New Years Resolution: Blog More!!!
Sorry for the lack of content on here recently – I’ll make sure to deliver some good information in the months to come. Here’s to 2010!
The fitness industry is evolving at a rapid rate and trainers that don’t keep up and invest time in continuing education become quickly outdated so I make it a point to stay up to date with all the current training techniques and methodologies. I learned a great deal this past year, and in this post I’ll outline some of the most important concepts/ideas that has shaped my training outlook.
1) Diet is everything – well, almost everything. The majority of my client’s goals deal resoundingly with fat loss. While exercise is extremely important in this regard to maintain lean muscle mass, elevate metabolism, improve general health, etc. – without a proper, clean diet the world’s best training program will be of little use. Trying to “out-train” your diet is a recipe for failure.
Cheese Fries = Bad
2) The central nervous system (CNS) is “kind of a big deal”. The only reason that our muscles function is because of the CNS. Your CNS is never “off”, but in order to optimize your performance in the gym you need to think beyond just the muscular system and think about also engaging the nervous system. Before your workout, if you’re feeling a little sluggish, try a short warm up of quick jumping jacks, speed squats and push ups, and tight rotations to really activate the CNS. It’s not meant to tire you so keep the repetitions short – it should actually “excite” you and get you fired up for the workout ahead.
Coach Nick Tumminello displaying the Tight Rotation
Also, when lifting weights – think about lifting the weight as fast as possible without sacrificing good form. However, make sure you lower the weight under control. By performing exercises explosively, you train your body to recruit more motor units. More motor units means enhanced muscular contraction, which means more efficient and more effective results.
Strength Coach Mike Robertson showing Inverted Rows – Notice the control on the way down and the acceleration on the way up.
3) Recovery is extremely important. If you train hard, you have to make sure you recover from your workouts. A lot of people take a “more is better approach” and consistently beat themselves down day in and day out. The human body can only handle that kind of stress for a limited period of time and that stress starts to accumulate. For example, let’s say you work your lower body to absolute exhaustion on Monday, then follow that up with an intense Cycling class on Tuesday, then do a sprint workout on Wednesday, and then do a total-body workout on Thursday all while handling the stress of everyday life without a quality diet or an adequate amount of sleep. What do you think will happen? Sure, you might be able to keep that up for a week or two, but eventually you’re workouts are going to suffer because you won’t have enough energy to get through them and your body will begin to break down from chronic fatigue.
When was the last time you got a good night's sleep?
A much smarter and more effective approach would be to work your lower body on Monday, upper body on Tuesday, Yoga on Wednesday, and a Spin Class/total body workout on Thursday. The yoga provides some excellent restorative and regeneration benefits and also there’s a reduced chance of over-training any particular muscle group when the workouts are split up in this manner. Top this off with a balanced diet and eight hours of sleep and you can guarantee you’ll feel better and receive quicker results.
Training Room Cycling
4) Irradiation is something I learned from physical therapist Gray Cook. When you’re performing an exercise like a deadlift or a bench press, think about grabbing the bar as tightly as possible and really “crush” the handle. That tightness in your grip starts to travel up the arm and through the shoulder girdle as your body gears up to lift/push a weight perceived to be heavy. This promotes increased stability throughout the entire body.
An interesting study in the Journal of the American Medical Association concluded that “Among healthy 45- to 68-year-old men, hand grip strength was highly predictive of functional limitations and disability 25 years later. Good muscle strength in midlife may protect people from old age disability by providing a greater safety margin above the threshold of disability.”
Grip Strength - It Can Save Your Life!
5) As a general rule of thumb, people need to stretch more. Yes, it might not be the most exciting activity in the world – but stretching tight muscles a couple of times a day can go a long way in terms of improving your posture, reducing your chance of low back/neck pain and other injuries, increasing your performance in the weight room, etc. Below are a couple of my favorite stretches:
Chest Doorway Stretch
Hip Flexor Stretch
Quad/Hip Flexor Stretch
Downward Dog
Whose is better?
Stay tuned for Part 2!
The Training Room 