A fact: speeding through a red light will get you in trouble with the law. And if there’s no real-life-police or a tech-abled-camera-police to see it, you’ll at least get condemned, huffed and labelled as an irresponsible driver by your fellow motor vehicle operators. And as a bare minimum, you’ll see rude visual gestures from the people eager to cross the road.
The cultural norms around driving are strong and based on the heavy sense of “people like us drive like this”. That’s how it should be. Reinforcing and adhering to strict road standards keeps our roads safer. When it comes to driving there really is the right way to drive and the asshole wrong way to drive.
Unlike traffic, there are no strict right or wrong ways for strength training. No must do exercises, or strict standards that every person should follow.
We are not competing in powerlifting or Olympic lifting, so why should we follow the rules that are meant for those two sports? I mean, you don’t do the collision drills from rugby just to get your heart rate up either.
You don’t have to deadlift off the floor. You don’t have to squat to parallel. Actually, you don’t have to deadlift or squat. Period.
You don’t have to deadlift off the floor
The bottom position of the lift is the most challenging. You have to create enough tension to “break” the bar (whether it’s a barbell or a trapbar). This is where most injuries happen, especially during the first rep when the tension has to come from nothing.*
Not only that, but some people really don’t have the hips to deadlift comfortably off the floor. Hips which run out of available flexion leading to low back taking over. I’m in this category unless I go super wide with my stance. Which in itself makes the whole exercise as awkward as trying to shadow box a ghost.
Don’t get me wrong, I still have clients who lift off the floor. But I only do it with those who can do it really well. Otherwise the bar gets elevated. Raising the bar for 5cm -10cm off the ground will usually do the trick. The lift is easier to set up, and it’s easier on the eyes. Meaning it’ll feel less like shit.
You don’t have to squat to parallel
Sure, you’ll get more out of the squat if you’re able to go lower. Purely because it’s harder (someone smarty-pants can explain all the vector angles and EMG readings). But if going any lower than you currently do causes your knees, back, ankles or other body part to ache, why bother?
Your squat is your squat and as long as you get out of it what you set out to do, well, that sounds good enough for me. We’re not here to collect points on gym performance. But on how what you do in the gym helps your life outside of it.
In the end, gym is just training and exercise under fancy fluorescent lights while listening to Beyonce belt out her vocal chords. Or, if you lucky, you get to listen to something else. Like Crowbar.
But isn’t squatting ass to grass the benchmark for healthy hips and longevity?
Yes, but there’s a difference between squatting for exercise and squatting for the sake of maintaining or re-discovering one’s squat. Squatting for exercise is usually done for multiple repetitions. Squatting for health can mean just sitting in a deep squat once a day. Or as close to a deep squat as the person can do.
How to improve one’s deep squat for health is another article altogether.
You don’t even have to deadlift or squat
Sometimes you might not be able to tolerate any of the traditional exercises that all the cool, hardcore looking people in the gym are doing. I often find that when doing a program with heavier trapbar deadlifts my lower back let’s me know about it, eventually.
As in, “Hey, Joonas. This is your low back. Enough already. Ok? Cool. Thanks. Also, how good are single leg deadlifts? Yeah, you should totally do those instead. Ok, bye. P.S. ease up on the muesli, will ya.”
If your low back doesn’t like heavy-ish loading:
Here are some alternatives that require less loading through the low back while still working your legs and butt just as hard. And except for the skater squat and single leg squat, your upper back gets a decent amount of training in too.
Try switching the barbell or trapbar deadlift to single leg deadlift, skater squat, or even a kettlebell swing.
Try switching the heavier goblet squat or front squat to split squat (and progressions), single leg squat, or kettlebell bottom up squats.
Summary
In movement there are standards on how a human should be able to move. Being able to sit in a deep squat and hinging from your hips are both an important part of that equation.
But in exercise and training? Not so much. The only right way to train is the one that gets you results while staying safe. That’s it. Regardless of what others may think, there are no strict exercise standards that you should adhere to. Especially if they make you feel like shit.
If to not feel like shit means not squatting as low or elevating your deadlift, so be it. And if you have to abandon an exercise altogether because how it makes you feel, that’s cool too.
They’re just exercises, nothing else. Don’t tie your identity to being able to do them in a one specific way. Instead, do what suits you and your body.
*Yes, I know you have to create tension on the first rep. But it’s heaps harder to do for most people compared to any other rep of the set.
Call them rules or principles, either way it’s reasonable to expect that you have a set of them guiding how you live your life. Even if you don’t have them written down, there’s that inner compass of values that you reflect on as you navigate life. You know, don’t lie, treat others with respect, don’t be a dick…
As with life, principles in training matter because they keep you close to the track of what’s important for you. Here are the rules that guide my training. Both with clients and in my own training. And I just so happen to think that more people would be better off by adopting them.
1. Warming up can often feel like an annoyance, but it’s important
The idea of a warm up is to raise the tissue temperature and to prepare the ranges of motion you’ll use in the day’s training. Spending the extra time in the beginning means you’re less likely to pull, strain or do something else that won’t feel nice tomorrow. And you’ll get more out of the workout itself.
But warm up also acts as a vestibule to your mind. It’s the mid-space where you transition from a busy, work-filled headspace into the mental spaciousness and overall “on-ness” required for training. Now that sounds fancy.
Carrying over from the “on-ness” above, you’ll get more out of your training session when you’re with it, so to speak. Simply, it allows you to focus on the parts of your body you’re meant to be using during a certain exercise.
Mindfulness gets sickening levels of hype these days, but it’s not without a reason. Save some of it for your training sessions and you’ll get more out of the workout itself.
3. Have a one main goal per training session
Unless you have the luxury for lengthy training sessions to incorporate elaborate warm ups, mobility, training and conditioning parts, it’s impossible to get everything done. Be clear on what the goal for the session is, or you’ll risk going through a half assed workout that doesn’t move the results needle in any direction.
Work on what’s most important for your overarching goals. Usually it’s either fitness (this includes strength and other parts we expect to be included in the word fitness) or mobility. Improving your mobility isn’t always a must if you know how to choose the exercises that allow you to reach your fitness goals with the mobility you already have.
But most rules have an exception. Here the exception is to think of your single training session as two separate sessions. First session is for mobility. The second for fitness that helps the body to press “save” on the new mobility just created.
4. Never train through pain
Seriously. There are exceptions. But seriously, don’t do it.
5. Don’t train to get tired
Unless that’s your goal. Which to me seems a bit silly.
If you’re stuck on feeling tired, I recommend having a kid. Or if you’re not fond of kids (or have already done your fair share of raising them) adopt an older dog with a weak bladder who needs to go out 5 times between 11pm and 4am. You’ll be tired. All. The. Time.
Instead of chasing tiredness, train to get better. Progress equals success, which means that the next principle is going to come real handy.
6. Have a plan and track your results
If you have a specific goal, you need to reach you better have a trackable plan. When the goal is strength related, it’s mostly about what you do in the gym. Track your weight, sets, reps and anything else that’s paramount for you to gauge progress.
As a side note, when the goal is fat loss it’s a whole lot more about what you do outside of the sessions. Keep a food journal. You don’t have to walk around with a food scale in your back pocket. Hand portions will do. But track it.
7. Challenge yourself
Someone way more articulate than me once said that you can’t just keep doing what you’ve always done and expect to get better results. Or something along those lines. You know the quote.
Challenge doesn’t have to be a hero-training-mode-fuck-everyone-I’m-Troy mindset. In fact, I discourage it. But if you want to keep getting better, you need to stretch your comfort zone a bit and put yourself into situations where you might (safely) fail.
Whether it’s learning a new movement skill, getting stronger or improving conditioning. But as you’ll discover below, it’s not about blindly changing numbers (unless you’re single and on a steamy dance floor).
8. Master the weight before going heavier
This is the one thing I wish I would’ve understood earlier. And the one thing I have to keep frequently reminding myself of. And it sort of contradicts the principle seven.
Patience is the name of the game. In strength training, get really strong at the current resistance before jumping to the next one. It’s not sexy, but it’s the safer, more sustainable option. I even wrote a full article about it.
9. Leave some in the tank for next time
Reasonable done with consistency shits on extreme. The quicker you recover, the faster you can come back and do it all over again and get closer to your goals. It’s difficult to recover enough for the next workout when you walk out of the gym smoked each time.
Competition is another story, save it up and bring your best then. But this is about training for the competition. Don’t try to be a gym hero. Or a dick. Or a hero dick. Unless of course, your name is Dick Hero. In which case, we should hang out. And, I don’t know, maybe talk about your parents.
10. Homework can be even more of an annoyance than warming up. Still, get it done
The more homework you can do at home, the more you can focus on the stuff that counts in each workout. If confused, see number three above.
Summary
The principles that deliver sustainable results are far from sexy and “Instagrammable”. It’s all about consistent hard work. Ideally done with a limited amount of egocentric behaviour.
“I’m not the man they think I am at home. Oh no no no, I’m a rocket man” Photo by Nicolas Lobos on Unsplash
On every brilliant record there’s usually that one “meh” song that you’re willing to skip to get to the next. On Appetite for Destruction it’s “Think About You”. Although a good song, it sounds painfully 80s today. They should’ve put “Perfect Crime” or “Shadow of Your Love” there instead. I assume the Geffen suits had their say to make the album appeal for a wider audience. Sigh.
Then, on one of my all time favorite albums, Exile on Main St, it’s “Casino Boogie”. Again, it’s not a bad song by any means. In fact, it’s sort of good-ish. But it’s tough to stand out between “Shake Your Hips” and “Tumbling Dice”.
But there’s one record that’s perfect from start to finish
Kicking off with “Thunder Road” and finishing with the epic “Jungleland” and that big saxophone by Clarence Clemons, Born to Run comes as close to perfect as I can think of. It’s the one record I would take to keep me moderately sane on a solo space mission to Mars (and, ideally, back). [1]
And if I’d be off to Mars I’d want to keep loose and sane with a minimal, almost perfect training program. In case you’re off to somewhere in space anytime soon feel free to print this out.
Or, I don’t know, use this when you need a program on Earth to have all your bases covered.
The almost-perfect training plan for general fitness
Unless you’re into all kinds of war stuff and dynamite, “general” sounds lame. But that’s what most of us already do and need. Stuff that either:
a) forms the base to build on with other, more specific programs, or
b) is fine just like it is when the goal is to stay healthy, look decent, be strong and not to die.
Ramp up / movement prep / warm up
Downward dog to step and rotation x 3
Crawl x 20 frw/rev
Squat to stand x 5
Lateral lunge to overhead drive x 3
Standing cross crawl x 3
Get up x 1-2
The workout
A1) Carry anyhow x 1* *waiter, offset farmer, suitcase, rack, and the combinations of all
B1) 1-leg squat x 8-12 x 3-4 B2) Push up x AMAP x 3-4 B3) Kettlebell swing x 10-15 x 3-4
Don’t rush between the sets of strength work.
Complete for 3-4 days a week. Three is probably enough for the majority of us. Most of the time try to keep the intensity at around 7-8 out of 10. Some days go easier, occasionally go harder. Never judge progress based on any single workout, or even a single week. Or a month, if you have kids under the age of 3.
What makes this program almost-perfect?
Let’s do a run down of the stuff I value in programs.
It’s minimal equipment
Ideally two kettlebells somewhere between 20kg and 28kg range will do. This gives you heaps of options for carries and enough of a challenge for the swings.
If you want to go super-minimal, you can get away with a single kettlebell. Again, anywhere between 20-28kg should do for most. If it’s too light for swings, you can always do them with one arm. But let’s face it, 28kg isn’t too light.
Bonus. If you happen to have a 4-12kg kettlebell, you could do a bottom up variation of the get up. Great for building shoulder health, and destroying egos.
It’s full bodyand covers all the movement patterns
Push: crawl, push up Pull: carry, swing Squat: squat to stand, lateral lunge, get up, 1-leg squat Hinge: get up, swing Rotation: crawl, standing cross crawl, get up Locomotion: carry And single leg because life is so much nicer with a decent balance: standing cross crawl, 1-leg squat
The movement prep itself serves a purpose beyond just warming up the tissue. It also helps you to keep the upper back and hips mobile. Important stuff in a world that revolves around chairs.
Plus I threw in as many cross body movements as I could without turning this into a circus. It’s good for your brain, apparently. The cross body movement, not the circus.
Simple and quick to complete
With adequate rest periods this shouldn’t take you more than 40 minutes. But really, when in a pinch you could be done in 20 minutes. This is great for all us parents who always have to be somewhere soon.
Joint-friendly
Yep. Because, well, yeah it is. As long as you don’t do anything your body shouldn’t do.
But unlike Born to Run, it’s not perfect
You still need a kettlebell
This one’s rather obvious. If you don’t have one I suggest you go buy it, or join a gym. What else is there to say, really?
Not seeing the weights go up from session to session
This can be frustrating or even demoralising for some. You need to have the patience and persistence for constant strength method.
Lack of pure upper body pull
Yes, but we are getting plenty of upper back work from the carry and swings. You could also throw in some inverted rows or pull ups of any variation if you so desire. Great for the arms and whatnot. But definitely not necessary.
And in case you’re thinking this is not challenging enough
I beg to differ. You can do all kinds of evil progression with the exercises.
Progression I
Progression II
Progression III
Progression IV
Carry (suitcase, farmer, rack, waiter)
Slow, high knees with full exhale on each step
Suitcase and rack
Suitcase and waiter
Double waiter
1-leg squat
Slow the tempo
Pause at the bottom
Go lower
1.5 reps
Push up
Slow the tempo
Pause at the bottom
Heels pushed to wall
1-arm progressions
Swing
Less rest
Longer set
1-arm
1-arm less rest
Fancy progression table to please your eyeballs.
But honestly, most people get bored and never go beyond the second progression. That’s a fact.
In closing
Good programs don’t have to be complicated or have a ton or variety. But we trainers have a tendency to make them so because of boredom and trying to impress someone. I’ve been as guilty of this as anyone.
Also, what’s your perfect, or almost-perfect record?
[1] “Which one record/book would you take with you on a solo space mission to Mars?” A question I ask in my new client consultation form. In case you wondered. Now you know.
This is the third and final part of the series. If you haven’t read Parts I and II yet, I recommend you give them a geez before diving into this one. It makes this Part III far easier to get into.
You wouldn’t watch The Godfather Part III before watching the first two, right? Not that I am comparing this to The Godfather. It’s just the first that comes to mind when thinking of a trilogy of any sort.
So this last part is less about how to determine your next goal and more about taking a step closer to that goal.
Fitness – the capacity to do shit
Fitness doesn’t mean cardio, bodybuilding or any of that. At least not today in the bubble that is this blog. Fitness means do you have the capacity and the goods to absorb and adapt to the stress required by your next step?
You’ve looked at the standards from Part I and Part II and perhaps seen some gaps in either your overall health, body composition, movement, strength, conditioning, or a combination of some of them. But gaps for what? What is it that you are specifically training for?
It could be a sport related goal, but it doesn’t have to be. As you’ll see in the first case study, a client in his mid-60s wants to be more fluid and graceful stepping in and out of his car. That’s the stress he needs to absorb and adopt.
The second case study is a lady who wants a better butt to elevate her Kardashian game. For her the immediate goal of absorbing and adopting stress means that she can handle the best exercises that deliver those results.
Finally, in the last case study the client’s goal is a more typical athletic endeavour. For her it’s about being able to return to competitive outrigging and dragon boating and to paddle pain free after a shoulder surgery.
Let’s look at these case studies. It can help you to narrow down your training program and get the results you need to keep progressing towards your goal.
Case Study One: hip mobility to get in and out of the car
A client in his mid 60s has started to notice how getting in and out of a car has become difficult, even uncomfortable as of late. He is already seeing an osteopath for the hip and wants to emphasise this goal during his personal training sessions too.
The curve ball of a thing is that although he has 45 minutes of training booked twice a week, he’s always around 15 minutes late. We need to be able to do the best we can in 30 minutes, without completely ignoring other aspects of his health.
I am telling you this to show that you don’t always need long bouts of training to move the needle forward. A good sessions done is better than perfect that never gets even started.
Here’s a sample of how I divide the session based on his goals.
0-15 minutes – movement prep / hip mobility x 1 round
Diaphragmatic breathing to encourage posterior pelvic tilt
Hip, shoulder, scapula rotations on all fours
Rockback to heels
Hip Pails/Rails in modified pigeon stretch
Hip rotations
Rockback to heels
Glute hip bridges
Carry
15-25 minutes – power / strength circuit x 2-3 rounds
Lateral step (crossover, cross behind) to slam x 5 ea
Reverse step to high knee (trying to crossover to bring knee and elbow to touch) x 5 ea
Single leg squat to box with an isometric hold with the first rep x 8-12 ea
TRX Row x 8-12
Lateral crawl x 5 ea
25-30 minutes – conditioning x 5 rounds
Rope full body waves – emphasising hinging x 20s work : 40s rest
Depending on the day we might go 20 minutes of warm up / hip mobility followed by 5 minutes of power / strength and 5 minutes of conditioning. It’s not perfect, but you do what you can in the time you’ve got.
Case Study Two: Butthurt
A lady with a goal to get her Kardashian to pop. A more advanced client with a few years+ training history.
0-5 minutes – movement prep x 1 round
Breathing to center the busy mind
Hip, shoulder, scap rotations
Downward dog to step to rotation
Glute side bridge
Squat to stand
Carry
5-40 minutes – strength x 3 rounds
A1 Lateral lunge to pulse x 5 ea A2 Hip thrust march x8 ea
B1 Trapbar Romanian deadlift x 6-8 1.5 reps B2 Vertical cable row x 6-8 1.5 reps
C1 Pike push up x 5 C2 Step down heels touch x6-8 1.5 reps
40-45 minutes – conditioning x 5 rounds
Skillmill 30s work : 30s rest
Case Study Three: Return to competitive paddling
Bilateral shoulder surgery. Now at the stage of building more power and strength to return to competitive paddling.
0-10 minutes – movement prep x 1 round
Breathing
Hip, shoulder, scap rotations
Big 3 shoulder activation
Side plank
Glute side bridge
Cable shoulder external rotation (standing 9090)
Carry
10-45 minutes – power / strength x 3 rounds
A1 Get up to hand x 4 ea A2 Split stance chop slam x 5 ea
B1 Trapbar deadlift x 8-10 B2 Landmine single arm press x 8-10 ea B3 Single arm seated row x 8-10 ea
C1 Elevated push ups x as many as possible with perfect form C2 TRX row x 15
Conditioning
Done on her own on a different day.
Summary
When you have a goal in mind, it’s easier to specify the training program to get there. Find the gaps in your current health, body composition, movement, strength and conditioning as they relate to your end goal. Then fill those gaps appropriately.
And if your current goal is a more elusive, say “to stay healthy and don’t get fat”, that’s fine too. Just make sure you are not not letting any of the aforementioned aspects of health and fitness to deteriorate too far from the baseline.
Thanks for reading the full series. You’ve been great. I thought I’d never get this out in time.
Let’s continue the adventures into the standards. By compering yourself to the standards you can gain clarity on what to work on, narrowing down the goals to set for yourself. Today, strength and conditioning standards.
Strength Standards
Search the internet or ask ten trainers for their standards on strength and you’ll get eleven different answers. Surprisingly to none, trainers tend to be biased on pushing the importance of strength. Getting people strong is our livelihood after all.
But, how much strength is enough? It depends, as always, on your goals. Winning the heavyweight class in powerlifting requires an insane amount of raw strength. But as great as raw strength in powerlifting might be, it is too narrow approach for sports that require more than just moving heavy weights up and down. There is a point of diminishing returns for, let’s say, snowboarding, running, swimming or team sports.
I can’t give you a specific strength standards for every sport, but I can give you my standards
There are certain strength skills that have more carryover than others. The ones that provide the base for the other qualities, such as health, freedom and specific sports skills to thrive on. Beyond specific athletic endeavors where money, status and immortality are at stake, there is absolutely no point gaining strength at the expense of your health and freedom of movement.
Bodyweight exercises hit the sweet spot for measuring general health and wellbeing
I am far from a calisthenic purists who thinks all the world’s problems can be solved with a quality set of pull ups. No matter how much I want a diplomatic solution to all of the world’s problems, I doubt that it’ll happen by getting Trump to rep out on pull ups. Unless he gets a heart attack while doing it, survives, and comes back as a more decent person. But, I digress.
Having the control of your body ticks multiple boxes all at once while acting as a measuring stick for your overall health. Controlling your body weight in space forces you to keep your body fat and weight in check. It’s easier to bang out 10 pull ups weighing in at 85kg compared to 125kg. That’s just physics 101.
And so, we finally arrive at the strength standards for health
Push ups – full range, one second pause in the top and bottom positions
Women 10 repetitions Men 20 repetitions
Push ups are a simple test for upper body pushing strength, core strength and for creating and maintaining full body tension. Really, push up is just a moving plank. All the things challenged in a push up transfer to other activities in life, whether it’s maintaining tension on a bike or a surfboard, or creating stiffness in the trunk while throwing a punch in a street fight.
Note, I discourage street fights. Unless it’s Tekken*.
Pull ups – full range, one second pause in the top and bottom positions
Women 2 repetitions Men 8 repetitions
Pull ups demonstrate upper body pulling strength while being able to maintain a full body stiffness and control. Again, pull up is a plank with an added vertical pulling challenge.
To even get into the starting position of a pull up requires 180 degrees of shoulder mobility. Something that a lot of people lose throughout the course of life due to poor posture and lifestyle habits. Another box ticked.
The get up
Both women and men 1 repetition per side with a cup of water.
Strength and power rolled up into a one heavy iron ball. Trains the rear side of the body like nothing else. If I could only do one exercise for the rest of my life, it would be the kettlebell swing. Yes, it’s that efficient.
Why single leg and not a two-legged barbell squat? Less load on the low back while getting the bonus of working single leg stability. Sure, the rear leg does a bit of work, but whatever.
½ kneel 1-arm landmine press Women 20kg (aka just the bar) x 10 per arm Men 30kg (including the bar) x 10 per arm
As much as I’d like the kettlebell overhead press to be my go-to upper body strength exercise for clients, landmine is a shoulder friendlier option.
Farmer Walk Women 24kg per arm x 50 meters Men 32kg per arm x 50 meters
If I could have a second exercise to do for the rest of my life, it would be the farmer walk. When you go heavy, it feels as if there’s not a single muscle in your body that doesn’t work to a some degree.
Side note on grip strength as a measuring tool
Grip strength has been proven to be a reliable predictor of at least four super important things: a cardiovascular event in people with type 2 diabetes; the length of hospital stay in older patients admitted for rehab; a cause-specific mortality in middle-aged and elderly. Further, a study in 2017 found that grip strength is closely correlated with all causes of mortality. [1] And that’s sort of a big deal.
Training grip strength in isolation isn’t the solution though. Rather, grip strength is a signifier of overall health, vitality and strength. And which people have a strong grip strength? People who are active and participate in strength training. These folks (us?) tend to favor healthier lifestyle choices as well.
You can use the grip to test your daily readiness for training at the beginning of the session. Simply pick up a 6-12kg kettlebell in a bottom up position and notice whether it feels easier, harder or the same as usual. The easier it feels the better your readiness is for the session. As with most things, you need to establish a baseline of “normal” first.
When you look at the strength standards above, are you inching closer to them, or do they seem like a far out of reach?
If reading this made you realise your strength levels needs some work, that’s your goal for now. And guess what, here’s a great program to start with. But if you’ve got enough strength and some to spare, you should look at where you stand with your conditioning.
Onwards!
Conditioning Standards
“If your goal is to maximize your lifespan and stay healthy, you shouldn’t use the same conditioning strategies as a fighter preparing to step in the cage.” -Joel Jamieson
Resting heart rate, heart rate recovery, and heart rate variability are all important tools for checking your level of conditioning.
Resting heart rate (RHH)
As is often the case with general health guidelines the range for “normal” is as wide as Elvis’ pants in the 70s. Wide.
60-100 beats per minute is considered healthy, but for most people mid-to-high 50s is desirable. If you’re participating in a sport with decent conditioning demands (not darts), you should be probably sitting somewhere in the low-to-mid 50s.
Heart rate variability (HRV)
Heart rate variability measures the time between each heart beat. It can get all annoyingly technical so let’s just say that a high HRV is a great measure of your overall performance and efficiency of cardiovascular fitness. It means that the body can quickly change between different activities and demands.
High HRV may also mark how well your body handles different stressors of life. Too much training, poor sleep, lack of rest, and chronic inflammation can all lower your results. HRV goes down as you age, but as is with resistance training and muscle, bone and strength loss, you can control how fast this decline happens.
There’s not a clear “healthy” or “unhealthy” numbers for HRV as it varies depending on the person.*** To establish what’s good for you, establish a baseline from repeatable conditions. Shift your thinking from “higher is better” to a “normal is better”.
Measuring heart rate variability
You can use a variety of gadgets to measure HRV. Apple Watch, Joel Jamieson’s Morpheus and Finland’s own Polar are just a few of the options out there. I’ve personally tried HRV4Training app in the past and found it ok to use with a Samsung phone. Although the flash/camera based reader was sometimes out of tune, causing me periodically lose my shit.
To establish a baseline, take your measurement first thing in the morning when external stressors are low and you’re still in a rested state. For accuracy, try to keep the conditions as repeatable as possible. You should have a solid baseline of readings after four to seven days.
Keep tracking HRV for six months to a year to see any trends. If your readings are consistently normal, it affirms the goodness your current training and rest schedule. And I guess lifestyle habits in general.
I’ll go as far as saying that if you are consistently getting a high reading (and low on planned recovery days) you can probably stop measuring HRV until some factor significantly changes. Either in your training, rest or life and where you need to reevaluate your recovery.
Improving heart rate variability
If you’re getting frequent low readings (based on your baseline) there’s plenty you can do. Since Aerobic fitness improves HRV, I recommend you favor low-to-moderate intensity (about 60-80% of your max heart rate, or simply a pace where you can hold up a conversation) over doing multiple high intensity sessions each week.
Other things that will help you to improve your HRV score: manage stress, get enough sleep, don’t drink too much alcohol, stay hydrated, don’t get into a heated conflict with your wife or husband… As you’re starting to see, focusing on improving just one aspect of health should have a carry over to a host of other aspects too.
60 second heart rate recovery (HRR)
Heart rate recovery tells you how quickly you recover (surprise!) from a bout of exercise. The quicker you return towards your resting heart rate, the fitter you are.
You can measure HRR two ways: check your heart rate immediately after a high intensity effort (e.g. 30 second sprint) and again 60 seconds later. Or, check the heart rate after single all-out effort (e.g. long-distance run, cycle etc) and again 60 seconds later.
If you want to measure HRR specific to your sport, time the efforts and rests according to the demands of your sport.
Your heart rate should fall at least 20 beats within the first 60 seconds after intense exercise[2]. A drop of at least 30 beats within the first minute signals a strong conditioning. Anything less than 12 beats is considered abnormal so it might be worth checking in with your doctor.
How to improve your heart rate recovery?
Similar to reducing resting heart rate, heart rate recovery can be improved by improving aerobic conditioning (seeing a trend here?). You can do intervals at a medium pace, say 20s seconds on and 40 seconds off. The reps really depend on how conditioned you are. As a beginner 3-4 reps are usually enough. For more advanced 10 reps is a good number to aim for.
As with heart rate variability I also recommend long steady state aerobic work at 60-80% of your max heart rate. As an absolute minimum, aim for at least 20 minutes per day on average. Fast pace walking or rucking, cycling or kayaking are killer options for the enthusiastic individual.
As mentioned earlier, for more sport specific conditioning look at the demands of your sport and try to mimic those conditions in your training.
I’ve never seen a single Rambo, but isn’t the third one meant to be ok? And unlike most people, I think the third Godfather was decent. So yeah. Something to look forward to, perhaps.
* I wanted to say Street Fighter. But that would’ve been too obvious. **Recreational athlete is anyone who participates in a sport, however seriously, but isn’t making a living out of it. Although often the case, being a recreational athlete doesn’t have to involve competition. It can be about participating, taking in the nature and being confident in one’s abilities to fully enjoy the sport. ***Although certain HRV trackers can give you baseline based on other users. [3]
To get clarity on what to focus on next in your training requires a thorough inspection of where you currently are. Let’s face it, most of us like to do things that we’re good at while ignoring the stuff that we suck doing. People who build muscle easily like to get bigger while ignoring movement. Those with flexibility for days often neglect strength. Some love cardio, but spit at lifting. And so on.
But allowing our weaknesses to stay weak stops us from thriving. Be it in a sport or life in general. I say, enough. Let’s have a geez and systematically cover each aspect of health, strength and fitness to see where you currently stand and what you should work on.
Overall health markers
Bloodwork
Blood count, cholesterol, inflammation, mineral and vitamin levels, and whatever else your doctor is in the mood for, matters. Training, performing and trying to be an all around healthy, well-functioning person with bad bloodwork is like driving the highway with a handbrake on. Difficult, slow and annoying.
Book an appointment with your doctor. He or she will be the best person to tell you what to look out for and what, if anything, needs fixing.
If your bloodwork is not quite what they should be this brings us to your first goal: improve your blood work. Whether it’s exercise, meds, diet or perhaps drinking less Jagermeister on your next Caribbean holiday, sort it out.
Onwards!
Blood pressure
120/80 is ideal. As you know, you can get this checked everywhere these days. At the doctors, gym, or the convenience of your own home.
If you’re constantly getting a high reading, talk to your doctor. Maybe it’s any of the things we went through with bloodwork. Or maybe it’s more on the mental side. Meditation, mindfulness and general stress management strategies could help too. Or maybe it’s your genetics. Regardless, worth figuring out.
Onwards!
Moving like a human should
Not getting joints in the optimal positions to adapt to stress means that you are not getting the best out of your training. You’re leaving results on the table, not building strength as efficiently as possible, maybe even risking an injury by forcing a joint to handle a load in a position it cannot get into without compromising something along the way.
You know, the folks who overhead press without proper shoulder range of motion and end up doing the good old low back arch so deep it’s more like a standing bench press. Makes my eyes bleed drops of sorrow.
What sort of ranges of motion you need in each joint depends on what you are training for and what you need in your sport. Being able to lift your arms overhead is not really that big of a deal for a runner. But it becomes an issue for a swimmer. Still, it’s nice to be able to scratch your forehead, regardless of your sport of choice.
There are two fundamental movements that everyone should be able to do, regardless of the training goals. This tells us that the body has at least the absolute basics covered.
The absolute minimum movement standards everyone should be able to do
Toe touch (or Joonas birthing a box).
Squat (with the birthed box photo bombing. Kids).
There can be a host of reasons (individual joint restrictions etc) beyond the scope of this article, as to why you can’t touch your toes or do a squat. And if you have a big gut that stops you from performing these movements, your time is probably better spent on losing weight instead of movement skills. That might be all you need. If which case, feel free to skip the Body Composition section below.
But these following drills work for the majority who lack the stability for toe touch or squat. Yes, it can be a stability problem even if “my hamstrings are too tight”.
Toe touch progression. Do five reps toes elevated, followed by five heels elevated. Run hands down your thighs and shins and exhale forcefully as if blowing out the candles on your cake when you turned 11, on the way down. Bend knees however much you need to to reach the toes. Aim to reduce the knee bend with each rep.
Supported squat. Hold on to support to lower yourself to a squat. Keep reducing the grip on the support with each rep, eventually letting go at the bottom altogether. Each rep should feel challenging but manageable.
Every healthy human should be able to squat and touch their toes. Once you have the toe touch keep retesting it every once in a while to make sure you still have it. Checking squat is not that big of a deal if you do squatting (bodyweight, goblet, barbell…) with a good form in your program.
Onwards!
Body composition
Before running head first into the prickly forest of body composition: I don’t care how you look. What you’re about to read is based on what science tells us about health. Not on what the People Magazine tells us about looks. Bodies come in all shapes and forms and different body compositions are more suitable for different sports and activities.
Health on the other hand is relatively universal. The good old Body Mass Index (BMI) works well for the sedentary, or obese, but I am not fond of it for the rest. It can skew the results for healthy, active population since it doesn’t differentiate between lean muscle and fat.
Using a simple waist measurement is more accurate. Carrying excess fat around your waist is a bigger health risk compared to the fat sitting on your hips and thighs.
Here are the waist circumference thresholds, taken roughly at the belly button, that indicate an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease [1]: – For women the risk is increased at 80 cm or more, and greatly increased at 88 cm or more. – For men the risk is increased at 94 cm or more and greatly increased at 102 cm or more.
Can you be too lean?
Sure can, ese. Being super lean and having a six pack is not necessarily the healthiest way to exist in this cruel world. I know it wasn’t the case for me back in the day. The social isolation aspects aside, being too lean might lead to amenorrhea, low libido, brittle bones and disordered eating. Being super lean has more or less nothing to do with being healthy.
The healthy body fat[2] – For women anywhere between 22%-33% is healthy for most. – For men anywhere between 11%-22% is healthy for most.
Let’s talk about muscle
Having enough lean muscle mass, and consequently strength, means that you’ll probably perform better in your sport, and in the day-to-day activities in general
We lose muscle mass as we age so to keep functioning well in our old age it’s wise to build and a bit of a buffer of lean muscle. Muscle is metabolically active and improves how the body deals with the nutrients you throw at it. People with higher muscle mass tend to have better insulin sensitivity for one.
Resistance training will not only help you to maintain your muscle mass, but it also fights off age-related bone degeneration. Peak bone mass is reached in ones late teens and early twenties and after that it’s all downhill. The steepness of the downhill can be greatly reduced by lifting weights.
So what is the optimal amount of lean muscle mass?
Unlike body fat, muscle mass doesn’t have an ideal, set in stone chart for optimal and ideal amounts. Instead, focus on keeping your body fat in the healthy range and averaging two to three moderate to heavy resistance training sessions per week.
Check Part II next week for the specifics to aim for. Or, if you work on a farm you can probably ignore the weights and just lift bales of hay.
What about too much muscle mass?
Yes, there is a point of too much. Having an excess of muscle mass might not be too good for your when looking through the lense of longevity. The heart has to keep pumping blood through a massive frame which can cause it to strain. Never a great thing for being alive. Then we can also make a case that excess muscle mass elsewhere in the body also means excess muscle in the heart itself. Again, probably not great for living.
I go on a limb saying that most people don’t have enough muscle on them. Too much muscle is only an issue for bodybuilders on gear who look nothing like humans. You know, the ones who make you think of Godzilla having sex with an earthmoving truck.
Onwards!
Let’s recap
To decide what you should train for next requires a non-judgemental look at where you currently are. If any of the ones we just went through are off, well, you have your next training and health goal set.
Bloodwork: blood count, cholesterol, mineral and vitamin levels, and whatever else your doctor is in the mood for. Something not quite right? Sort it out.
Blood pressure: 120/80 is ideal. Maybe it’s what was wrong with the bloodwork. Or maybe it’s more mental. Mindfulness practice and improving your relationship with stress and life might help.
Movement: really depends on your sport of choice as well what you’d like to be able to do in day-to-day life. As a bare minimum for any healthy adult, you should be able to touch your toes and squat down comfortably.
Body composition: waist circumference can indicate an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease. For women the risk is increased at 80 cm or more and greatly increased at 88 cm or more. For men the risk is increased at 94 cm or more and greatly increased at 102 cm or more.
You can also be too lean. The healthy body fat for women anywhere 22%-33% is healthy for most. For men anywhere between 11%-22% is all gee.
Muscle is metabolically active and improves how the body deals with the nutrients you throw at it. People with higher muscle mass tend to have better insulin sensitivity too. But too much muscle can put a strain on the heart. Although this is usually only an issue for those who are on gear and look like Godzilla had sex with an earthmoving truck.
FYI, playing guitar is not a bad habit according to Joonas. But this guy seems to think otherwise. Or maybe he’s just navigating his inner Jimi Hendrix. Yeah, that sounds good. Let’s leave it at that. Photo by Ali Yahya on Unsplash
You know who’s a prolific writer? To date, he’s written 83 novels, 5 non-fiction books and over 200 short stories [1]. He has sold over 350 million copies of his books, and at least 24 of his books or stories are made into movies. How is this sort of productivity even possible?
In the morning he aimlessly wanders around his house, knocks back a few cups of coffee while trying to figure out what to do with his time. If he’s lucky, he’ll get a whoof of inspiration and starts writing. Or, if the inspiration doesn’t whisper stories to him that morning he might just take it easy and play non-alcoholic beer bong (he’s been sober since the late 80s) with his buddies.
Of course not. When he’s working on a story, he sets himself a daily target of 2000 words and writes until he’s completed it. The writer has a set space, free of distractions where he does only one thing, his writing. It’s all about the habit of writing while eliminating distracting bad habits.
So, instead of making a vague and super lame New Year’s resolution this year, like “I will drink less alcohol”, use the science of habits to sort it out.
The simple science of habits
In Atomic Habits James Clear goes balls deep into how to become a master of good habits (or slave of bad ones). By recognising the power of the habit loop and learning to use it to your advantage you’ll figure out how not to suck with your New Year’s resolutions this year. Here’s what the habit loop looks like when typed instead of drawn. Because, no time to draw on New Year’s Eve.
Cue
Craving
Response
Reward
(Not much of a loop, but bear with me.) Let’s go through them one by one.
Cue
Cue is something that alerts your brain of the start of the habit loop. A bit of information predicting a reward at the end of the loop. Things like:
Seeing your phone on the table
Meeting a specific person
Seeing a bottle of water
A rule to remember is to make cues for bad habits invisible. If you have a habit of checking your phone as soon as you notice it on the table, put it in the draw. To not let things escalate with a specific person, don’t meet up with them (makes sense in a second). Or, buy a bottle of water so you don’t have to steal it from an old lady (will also make sense in a second).
Craving
This is a sense that something is missing after the cue kicks in. It’s the interpreter of the earlier cue. You don’t crave alcohol itself but what it gives you, “a desire to change your internal state” and an attempt to address your underlying motives. Usually a feeling that brings immediate pleasure, or makes your feel you better about yourself or the situation you’re in.
Seeing your phone on the table (Cue)
You’re bored and want to check Facebook. I mean, maybe someone’s liked you earlier post about what you ate for breakfast because your life is so fucking interesting (Craving)
Meeting a specific person (Cue)
You get the urge to have an alcoholic beverage, because this specific person is too heaaaaaavyyyyy to deal with your sober self [2] (Craving)
Seeing a bottle of water (Cue)
You want a gulp of water (Craving)
Response
To no one’s surprise this is the action you take to relieve the tension of craving.
Seeing your phone on the table (Cue)
You’re bored and want to check Facebook (Craving)
You check your phone embracing it like your long-lost lover who went missing when his boat capsized in a heavy storm so long ago that you’d almost forgotten about him but now he’s back and you can’t believe it because apparently he was shipwrecked on an island and lived there with his only companion, a baseball named Sergey (Response)
Meeting a specific person (Cue)
You get the urge to have an alcoholic beverage (Craving)
You slam down three Black Tooth Grins while everyone in the bar stares at you in despise (Response)
Seeing a bottle of water (Cue)
You want a gulp of water (Craving)
You steal the bottle off a nice old lady who was carrying it and her small dog and now you take a big gulp of water (Response) Also, you make me sick. How could you do that to such a lovely lady?
For a bad habit you want to make the response as difficult as possible. Meet in a coffee shop instead of in a bar. Make a deal that you pay your friend $100 each time you have a drink. Or book an important meeting right after the meeting where you can’t turn up sober.
Reward
Satisfying the craving floods your brain chemistry with immense pleasure and joy.
Seeing your phone on the table (Cue)
You’re bored and want to check Facebook (Craving)
You check your phone (Response)
You’ll get an instant gratification and a jolt that briefly dissipates your boredom. Checking your phone becomes associated with killing boredom (Reward)
Meeting a specific person (Cue)
You get the urge to have an alcoholic beverage (Craving)
You slam down three Black Tooth Grins (Response)
You can tolerate your companion’s bullshit stories about how great they are. Black Tooth Grin becomes associated with meeting your companion (Reward)
Seeing a bottle of water (Cue)
Your mouth suddenly feels dry and you want a gulp of water (Craving)
You drink a gulp of water (while the old lady is disgusted with your behaviour and about to call police) (Response)
The water hugs your mouth like a bowl of milk hugs yellow fruit loops. Drinking water becomes associated with a dry mouth. (Reward) But you’ll also go to jail. And rightfully so. What’s wrong with you??!.
What is immediately rewarded is repeated, we humans love love loooove instant gratification. Try to make the reward of a bad habit as unsatisfying and ungratifying as possible.
In the Black Tooth Grin example you could bust out reverse psychology and act boring and dull so your annoying “friend” would not want to hang out with you anymore. Or, alternatively, you could also ask a random person to punch you in the knee cap each time you have a drink.
Start by creating awareness
It’s hard to change the things you do when you’re not aware of them. Start taking notes of your bad habits. When you notice something that doesn’t align with whom you want to be, write it down and try to answer these questions:
What’s the habit?
What was the cue?
What did I crave?
What was my response?
What was the reward?
If you’re like most of us, you’ll soon come up with a solid list of habits you’d rather change. What you’ll probably notice is that any habit that brings immediate pleasure, and you hadn’t implemented purposefully, is usually not good for your long-term goals. Watching porn, drinking alcohol, smoking, sleeping in…
Except coffee. Drinking coffee feels amazing and is definitely good for your long-term goals. And yes, I am biased because I love coffee and refuse to change my coffee drinking habits.
Set your environment
Instead of using your limited resource of willpower to stop doing bad habits, use your environment to your advantage.
As mentioned earlier, putting your phone out of sight makes it easier to stop checking it. Meeting your annoying friend in a cafe (or not at all) makes it easier to avoid drinking. Buying a bottle of water makes you less tempted to steal it from an old lady.
Summary
The habit loop:
Cue – Alerts your brain of the start of the habit loop. Make cues leading to bad habits invisible.
Craving – The interpreter of the earlier cue and an attempt to address your underlying motives. A feeling that brings immediate pleasure.
Response – The action you take to relieve the tension of craving. Make the response difficult.
Reward – Satisfying the craving floods your brain chemistry with immense pleasure and joy. Make the reward of a bad habit unsatisfying and ungratifying.
Start breaking bad habits by bringing awareness to them. Make a note each time you do a habit that doesn’t align with whom you want to be. Then deconstruct the habit by finding cue, craving, response and reward.
Instead of abusing your limited willpower set your environment to support good habits and avoid the bad ones. Hide the phone, meet in a cafe, buy a bottle of water.
The deeper the roots the stronger the tree. Or, as Max Cavalera would put it, “Roots! Bloody roots!” Photo by Jason Weingardt on Unsplash
It’s a Tuesday night and the clock on the living room wall hits midnight. Sarah Connor is stressed to her eyeballs. She’s spent the evening at a friend’s party mostly worrying about getting home because she has to be back at the office by 7am, and it’s a 30 minute drive home. Sleep is not something Sarah is happy to sacrifice. She’s itching to bolt home as fast as possible.
She tells quick goodbyes and throws her tired body into her Q7 Audi, starts the car and reverses to the street. She shifts to ‘D’. With lead heavy petrol running through her veins Sarah rockets towards the night sky kissed highway.
Interlude. At this point you probably assume that I’ll write about Sarah speeding her way through the night like a true gearhead, driving off a cliff, severely injuring herself and killing a large colony of nearly extinct special birds nesting half way between the cliff and the ground? No. Too morbid for today.
Fifteen minutes into her raging drive home, beacons of blue flash from the darkness in her rearview mirror. Highway’s finest in uniform request her attention. Sarah’s been doing 105km per hour on an 80km zone. Licence, registrations and the time to call a tow truck.
Suspension of licence for 3 months, fines enough to make a deposit on a nuclear missile in Russia. Luckily she hadn’t been drinking. Still, good luck trying to sleep now.
Like Sarah, when we limit our focus on to the end goal we tend to ignore that the fastest (and let’s face it, often the sexiest, most marketable) way of getting somewhere is rarely the safest or the most sustainable. Strength training is no exception.
The unsexy, idiot proof strength training
Even the name echoes Minnesota more than California: constant resistance strength training.
People who thrive on this tend to be the ones who treat the gym as practice. As a means to an end. They find their excitement in life from outside of the training sessions. Let’s face it, this is how it should be instead of being the gym warrior who lives to lift.
I am really working hard here to not go on a tangent on a topic I’ve repeated ad nauseam… To keep this article somewhat short, check here for more on what ad nauseum here could look like.
Factors making constant resistance strength training safer
Muscles adapt faster to the strength training compared to connective tissue. That means ligaments, tendons and all the other fancily named areas of the body. They can’t keep up with the strength gains the muscles are reaping.
So if you keep lifting heavier weights by progressing too fast the rest of the body isn’t necessarily ready for it. Constant resistance strength training method uses this to your advantage by forcing you to wait until you really are ready to progress.
Here’s how I use it with my clients
Choose a weight you can do for a given amount of reps. This really depends on the exercise. You wouldn’t want to do a one repetition max lift on a say, I don’t know, ½ kneeling cable chop. I’ll give you two examples here, both lower and higher rep exercises. The principles stay the same, regardless of the exercise.
Constant strength training using trapbar
Warm up to a weight you can do for 6 reps. Weight should be challenging, but all the reps should be doable without grinding at any point.
First warm up set 60kg x5 reps Second warm up set 80kg x5 reps Worksets 100kg x 6 reps x 2 sets
Now for the next however many workouts do that same thing until it starts to feel easier, even easy. Then add 5-10kg to the bar and start all over again. That’s it.
Constant strength training using ½ kneeling cable chop
Here’s an exercise better suited to a higher repetition 8+ training. No need to warm up the same way we did on trapbar. But as always, get a general warm up done before the training part of your workout.
Worksets 12.5kg x 8 reps x 2-3 sets
Once easy-ish add weight. Little jumps in here are more feasible versus 5-10kg.
Listen to your body
Some days the weight feels tough. Do fewer sets, train to train another day. Sometimes it feels lighter, add a set. But don’t do too much. There’s a point, a fine line of diminishing returns. Again, train to train another day.
Because you don’t have strict target numbers to hit each workout, you’ll never feel behind. You never have to force it. And this is great news for us who have kids, busy work, are tending a nut farm, and other stuff that often impairs our sleep and training.
Basically, don’t force the training if you’ve spent the night roaming the nut farm.
This sounds just about as boring as shoveling lost thoughts of the poets past
Well, it depends what you want out of your training time. If you’re anything like my typical readers you want sustainable results to thrive in the activities you love. So, no, we don’t think that’s boring. If you love simplicity, no, definitely not boring. And results are never boring.
You could also go about things without any structure and just do whatever smokes your goat that day. Fun? Yep, but not necessarily super progressive for strength gains. Unless you’re an absolute beginner.
But if you want to feel like a kid in a pawn toy shop each time you get changed for your workout clothes, yes you’ll probably find this boring. I’d make a case that you should find excitement from joining the local circus, not from from the gym.
This also sounds like it takes a long time to see results
What’s long? Longer than other training methods where you follow pre-established percentages to lift a certain amount of weight each day? Or where you work up to a heavy lift for four weeks, deload, and start again?
Yes. But I argue constant resistance strength training is more sustainable and you’re less likely to burn out and injure yourself. Also, you don’t have to be a slave to the numbers or turn each training session into a maths class.
How about linear progression where you keep adding reps or weight each training session? Yes, this will take longer. But same caveats from above apply. Besides, unless you’re a true beginner there’s only so long you can keep progressing linearly.
What did we learn today?
Pick a weight you can do for 8 reps (or 6, or 9, or 10, 11, or 12…) without grinding the weight. Keep repeating that for however many workouts it takes to make the weight feel easier, even easy. Then add more weight and start again. The jumps in weight don’t need to be humangus.
Constant resistance strength training method requires patience. You have to be in it for the long game. Which means this works well for you and me. We are past the age of ego driven gym fanaticism.
Your progress will be more sustainable and your strength gains deeply rooted and solidified. You’ll spend a long time getting strong on a weight before progressing. Solidified. Great word. One more time, solidified.
This method seems to work especially well for those who are in somewhat tune with their body, can listen to what it’s whispering to them, and don’t give two shits about what anyone else thinks about their lifting.
For the next three months Sarah embraced car pooling
She was able to get her co-worker Brian to pick her up each morning. Now, Brian was all about smart driving. He left ample time for the commute each morning.
Brian woke up earlier when he predicted the traffic would be bad (rain, roadworks…) And on the rare occasion when things didn’t go his way on the road, Brian was content at being late, “as my grandma used to say, some nasty shit you just can’t control.” Something for Sarah to meditate on.
Besides paying her fines, Sarah spent three months forking out for Ubers to get her kid to and from school, karate practice, football skill training and piano lessons. All by the same teacher.
Like so many times before, Captain Skip Brown Jr. is flying a scheduled morning flight from Sydney to LAX. He’s done this exact same flight, with this four engine Airbus A340 plane a hundred times, and counting. As with the previous flights everything’s going as expected, smooth. If you don’t count the shitty weak coffee, the cabin crew is serving this morning.
Four hours into the flight though things take a rather upsetting turn. Without a warning one of the plane’s four engines shuts down with a bang.
He reaches for the CAB button on the audio control panel to share the disappointing news with the passengers as well as the cabin crew who are busy problem solving what the fuck went wrong with the coffee today. Miguel, the chief of cabin crew on today’s flight, is adamant that it’s the beans.
The captain clears his throat, “Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. It’s a bit unpleasant, but we’ve just super recently lost one of our four engines. Not sure what happened, but it’s annoying. Anyway, a plane with only three working engines is not worth flying with. I just want to go home and sit on my couch and watch Netflix. And definitely not fly this plane anymore. A piece of shit that it is.”
Captain Skip Brown then does the only reasonable thing he can think of, he turns off the remaining three engines and starts a gentle descend with the goal of gliding the A340 into the Pacific Ocean. “Only three working engines left,” he mutters to himself. “No point flying now. Can’t wait to get home and watch Narcos Mexico.”
Ok, so besides the weak coffee and Narcos Mexico, none of that makes any logical sense. Captain Skip Brown’s A340 still has three perfectly working engines. The plane would fly as normal with two, perhaps only one engine.
Skip Brown Jr.’s approach to flying is on par with how people look at training when injured. “I can’t do it 100 percent so why do it at all”. Here’s why ditching your body into the Pacific, aka your couch, when injured is not smart.
Training while injured will help you to maintain your strength levels
You might lose some strength, but training will definitely slow the speed that you’ll lose it. If your right shoulder is injured, you still have three limbs and the trunk to train. That’s over 80% of the body. What’s more, you might actually speed up the healing..
But before diving into the details of how and what to do, there are two important points to remember.
1. Injuries in this article means stuff to do with limbs
There are certain areas of the body that might be tough to find ways around when injured. Low back is one of them. Depending on what’s going on with the back it might be better to take a step back from intense training and focus on less straining activities.
It really depends on what’s going on with the back whether you need to stop training, or if modifying the program is enough. Backs are tricky, especially online.
2. If it hurts don’t do it
Regardless of the information on training around injuries, don’t do something if it aggravates the symptoms. Simple rule, but ignored way too often.
Three ways to train when injured
1. Train one side only 2. Progress by increasing time under tension instead of adding resistance 3. Find an alternative exercise with the same, or similar, movement pattern
Let’s tackle them one by one.
Train one side only
While letting the injured side to recover, you should keep training the uninjured side as normal. Not only will this help you to maintain the results you’ve gotten so far, but it will aid the healing.
A process called cross transfer takes place when training the uninjured side. It’s a neurological health-loaded roundhouse kick to the injury. The body transfers some neurological training benefits from the uninjured side to the injured one which is pretty much candy for your injury.
There’s a study somewhere about how hip replacement patients who kept training their uninjured side where able to heal quicker from their operation compared to those who stopped altogether. Candy.
If you can’t hold a weight increase time under tension
When one arm is injured, it can get complicated to load up the lower body heavy enough to get the training effect. Any two legged squatting movement becomes difficult because you can’t hold enough weight (if any) to provide sufficient training stimulus for the legs.
That’s when time under tension and single leg work become your friends. Do single leg squats (one leg needs less loading than two) with a 3-5 second eccentric phase (lowering). Here’s how a brutal set of ten would look:
5 second lower – 1 second up x 10. Finish all the reps before taking a break.
You can also use the time under tension trick when doing upper body exercises, such as a single arm dumbbell press. It means you don’t have to go as heavy and worry about how to get a big dumbbell up in the first place without helping with the injured arm.
Or worse, you might have to ask a gym “friend”. You know, the guy in the skinny singlet with a double nipple piercings who likes to talk about the unquantifiable energy of the universe. Meh.
Find an alternative exercise with the same, or similar, movement pattern
Sometimes you can’t do the original movements in your program. This could be, as mentioned earlier, a struggle to load a two legged squat, not being able to set up the landmine press exercise without aggravating the injured side, or unable to hold the trapbar. You’ll need an alternative that has a similar benefit as the original exercise.
Here are a few examples
Squat is predominantly a knee dominant lower body strength exercise. We want a similar benefit without having to load as heavy (or at all) → single leg squat with 5 second eccentric phase on each rep.
Landmine press is an upper body pushing strength exercise → single arm dumbbell press with a slight incline will give a similar training effect.
Trapbar deadlift is a lot of things, but mostly a hip dominant lower body exercise → single leg skater squat is the closest we can get.
The purpose is to keep training, even progressing, without making your program one dimensional. One exception is upper body push pull ratio. Everyone and their mum needs more upper body pulling exercises. So if you can’t press, you’ll be fine doing any form of pulling instead.
Most folks initially struggle with the idea of only training one side
They’re afraid the uninjured side will become too strong or too big. Like Quagmire walking out of the house after he discovers the internet. I understand the fear, but once you think about how much work it takes to build strength and size, this fear should become a moot point. Let’s rephrase the question.
Why would you let a perfectly healthy limb lose its hard earned strength and muscle and weaken it to the levels similar to your injured side?
If it really gets that much stronger and bigger than the uninjured side (it won’t) you can do double the work for the injured side once it’s healed. You have a strong limb, use it to your advantage.
Real example of a client with an upper body injury
Here’s what we did with a guy who had injured his right shoulder/chest in an indoor soccer match.
A1) kettlebell front Squats → single leg squats A2) chin up → single arm TRX row, left arm only
B1) split stance deadlift → same, but loading the left arm only B2) dumbbell bench press → dumbbell single arms bench press, left arm only
C1) single arm bottom up carry → same, left only C2) dumbbell single arm row → same, left only
Real example of a client with a lower body injury
Here’s what we often do with a client who’s knee doesn’t love the eccentric part of squatting, or knee flexion in general. Kneeling is also often problematic.
Most of the hip dominant movement are fine though. Her programs are built around aggressively training the hinging while using the limited choices we have for training the knee flexion. Needless to say she swings a heavy kettlebell like a boss.
A1) suitcase carry A2) med ball shot put
B1) kettlebell swings B2) cable press with a forward step – this is our opportunity to get in low level knee work
C1) Skillmill* – her knee tolerates this well so we use it almost every session. The lack of eccentric work (you’re only moving forward) makes it money for the knee. C2) TRX Row
Summary
Find ways to train the healthy parts of the body. Don’t let them regress to the level of the injured side. You will not only maintain more of the strength on the injured side but also speed up the recovery with neurological cross body transfer magic.
Injured limbs are usually simple to train around. Train the uninjured side as normal and increase tension when struggling to add resistance. When swapping exercises try to stick with the same or similar movement patterns. And no, you won’t end up like Quagmire by only training one side.
Things take a complicated left turn up the hill when you’re dealing with a trunk or low back injury.
Captain Skip Brown Jr. realises he’s being silly
One minute into the descent an overwhelming quantity of positive warmth rushes over the captains body. “A340 with three engines is still a beauty to fly. It’s like riding an arctic fox on marshmallows.”
Miguel solves the weak coffee riddle (it was the beans), and brews a new batch. He hand delivers it to the cockpit, placing it in the firm, warm, but cool and calm hands of Captain Brown.
The captain pushes a button on the audio control panel to contact LAX air traffic control. “Captain Skip Brown Jr’s eagle is LAX bound. Stop. Light up the runway like a Christmas tree, Santa’s coming home. Stop. And for Christ’s sake someone get Miguel a raise. Stop.”
“Also, nobody tell me what happens in Narcos Mexico. Full stop.”**
*a machine mimicking prowler/sledge. Small gym no turf space. **I am somewhat confident this is how pilots talk.
If you’re struggling to lift and hold your kids, there’s no escaping the fact that you’re currently too weak to do so.
Here are few tip on how to improve your strength when your not ready to join a gym or invest in few pieces of home equipment. Also, if your kids are teenagers and beyond, following the advice here will likely lead to awkward encounters.
1. If you can lift your kid, but struggle to hold on to them, work to gradually increase the time your holding them. As in, if you can currently hold them for 5 seconds, aim for 4-second hold and keep repeating that as often as you can throughout the day. Without your kid with lifelong trauma about constantly being treated as exercise equipment.
