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

Chicago Workshop Weekend – September 24 and 25
In a few weeks I’ll be back in Chicago for a lifting and programming workshop on September 24 and 25 respectively. For more information, location, and scheduling, click the link above. We’ll be having a jolly good time followed by local ale drinking, but we may find some Dornish red or Arbor gold. Prepare thyself.

NFL Season Starts Today
After the shittiest off-season in memory, the NFL is finally back starting this evening. The last two defending Super Bowl champions will play each other in this league-wide season opener of two incredibly evenly matched teams. 70’s Big will have a live chat during the game for football fans to actively discuss what should be an entertaining match up (or at least an entertaining chat).

Not looking forward to the world fellating Rodgers again

Chat Tonight
There will be a chat tonight. The first portion will start at 8:00 PM EST and be a streaming chat where we’ll look at lifting videos (be ready with your videos that you want form checked) until the game starts. Then we’ll move it over to our classic IRC chat and dick around.
USTREAM Link for 7:00 PM
Regular IRC Chat for after the streaming chat

Fantasy Football
With so many people wanting to play Fantasy Football and an inability to open several linked leagues without having to play in each one (compounded with the busy few weeks I had), the leagues are NOT set up. I’m trying to just create them and let you guys join freely (disregard the divisions). If you are wanting to play with randoms from the site, go ahead and see if you can sign up in the following link (I’m trying to figure out how to post it easily). If it works, I’ll make the other leagues and will put one of you in charge of the league.
League 2

FIT
My as well plug FIT again. Some folks have finished reading it and said it’s a great resource. I’ll be doing podcast interviews with Dr. Hartman and Kilgore soon, so be on the lookout for question submissions. The book is available on Amazon and B&N.

If you’ve been considering adding some conditioning to your strength program or are actively trying to lose body fat, barbell complexes will make a nice addition. I’ve talked about them before, but want to further the discussion.

What is a Barbell Complex
A barbell complex is one large superset of various exercises completed without stopping or setting the bar down. The number of exercises and reps can vary, but four to six exercises with five to ten repetitions each is standard. Running through all of the exercises once would constitute a set and is usually followed by a rest period. Multiple sets would be completed in a given session — typically at least three. When ability improves, more than one set can be completed before resting. For example, one round can consist of running through the exercises twice. Doing three rounds would result in six sets overall, but grouped in twos.

Endurance Capacity
Conditioning the energy systems occurs when lots of musculature is worked to the point of having a deficit in substrates. That deficit acts as the stress, and the body adapts so that can handle that same stress easier in the future. This capacity is best done with high intensity since it’s more effective than low intensity (read FIT for more on this topic). If you haven’t been doing any conditioning work, then barbell complexes will have a high intensity effect because the stress is relative to your current adaptation.

Good barbell complexes will hit up several large movements that move multiple joints through a full ROM and subsequently work lots of musculature. The more musculature working will establish that deficit of substrates to provide a good stress. Using movements like back squats, front squats, deadlifts, presses, jerks, and rows are ideal. By doing more sub-maximal reps, you can improve muscular endurance as well as overall endurance (the uptake and delivery of energy substrates).

Swollertrophy and Muscle Mass
It’s possible to maintain and even improve musculature by using barbell complexes (even when on a body fat loss program) because of the number of reps done at one time and the total number of reps done in a session. By doing eight to twelve reps of each exercise, the muscles will receive a hypertrophy rep range. Now compound that with the muscles receiving upwards of fifty additional sub-maximal reps in a hypertrophy range and you can see why muscle mass can improve (it’s like big rest-pause sets). Since good complexes use the big exercises (think squats, pulls, rows, and presses), they provide a systemic hit that is significantly more effective than circuit training done with isolation exercises. Finally, take into consideration that this is done after a strength training session and you can see how barbell complexes would be a good compliment for muscular growth.

Drawbacks?
The only drawbacks of regularly including complexes are recovery issues and skill development. If you add complexes to an already strenuous program, then it may be difficult to recover from. In this case, the strength program can be reduced to just the big lifts and can even reduce the rep scheme (shifting to triples instead of fives, for example). This way there would still be an intensity-focused stress with lower volume while the complex provides extra tonnage and work stimulus for growth. Complexes can even be treated as light assistance — throw rows and RDLs in instead of doing them during the strength session. The load during the complex won’t be as heavy, and strength won’t be actively developed, but strength will at the very least be maintained after altering the primary strength session.

Skill development won’t really occur with barbell complexes since the same lifts and exercises that are normally performed in a gym are repeated during the complex. It’s good to use different forms of training — whether it be with implements, body weight, or new sports that demand unique body awareness — to improve the body’s overall athleticism and capability. Just because performance is good in the gym doesn’t mean it will be on the field, dance floor, or shag pad, and utilizing other activities will develop these skills.

Lastly, barbell complexes will be more effective when you’re strong(er). If you can use 135 lbs (~60kg) during a complex, the muscles will receive more work than had you only been able to use 95 lbs (~43kg). Being stronger will yield more efficient conditioning, whether it be from an energy or muscle development perspective.

Here’s a video I recently made with Chris (who is incorporating barbell complexes and sled pulling into his program). It demonstrates an incredibly simple barbell complex and touches on some other topics like not sacrificing form for the sake of quickly completing the workouts.