The one who never stops training? The athlete who tries to out grind the competition?

Or are you the one constantly looking for a way to hack the system?

Which is better?

From a health perspective, which increases injury risk: overtraining or undertraining?

The answer? Both.

Working way too hard is as detrimental as not working hard enough.

Which type of athlete are you?

The one who never stops training? The athlete who tries to out grind the competition?

Or are you the one constantly looking for a way to hack the system?

Which is better?

From a health perspective, which increases injury risk: overtraining or undertraining?

The answer? Both.

Working way too hard is as detrimental as not working hard enough.

Please note that we’re talking about non-contact, overuse injuries here. These are preventable. Contact injuries are a different story. We don’t have as much control over what happens when two players collide on the soccer field or basketball court.

Find Your Training Balance

The best performance programs aim for a “sweet spot” where the training is intense enough to make athletes better, faster, and stronger, but not so much to cause injury.

Regardless of the sport, we should look at two factors when building training programs:

1. The intensity of workouts or movements. This is also known as “load.”
2. How fast the intensity “ramps up.”

Let’s define “training” a bit further:

• Acute training is the amount of workout volume in the past week.
• Chronic training is the average amount of workout volume over the past 4 weeks.

Think of acute training in the same terms you’d think about fatigue. How tired are you from your training sessions or workouts over the past week? Chronic training involves looking back on the past few weeks and reflecting on “how fit you are” from those workouts.

Objectively comparing how you feel now to how you have felt over the past three to six weeks gives interesting data on how ready you are for competition. For example, I coach a group of adult distance runners, helping to prepare them for half and full marathons over the course of a 15 week cycle.

These athletes run their peak mileage three weeks before race-day. The remaining time leading up to competition is called a “taper” designed to decrease their acute training load. The goal is to feel fresh-legged at the starting line but still have the capacity to run 13.1 or 26.2 miles.

Taper weeks can be a source of stress for athletes who worry they’ve not run, trained, or lifted at their usual high volume, but there is scientific reasoning backing this strategy. If an athlete has taken it easy the week before a race but has a good base of mileage throughout training cycle, they will still be well-prepared for race day.

This athlete’s acute training would be classified as low, as they would be well-rested. Their average chronic training, however, is high because the athlete built a base of endurance over the weeks prior.

The Role of Training Load

Load is a measure of the intensity of a training session or how much stress that session placed on the body. Three things define this for an athlete:

1. External training load: “work” or “volume” (total distance run, amount of weight lifted, number of sprints, jumps to rebound a basketball, collisions in football, etc…)¹
2. Internal training load: the body’s response to the training (rate of perceived exertion, heart rate, blood lactate, oxygen consumption)¹
3. Individual characteristics of the athlete: age, experience, injury history, physical capacity

To summarize: training outcome = external load + internal load + individual characteristics of the athlete.

All these factors are important in determining the effect of a given workout. The same external load could have a different internal effects based on the individual. For example, how a 21-year-old trained collegiate soccer player would respond to a 4 mile workout versus a 40-year-old athlete that started running a few weeks earlier.

The workout is too intense for the 40-year-old and could increase their risk for injury. Conversely, the run would be “too easy” for the collegiate athlete with little to no cardiovascular gains.

An external load could also have varying effects on the same athlete. A tough week of training often renders an athlete feeling tired, stressed, and fatigued. If proper recovery measures are not taken, performance can suffer on workouts.

It’s also important to understand the effect of “life” factors on training: emotional disturbances, illness, stress, or recent training history. Respect these factors and modify workouts accordingly.

Tracking External Load

For endurance athletes like runners, swimmers, and cyclists, this is easy to monitor. GPS watches can log distance and speed covered.

Most elite/pro athletes now use GPS-based sensors to track movements and training specific to their sport. For example, the number of jumps in volleyball, collisions in rugby or football, strokes in swimming, or sprints per game in soccer. Coaches can scale up or down the training load based on how much a particular athlete had in competition.

Since GPS watches are not useful with weight training, calculate the load like this:

External load = the number of repetitions x kilograms of weight lifted ³

Tracking Internal Load

Rate of perceived exertion is one of the easiest ways to track internal training load. Rate the intensity of the session on a scale of 1-10. Multiply that rate by the length of the training session in minutes:

Internal load = RPE (scale 1-10) x minutes of training

This score could also be called “exertional minutes.” Researchers are still collecting data on different measures of “high” or “low” exertion for various sports. For now we consider a score of 300-500 in football players as a low intensity training session and 700-1000 is higher.¹

Heart rate or VO2 max multiplied by training minutes would also be another way to track internal load. Measuring blood lactate concentration is a technical and invasive method, but is a unit of measure.

There are other scales used for elite athletes like the Recovery-Stress Questionnaire that tracks mood, stress level, energy, soreness, sleep, and diet. The total score indicates the athlete’s well-being so that coaches or strength and conditioning experts can adjust workouts accordingly.

The Role of Individual Athlete Characteristics

Studies on rugby and Australian football players show that age influences how athletes respond to conditioning programs. Research also shows older athletes are at higher risk for overuse injuries.

In terms of these studies, one must ask if the injury risk is from workouts that are too intense, or is risk elevated because older athletes may have a greater accumulation of prior injuries? Research also shows that history of past injury is a major risk factor for a new injury.

Regardless, a training program should be individualized to the athlete’s age, experience, injury history, and overall physical capacity.

Calculate Your Training Load

Tracking external and internal load, or acute and chronic training can help determine if you are an optimal zone for your goals. More importantly, it can alert for elevated injury risk. Consider the training example used earlier:

“Peak weeks” for a half marathoner (weeks 8 -11 of a 15-week program):

• Week 8: 21 miles
• Week 9: 23 miles
• Week 10: 25 miles
• Week 11: 30 miles

1. Acute load (mileage week 11) = 30 miles
2. Chronic load (average mileage 4 weeks prior) = 24.75 miles

Now, take the acute load (30) and divide by the chronic load (24.75) to get a ratio:

Acute load ÷ chronic load = acute:chronic load ratio (30/24.75 = 1.21)

“Taper weeks” for the same race (the last few weeks before competition):

• Week 12: 24 miles
• Week 13: 23 miles
• Week 14: 18 miles
• Week 15: Race Week

1. Acute load (mileage at week 14) = 18 miles
2. Chronic load (average mileage of the 3 weeks prior) = 21.67

Again, calculate the ratio:

Acute load ÷ chronic load = acute:chronic load ratio (18/21.67 = 0.83)

Research shows the “sweet spot” or optimal zone for training is a ratio between. 0.8 and 1.3.^1,2

The runner is in the optimal training zone during the “peak weeks” above has built enough of a mileage base to stay in that zone through the taper and entering race week.

Research has also shown that a ratio above 1.5 is a “danger zone” for training. Increased injury risk is higher in the weeks after training at this kind of load.

How many of us have been in this situation? We feel great on a particular training week and continue to ramp up the intensity. As workouts get harder, initially we feel invincible. Then, the wheels fall off. An injury happens “out of nowhere,” leaving us wondering what went wrong. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “but I felt so GOOD, Carol! I don’t know what happened?!”

Unfortunately this is an easy trap to fall into, but monitoring the ratio of acute to chronic load can help.

But maybe you don’t run. You – lift weights, CrossFit, play soccer, insert sport of choice. How do you track your training?

The same concepts apply:

• Calculate the acute training load over the past week (number of repetitions x kilograms of weight lifted). Or total the number of sprints, minutes of soccer practice, etc.
• Find the chronic training load (average over the past 4 weeks).
• Divide the acute load over the chronic load and compare to the figure above.
• Remember to take into account internal training factors and individual characteristics.

The Bottom Line of Volume Training

1. Intensity matters. Both overtraining and under-training put athletes at risk for injury. A training program must get the athlete ready for the demands of their sport, but the coach and athlete need to understand it may take a several weeks to get to this point.
2. Sudden increases in training intensity puts athletes at risk for injury. Monitor acute training (how fatigued you are over the course of a week) and compare it to chronic training (how “fit” you have been over the past few weeks).
3. Monitor the body’s response to training. The internal training load. Use rate of perceived exertion x number of minutes spent training. Think about other factors—age, stress, sleep, etc. These are all important to help determine what your training load should look like.

References:

1. Gabbett TJ. The training-injury prevention paradox: should athletes be training smarter and harder? Br J Sports Med. 2016 Mar;50(5):273-80. doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2015-095788. Epub 2016 Jan 12.

2. Blanch P, Gabbett TJ. Has the athlete trained enough to return to play safely? The acute:chronic workload ratio permits clinicians to quantify a player’s risk of subsequent injury. Br J Sports Med. 2016 Apr;50(8):471-5. doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2015-095445. Epub 2015 Dec 23.

3. Bourdon PC, Cardinale M, Murray A, Gastin P, Kellmann M, Varley MC, Gabbett TJ, Coutts AJ, Burgess DJ, Gregson W, Cable NT. Monitoring Athlete Training Loads: Consensus Statement. Int J Sports Physiol Perform. 2017 Apr;12(Suppl 2):S2161-S2170. doi: 10.1123/IJSPP.2017-0208.

4. Rogalski B, Dawson B, Heasman J, et al. Training and game loads and injury risk in elite Australian footballers. J Sci Med Sport 2013;16:499–503.

5. Gabbett TJ. The development and application of an injury prediction model for non-contact, soft-tissue injuries in elite collision sport athletes. J Strength Con Res 2010;24:2593–603.

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If you’re feeling stuck, frustrated that your efforts haven’t delivered the results you wanted, and you are spinning your wheels, then the answer is a simple, yes. You should audit your training.

What do I mean by audit your training? Well, it’s simple really. You need to make sure what you’re doing will actually get you where you want to go. This sounds obvious, and you’re probably thinking that of course if you train hard you’ll get there, and I get it, I really do—but if that’s the case why aren’t you there now?

You’d be surprised by how many people I see that tell me the same thing, and when I review what they’ve been doing it paints a pretty similar scenario. They haven’t achieved the results they want because they haven’t really trained for it.

It’s All About the Goal

Let’s take a step back from your weekly training, even monthly training, and look at the big picture. The most important part of any program isn’t the exercises we use, it isn’t the sets and the reps or the time even.

The single most important part is the goal itself. Without a goal how do we know how to set up all of the former? We don’t really, do we?

Step one of auditing your program is to outline your goal—and be very specific with this part. “I want to be jacked” doesn’t count. “It would be nice to be a little stronger” doesn’t count, either. It needs to be something you can actually plan to achieve.

Something specific like, “I want to add 10kg to my squat.” Or “I want to lose 5kg and maintain my muscle mass.” Even “I want to get as strong as I can” will work. Your goal also needs to have some form of time constraint on it.

For example, “I want to add 10kg to my squat in the next 2 months.” Great—we now have a goal. So, you need to figure out your specific goal, and then write it down.

From here, work backwards. Once you know what the goal is and what the time constraints are you can start to map out your program. This is where we start to think about planning the way in which we will progress throughout the program. Are you going to make weekly increases in sets/reps/weight? Are you going to increase the time we spend running?

Are you going to make more/less frequent increases? Obviously this is an outline. I’m not suggesting you need to have every single incremental increase planned (although you could), but you need to have an idea of the planned increases, at the very least.

Map Out Your Plan

After this, we can then map out all the fun stuff like which exercises you’ll use and how you’ll structure your training week. When you do this, it’s important to prioritize your plan according to your goal.

So, if the goal was to increase your squat but you only squat once a week, and you spend three workouts hitting chest and back, it’s probably not a surprise you don’t achieve a great increase in your squat, right? (You’d be surprised how often this is the case.) When you structure the week, go by order of importance and filter down.

If you have multiple goals that’s 100% fine (within reason). Just follow the same principles. As a general rule, the main portion of your workout should be focused on training the main goal, next should be things that may assist you (known as assistance work), and after that train anything else you feel like might be a good idea.

I like to think like this: Do what you have to do, then do what you should do, and only after that do what you like to do. That’s a pretty sure-fire way to stay honest about your training.

Once you’ve mapped out your program, you need to revisit your goal, then re-read your program. Make sure it matches. Do this several times and make sure that your program reflects your goals. That’s how you make progress.

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The floor press is an excellent exercise. It is a particular favorite of mine for guys with long arms. I often use it instead of the bench press for these guys. Here are five benefits of the floor press:

1. Builds muscle mass in the chest, triceps, and shoulders
2. Increases overall pressing strength
3. Specifically boosts lockout strength
4. A good choice for beginners or those coming back from injury
5. Minimizes shoulder stress for long-armed lifters by limiting range

The floor press gives you a depth check on every rep as your triceps and elbows contact the floor. This allows you to keep the range the same on every rep of every set. While you can do the same on a bench press by bringing the bar to the chest this can be problematic for some, especially those with long arms.

All too often they get shoulder pain when barbell bench pressing. One of the reasons for this is high degrees of internal rotation required to bring the bar all the way to the chest. Another problem people have with barbell benching is a lack of stability.

Many people are unable to maintain scapular stability when pressing and this places a lot of strain on the shoulder. A final reason is that people lack the required active range of motion to barbell bench all the way to their chest.

The weight of a barbell in their hands can force them into this position, but they do not yet have the muscular strength to control this range. This limits the loads they can lift and also increases injury risk. Using the floor press can be a useful intervention to remedy these issues.

The issues with barbell bench pressing to your chest do not make the bench press a bad exercise. In fact, it can be an awesome strength and muscle builder! The problem is that not everyone is suited to performing it through a full range.

In my experience, this is very often the case with people who have long arms relative to their height. As a result, when writing programs for long-limbed lifters I frequently use a floor press variation.

The floor press provides extreme stability because the whole upper back is in contact with the ground. This added stability means you can focus on challenging the working muscles, in a range, you can control. For beginners, this is invaluable because they often struggle when using free weights. Remember how shaky the bar path was the very first time you bench pressed?

Why I Like the Smith Machine Floor Press

Novice lifters who struggle with stability and coordination on free-weight lifts can benefit from the Smith machine floor press. They will most likely lack stability, the ability to create tension in the target muscle, and have weak triceps.

The floor press can help fix all of these issues and provide an opportunity to challenge themselves with relatively heavy loads. For more advanced lifters I think it is an excellent choice to challenge the muscles and push to (or very close to) failure later in a session.

For all of these reasons it can be a great teaching tool/stepping stone for beginner lifters, an excellent choice for guys with long arms, or a brutally effective accessory exercise for more experienced lifters.

The floor press does not allow you to cheat or chop depth. While the range of motion is not as big as on a bench press it does stimulate mid-range and lockout strength very effectively. This places a lot of tension through the chest and it is also an excellent triceps builder.

Programming the Smith Machine Floor Press

For beginners, it can be their main pressing movement. Done early in the session and with heavy weights (relative to their strength levels). For more experienced lifters I suggest it comes towards the end of a workout.

As you accumulate fatigue throughout a session your ability to stabilize somewhat diminishes. As a result, an exercise that provides stability can be a great choice to create a large output of work from the target muscles, in a safe manner, to finish a workout. So, you would begin with your meat and potatoes barbell lifts and then finish up with the Smith machine.

To build maximum chest and triceps size I am a fan of the Smith machine floor press to be used as the final pressing movement of the day. The exercise allows you to focus on fatiguing the muscle fibers with no wasted effort on stability.

You can blast your chest and triceps and empty the tank on this lift when programmed this way. This allows you to wring every available ounce of effort from the muscles and provide a powerful growth stimulus. Think of the Smith machine floor press as a chest and triceps building “finisher” to your workout.

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The seated reverse flye is the most common exercise used to target the rear delts. It makes sense because the reverse flye motion does a good job of isolating the rear delts—the exercise isn’t optimal, though.

If I surveyed 100 meatheads and asked them, “what is the best exercise for the rear delts?” 99 of them would answer “reverse flyes.”

The seated reverse flye is the most common exercise used to target the rear delts. It makes sense because the reverse flye motion does a good job of isolating the rear delts—the exercise isn’t optimal, though.

The seated dumbbell (DB) reverse flye suffers from a couple of significant flaws and in training, the exercise does not match the muscle’s strength curve. The strength curve of the delts in isolation exercises is bell-shaped. This means that you are strongest in the mid-range and weaker at the start and end ranges.

The resistance profile of the DB reverse flye means the load is heaviest at the top and lightest at the bottom because the torque required to lift the load is greater the further from the body the arm moves. At the bottom of the lift the arm is by your side. At the top it is way out to your side. This long lever arm means the weight feels much heavier in this position.

The DB reverse flye does not match up with the muscle’s profile and, therefore, you are not fully challenging it throughout the lift. Instead, it is very easy at the bottom and an absolute killer at the top. The muscle is only being challenged through a small part of the range and the weight you can use is limited by what you can handle at the top.

Fix Your Flyes

Fixing this issue is actually very simple. Do the side lying DB reverse flye. By manipulating your body position, you can create an exercise that matches the rear delt’s strength profile and provides an appropriate challenge throughout the entire range.

By lying side on to the bench when you perform the lift you can create a resistance profile where the lift matches the muscle’s capacity closely. Because of your position, the lever arm is very small to begin with and increases as you move through the mid-range before dropping off at the end.

This is ideal and means the rear delts are stimulated through every inch of every rep. More stimulus equals more gains.

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Training without analysis isn’t really training at all. Let’s break this down one by one.

A real training program has to have a few attributes that make it a training program and not an exercise program. The difference is not subtle. Training should be progressive. Training should be periodized. Training should be goal-oriented and outcome-based. But more importantly than anything, training should be meticulously planned, executed, and the most important piece of technology out there is a training log and a pen to keep your results.

Training without analysis isn’t really training at all. Let’s break this down one by one.

1. Training Is Progressive

First, training should be progressive. This is something that beginners rarely, if ever, understand. Most of the time, training is totally doable, meaning that the work being done—the weight being lifted or the intervals you run (or row, or ski, etc.)—should be just enough to elicit a response and no more.

Really, we’re discussing training volume here. In other words, don’t do 10 rounds when 3 rounds would suffice. Any more just makes progressing the training (i.e. doing more and going heavier or faster) that much harder.

You can only make adaptations to the work that you can recover from and any more than that is literally pointless. But if you’re not writing down what you’re doing from week to week, how do you have any idea what’s working and what isn’t?

How do you know how much volume you can recover from? How do you know how much volume you need to elicit the intended training response? Short answer: you don’t. You’re guessing or worse, you don’t care to know.

2. Training Needs to Be Periodized

Second, training should be periodized. Periodization has a few meanings depending on your specific outcome. In general physical preparedness (GPP), the training emphasis cycles through the four energy systems that make up the fitness continuum: strength, power, power-endurance, and endurance.

In more specific types of training and competition, like a strength sport or an endurance sport for example, periodization refers more to the preparatory, intensity, competition, and recovery cycles of the sport specific training season.

Either way you look at it, if your training doesn’t cycle from lower intensity to higher intensity and from lower volume to higher volume, you’re probably busy exercising. In real training, there are a few highly specific and planned periods of intensity that are either just on the edge of your capabilities or that cause you to overreach and make adaptations to higher training stress than you’ve ever experienced before. This is how we get bigger, or faster, or stronger, or go longer, or whatever outcome you’re seeking.

3. You Must Track Progress and Analyze Results

Third, training results should be written down and analyzed. Doing the work is pretty pointless if you’re not asking yourself this very simple question: did any of what I just did actually work? If so, what?

I see an awful lot of people out there with their fitness trackers and their sleep analyzers and all of this stuff and meanwhile they’re sleep walking through the actual workout part of the equation. And no doubt they head home and pay zero attention to what they put in their mouths and why.

Data is important, no doubt about it, but you have to do the work that makes the data have value. Do you understand what you’re tracking and why you’re tracking it? Do you pay any attention at all to the results? Do you make adjustments to your training or nutrition based on the actual outcomes?

If you’re not doing those things and you’re not putting the work into what is producing the data, then I’m going to break it to you, you’re exercising. You’re literally spinning your wheels. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it and if that’s what you want to do, go crazy. But don’t delude yourself into thinking that exercise is sufficient to produce a specific outcome that you desire.

Want to be a great athlete? Sweating in a group fitness class isn’t going to get it done. Want to get bigger and stronger? Picking up some random weights sometimes and paying no attention to the volume or intensity won’t help you one bit.

Training Is So Much More

Training is not walking into the gym and smashing yourself and trying to get as sore or tired or beaten as possible. In a well-written program, the first week or so might actually feel too easy. And it probably should considering that in the last last week or two of the program you’ll be encountering more training stress than you’ve ever experienced before.

Doesn’t it make some sense that the lead up to that period would be planned in a way to ensure you don’t have so much accumulated training fatigue that you can actually get the programmed work done?

After all, you will have to eventually go faster or lift more weight to get faster or stronger. It doesn’t happen by magic and it definitely doesn’t happen by repeating the same interval at the same intensity or lifting the same light barbell over and over and over again.

Getting better is very, very different than just sitting in some spin class somewhere getting sweaty. Numbers and data drive better performance, not how you feel about a workout. Use your data wisely. Buy a pad and a pen and get to work.

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Training comes down to stress management: it’s my job to determine how much and what kind of stress to apply, and it’s your job to get yourself ready to handle as much stress as possible.

I work as a trainer, both in person and online, specializing in getting former athletes back into game shape. A lot of the time this comes down to dudes in their 30s and 40s trading a few pounds of fat in for some more muscle. The tough part? Most of them are busier than ever, and certainly busier than they were when they felt their best.

The name of the game for us—and for you—is stress management. I want to to apply as much stress to your system as it can handle. The more we can apply, and the more you can handle, the better your results will be, and the faster they’ll come.

How does stress help someone lose fat or build muscle? What do I mean by stress management? And how can you apply some of these lessons to your own training? Let’s take a look.

Stress Type

The first question I need to answer in regards to any client and stress is what type of stress do I need to expose them to? In some sense, stress is just stress, but when it comes to adaptation—more on that later—we need to get more specific.

Are we trying to improve aerobic capacity? Then we’ll need to drive capillary and mitochondrial density by starving working muscles of oxygen, and filling them with waste products—all in an effort to get your body to prevent that specific kind of badness from happening again in the future.

Wanna get jacked? We’re going to literally rip your muscles apart with heavy load (in a nice way, promise!) while creating such an acidic environment that it forces a cascade of hormones to be released, all in an effort to keep it from being so bad the next time around.

There’s a ton of detail here. Sets, reps, rest periods, training timing, and frequency. The good news for you is that that’s all on me.

The bad news? That’s only half of the equation, and the other half is up to you.

The Amount of Stress and Response

That second half of the equations is all about the amount of stress a client can tolerate. This isn’t about being tough, it’s about being prepared and being effective.

Before we go any further, it’s important we understand the stress response and what happens to us on a chemical and hormonal level when we’re subjected to stress.

At this point, it’s not important for us to differentiate between stressors—between, say, your Monday commute and your Friday workout—so instead we’ll try to get a basic understanding of the similarities. Let’s take a look at how stress works in a simple but dramatic context.

The Zebra: A Story

In his seminal book Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, Robert Sapolsky outlines the mammalian stress response, and how its intended effect has been subverted by modern realities. I’ll attempt to boil a few hundred pages written by of one of the world’s leading neuroendocrinologists down to a handful of bullet points (wish me luck!):

• A zebra being chased by a lion is super stressed out.
• That’s a good thing. It keeps him alive.
• A zebra’s stress halts every process that isn’t going to matter in the next five minutes—digestion, cell repair, sex hormone production—and it diverts these newly freed up resources to running fast and far.
• Once the zebra gets away, he’s not stressed. He goes back to grazing, napping—whatever it was he was up to before the mean ol’ lion showed up—and his body’s systems go back to normal. You don’t see a worried or neurotic zebra.
• We’re like zebras in some ways, and not like them in others.
• We have a similar stress response—we divert long-term resources to short term fixes when we’re stressed.
• The problem is that it’s not usually lions stressing us out. We can’t literally run away from our problems. Things like taxes. Politics. Jobs. Traffic. Boyfriends. Children. And yet the result is the same—digestion, cell repair, sex hormone production, and more all take a back seat so that resources can be freed up to deal with our modern lions.
• Look around at our chronically-stressed society and just how commonplace issues with digestion, inflammation (cell-repair), and sex hormone regulation have become. The deadliest and most expensive healthcare crises we face all come down to these factors.
• Stress is great when it’s an acute response, and dangerous when it’s chronic.
• Be more like a zebra.

The Zebra: Some Biology

Let’s take another look at the zebra, this time through a slightly more scientific lens.

Stress drives three related shifts to occur within the zebra.

The first change that occurs is that the zebra’s autonomic (or unconscious) nervous system moves from a parasympathetic state to a sympathetic state. In plain English, his nervous system switches gears from neutral to overdrive. Colorfully put, he switches from a “rest and digest” focus to the famous “fight or flight” mode.

The second shift affects the zebra’s cellular processes. The grazing zebra is in an anabolic state. All that this means is that his systems are largely devoted to building bigger molecules; turning glucose into glycogen or amino acids into proteins.

The stressed zebra shifts—in a virtual instant—into a catabolic state. Larger molecules need to be broken down. Glycogen needs to turn back into glucose, and glucose into carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and water in order to fuel his escape.

The third way of examining the zebra’s shift in priorities is from a hormonal standpoint. Hormones are the body’s chemical signalers, and in the case of this particular exotic equine, the hormonal profile registers a shift away from the future and towards the present.

Testosterone, growth hormone, and insulin are all anabolic, future-driven hormones. They ensure the propagation of our genetic lineage, take care of the wear and tear of daily life, and generally get us ready to face the next challenge.

The lion is that next challenge, and so things change. The future is mortgaged for the present, and the increased presence of hormones like cortisol, norepinephrine (adrenaline), and glucagon reflect that shift.

All of these changes work in concert to keep the zebra alive. Each supports and is supported by the others, and all reflect the general principle that the future isn’t worth worrying about unless you get there.

The Drip of Stress Hormones

We face the occasional lion in our lives; a sudden, immediate, and overwhelming source of stress. You can feel the impact of these moments—suddenly swerving to avoid a car or pedestrian, rushing to grab your child before they hurt themselves—and that sensation is a reflection of the huge changes taking place internally to allow you to respond effectively. But these occurrences are rare for most of us.

Instead, we face an onslaught of low-level stress. A drip, drip, drip of stress hormones rather than a tsunami. We don’t feel the rush of blood and narrowing of focus that accompanies an emergency, and so we have a tendency to ignore it, but it’s still there, eating away at our ability to prepare for the future.

Bigger muscles? Sorry, bad boss. Trimmer waistline? But what about traffic? Where the zebra ping pongs between two different states, we have an ineffective habit of living between them. And as a result, we’re ill-equipped for both present and future.

Stress and Training

What’s that all have to do with gaining muscle or building endurance? In many ways, your body has trouble distinguishing between stressors. Stress is stress. Your morning commute and leg day feel about the same on a biological level, driving similar hormones but with very different consequences.

If we can’t keep the day to day chronic stress under control then we’ll be severely limited in how much acute training stress we can apply without doing more harm than good. Releasing just enough cortisol to help remodel muscle? That’s great! Releasing a constant stream of cortisol, resulting in a constant signal to break down rather than rebuild? Not so great.

Stress evolved to be a good thing: it literally fuels the zebra’s escape.

Stress can be a good thing for us—products of modern realities—but rarely in the immediate case of running for our lives. Instead, it gets its value from the subsequent recovery it triggers. We call this stress-induced recovery an adaptation.

The Role of Adaptation

Everything you’ve ever done in the gym has been an attempt to drive adaptation. Bigger muscles? Adaptation. Better endurance? Less fat? Adaptations.

Here’s a simple experiment that nearly perfectly illustrates stress, recovery, and adaptation:

Find a carpeted floor and vigorously rub your palm on it for 5-10 seconds. You should feel heat, tingling, and maybe the start of an uncomfortable burning sensation. With me? Good. Now imagine two different scenarios.

• Scenario 1: Rub your palm on the carpet for the next 10 minutes with exactly the same vigor. Pain, sores, and blood await.
• Scenario 2: Vigorously rub your palm the carpet for 10 seconds. Stop. Wait for an hour or two. Repeat, 59 more times over the next few days. Sores have been replaced by callouses. The difference? It wasn’t the stress (both experiments involved 10 minutes of stress), it was the recovery. In this case, all that was needed was time, the stress being simple and relatively moderate.

The link between stress and adaptation lies in recovery, and recovery requires the removal of stress.

There’s more to recovery than rest—nutrition, hydration, sleep and more are all tremendously important—but none of these are effective in the face of persistent stress.

Practical Strategies to Manage Stress

We can’t eliminate stressors from our lives. Quitting your job, abandoning social media, and moving to the middle of the woods to meditate isn’t a very feasible option for most of us.

What we can do is try to minimize the influence of those chronic stressors in order to maximize the effect—via adaptation— of the acute stressor we can train.

Below are three practical strategies for mitigating stress and maximizing your gains.

1. Meditation: You can call it froufrou or hokey, but there’s some good solid research to support meditation’s effect on both the mind and the body. I’m ill-equipped to give detailed advice on the minutiae of meditation, and it’s an extremely personal practice, but I will say that habit, practice, and repetition go a long way. I use a guided meditation app called Headspace and aim for 10-15 minutes per day.
2. Sleep: The importance of sleep is almost impossible to overstate—consider it a panacea and you’re about right. It reduces the risk of cancer, heart disease, obesity, dementia, and more. We reconcile memory and emotion and restore hormonal balances during sleep, and even a few night of what’s termed “short sleeping” have immediate detrimental effects. For a lot of us, stress can actually make sleep more difficult.
   Reducing caffeine intake, exercising regularly, sticking to a consistent sleep schedule, and practicing sleep hygiene by ensuring a cool, dark room reserved for sleep and sex are good starting points for better sleep. I’d also recommend Matthew Walker’s book Why We Sleep as a fascinating and helpful look at the details of sleep.
3. Social Support: This one is the proverbial double edged sword. On the one hand, friends and family can add to our stress levels, while on the other these relationships can serve as an outlet and a balance for the stress of daily life. The bottom line here is that like the zebra, we have a hardwired need for positive social interactions, and even the most driven individual needs to get out of the gym and spend some time with people they care about.

Use Stress to Your Advantage

I ran into a great summary of exercise the other day:

“Exercise is just applying pain to the body until it’s immune to that kind of pain.”

Not exactly, but to be honest it’s pretty damn close.

We develop immunity through exposure. If you had chickenpox then you developed antibodies that helped you develop a level of immunity to catching the disease in the future. The disease was the stressor, the antibodies the response, and immunity is the resulting adaptation.

Stress isn’t bad. We started with the premise that I’d actually like to give you an awful lot of it in specific and calculated doses. The problem with stress is when it becomes ever-present, and understanding the stress response in general terms can help us understand how it limits our progress in the gym.

As fitness junkies we have a tendency to focus on the “hard” stuff—sets, reps, and macro counts—while ignoring the “soft” side of the equation. The problem with this approach is that human being may be the most complicated and integrated machinery in history.

The soft stuff is the hard stuff. Mean people can impact your blood work. Meditation may just help build muscle. And while we may not yet—or ever—have a perfect understanding of the innumerable ways stress impacts the body, we can be sure that it does.

The post An Exercise In Stress Management appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Photography by J Perez Imagery> of Oahu, Hawaii

The beauty that is the human neuromuscular system is so complex in both structure and function that we often forget our innate ability to command control over it. Decades of research talk about the importance of the mind-muscle connection. In the gym we often experience a progressive increase in the ability to target or isolate a muscle group and in the future we often learn to integrate it with other muscle groups. Much like working out your brain via puzzles, the importance of learning to recruit muscles on demand is of utmost importance in activities of daily living and training.

Use the Force

To increase muscle force production, more motor units must be recruited. This process of motor unit recruitment occurs in an orderly fashion, beginning with the smallest motor neurons and eventually activating larger and larger motor neurons.

This concept was developed by Elwood Henneman and is known as the size principle. As we continue to exercise and innervate larger muscle groups, the greater a likelihood to produce more force. The idea is to start small and create a balance between exercise and engagement of muscle.

Secondly, through regular exercise and activation of musculature, brain health increases—more specifically the efficiency of the afferent and efferent nerve signals carried out by various sections of the brain such as the frontal cortex.

By flexing the tissue post exercise as well as during the day, it increases the response the body commands on the brain. Through exercise and conscious flexing, the muscles are required to stay in a semi-contracted state via the muscle tension principle.

Contrary to common belief this isn’t grounds for an injury, instead it is a necessary function of muscle when training multiple days per week. However, through understanding how to relax muscle tissue through meditation and during training, one will be able to progress further in the gym virtually injury-free.

Fraudulent Versus Effective Connections

A typical workout session (for some) includes choosing the weight and mindlessly “going through the motions” and ascribing certain rep ranges for “heavier” weight and “light” weight, respectively. In reality muscles do not understand the concept of weight nor rep ranges (in the general sense of numerics).

What they do understand, however, is tension-length relationships. In short, how hard does the muscle need to contract in order to produce sufficient force or how much does it need to lengthen to load in an eccentric phase of movement? How long you subject your muscle to stress is also a factor in learning how to cope with pain; a result of metabolic and mechanical overload.

This programming becomes important in “feeling” your exercises. Many of my clients understand this concept due to my emphasis on kinetic feedback. I often use verbal cues in conjunction with physical ones in order to elicit a response from the muscle.

This may seem like an “old-school” training concept but proves to be much more important than one ought to think. According to Calatayud, there exists a threshold where effectively working between 60% and 80% of the 1RM and by focusing on muscles used there is a significant increase in the ability to progressively overload during resistance training.

Moreover, it is emphasized during my training regimens to forget the rep ranges (for one minute) and feel your muscles by squeezing and holding (a brief but intentional pause). Your muscles should feel as if they are an extension of your thought—as opposed to an extension of your ego.

This is not considered a beginner’s methodology of training by any means, however. After several months of training this becomes pivotal in advancing your progress. Brad Schoenfeld does a great job explaining the integration of drop sets, forced repetitions, supersets, and heavy negatives greatly influence hypertrophy.

However, these become useless to the average gym goer without prior knowledge of harnessing the target muscles to their true potential through kinetic cues.

Mind Over Matter

This is a mantra often expressed in sport as well as multiple practices of yoga, martial arts, and meditation. The flow state is a point where the body is simply a conduit for which the mind is able to express itself.

We as humans however, have a resistance to change. Our ego, self-validation, and need for “cognitive closure” often impede our ability to relinquish the body to the mind during a familiar methodology. This carries over into the social psychology of “acceptance.”

The fitness industry (in some respect) has become “social media fandom” at its finest; Instagram coaching is a prime example of this. We’ve lost the ability to connect on a deeper level—the idea of an individual struggle with engaging the muscle for the sake of individual growth. The best method to defy being a victim is to embrace self.

Start with what you look like in the mirror, then look at the aesthetic that is genetically favorable to you and create ways to enhance it through exercise. Next, choose methods of exercise that create a more functional version of yourself. By doing this your focus becomes less about the body and more about the complete individual who uses the body to achieve its goals.

Positive self-imagery will be your guide. We’ve become soft, tons of snowflakes who follow the in-crowd for the sake of feeling accepted while our mind whithers away and our confidence tanks. Instead, work towards small goals so the bigger goal doesn’t seem so daunting for the sake of being a peace with oneself.

Muscle tissue is unique in that it’s super plastic (Frontera, 2014), generates force through movement, and depends on every system of the body to be efficient. However, we take for granted what it means to have felt a workout.

Most would agree that feeling “sore” equates to a thorough routine, however, this is largely a misunderstanding of how to continue progress. In previous articles, I express that ideas, such as linear progression being a direct cause for hypertrophy, strength, and overall muscle, is a convention we no longer associate with.

Hybridized periodization, corrective exercise, and performance are the ways for building a better body. Periodization is best considered (in convention) to occur by segregating phases by which one lifts heavy for low reps for a few microcycles, then lifts with slightly higher reps until a peak is reached.

At this peak, the person typically reaches their 1RM. I know what you’re thinking, this cannot make sense, as the body is a perfect adaptive machine—and you would be correct. Hybridized periodization allows for a better focal point of training and is what the new paradigm is shifting toward.

Hybridized Periodization

1. Strength/“Power” – Maintaining/increasing strength while the focal point is reaching a new 1RM. This focus is witnessed in powerlifters, CrossFit athletes, and Olympic weightlifters.
2. Strength/Endurance – Maintaining/increasing strength while simultaneously increasing cardiovascular conditioning. This is not limited to cardiovascular weighted exercise, rather it is creating a more efficient and versatile training program such that your cardiorespiratory system and neuromuscular system focus on achieving a near maximal condition; i.e. bodybuilding.
3. Strength/“Plyometric” – Incorporating a myriad of exercises which focus on executing reps in short periods of time and exciting the nervous system.
4. Strength/Corrective – This allows one to continue lifting without sacrificing range of motion and working on deficits.

These should be done concurrently, however, the stress will differ from individual to individual dependent on need. Note that the hybridization does not eliminate strength and does not focus on particular rep ranges to elicit a particular response.

However, this is not to say that your standard 5 x 5 or Wendler’s 5/3/1 hold no weight, rather it’s being flexible with what your body needs and then fine-tuning during training. Imagine an average 90-minute session which begins with power-based training and eventually becomes a bodybuilding session, such as below:

• Pull-ups, followed by rack pulls, followed by one arm rows, then sumo deadlifts -1 hour passes

The body always requires greater stress, therefore we are interested in attacking the lat pull-down machine, landmine for t-bar rows, Kroc rows, low cable rows, etc for 30 minutes. Those who sing in the powerlifting or starting strength camp may say this might not be effective for strength gains as we are working strength power while floating into strength endurance.

However, it can be argued that some individuals do better cross-training rather than focusing on a particular avenue of training. I can attest to this being true for myself during competition season. I’ve had multiple episodes where I’ve needed to spend time doing pre-hab work while increasing my conditioning via endurance and end with power.

This typically occurs after I’ve sufficiently warmed up and elicited the correct response from my muscles. I can feel the difference between lifting heavy for reps and lifting heavy with correct form and maximal contraction and full range of motion or even truncated range of motion to target certain muscles.

From a performance standpoint, exercise should ideally be for function first then for aesthetic. Needless to say, the more you put in the more get out and muscle definition is by no means the only outcome. Activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental activities of daily living (iADLs) are of utmost importance.

These range from tying your shoe (without hunching or getting a knee replacement ) to picking up children and pushing boxes overhead into a shelf or cupboard. Strength training thusly should largely have carried over to your intended life goals and or competitive goals. How do we get there?

To integrate the aforementioned ideally seek out the gym three to 5 days a week. Incorporate one or two power movements such as a squat or overhead press, then three bodybuilding exercises, a corrective exercise that typically bothers you (after an assessment), and lastly two plyometric exercises such as a box jump, muscle-up, or plyo push-up.

The general kickback is being a jack of all trades, however for the average individual training for specificity isn’t the intended goal; rather, health is the focus and obtaining some aesthetic that provides comfort along the way is more than sufficient.

Instinctually we as humans, provide ample excuses for our shortcomings. We tend to seek self-preservation via whichever avenue it presents itself and the same is true in lifting. Today I’d like to discuss the notion of how second-guessing and psyching oneself up plays a role in our training.

Second Guessing in Training

Roush presents a study regarding the idea of second-guessing from the epistemological notion of how substantive information is needed in order to disprove our original intent or claim. In short, this relays that capability to cease second-guessing and creates a more unified thought process while refraining from participating in second order information.

As a trained person, it’s quite easy to express what works for me and what does not, however, to the untrained or inexperienced second order, misguidance typically arises from ignorance, fear, assumptions, or grossly incorrect information from non-credible sources. Information overload desensitizes us to our ability to reason logically in the gym, hence the uprising of the bro-science camp in fitness.

Physiological implications in lifting may begin from our ability to lift a weight which, mechanically isn’t heavy for an individual, but psychologically seems unreasonable given particular variables at large (exhaustion, hunger, etc).

In a study, it showed that there is an increased likelihood of failing an attempt on a lift if grip wasn’t executed sufficiently. The body tends to relax muscle groups in reaction to perceived threat “shut down” it is a survival mechanism by which impedes our ability to lift weight that would otherwise be an accomplice to suicide and encourages second guesses during an attempt.

Another form of second guessing may arise amid the environmental change. Oftentimes I’ve witnessed persons increase weight based on the doings of another or change the order of exercises to suit a training partner. This is foolhardy and often translates to a dampening in neuromuscular efficiency (Simao 2012).

When we are able to understand how much we can handle and go into the session with a game plan however, the attention of another may rattle our brain for the worst. This also comes into play for the form of a particular lift.

Particular movements have what is called “universal biomechanical component” that may include, but are not limited to, the back squat, front squat, barbell bicep curl, deadlift, overhead press, pull-up, and push-up.

What this means is, based on the physics of the human body, lever systems exercises tend to have a similar if not anatomically identical mechanical loading pattern and thus second guessing form shouldn’t be an issue. However, we are made differently and some have sustained injury or disease impeding our ability to perform the way we intend.

For instance, standard pull-ups cannot be executed by everyone, despite knowing or seeing the mechanics in action. The nuances between body types contends with the “form police” phenomena in training facilities which, “you’re doing it wrong” is a greeting rather than (at times) a rude and blasphemous statement.

Variation, is the spice of life to a fault because previous injuries may decrease range of motion and thus modifications to the original exercise, instead of making a new exercise, may be a better choice.

Be Prepared

The fitness industry often spews tales of motivation. Motivation is the driving force behind human behavior and quite frankly it doesn’t translate to a sufficient response in trainees. The reasoning for this often lies in epiphany, revelation, and gratification.

Epiphany is the spiritual manifestation of the imbedded ideas behind our goals—a sudden recognition of something important to the self. The revelation usually is provoked by a trigger or occurrence within the training session or leads up to the training session. The gratification can be delayed or short term.

However, the caveat lies in the type of of gratification. Often we are granted the ability to stress the human body but we don’t emphasize how and why? What your reasoning is for training will ascertain your how. It’s just as simple as calorie shifting and having a weight goal in mind.

Getting prepared requires much more than a motivational speech or two. It requires a proper “kamae”—the Japanese word for posture. During training, mental posture as well as physical posture effects the ability to perform a given exercise.

As stated in the previous article The Flow State Of Strength Training, kamae requires practice in order to be efficient. Often utilized in martial art, kamae can be used in attacking a new PR or fighting through difficult repetitions.

However, I drill into each of my clients the importance of spinal, wrist, elbow, and hip integrity during any movement. This is what posture most often times is considered (form). Set your mind right and the body will follow.

The post Muscle Meditation appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Functional overreaching is essentially short-term overtraining where you have a goal of digging yourself into a recovery ditch. You intentionally push your training past your body’s ability to recover before backing off, super-compensating, and jumping out of that recovery hole to new levels of strength and muscle. Doing so allows you to benefit from the harder training as your body gets a chance to recover.

Functional overreaching is a result of planned, short-term overtraining, not under-recovery. To maximize the benefits, your recovery must be optimized. To quote The Scientific Principles of Training by Chad Wesley-Smith, Dr. James Hoffman, and Dr. Mike Israetel, “The better your recovery, the more work you can do and the higher the magnitude of response.”

The more training you can do without exceeding your ability to recover, the better your results. Functional overreaching takes this concept to another level. It works because when you train more, you gain more, and fatigue if limited to the short-term, is not harmful. If your recovery is on point the temporary hardship will be followed by gains of a level not seen with traditional training.

To do this you just push slightly into overtraining mode so that your body will rebound and create a hormonal environment that will promote lean muscle gains and an increased metabolic rate over the next 5-7 days. As such, your body will partition more nutrients toward your muscles to deal with the heightened recovery needs you have created from the intense two-week training blitz you have just endured.

Essentially, you’re gonna train until you can’t, then rest until you can.

Doing so will allow you to build the most muscle and strength possible over the short-term and lay the groundwork for a series of successful blocks of training to follow.

There is a method to the madness.

To recover from such demanding training, you will need to take in more calories. You should also allow for plenty of recovery. Following this protocol when you have little stress and plenty of free-time is essential. When working with clients I often program it pre-holiday or when they have time off between jobs.

Now that you have read the science behind functional overreaching and know what to expect, it’s time to get in the gym and grind it out.

Introducing the Plan

Beware you will be tired. Don’t let your ego get in the way of your afternoon workouts, or the second week in general. It’s completely normal to feel a bit fatigued or see some drop off in performance. In fact, if you don’t then you aren’t training hard enough. Functional overreaching isn’t fun, but the rapid gains you experience afterward are!

The premise of this plan is basically that you follow a progressive, hypertrophy specific training approach which pushes you to overtrain for two weeks. Then you rest and you grow—like a weed!

I first encountered this concept when I read the article by Charles Poliquin on the concept in 2007. The theories outlined have stood the test of time and a decade later, still provide the backbone to the plan I take when someone needs to pack on muscle ASAP. The original article works tremendously well to improve strength and can provide some good gains in size. However, through trial and error, and fine-tuning the process to be focused on hypertrophy rather than strength, I have found we can skew those results to be phenomenal for mass gain!

World leading coaches such as Mike Israetel, James Hoffman, Menno Henselmans, Daine McDonald, Sebastian Oreb, Kaseem Hanson, Wolfgang Unsold, Borge Fagerli, and Jason Maxwell are all on record discussing the benefits of functional overreaching. Each has its own spin on how best to apply this to training for strength and size. A key element they seem to agree on is that a short-term increase in training frequency is very effective and that overreaching sucks—but it is worth it!

This plan manipulates volume, frequency, and intensity to create a training schedule designed to functionally overreach you. Other training variables such as exercise selection, sequence, rep speed, rest periods, and proximity to failure are all factored in to make this the most powerful short-term hypertrophy plan around.

I will explain my take on how you play with those variables below, if you follow them I can guarantee you that you will be able to see positive body composition changes in the range of 2-4kg (4-9lbs). That’s right, 4-9lbs from just two weeks of training. This isn’t any old training though. This is a two-week, ball busting blitz of functional overreaching!

The Plan

The fastest way to build muscle is to train twice a day (in the short-term at least). It isn’t sustainable in the long run unless you’re a pro athlete).

When training twice per day, the gap between sessions on the same day is important. You must leave long enough between sessions to give a good performance in the second session. Enough time to have had at least two meals and regained your training focus and drive for the second session. Training at 9 am and then again at 11 am isn’t going to cut it.

The minimum is 4 hours between your sessions. In my opinion, the ideal range is 4-6 hours between sessions. If you can schedule the training in this time zone then you are in the sweet spot. Your morning session will potentiate the afternoon. Fatigue will have dissipated enough to give a good performance in the second session and you will have provided two excellent growth signals to the body.

So, no prizes for guessing that the program has you utilizing twice a day training. The full schedule for both weeks looks like this:

• Monday: AM and PM
• Tuesday: AM and PM
• Wednesday: Only 1 session today
• Thursday: AM and PM
• Friday: AM and PM
• Saturday: Just 1 session today
• Sunday: Rest at last!

That’s 10 sessions per week, 20 sessions in total. I told you it was going to be tough!

Yes, you will be overreached. This is exactly the purpose of the plan.

Remember, after these two hell weeks you get to do absolutely nothing the following week. Just, rest, recover, eat, and grow. This week-long rest period is absolutely critical to your success. During this week, your body will rebound and you’ll build bigger and stronger muscles.

Don’t be tempted to sneak a workout in during your week off. Do the hard work up front, rest, relax and enjoy the results. Training in your rest week will interfere with the recovery processes and render the previous two weeks futile. Nothing more than an exercise in generating fatigue. I repeat, DO NOT TRAIN DURING THE RECOVERY WEEK!

Turn Up the Volume

Overall training volume for these two weeks is off the charts!

Training volume has a dose-response relationship with hypertrophy. This means more is better until you exceed your ability to recover, that is. Now, with this plan our goal is to exceed this point, then drastically cut back on training and ramp up recovery to slingshot you to never before seen gains.

Long story short–you’ll be doing a shit-ton of training for two weeks.

The amount of work you can do when training for hypertrophy can be enormously high. You can recover from massive workloads, far higher than you could if strength was your primary goal/training approach.

The plan is largely built around you performing big, multi-joint movements relatively heavy in the AM and doing slightly higher rep sets in the PM.

The higher percent of 1RM used in the AM sessions will generate myofibrillar hypertrophy. This is one of the limiting factors in most guys physiques. As an example, do you, or someone you know, blow up like a balloon when they get a pump, but then quickly deflate down to a relatively unimpressive physique? Perhaps you experience this in just one muscle group?

I used to find this with my arms. When I trained them, they got a great pump and looked massive. The rest of the time…meh, not so much. This was because the muscle just wasn’t that big. The contractile elements weren’t that big. I had little myofibrillar hypertrophy.

However, with a pump, they swelled up to an impressive size. That’s sarcoplasmic hypertrophy (a transient version anyway). When I stopped pumping my arms up once per week and switched to training them more frequently around the 8-rep range I finally saw some genuine progress. This program will do that for your whole body.

Training Frequency

Training frequency is a powerful variable when it comes to training for size. It is one of the most often overlooked ways to grow. By increasing your training frequency, you increase the total growth signals to that body part per week. Put it this way, if you train a muscle once per week you give it 52 growth signals per year. Train it twice per week and it gets 104 of these signals. Which do you think will give the best results?

Research indicates that training a muscle anywhere between two and four times a week is good for hypertrophy. However, training frequency shouldn’t be set in stone. Like other training variables, you will see the best results by manipulating it over time to optimize your training.

For example, using moderate frequencies (1-3x per week) as the default setting for your program with periods of more frequent training (i.e. 3-6x) used sparingly to achieve functional overreaching, and to target a lagging body part or to bust through plateaus is a very effective training strategy.

During the plan, you will push frequency hard! The magnitude of the response to this short-term strategy is huge!

We know that protein synthesis (aka-the anabolic window post-workout), lasts about 1-2 days, with an even shorter duration as you become more advanced (12-16 hours in some studies). To take advantage of this almost every muscle is hit every 24 hours. Some more often.

“Squeeze the Weights Like They Owe You Money”

Creating tension in the muscle and initiating the lift with the target muscle is a primary skill to develop if you want to build muscle. Use the quote above I took from Ben Pakulski as a reminder: If you can’t feel the muscle working, then you’re not squeezing hard enough. Squeeze it like it owes you money!

You should be able to feel a muscle working through the entire range of an exercise. From one extreme to another. Think extremity and execution on every set and rep. Control the full range of motion (ROM). Execute the lift by placing as much tension as possible on the working muscle and never let up. Momentum doesn’t build muscle. Placing an overloading and progressive tension on a muscle does. This takes practice. Don’t get caught up throwing weight from A to B, cheating reps, or letting other muscles take over.

Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE)

Daine McDonald has talked about how he has manipulated the original Poliquin program. One tweak he made is in the proximity to failure. Where the original calls for all sets to failure, Daine now prefers the following approach:

• Week 1: Mon-Wed is RPE 7/10
• Week 1: Thu-Sat is RPE 8/10
• Week 2: Mon-Wed is RPE 9-10
• Week 2: Thu-Sat is RPE 10/10

I have to admit I think this is smart and came to a similar conclusion a few years ago when doing the program myself. My approach is a variation of the above. I follow the same RPE prescription as outlined above on set 1 of each exercise.

Then from there the RPE on subsequent sets of that exercise will climb and might reach a 10. For example, during the Mon-Wed of week 1, I have clients use a weight that means they can complete the desired reps at a 7/10 (3 reps in reserve). We then stick with that weight for the remainder of the sets. So, it might look like this:

• Set 1 – 7/10
• Set 2 – 7.5/10
• Set 3 – 8/10
• Set 4 – 9/10

By the end of the two weeks every set is a 10/10. This means that weight might need to drop on some exercises from set to set to stay within the assigned rep bracket. That’s fine. For example, it might look like this on the final day:

• Set 1 – 100kg x 12 @10 RPE
• Set 2 – 100kg x 10 @10 RPE
• Set 3 – 95kg x 11 @10 RPE
• Set 4 – 92.5kg x 10 @10 RPE

Nutrition Is Crucial

Nutrition is crucial to gaining mass. With the volume of work, I’m asking you to do over these two weeks, you’re going to need to eat a LOT of food. Once you’ve done that you’ll probably need to eat more.

Here is how to calculate your calorie and macronutrient targets. Don’t freak out! It’s just for two weeks.

1. Total Calories – I suggest you take your body weight in pounds and multiply it by 20 and consume that number of calories per day. So, if you weigh 180lbs then you would eat 3,600kcals per day.
2. Protein – Given the fact you are training so frequently, your protein intake is going to be set higher than the traditional 1g per pound of body weight which is established in bodybuilding folklore. For these two weeks, I suggest having 1.5g of protein per pound of body weight. That is 270g for our 180lb example.
3. Fats – Set fats at 0.45g per pound of body weight. So, that is 81g for our 180lb friend.
4. Carbs – To calculate this, you need to know that both protein and carbs are 4kcal per gram. Fats, meanwhile are 9kcal per gram. So, our 180lb guy is having 3,600kcals per day. Of which 1,080kcals come from protein (270 x 4 = 1,080). With fat consumption being 729kcals a day (81 x 9 = 729).

If you add the protein and fat totals together you get 1,809 (1080 + 729 = 1,809). Now, to calculate his carbohydrate consumption simply subtract this number from total calories.

3,600 – 1,809 = 1,791

Then divide this by 4 (remember there are 4 calories per gram of carbohydrate).

1,791/4 = 448g of carbs per day

To fine tune the above here are a few other nutrition guidelines:

• Eat 5-6 meals per day.
• Eat protein at every meal.
• Get at least 30g protein per meal—40g per serving is better.
• Eat vegetables with at least three meals.
• Have two meals between AM and PM workouts
• Have carbs at every meal. (Except breakfast – you can just have protein and fats if you prefer.)

Peri-Workout Nutrition

When training twice per day nutrient timing becomes more important. You need to rapidly recover from the AM session to be able to benefit from the PM. As such, I recommend either having an intra-workout shake or a post-workout shake.

If you prefer a low-carb breakfast then I’d suggest using an intra-workout shake for the AM session. If using this option, I’d suggest 40g of whey isolate and 50g of maltodextrin or highly branched cyclic dextrin. Then eat a solid meal ASAP after finishing your workout.

If you have had a carbohydrate containing breakfast then going with the post-workout shake is fine. Have the shake straight after you finish the session. In this instance, I’d suggest 40g whey isolate and 0.5g per pound of body weight of maltodextrin. So, our 180lb example would have 90g of maltodextrin mixed in with his whey isolate. Then, eat a solid meal around 60-90 minutes later.

The Training Program: Monday – AM

The Training Program: Monday – PM

The Training Program: Tuesday – AM

The Training Program: Tuesday – PM

The Training Program: Wednesday

The Training Program: Thursday – AM

The Training Program: Thursday – PM

The Training Program: Friday – AM

The Training Program: Friday – PM

The Training Program: Saturday – AM

Put It to Practice

In The Scientific Principles of Training, the authors state that you’ve probably surpassed your hypertrophy maximal recoverable volume when you:

• Can’t maintain your usual reps with 60-75% 1RM weights.
• No longer get very good pumps from training.
• Get dull, achy, and tired the next day after training instead of sore.
• Feel depleted and unenergetic during workouts, struggling to meet minimum work efforts.

So, in short, the goal of the two weeks is to achieve the above. As counterintuitive as it seems, these short-term negatives are essential to the massive positive outcomes you’ll get from your super compensation rest week. It is a case of having to dig a deep ditch to lay the foundations for your skyscraper of rapid muscle building.

Two weeks—two ball busting weeks. Get to work and reap the benefits. If you’re a hard gainer or just need more instruction, follow me on my Instagram account, @tommaccormick, and reach me directly.

Hey, I hope you are enjoying this article and find value in utilizing these concepts to build lean muscle. Writing about this stuff is a hobby for me. What I do all day, every day is coaching people. Both in-person and online. Evaluating, researching, and refining my craft to provide more value to my clients. If you’d like to work with me then, please get in touch here to find out about my coaching services.

The post Exceed Your Limits with Functional Overreaching appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

“Enlightenment, for a wave in the ocean, is the moment the wave realizes it is water.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

A wave is not separate from the ocean. It’s just water moving in different ways. If un-enlightenment is seeing “a wave,” enlightenment is seeing “the ocean waving.” In the same way that a wave is just the ocean taking on different forms the “branches” of science are simply artificial boundaries placed on an open system.

“Enlightenment, for a wave in the ocean, is the moment the wave realizes it is water.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

A wave is not separate from the ocean. It’s just water moving in different ways. If un-enlightenment is seeing “a wave,” enlightenment is seeing “the ocean waving.” In the same way that a wave is just the ocean taking on different forms the “branches” of science are simply artificial boundaries placed on an open system.

Physics, chemistry, biology, and psychology are all different lenses you can use to explore nature. The first scientific revolution was about breaking things down into their constituent parts in order to understand them, but the second revolution is about holism and dissolving the necessary and artificial boundaries created in the past.

In my eyes, there are no boundaries between the hard sciences, philosophy, and so forth. It’s all just semantics, and by applying the principles from one field to another we can get a truly unique perspective. Over the past few years, I’ve spent less and less time reading “training literature” and more time delving into other seemingly unrelated topics.

The ideas I’m about to present here came from a seminal book in ecology and environmental biology, titled The Closing Circle by Barry Commoner, the founder of the modern environmental movement, where he lays out his four laws of ecology.

1. Everything is connected to everything else.
2. Everything must go somewhere.
3. Nature knows best.
4. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

At face value these laws, as Commoner intended them, don’t directly apply to training, but when the principles are distilled down they have a profound meaning that can be relayed to many disciplines, including sports performance.

Law #1 – Everything Is Connected to Everything Else

Adaptation is when the body changes, and it’s a process, not the prize. Meaning, adaptation for its own sake isn’t inherently good or bad—it’s simply a process that takes us from point A to point B. Too much of any stimulus and we can elicit an adaptation in the body. This isn’t always favorable and the end result may be less than ideal.

Within secondary education curriculums (think middle to high school biology) we learn about the body and all the various systems within it. It’s a reductionist way of looking at a complex topic, but it’s incredibly useful for conveying the ideas to students. However, it’s also fundamentally wrong, and instead of upgrading these ideas later in life we carry them with us.

After all, our minds crave certainty, and it’s easier to reach closure on a topic than it is to challenge your own beliefs, which is inherently an uncomfortable task. In reality, all systems in our bodies are interrelated and resources are distributed based on the largest demand. This means that in the face of multiple stressors we will adapt in order to overcome that which is greatest.

Because of this, training aimed at developing a given quality or “system” may create a deficit in another. For example, many athletes get sick during the CrossFit Open each year because of immune system suppression, which results from endocrine gland exhaustion. This is in no way a knock on the sport of fitness, but it is a testament to the fact that stress is stress, and the constant worrying about scores mixed with hard workouts all pulling from the same finite energy reserve takes a toll.

Additionally, this concept highlights the fact that performance does not equal health. We can improve sports performance by dismantling biological rhythms and by “stealing adaptation currency” from other systems which then are forced to compensate in order to create or support an adaptation elsewhere.

Law #2 – Everything Must Go Somewhere

Training doesn’t occur in a vacuum. We cannot isolate training from the rest of our lives. We all have lives, families, friends, and jobs that dictate time be spent elsewhere outside of training and recovering; or in other words, there has to be a balance.

This applies to training because it sheds light on the fact that every input has an output, and even the most seemingly inconsequential actions will impact the way our bodies “self-organize” to exceed despite whatever stressors are imposed on it (self-organization is a process where order arises from interactions between parts of a chaotic system, like our bodies).

We can’t just train, eat “clean,” take the right supplements and then neglect things like tissue quality and assume we’ll continue to excel in training. If we truly want to perform to the best of our ability we need to take a multi-faceted approach and tackle sleep, our perception of stress, food quality/quantity, and training.

Law #3 – Nature Knows Best

It’s speculated that the alternation of stress and recovery is what shaped us as humans. The idea that ancient humans alternated between feast and famine, hunting and resting, and stress and recovery, is relevant to training both from a physiological and psychological perspective. Where we go wrong is when we start ignoring the signs our body sends us that we need to back off—this can be in the form of disrupted sleep, loss of appetite, fatigue, injuries, and so forth.

When we push through these signs for too long we may be doing more harm than good from a long term athletic development standpoint; and if you are a coach, it’s your job to try and read athletes and figure out when they need to be reeled in. This is can be done by looking at a combination of both conscious and unconscious actions.

The conscious actions are fairly straightforward—talk to the athlete, and look at their deliberate behavior. The unconscious actions are a bit more subtle and include things like posture, facial expression, emotional reactions, and how they move relative to their “norm.” Understanding the later, which we refer to as “the human element,” is less of a hard science and more of an art form.

Admittedly, this has been the most difficult thing for me to understand as a coach. There have been points in the past where I’ve gotten so caught up in research and analyzing data that I have failed to see the bigger picture.

We’re not coaching “biological systems” or “adaptive organisms”—we’re coaching people whose perceptions and emotions have a larger impact on training outcomes that any study can account for. Because of this I’ve had to learn to shut my analytical mind off and really empathize with my athletes at times so I can lend another set of ears and listen to what their body is telling them.

Law #4 – There Is No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

Everything has a cost. As coaches and athletes, we only focus on the positive aspects that come with training, but never the negatives. If you’re a strength and conditioning coach, you know you’re a dealer of stress, and with the athlete’s adaptation to that stress comes specificity, which creates compensations in our body elsewhere by default.

Newton’s third law, “every action has an equal and opposite reaction,” can also be applied to training. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does tie back into the first law, which is that everything is connected to everything else. In an optimal scenario, our bodies match its response to stress based on the magnitude of the stressor.

If we’re faced with a large stressor, the response should increase in scale accordingly, and vice versa. This indicates health and a proper adaptive response. Trying to combat a large stressor with a minuscule response means we lack adaptation currency and matching a low demand stressor with a large response contraindicates a chronic stress state. Both of which are indicative of poor health, and consequently an improper adaptive response.

It’s critical that we consolidate stressors, or “balance our budget,” and spend less adaptation currency on things like mitigating the negative effects of inadequate sleep or nutrition. Then we will have more to spend on actually improving performance.

Exercise, in and of itself, is a stressor. If we have a finite ability to recover, why waste it on missed sleep, poor food choices, or junk training volume that doesn’t bring us closer to our goal? Abstract “training theory” is all well and good, but if we can’t actually apply it, some of its inherent value is lost.

Training Guidelines: 1. Respect the Interplay Between Strength and Energy System Training

You can’t just throw a squat cycle together with some Misfit workouts, and a dash of Hinshaw’s running intervals. You may get lucky, but most likely you won’t succeed long-term. Each of these programs was constructed with an optimal balance of stress and recovery in mind.

Strength training, energy system training, and movement training all fundamentally impact the way our brains regulate adaptation, and in order to leverage this process, we need to respond to both how these types of training complement one another, and consider what is the systemic impact they have on our bodies.

Training Guidelines: 2. Don’t Neglect the Fundamentals

I get it, training is fun, but at the end of the day, it’s the least sexy puzzle pieces that ultimately determines an athlete’s long term success. Are sleep, stress, food, and tissue quality in check?

If the answer is yes, then have at it. If not, you need to spend less time at the weight buffet and more time taking care of the basics. Training hard is a privilege, not a right. You need to earn it.

Training Guidelines: 3. Balance Intensity and Recovery

Hard days are hard, and easy days are easy. You should be able to tell the difference. The majority of workouts should be small to moderate stressors which compound and cement adaptations over time—then layer in some “see God” workouts at the top. Too much of the latter, or a steady stream of monotonous volume/intensity work, and we’ll inevitably hit a roadblock.

Training Guidelines: 4. Build and Maintain

Traditional block periodization structures are concerned with building a given training quality (like an aerobic base) for a handful of weeks, then switching the focus to something like speed training in hope that the athletes end up in a better position than where they started.

I believe this is a waste of time, and for Crossfitters specifically, I’m of the opinion that we should never drop one training quality off entirely. Instead, I like to keep touching on everything at all times, but the relative contribution of each training quality (in terms of volume/time spent on it) will be dictated by an athlete’s training priority at that moment.

Training Guidelines: 5. Take the Next Logical Step

Let’s say we have a CrossFit athlete and this week I have him do 6 sets of 10 power snatch, 10 bar facing burpees, and a 200m run; resting 1 minute between sets. I know he can handle 10 sets of that the following week, but will the magnitude of adaptation from that be greater than, say, 8?

Maybe, but not by a huge margin. What matters is that the magnitude of stress increases from week to week—whether or not we push it to the physical maximum isn’t as important in the vast majority of scenarios, and in most cases, it leaves the athlete less room to grow. Instead of going for broke each and every week, it’s better to take the next logical step, collect all the low hanging fruit, and then ramp things up when the need arises. In other words, don’t “go there” before you need to.

Training Guidelines: 6. Have Self-Compassion

You don’t need to look far to find fitness quotes about hardening the f*ck up and the like. It’s pervasive throughout the entire industry. This leads to a culture that encourages pushing through mechanical pain, ignoring our bodies signs of fatigue, and dysfunction in our biological rhythms (wired at night, tired in the morning).

Sure, you’ll look like a badass to your buddies at the gym, but is that worth the cost of your health and performance in the long run? Equally as misguided is the idea for “punishing yourself” because you failed to PR, or ate something off your diet plan. Adding more stress to a stressed system doesn’t pan out well.

Instead, you should try and show compassion for your body and learn to listen to its signals—ignoring hunger, having a lack of motivation, experiencing fatigue, pain, and so forth doesn’t make you tough, only misguided.

The post Everything Is Connected appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

In the fitness community there are always things that come and go. The key to success is learning the difference between those things that are trends or fads. Trends are usually longer lasting and usually have some validity within the research community.

Fads are those things that lose popularity just as fast as they gain popularity. One of the things that I believe is here to stay is high-intensity interval training (HIIT). I want to propose a few reasons why this is such a hot topic item and why it has made it on the top five fitness trend list for the last 10 years.

Say Hi to HIIT

The play on words in the heading is a suggestion that the “HI” in HIIT training is exactly that. This type of training modality uses a very high-intensity training regimen, which is what the acronym actually means.This can also mean that many of the processes that are involved in this type of cardio regimen are all increased, and moving at a higher expression of their purposes.

The body is always trying to reach a point of homeostasis and many hormones and metabolic processes are trying to return to their normal baseline levels. This causes an inefficiency for the body to use fuel for energy, therefore, causing an increase in metabolic functions.

Photography by Jeffrey Perez of Oahu, Hawaii

One study that was conducted using the Wingate protocol saw a rise in cortisol, growth hormone, and catecholamine. Many of these hormones by definition are catabolic or breakdown hormones, but in these instances, they are used to break down substrates for the body to use for energy.

Since the pure nature of high-intensity exercise uses the immediate and intermediate energy sources fairly quickly, the rise in these hormones increases in order to supply the body with energy it needs to fuel the grueling exercise intensity. Growth hormone increases as lactate levels go up.

These increases in growth hormone levels have been shown to increase fatty acid transport. Fatty acids can be used for energy by a process more in-depth than this article, but the take home is this is another way the body uses substrates the body breaks down to convert into energy for a high-intensity workout.

Catecholamines are hormones the body increases to increase metabolic processes to produce energy, drive lipolysis, and release fat from subcutaneous and intramuscular stores. These are made up of norepinephrine and epinephrine, released in response to “flight or fight,” which increases in both trained and untrained individuals up to 20 minutes after training has been concluded.

This isn’t to say the body has fully recovered because the research suggests that the carryover for the benefits of HIIT is up to 39 hours after one session of training. A few benefits of HIIT can include decreases in abdominal subcutaneous fat, increases insulin sensitivity, and increases in VO2 max or cardiorespiratory benefits.

This is not an exhaustive list as there can be some increases in lean body mass leading to better muscle retention and body composition.

HIIT Will Be Around for Awhile

High-intensity interval training is here to stay. There is a reason why it has gained so much popularity. Although all the mechanisms of how HIIT works so tremendously well isn’t fully understood on every level of biochemistry, what we do understand of basic physiology leads us to believe that HIIT will be around on the fitness trend list for many more years to come.

You might also like:

• HIIT Versus HIRT
• HIIT Reductio Is Better Than Nothing, Much Better
• A Simple Anywhere Anytime HIIT Workout
• HIT: Stop The Trashing And Begin The Thrashing

References:

1. Macdougall, J. D., A. L. Hicks, J. R. Macdonald, R. S. Mckelvie, H. J. Green, and K. M. Smith. “Muscle Enzymatic Adaptations To Sprint Interval Training“. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise 28.Supplement (1996): 21. Web.

2. Boutcher, Stephen H. “High-Intensity Intermittent Exercise and Fat Loss“. Journal of Obesity 2011 (2011): 1-10. Web.

The post HIIT: What’s the HI in IT? appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

“Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.”

Barry Switzer

“Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.”

Barry Switzer

Strength and conditioning coaches and fitness trainers get into the business because we love training. We love seeing progress, competing with friends, watching our body transform, and feeling that deep sense of accomplishment that comes from a crisp workout. It seems incomprehensible that we often find athletes who don’t understand the essentiality of training.

Working with high-school athletes, I’ve grown well versed in the many personality archetypes. There is a chunk who’d rather just “ball.” They want to play their sport and nothing else. The weight room, sleds, plyometrics, battle ropes, and even the warm-up are conceived only as drudgery to get through so they can play the sport.

Strength Training and Sports Performance

Driven by a staggering capacity for rationalization and false equivalency, many genuinely do not understand the value of training. Training is a long game and the lack of immediate transfer to their sport is misconstrued by the shortsighted as evidence to its ineffectiveness.

While the steadfast training commitment of Tom Brady and Lebron James has helped shift this mindset, I still often have to work to create understanding in young athletes as to why our training is essential.

There is what Dan John has called a “fuzzy translation” between strength training and sports performance. On any play, we don’t know what gave an athlete the ability to do what they did.

Maybe it was the extra practice that honed their instincts, maybe it was the film study that revealed a tendency they could exploit, maybe it was the meditation they adopted that helped them tap into a greater sense of focus and flow, or maybe it was the hours spent with their strength and conditioning coach that gave them a little faster break and little more pop.

The reality is, it is everything. As Dr. Fergus Connelly argues in his book, Game Changer, we can’t approach sport in this reductionist manner. Sport inherently blurs the lines between the psychophysical and the techno-tactical. By subtracting an element of training, you become a less capable version.

Train the Variables

We train many variables and no combination guarantees success. The greatest training program guarantees nothing but an opportunity to contend. Neglecting to train (and train correctly) only guarantees that you will not be as athletic and resilient to injury as you could be.

The point of training is to raise your ceiling. Think of it as a 1-10 scale with 1 representing a high-school back-up and 10 representing an All-American. A good ball-player that desperately needs the weight room to round out their skills will typically ring in around a 5.

They are stuck there. All they do is “ball” and, thus, they’ve squeezed every ounce out of their ball skill capacity. However, all that changes when they begin to train their body.

Mobility allows them to comfortably get in positions of greater leverage. Their hips and ankles flow better allowing far greater capacity to decelerate, reaccelerate, and move across 360 degrees. Strength gains allow them to put more force into the ground with every stride and jump. They recover quicker from collisions and gain the capacity to drive at an opponent.

All of this is meaningless without sports skill, of course. The two are complementary pieces. With techno-tactical mastery, greater physical development gives you more options to accomplish each objective. You are a more adaptable beast and have better tools to do the job. A sharper, broader shovel simply moves more dirt with each drive.

Whether athlete or layman, this is why we all train—to raise our ceiling. To have more move options in your life. Fitness enhances the number of ways you can move, contribute, and play along with an increased amount of time you can do the activities vital to your quality of life.

Training makes you capable of more—a greater version. Neglecting to train invites decay—you become a lesser version.

The post Raise Your Ceiling appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

There are lots of things that scare me. My close friends would recognize this and probably have a good laugh at my expense. I’m scared of heights, I’m scared of the ocean, and I’m scared to feel out of control. But regret scares me a lot more than all of those things. So, while these things do scare me, I try not to let them lead me away from experiences that I know I’d regret not having.

I experience fear in the gym all the time. Fear can be healthy. Fear lets you know that you’re doing it right. Growth occurs through adaptation to stress. Without fear or at least a little anxiety, you feel safe. Safety in the gym, unfortunately, leads to homeostasis—something at which the body excels. But not all fear is equal.

Not All Fear Is Equal

I got roped into a powerlifting meet a week or so ago. One of the women who started training at my gym about six months ago has a combined Olympic weightlifting and powerlifting meet in February that I’m training her for—she very graciously asked if I’d coach her at the meet. Of course, I said yes, and then somehow that turned into her inviting me to join her as a competitor.

My gut reaction was to say absolutely not, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had to do it. I ask people here all the time to go to those places that scare them. In some cases, terrify them. I ask people to do all kinds of things they’ve never thought of doing. They trust me because they know I’ve been there before, that I’ll lead the way, and that they’ll have my support through success and through failure.

Nothing scares me more than feeling like a fraud. Not heights. Not water. Not even failure. So, I said yes. Now that my training is ramping up beyond 80% of my 1RM, I’m encountering some very healthy fear. It’s the same kind of dread that I feel all the time right before workouts like “Jonescrawl” or “those burpees suck” or a Triathlon.

It sounds something like this in my head: “This is really going to hurt.” And that’s usually closely followed by this mantra I repeat to myself: “I’m only going to do this once. I never want to do this again because I won’t leave anything out there. I’m emptying the tank. I’m never doing this again because it will be physically impossible for me to go faster. This is everything I have.”

I trust myself completely in power endurance events. I have fear, obviously. But I’ve been to the edge again and again and again and I’ve never failed myself. I’m no great athlete. I’m not competing directly with anyone else. People will always row faster than me. People will ski faster. I’m competing with myself to live up to the best version of me that I can possibly be. It’s only me versus my potential.

The Role of Fear in Training

I’m in the process of learning how to apply that mindset to weightlifting. Much of adopting this mindset comes back to residual self-image and psychology. I might not intrinsically think of myself as an athlete or even “athletic,” but I do know I’m capable of using 100% of my ability to work hard.

And now, for some reason, I have a lot of difficulties applying that label to myself when it comes to weightlifting. This difficulty is probably a product of my teens and twenties when I was really suffering from undiagnosed Crohn’s Disease and I was languishing in the 130s, desperately trying to keep weight on, feeling tired and exhausted all the time.

I’ve never been particularly strong or powerful, and I’ve allowed myself to feed that self-image with negative self-talk. I’ve taken steps this year in addressing that negative self-talk and self-image. It started with getting my nutrition together. I hired a nutrition coach and we’ve worked together to find something that works for my health, my body, and my training.

I took the better part of six months to focus on finally putting muscle on my frame. I’ve never wanted to have that “victim” mentality and I had to face the fact that this myth was one that I’d been telling myself. I’d always felt that it wasn’t in the cards for me to be big and strong and powerful. It was a lie. I’d been acting like I was a victim of circumstance. I was afraid.

Fear Is the Bottom Line

Fear. It all comes back to fear. I’d been afraid of the truth. I was afraid to try and change myself, to really try and become something else—and fail at it. And really, there’s nothing sadder than the kind of deep regret for the things you want in life but never did, all because you were afraid to risk failure. So, I really tried.

On paper, it wasn’t really that hard. It was picking stuff up, putting it down, resting, recovering, picking heavier stuff up a little more, putting it down, eating, and sleeping.

In reality, it was having to not care about my abs. I had to have a coach tell me that yes, I did deserve that food because I was working hard. I had to sell my bike so I wouldn’t be tempted to ride it everywhere and self-sabotage all of the weightlifting and eating I was doing.

I had to talk myself out of nights out with friends to get that extra hour of sleep. It was constant self-esteem battles every time I wanted to take my shirt off on a walk outside or at the pool because I didn’t look or feel as lean as I wanted to. It was taking time off from the things I love in the gym to actually see these things through.

And now I’m having to do the same thing with weightlifting. After a year of doing nothing but things that scare me, maybe you’d think that I’d conquered it by now. Unfortunately, I’m not sure I ever will.

What I’m busy doing is walking up to the barbell and not thinking about the weight, not looking at the bend in the bar, but reminding myself of all the things I’d regret if I don’t take this time I have and wring every ounce of potential from it. Failure is hardly the worst thing that could happen.

The worst that can happen is having fear talk you out of that last rep, or that 5th set of doubles or whatever that thing is that you’re busy telling yourself you want so badly. The worst thing that could happen is for you to always wonder what you could have done.

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