Workout Routines: Exercising on Vacation: Part 1

Written on April 11, 2011 at 5:16 pm, by Eric Cressey

Almost a year ago, as my wife and I were discussing where we wanted to go for our honeymoon, we both agreed that we wanted to go somewhere that we could be active.  The “sit by the pool and crush margaritas” vacation just isn’t us – and that’s why we wound up in Costa Rica for nine days in March.  From everything we read, Costa Rica was a place where you could hike, surf, ride horses, snorkel, zipline – and get your heart rate up just by driving on narrow, cliffside roads with drivers so aggressive that they make Boston cabbies look like they’re just getting their learners’ permits.

Anyway, our “active” vacation got me to thinking about just how many people completely blow it with their workout routines and diets when they are on vacation.  I know what you’re thinking: “vacations are supposed to be time off from everything, so quit being such a nitpicker!”

I’ll agree: a vacation should be completely relaxing (and ours was), but I’d argue that doing absolutely nothing on vacation is a problem for most people for four reasons.

First, vacations are almost always a time when folks are confronted with obscene amounts of food and alcohol.  You’re not just eating a larger quantity of food; you’re eating “out” more with others preparing that food.  You’re also tempted by foods that are “new” to you – which can quickly shift the macronutrient breakdown that feels best in your normal diet.  I, for instance, ate a ton of fresh fruit in Costa Rica at pretty much every meal in spite of the fact that I’m a guy who normally doesn’t eat a ton of carbs.

When so much is out of your control on the dietary front – and you’re tempted by foods you wouldn’t otherwise eat (like that third slice of cake at 1AM on the all-inclusive cruise), exercise could be your best friend.  Well, that and cracking your own coconuts when you don’t have a sharp knife on hand.

(for the record, I made an awesome pina colada protein shake out of Metabolic Cooking with fresh pineapple and coconut)

Second, a lot of people see dramatic changes to their normal sleep schedule while on vacation.  My wife and I actually wound up going to bed earlier and waking up earlier while there because we were usually wiped out by the end of the day and the sun was so bright in the morning.  Plus, on a few occasions, we had monkeys throwing mangos at our roof (not kidding).

However, most people go in the opposite direction: in bed at 2AM and up at 12PM.  We know that sleep quality, duration, and timing has a huge impact on how our body functions, so canning exercise at a time when sleep is at its poorest might not be the best idea.

Third, most vacations are longer than your typical deload week, especially when you factor in travel days.  Taking 5-7 days off is one thing, but nixing your training effect for up to two weeks is a recipe for getting soft – or, even worse, falling off the exercise bandwagon altogether.

Fourth, I’ll probably take some heat for this, as I wrote in The Art of the Deload, I think that the idea of a complete deload week is a silly idea for the overwhelming majority of the population.

The last statistic I saw had 64% of Americans as overweight or obese.  Of the other 36%, there are probably quite a few people who are naturally slender and don’t even exercise – which means that maybe a quarter of all Americans actually exercise and are in a shape other than “round.”  Go to any gym, and think about how many of those 25% of the population actually work hard enough in their strength training programs to justify taking a full week off.

Fifth, traveling sometimes means that you spend entire days sitting on planes and in airports.  A long plane ride can make an 8-hour day at your cubicle feel like a walk in the park.  I know my body is always the most stubborn when it comes to warming up the day after a long plane ride.  Some moving around on vacation can really do the body good when it comes to maintaining mobility.

Now that I’ve made my case for vacation exercise, check back soon for Part 2, where I’ll talk about what we did for training in Costa Rica.

Sign-up Today for our FREE Newsletter and receive a deadlift technique tutorial!

Strength Training Programs for the Pros and the Joes: Not as Different as You Might Think

Written on February 24, 2011 at 12:33 pm, by Eric Cressey

Yesterday, New England Sports Network (NESN) ran a feature on my work with Kevin Youkilis of the Boston Red Sox.  In the background of the video, you’ll notice several other professional athletes (including a pro soccer player and pro triathlete) doing their thing, too.  What’s perhaps more interesting, though, is that you’ll even see some general fitness clients getting after it at the same time.

It reminded me of an interview Chad Waterbury did with me for his website a while back; the focus was what ordinary folks can learn from professional athletes, and how they’re alike/different in the gym.  I think that there are some valuable takeaway points:

CW: You work with a lot of high-performance athletes. What are three principles that apply equally to athletes and non-athletes?

EC: I think people would be surprised to realize just how similar the Average Joe or Jane is to a professional athlete – both socially and physically.

The lay population often sits in front of a computer for 8-10 hours a day, but many pro athletes have 4-8 hour flights or 10+ hour bus rides where they’re sitting – and because they’re taller, sitting is even more uncomfortable and problematic.  Like everyone else, they spend time surfing the internet, Skyping, playing video games, and goofing around on Facebook/Twitter.  The advances in technology have hurt everyone from a physical fitness standpoint – but brought the “Pros and the Joes” closer together, believe it or not.

They’re also very similar in that they want the most bang for their buck.  Most pro athletes are no different than anyone else in that they want to get in their training, and then go to visit their families, relax, play golf, or whatever else.  They really don’t have interest in putting in six hours per day in training outside of the times when they have to do so (namely, in-season).

All that said, if I had to pick three principles crucial to the success of both populations, they’d be the following:

1.  Realize that consistency is everything. I always tell our clients from all walks of life that the best strength and conditioning programs are ones that are sustainable.  It’s not about working hard for three months and making great progress – only to fall off the bandwagon for a month.  This is absolutely huge for professional athletes who need to maximize progress in the off-season; they just can’t afford to have unplanned breaks in training if they want to improve from year to year.

If a program isn’t conducive to your goals and lifestyle, then it isn’t a good program.  That’s why I went out of my way to create 2x/week, 3x/week, and 4x/week strength training options – plus five supplemental conditioning options and a host of exercise modifications – when I pulled Show and Go together; I wanted it to be a very versatile resource.

Likewise, I wanted it to be safe; a program isn’t good if it injures you and prevents you from exercising.  Solid programs include targeted efforts to reduce the likelihood of injury via means like mobility drills, supplemental stretching recommendations, specific progressions, fluctuations in training stress, and alternative strength exercises (“plan B”) in case you aren’t quite ready to execute “Plan A.”

2. You must balance competing demands, and prioritize the ones that are the most pressing at a given time. Using our professional baseball pitchers as an example, their training consists of strength training, mobility drills, medicine ball throws, movement training, and the throwing program (which is near daily in nature).  In the Cressey Performance system, when the throwing program ramps up, the medicine ball work must come down substantially, and the strength training tapers off just a bit.  You simply can’t keep adding sets and reps without subtracting something else and making a tradeoff, as athletes only have a certain amount of recovery capacity, and it’s hard to fine-tune an exact movement like throwing a baseball if you’re fatigued from everything else.

Managing competing demands is arguably more challenging in the general population, as their jobs outside the gym are usually more stressful than those that face many professional athletes – meaning that the Joes and the Janes have less recovery capacity with which to work.  It seems logical that when you add something to a program, you have to subtract something else – but I’m constantly amazed at how many people decide to just keep adding more volume when they can’t lose fat or gain muscle mass fast enough.  Sometimes, you just need to change the composition of the program, not add more and more, thereby creating three-hour marathon training sessions. This leads to my next point…

3. The success comes from the overall program, not just the individual parts. In other words, synergy is everything.

The aforementioned pitchers can’t just go out and start a throwing program after doing nothing for three months.  Rather, they need to work to enhance their mobility and get stronger, more reactive, and more powerful first.  If they skip these important steps, they increase their likelihood of injury, make it harder to re-acquire a skilled movement, and reduce the likelihood of improvement.

In the general population, a good strength and conditioning program consists of tremendous interdependencies.  Your deadlift technique and strength depends on the training you’ve done in the previous month, week, and day – and how thorough and targeted your mobility warm-up (or lack thereof, in many unfortunate cases) was prior to that day’s training session.  Those trainees who have the best results are the ones that line everything up – from nutrition, to strength training, to mobility exercises, to movement training, to metabolic conditioning, to recovery protocols.

CW: It’s common for people to think they’re advanced when they’re really not. Can you mention a few things a pro athlete typically does that a weekend warrior shouldn’t do?

EC: I would strongly discourage non-professional athletes from holding shirtless press conferences in their driveways while exercising during contract holdouts.

Then again, I wouldn’t really recommend that to Terrell Owens or any professional athlete, for that matter, but I digress…

To be honest, in the context of resistance training, a lot of professional athletes aren’t really as advanced as you might think, especially after a long season that’s taken its toll on them.  Many of them have a ton of similarities with our general fitness clients – but just have different exercise contraindications and energy systems needs.

I think the better comparison would be between novice lifters (less than one year of resistance training) and those with years and years under their belt.  They have to do things quite a bit differently.

As a first example, the novice lifter can handle a lot more volume because he (or she, of course) is relatively neurally inefficient.  If this lifter did the volume of an advanced athlete, he might actually undertrain on volume (and possibly overdo it on intensity to the point that it’d interfere with picking up appropriate technique).

Second, a really advanced lifter will often need to deload on intensity – meaning that when it’s time for a “backoff week” – he’ll often keep the sets and reps up, but take a lot of weight on the bar. It’s just about getting reps in.  A novice lifter, on the other hand, is better off keeping the intensity up and dropping the number of reps.

Third, a novice lifter can often be more aggressive in terms of caloric intake because there is such a large window of adaptation ahead in terms of muscle weight gain.  I gained 50 pounds in my first year of lifting, but nowadays – even though I’m five times as strong as I was then – if I can go up 3-4 quality pounds a year, I’m thrilled.  Surely, lifters are the opposite ends of the experience continuum can’t have similar caloric needs – even if the more experienced ones are heavier.  Skinny novice guys can sometimes get away with eating like absolute crap as long as there are enough total calories  – and still end up getting bigger.  I certainly don’t advise it, but it’s one more way to show that novice and experienced lifters are horses of different colors, and that you have to be honest with yourself on where you fall on this continuum so that you train and eat optimally.

Sign-up Today for our FREE Newsletter and receive a deadlift technique tutorial!

Deloading on 5×5 Workout Programs

Written on January 27, 2011 at 10:15 am, by Eric Cressey

Following my recent article on T-Nation about various weight training program loading protocols (you can read it HERE), I received an email from someone asking me how I’d approach deloading for someone doing a 5×5 workout program.  I’ve broken the paragraph up so that I can answer each of the inquiries individually:

Q: Let’s say on a horizontal push pull day your doing Bench press supersetted with 1-arm dumbbell rows at 5×5, do both lifts follow the same deloading strategies?

A: Yes, although I’ll often leave an extra set or two of the pulling exercise in there because people really need it from a postural/muscle imbalance standpoint.  So, in other words, we might just flip-flop things to be:

A1) 1-Arm DB Rows: 4×5/side
A2) Bench Press: 3×5

This, of course, would assume that we’re deloading on volume and not intensity.  It’d be a more appropriate strategy for intermediates.

Q: How do you adjust your assistance work, if at all?

A: Usually, I just drop a set, or sometimes cut the reps down by 2-4 per set.  Here’s how that would work, assuming that the normal set/rep prescription is three sets of eight on both exercises:

Example 1

B1) Chain Pushups: 3×6
B2) Close-Grip Chinups: 3×6

Example 2

B1) Chain Pushups: 2×8
B2) Close-Grip Chinups: 2×8

Again, this is an intermediate approach.  More advanced lifters might keep the sets/reps up and simply reduce intensity.

Q: Also, a lot of times there will be the first two push pull lifts (4 lifts total) done at 5×5 (e.g., flat bench 5×5 and incline 5×5) do you deload both lifts or do you think two chest/back exercises at 5×5 is too much and just the primary lift should have that scheme and the incline would be an assistance lift?

A: Personally, I think that doing all your lifts at 5×5 in a single workout is overkill. I would rather see other rep ranges attacked after the first pairing.  However, if you are going to do it, I’d go with the deloading approach outlined in the first response I gave (above).

For even more detailed information on how to approach backoff weeks appropriately, check out my e-book, The Art of the Deload.

Sign-up Today for our FREE Newsletter and receive a detailed deadlift technique tutorial!

Exercise and Stress: 6 Strength Training Tips for When You’re Already Overworked

Written on January 11, 2011 at 7:17 am, by Eric Cressey

Right now is the busiest time of year at Cressey Performance on top of our facility having more clients than ever.  So, needless to say, life is a bit crazy and there are times when I admittedly get stressed out and wish there were more hours in the day to get everything I have on my plate done – and still have time left over to spend with my wife and family.

And, while I haven’t managed to figure out how to add more than 24 hours to the day, I have started to find a few ways to better manage my time – and, more specifically, my strength training program.

You see, many people use exercise as a means of relieving stress – and I think that’s absolutely awesome.  Unfortunately, when you already work 10 hours a day on your feet in a gym, it’s hard to see things that way even when all the equipment is right at your fingertips.  To that end, the stressed-out strength training tips I note below will be applicable to folks in any occupation, not just the fitness industry.

Tip #1: Increase training frequency, but reduce training duration.

I find that when I’m busy, I can find 30 minutes here and there, but getting 60-75 minutes free at a convenient time is tougher.  One thing I’ll do is simply up my training frequency to 5-6 times per week instead of just four sessions.  Rather than having sessions that include four pairings (7-8 strength exercises), I’ll just have two pairings (3-4 exercises).

If you’ve read anything from Chad Waterbury or Joel Marion, you’ll find that both of these guys are fans of strength training as frequently as possible, provided that you can recover from those sessions.  Somewhat coincidentally, sometimes the best way to utilize this frequent strength training approach is when you’re already stressed and recovery is compromised!  I still get in all my “work” over the course of the week, but it’s spread out a bit more so that it’s convenient and less taxing.

Tip #2: Leave the gym feeling refreshed.

Also on the “less taxing” front, I think it’s important to leave the gym feeling “refreshed,” not exhausted.  While it might feel good when your legs are trashed at the end of a training session, you really don’t know how well you’re going to recover from that challenge until the days that follow.  Doing 15 sets of 9 reps might have sounded like a good stress buster at the time, but when you can’t walk up the steps to work the following day and are falling asleep at your desk at 11am because you couldn’t sleep with your legs cramping all night, hindsight definitely becomes 20/20.

Don’t get me wrong; there’s a time and a place for doing crazy stuff.  Your most stressful days aren’t that time, though.

Tip #3: Train early.

This is something that I’ve grown to love with the baseball off-season in full swing and my day starting earlier.  Normally, I train alongside the rest of our staff at 10:30AM, but at this time of year, I may have athletes at 9:30AM MoTuThFr.  So, more and more, I’m getting in at 8:15AM to get my lifting session in.  Why?

First, lifting early requires planning.  You need to go to bed early and prepare your stuff for the next day.  So, in the process, you make time instead of finding time.  That’s huge at a stressful time when you’re inclined to miss a session altogether.

Second, most people I know (at least the adults out there) have better energy in the morning than after a long day of work.  That said, many people take a few weeks to warm up to the idea (and feeling) of training early.  If you’re going to make the switch, give it a few weeks and be consistent with it; you’ll find that you get more and more comfortable with morning training with each new session.

Third, I’m a firm believer in the adage that one hour of sleep before midnight is worth two hours of sleep after midnight.   When you train in the morning, you’ve got to get to bed earlier or else it simply isn’t going to happen.

Get better sleep quality and just about everything else in your life will improve.

Tip #4: Outsource things to keep training fun.

I’ll admit that many times, after a long day in a strength and conditioning facility, the last thing I want to do is follow my own weight training program.  I spend all day getting other people organized on that front, so a bit of chaos in my own strength training is sometimes welcomed relief.

About two months ago, believe it or not, I asked one of my pro baseball players (who was hanging out in the office at 7pm one night) to put a lower body program up on the dry erase board for me.  It turned out to be one of the better training sessions I’d had in weeks.  The same goes for any conditioning I may do; often, I’ll just pull Robert Dos Remedios’ book, Cardio Strength Training, off the shelf and give something a shot.

Variety may be the spice of life, but when it comes to training, that variety usually needs to come from someone else.  It might be why so many fitness professionals have really enjoyed my Show and Go program; it not only demonstrates some of my programming approaches, but also gives them a change of pace in their own training, as my last blog post showed.

Tip #5: Use less variety.

Normally, I am all about strength exercise variety within a training session.  However, when you’re pinched for time, sometimes you can just throw that out the window and it’s the best decision.

Think about it: for every additional exercise in a day’s session, I add a warm-up set as well as the need for equipment set-up.  If I keep my training day to 2-3 strength exercises and just increase the volume on each, I can usually do just as much (if not more) work in less time.  You get variety over the course of a training phase and career; you get a training effect within a single session.

In other words, don’t be shy about doing 5 sets of 3 on deadlifts, then 4 sets of 8 on dumbbell reverse lunges from a deficit – and then calling it a day for your lower body training – especially if you’re trying out the frequency recommendations I noted earlier.

Tip #6: Use deloading periods.

At the end of the day, when it really comes down to it, stress is stress.  Sometimes, when life is beating you down, adding training stress to that personal/professional stress is the worst that you can do.  As a general rule of thumb, the more training experience you have, the more likely you are to need some down time from the gym when the rest of your life gets super hectic.  If you’re new to the iron game, though, chances are that some exercise will help you manage the stress much more effectively.

For more information on how to attack deloading periods, check out my e-book, The Art of the Deload.

These six strength training tips are obviously just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to exercise and stress, but hopefully they’ll be enough to get you headed in the right direction.  Additionally, what strategies have those of you out there implemented for training during stressful times?

Sign-up Today for our FREE Newsletter and receive a detailed deadlift technique tutorial!

Strength and Conditioning Programs: Deloading to Plan for Personal Records

Written on November 24, 2010 at 3:05 am, by Eric Cressey

As we continue ‘Stache Bash 2010, today’s featured/discounted product is The Art of the Deload.  More importantly, though, I’ve moved to the horseshoe ‘stache with accompanying soul patch.

Control yourselves, ladies, and we’ll be able to move forward now.

As a brief background on The Art of the Deload, this 26-page e-book is a quick read that’ll give you practical strategies that you can quickly and easily put into practice.  In it, I outline 10 different deloading strategies that can be implemented in any resistance training program – and discuss who is the best fit for each strategy.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, I thought I’d give you a little taste of one of the ten:

Method #9: Planning for the PR Deload Week

With this method, you work backward from the first day of the subsequent program with the goal of testing one lift when you’re at your freshest.  Let’s say that you’re on a three days per week set-up, with the last (12^th) session of the month taking place on a Friday.  Your goal is to train normally over the course of the first four weeks (Month 1), with a small amount of technique work for the lift in question taking place during your deload week.

Let’s say that you’re looking to bring up your front squat.  Accumulate the majority of your specialization training over the course of Weeks 1-3, and then in Week 4, just do some front squat technique work in the 60-70% of estimated 1-rep-max range on all three days (MWF).  Obviously, do some assistance work, too, but don’t go crazy with volume or intensity.

Then, take the weekend off, and come back in to test the front squat on Monday.  Effectively, you’ve imposed a ton of fatigue over the course of Weeks 1-3, rested during Week 4, and realized the fitness gains at the beginning of Week 5.

If you’re interested in checking out the other nine strategies I outline, you’re in luck, as I’m putting The Art of the Deload on sale for 25% off – which means that you can pick it up for under $10.  Just enter the coupon code DELOAD at checkout and the discount will be applied.

Click here to order now, or click here for more information.

Sign-up Today for our FREE Newsletter and receive a deadlift technique tutorial!

Stuff You Should Read: 8/24/10

Written on August 24, 2010 at 6:31 am, by Eric Cressey

Here’s a look back to some featured posts that might interest you:

Deloading in Maximum Strength – While The Art of the Deload goes into a ton of detail on a variety of deloading strategies, several folks have asked me how it specifically applies to the Maximum Strength program.  This clears things up.

Lower Back Savers Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 – This three-part series at T-Nation are among my most popular articles there.

Unstable Ground or Destabilizing Torques – This blog will make you think about what you see when you watch sports on TV – and, more specifically, how athletes prepare themselves for those demands.

Stuff You Should Read: 7/6/10

Written on July 6, 2010 at 7:16 am, by Eric Cressey

In continuing with last week’s trend of “reincarnating” good stuff from the EricCressey.com archives, here is some old, but once-again-new flavor for you.

Who Needs Percentages? – This blog discusses why I don’t think that using a ton of percentages in your training is a good idea – even if it does have its place here and there.

The Art of the Deload – In the percentages blog, I referenced my e-book, The Art of the Deload.  As I think about it, this resource really flew under the radar.  Not to toot my own horn, but I think that at just $12.99, it’s a tremendous value that just about everyone would be wise to read.  Effectively, it gives you the information you need to modify programs to fit your needs based on a number of factors (age, training history, etc.).

The Great Eight Reasons for Basketball Mobility Training – Here’s a little background on the difference between mobility and stability, plus a rationale for the inclusion of both in this remarkably underserved (and sometimes uninterested!) population.