Friday Musings 3/23/12: Hunger Games, Stuffed Peppers, Powerlifting, Introverts

1. I went to go see the the opening night showing of The Hunger Games last night, and,  needless to say, I'm really looking forward to it.

"Wait just a minute there Stevo, didn't you just use both the past and present tense in that sentence of yours?" some of you may be asking.

First of all, don't chastise me in a condescending tone like that. Second, I'm actually writing this post on Thursday, due to the fact that I won't be getting home till past 3AM and certainly won't be up for throwing together a blog post before the Friday morning appointments at SAPT. So I thought the best way to tell you about my little jaunt over to the opening showing of Hunger Games would be to both discuss it in the past AND present tense. Did I just blow your mind?

Anyway (talking from Thursday right now), I'm realllyyyy looking forward to it. It may not hold a candle to Braveheart or Gladiator on a manliness scale, but it's going to be a fun change of pace nonetheless. I haven't gone to an opening night showing of any movie since college, so I thought The Hunger Games would be an appropriate movie to end that streak with, especially given that this was a photo I took last Fall, essentially representative of all of my Saturday mornings in November:

For those of you who haven't read it. I HIGHLY recommend it, if anything for the fact that it's "easy reading" material, and I've found that nearly every age group, and both males and females, tend to enjoy the read.

I'll keep you all posted on the movie!

2. My wife is a really good cook. Not only that, but she continually keeps me guessing with what she prepares for dinner each evening. This past Tuesday's meal was so incredible (and cool) that I wanted to share it with you all.

Enter the Stuffed Peppers:

Don't they look awesome?!? You see the recipe HERE, where Kelsey goes into detail on how to prepare them.

To you ladies and gents the crowd: You're guaranteed to woo the man or woman of your dreams by inviting them over to your place and preparing these babies. They'll be impressed by your culinary skills, I promise. AND, I'll even give you permission to take credit for the dish.

3. Jeremy Frey is one of my new favorite powerlifters. I just love how deliberate he is with everything from start to finish with his lifts. And, if there was a such thing as perfect form in powerlifting, I think Jeremy is pretty darn close.

**Check out the video for some pre-lifting inspiration (I apologize for the language in the song....I'd turn the volume down if you're at work or don't like to listen to such things)

4. At heart, I'm as introverted as they come. My wife can attest to this, as the first thing I want to do on a Friday evening - after spending the entire week surrounded by blaring music, weights crashing, and remaining the target of the myriad questions of the SAPT athletes+clients - is head to the local coffee shop (alone) and spend some time with me, myself, and Stevo, and a good book.

In fact, when I first hopped on board the "SAPT ship," Sarah and Chris (the only SAPT staff at the time) chuckled when it came up in conversation that I'm an introvert. They laughed because they, too, are introverted, and they responded with: "Wow, just what we need.....3 out of 3 staff members with introverted personalities in a business that requires 8+ hours a day with constant human interaction!"

Not to long ago, I was discussing the concept of introversion vs. extroversion with Jason, a good friend of mine,  and we were musing how, contrary to popular belief, being "good with people skills" doesn't equate to extroversion and introversion. While there are many definitions of the two personality types Jason (who is an extrovert) came up with one that I thought was pretty good:

"When you have a choice to either:

A) Be around people B) Be alone

and, more often than not, you would choose to spend time alone, you're probably introverted."

Other people have said "Depending on whether you recharge by spending time with people or spending time alone determines your personality type." I think this works in most cases, too.

Anyway, my friend (and fellow introvert), Tony Gentilcore, recently shared an awesome video on his blog by Susan Cain titled The Power of Introverts, and I thought I'd share it here for those who haven't seen it yet.

Whether you're introverted or extroverted, it will be twenty minutes well spent:

Susan is the author of a book out titled Quiet: The Power of Introverts, that I'm heavily considering picking up.

That's all, hope you all have a great weekend.

**Note: Just saw that Ryan posted a video of Jeremy Frey in his post yesterday on deadlifting. Jerk! Ah well, I guess great minds think.

Friday Musings 3/16/12: Training Athletes, Females Fear of Bulking Up, and Do Something Important Every day

A couple things floating around my head....

1. Perhaps the easiest way to improve performance in any sport (outside of of sport-specific practice, of course), is to get stronger.

However, throughout the cycle of get stronger --> practice sport --> improve in sport --> get stronger --> practice sport --> improve even more at sport --> get stronger --> etc. etc. etc., you reach a point where diminishing returns begin to take place. It is at this pinnacle where it can be a waste of time, and even unsafe to continue adding weight to the bar. It is at this same moment where the athlete must begin to develop/work on other qualities to get where (s)he wants to be.

The key is to know when to make this shift.

2. Somewhat dovetailing off point #1....There is a difference between adding weight to the bar and actually getting stronger.

3. Everything in the strength & conditioning industry isn"t always black and white. Do you need to deadlift to improve in sport? Yes. Conversely, do you need to deadlift to improve in sport? No.

4. If you use a powerlifting-centric style of training athletes, careful of falling into the trap of treating the athletes like actual powerlifters. This can be tricky because, well, after all, the primary role of the strength coach is to get the athlete stronger, right? And the powerlifts (squat, bench, deadlift) are arguably the three best lifts from an efficiency standpoint: You can pack on large amounts of muscle and strength while keeping your quiver of exercises relatively small.

Nevertheless (and I may get hate mail for this), not all athletes necessarily need to do the powerlifts to get stronger. Guess what, they also are not powerlifters! So while certain techniques and methodologies can certainly be derived and extrapolated from one sport to another (ex. powerlifting --> baseball), remember that the athlete"s primary sport is not weight lifting.

In the baseball example, both the player and the strength coach must continue to draw the line between a baseball player that lifts and a lifter that happens to play baseball. This distinction will affect both the mindset and the overall outcome of the player in the weightroom and on the playing field.

Same goes for the O-lifts. Are the O-lifts great for developing power and improving rate of force development? Absolutely. But not all athletes need to olymipic lift to get faster or more explosive.

5. Pounding someone with information doesn"t seem to be the most effective method of inducing a lifestyle change in someone. For example, take a typical female who wants to lose some fat and improve body composition, yet is very concerned with getting "too casino bulky," or getting "huge like a man," should she undergo a weight lifting regimen.

The instinct of many trainers/men is to get frustrated, sigh, and barrage them with information such as "that won"t happen....you don"t understand the human endocrine (hormonal) system....you don"t get how IGF-1 and testosterone work, here are some scientific studies so I can prove my point, etc. etc. etc."

Guess what? That"s not what she is asking. She doesn"t care about studies or the science of training.

A great tip I picked up from Alwyn and Rachel Cosgrove is that the woman asking for advice/expressing concern wants to be heard. She wants to know her concerns were actually listened to and given a fair shot. So, you"re response could go something like this:

Step 1: Shut up and listen. Hear her out. You have two ears, two eyes, and one mouth. Use them in that order.
Step 2: Repeat back what she said (so she knows she was heard).
Step 3: Ask further questions (i.e. "What is too big?" "Define bulky to me. What does that look like?").
Step 4: Tell her you understand her concern and that you"re going to give her some advice/design an individualized plan (assuming you know how to do this) to get the specific results she wants.

The reality is she just wants to be assured you"re doing your best to give her the results she"s seeking after.

6. Here is a really cool broad jump. Perhaps SAPT should set up a similar setting in order to facilitate greater effort put forth by the athletes, no?

7. Over the past few weeks I have been goblet squatting, jumping, stirring-the-pot, and deadlifting every day of the week. As a result, honestly I can"t remember when I"ve felt this good in training. Must be some truth to the ol" adage of "If it"s important, do it every day" huh?

8. Speaking of which, the "if it"s important, do it every day" quote is typically applied to the training sphere. Do your mobility work. Do your stretching. Do your hill sprints. Train the glutes. Do your squatting. Every day.

However, I"ve found that it"s equally - if not more - important to apply it to your life outside the walls of the gym. Here are a few things on my list that, when I do them every day, only result in a more positive outlook and attitude on life:

- Praying
- Reading my Bible
- Telling my wife I love her
- Listing a few things I am thankful for
- Eating breakfast
- Enjoying a fresh cup of coffee
- Encouraging one of my athletes (ok, I guess that"s inside the gym, but you get the point)
- Spending some time in a room devoid of all electronics

When I make these things happen every day, the end result is going to be nothing BUT feeling life to its fullest. Corny maybe, but true.

9. This post was all over the place and I apologize. Just a reflection of my brain at the moment......

Have a great weekend everyone.

The bug and the Windshield

There are two important lessons that one needs to know when training…

• You are going to have bad days in the gym, accept it.  Or as Kelsey would say, “Some days you’re the windshield and some days your bug… Today you were the bug.”

• If your bad days keep on occurring you need to fix your program.

Allow me to expand a little on these two points as I have recently come into contact with both during my training.  It’s vital that you listen to your body during your training in order to make the best gains you can.  To do this pay careful attention to how you feel during your main movements because this is going to be the marker for the rest of your workout.  Undoubtedly you will have a day where you feel like absolute crap which is perfectly FINE but you have to make the proper adjustments thereafter.

With me the times that I usually feel like this are during my deadlifts.  If you know me then you know that I absolutely HATE deadlifting, it’s the worst thing ever (I probably feel this way because I’m terrible at it, who knows).

Pulling had been going well though up until last Monday when I realized I had become the bug.  On that day everything felt heavy, I also felt out of my groove on every pull.  I worked up to 90% of my 1RM for a single and it was a griiiiiiind.  I tried to go down to 80% and get some quality work in but I didn’t even pull the weight off the ground, what happened next?  Well after I got my Wolverine rage on I calmed down and just nixed the rest of my pulls, went onto my squat variation got in some good sets and called it a day.  I simply chalked this up to being the bug and chose to just move on and look forward to the next training session.  These days can happen for just about any reason, tired, hungry, unfocused, and maybe even OVER TRAINED.  Don’t try and force it on these days, just get in whatever quality work you can and leave.  If you force it you will most likely make the problem that much worse and get hurt.

On to the second point, if these “bad” days keep occurring they are probably "bad" because you are OVER TRAINED and you need to fix the problem.  As I stated before I had a horrific time last Monday but this past Monday I was ready to go and felt pretty decent.  I worked up to 85% and pulled it for two singles with an alright bar speed.  I decided to put on 90% went to go pull and NOTHIN’!  I couldn’t even get the bar to budge at all.  I knew something was wrong because that shouldn’t have been happening.  Stevo convinced me to drop the weight, significantly, and just go for an easy double.  Well sadly that easy double was not easy at all.  I knew that I was pretty over trained and needed to fix something.  I called up “The Programmer” and told him what was going on, we talked about my training and my technique and came to the conclusion both needed to be fixed.  The answer ended up being that I won’t pull heavy again until my meet and when I do pull (probably once every two weeks now) it will be around 40-50% for singles just working strictly on form.  The take home message is don’t just ignore your body and keep going through a program simply because you feel you need to.  You will only get weaker and probably injure yourself doing that.  Reassess what you’re doing and make the adjustments needed so you can avoid your reps looking like this guy.

[vsw id="1ZVL_uk-U2w" source="youtube" width="425" height="344" autoplay="no"]

Metamucil + Locked Out of Your Apartment = Not Good

Note from Stevo: I must preface this story by warning you that this has nothing to do with training. I apologize for all of you who dialed in to SAPTstrength today to learn more about all things looking, moving, and feeling better, but honestly I was running low on the list of ideas for training-related content and figured you all could use a laugh at my expense today.

This past Wednesday was looking to be a particularly delightful morning for me. I was ahead of schedule with my SAPT-related tasks (something that occurs once in a blue moon), and, also, Wednesday holds my shortest workout of my weekly training schedule. As such, I had a bit of extra time at my disposal.

Given this, I thought it'd be a great opportunity to get a full night's rest, do the laundry (something really vexes me about having to do it during the weekend), write a few programs for the SAPT athletes, answer some emails, then top it off by heading to the local coffee shop to satisfy my palate with a delicious brew while writing my next article for an online publication. I'd then have plenty of time to get in my training session before the athletes showed up to SAPT for the afternoon appointments.

Sweet. It was going to be a solid morning.

I sleep in until 7:30am, and eventually head into the living room at 7:45, laundry basket in hand. However, upon entering the room, I immediately notice three things:

1) Sheik, our (indoor) cat, is nowhere to be seen. 2) The door to our apartment is ajar. 3) There's a faint meowing sound in the distance.

My wife left at 7:30 to handle the morning appointments at SAPT, so it was pretty clear what happened: The door didn't shut all the way, and Sheik, being a cat, wanted to see what lay out in the mysterious void beyond the apartment walls. She clearly became lost, and was now fearful and meowing like crazy.

My superhero instincts kick in.

Without thinking about anything else, I commando roll out of the apartment and dart down the stairwell to find poor Sheik huddled in a ball in the middle of the concrete floor looking around like a....well, like a frightened animal. I pick her up, comfort her and tell her that everything will be O.K., and head back up the stairs, thinking about how much I can't wait to tell my wife of how I saved the day by rescuing our precious little kitty.

That is, until I climb back up to the third story to find that our apartment door is locked.

Now, if the story stopped here, I wouldn't be wasting valuable cyberspace bandwidth to tell this story on the interwebz. After all, practically everyone has locked themselves out of their home at one point or another.

Not THAT big a deal, right?

Well, there are six additional details that make this situation particularly frustrating for me:

1. Remember how I told you that, "without thinking about anything else," I rolled out of our apartment to rescue our cat? Yeah, well, the clothes on my back was one of those things I forgot to consider. Or rather, the LACK of clothing on my back. Yes, I am locked outside my apartment in my little boy shorts that I slept in. 2. It's wintertime. So not only am I nearly naked in a public space, but it is 35degrees outside. 3. Kelsey is gone. So there's no one inside to let me in. 4. My cell phone is inside the apartment. So calling for aid quickly gets crossed off the #1 spot on my list of options for survival. 5. I have an indoor cat stuck with me, outside. 'Nuff said there. 6. My bowels are screaming LIKE CRAZY to use a bathroom. Remember how I mentioned last week that my life has been radically altered for the better because of my recent supplementation with Metamucil? Yeah, well, one of the things about Metamucil is that it works. VERY WELL. Once that puppy kicks in your system, you better hope you have a bathroom nearby.I do not. The nearest restroom is at least a quarter mile away, in the middle of a shopping center.

Best. Morning. Ever.

Next I run through some other possible solutions. One of my neighbors can help me, right? Yes, sure they can. I tell Sheik to stay put by our door, and I begin to knock on neighboring doors to see if someone may have a phone - along with the number for maintenance - to help me out. Yes, I realize it's 7:45 in the morning, so I knock softly. Don't really want to piss anyone off, especially considering that if and when they open their door early in the morning, the first thing they'll find is a nearly naked man on their doorstop.

No one answers, which I'm not particular angry about (after all, how I am I supposed to explain things to them???). No luck there.

The leasing office of my apartment complex doesn't open until 9am, so it looks like I'm going to have to wait it out until I can go get a spare key. I slide down the brick wall, take a seat on the cold tile, and try to get into the most comfortable position one can only do when it's cold out and they don't have any clothes. As Sheik climbs into my lap, I tell her, "Okay, Sheik, here we are." Just seventy minutes to sit here and wait. And hope I don't explode."

Throughout the next seventy minutes I do two things:

1) I try to think of how, once 9:00am arrives, I can walk the quarter mile - shoeless and nearly clothless - over to the leasing office and explain the situation to them, hoping they'll grant me amnesty before a police officer tackles me and drags me off to prison for indecent exposure.

2) I do that weird and awkward wiggle-and-waddle-hunched-over walk people do when they're about to destroy the back of their pants. I wonder how long it's going to take before I run outside and experience, first hand, what the old adage "desperate times call for desperate measures" really means.

Another problem is, I have no watch on me. So I have to guess when it's 8:50am to begin my journey over to the office. I don't want to be out in the open any longer than I have to be.

So I continue to alternate between sitting and standing, replaying the Sliding Filament Theory in my head, doing my best to remember the reaction sequence of Glycolysis, and trying to recite Prilepin's Chart by memory. Or, maybe, I just sit there, attempting to warm the tile beneath me, counting the number of bricks on the walls. I can't remember which.

And don't worry, I'll spare you the details of that whole "Metamucil thing" I alluded to earlier. All I'll say is that it was not pleasant.

Here's where things get even more interesting.

At what I can only guess has been the 1-hour mark, I hear a chain jingle behind the door across from me. I immediately perk up, simultaneously filled with both excitement and anxiety as I don't know who's going to walk out from behind the door.

The door swings open, and out walks a professional-looking woman who must be in her low thirties. Innocently on her way to work of course. Upon seeing me, she quickly gasps, widens here eyes, freezes still, and nearly drops her bags at the site of a strange, practically-naked man sitting in the cold abyss in front of her. Here's how the conversation goes down:

Me: (trying to explain as quickly as possible that I'm not some sort of Dionysian rapist) Hiii, umm, I know this looks really weird, but I locked myself out of my apartment over an hour ago trying to rescue my cat. *fervently pointing to cat*

Lady: ......

Me: I'm sorry, I know this looks really sketchy, and I hate to bug you as you leave for work, but is there ANY way I might be able to borrow a phone? *tries to hide under desk, but there's no desk to hide under*

Lady: Oh, sure....sorry, you startled me, that's all. Yeah, here you go. *sets bags down and stands as far from me as possible as she hands me her phone*

Me: Thank you SO much, I really do appreciate it. You don't happen to have the number for maintenance, do you?

Lady: Yeah, I do actually. They don't open until 9:00 though (it's 8:45 at this point), but you can leave them a message.

Me: *begins dialing*

Lady: Hey, uh, I need to get to work, but can I get you a blanket or anything?

Me: Oh, wow, thanks so much, but I'll be okay I think. I don't really want to bother you any more than I already have.

Lady: No really, it's not a problem, it's pretty cold outside, after all. *Begins rummaging through her purse to get her keys*

Lady:.........

............................

Lady: OMG. My......my keys.......what the.....my keys. *hands move faster and she begins to breathe rapidly*

My keys aren't here. I locked them INSIDE MY APARTMENT!!!!

Yep....talk about the odds.

So now we have a business woman, a man in his boy shorts sitting on the tile against a brick wall, and a cat. All locked outside their apartments during a winter morning.

I wish someone had been there to take a photo.

Anyway, I'll wrap all this up. After a while (and some awkward conversation) she eventually wandered off to the maintenance office alone (I didn't have to convince her that I shouldn't go with her) and we made it back inside our respective homes. The bright side of all this is when I eventually made it to the coffee shop, the barista offered to give me a drink on the house after inquiring as to why I was going outside my usual order and requesting the "black eye."

If you somehow made it this far, I give you an internet high five. Nice job! Be back on Monday with the usual content.

The Little Choices We Make

My wife and I recently completed our tax returns, and we're receiving a fair amount back this year (cue small fist bump to myself). Given that we've needed a new couch for quite some time now, we decided to use some of the money to pick up one of those bad boys. Along with this, we still had plenty to put away in our savings account. Sweet. Awesome. However, I told Kelsey I thought it might be cool to pick up a few other things. You know, manly things. Stuff like a new sledgehammer, a tank, flat screen TV, or some Lord of the Rings action figures.

To which she promptly responded, "Yeah, we could. But before we know it we won't have anything to put away away in savings. It's the little decisions we make that add up over the long haul."

This got me thinking: The exact same applies principle to the realm of physical preparation. It's the little things we do that add up to either long-term success or failure.

Back when I was personal training, I worked with a guy who had developed some pretty severe shoulder and elbow pain. You wanna know the root cause? Hours and hours of driving and talking on the phone! His job required constant travel and phone communication. Yes....days spent simply with his head tilted to one side (to hold the phone in place) while driving resulted in some pretty intense inflammation of the tendons surrounding the shoulder and elbow joints. This is the law of repetitive motion at its finest.

Whether we're a competitive athlete or one who simply wants to be able to enjoy physical activity all the way through old age, it's the little things that will allow us to excel.

• Using a time-out app to keep us out of crappy positioning at our computers.
• Giving our soft tissue some TLC each day, be through a PVC roller or manual therapist.
• Spending at least five to ten minutes to warm-up before each workout to unglue our nasty bits and preserve proper ROM throughout our joints.
• Bringing a power-packed smoothie to work so we can avoid the lure of that M&M bowl next to the printer.

• Executing everything in the gym with focus and drive, be it a deadlift or a proper pushup.
• Adding more pulling to our programs.
• Packing and getting everything together a week out from a competition to get our minds in the zone before our competitors.

You get the idea. Think about the little decisions you make on an minute-by-minute basis. They add up to something big - be it good or bad - over the long run.

Friday Musings: SAPT Heavy Planks, Matrix-Reloaded Med Ball Throws, Time-Out Apps, and More

1. As Ryan noted in an excellent post recently, we love weighted planks here at SAPT. Once you know to properly plank (here's a hint: if you're not shaking from creating total body tension, you're probably not doing it right), it's time to make them more challenging. One way to do this is adding external load, holding for :20 or so to improve maximal isometric strength of the trunk region. Here is Carson nailing a 265lb weighted plank in preparation for an upcoming powerlifting meet. I'm not positive, but think I saw his spleen shoot across the room halfway through the set.

2. Kieran has been doing Recoiled MB Overhead Throws as part of his most recent program. However, he took the "deliberately move through the thoracic rotation portion" coaching cue a bit too literally, to the point where he looks like Neo from the Matrix dodging bullets.

I then challenged him to see if he could "rainbow" the ball up straight into the throw. Needless to say, he pulled it off with style:

3. Recently I've been working to improve my jump roping skills. Unfortunately, I never really did too much jump roping growing up, so I decided to hone in on it as of late. I also wanted to see how well my HD camera would pick up fast-moving objects, so I filmed a recent jump rope session of mine.

Check it out below, as it turned out pretty well. I realize I may appear slightly akin to Ross (of RossTraining), but I think that's just the lighting messing with things.

Okay, maybe I was slightly fabricating the story. I actually did jump rope growing up.

Alright, seriously this time....how sick is Ross? I'm continually amazed by his ability to master multiple physical qualities.

4. Another thing we love at SAPT are challenging pullup variations. Recently, Ryan Walls (the handy man of SAPT) put together a set of "Smitty Ball" pullup implements. Needless to say, they are simultaneously awesome and brutal. These will slowly be making their way into the programs for those I want to make hate life help improve both grip strength and, well, pullup strength. I also love the way they feel on the elbows as your wrists are allowed to rotate freely throughout the movement.

5. Working at a computer while sitting in chair is arguably the worst thing you can do for your body. Well, it's a toss-up between that and watching Jersey Shore, but you get my point.

Anyway, I recently downloaded an phenomenal app - via recommendation of Mike Robertson - called Time Out. This this is awesome! You set it to pop up at a specified interval (every 15 minutes, 50 minutes, etc.) to essentially remind yourself to stop killing yourself. Every time it pops up I reset my posture (pull my shoulders back, get out of forward head posture, etc.), get on the ground to do a few spidermans, or anything else that will help me to "open up." Here is a screen shot I just took of my computer:

I'm done. Have a great weekend everyone.