A lot of you have shoulder issues, and they can be alleviated by improving two primary things: internal rotation and thoracic flexibility. Here are some videos that help with internal rotation from MobilityWOD.com.
This entire video is good.
This entire video:
Beginning of this video:
These merely hit the internal rotation aspect, so start working on those and in a few days I’ll do a post on working on the thoracic area. Feel free to ask any types of questions regarding range of motion, flexibility, and how it pertains to lifting. Edit: A Lannister always pays his debts.
About two years ago I was doing my squats on the Intensity Day of the Texas Method program I was on. I was doing singles across at 495 (my memory has always been doubles, but I can’t find it in my training log), and the third and fourth reps looked really ugly. The fourth one was what I like to call a holy grinder (sung to the tune of Holy Diver), and Rip looked at me and said something like, “Well, that was bone on bone. You’re done.” I didn’t like that and said, “Nah, I’ll get the next one.”
So I saddled up for the fifth rep with adrenaline leaking out of my ears and aiming to bounce the shit out of the rep. At the time I remember that I didn’t really remember the rep; but I bounced it so hard and fast that Rip was stunned at how easy I made it look given that the previous rep was so hard. This, my friends, is the difference between going through the motions and attacking the rep.
There are two sides to a successful heavy lift: the volitional violence at a critical point in the lift coupled with a pre-existing shot of adrenaline. This post concerns the former.
It’s easy to get in a habit of merely stepping out with a weight on your back and squatting instead of attacking every. single. rep. This concept is hard to explain, but it’s most noticeable in the Olympic lifts. Many beginning Oly lifters are thinking of so many different things that it almost seems like they stand up with the weight, and then fall into their squat. Ripping through the second pull is the most important part of these lifts — that hip extension should be the fastest, most violent thing that person can generate out of their body. It’s the difference in trying to cut someone with your longsword or cleaving a head off (horse head, not real); the difference in trying to hit someone and knocking them the fuck out.
Lifting isn’t church. It isn’t afternoon tea. It’s a form of controlled rage directed at a barbell. In a squat, you need to attack the bottom position and make it sharp. In a press, you need to attack the bar at the beginning and try to make the entire rep fast. In the bench, you need explode off of your chest. In the Olympic lifts, you have to rip through the second pull as hard as you can. You should be applying the maximum amount of force possible at that moment. I hardly see recreational lifters actively attacking their reps.
There is a learning curve to attacking the bar — you have to be consistent with your technique. Yet, there’s a difference in mindset when you walk a bar out and think, “Man, this feels heavy, I hope we get it…here we go…” and actively wanting to hit the rep and repeating “Bounce” in your head. Hoping to get a rep and punching it in the fucking mouth are two different things.
Don’t sacrifice technique for the sake of intensity. When most inexperienced lifters think “bounce”, they fall into the squat, lose tightness, kill the bounce, and have a bitch of a rep. The person that attacks his squats the best is my friend AC; he maintains proper tempo and tightness in the descent but attacks the SHIT out of the bounce. This video is two years old, but you can see how he rips through the bottom of the squat — particularly on the second rep.
Lift angry and attack the critical part of your reps. You need to volitionally hit the rep as hard as you can. If there was any question to how hard you hit it, then it wasn’t hard enough. Punch through the rep and lift angry.
In a perfect world you could completely commit to training and devote every aspect of your life to improve you’re training. Alas! You aren’t special and don’t get paid to perform and compete (I know this realization is hard to understand). Instead, you might have a job, have to study for exams, or have to help wipe your child’s bum. Whatever the case, it may cut into your training and learning how to work around that is important.
Stress The Whole Body
I haven’t had regular access to a gym or a repeating schedule for quite a while (probably six months), yet I’ve gotten a bit bigger, a lot stronger, and rehabbed back from a gnarly hip injury. The key with shoddy scheduling is to train the entire body when finally getting access to a gym.
This doesn’t mean you hit every lift you can think of, but emulate what most linear progressions consist of: a squat, a press, and a pull. Some days I have just sn/cj while other days I’ve sn, cj, squat, pressed, curls, and did RDLs. One day I squatted, rowed, and did RDLs (with no press movement). I’ve benched, squatted, did RDLs, and weighted pull-ups. Each week I try to bench and press once each, squat and RDLs at least once, and dabble in various assistance (at least once each of rowing, curling, weighted pull-ups, and round back extension). The point is that each day has lifts that use a lot of muscle mass and work on the structures that make the body strong: hips, back, legs, and shoulders. If your schedule is shoddy, aim to perform some of the basic lifts a minimum amount of times throughout the week. This will save you from having to figure it out each time you step in the gym.
Don’t Wreck Yourself
When you do finally get to train, don’t be a wise guy. You wouldn’t want your lifting exposure to give you crippling soreness. Ease into heavier weight over time, be patient, and don’t aim to PR every day. Save the most stressful lifts, like deadlift, for the end of your training week (if you know when you’ll get to the gym again). Don’t hesitate to work in RDLs or round back extensions in its stead; these exercises can help augment the deadlift when you finally get the time to focus on it again.
Know When To Back Off
Just because you finally get to train doesn’t mean your body is ready. When I was in Australia, I only trained twice: the first day felt really shitty (I squatted, pressed, and did pull-ups), then the second day I matched a PR on snatch and came close on clean and jerk. However, if my body wasn’t ready on day two, then I would have just done some sets across instead of pushing the weight.
Recently I tried to snatch when I wasn’t feeling that great. Maybe it’s because I squatted and did RDLs two days before, but I just wasn’t feeling it that day. I ended up missing simple snatches to the point where I audibly said “Fuck this,” and left to go bench. Then my first set at a regularly easy weight on bench was difficult; I racked it after the first rep and was all pissed off. I declared that I was done training for the day and just did some DB rows and dips. My body was not ready.
Ease back the training session if you aren’t feeling great. You can do this by changing the exercises (remember the “When in doubt, train your back” post?) or reducing the volume and load of your intended workout.
Maintain Mobility
Some times the limiting factor is the body being all wound up from sitting at a desk, in a car, or on an airplane. If you have a good habit of working on your mobility on a daily basis, then these events won’t smash you as hard. Take care to do extra mobility work when you have been in any crappy position for a long time. “Crappy position” would imply that your knees and hips are bent and you are slouching forward. You can’t train well if you aren’t pliable enough to go through a ROM properly.
On August 15th I talked about how to program for a girl who is getting into a lifting program with no lifting history. There was a slight stink made about creating “special programs” for females and how they should just do the same program a guy would use. This was particularly amusing since the week before women were welcomed to voice their opinion on the transition from conventional fitness training to more of a “strength and conditioning program”; their opinions formulated the basis of this series on “Getting Girls to Train”.
One confusing concept to most girls will probably be that “cardio” isn’t necessary (see my friend Ellee’s post on this). “Cardio” implies that a machine is used for at least 20 minutes of self-hating Cinnabon dreaming. Low intensity cardio, (AKA long slow distance, or LSD) doesn’t have any kind of significant systemic stress for improved endurance (or ‘conditioning’) nor does it have any muscular stress whatsoever. Girls trying to develop toned, tight muscles, are merely sweating a little bit and not doing anything to affect their body fat or lean body mass (Remember: sweating is not an indicator of a good exercise stress).
Erin Stern does her intensity training outdoors
Lifting creates a significant systemic stress that increases metabolic activity in order to recover from. That just means that more energy is used in recovery compared to doing LSD since there isn’t anything to recover from in LSD training. And it’s not just higher energy levels; there is a unique hormonal response that helps reduce body fat. I’ve never had a female gain body fat when doing a linear progression strength program, and the girls that I did do a body fat test on lost body fat (a pinch test with a good caliper and experienced pincher is the only relevant body fat estimate without a Bod Pod, DEXA, or hydrostatic weighing). Cardio is as useless as a Dothraki at sea.
However, after years of elliptical slavery, it’s hard to say no to monotonous leg pumping and wiping sweat with a towel (it proves you were actually sweating). Lettuce be real tea, there’s no reason we have to chain a girl to the barbell rack. Mocking slavery and then becoming a slave driver is just hypocritical, so let’s have new female trainees do cardio proper-like.
FIT explains why endurance training done with intensity is more effective and plenty of examples of how to program it with strength training. Here is an incredibly simple program to use for a girl who is leaving the shadowy cardio cave and stepping into the light of effective training:
Day A
Press
Squat
Back extension Tabata stationary cycle
Day B
Bench
RDL
Assisted Pull-up machine 30/30 Running Interval
30/30 implies 30 seconds of running followed by 30 seconds of rest. The speed should be more challenging than a mere yog.
This set up could be alternated two to four times a week, although three would be optimal. Instead of just writing in “high intensity endurance training”, I actually filled in the conditioning portion with examples. There are two larger barbell movements in each day, then a useful assistance exercise, then an intensity-based endurance workout. The resistance for the bike and speed on the treadmill could be increased slowly over time to increase the stress and fitness. This little program would develop the legs, ass, and arms, but also provide a good foundation of strength to shift into a more serious strength program if the girl wants to. Most girls, especially the new ones, need to keep in mind that these “developments” or “changes” are going to be subtle, particularly the muscle-related changes. Girls don’t grow muscle very quickly, and they aren’t going to accidentally get mega jacked. The primary problem is the image they have in their head of what is healthy or sexy, so let’s continue using Erin Stern as the “this is what a healthy woman looks like” image.
The lifting and inclusion of higher intensity “cardio” will also help drop body fat…if she eats right. And eating for the beginning female trainee is the subject of next Monday’s post (it will actually be next week too).
For more information on how to transition into strength or endurance training, check out FIT, an unconventional guide to excellent fitness.
…a big yoke = instant respect. No one wants to screw with a guy that has a big neck and a thick yoke. A massive yoke smells of hard work, strength, fighting and toughness. Every other muscle can be small if a big yoke is present.
Jim Wendler is yoked. Substantially. And he wrote a little guide on achieving an impressive yoke. The gospel according to Wendler says that yoke is an expression of the traps, rear delts, and neck. Developing this area is simple, yet the method requires hard work in heavy deadlifts, cleans/snatches, specific neck work, and shrugs. Only you can prevent the shame from an underdeveloped yoke. Read Jim’s article for specific tips and quality amusement.
Here’s a quality display of Jim’s yoke framed by the most confusing syntax Dave could muster:
The interesting thing about yoke is that it’s not one of those things that are only visible without a shirt on; it stands mountainous regardless. The yoke is an indicator that someone actually trains. When a guy has a big chest or arms, yet lacks a yoke, you know he’s merely tanning and using machines as opposed to using chalk and iron. Then there’s an even smaller percentage of guys who might have tall traps, but no width on their upper back; they merely hit hundreds of DB shrugs while wearing gloves.
I do think that Jim leaves one muscular area out of his definition of yoke, and it’s the shoulders (deltoids specifically). Look at that picture of Jim and you can clearly see he has boulder-sized deltoids. As an aside, delts are necessary if you’re NOT gonna look like a pussy wearing a tank-top (an article of clothing I highly recommend). So read Jim’s article and get to work on establishing that yoke lest you get confused with effeminate, glove-wearing douche bags.
Happy PR Friday — post your training updates and weekly personal bests to the comments. No dick pics. Thanks to Yosh for linking this article to me
