint. When we plan our week we assume things will go according to schedule, and the way approach our week is important in order to keep us on track despite life’s circumstances.

Everybody Hates Mondays

Monday happens to be my favorite day of the week. Go figure. I have always laughed at all the social media posts about people hating to go back to work and starting their week off. The way we see it is that anything that you give a meaning to, whether positive or negative, will inevitably affect your mood that day. I love Mondays because it allows me to start my week off with a bang. It’s the law of momentum. Any object in motion will stay in motion. The way we start is the way we will finish.

Look at Monday as the day when you hit the ground running toward your fitness, finance, and health goals. My Mondays tend to be very busy. I get to my office by 8:30 am and typically don’t leave until 8:30 pm. I do have some free time mid-day to incorporate some movement for about 30 minutes. I will typically squeeze in a workout that will look like this:

3 rounds:

• 20 calorie row (or a 400m run)
• 20 pull ups or push ups
• 20 95lb front squats

I spend about ten minutes warming up and then I go right into the workout. Intensity is exactly what you need if you only have a short amount of time to spend in the gym. I find that most people have the right intentions but lack the knowledge of how to get a quick workout in that is effective enough to get them to their fitness goals. As a young dad, I am not into bodybuilding anymore. Gone are the days of caring about how big my bench press is. I want to focus on health. I don’t need 90 minutes to go through slow moving body building movements and then mix in some cardio on the treadmill. The intensity of my workouts is by far the most important part.

Intensity Burns More Fat

Much of the old-school adage that you must “put in the hours” is no longer relevant if your goals are long term health. You can put in the work, but it must be the right type of work. With a busy schedule, the most important thing is to get in, get the work done, and get out.

For example, if you only have ten minutes to do a workout, then set a timer and do as many rounds of 10 burpees and 10 sit ups as you can in that ten minute time frame.

The nice thing about doing a short, intense workout like this is that you can be anywhere and still do it—go to a local park, do it in your living room, or use the area behind your desk at work.

The more intensity you use in your workouts the faster your metabolism will be when you’re in a resting state. If you workout with intense focus for at least 20 minutes per day, your body will burn more calories at rest and you’ll drop more body fat. Try to embrace your Mondays by making a plan for your nutrition and fitness. I think you will like the result.

The post Make Monday Your Favorite Day appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

There are many variations of yoga, and each one brings something different to the table. Bikram yoga, for example, is great when you need a sweat session without cardio equipment. Power yoga is strength centric and focuses on holding poses for long periods to help dial into the muscles. Despite their differences, each yoga style emphasizes the often-forgotten stabilizer muscles.

Stabilizer Muscles and Your Workout

We have two kinds of muscles in our bodies: the movers and the stabilizers. The movers, as the name suggests, create motion (think quads and arms). The stabilizers help prevent injury while the movers are in action. In yoga, you constantly challenge your stabilizer muscles. This is important because as the strength of the stabilizer muscles increases, the better your performance will be in the gym. Although the stabilizers are secondary in most lifts, they keep the primary working muscles steady so they can execute the moves properly.

One-legged yoga poses, such as tree pose and warrior 3, require balance, coordination, and a lot of glute activation—specifically the gluteus medius. The gluteus medius helps protect against hip and knee injuries, and it is a critical muscle for lateral movement in sports and lower body work.

Plank poses are known for developing core strength, but they also work the stabilizer muscles within the shoulder joint complex. Shoulder injuries seem to be one of the most common for lifters, likely due to poor form and weak stabilizer muscles. Performing various plank poses helps build the stabilizer muscles in your shoulders to help you minimize injury while you lift.

Strong to the Core

Yoga constantly challenges your core. And your core plays a significant role in your ability to lift heavy weight. For example, the lower back muscles (part of your core) help to stabilize the trunk when you deadlift and squat. Without strong stabilizer muscles, you could not lift heavy weight without breaking form or increasing your risk of injury.

Don’t neglect the dumbbells in favor of a yoga mat and meditation, but do branch out from the weight room and challenge yourself in a new way. The unexpected gains you’ll see from adding in a yoga class once every 7-10 days will leave you speechless.

The post Use Yoga to Improve Your Lifts appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

I think the main issues are when it comes to the relationship between mobility and training are:

• How much mobility do we need?
• Is too much mobility work at the start of the session actually compromising our stability?
• Have we become injury paranoid?
• Is there an end goal to all this mobility work?

The Quantity of Mobility

How much mobility do we need? Well, it depends.

I think it comes down to assessing your own personal practice and where you see yourself in 5+ years. You need to take your goals into consideration.

If you want to break deadlift world records and be the strongest you possibly can be, then doing stretches that will make you able to do the splits is counterproductive. Of course, it’s possible that people that can maintain a high level of both flexibility and strength but, for the majority of us, people who are stiffer can create more torque and tension, which is handy for big lifts.

I work predominantly with CrossFit athletes, many of who have some of the most hilarious “injury” reputations out there. Why is that? Well, the amount of mobility and strength that is required to be able to become any good at CrossFit is quite high, and people are very reluctant to put in the level of work required to make sure their bodies can cope with the demand. That is what scaling was invented for—it doesn’t just mean weight, there are certain movements that people just shouldn’t be doing at a beginner level. If you look at someone who has been doing your sport for many years and has stayed relatively injury free, see if you can move like them, find out where you come up short, and start to work on your shortcomings. If in doubt always ask your coach, or if you know a good physiotherapist, see what their recommendation would be and if they can help you at all.

Don’t Exhaust Yourself Doing Mobility Drills

Is too much mobility work at the start of the session actually compromising our stability? Again, it depends.

Coming back to the foam roller, if you’re going for a one rep max deadlift, do you really want to be chilling out on a roller and “loosening up” your muscles? Surely that time is better spent practicing bracing and doing some lighter deadlifts. On top of this, exhausting yourself doing end range mobility drills might inhibit your ability to call on that stability later on throughout the session.

You have to consider what the focus of your session is. Are you really going to make drastic improvements to your mobility as a ten minute warm up?

The 90/90 drill and squatting is a great example:

This drill is a phenomenal way to work on your internal and external hip rotation and stability. Integrated with squats it can be absolute magic. However, if my session was planned to be very heavy I would put in around 5-10 minutes the evening before, then only do a few reps as a warm up when it came to my training session.

You can quite clearly see that the intensity of the drill will have a direct effect on how the session goes. If you overdo it and completely exhaust your hips at the start of your session you won’t be shifting a lot of weight. If you use it as a short warm up and cool down then you’ll have a nice combo of strength and mobility and hopefully feel more “switched on.”

The most common things I am asked when I give someone a drill are what rep schemes they should use and when to do things. As you may have guessed, my answer is that it depends.

Some things to ask yourself are:

• Do you feel like you’ve made a difference?
• Do you feel stronger for it?
• Did your warm up affect your main session?
• How tired are you in general? Should you focus on only mobility today?

Injury Paranoia: The Endless Warm Up

Have we become injury paranoid? Yes, actually, I believe we have.

What’s the first thing you do when you get hurt? Research. Oh dear, what a bad idea that can be. When you start to look into how much you can get hurt and see the crazy injuries out there in every sport, you start to notice just how easy it is to pick up an injury. People then tend to forget to look up how crazy strong you can get post injury.

When your warm ups start looking like they wouldn’t be out of place in a bondage evening, you need to re-evaluate your thought process. You can’t mobilize everything, there are no perfect warm ups, and the biggest factor here, I’ll give you the technical term, is shit happens.

When people were riding into battle centuries ago, I’m sure the thought process wasn’t “Ooooh, I hope we win and that I don’t hurt my knees.” Why should training be any different? Your body language is a direct mirror of your thought process. If you think strong you’ll be strong, if you’re mobilizing your quadratus lumborum for twenty minutes before Olympic weightlifting so you don’t hurt your back, you’re in the wrong frame of mind (and you’re in the wrong training session).

If you honestly say to yourself that you’ve done your homework and you know your body has the capabilities to complete whatever a session will throw at you, you’ve done enough and should just enjoy the training. Don’t skip whatever drills or exercises work for you, but do try to avoid the defensive route. In my experience, the people that are the most paranoid are the ones that get hurt the most because their fear causes them to make silly mistakes when they wouldn’t have otherwise.

When an injury does happen, as long as you rehab it correctly and take care of any compensation that may have happened, there is no reason you wouldn’t be stronger than before and have more awareness and appreciation. Living in fear of a second injury is no different than imagining your favorite celebrity busting through your bedroom door and having their wicked way with you. It would be nice, but you can’t obsess and live in hope that it might happen one day. You have to get on with your life regardless.

Mobility Goals

Is there an end goal? Honestly, it depends.

It’s scary that I see some people become so wrapped up in doing mobility and making their joints work better that it’s all they do, no other practice, that’s it. You have to ask what the motivation factor is there, and how sustainable it is. I think I am quite lucky/unlucky to realize we won’t be doing what we’re doing now forever. Your training will change as you get older, and eventually, you will become one of those people who say “I used to do that.”

If you have decided you want your body to have a freedom of physicality then that is absolutely awesome, but I can imagine you will regret not doing other things alongside that. I try to sneak mobility work into people sideways, bribing them with advanced skills if they work on it, which is a better way to motivate yourself. Stretching your wrists so you can do muscle ups is far more appealing than stretching your wrists just in case your elbows hurt, possibly, one day, five years in the future.

You need to ask yourself: what do you want your body to do for you? How best can you support it in your endeavors? Without an end goal, you can end up just drifting. Are you really making any progress? Or just wasting time?

The post Mobility Isn’t Training: Find Balance in Your Workouts appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

In fact, the push up is one of the exercises I consistently teach to my “over 40 women” who genuinely have fears and doubts over their athletic ability. This fear is something that inherently comes with aging and the complexities that are associated with it. But is also something that can be turned around. By moving through a strategic methodology, I know that I can teach anybody to do a full push up. The knock-on effect, which is something I think we should focus on especially with women, is that the client achieves a sense of empowerment and feeling strong manifests itself into their everyday life.

If you have ever struggled with your push ups, then follow along to these steps and jump in at the step best suited to your level. Soon you will be popping out reps like the bros in the gym

Related: The Best Chest Workouts for Muscle Mass, Strength, and More.

Push Up Progressions for Everyone

First, let’s determine exactly what defines a push up. I like to describe it to my clients as a moving plank. Throughout the movement of the push up you want to make sure that everything from your ankles to your shoulders remains in a straight line while maintaining tension, so my starting point for all push ups is a straight arm plank.

1. Straight Arm Plank

Coaching Cues:

• Ankles to shoulders are in a straight line.
• Avoid lifting your bum in the air.
• Squeeze those glutes like you are cracking a nut between the cheeks.
• Make sure your hands are actively pushing into the floor, almost gripping the floor with your fingers.
• Push away actively from the floor with your toes and hands to create a feeling of lift.
• Maintain tension throughout the body, yet keep your face relaxed.

Frequency:

If you are new to the plank, build up your holding time slowly. Working in 15 sec increments, gradually increase your time in the straight arm plank so that you can comfortably hold for 1 minute. When you can, then you are ready to move onto the next stage.

2. Arm Elevated Push Ups

I never teach push ups on the knees. I find that moving the plane of the body from a kneeling position to a full push up position is just too great a leap for most people to make. Instead, start on a raised angle, and learn to take the weight of the push up through your arms. This method will garner a more successful progression. I have used weight benches, barbells on the rack, park benches, chairs, kitchen surfaces, and garden walls, amongst other things. Find a height that works well for your ability.

Coaching Cues:

• Use all coaching cues for straight arm plank.
• Visually imagine taking your chest between your hands rather than taking your head between your hands.
• Arm width should be under or slightly wider than shoulder width. I don’t mind people starting with a wider width if it means achieving success, but gradually move the width in closer before moving onto the next stage.
• As you lower, bend your elbows back and slightly in towards your ribs.
• Continue to squeeze your glutes like you are cracking a nut between the cheeks.
• Do not lead the movement with your chin, and keep your neck alignment as natural as possible.

Number of Reps:

When you can perform 10-12 arm elevated push ups, start to lower the angle so that you challenge the amount of load you are pushing.

• High angle = easier push up
• Lower angle = harder push up

3. Full Push Ups

Chances are that if you were a beginner at the start of this programming, there will need to be quite a bit of practicing the previous variations before you get here. Don’t rush the process. Feel confident and strong in the arm elevated push ups before moving to the full push up.

Coaching Cues:

• Use the straight arm plank plus the arm elevated push up cues, which should be second nature to you by now.
• When lowering, keep your chest moving between your hands and gaze straight down at the floor.
• A cue that I use for my clients is “squeeze under your armpits” to initiate the movement back up. This will help you engage your lats to initiate the movement.
• If your shoulders start hunching then you will put stress on your traps, so keep space between your ears and your shoulder blades.
• Taking the feet wider for the first few reps will help to keep you stable.

Number of Reps:

• Start small. Why not try doing 1 or 2 push ups throughout the day.
• While making a cup of tea in the kitchen, do a push up.
• While putting the kids to bed, do a push up.
• Between sets, do a push up.
• After sex, do a push up. (Well maybe not, but you get the idea.)

4. Feet Elevated Push Up (Advanced)

When you can consistently perform 10-12 push-ups with good form, then you can start adding variations into the mix of which there are many. Below are photos of my favorite advanced version. Simply elevate your feet and follow the push up cues.

Put It to Practice

So now you have a strategic method for nailing your first push up:

1. Straight Arm Plank
2. Arm Elevated Push Up
3. Full Push Up
4. Advanced Variations

Hopefully now trying your first push up, or advancing your current push ups, won’t feel quite so daunting. Good luck with these steps, and please comment below if you have any questions that will help you progress in your push up program.

The post Push Up Progressions for Everyone appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Becoming an athlete when you’re already in your 30s is a funny thing. I don’t have any glory days to look back on from my teens and 20s, because aside from a few (very mediocre) years of wrestling in high school, I spent most of the years of my physical prime riding motorcycles, drinking a lot of beer, smoking a lot of cigarettes, and doing a lot of travelling for the Air Force.

I am occasionally tempted to look back on those years with regret, and wonder what might have been if I had approached training with the seriousness and intention that I do today. But it doesn’t really matter. I can’t get that time back, and the best thing I can do now is make the most of my days moving forward.

I also understand that those days are numbered. At only 34, I already have a growing list of ailments and injuries that will, at some point, spell the end of my (admittedly modest) competitive athletic career.

There’s the arthritis in my knees, the scar tissue in my shoulders from torn rotator cuffs, and the surgically repaired collarbone. I sound like a bear eating a bowl of Rice Krispies when I get out of bed in the morning, all growls, and grunts, and snaps, and pops.

But it’s not all bad. Because I started off so weak, fat, slow, and relatively old, I’m still riding a wave of PRs and progress that some of my contemporaries have already fallen off.

I train with a few people who were collegiate athletes, and the difference in how we talk about our training and racing gives me a peek into the mindset I will, at some point in the near future, have to adopt.

I don’t know when my last PR will happen, and chances are I won’t even realize it during the event, but I hope to handle the realization with the grace and determination of the older athletes around me.

The Internal Slave Driver

For the first few years after I started to train and race, I was unreasonably hard on myself. I had fun with my races, but the drive for goal accomplishment within me became almost destructive.

It got to the point that I was racing way too much, entering events without a sufficient training base, and grinding through training with grim determination, rather than relaxation and joy.

For somebody who was making zero dollars, my approach was entirely too businesslike.

The sense of urgency to race all the races was probably rooted in my regret for wasting my 20s. I felt that if I wanted to accomplish things like a 100-mile mountain bike race, I had to do it right now, because I was already behind some sort of mythical schedule.

I became obsessed with conquering things; my body, endurance events, strength plateaus. I developed an almost unhealthy relationship with muscle spasms.

I thought that not being able to walk up the stairs in my house after a race weekend was a normal thing.

My wife (the most wonderful woman in the world and my frequent pit crew/massage therapist/nutritionist/fan club/shrink) even started to question why I was doing all this to myself.

The Gift of Experience

Gradually, that mindset has shifted. In part, I am more relaxed today because I have accomplished many of the early goals I set for myself.

I have finished the race distances I wanted to conquer and attained a level of performance that the demons in my head found satisfying enough to leave me alone.

The proverbial monkeys are off my back, and while I still have many goals to strive for, they have evolved to be about the quality of my performances, rather than checking off boxes.

More than that, the sense of my impending athletic decline and my experience with being sidelined from injury have combined to create a sense of gratitude in me for what I am able to do, which has replaced the obsession over what I have not yet done.

I believe that perspective is gained through experiencing life at the margins; at the edges of the envelope that most people will do everything in their power to avoid.

The highs and lows of my fitness life have tempered my understanding and expectations of myself. I went from being a chubby smoker to finishing in the top 5-10% in half marathons.

I’ve spent a winter sidelined for months with knee trouble, and a winter setting a half dozen PRs in the gym off of a strength program that I wrote myself. I have endured enough of the ebb and flow of motivation and performance that I am willing to forgive myself when things don’t go right, and fully embrace the times when they do.

A post shared by Pete Hitzeman (@petehitzeman) on May 11, 2017 at 6:59am PDT

A Hot Run and an Unexpected Mantra

I’m not big on mantras and mental tricks. I haven’t adopted a mindfulness practice (yet), I don’t meditate (though I should), and there isn’t a pep talk I give myself every morning, or even before every competition.

But a thought came into my head on a training run last summer that has become the central theme of my training mindset ever since.

It was a brutally hot morning in North Carolina. There was a stretch of weeks where the temperature and humidity would be 90°F and 90% by 10am, and it was destroying my training.

Try as I might, I could never acclimate well enough to go out for much more than about an hour of work, and my paces were way off of where I expected to be at that point in my training cycle.

I went out for a long run one morning with the intent of clicking off about 10 miles, but I knew 20 minutes in that that wasn’t going to happen.

As I trudged through the fifth mile of my six-mile loop, I started to get that miserable, “this is work” feeling that dominated my training a couple years ago.

The feeling manifested itself in my body, hunching my shoulders, slowing my cadence, and making each footfall feel like a thousand pounds. My watch beeped to announce the completion of mile five, and with it a depressing split time for the level of effort I felt I was putting out.

But just as I was about to continue beating myself up, another voice in my head piped up. “Hey stupid,” it said, “any day that you can go out and run five miles is a good day. Relax. Every step is a gift.”

Put an End to Joyless Training

That phrase has been ringing in my head ever since. It has reinvigorated my love for training and given me the mental permission to deviate from my plans if my body says so.

I am still goal-driven and I still work my butt off to make progress toward them, but I also allow myself to be imperfect more often. It is easier for me to scale a workout at CrossFit, or knock it off early on a long run if my stride starts to falter, or pull back the pace on intervals if I’m sucking too much wind.

The irony is that, since my attitude toward training has shifted to one of relaxed gratitude, the PRs have been coming faster than ever. This is due in part to an increase in the average quality of my training, since I’m more likely to recover and improve than push through too much fatigue.

But it’s also because I’m not wasting any mental or physical energy being grouchy about what I can’t do, or haven’t done yet, or who is outperforming me.

I might never hit that 500lb deadlift or double-bodyweight clean and jerk. I may never drop my mile time under five minutes or qualify for Boston. I may never see the podium in a bike race, though these are all things I would like to do someday.

But between now and then, every step, every pedal stroke, and every time the barbell leaves the ground is a gift.

There may come a time when I can no longer do those things, and there are plenty of people I know who already would kill to be able to perform at even the modest level I can.

I hope that I can lend some of my experience and perspective to anyone reading this who is grinding through week after week of joyless training. Fitness isn’t always about fun, but neither should it be a solid wall of misery.

Take some time to step back and look at your life and your capability, and appreciate the beauty of how far you’ve come and the amazing things you can do. Every step is a gift, so don’t waste it by being ungrateful.

The post Every Step Is a Gift appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

These “improv rules” are pretty simple: Notice more. Let go. Use everything.

Let’s unpack each.

Notice More

Body awareness gets a bad rap as woo-woo or superfluous, but it has a huge impact on how well you can move. The simple act of bringing conscious attention to your physical sensations has myriad benefits, ranging from reduction in pain, to improvement in motor control, and perceived sense of effort.

The fundamental benefit goes even deeper. Awareness creates space for choice. When you notice you’re cold, you can choose to put on a sweater. When you notice it’s getting dark out, you can choose to turn the lights on. When you are aware of your butt getting numb and your back aching, you can choose to move, or not.

But awareness gives you, as somatic educator Moshe Feldenkrais said, the dignity of choice. Whether you act on it or not is up to you. Awareness just gives you the opportunity to turn off autopilot and consciously find new and better ways of moving.

The simplest way to start noticing more in your body is to go through a “sensory scan.” Try this out: right here, right now, and notice what you can see. What can you feel? Hear? Taste? Smell? Which of these are easy to sense, and which are more unfamiliar? These physical sensations are how your brain makes sense of the world.

Let Go

It makes logical sense that holding onto excess tension is bad for mobility. But most of us make our way through life with an unnaturally high level of neuromuscular tension. Chronic stress, injury, trauma—each of these causes us to clench ourselves a bit more, and this has a nasty tendency to accumulate over time.

As you start to notice more in your body, it gets easier to let go of excess tension. Check in with your shoulders: are you hunching them up by your ears? How about your jaw? Are you clenching it? Are you holding your breath? As the hip kids say, let that shit go.

Keep in mind that this is not a one-and-done situation. It takes conscious effort to release excess tension (as well as addressing why we’re so tight in the first place).

Use Everything

This is a biggie for many of us. We don’t often move enough, or move all of our body parts as much as we should. A common example is training in shoes, which effectively locks a quarter of the bones in our body into a more-or-less fixed position.

Or we train without moving through the full range of motion of our joints, thus telling our bodies, “Nah, you don’t need to keep that range of motion anyway.” This only reinforces the vicious cycle of immobility. See, our bodies make specific adaptations to the demands we impose on them. If we fail to use all of ourselves in our full range of motion, it’s no wonder we struggle with mobility issues.

Notice more. Let go. Use everything. And revel in a body that works the way a body should.

The post What Improv Theater Teaches Us About Mobility appeared first on Breaking Muscle.