Superhuman Strength

What is strength?

What does it mean to be strong?

When you think of someone who's strong, who do you think of?

My answer is pretty simple and fairly ridiculous. 

Truth be told Superheros are why I got into the game. I wanted to be bigger, stronger and faster than any of the bullies that kicked my a$$ as a little kid. I wanted to be able to do things other people couldn't even fathom. I did not, however, have any desire to wear brightly colored spandex in public (despite what my friend Katie might say about me). 

My first foray into the gym involved a lot of bodybuilding. Everything was about aesthetics. Sure, I was trying to put as much freakin' weight on the bar as I could handle, but ultimately it all came down to lots of reps and lots of exercise. I killed myself with volume because that's what the physical monoliths of my youth were preaching. Arnold seemed pretty damn superhuman to me as a kid as did Lou Ferrigno. I mean, he played the freaking HULK before everything was all CGI and fake muscle suits. I wanted to look like them because In my early days I lacked the education to understand a simple truth about real strength. It's not about how you look or how big you are. Strength is more complicated than that and the superheros I worshipped nightly by flashlight were more than just big. They were invincible. I wanted to become invincible.

My odyssey into the fitness realm has had it's share of detours and odd expeditions. I spent an entire year doing only calisthenics and bodyweight exercises because I was suckered by the functional fitness goons. A little too much of my career was dedicated to mastering resistance bands and their multiple applications before realizing they were a crutch at best; something to be used as a supplement but hardly a core component of a real program. I even experimented with eccentric training, a fad that came and went about eight years ago that involved only focusing on eccentric training.  I was so drunk on the functional fitness snake oil that I genuinely believed I was the definition of strength. 

I was wrong.

Competitive martial arts taught me a lot about real functional strength. Being manhandled by a female half your size forces you to re-evaluate your standards real fast, as does learning how to shoot a takedown and literally throw another human being. I'd lied to myself. I thought my 250 lb bench press meant something. I believed my ability to rip off push ups and squats by the hundreds mattered.Then I went for my first take down and my partner laughed at me because I couldn't even move him. He was probably a buck fifty soaking wet while I was easily 180 in those days.  

Then I came upon powerlifting and olympic lifting. Watching someone who weighs less than two hundred lbs. pull three times that from a dead stop shattered the paradigms I'd created in my mind. I thought my 225 squat was pretty badass until I saw a guy smaller than me use it for his warm up. The sheer power to weight ratio of some of these athletes is freaking absurd. 

Interestingly enough I think what affected me the most was an editorial I read by a soldier on the definition of fitness. Soldiers have a different perspective on it than we do. Fitness is directly related to their ability to survive. Not working out doesn't lead to guilt or a potbelly, it could be dangerous. It could be fatal. I've always admired the mental toughness of soldiers and avidly devoured any of the reading material i could get my hands on about their training methods. Not surprisingly, the training of the modern soldier has evolved a lot in the last twenty years just as the fitness field has. I don't remember the exact quote but it was something like this. The author was talking about what it meant to be fit and simply put he said that if you can't carry a wounded squad mate and eighty lbs of gear half a mile and then keep fighting as far as he's concerned you're not worth shit.

Boom. 

Think about that. Do you think you could carry another human being half a mile and then do anything after that? The average American certainly couldn't and I'd guess that's probably also true worldwide. You can take this one of two ways. You can acknowledge the truth in his statement: that our culture has come so far from dependence on physicality that most of us are weak and fragile; or you can get all upset and defensive and throw all the reasons why you shouldn't have to do that and why it's unrealistic at me and that's fine, but it won't change the fact that you're weak. You can be stronger than you are and I can show you how.

Why should you care? Simple really. Strength is the foundation of everything. If you're strong you're durable and capable. You are less prone to injury and more functional in every facet of your life. Don't you want to be strong enough to protect the ones you care about whether it be from an assailant, a fire or a natural disaster? Shouldn't you be strong enough to protect yourself? With a little effort and dedication you can be. It's not as hard as you think.

Ok, well, it's not as complicated anyway. 

Strength: What is it and how do I get it?

Generally speaking there's two kinds of strength.

-Absolute strength: This is simply the measure of your ability to lift a certain amount of weight through a movement. Scores are not adjusted for lean mass or body size in any way.

-Relative strength: This is the measure of how strong you are with the size of your body taken into account. You can get complicated with it and measure relative strength as a product of fat free mass (FFM) but for our purposes here that's a little more intense than necessary. 

In my opinion relative strength is really what the everyman (and woman) should be concerned with. There's always going to be someone bigger than you and stronger than you. You can't change your genetics but you can maximize your genetic potential. 

Moderate strength goals for a lifter with 1-2 years experience (keep in mind these are MODERATE. Really.) For women just chop .25 bodyweight off each recommendation. 

Bench press : body weight

Squat: 1.5x body weight

Deadlift 2x body weight

Think about that for a second. That means the average dude who is moderately strong should be able to deadlift about 350lbs at least once. Think you could do that? The advanced goals for someone who's been lifting for more than two years are as follows.

Bench: 1.5-2 times bodyweight

Squat: 2-2.5 times bodyweight

Deadlift: 2.5-3 times bodyweight

The reason I made the guidelines for this a bit softer is because progressions slows as you become an experienced lifter. Additionally it's not terribly realistic to expect someone who's 6'4" 235 to be able to deadlift 3 times their bodyweight and I'd hardly say that makes them weak. Again, these are really just guidelines to give you an idea of what it truly means to be strong and what can realistically accomplished in a few years of hard work. These are not meant to make you think you suck just because you haven't hit them. I just want to help you guys go through the same mental paradigm shift I did.

So...how do you get there? 5 reps at a time.

The 5x5 method is a golden oldie. People have been using it to get strong since the advent of the barbell. There's nothing crazy about it, nothing supernatural or snake oily. It just takes work. Technically the formula for the 5x5 is to do 80% of your one rep max (1RM) but that involves going for a max which can be dangerous without a spotter...and sometimes it just doesn't work that way. The body is a funny thing. 80% came from testing hundreds of people and averaging what they were doing, so the standard deviation could be like 10% (meaning 70-90% of 1RM ). Your body might only be able to do 75% or maybe it can do 83%. The best way to find out is to go lift. It'll take you a few sessions to figure it out but it's worth it and better than following a formula. You need to learn to listen to your body, not to use a calculator.

So how do you work it in?

Well it depends on what your current goals are. If you are doing a full training split on multiple days I would recommend starting each workout with 1 5x5 of a big compound movement (think squat/bench/deadlift) and then add in all your accessory work (read:other stuff) after that. For one thing working through a 5x5 will make sure you're good and warm for the rest of your workout and the other thing is that this type of lifting severely stresses your nervous system so you want to go at it when you are as fresh as possible. 

If you are doing more of a body part split (read: one or two body parts per day once a week) then work in the lifts on the relevant days. You can squat on leg day and bench on chest day, that's fairly obvious. Deadlifts could either go on leg day (although i wouldn't do a 5x5 of a squat and a 5x5 of a deadlift on the same day) or you can throw it in on back day to get a little more full body work in. As a general recommendation if you are a beginner I would not recommend doing multiple work sets of a deadlift in a given week. It jacks up your nervous system for longer than pretty much any other lift will. Increases in volume will come later, first just focus on perfecting the technique. 

You can also try an entirely strength based program. The two best ones I'm aware of are Stronglifts and Starting Strength. Personally I think starting strength is the better of the two in terms of raw strength. It is slightly less volume (3x5 per exercise where stronglifts is 5x5 every exercise) and it involves power cleans, which I love. That being said, if you are new to lifting learning a highly technical olympic style lift is probably not only unrealistic but downright dangerous. Stronglifts swaps out the clean for Bent Over rows which in some ways also balances the program out more (SS is pretty push-dominant). The exercises are shown to the right. Press, in this case, is referring to a standing overhead press. All the exercises are done with barbells and YES this matters. They are both meant to be done on alternating days with a day of rest in between. For example Monday - workout a, Tue - rest, Wed- Workout B, lather rinse repeat. You are also supposed to add 5 lbs to each lift every week. It really is that simple and yes, they both work frighteningly well as long as you keep track of your numbers and stay disciplined. I think it also bears mentioning that you should do a proper warm up before you hit your work sets, but thats really as easy as doing a couple of 3-5 rep sets of increasing weight. Just make sure you don't tire yourself out during your warm up, you god damn rookie. 

We need to move past the stigma that heavy lifting is just for jocks and meatheads. That's like saying financial planning is just for the wealthy. We can all benefit from it, no matter our age, gender, or level of strength. In fact, women more than anyone need to be convinced to lift heavier. I'm tired of hearing "I don't want to get bulky." You can't get bulky and if you don't lift heavy enough weight you won't change at all. Real progress requires hard work, ladies. I know you've got it in you.

The benefits of heavy lifting are myriad. Stronger bones and stronger joints increase your resistance to injury. The 5x5 not only increases your muscle muss but increases your nervous system's control of it leading to genuine, transferrable functional strength. When I went back to kickboxing training after I started powerlifting the difference in how the bag moved was almost comedic. Every contact sounded like a gunshot. The bag jumped and the roof rattled. Frankly, it was f*cking awesome.

Heavy lifting increases your core strength like crazy. People debate this all the time but i think the reality is fairly obvious. If you are going to support literally hundred of pounds your core has to be incredibly strong. I've seen people completely get rid of lower back pain by beginning a regimen of heavy lifting, something that most people would consider counter intuitive. It all goes back to developing those healthy movement patterns and maximizing their efficiency. Healthy movements, healthy body. Strong movements, strong body. Not quite so counterintuitive as it seems really. 

Heavy lifting also confers a mental strength that other types of training simply don't. There is a lot to be said for the mental toughness of endurance athletes, no argument there, but if you think you're tough why don't you let me put three hundred pounds on your back and see if you can even hold it up. The Brotherhood of the Iron is outlandish and borderline insane but it's also an unspoken bond between those who've been through a trial by fire and come out without quitting. Becoming Invincible isn't just about being fit. It's about being strong and tough. It's about being durable as f*ck and capable as hell in any scenario life has to throw at you whether it's a weight room floor or a zombie apocalypse. Strength matters. Period. Now go out there and lift something heavy.

Good luck and good lifting.

Cheers. 

Mastering Movement

It' a bit of a philosophical Friday. Bear with me. It's worth it. Now watch this video. It's not an absolute must, but it serves as a solid primer for what I'm going to discuss. It's by Elliot Hulse, one of the very few bro-like strength experts who I actually think is brilliant in his own way. Check it out, at least the first minute or so. (Warning: NSFW language) If you're on your phone the embedded video may not work. You can find it here.

Strength training. Running. Injury prevention. Rehabilitation. Exercise Correction.

On the surface it seems like these are all very different aspects of human performance. As someone with a background in both performance enhancement and clinical rehab, I can tell you that many of the driving principles behind these things do seem to contradict one another. Running tends to take long bouts of repetitive motion. Strength training improves fastest with a periodized program that includes intentional variety. Getting stronger usually requires focusing on big, multi-joint, multi-muscle compound lifts. Rehabilitating injuries usually means the opposite, isolating single joints and single muscles. Corrective exercises supposedly focus on balancing imbalances and fixing structural deficiencies. As I said, they all appear to be very different.

The reality? They're not. They're all the same thing. At the end of the day it all comes down to fundamental human movement.

Exercise science is a constantly evolving field. Sometimes the direction is confusing to me, but one of the prevalent paradigms that is beginning to rise to the forefront is this: the mastery of basic human movements trumps all else in terms of genuine fitness and functionality. That's why you start to hear trainers referring to "movements" rather than "exercises." I do it fairly frequently. To some it may seem like semantics but in my opinion it's not only different, but understanding the difference can be both useful and instructive.

If you've read this blog at any length then you know how much I harp on proper form and technique. I've already stated that in terms of both getting the most out of your workouts and preventing injuries proper technique is paramount. It's also larger than that, quite a bit larger. The key to true functional fitness is the attainment of healthy movement patterns and building strength in and through those movements.

This may seem like a bunch of esoteric fitness guru b.s. but I'm going to try to break it down to make it a bit more accessible. I'm not trying to sell you on some mystical fitness philosophy. I'm trying to point out a simple truth that we've been dancing around for years and for some reason we've only recently come to acknowledge. I'm not blaming anyone. It's something I've only recently come to realize myself.

I have a bad hip and a bad shoulder. They're both old injuries from when I used to do MMA. My hip is jacked up from throwing high kicks without the proper flexibility or focus on technique and my shoulder is messed up from a combination of jujitsu training, throwing too many punches and having landed on it wrong one time when a girl half my size flipped me over her back. (Yes, that happened. No, I don't want to talk about it.) 

Both of these injuries plagued me for years. While I was working at the physical therapy clinic I would frequently request fixes from the PTs to the point that they all became somewhat annoyed with my constant pestering. Now, I can understand not wanting to do more work for free after having put in a ten hour shift, but I never really did understand why they would seem so irritated until one of them explained it to me. Basically the general consensus was that I was constantly injured and in pain because I was constantly doing dangerous and (in their opinion) stupid things to my body. They could give me a "fix," but ultimately I would just go back and spar with someone and undo whatever good their fix had done. This underlies one of my biggest problems with the PT profession. Do nothing is not a solution. 

In the short term, resting injured joints and muscles can have obvious benefits. That is not what I'm talking about. What I'm saying is that frequently if you ask a physical therapist how to stop the pain you get in your shoulder from say, heavy bench presses, their answer will be painfully simple: stop doing heavy bench presses. As far as I'm concerned, if your solution to an athlete's nagging issue is to tell them to stop participating in an activity they clearly love, you are a poor practitioner. There are obvious exceptions, i.e. if you just had your hip replaced you probably shouldn't try to go back into your tae-kwon-do class, but if you are an otherwise healthy individual and the only solution they can offer is, "stop," then they aren't doing their job. I think, unfortunately, this solution frequently arises simply because the practitioner has run out of options and is frustrated that they can't solve their patients issue. Giving up, however, is not the appropriate response, nor is telling the patient to give up as well.

Anyway, back to my injuries. After having tried all sorts of different "rehabilitative" techniques I decided to step back from martial arts for a while to give my body time to repair itself. The trouble was that my injuries had become so bad that they were preventing me from even working out normally. I couldn't do a set of pushups without my shoulder flaring up and if I ran at any speed more than 6 miles per hour my hip and groin would get so tight that I would be walking funny for days. Honestly the pain had gotten so bad it was just a part of my day-to-day. It wasn't ever 10/10, but it was constantly there in the background, buzzing and annoying me and always ready to scream at me anytime I moved too quickly or in a slightly incorrect direction. 

So what did I turn to? Powerlifting. It seems like a bizarre choice until you examine the underlying logic. What was causing the injuries to flare up was a lot of intense, fast and repetitious movements at both joints. Powerlifting training typically involves sets of very few reps and very simple motions. You squat, you deadlift, you bench and sometimes if you get really ambitious you overhead press. I would also throw in some pull-ups to balance it out. That's pretty much it. With just those five movements you're hitting all of the basics. It may seem counterintuitive but after a couple of weeks of training basic movements with heavy weights a really interesting thing happened: my pain went away.

For a while I figured it was just that the pain was gone because I was no longer doing the things that would set it off. I was worried that were I to go back and try any of that stuff, it would come right back. I stuck with the heavy lifting for another month or so until my joints were feeling so good that I figured, hey, what the heck. I did a CrossFit workout that involved a gnarly combination of sprinting, push ups, pull ups, and dips. 6 months prior that would have been a direct recipe for sitting on my couch in pain all weekend, unable to walk with my arm in a sling. But that's not what happened. I crushed the workout and there was no pain, just that amazing workout afterglow of having beat the ever living sh*t out of yourself while loving every second. 

I've been doing this fitness thing for a while now. I've been reading, researching and self experimenting with all sorts of modalities and philosophies for almost thirteen years. I have a degree in the subject and several certifications and even with all of that education and practical experience the realization hit me like a freight train. I was wrong. All that time and all of those years, I'd been doing the wrong things.

I was focusing on numbers and times. I was more interested in the way I looked in the mirror than the way my joints felt at night. I always went as hard as I could no matter what because no pain, no gain, right? Wrong. Oh so very, utterly wrong.

Powerlifting requires complete mastery of the technique involved in each individual lift. Mastery of the technique involves serious structural integrity and flexibility through every joint and muscle. You can't do a real squat with tight hips and poor thoracic extension. You can't bench press properly with overly tight shoulders and you really can't deadlift well if you have terrible posture. The same muscles and anatomical configurations that aid in your ability to do those lifts, aid in your bodies ability to function at a maximal capacity.

So why are we told to stay away?

A lot of people think lifting heavy is just for meatheads and morons. It's how you get hurt. You guys know how I feel about that. You get hurt from being stupid, not from going big. Accidents do happen, but claiming that lifting heavy is dangerous is tantamount to saying eating makes you fat. Sure, it's possible if you're not paying attention but that hardly makes it an absolute outcome. Lifting heavy forced me to learn how to truly squat in an anatomically beneficial manner for the first time in my life. Lifting heavy forced me to learn how to use proper posture to stabilize myself while deadlifting and doing overhead presses. Lifting heavy forced me to re-program faulty movement patterns into healthy ones and the benefits were far more than simply adding a hundred pounds to every lift.

After you learn how to squat properly every time you bend down to pick something up your bodies preferred method of doing so is healthy and reinforces a beneficial pattern, rather than placing unnecessary stress on the wrong structures and eventually leading to a silly and completely avoidable overuse injury. It teaches you how to land properly, how to use your legs to absorb shock. Learning how to lunge is an incredible asset to any athlete because it teaches you how to stop and drop your center of gravity in a healthy way. Whether you're catching a frisbee or reaching for a lacrosse ball, an athlete who can forward, side and crossover lunge properly is going to do it faster and with less chance of injury than the one who was never taught how to do so. The same principle applies for every basic movement: overhead pressing teaches you how to lift things over your head safely, pull-ups can teach you how to climb better and how to use the pulling muscles of your body to do just that; pull. Think about how profound the effect on your overall health would be if you had a healthy and proper running gait as opposed to a dangerous and inefficient one.

This is also why I have a negative view of things like the Bosu and all of that obnoxious, overly complicated "functional" fitness crap that certain vendors are pushing these days. These accessories can be good to change it up from time to time, but every program should be built around basic human movements. There's nothing basic, functional, or transferrable about hopping onto and off of a Bosu while waving a weighted bar over your head like a ninja turtle on meth. There's also a lot of evidence that the balance you learn on an unstable surface only translates to other unstable surfaces. In other words, being able to balance on a Bosu won't help you balance better on flat ground. Seems counter intuitive I suppose, but think about it. You're training your nervous system to respond to a lack of stability. When you stand on a stable surface you're now providing a stimulus you haven't trained for and as such, your body responds by not knowing what the heck it's supposed to do. Pretty straight forward, really. 

When we move properly we are stronger, faster and more efficient. We are also healthier and less likely to get hurt. It absolutely bears mentioning that the bio-mechanically correct way for me to do these motions will not be exactly the same as the way you do them. Every body is different and as such every movement is unique. That is not to say that there aren't certain guidelines you should follow and any trainer worth their salt should be capable of teaching them to you. 

Also, on that note, there is a trend in gyms these days that I want to warn you guys about: Corrective Exercise Specialists. Do not trust these people. Despite what I said about physical therapists earlier, I do think that they are frequently incredibly intelligent and highly educated. I have my issues with their practice but we all know that nothing is perfect. In order to become a PT you need a bachelor's degree and then a 3 year doctorate. People with a CES basically claim to be able to do what PT's do and you don't even need a high school diploma to become one. If that doesn't make you skeptical I would seriously question your capacity for rational thought, or at the very least assume you have a drinking problem. One of the best things I learned form my foray into powerlifting is that the best corrections, very simply, are regressions. If you can't do it right, lower the weight until you can. If your form sucks you have no business lifting that heavy weight any way. Check your ego, go back to the foundation and build it correctly. In many cases muscular imbalances are the result of improper movement patterns. Fix the patterns, and you should fix the imbalances as well. 

Humans are obligatory movers. It's the reason we so thoroughly admire athletes and feats of physical prowess. We are drawn to their examples on a primal level. Throughout history our survival and the advancement of our societies has depended on our physicality. Whether it was the ability to hunt down a meal, escape a predator, or defend ourselves in a large scale physical conflict, human beings are obligate physical creatures. It is a defining aspect of who are and it seems, as of late, most of us have forgotten that. If you're here and you're still reading, chances are you aren't one of those people. Frankly, I think that's pretty awesome and I hope it never changes.

Good luck and good lifting. Happy Friday folks.

Cheers.

Scientific Skepticism

This post is something I've been meaning to write for a while now. I spend a lot of time reading journal articles and other peer reviewed research but I also spend almost an equal amount of time browsing fitness forums and the web pages of other "fitness experts" in the blogosphere. A humorous phenomenon that seems to occur on a daily basis throughout these forums is the trolls showing up in droves to write in angry shout-y caps "SOURCES!?!?!? WHERE ARE YOU EFFING CITATIONS YOU EFFING STUPID IDIOT!?!?!????"

No, but seriously. It gets that bad sometimes.

I've had this conversation with a couple of people in terms of why I don't cite my own sources. I've been trying to come up with an explanation for all of you that doesn't just sound like  intellectualized egotism or some remix of, "well, I don't need sources because I only speak the truth." The problem is there really isn't a better way to say it. A large part of why I don't cite is because I try, to the best of my current ability, to only give you guys the truth. I try to look at both sides of the coin (read my articles on why I both love and at times question Crossfit) and I have no problem retracting a statement or admitting that I was wrong when I come across something that proves it to me. There is, however, a larger reason as well.

This article showed up in one of the forums that I frequent. If you don't feel like reading it, that's cool. It's basically a point-by-point rebuttal to an article about why running is bad for women, which can be found here. If you follow my blog, you know how I feel about long term, steady state cardio. Generally speaking, I'm not a fan. The reason, however, is hardly because it's bad for you. The truth is that if the only reason you're running is for the purpose of fat loss, there are probably significantly more efficient modalities to get you to your goals. I don't run because my current goals are all related to powerlifting. Not only will running not help me get to squatting 405 for 5, it will directly inhibit my progress.

That being said, I have to admit that the first time I read the article on why women shouldn't run, there were some things about it that I bought into. I agree that excessive running in lieu of any other type of training is not the best thing for your body. There's plenty of evidence that it is hard on your joints and your bones. It's also frequently bad for your posture and may cause you to prematurely appear significantly older than you are (although a lot of times this has more to do with constant sun exposure experienced by outdoor runners than a true effect of the exercise itself). The truth, however, is that most of these things can be combatted by a balanced training regimen and running in moderation rather than to an extreme. It's not that running is bad for you, it's that too much running is bad for you. Go figure.

Anyway, the point of me bringing up these articles was not to rehash a conversation on running. Rather, what I want to point out is the main theme of the first article which, from where I'm standing, isn't truly about running either.

We live in the information age. I would love to say that we live in an era where free access to information is abundant but it's way past that. Spending too much time on the web is akin to being water boarded with information. Anyone and everyone with internet access also has access to thousands of informational sources whether they be peer reviewed journals or some know-it-all blogger like me. On the one hand this is great because it expands the discussion of important topics beyond just the realm of academia. You no longer need a PhD to have access to scientific journals or to participate in a conversation on  cellular signaling pathways. Unfortunately the most significant downside of this information age we inhabit is that it seems just about everyone believes that because they're being allowed to participate it means they are qualified to do so. We are rapidly developing armies of arm chair experts who have no understanding or knowledge outside of their internet escapades. This has to stop.

Variety of perspective is absolutely crucial in terms of developing real knowledge. It's always valid to be able to examine a problem or a question from a multitude of viewpoints and attempt to apply more than one mode of thought or scientific paradigm to get answers. This should not be mistaken for saying that even though you never graduated college or even high-school, having spent a thousand hours reading forums means you are just as qualified to evaluate scientific research as someone who has a PhD. You're not, and all of you people need to stop. You're not helping. You're hurting all of us.

When the first article was posted on the forum a funny thing happened. Everybody hopped off the "running is bad" bandwagon and jumped right onto the "author who wrote that article is bad," bandwagon. This was not the author's intent. They say so, right there in their own words. Their intent was to show people that ultimately we all need to be intelligent enough to educate ourselves and draw our own conclusions. You should not accept anything as infallible despite how incredible and accurate aspects of it may be. This should also not be understood to be a blank check that gives all of us the right to decide whatever the hell we want is true. That would also be missing the mark.

The reason I don't cite is actually pretty simple. If I put scientific articles in my blog, would you read the entirety of every one? It's okay, I don't always read the citations and I have a strong educational background in a scientific field. The reason I don't use citations is because they don't carry the validity that the cultural hive-mind seems to have placed in them. The first article I linked to makes an excellent point of saying that simply because a statement is followed by a string of small letters hardly imbues it with any kind of truth or reality. The reason being that scientific papers (with the one LARGE exception of review articles) are extremely specific. There are no papers out there that have deliberately investigated every single effect of running or lifting on the human body over the course of a lifetime. Why? Well, because it would be borderline impossible to conduct such a study. Think about it. You would have to track someone from the moment they were born until the moment they die. You would have to do this for not only one person, but at least thirty or more randomly selected subjects to give your study any remote kind of statistical significance.

Instead, what most authors do is use a biased view to choose the studies they like and then string them together into an argument they think proves whatever it is they are trying to prove. I can tell you scientifically that running will prevent significant muscular hypertrophy from strength training. I can also tell you that the repetitive impact from running can and will frequently lead to impact-related overuse injuries such as joint deterioration and stress fractures. I can put these two things together to make what APPEARS to be a convincing argument that running is not good for you. The problem is that in doing so I am ignoring literally hundreds of articles that extol the benefits of running, from increased aerobic system capacity and cardiovascular health to maintaining lean muscle mass as you age and improving cognitive function.

Starting to see what I'm saying?

The problem with using scientific citations is that frequently the people that are throwing them around are not, themselves, scientists. This may sound elitist but it's not meant to be. It's merely acknowledging that the world of academic science has a language all it's own. If you don't speak the language your interpretation of what they're saying means next to nothing.

Any good scientist will tell you that the significance of a single paper is questionable at best. Just because one paper demonstrated a result does not, as far as the larger body of science is concerned, mean that the study constitutes a scientific fact. All it means is that the results of this study must now be considered as a possibility. It's not until a result has been observed numerous times by multiple different researchers that it starts to become the general consensus. Therein lies the problem.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Fitness is pervaded by snake oil salesmen who will use whatever tricks and arguments they can get their hands on to show you why their particular flavor of snake oil is the best one for the job. As soon as a single study is published that they think may help boost their sales numbers, they're all over it, showing it off to all of their followers and potential customers as inarguable scientific proof that they were right all along.

Right all along. Come on, people. Even Newton wasn't entirely correct. Just ask that Einstein guy, he'll tell you. Newton had it mostly right, but there were some things he didn't get. Hell, even Einstein didn't get everything right.

I'm not telling you all of this to get you to reject science as being useless because it clearly isn't. All good scientists are skeptical until their own personal experience proves something as true or there is a large enough body of evidence that it's not worth debating.

So, again, why don't I use citations? It's simple. I don't have anything to sell you guys. I'm not operating on a financial incentive to get you to believe me over someone else. I'm doing this because I love the subject and I love writing. Frankly, I also probably like most of you guys too, so why would I want to lie to you?

I promise I will always do my best to tell you the truth and to correct myself whenever I'm wrong. If you want me to send you the sources for something feel free to ask and I'll do my best to comply. I apologize if you find this post disheartening or if it sounds like "don't trust anyone because they're all liars." That's not what I'm trying to say. I'm simply emphasizing the following points: Do your research. Consider the sources. Maintain a healthy skepticism until it becomes foolish or fanatical to do so. I will do my best to continue giving you valid, scientifically based opinions and providing you with other sources who are doing the same. Just like the X-Files said, the truth is out there. The thing is it often takes some true effort to find it.

That's all for now kids. Good luck and good lifting.

Cheers.

Oh, and umm. This. Yea. 

Because apparently I'll never learn.

The Realities of Crossfit - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

I stumbled across CrossFit about five years ago. I was taking Krav Maga classes at this run down warehouse gym in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. Turns out it was also a CrossFit Box. One day when I showed up for class a little early I saw this group of people plowing through a hellish workout that involved kettle bells and gymnastics rings. The participants varied in size and appearance but it was pretty clear they were all in sick shape. Not to mention the fact that the instructor looked like a greek statue that had just finished it's fourth cycle of growth hormone. I was immediately intrigued.

I was also pretty heavily involved at MMA at the time and as it turned out a lot of the pro fighters were starting to use CrossFit for their strength and conditioning programs. The more research I did the more my curiosity was piqued. As I've said before, intensity is king and when it comes to intensity you would be pretty hard pressed to find a fitness philosophy more intense than CrossFit.

A lot has changed in the last five years. CrossFit has gone from an underground movement for fitness fanatics to borderline mainstream. They have their own sponsors, their own clothing line and their own televised national championships (If you've never heard of the CrossFit Games they're coming up soon, regionals are this weekend. Keep an eye out...it's like a combination of strong man and the olympics, pretty wild stuff.)  The number of CrossFit boxes has increased exponentially to the point that there's almost one in every neighborhood of every major metropolitan area and suburb.

As with anything as popular as CrossFit there is a gigantic amount of hype surrounding it coupled with a fair amount of misinformation. I am not personally associated or affiliated with the organization in any capacity, professional or otherwise. I just happen to be a huge fan of their training methodology and an occasional frequenter of a few of the boxes in my area. I'm going to do my best to give you an unbiased perspective on the reality of CrossFit in the hopes of helping you to decide if it's for you.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: CrossFit Edition

The Good

-INTENSITY - As I mentioned there are really only a few types of training that come close to CrossFit's level of intensity. They focus on keeping their workouts short and fast, typically involving a great deal of maximal or close to maximal effort bouts of exercise. There's all sorts of research relating to the benefits and efficacy of this kind of exercise from improving your anaerobic threshold and improving your cardiovascular system to burning fat and building muscle. Yea, it's really that good.

-FOCUS ON TECHNIQUE- One of my favorite things about CrossFit is that they build their programs around movements rather than muscles. They use a decent sized pool of exercises but when it comes down to it they are all variations of  upper body pushes and pulls; squats, lunges and deadlifts. They do a lot of olympic lifting and a lot of gymnastic/calisthenic movements. This might be my favorite aspect of CrossFit. I know I'm repeating myself but the foundation of fitness is proper technique and healthy movement patterns. CrossFit emulates and reinforces this principle in a way I've never seen in any similar fitness "trend."

-VARIETY OF EXERCISE - We all know (or at least we should at this point) that when it comes to fitness, repetition is bad. That's how you plateau and kiss your gains goodbye. While most of CrossFit's movements do come from a small-ish pool (the organization claims to use 9 foundational movements) the number of ways in which you can combine these movements is enormous. Then throw in varied loading schemes and time intervals and you have the basis for an almost infinite number of possibilities. Workouts rarely repeat themselves within the course of six months unless they are done so intentionally.

-COMPETITION & PROGRESSION- One of the largest arguments against CrossFit is that they don't have particularly strict loading paramaters and as such it makes it difficult to scientifically gauge progress. Frankly, this is kind of crap. While the loading parameters are not quite as specific as a bodybuilding or sports performance program might be, workouts are scaled to the athlete performing them.

Most workouts are done with the aim of hitting as many repetitions or rounds of a circuit as you can within a certain time interval or accomplishing a set repetition/circuit scheme in the shortest amount of time possible. They also do olympic/powerlifting which has pretty standard weight progressions.

So, how do they measure progress? It's pretty simple. There's a bunch of benchmark workouts. You do them when you start and then you just keep working out. Every few months you try one of the benchmark workouts again and you compare scores. You are competing with yourself on a daily basis with the idea of pushing yourself to go further and harder. One of the cool things about the standardized workouts, however, is that you can meet someone from the other side of the state, country or even world and you might be able to compare a scored workout with theirs. It's always fun to put a little competitive spin on working out and CrossFit seems to have found a pretty brilliant way of doing so. Which brings me to my next point...

-COMMUNITY- This is probably one of the greatest aspects of the CrossFit Community - it's a community. When CrossFitters meet other CrossFitters its a unique (and at times humorous) bond. In my experience the vast majority of the community is incredibly positive, friendly, motivating and welcoming to quite literally everyone. In some way they are the hyperbole of the stereotypical fitness nut, always happy and smiling and full of energy and looking for new physically challenging tasks to accomplish. They're kind of like a bunch of golden retrievers...only instead of chasing tennis balls they work out. They can be annoying when you don't want to play, but it's kind of hard to not be engaged by how friendly they are towards everyone. Additionally the community is full of all sorts of experts in just about every athletic field from professional athletes and gymnasts to self defense and sports/orthopedic rehab clinicians. It is an incredibly diverse, wildly passionate and highly educated group of people. If your goal is extreme fitness, they are some great friends to have.

The Bad

-NOT FOR EVERYONE- Contrary to what the organization would have you believe, CrossFit is absolutely not for everyone. It's a nice idea, kind of like Communism, but in reality it just isn't practical. This image, my friends, is Pukey The Clown, one of CrossFit's unofficial mascots. He was created by the community as a bit of a joke due to how frequently athletes retch during their daily excursion to the box. That should tell you something about these people. They think it's funny to vomit from working out, and not just like, kinda sorta funny; they think it's f*cking hysterical.

 Personally I agree. I've vomited and made myself bleed from working out on more than one occasion and every time it has elicited borderline maniacal laughter from me and somewhat concerned but mostly frightened looks from the other patrons in the vicinity. When I said CrossFit was all about intensity I meant it. Go hard or go home is not just a saying to them, it is quite literally the epicenter of their training philosophy. If you are not trying as hard as you possibly can through every workout, you are doing it wrong.

I appreciate this level of dedication and intensity but the reality is that not everyone wants to push themselves like this nor do they have to. You can get fairly significant benefits from exercise without killing yourself every time you go to the gym. It's just fun for some of us.

-INCIDENCE OF INJURY- People get hurt doing CrossFit. Some of them get hurt pretty badly, like, surgically badly.  It's unfortunate but true. This is one of the most frequently referenced "problems" with CrossFit. Here's the reality, this isn't so much an issue with the philosophy as it is with the practitioners. Everything done is CrossFit is not only safe, but capable of being rehabilitative and useful for creating healthier movement patterns for everything you do. Here's the crux of it - it's all about proper technique.

The CrossFit certification gets trashed a lot by the wider fitness community as being a bullsh*t ploy to make money. Honestly it's one of only a handful of certifications I'm aware of that actually physically requires you to learn and demonstrate every lift used in the system. Even the NSCA-CSCS, which is the gold standard strength cert and what most college strength coaches have, doesn't require anything more than a computer based multiple choice test.

What I'm saying is that the professionals in the community know proper form and teach proper form. Unfortunately, at some point, the individual athletes need to become accountable for ensuring that this proper form is maintained throughout the workout. Even the best instructors in the world can't keep track of a twenty five person class. You could argue that the classes should be smaller or there should be more coaches which is kind of valid. Honestly though, it is my firm opinion that if you are performing any movement it is YOUR responsibility to make sure you do it properly. The whole point of training functional movements and creating proper movement patterns is that the benefits extend beyond the training floor, and your coach isn't going to follow you everywhere you go.

When you combine a competitive nature/atmosphere with high intensity and technical movements, one could say you are creating a recipe to have people sacrificing form to get those new personal bests. That's bullsh*t and we should all know better. If you are sacrificing form for the sake of a number you don't deserve, that's your fault and so is the injury. Don't blame the methodology because you couldn't swallow your pride. However, if you are not someone who thinks they can maintain proper form or cares to learn how to do it in the first place, then no, CrossFit probably isn't for you.

-COST- While in a lot of ways CrossFit is a philosophy, the organization is a business with a bottom line. In my experience the average membership is between $120-$175/month which is not completely outlandish but compared to the average full service gym that charges $20-$50/month, the difference is pretty steep. If you are motivated and educated enough you can follow a lot of the CrossFit workouts which they give away on their website for free daily, but the problem is that if you aren't experienced you might not know how to scale the workouts for your individual fitness level. Sometimes it's as simple as lowering a weight, sometimes it's a bit more complex.

 Personally, I think if you have the money to blow it is absolutely worth the investment hands down. That being said, it is a fair amount of money to spend every month for a gym membership when the entire movements philosophy is to get away from all the frilly extras and bullsh*t offered by big corporate gyms.

The Ugly

-LACK OF SPECIFICITY- Ultimately one of CrossFit's biggest pluses is simultaneously it's largest flaw. CrossFit is excellent for overall fitness because of how varied the workouts are. That being said, if your goal is just to get more fit and look better in general, CrossFit is perfect. The problem starts as soon as you have a goal any more specific than that. CrossFit is not the best way to accomplish anything, other than becoming better at CrossFit. That might sound stupid, but it is something the vast majority of the community frequently forgets, unfortunately.

What I'm saying is that if you are an athlete looking to improve athletic performance, you are going to need some sport specific work. CrossFit would provide an excellent foundation, but if CrossFit was the best way to get in shape for everything it would be the only workout used by professional athletes and guys like me would be out of a job. Luckily it isn't. Remember when I said a lot of MMA guys were doing it a few years ago? Very few of them are still doing it now because it has pretty much been demonstrated to be inferior to more sport specific conditioning programs.

Sometimes the community forgets that ultimately CrossFit is glorified cross training. I mean, come on, it's part of the freaking name. What was the purpose of cross training when it first came about? To increase performance in a certain sport or event by utilizing training methods from other sports and events. Did this mean that the athletes no longer performed their sport specific training? No, it just meant they did other things as well. CrossFit can certainly be a part of an athletes sports training regimen, but it should not be the only component.

This also applies to the average every day gym goer. If your goal is that you specifically want to change the shape of a certain part of your body, bodybuilding might be the best way to do it. Not everyone wants to look like a CrossFit athlete. If all you want is to be thinner, then maybe running is what you should go for. Every different type of exercise is a different tool and they all serve specific functions. CrossFit is kind of like the bastard child of a swiss army knife that banged a multi-attachment power screwdriver. It's versatile as f*ck, but you still can't use it to paint a wall.

-FANATICISM- Now this is something that you may or may not care for because with I'm sure you will find that this exists with just about anything. One of my biggest pet peeves about CrossFit is the random dbags in the community who forget or refuse to acknowledge all of the negative aspects that I just brought up. They go around proclaiming they are the fittest people on earth and the fittest people in history and someone needs to smack all of them because they're making the rest of us look bad. CrossFit is amazing for the right group of people and it is certainly one of the most positive trends in fitness in a very long time. That doesn't make it the ultimate of ultimates, and it sure as sh*t doesn't make you intrinsically better than anyone for doing it. One of the mainstays of the community is supposed to be humility, not condescension.

So, there you have it. Sorry for the wall of text but this isn't really a simple subject. I could probably go on about CrossFit for another couple of pages but I'll spare you the pontification. Time to go outside and enjoy some of this gorgeous weather. Hope you guys are doing the same, wherever you may be.

Good luck and good lifting.

Cheers.

Today's Workout:
Dynamic Warm Up - 10m
TRX Circuit - Row-Squat-PushUp-Bridge
1 of each 1st round, 2 of each 2nd round, 3 of each 3rd round etc. for 10 rounds

TRX Tabata Workout
Tabata Intervals of(20s on 10s off 8 rounds)
Squats - 144
TRX Row - 108
Burpees 86
TRX Suspended Chest Press 113
(Full 8 Rounds Each - AMRAP ea. round)

Posture Up

Stand up straight. Sit up tall. Don't slouch. Keep your head up. How many times have people told you throughout your life that you have bad posture? Maybe you're lucky and you're just one of those people who carries themselves perfectly at all times. Head up, shoulders back, walking confidently unto all challenges with which life may present them.

I am not one of those people.

I was a fat kid when I was little. Sick and fat. I did not go outside very often and I spent far too much time in front of a television, smashing a controller and shouting when the computer would kick my ass. Honestly it was kind of funny in hindsight but that's not the point. Sidetracked.

The point is that a lot of the activities that we chose to occupy our time with contribute negatively to our posture. It's not that I couldn't sit in front of the television with absolutely perfect anatomical positioning,  it's that I'm fighting a giant f*cking dragon spirit that shoots lasers out of it's face and if I need to roll up into a tightly packed ball, lay upside down or run in place with my face half an inch from the television that's what's gonna happen because that motherf*cking dragon is going down.

Passive posture is a dangerous thing. It's the term for the anatomical positions we leave ourselves in for extended periods of time: when we sit in front of the television, when we sit in front of the computer; honestly sitting in general tends to be pretty bad for most of us. Again, it's not so much because we can't maintain good posture while doing a lot of these things, it's just that we don't.

So, why does this matter? I've spent a lot of time talking about proper technique and highlighting why it's important. It plays a huge role in everything from making progress to preventing injury. Technique is the foundation of any proper workout and good posture is the foundation of proper technique.

 In Brazilian Jiujitsu a very common cue you'll hear is "posture up." What they're doing is telling the fighter to sit up straight with their head tall and their shoulders back. My professor used to tell us, "sit like little string is pulling your head to ceiling." The point of posturing up is to put your body into a position where it's difficult for your opponent to exert control over you and therefore set you up for an attack.

Following the same principle, you should always remember to do some form of "posturing up" before any of your lifts. I understand there is a significant difference between several hundred pounds of iron and an active, resisting opponent but the point is still the same: you need to set your body in the optimal position to perform and succeed.

Posture is incredibly important when squatting and deadlifting. If your shoulders are rolled forward and your body is hollowed out there is a really good chance you're going to hurt your back or your neck. Even beyond that, one of the things that I learned from watching the therapists and the patients at the clinic I used to work at is how incredibly important posture is for proper form of any upper body exercise. They would constantly be cuing for proper posture, telling the patients to keep their heads up and their shoulders back. Your body wants to help you and if you are struggling with any exercise, your body will find a way to cheat. This is even more evident in athletes with injuries. Your body will try to find a way to do what you're doing, but if you let it cheat you are doing a host of negative things for yourself. You are reinforcing improper movement patterns and exercising the wrong muscles. Ultimately, you are not strengthening what you're targeting, and you're setting yourself up for injury. Again. Sound like fun?

So there you have it. Posture isn't just the realm of grade school disciplinarians and angry nuns. Posture is important for maintaining strength and the structural integrity of your body and your joints. It is the foundation on which proper technique is built and you can't build an invincible house without a solid foundation.

Cheers.

Today's Workout:
Strength Day:
Deadlift 5x5
Front Squat 3x5
Bench Press 3x5
Pull Up  (strict form) 5x3