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. 

Big Bad Rubber Bands - The Do's and Don'ts of Band Training

In many ways I'm a firm believer in a minimalist, basic approach to working out. I like barbells.  I like heavy weights. I like multi-joint, compound movements. Generally speaking a lot of stuff that is touted by the "functional" fitness community like the BOSU, airex pads and cute little color coded medicine balls makes me cringe. It's not that these things are intrinsically bad, it's that frequently people tend to use them instead of the exercises that you should really be building your programs around.

I used to have an extremely negative view of resistance bands and band training. Frankly it just seemed like some sissy sh*t that would appeal to gym newcomers because of how easy it was. How are you going to hurt yourself with rubber bands? They're so much more welcoming than a bunch of big, scary iron weights. Then I started working at an orthopedic rehabilitation clinic where the majority of resistive work was done with bands, particularly where the upper body was concerned. I had several extensive discussions with one of the therapists there who in addition to being a DPT had a NSCA-CSCS, NASM-CES, NASM-PES, NASM-CPT, ACSM-CES, RKC and was Grey Cook FMS certified. You can look these things up if you really want but they're basically just different exercise certifications. The point is that this guy not only knew his stuff, but was always actively increasing and improving his knowledge of exercise and movement.

He changed my views on resistance band training fairly quickly by identifying the best uses for them. I am going to attempt, to the best of my ability, to recall what he told me so that you guys can put it to use.

Resistance Band Training: The Basics

     Super Bands - These basically look like giant, black rubber bands. I've also heard clients compare them to the belts that are on your car's engine. Either way, they are large rubber bands that typically come in one of two widths and then a variety of different colors which represent different levels of resistance.

    Sports Cords - Also known as JC Bands, a patented product invented by Juan Carlos Santana, one of the premier figures in functional training and the owner/founder of the Institute for Human Performance down in Florida. This is what they look like.

They are great for all sorts of things because you can use the cloth piece to anchor them to just about anything. They also come in a variety of resistances, indicated by the color of the band. 

     

     Dual Ended Resistance Tubing - These are the resistance bands that have a handle on each end. In my opinion they are merely an inferior version of the sports cord. They're difficult to anchor which makes them difficult to use effectively. They are frequently billed as one of the best pieces of portable fitness equipment. Strictly an opinion, but I think they're garbage. 

     Thera-Band - Last but not least we have Thera-Bands. Like Band-Aid to adhesive bandages, TheraBand is one of those products where their brand name has become synonymous with their product, regardless of the actual manufacturer. These look like long thin rubber bands and are typically sold in rolls of different resistances, once again coded by color. Thera bands are interesting because they're the duct tape of resistance band training, meaning with a little ingenuity you can pretty much make them into anything. That being said, the heaviest resistance of Thera Bands is roughly as heavy as the weakest resistance of JC bands, so they do have their limitations.

There are an infinite number of combinations and iterations of these four types of bands, but these are the main variations you're likely to encounter and the only types of bands I've ever really used to any effect.

Resistance Band Training: The Do's and Don'ts

DO - Use resistance bands for therapy/rehabilitative exercises. In general the resistance curve of a band is the opposite to the strength production curve of our muscles. What this means is that the resistance of the band is highest when we are at our weakest. 

Your muscles tend to produce the most amount of force when they are at about 75%-25% of their total length, with their ability to produce force reduced if they are longer or shorter than that. A resistance band continually becomes more difficult to move the more it is elongated. As a result, if you have a damaged joint resistance bands can be great for therapy because they force you to become stronger where you are the weakest and therefore the most likely to re-injure yourself. We use therabands of different levels for almost all internal/external rotation exercises of the shoulder for specifically this reason. 

Additionally using bands allows you to exercise certain joints with large/complicated ranges of motion (think your shoulder and hip) in a variety of different angles and directions without placing undue stress on the rest of your body. Think about it like this. When you lift a weight, the resistance is always in one direction - down to the ground. You are working against gravity. Therefore, in order to change the force vector you have to change your body position. By anchoring a band in a bunch of different locations and at various heights you can quite literally work your joints/muscles at any angle while sitting or standing straight up. This is another huge part of why bands are an excellent rehabilitative tool.

DO- Use resistance bands as a way to help break through plateaus. If you are having trouble performing pullups, looping a super band to the pull up bar and then placing a knee or a foot through the loop can help you work a movement that would otherwise be out of your reach. You can also use them to help you improve your bench press or your squat. Frequently power racks will have anchors along the floor for bands so that you can loop them over the barbell and then attach them to the ground. Exposing your body to a different kind of resistance (bands are variable resistance, as discussed above, as opposed to free weights, which do not change in resistance level) means a different kind of stimulus, this may be just the change your body needs to break through that plateau.

When used this way bands help to develop not just strength but power, your ability to produce force and to do so quickly. Because the band is increasing in resistance as you move, it has a natural braking effect on your movement. Forcing yourself to combat this braking effect of the band helps your nervous system to fire in such a way that you significantly improve your power production. This is great for any athlete or someone just looking to change up their routine. It should be noted (although it may be obvious to some of you) that when you first switch to bands you should also significantly decrease the weights you use for these lifts until your body becomes accustomed to this type of training. 

DO - Use resistance bands as an alternative form of cardio/ as a warm- up. I use bands with my in-home clients all of the time because they offer a simple and portable type of resistance. In general I try to focus on body weight or suspension training if we're going for strength or muscular hypertrophy, but I will frequently use circuits of different resistance band exercises to challenge their cardiovascular systems. A really simple circuit would be something like alternating sports cord rows followed by alternating sports cord chest press followed by a sports cord squat pull down. Each exercise would be done for 30s-1 minute and the circuit would be repeated 3-5 times before moving on to the next complex.

Sports cords are also great as a warm up tool because they allow you to mimic movements that you may be doing in your program (rows, presses, pull downs, etc) at a much lower resistance and with a little bit more speed. This helps you to get your blood flowing, raise your body temperature and prime your nervous system with the movement patterns you're going to be working on. It's also fairly common practice in powerlifting circles to use either a band resisted deadlift or a band resisted squat that is performed explosively to prime your CNS for a maximal lift or new personal record attempt. 

DO - Use sports cords for core training. Due to the variability of options in anchoring the sports cord, you can perform movements that would otherwise be fairly difficult to set up. Two of my favorites are hi-low and low-hi chops with core rotations coming it at a very close third. 

One of the nastiest core exercises I've ever come across is also one of the most simple. Attach a sports cord to something that is about waist height. Now position yourself as if you're going to do a core rotation with your body perpendicular to the anchor point. Extend your arms from your body fully keeping your hands roughly in line with your belly button. Now side step away from the anchor point. Once you can't walk any further, hold that position for 10-30s. Repeat. Trust me, it sounds easier than it is. 

I suppose it bears mentioning that theoretically you can do these things with a cable column but resistance bands offer a more constant resistance, even if you go quickly. If you move quickly with a cable column you may "jump" the weight, allowing you to cheat a bit by using momentum.

DON'T - Use resistance bands as a substitute for the real thing. I can't stand watching people standing on some tubing and doing shoulder presses or standing inside a super band with it looped under their feet and over their shoulders and doing squats. In a pinch if yo have no other options I suppose it is better to have some resistance rather than none at all, but don't get comfortable using resistance bands to replace real exercises, because they can't.

DON'T - Get too creative. Sometimes I see people doing complicated martial arts or what looks like an interpretive dance number while holding bands anchored to two different points and standing on one foot. It may look impressive to you but remember what I always say - basic human movements and their mastery trumps EVERYTHING. Is what you're doing with those bands natural in any way? Will you ever use that type of movement other than right now? Then why are you wasting your time? Functional fitness should be just that, functional. If the exercise you are doing has no real crossover then it is anything but.

DON'T - Get carried away. Resistance bands are an excellent tool when applied in the appropriate manner. That doesn't mean you should be incorporating them in every exercise or even every workout. If you're getting stagnant and you want to mix it up, by all means, give it a shot. If you're injured and you need a low impact, easily transported mode of resistance again, by all means try it. Just be reasonable. They are meant as a supplemental training tool, no more and no less. 

That's pretty much it. The take home for this is simple. Resistance bands can be an excellent complement to a well rounded program, but focus on the basics first. Bands are meant to help you squat and deadlift more, not to replace them entirely, at least not from where I'm standing. 

PerformBetter.com is the site that we ordered most of our bands and such from back at the clinic. They can be a little pricey but overall it is a very solid website for all sorts of fitness equipment and educational tools. Definitely at least worth a look.

Good luck and good lifting.

Cheers.