Category Archives: Exercise

Take it Easy: Avoid Injury: Get Better Gains

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At the gym the other day I was doing some bench presses. I wasn’t doing anything too heavy and I was pretty confident I’d be fine. My routine was going to be ten reps and five sets at about 60% of my one rep max. I got about five or six reps into my fourth set and things started getting harder. I wanted to finish out the set, so I pushed myself through the grind and around the ninth rep, I felt my should pop out a bit. I had a spotter and had them reset the weight on the bench for me. I didn’t push anymore. I just packed up and went home. I hadn’t made it anywhere near my full time in the gym.

There was one thing I did right that day and one thing I did wrong. I’ll start with what I did wrong. I pushed myself hard enough to actually aggravate my shoulder. It ended up setting me back a bit because it was sore for three or so days afterward.  Because it was my shoulder, it kept me from doing most upper body workouts for those three days. You don’t need to hit that ‘grind’ every time to see gains. You can very easily see progress just going until your breathing or form change. Stop there and avoid injury.

I was talking with a guy at the gym a few months back and he was telling me about his bench pressing story. He is currently going to the gym to rehab an injury to his elbow. I guess he had been pushing about 400 pounds on his one rep max during his normal routine and was trying to push forward to 405 pounds. He hit the grind at 405 and tried to will himself through it. He ended up ripping the tendon in his elbow from the bone, which set him back significantly. He’s now doing 375 pounds on a bench press, more than three years later.

What I did right: I stopped as soon as I knew I had pushed too far. I didn’t keep going on benches or even any other exercises and that ultimately let me get back into the routine much quicker. I just bailed out, went home, and rested myself. By doing that I was able to stay on track and push my quest for fitness forward.

I’m not saying don’t push yourself. That’s not what this is all about. I’m saying don’t push yourself too hard. Know your body, and be patient. You can’t add five pounds to your one rep max every week. Eventually your gains will slow down or even plateau. Embrace that and be careful while you’re doing it. You could cause yourself a few days, or worse end up in the hospital, if you push too hard. This is about being healthy, not about how much weight you can life, so you can show off to your friends.

Have you ever injured yourself while working out? How bad was it? Did you recover? How long did it set you back? I want to hear your story.

Exercise isn’t Just Going to the Gym

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My wife and I were talking the other day about her lack of attendance to the gym. She doesn’t want to go anymore, which was quite disappointing to me at the time. We were both going to try and get fit and now she was bailing on me. That was about a week ago, and today, she had been doing work around the house and while we were telling each other about our days, she said something inciteful.

She said: “I got just as much of a workout around the house today as I would have if I had gone to the gym.” I had been thinking about doing a post about sports and how exercise doesn’t have to be the monotony of going to the gym, and that statement really got me thinking about it a lot more.

There are tons of great alternatives to going to the gym that can be a lot more fun too. I’ve taken the time to brainstorm just a few different categories of non-gym exercise.

Sports

I like to play basketball and volleyball with my friends. They’re great group sports and can be a ton of fun. You can also play American football or soccer too. Basketball and soccer are great cardio workouts, while football can be great for strength and sprinting. Volleyball or baseball are great coordination sports, helping you improve reaction time and hand-eye coordination.

Often times if you’re playing fun sport you can be “working out” for hours at a time with little to no concept of how long you’ve actually been doing it. I find it quite addictive to play volleyball myself. Try to periodically substitute one of your exercise days with a group sport of some sort. If you don’t have any friends that want to participate in a group sport, you could do something like golf as well. You could also look to your local community. Many communities have baseball, soccer, or rugby teams.

Manual Labor

I’m from Vermont, so we have large lawns and a lot of people burn wood for heat in the winter. Stacking and splitting wood is one of the best strength workouts I can think of. You can actually keep track of personal records in how fast you can split or stack specific amounts of wood.

I also prefer to mow my lawn with a push mower instead of a riding one, because walking the lawn and pushing the mower is a great cardio work out as well. I try to mow my lawn at a fast pace, but it’s hard, because if I go too fast the lawn doesn’t look good. When you mow the lawn by hand, you’ll be saving money and getting healthy at the same time!

Commuting to Work

I can’t say that I’ve ever done this, because it scares me a bit to be without my car, but I’ve often times though of riding a bike to work. It’s about five miles, so I would be chalking up about ten miles a day in exercise on a cycle. The trip home would be up a mountain too, about 500 ft. in elevation change!

The Point

The point is, we are exercising every day, or at least have the opportunity to. It’s not hard to find little ways to get a little bit more fit throughout your day. Tomorrow think to yourself periodically about the things you just did. Could you do them differently to get a little bit more of a workout? Share your thoughts.

Being Sore After a Workout Isn’t Always a Good Thing

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Some people hold up being incredibly sore after a workout as a trophy of hard work and great gains. “No pain. No Gain.” Right….? No. Abusing your body and being sore will just reduce your overall productivity over the next few days. I’m not saying that ‘soreness’ is bad, but being so sore that you can’t move is. It also means that you pushed hard enough to potentially hurt yourself. The only acceptable time to be that sore after a workout is when you’ve just worked a muscle group that you don’t normally work, and still then: you probably pushed too hard.

There are steps you can take to alleviate soreness both through physical awareness and dietary means. Knowing what ‘good’ movement is when you’re exercising means: good form, controlled actions, and knowing when to quit. Dieting right will give your body what it needs for good strong muscles and make sure the right kinds of nutrients are available to repair them when they need it.

What makes muscles sore?

The medical term for muscle soreness is called DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) in medical communities. Basically when you work hard enough to feel your muscles ‘burn’ they are being damaged by micro-tears that over the next few days will be repaired with any spare protein you’ve accumulated. You shouldn’t feel that for about eight hours. If you don’t feel that burn, you won’t grow new muscle and get stronger.

Some people think that stretching and ‘cool-down’ exercises can prevent muscle soreness, but that’s not true. It has no effect on it, because it isn’t caused by muscle contraction or the presence of lactic acid, so neither action should relieve pain unless you’re suffering from cramps. The reason people thought cool-down exercises worked was because it removes excess lactic acid from the muscles, and lactic acid was though to cause the muscle soreness. That has since been disproved though.

What can you do to prevent muscle soreness?

This is really tough to do, especially when you’re trying to bulk up. The first thing you can do is not challenge yourself. This is the easy way out. If you don’t challenge yourself, you won’t gain muscle, which may not be aligned very well with your overall goals. Then next best thing you can do is not push too hard, but challenge yourself enough to cause muscle growth.

There is no proven bullet-proof way to prevent it if you’re working yourself hard, especially when you’re starting a routine or working a new group of muscles. There is anectdotal evidence (not hard evidence) that warming up, gentle stretching, ice baths, and sports massages work. You can also try taking anti-inflammatory medicine. Remember not to work out while your muscles are sore. Give them time to recover.

What are your remedies?

Preventing and curing muscle soreness is elusive like hangover cures. Everyone has different methods that work for them and there isn’t a while lot of scientific data to back any one system up. What do you do?

11 Simple Tips to be More Fit

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Looking back at what’s been done so far, I thought I’d give you ten easy tips that will help you be more fit:

  1. Be in the right mindset. Getting your mental game together will go a long way in improving your physical performance.  If you’re not where you need to be, identify the problem and neutralize it.  You mind can be the biggest hurdle in making yourself better.
  2. Drink enough water. Water is the thing that gives all things life.  It cleanses your system of toxins and allows you to extract energy from your food.  If you’re dehydrated, you’ll feel horrible and perform even worse.
  3. Work out. Really? Exercise is the basis of being fit coupled with a good diet. Get into a routine of working out at least three times a week for at least a half hour.  That’s a minimum.  If you can do more, do it. If you don’t exercise, you’ll never gain muscle and always be low on energy.  Don’t just exercise your body either.  Make sure you exercise your mind daily.
  4. Only eat carbs for energy and don’t over-do it. Having too many carbs will promote fat growth, but having too little will leave you starved for energy during your workouts.  You need carbs to build muscle.
  5. Use biofeedback to get the most out of your workout. Listening to your body is the best way to increase gains when you’re working out. Do range of motion tests before each exercise in your workout and you’ll get maximum results.
  6. Pick a diet that works for you. I’m talking about vegan, vegetarian, and omnivorous diets here. That whole South Beach, Atkins, Peanuts Only thing is just a gimmick.  Pick the one that fits your lifestyle and is the easiest for you.  I’m an omnivore myself.
  7. Eat high protein foods before and after you work out to build muscle. Get those proteins three hours before you work out and three to four hours afterward.  You’ll get maximum synthesis then and see excellent gains in muscle growth.  Of course only do it if that’s what you’re going for.
  8. Vary your workout to give tired muscles time to rest. If you give tired muscle groups that time to rest you can keep your heart rate up and give them some R&R at the same time. That will maximize your time to gain ratio.
  9. Don’t just worry about weight loss. Keep your mind on fitness, not weight loss.  Unhealthy weight loss can cause health problems later. Don’t sweat it out or starve it out.  Earn it.
  10. Cut out the alcohol. This is the single easiest way to lose weight and feel better. Alcohol dehydrates you and adds a ton of extra carbs and calories to you body that you don’t need.
  11. Strive for perfection and perpetual progress. This is the most important point.  Striving for daily perfection is what will keep you going forever. This will keep you from slipping back into your old habits. When applied to other facets of your life, you’ll only see positive things.

If you exercise (hah, see what I did there) those ten tips every day you will be well on your way to becoming more fit.  What tips do you have?

Vary Your Treadmill Exercises

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Most people think you just hop on a treadmill and go.  You can adjust the intensity of your workout by increasing the speed and that’s just about it.  False.  It’s not just for cardiovascular workout either.

Varying the settings on your treadmill during your exercise routine can increase the effectiveness of your workout, because you work different muscle groups as your stride changes.  This allows tired muscles to rest and other muscles to pick up the slack.  More advanced treadmills also have programs to change the settings for you, so you don’t have to remember yourself.

Incline

The average treadmill also has an incline feature, and that incline feature can vary your workout greatly.  As the incline of your run or walk increases, you use different muscle groups and move from a cario workout towards a strength training workout.

Getting used to running at even a minor incline can also increase the power of your muscles enough that when you’re running at level, you can squeeze out a couple, or maybe even a few, miles per hour on your job speed.  Working those muscles can also increase your jump height and distance too.

Speed

When you’re running you can be doing one of four things:

  • Walking – this is great for warming up and cooling down.  At steep inclines it also promotes muscle growth.
  • Jogging – a medium jog is a great way to cool down after an extended run or intense sprint.
  • Running – extended running builds cardiovascular strength, which helps your heart keep up with your other muscles while you’re exercising.
  • Sprinting – sprinting builds muscle and burns fat.  You’ll want to work some intense sprints into each treadmill workout to round things out.  The best way to do it is in intervals that feel comfortable – like 30 to 60 seconds.

Rounding it Out

Try playing with different settings while you exercise on the treadmill.  Unless you’re doing an extended run to promote cardio, try not to stay on the same setting for more than 30 to 60 seconds.  Once again, some of the more advanced treadmills have preset programs that will change these settings automatically for you.  They’ll usually have descriptions of the programs and how each effects you in the manual.

Remember that you don’t have to do all of your walking/jogging/running/sprinting on a treadmill too.  When it’s nice out, try going for a run outdoors.  If you’re looking for cardio, pick a nice flat piece of terrain.  If you want to build muscle, throw in some sprints.  Hiking is also a completely different experience and can build some great muscle too.  Oh, and it can be fun too!

When I’m hitting up the gym, I usually start out my routine with 10-15 minutes on the treadmill to get warmed up.  About a third of the time I’ll kick it up and run a 5k (3.1 miles).  There’s nothing more exhilarating than finishing a 5k – except maybe going farther.

Do you have any additional exercised you do on your treadmill?  Have questions about anything I said?  Just contact me shooting me an email or leave a comment below.

A Simple Leg Workout Routine

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If you haven’t already read my upper body workout routine, you should.  I’ve outlined some of my overall workout routine information there, and won’t be going over that again in this post.

This leg workout, when coupled with a 10-15 minute cardio exercise to get heart rate up should last about 45 minutes to an hour depending on your pace.  You’ll see some ab workouts here, because it takes focus away from the legs so they can rest when they need to.

  • Leg Extensions - Leg extensions are when you lift weights with your lower legs, moving them from a sitting position to straight. It mostly works the quads. Increase intensity by increasing the weight.
  • Sit-Ups – Follow through and touch your elbows to your knees.  This works your lower abs and pelvis.  Be sure not to hold your hands behind your head, because that can cause neck injuries.  Add weight by holding a disc weight.
  • Leg Presses - A leg press machine comes in various configurations, but basically it forces you to fully extend your legs from a squatting position to straight.  It works most of the same muscle groups as a squat (below), but doesn’t include the upper body and back muscles. Increase intensity by increasing the weight.
  • Crunches on an Inclined Bench - Don’t do a full sit up yet.  Just raise your body about a third of the way through a full sit up.  This works your upper abs.  Increase the incline until maximum and then add weight.  I usually carry a disc weight flat across my chest while inclined to add weight.
  • Calf Lifts – Hold a weighted barbell over your shoulders or a dumbell to your chest, and move between standing flat on your feet and pushing up with your toes (almost like trying to stand on your tip toes, but not that far). This works your calves very well. Increase intensity by increasing the weight.Increase intensity by increasing the weight.
  • Squats – Stay in the same position as your calf lifts, but squat to the floor and then push back up to full standing height.  Make sure you squat completely to the floor, not a sitting position.  Move your upper body and legs equally.  Don’t move your legs and then your back.  That’s a good way to cause damage. This primarily works the thighs, hips, and buttocks, but also works the lower back, upper, and lower abs. Increase intensity by increasing the weight.

I usually alternate days working on upper and lower body, but you can also mix these exercises in with upper body workouts and do them every day, depending on your regimen and what you feel comfortable with.  If a muscle group is feeling sore, feel free to swap out exercises that cause less pain.  Never work a muscle group that is in pain.  Let it heal before you exercise it or you could cause damage.

If you need help with any of these exercises, just get a hold of me either by email or in the comments below.

What do you do for your leg workouts?

Biofeedback: An Interesting Take on Human Performance

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Biofeedback isn’t a new idea, but some high performance weight trainers have taken a new spin on it.  The idea is that if you want to get the maximum gain for your weight training efforts, you need to listen to your body and do what it is going to perform best at during that specific workout.

What does that mean?

If you’re going to work out, but your body isn’t going to respond well to bicep curls, you won’t do them in favor of another exercise your body will respond well to.  maybe you’ll end up doing bench presses today instead of curls, and because you’re listening to your body the muscle you build as a result of the bench presses will be dramatically better than if you forced yourself into doing curls.

How do I do it?

There is a simple method for testing your body’s response to any given exercise.  You just stand with your legs straight and reach for your toes.  As soon as you feel your body resist the action, stop and make a mental note of how far you stretched.  Do a couple of test exercises at a minimal intensity and then do the stretch again.  Not how far you stretched again, but this time compare it to your original.  Is it better or worse?  Rinse and repeat this method for a few exercises.

Now that you know which exercises your body is responding to the best, you can focus on doing those exercises for that workout.  You’ll find that you have an easier time doing those exercises and you aren’t forcing your body to do something it didn’t want to.  You’ll want to stop and do biofeedback tests a few times during your routine to make sure nothing has changed.

I’ve included a video of they guys from AthleteCreator.com and Extreme Human Performance using biofeedback to do Bench Presses below:

This is a second video from GymJunkies.com doing much of the same:

The Science

Your body responds to every movement you make by restricting or increasing range of motion.  This is a defensive reflex that kicks in when you’re making movements you shouldn’t.  It’s function is to keep you from injuring yourself.  When you’re working out, doing range of motion tests for each exercise will tell your body whether that specific motion is going to be helpful or not.

The whole biofeedback system is based on your body’s innate ability to contract muscles to prevent range of motion when you’re not moving the way you should.  Think about when you break a bone and all of the muscles around that area contract to restrict movement.  It’s the same feedback system.  Utilizing range of motion tests during your workout give you a noticeable physical response to what your body wants to do.

Using Biofeedback to your Benefit

Utilizing biofeedback to find out what positive motions will get the best results during your workout will help you build muscle and burn fat.  When you’re doing exercise that don’t test well, you won’t see noticeable gains in your overall fitness, whereas when you do, you’ll feel better working out and see excellent results fairly quickly.  Biofeedback and range of motion testing seem to really give great results.  It will be interesting to see how this type of exercise evolves.

Simple Upper Body Workout Routine

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This is about a simple upper body workout routine that I alternate every other gym visit.  Basically I do one set of five different exercises (a circuit), moving through all of the exercises until I reach the first one.  I then do a second set, and finally a third set.  Every set is on 10 repetitions, and I adjust my intensity so that I’m usually failing between repetition 5 and 10 on the third set.

I try to alternate the exercises between muscle groups so that each muscle group has time to rest before I move on to an exercise in a similar group.  For upper body, I tend to move between abs and arms.  I also always start my visit to the gym with a 2 mile run to get my heart rate up.  With a simple 5 exercise x 3 sets x 10 reps routine and a short run, you can easily spend an hour at the gym.

I note the intensity of each exercise I do in my phone and record it on a spreadsheet when I get back to my computer.  This way I can track progress as I go.  In my other life, I’m a data geek, so this stuff is important to me.  I want to see statistical progress in my fitness adventures.

The following is a list of the exercises I do in one of my circuits for upper body work out on odd days:

  • Bench Presses - Lay on a flat bench and push a barbell up towards the ceiling.  This works your pecs and upper arms.  Be sure to vary your hand stance to work different muscle groups.  Increase intensity by increasing the weight.
  • Crunches on an Inclined Bench - Don’t do a full sit up yet.  Just raise your body about a third of the way through a full sit up.  This works your upper abs.  Increase the incline until maximum and then add weight.  I usually carry a disc weight flat across my chest while inclined to add weight.
  • Bicep Curls – This mostly works your biceps, but can also work your forearm and pecs depending on your form. Increase intensity by increasing the weight.
  • Sit Ups on an Inclined Bench – Follow through and touch your elbows to your knees.  This works your lower abs and pelvis.  Be sure not to hold your hands behind your head, because that can cause neck injuries.  Add weight by holding a disc weight.
  • Tricep Curls - Lay on a flat bench and hold a single weight above your head.  Push it towards the ceiling and then bring it back down.  This works your triceps and forearms.  Increase intensity by increasing the weight.

If you’re unsure about how to do one or more of the exercises above, just contact me and I can help you get your bearings.  I will be posting videos about how each one works at some point.  I need to see what the rules are about cameras in the gym I go to.  A quick video search on Google gets some pretty great results as well.

These workouts should work for just about anyone at any level.  You should be able to adjust your weight to increase or decrease the difficulty of the specific exercise you’re doing.  Even if you just started trying to be fit, you can start with one pound weights and move forward from there.  Everyone has to start somewhere.