No benefit to prolonged warfare....

There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare
- Sun Tzu

Strength training is boring.  The act of becoming stronger takes time, energy, and determination but nevertheless is still boring.  On the other hand, this boring can be super effective at getting you strong.  However at some point, you will not receive any benefits to the program as your body will have outlasted it's adaptability (for now).  

For the most part, strength training is a war.  It's a war against your body.  It's a war against gravity and usually a heavy-ass thing being pulled down by it's forces.  Strength gains can be fast or can be slow, not unlike gaining ground in actual warfare.  Sometimes you reach an area of which you gain nor lose ground, sort of like "digging in the trenches."

Over time, this "digging" leads to a retreat.  It's not to say that you are over-trained, just overreached for a period.  This can ultimately diminish your return and no benefit takes place.  Failure to change the plan or to rest can result in no more gains and just wasting your time.  

Often it's the cycling of different programs and plans that will lead to the largest gains and the fewest failures.  Sometimes it's the exact same lifts as a prior plan, but it's the organizational change that makes the difference.  In all fairness, the main lifts such as the deadlift, the squat, the bench press, the overhead press, and hell, even the pull-up are all the best things out there.  If you can do well in all of these, you're strong in general.  

Strength gains are made by manipulating the sets/reps/weight, and consistently pursuing greater and greater workloads.  They're gained by being patient and hanging on just long enough for it to become ineffective.  Too long and it's a failure and no benefit.  The war is then lost.  

What goes up?

This post will close out my series on various lifts and their importance, at least to me.  Not to say that there aren't any others that I consider, I just consider what I've talked about so far and about to speak of to be the most important.

This post will focus on two exercises, one is easily a lift, as it involves a barbell; the other can be considered one, but is often not included as a lift.  The first, the overhead press (or military press, shoulder press, etc.; plus variations.) is probably one of my favorite lifts, mostly because I'm not too awful in performing it.  The second is a gym-class favorite, the pull-up.  The pull-up is another of my favorite (mostly) exercises, as it's something that can humble or highlight.

The overhead press is simply pushing a barbell over your head until your arms are locked out.  As with most of the lifts explained prior, this isn't all that complicated, however it is very difficult.  To draw upon which muscles are engaged, it is a large percentage of your shoulders but without core strength (abs, lower back, glutes) you will not be successful in performing.  Additionally, arm strength can play a role as if your triceps are weak, then you'll likely fail at this lift.  So while you can lump this lift into a "shoulders day," realize that it's much more than that.

The pull-up is an extremely effective upper body exercise as is the overhead press.  Unlike the overhead press or even the bench press for that matter, this is not an exercise that can be made easier, or at least easily.  Your body weight is largely the resistance factor here and if you cannot move it, then you cannot do it.  There are ways to cheat the system and that's with the use of bands or a "partner assist," which can go wrong in many different ways.  The purest form of the pull-up is from a "dead hang," which is when your arms start out completely locked and you pull up until either your chin surpasses the bar or your chest/collarbone reaches the bar.  The muscles here include the upper back (yes, I know that there's more than one muscle here), shoulders, arms, and even the core (surprised?).  So another "bang for your buck" exercise.

These exercises/lifts make up the core of my training philosophy.  Now, I understand that many people struggle to perform even some of these, and that's ok.  Not everyone is able to or will be able to (or for that matter, want to be able to) perform these movements.  But success in these can improve overall fitness in a short workout per day.

For more information on how to do these lifts mentioned here or in prior posts, send me an email and I'll be glad to help!

Push from the heels and keep that chest up

Last week, I posted on the deadlift as it's one of the largest builders of awesomeness that there is.  It builds muscle, strength, explosiveness, and all around bad-assery.  With all of this awesomeness comes a price, the nervous system takes an epic beating over time.

Enter, the squat.  The squat is another one of the greatest exercises known to man.  The beauty in the squat is that it can literally be done anywhere and with anything.  While you're reading this, you can bust out some body-weight, or "air" squats; or you can load up a barbell and work everything in the process.  

Squats are traditionally held on "Leg Day," of which you guessed it, you work your legs.  But the squat is much more than that, it's one of the best mass builder, strength builder, and fat burner that you can possibly perform.  It's right up there with the deadlift as one of the largest builders of awesomeness.  

Performing this lift isn't all that complicated, but perfecting it is.  The carryover into every day activities is also unmatched, as long as you're walking.  With very few exceptions should anyone not perform this lift.  Every sport known to the human race benefits from this lift.  Every activity known to the human face benefits from this lift.  

Summary is, everybody can benefit from a simple yet somehow brutally demanding exercise.  Even with no weight, you can improve your life, legs, and lungs; with weight, so much more.  Now that you're done reading this, go ahead and try a few.  

Pick it up & Put it down

The deadlift, the king of lifts.  It's the one thing that can tell you whether or not you're able to do it.  It doesn't lie to you, it doesn't sugarcoat things for you, it just says whether or not you can do it.

It is easily one of the easiest or hardest lifts to learn and to perform.  You can gain a tremendous amount of strength by using this one lift alone or you can gain a tremendous amount of muscle mass with it.

Every part of your body becomes active when you deadlift.  Rather than isolate by muscles, we create a symphony of activation of your muscles when you deadlift.  This is all related to your Central Nervous System activating the muscles that are required to simply pick the bar up.

Athletically, every sport may benefit from this lift.  You go from literally no tension on your muscles to maximal tension on your muscles coordinated to fire simultaneously.  There are few other exercises that accomplish this task.

The deadlift can be broken down into simple parts.  There's the setup, where you position yourself with the bar.  Next is "pulling the slack out" of the bar, which is really just an extension of the setup.  This stage involves the tightening of your joints and the beginning of tension to your muscles (I didn't use the word "flex" as it implies a direction of movement).  Next is the massive buildup of tension which precedes the lift, from there it's a systematic firing of muscles to lift the bar off of the ground.

Simple right?  Go ahead and take a shot at it and you'll see how "simple" it is.