January 31, 2017

9 tips for dedicated strength athletes

Here's what you need to know...

The best exercise for building body-wide mass is high repetition squats.
Conditioning should serve a specific purpose in your program. Leave them out if you don't know why you are doing them.
You should be able to pull twice your bodyweight up off the floor, push your bodyweight up over your head and carry your bodyweight 100 meters. If you cannot do this, then you should try to master this first.
You may need to give yourself some time off to get better. Do this before your body forces you to.
Each training session should build on the previous one. If you jump from one program to the next, you will never make progress.

My down-to-earth approach

I started weight training in 1965. I've been working as a strength coach since 1979. I have seen many come and go, but I am quite confident that the following 9 tips will still be relevant 50 years from now.

1 - Perform squats with high reps

I see this nonsense all the time. Instead of just moving the bar up, they move it for 2 seconds, extend that period to four seconds and then slowly lower the weight over an eight second period. If you can do all of this, then you are simply not moving enough weight.

High repetition squats have always been the secret to building mass and probably always will be. They work. Here's a simple tip:

Use 60 kilos on squats if you weigh 60 kilos or less.
Use 85 kilos on squats if you weigh between 60 and 85 kilos.
Use 95 kilos for squats if you weigh between 85 and 95 kilos.
Anyone who weighs over 95 kilos should use 105 kilos

If you perform 50 repetitions of deep squats, then you will learn the value of high repetition squats. After you've done this, come back two or three days later and repeat.

2 - Carry really heavy weights

This generation of strength athletes is in a fortunate situation. They've seen the Strongman and Highland Games competitions and most of them are familiar with the Farmers Walk and the family of "Loaded Carries" (exercises that involve carrying weights), but the main problem hasn't changed in the last decade: the load.

I wrote an article years ago about the Farmers Walk and Loaded Carries and the magazine that published the article featured a male fitness model carrying two 12.5 kilo dumbbells. This was no Farmers Walk. This was a "salesman from Nordstorms delivering boxes of high-heeled shoes" Walk. You need a bit more.

Try using a trap bar with the same weights listed in tip number one. Aim for a distance of 100 meters with this.

And when your grip gives out, don't stop and say "my grip strength gave out." I have this idea that the body is protecting you by letting you drop the weight. Over time, your grip won't give up as quickly.

3 - Don't get fat

Fat loss sucks. It always has been and always will be. I've lost fat through extreme dieting and a liver parasite. Honestly, I don't know which one was worse.

Someone asked Art Devany something during a workshop years ago that upset a lot of people in the audience. The question was "What's best for fat loss?". Devany's answer was "don't get fat in the first place."

That advice still holds true. There's a period in a lot of people's lives where they just let things slide for a few years and eat pizza and drink beer. If it's taken a decade to build up all that flab, then you shouldn't think you can burn off all that fat in a week. It's going to take diet. And it will involve exercise.

It will be harder than you think. So don't get fat in the first place.

4 - Stop what you're doing for a while

If you've "tried everything" to reach your goal, try this: Stop. For fat loss, I would recommend that you take a week's vacation at one of those all-inclusive resorts. Eat, drink, play and sleep.

Stand on the scales when you get back. Often people lose weight during a vacation like this. Why? I have no idea. I think it has something to do with this "play and sleep" formula, but I could be wrong.

Once, when I was practicing discus throwing, I was hit in the head by a discus. Yes, I took a blow to the head that would have killed anyone else. As a result of now having a metal plate sealing my skull, my next year of discus throwing was the best year I've ever had.

After seven years of never missing a training session or competition, I had to take a break. I stopped training with weights. I stopped all other training. Six months later, in October, I started training again. I had the best season of my life. I surpassed all my personal bests and was amazed to see the progress on a program that was only half of what I used to do.

Sometimes the way to reach your goals is to take a short break.

5 - Give up pointless fitness training

The longer I've been training athletes, the less I believe in conditioning. When I was in high school, the Army put out a series of pamphlets called "Conditioning for a Purpose," but I think sometimes we forget the purpose.

When I throw the discus, I release the discus 1.6 seconds after my right foot moves. So two seconds would be the upper end of my fitness range. Making a thrower jog might be a good idea, but it might move us away from the goal of throwing farther.

Okay, I get it, right. We live in the YouTube age where people upload videos of themselves doing burpees for the world to see.

Even at an elite level, people still get tired when they play basketball or soccer. That's normal. Two innings in a row is exhausting for a defensive lineman in the NFL. You can obviously get this guy down to 100 pounds, but being "in better shape" isn't necessarily what's going to put him in position to intercept the quarterback.

Whenever you add some conditioning training to your workout program, ask yourself if you're just treading water or if you're getting somewhere. Conditioning has its value, there's no question about that, but if you're doing a lot of pointless stuff for no reason, then you should reduce or eliminate it.

It's okay to be tired after winning.

6 - Look at the big picture

Stop worrying about nonsensical details.

And make sure you know the whole story. Following a movie star's training program is almost always suspect. Unless you have your own chef, a full-time assistant, a personal trainer and the means to get some of the supplements that ordinary people can end up in jail for, then you probably need to change a few things.

Whenever I see a program with eight meals a day and three hours or more of training a day, I tend to just keep scrolling. Nothing to see here, folks.

I generally make the most of my meals and can't even imagine the work required to prepare eight meals. I think this is the reason that I really enjoy following something along the lines of an Intermittent Fasting diet - I'm just too lazy to meal prep.

I've come to the conclusion that two things determine who will be the best at a sport: Genes and geography. When you stand next to a bunch of NBA guys, you get a sense of the need for height.

If you were born and raised in Canada with an instinct for aggression, then you can become a good field hockey player. The same set of genes transferred to Iowa produces an excellent wrestler, while similar predispositions in Bulgaria produce an Olympic weightlifter. It takes both the right genes and geography to be the best.

When you see extraordinary things, take a moment to look at the big picture. And then get your ass in gear and get back to work.

7 - Stop doing inconsistent stuff

Moving weights is about the following:

Picking weights up off the floor
Moving weights up overhead
Carrying weights for a certain distance or period of time

We can argue about the fundamental human movements and I can once again answer the question of why I don't use "rotational" training in the weight room, but if you don't want to do the three things above, just shut up.

Yes, deadlifts, overhead presses and farmer's walks really are that important. And yes, squats and pull-ups are good, but if you can't pull twice your bodyweight up off the floor, press your bodyweight up overhead, and carry your bodyweight about 100 meters, let's worry about this first.

8 - Stop wasting time in the gym

Time during a workout is like a punching bag with a hole in it. As soon as you enter the gym, your sandbag starts to lose sand. Twenty minutes of foam roller work may have its value, but time spent foam rolling will further deflate your sandbag. I don't care if static stretching is good or bad - every minute you spend doing it will make the pile of sand on the floor grow.

You see it over and over again: the extended warm-up on a cardio machine, followed by foam roller work, lacross ball rolling for problem areas, fancy shoulder exercises and the whole stretching, reaching and twisting thing. By the time you're finally ready to move some weights, it's time to go again.

The moment you step into the gym, the clock starts ticking. That's the reason I have people do squats first. If you have to leave after that, at least you've done something. The tradition in Olympic weightlifting is to do the big exercises first and then move on to the "accessories".

Stop wasting time in the gym. Do foam rolling at home while watching TV.

9 - Stick to your program

The best pre-workout supplement? It's easy. It's the workout you did the day before.

Each training session should build on the previous training session in some way. If you're constantly jumping from one idiotic program to the next idiotic program, then you may never learn this lesson.

By Dan John | 08/19/14

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/9-tips-for-dedicated-lifters