Special Day

This past Tuesday, October 6th was a very special day for a very special person and I. I had sent Rach a very special email that night last year, detailing all my feelings for her in one email. Who knew there could be an attraction from 3000 miles away? Can you believe I was scared as HELL to send an email like this to a girl I had never met before? Seriously, why should I have even cared if she said yes or no? I knew there was something special about her if I felt this way.

Rachel and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary October 6th, albeit from 3000 miles away (God I hate this distance). Who knew we'd still be together (we did!)? I have to say, looking back on this past year, it has been one helluva year, with many ups and downs, but so worth it. Rach has been the best person to come into my life. No one has done what she has, has expressed so much for me than she has done. I can't believe that after all the highs and lows she still wants to be with me.

There has not been one thing I've regretted, and I hate how I seem to forget how much I miss the time Rachel and I spend together. When you have weeks and months at a time between visits, you sometimes forget what it is like to have the most amazing person in the world with you, and then you remember all those great times together and all the feelings come flooding back. I'm counting down the days till I see her next, and it is taking too damn long to get here.

Isn't she pretty?

Squat Warmup

Since I have gotten several questions at the gym at how to achieve a better squat, and many more about what to do with tight (insert whatever muscle you want) that inhibit good squatting I decided to throw together a warmup to address every issue involved with squatting, from tight ankles to tight hips. Done even once this warmup can greatly improve someone's squatting ability. For example, here are two photos of one of our member's squats, before and after the warmup.

Done on a regular basis this warmup has greatly improved "cold" squats (squats done without any type of warming up). Even as a seasoned squatter myself this warmup is very useful. In short the warmup consists of dynamic mobility for the ankles, hips, and knees, and activation for the hips, groin, and lumbars. The drills are meant to mimic similar positions in squatting such as the high knee drill, which mimics the deep hip and knee flexion in the bottom of the squat. Others such as the backwards kicks aim to loosen up commonly tight muscles (the rectus femoris and hip flexors) while bringing into play prime movers (the glutes). Also, all but one of these drills are done with the spine held in absolute extension in order to once again stretch and mobilize the body as it would be in a good squat.

This warmup ought to be done after a few minutes of warming up, either by jump roping, rowing, or what have you. It only needs to be done once prior to the training session. Consistency here is key, and effort to achieve ideal positioning must be done at all times. Everyone who has done this warmup has seen some sort of improvement in squatting ability, whether it be better form, feeling looser, or hitting a personal record. Interestingly enough, this has solved many issues thought to be shoulder related with front and overhead squats.

Brian D. Squat Warmup from CrossFit NYC on Vimeo.

Perfectionism

Perfect form is a myth, a legend. You will never lift like the "ideal" model of squats, cleans, deadlifts, and everything else. It will not happen. We do not live in a perfect world so being able to move perfectly is not going to happen, no matter how much mobility and soft tissue and Z-health that you do, you will never move like our "ideal" models. However, we can get pretty damn close if we work on it. The key here is to always strive to improve technique (and strength of course) and know that there are certain principles that should not be violated with every movement.

Everyone moves different based on anthropomorphic and individual variance so the way everyone deadlifts is going to be different. However, there must be certain requirements that ought to be met in order for it to be a good and safe deadlift.

Courtest of Keith Wittenstein

Would you call any of these start positions in the deadlift incorrect, even if they are all different from one another? Of course not. All these trainees comply with the basic needs of a deadlift: back remains flat/arched, shoulders in-line/over the bar, bar close to shins, shoulders higher than hips which are higher than the knees, and so on. All six trainees have different body dimensions and therefore require different starting positions but they all fulfill the basic requirements of a good deadlift. There are certain requirements of a good press, pullup, squat, run, clean, and so on. However because of everyone’s uniqueness there will always be a subtle difference in technique.

So why the hell do so many people try to make everyone conform to these stupid "picture perfect" and "ideal" models? When I was going through my first “certification” to be a trainer at school the instructors wanted everyone to overhead squat (with a dowel) to full depth with feet pointed forward. Very few people have the proportions in order to do a good overhead squat with feet shoulder width apart and feet pointed forward with a dowel. It will never happen with any significant weight though. These "intelligent" and "well-respected" trainers had forgone any common sense and biomechanics because of this "ideal" model.

I have even seen it happen with all types of coaches, trainers, and people who ought to know better. I fell into the trap as well. I have heard plenty of, "This is the way it is supposed to be done." At this point I have learned that I can not look to another person and say, "Look, that's perfect technique right there" or, "This is how you should look when you lift." Like I said, no one has perfect technique but we can get close and no one will look the same while they lift. When I train people in [Olympic] weightlifting I really have stopped caring about bar paths. I just look at the bar and the person while they lift and make sure it falls under the criteria for a good lift.

People need to stop saying, "This is the way it should be done" because it varies from person to person. This is the way that you should do it and that is the way that he/she should do it. Everyone's different, just please keep that in mind. I am tired of fighting about good and bad techniques.

Proud...

Yes, this is a shameless plug ... but not for me, for someone very special instead.

Rachel was recently published in the Performance Menu journal (#54 specifically). She wrote about her experiences dealing with her obsessive eating disorder and her way back to accepting that food is a good thing. If I'm not mistaken, she's writing a follow up to that article. Rach makes me proud every single day. Each day she gets one step closer to getting better. These are small steps and even though I want bigger steps taken (and often I get frustrated as she knows; sorry, baby) Rachel makes improvements every day in one form or another.

I know I am trying to shoulder a lot of this to help her get through this, sometimes too much for me to handle, but it is because I really care about her and her well-being. This is going to be a very slow journey towards recovery and acceptance but I know what I am getting myself into when I signed up for being your boyfriend, Rachel. You're stuck with me.

Besides Rachel gradually learning to deal with her food issues, she is becoming more and more of a beast at training. When I left Seattle Rach had already smashed her personal record in the snatch, snatching 62.5kg, many kilos over her bodyweight! Recently she has cleaned well over her clean PR as well, upwards of 77.5kg, and she makes it look easy. Rach also bench pressed 60kg for two reps her first time bench pressing EVER. Rachel is friggin' strong and tough, I love it. It's kinda hawt really.

Anyways, I just want to say, I love my Baby. She is the most wonderful, most amazing, most awesome person in the whole wide world, and that I am proud of her and everything she has done, can do, and will do. I am beside you any day of the week, 24/7/365.

I can hold her up just like she can hold me up

Oops...

I keep letting updates slide on this blog, don't I? Well, it has been a very busy month with going to seminars, a certification, work, and vacation (with the most amazing girl in the world). Let me sum things up:

- Earlier this month I went to the Greg Everett Weightlifting seminar up at CrossFit Boston. It was awesome working with Greg during the lunch break on my lifts. I snatched ~95kg and clean & jerked 115kg there. Later during the month I snatched 98kg and CJ'd 120kg.

- I assisted in judging the Northeast Regional Qualifiers held at CrossFit Albany. That weekend was a blast; it was pretty cool watching everyone put their all into the workouts. I met a lot of great new people while up there.

- I passed my USA Weightlifting Club Coach certification.

- I held my first weightlifting "workshop" for CrossFit Suffolk. Basically it was me coaching people on the lifts for a few hours, which is how any of my "workshops" are going to be. It will be several hours of me helping you (and several others) do the lifts better. Speaking of that, there will be one held at CrossFit NYC June 27th and June 11th.

- I went to California with Rachel for a week, and then spent two weeks in Seattle with her. I have to say that those were the best three weeks of my life and I already wish I was back. It was the best time spent together because it was just her, me, and lifting, nothing else. While in Cali we trained at Catalyst Athletics for the week and in Seattle we trained with Rachel's coach, Sam Maxwell. I ended up hitting some good numbers out there. Tied my front squat PR several times, squatted 170kg for a single and 150kg for a set of three, and I cleaned 115kg from the hang.

But the best part was being with Rachel for three whole weeks. No, we did not get sick of one another even though we spent every single moment together. A lot of memories were made in those three weeks. Rachel did so much for me, especially the early birthday present she gave me. I can't describe Rachel's awesomeness in words, so you'll just have to believe she's the greatest person ever.

That is all for the moment. The next meet ought to be the NY State Championship/Open in July. When a certain someone can get me some pictures *cough*Melissa*cough* then a new article will be complete. I have some other interesting ideas to post.

Courtesy of Catalyst Athletics

Let's Talk About Commitment

Here’s another thing I am starting to get very tired of hearing from trainees (or trainers) –who are “gurus” in the gym because they read muscle magazines and bodybuilding websites – say that workouts should be varied, never do the same workout more than once, never repeat workouts, never repeat exercises two workouts in a row, and so on. Then you also have those people who have training ADD and are constantly changing exercises, reps schemes, and programs. They can not commit to one thing at a time; everything just seems too good (I used to be one of those people).

This really pisses me off, so much, especially if these people are trying to gain mass or to get stronger. You can not gain any significant strength or mass increases with inconsistent exercises and rep selections. There needs to be a constant in each workout in order for the body to adapt. Strength and growth is adaptation to exercise, not constantly “confusing” it. Commitment goes a long way, and I speak from personal experience. I gained so much athletically once I finally committed to doing something consistently.

Muscles, connective tissues, and the central nervous system all adapt to the stressors that are imposed upon them; the SAID (specific adaptations of imposed demands) principle. However, if these stressors are constantly changing (as in not squatting every day to get bigger and stronger) there will be no adaptation, just stagnation. Strength is an adaptation to lifting heavy weights consistently, and the heaviest weights are lifted by squatting, pressing, chinning, dipping, and deadlifting. There is a reason why these lifts are staples in Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength and practically every other strength and size program out there. The biggest and the strongest guys out there do some sort of the above exercise workout to workout.

Yes, there is a need for variation or else things will become stagnant as well. However, variation is almost infinite; it goes beyond exercise selection. Variation is in the reps, the sets, the weight, the placement of your hands or feet, your grip, the tempo at which you lift the weight or move your body, and the rest periods that you take. You could perform the same workout for 5 days straight but change one of the aforementioned variables and you are not doing the same workout anymore.

Bob Peoples, deadlift 725.5lbs, with a hook grip.

Commitment goes a long way.

I'm Watching You

I may be relatively new as a coach or a trainer but let me put it out there that since I was about thirteen years old I was studying to become one, and I am still watching every trainer who I come across. I was not looking at the cheap magazines in the grocery store rack. I flipped through those and laughed at them, at the articles written, at the pictures of "proper" ways to perform the exercises. My study guides for the past five years have been: my high school track coaches, my gymnastics coach, Greg Everett, a powerlifter, T-Nation, DragonDoor, Dan John, CrossFitNYC and its coaches, Keith Wittenstein, Zatsiorsky, and biology, biomechanics, anatomy/physiology, and physics textbooks. All of these have been my teachers these past five years, and I am lucky to have started out on the right track.

I don't try to mimic any one of the coaches and people whom I admire. I look to them all as inspiration and ideas, but my coaching style is my own. Even though it has only been one year or so since I have been an active trainer but I was watching and I still am watching others train clients and athletes. I see what goes on, I see what is taught.

A good coach has his or her own unique style, what works for them, what fits their personality. A poor coach mimics what another coach does, tries to use the exact same techniques and language.

The problem with not having your own unique style and taking verbatim what another coach teaches is - in one sense - plagiarism. On top of plagiarism all you are doing is spitting out what you have memorized. It's kinda like studying for a physiology exam by memorizing all the structures and their functions while not taking the time to understand the concepts and apply them. When it comes exam time, you know what everything is but you don't know how it all works together in the larger picture…And then you forget it after the exam. So when you take a higher level class you have to relearn all the concepts you glossed over and new material.

The same goes for coaching. If you don’t absorb, process, and rearticulate the information you just learned, you will have a poor understanding of fitness and teaching others. Clients like to ask “why?” whenever you make a claim that goes against the grain. If all you have done is “memorized” the movements and what others have to say about them, eventually after so many “whys” you run out of things to say because you do not understand the material enough to succinctly and accurately answer the question. For example:

Trainer: “Now remember to stay on your heels while squatting and push your knees out while descending and rising.”
Client: “Why do I want to stay on my heels?”
Trainer: “Because that’s the correct way to do it.”
Client: “Why do I push my knees out?”
Trainer: “So your knees don’t come in and you hurt them.”
Client: “Why and why do I turn my toes out?”
Trainer: “Because…that’s how you do it.”

The above is very generalized but that is the gist of conversation I overheard from someone with more experience than I. If I were that trainer things would’ve gone more like:

Me: “Stay on your heels while squatting and push your knees out while descending and rising.”
Client: “Why do I want to stay on my heels?”
Me: “If you shift forward towards your toes and your heel comes off the ground, you will lose your balance because the barbell will be well ahead of your center of mass, so it will pull you forward off balance. This forward shift will place a lot of sheer stress on your knees. Staying on the heel keeps everything balanced and brings more muscles into the movement.”
Client: “Why do I push my knees out?”
Me: “There’s three reasons. First, it allows for better recruitment of the glutes while squatting, since the glutes also abduct the hip (motion abduction with my leg). It also allows you to sit between your legs, making the movement easier. Lastly, if your knees cave in (motion adduction with leg) then a lot of sheer stress is transferred to the knee again.”
Client: “Ok, cool…why do I turn my toes out?”
Me: “If your toes point straight ahead, then your femurs (points to thigh) get pinned between your hip and stomach. Also, your femurs will shoot straight behind you while squatting. This forces you to lean over too much in order to compensate, maybe lose your balance or maybe compromise your back positioning. If we turn your toes out, your femurs shoot backwards less, which now allows you to stay more upright.”
Client: “Ah, that makes sense now.”

A little wordy but answers each question. Most of the above I learned through playing with a model skeleton in the Discovery store or I can credit it to some basic physics I remember from high school. My knowledge of how to perform the movements comes from all the trainers and coaches I know. However, my knowledge of why we do the movements certain ways is a result of applying biomechanics, physics, and common sense to every exercise I know. Through application after application I gradually turned this into my own teaching style. I would demonstrate the correct movement, explain why it ought to be done this way, and explain why it is bad to not perform the exercise correctly.

I am always learning new things, new cues, and new ideas from other coaches. I am also learning what not to do. I have to constantly be learning, constantly updating my knowledge. I can’t know everything there is about what I do. This constant thirst for knowledge keeps me interested in what I do.

With that said, I am watching you.

I see you

Pullups Do a Body Good

Melissa's postings lately have inspired me to write about pullups. As she says that you need to eat more, I say you need to do more pullups. I don't care what grip you use and I don't care if you do them with weight or not, start from a deadhang and pull until your chest touches that bar (yes, chest). I like the chest-to-bar (CTB) standard because when someone asks you to a pullup competition, you can either get your chin over the bar and bang out many more reps than you can while only getting chest to bar or you can make the person who challenged you eat their own words.

Pullups are one of the best strength builders I know. Building up your pullup strength will greatly increase your all around strength as well. I do not know a single person who can do a respectable number of pullups who is weak. On top of that they tend to have a decent amount of muscle on them as well. They also have rather firm grips too.

Adding these back into my training more frequently has noticeably helped my pull from the floor and my grip strength. I remember I could close the Captains of Crush #1 gripper a few times before adding pullups regulary into my training and now I can close it for sets of 10 each hand. I never touched it between January and a few weeks ago. I just did more pullups, more or less every workout in one form or another. I'm up to doing 15+ CTB deadhangs now and I've never felt stronger.

Here's a little diddy that I use to build up pullup numbers:

Do 5 pullups on the minute for 5 minutes. If you can complete all 5 sets unbroken, no kip, add a minute next time you do it. Once you get to 10 minutes with no set broken, go for 6 pullups every minute for 5 minutes. My goal s to get up to 10 pullups every minute for 10 minutes. After that I'll shoot for weighted.

Do 'em

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday to Rachel! She turns 19 today. Happy birthday, baby! I love you so much. You know why she’s amazing? Let me list out a few:

- First off she is a weightlifter like me. How many weightlifting girls do you find at my age? On top of that she also was a gymnast too. She is also an amazing one as well. Her training PRs prior to her injury would’ve placed her in the top 30 in the nation last year. Not bad for someone who’d been lifting for a few months.

- Secondly, besides having similar interests in sports we are also both animal/reptile/bug/creepy crawly freaks. Nothing amuses us more than playing with bearded dragons.

- Rachel’s stuck with me through thick and thin and I have stuck with her through thick and thin. We’re not giving up on one another any time soon (read EVER). I’ve never been able to tell someone in confidence every little detail of my life. I’ve never found anyone who accepted it all and promised to be there for me. I made the same promise to her as well. I’m never breaking any of my promises to her.

- There’s no one who has been just like me in every possible way. I mean seriously, we love WL’ing, gymnastics, animals (especially bugs, reptiles and sharks), thunderstorms, X-Men, cuddling, horror movies, and so on. We went to single sex Catholic high schools, we have similar issues, we went on practically the exact same retreats around the same time, and so many more. There are too many similarities between us to list out.

Anyways, I love you, Rachel. I hope you have a great birthday.

A Burpee a Day...

Well maybe not a burpee but burpees in general may keep the doctor away. How or why? The burpee is a compound movement involving many groups of muscles as well as one of the most ass-kicking movements in the world. I have never seen one exercise single-handedly burn someone out so quickly. I have never seen an exercise exponentially increase one’s heart rate with each repetition.

One day at CrossFitNYC I wanted to try an experiment, so I hooked myself up to a heart rate monitor just to see what happens. A 15-minute WOD bumped my heart rate (HR) up to the high 180s, sprint and high intensity rowing would get me up to the mid-190s, low 200s, and 10 fast burpees brought my HR up to 186 beats per minute. The burpees took me about 12 seconds to complete. Between exercises I made sure my HR had dropped down within normal ranges. I’ve repeated this test (with different days between exercises) and burpees have consistently raised my HR to submaximal levels in the shortest amount of time. The same thing has happened with clients as well. They also get very wide-eyed whenever I mention the word “burpee.”

Anyways, what exactly did my little experiment mean? Well if you’re short on time and equipment and ideas, sets of burpees are one quick, easy, and painful way of getting in a quick anaerobic and aerobic workout in (think Tabata burpees). Nothing gets you burning and breathing harder in a short amount of time.

Yes I said aerobic. When we think aerobic we automatically think running or biking these million mile long distances. Aerobic activity is a lot more than just running or biking.

Not the only aerobic activity out there

Aerobic activity can be sustained for a relatively long period of time and it involves an increase in the body’s ability to transport oxygen to muscles. This does not limit it to simply running, biking, swimming, or rowing till the cows come home. Aerobic activity is sitting here writing this article, breathing and living right now. “Murph” and other chipper workouts are aerobic conditioning as well; it is any activity where the oxidative pathway is the most dominant metabolic pathway working. American College of Sports Medicine defines modes of aerobic activity as: "activity that uses large muscle groups , which can be maintained continuously, and is rhythmical."

Graphof metabolic pathways. Y is percent of energy derived, X is time.

To simplify the definition of aerobic activity: if you can speak in any way possible (be it hold a conversation between breaths, mutter coherent words and thoughts between breaths, and so on) it is aerobic. For example, would you call a 4-minute mile aerobic or anaerobic? Aerobic because the person running it requires plenty of endurance to keep up that pace. A run at a fast pace where you can only manage 10 minutes worth of running is still aerobic. You just run at a pace where you cannot bring enough oxygen to the muscles fast enough to keep up the work.

Aerobic activity is not supposed to be a marathon event for you. As Jack LaLanne says, “Twelve to seventeen minutes is plenty on the treadmill - if it's done fast.” Whenever I used to run consistently, any “long” distance I ran was always as fast as I could manage. Aerobic activity is also not just running, rowing, swimming, or biking. Anything that can be sustained for a long period of time can be classified as aerobic conditioning.

Let’s bring this back to the burpee. Why do I consider the burpee a great aerobic conditioner? Simply because it works a lot more muscles than running, it gets your respiratory system burning, and I’ve never found an exercise that people hate more than running. So you hit a lot of major muscle groups and your respiratory system. Also you do not to be anywhere but a place large enough for you to sprawl out and jump. Set the timer for 10 minutes and see how many burpees you can do in that time frame; try to limit your rest periods in that time period.