Home Posts tagged "Metabolic Resistance Training"

Going Out with a Bang: Creating and Implementing Workout Finishers

Today's guest post comes from Cressey Sports Performance - Florida coach Jason Jabour. Jason heads up the strength camps at the Jupiter location. Enjoy! -EC

In the fitness and performance industry, a coach’s job is to provide clients with a powerful, positive workout experience that yields results. A large part of a client’s success is dependent on their view of the gym experience. Happiness. Motivation. Commitment. Positivity. Energy. These are what we, as coaches, hope to bring out in our clients on a daily basis through relationship building and effective training programs. A properly designed and executed workout “finisher” can be a valuable asset to a trainer or strength coach trying to do just that.

A finisher may take on various forms or structures, but it is ultimately the last segment of a workout that is intended to hit your clients hard with a desired stimulus, putting them on the fence between “I don’t know why I pay money for this” and “whoa, that felt great.” The intent may be to spike the heart rate for conditioning purposes, to mechanically and metabolically challenge a muscle group (the “PUMP!”), or to simply allow your clients to compete and have fun together.

With that said, there are some important DOs and DON’Ts when programming finishers to keep your clients happy, healthy, and coming back for more.

DO:

1. Consider the goals of your clients.

Whether you are training somebody 1-on-1 or leading group training, clients must walk out feeling as if the last thing that they did got them closer to their desired goals. I may blast a guy’s biceps and triceps if his goal is to have bigger arms, as opposed to doing high intensity intervals on the bike. Conversely, a group of women who aren’t too concerned with upper body muscle mass may prefer the latter option. It comes down to communicating with and knowing your clients.

2. Allow for some autonomy and autoregulation.

Make your clients part of the programming process and, occasionally, give them some say in creating a finisher. Further, know when to push and pull back based on the energy, body language, and movement quality of an individual or the group. Just chatting with someone at the beginning of the session can be enough to make that call. If football players had a game the night before, it may not be the best time to run them through a sprint finisher.

3. Pick simple and familiar exercises.

Exercise selection is very important in delivering a potent finisher. There is a positive self-limiting effect that takes place when the appropriate exercises are chosen. Use movement patterns that clients have performed and been coached through a number of times previously. If a movement pattern has been trained, the client can attack it with higher intensity while maintaining quality movement.

Here are some exercises often found in CSP-Florida Strength Camp finishers:
Sled Pushes/Drags/Rows
Sprints
Assault Bike
Battleropes
Bodyweight Lunges
Jump Rope / Jumping Jacks
Pushups
Dumbbell Farmer Carries
Bear Crawls
Low Level Isometric Holds (air squat, hollow body, etc)
Medicine Ball Slams 

As a whole, these movements:

a) are not heavily loaded
b) test different movement patterns
c) can be easily scaled,
d) do not put the client at a high risk of injury if technique falters slightly
e) can all be biased for more conditioning or for more strength/power.

Choose wisely!

4. Consider the physiological and mechanical stimulus you will create.

In creating an effective finisher, one must consider how one exercise affects the execution of the subsequent exercises, potential breathing patterns and heart rate spikes, target muscle groups, and metabolic byproduct accumulation in muscle. I am not saying you have to get super geeky with it, but have an idea of what type of monster the finisher will be.

5. Be creative.

Simple as that! Be smart, but be creative. You can take the same four exercises and create countless finishers simply by changing time domain, rep scheme, exercise order, tempo, etc.

6. Challenge clients and offer opportunities for them to work together.

My clients will often challenge each other’s scores or time on a finisher. Additionally, clients push each other as they work out side-by-side. It is also be beneficial for the culture of a group/class if you challenge clients to work together to accomplish tasks, such as relay races or completing a given amount of work as a team.

DON’Ts:

1. Don’t introduce a new exercise in a finisher.

If you make this mistake, one of two things will happen. The client will spend too much time trying to execute the movement properly and intensity will diminish, or they will try to power through the movement at high intensity and butcher the technique. Either way, the objective is not accomplished.

2. Don’t program technical lifts – no heavy axial or heavy overhead loading.

It is one thing if a client is competing in the sport of fitness, but chances are they are not, so the risk outweighs the reward. As fatigue, heart rate, and intensity increase, it is likely that one will lose core and joint stability and have subtle deviations in movement patterns, a recipe for injury. For an athlete aiming to get better at a sport or for a general population client looking to get strong and feel good, the following lifts should be done fresh and in a controlled manner, not in a finisher:

Deadlifts
Barbell Squats
Olympic Lifts (Dumbbell and Barbell Snatches, Cleans, and Jerks)
High Repetition Pull-ups
Heavy Upper Body Pressing

What is the common theme here? Don’t move a heavy load up and down. Save it for your strength work.

As a side note, it is probably not a good idea to finish with core exercises that take the spine through high repetition flexion and extension patterns, as this may contribute to subsequent back pain. Further, don’t destroy your client's core; it still needs to be able to work the rest of the day.

3. Don’t over-coach a finisher.

A finisher should be an opportunity for the client to let loose and just get after it for a few minutes. If you have done your job and programmed appropriately, you shouldn’t have to do much coaching outside of holding a stopwatch.

4. Don’t be married to your finishers.

The hay is already in the barn with all the work your client has put in during that session. The finisher is just the cherry on top. If you don’t get to it one day because you spent more time on deadlift technique, oh well. If you have to change your finisher to five minutes of box breathing because your client took a red-eye flight home last night, no big deal.

5. Don’t be a drill sergeant.

Be unconditionally positive and empathetic. Remember, your client is paying you, you are not paying your client. As coaches, we cannot make anyone do anything, we just make strong suggestions and give guidance. The client chooses whether to listen.

CSP Strength Camp example finishers:

2 max effort rounds (rest as needed between):
50 yard Sled Push
25 yard Sprint
15 Overhead Med Ball Stomps
25 yard Sprint
15 Jumping Jacks

In teams of 2, complete:
300 Battlerope Slams
*one person works, while one person performs a hollow body hold

4 rounds, for time:
10 Calorie Assault Bike
30 Jump Rope
5 yard Bear Crawl

A finisher allows a coach to make sure that clients end the training session on a high note. An effective finisher is simple, but it is not easy. It is purposeful and moves the client’s needle in the right direction. It is a time to have fun, to go hard, and to finish strong.

About the Author

Jason Jabour is a strength and conditioning coach at Cressey Sports Performance - Florida. He also serves as Strength Camps Coordinator at the Jupiter, Florida location. You can contact him at jasonjabour@gmail.com and follow him on Instagram.

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7 Ways to Increase Your Training Density

All things held equal, if you want to continue to improve over the course of a training career, you need to progressively increase the training stimulus. While increasing the weight used is the most well known way of progressing, increasing training density is another means of making things more challenging. In other words, you need to do more work in less (or the same amount of) time.

To that end, here are some of my favorite strategies for making your training more dense. As you'll notice, some of them are as much "mindsets" as they are actual programming strategies.

1. Be accountable to rest intervals.

Here's the breakdown of a typical powerlifting training session:

a. Lift something heavy over about 10-15 seconds.

b. Sit around cracking jokes with your training partners over about 8-10 minutes.

Repeat "a" and "b" over the course of about an hour, then do some assistance exercises and go home.

Obviously, I'm embellishing things - but not by much! I can't say that I know of many powerlifters who rigidly adhere to rest intervals - and I'm not saying that they necessarily should. However, their approach can certainly impact how "everyone else" trains in a trickle down effect, so I do think it's important for the general fitness enthusiast to be cognizant of monitoring rest intervals. If you're not careful, you can easily get distracted and wind up wasting too much time between sets.

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2. Remove distractions.

This goes hand-in-hand with point #1, as distractions compete with sticking to rest intervals. However, I think it's one thing to just procrastinate before the next set, but another thing altogether to actually get distracted by something. This might be checking your cell phone, or striking up a conversation with somebody when you know you've only got 20 seconds left before the next set needs to start. Clear out the distractions if you're trying to make your training more dense.

3. Minimize variety.

I'm normally a huge believer in variety in a training program, but when you're trying to make your training more dense, variety is actually your enemy. You see, the more variety you work into a training program, the more set-up that's required. We never realize that we might spend 10-15 minutes of every training session setting up equipment and loading/unloading plates. If you want to get a lot of volume in over a 45-60 minute period, you can't spare that 10-15 minutes. In other words, the "densest" sessions might only include four different exercises, as opposed to 6-8.

SSG (1)

4. Don’t be afraid of drop-offs in loading.

This is another mindset note. Many individuals - myself included - absolutely hate having to drop the weight from one set to the next. However, unless you've undershot your initial weight selections, it's pretty much inevitable when you're doing several sets of higher reps. If you want to be successful with density-based training programs that involve higher-rep sets and shorter intervals, you'll have to eat a bit of humble pie when the loading starts dropping off.

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5. Incorporate back-off sets.

I discussed "back-off" sets in my previous article on the stage system. While they can be used for training strength and power, the real density benefits come with respect to accumulating volume - whether it's to increase muscle size or help with fat loss. Adding in back-off sets of 6-20 reps after your heaviest strength work can quickly increase the density of your overall training sessions.

6. Don't think that increasing high-intensity density work will yield as great an energy expenditure as increasing moderate-intensity density work.

This example might seem complex, but it won't be after this example.

Imagine you can deadlift 400 pounds, and you want to get more density in your program. Let's say that you can hit 90% of 1RM (360 pounds) for a single every 60s for ten minutes - for a total workload of 3,600 pounds.

Let's say that in this same time, you could hit a set of five reps at 75% of 1RM (300 pounds) every two minutes. That's a total workload of 7,500 pounds.

The point is that more reps - even with a noteworthy drop in intensity - will always "outdo" lower-rep work - even with more sets - when it comes to increasing the total amount of work in a given session. In other words, use your strength work to build or test strength, not to try to make for a more dense training session. Otherwise, you wind up getting stuck in a tough middle ground where you aren't building strength optimally, and really aren't making your training any denser.

7. Position exercise pairings in close proximity to one another.

If you pair up a front squat and a chin-up in the same power rack, you can get a lot of volume in without having to move around the gym at all. Conversely, swap those chin-ups for a lat pulldown, and there's a lot more walking involved. This is an especially important consideration in a commercial gym where someone might jump in on a piece of equipment while you're a few feet away.

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The Best of 2014: Product Reviews

To wrap up my “Best of 2014″ series, I’ll highlight the top product reviews I did at this site in the last year. Here they are:

1. 2x4: Maximum Strength - I reviewed this resource by Bret Contreras back in early April, and it quickly became my favorite recommendation for a training program for folks to try after they finish my High Performance Handbook program. You can read my review of the program HERE, and Bret also authored a guest post for me during the week of its release: Squats vs. Hip Thrusts: Which is Better?

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2. Lift Weights Faster - Jen Sinkler created an incredibly expansive collection of conditioning workouts one can use in their training programs. I did a "pseudo-review" when I wrote up the post, 5 Characteristics of Successful Metabolic Resistance Training Programs. She contributed some additional insights on the process with her guest post, 5 Training Tips for the Busy Adult Athlete.

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3. Ruthless Mobility - This product from Dean Somerset was only released about a month ago, but it was definitely a big hit. Also, as I recently noted, his guest post, 5 Strategies for Quickly Increasing Your Mobility, was so popular that it temporarily maxed out my hosting capacity here on the site!

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4. The Modern Woman's Guide to Strength Training - As I noted the other day, I definitely plan to get more female-specific content up here on the site in light of the popularity of Molly Galbraith's post, The 5 Biggest Mistakes Women Make With Their Training Programs. In the meantime, though, this product makes for an excellent resource for women looking for direction with their strength training programs.

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There were certainly some other great products I encountered this year, but these four proved to be the most popular with my readers. Obviously, I also introduced some new products of my own in 2014, most notably The Specialization Success Guide and Functional Stability Training of the Upper Body. We've got a few more in the pipeline for 2015 as well!

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5 Training Tips for the Busy Adult Athlete

Today, I've got a guest post from Jen Sinkler, the creator of an awesome new resource, Lift Weights Faster.

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The playing field may look a little different these days: Rather than washing your own sweaty, grass-stained uniforms, perhaps you’re doing so for your kids. Maybe you’re throwing a laptop messenger bag over your shoulder instead of a duffle filled with equipment.

But the desire to get better has never waned.

Being a former athlete myself — one who continues to pursue better physical fitness and still chases performance in and out of the gym, as well as working with clients who want to look and feel athletic, regardless of whether or not there is a sport involved — has afforded me the opportunity to learn what it takes achieve these goals while juggling a busy work schedule. Below are the essentials.

1. Know when to push and when to chill.

I love Dan John’s analogies — he’s one of the best fitness translators in the business (that is to say, he breaks down even ideas better than almost anybody, for almost everybody) — and a favorite is the risk-reward spectrum of the aging athlete. To summarize, the undersized high school athlete who doesn’t get much playing time will take more risks in the weight room, scarf down more calories, and keep hypertrophy at the forefront, whereas the starters are playing it a little safer, just trying to stay strong and healthy enough to remain on the court or field, at least when they’re in season.

On a larger scale, you’ve got pro athletes earning money at their sport. At a certain point in their careers, they shift on “stealing more millions” by staying in the league. Redefining their game, approach or body at that point is too risky — the goal is to simply stay alive.

If your life is highly stressful, consider yourself the pro athlete. As Eric pointed out the other day, your body doesn’t differentiate between different kinds of stress. All stress matters and counts – simply put, if it feels like too much, it probably is. Examine how you feel after you train: in a nutshell, better or worse? And adjust accordingly.

If, on the other hand, you’re in a place in your life where you can add a little challenge, that opens up your possibilities in the gym. (Keep in mind that as we age, it takes longer to recover, so for those who fall under this umbrella, consider making your workouts more compact, regardless.)

The point is to adjust your workout style to your lifestyle. The person that gets into the gym 52 weeks a year will always make more progress than the person sidelined because they pushed it too hard in 52 minutes.

2. Vary work-to-rest ratios and circuit structure.

Varying the length and structure of your finishers are a great way to stimulate your body in a different, highly metabolic way.

To be clear: I’m not advocating screwing around in a way that isn’t going to net you results. That is, doing squats while teetering atop a BOSU ball may qualify as novel, but it’s not useful. And, we’ve all done workouts where one muscle group was so thoroughly taxed that you can’t perform a sufficient amount of work to qualify as a metabolic workout. I am talking about adding new and productive challenges to your conditioning routine.

Strength ladders are great as they can allow you to get a good amount of volume into a short time period, as do complexes, combos and chains.

And, depending on their training volume within the week and the day of, I’ll toy with my clients’ work-to-rest ratios. Some days short and intense, some longer and lighter, with a negative-rest workout sprinkled in sparingly.

Here are a few options:

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3. Play mind games.

Humans are hardwired to love novelty (a quality called neophilia), and new movements can be a gateway for new progress.

Movements like the “monkey hustle” or “silverback” below are great primal movements that are great strength and coordination builders – but be smart with ’em. High amounts of primal/crawling patterns on top of pushups can be a recipe for tender wrists.

Treat newer movements like your strength training, increasing the volume by roughly 10 percent each week. If 15 meters of crawling feels good, just bump it up to 16 to 17 meters the next time you incorporate them in your repertoire. Slow and steady here — no one ever benched 200 pounds for the first time ever and then jumped to 300 (actually, that’s not true, but it usually results in a viral YouTube video).

primal

4. Prep your food plan.

I’m a systems person, from tracking my workouts to cooking at home. Systems save you plenty of time and stress. Nothing works harder against body-comp and performance goals than the aftermath of coming home famished and having nothing prepared. If you can come up with a weekly plan for what’s on deck in the fridge and an inventory of what’s cooked up and ready to reheat, you’ll be set.

If you’re intimidated by home-cooking, short on time, or just like when your meals cook themselves, the crockpot has gone gourmet. It’s as easy as
choosing ingredients, cutting them up, tossing them in, and a few hours later,
done. The secret is in the spices. (Plus, it makes your house smell
like the inside of the best restaurant you’ve ever visited.)

Another option: hash. Again, super easy: throw a bunch of fresh, high-quality ingredients into the same pan and then take credit for the flavorful result.

has

5. Be adaptable.

Chances are that your schedule varies due to familial or social obligations, work travel, and energy levels. When you can’t stick to Plan A, try workouts like this body weight ladder. The Plunge can be completed for time (I like to jot my times in my training journal to make sure I’m continually making progress, even in conditioning). Or, if you’ve had a heavier strength-training session, this circuit complements the iron nicely with the variety in movement and just enough volume.

ladderplunge

Get Better Faster

If you’re looking to improve your fitness in creative but productive ways, I’ve put together a mammoth 130-workout pick-and-choose conditioning library called Lift Weights Faster. Complete with a full exercise glossary that includes written descriptions and photographic demonstrations of over 225 exercises (from classic moves to more creative ones), a video library that includes coaching on 14 of the more technical lifts, five challenge-workout videos, plus a dynamic warm-up routine, I leveraged my background in magazine publishing to create a clear-cut, easy-to-use resource that you’ll want to turn to all the time. 

Plus, every workout is organized by the equipment you have available and how much time you’ve got, including plenty of effective options that last anywhere from five up to 30 minutes. If you’re on the go, there are plenty of options to keep you busy, interested and progressing in the direction you want to go. And if you like a challenge, there are five keystone workouts that you can track online on the site’s tracker along with challenge your coworkers for a place on the leaderboard.

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About the Author

Jen Sinkler (www.jensinkler.com), RKC, PCC, PM, USAW, is a long-time fitness journalist who writes for national magazines such as Women’s Health and Men’s Health. A former member of the U.S. national women’s rugby team, she currently trains clients at The Movement Minneapolis.

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5 Characteristics of Successful Metabolic Resistance Training Programs

Metabolic resistance training (MRT) has been all the rage in the fitness industry over the past few years.  And, while people have started to appreciate that interval training is a better option for fat loss than steady-state aerobic activity, that doesn't mean that they've learned to effectively program this interval training - especially when it involves appreciable resistance, as with MRT.  In other words, it's much easier to program intervals on the recumbent bike than it is to include kettlebell swings, as one obviously has to be much more cognizant of perfect technique with the swing.  With that in mind, with today's post, I'll highlight five characteristics of safe and effective metabolic resistance training programs.

1. They must include self-limiting exercises.

With self-limiting exercises, fatigue stops you from completing a rep before your technique can break down.  A perfect example would be sled pushing or dragging.  It's virtually impossible to have technique break down with these exercises, especially in a trained athlete, and even under considerable loading.  And, I can't say that I've ever seen anyone injured while using a sled.

Taking this a step further, I'd note that there are exercises that might not be self-limiting initially, but reach that point eventually. For example, with a beginner, a suspension trainer inverted row is not self-limiting at all; there are several important technique elements that a lifter needs to master because doing the exercise under conditions of fatigue.

Push-ups would be another example.  We've all seen the classic push-up form deterioration under fatigued conditions: a sagging, excessively arched lower back; forward head posture; and elbows flaring out.  It's the classic "panic mode" strategy employed by beginners.  However, you never see it in experienced lifters; they'll simply fail before the technique breaks down.  Part of this comes from technical proficiency, but it's also related to the fact that the limiting factor shifts from anterior core stability to upper body strength/endurance as an individual gets more experienced.

With all this in mind, it shouldn't surprise you that what's appropriate for a MRT program changes over the course of a training career.

2. There has to be sufficient total work to achieve a training effect.

I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but doing 5-10s intervals probably isn't going to do much for you - unless you're doing a ton of them, or using really short rest intervals.  Essentially, you have to get to the point where you shift over from the ATP-PC to the glycolitic (anaerobic) system.  This is a sweet spot where intensity of exercise is high while volume remains up - and that's how you create the "metabolic debt" that makes interval training so beneficial.

I think it's better to look at total work than just reps in a given set, as not all drills are created equal.  For example, if you do a barbell complex consisting of five snatches, five cleans, five front squats, five barbell rows, and five deadlifts, you've done a ton more work than if you just did 25 medicine ball throws.  The loading capabilities are greater with the barbell complex, and the bar travels over a greater distance.  Since work equals force times distance, it's a more powerful stimulus than the medicine ball throws.

3. The work intervals must be short enough to preserve a high effort level and good technique.

This could be considered the "corollary" to #2.  Doing a set of 100 barbell snatches is absurd, as technique breaks down, and the amount of weight an athlete can use is almost too trivial to even call it metabolic RESISTANCE training.  Plus, it would likely take about 2-3 minutes to complete, which means that you're getting much more aerobic, even if an athlete is "working hard."  My feeling is that you use your work bouts to challenge anaerobic systems, and your recovery period to condition the aerobic energy system.  Let's be honest: most strength training enthusiasts care more about the aerobic system for recovery than actual aerobic exercise performance, anyway.

4. The programming must appreciate the influence of "other" stress.

My wife takes bootcamps at Cressey Performance three days a week, and they're heavily focused on MRT.  Accordingly, she only does "true" strength training sessions two days a week.

I, on the other hand, don't take bootcamps, but have more traditional lifting sessions four days a week.  I'll usually supplement them with one metabolic resistance training, sprinting, or rowing intervals session, as well as one low intensity "blood flow" day.

Our dog, Tank, on the other hand, lays around all the time and doesn't do a damn thing.

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Effectively, the harder you train on the strength side of things, the less you can do on the conditioning side of things.

This also applies to those with considerable stress outside the gym.  Stress is stress, so if your life is crazy hectic, it may not be appropriate to do a lot of high volume MRT.  Some low-key aerobic activity might be a better supplement to your strength training work until you can get your stress sorted out.

5. There must be adequate equipment and sufficient space available.

This is an incredibly important, but commonly overlooked factor that heavily influences a metabolic resistance training program's success. While you can usually get by with minimal equipment with a MRT program, body weight only can get old very quickly.  Fortunately, just adding a kettlebell, band, suspension trainer, barbell, or other implement can quickly expand your exercise selection pool.  It's important to realize that a little bit can go a long way, especially if you're training in a busy gym and can't monopolize pieces of equipment for too long without someone walking off with them!

Space is a different story, though.  If you have a 10'x10' home gym with low ceilings, it's going to be tough to do barbell complexes, sled pushes, or farmer's walks.

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Likewise, using our busy gym example from above, do you really want to even attempt a barbell complex in a busy commercial gym?  You might have pristine form, but some inattenive gymgoer might still walk right into you in a middle of a set of power cleans.  Make sure that your area is big - and secure - enough.

As you can see, there is a lot more that goes into designing a safe and effective metabolic resistance training program than meets the eye. To that end, I highly recommend Jen Sinkler's new resource on the topic: Lift Weights Faster.

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The depth of this product really blew me away, as there are 138 pages of sample MRT workouts using all sorts of different equipment, or none at all. There are some great ideas in there for fitness professionals and fitness enthusiasts alike, and I'll certainly be implementing some of the techniques Jen describes in our programming at Cressey Performance.  It's on sale at a great introductory price this week, so be sure to check it out.

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Quick and Easy Ways to Feel and Move Better: Installment 10

Here's this week's list of random tips to make you more awesome, in collaboration with Cressey Performance coach Greg Robins.

1. Optimize your strength training program's warm-up sets.

Too often, I see people make the mistake of moving a ton of weight before they reach their top sets for that day. Many strength training programs are based on hitting a certain “top set” or sets in a given lift for that day. While this number may be a good distance from the first weight a person touches that day, it is important that you work to this set in a fashion that has you prepared to attack the weight, but not exhausted to a point that you cannot give that weight a true effort.

I often get asked how should one work up to these top sets. The answer is really dependent on the person asking; over time, a person will learn what works best for them. Here are a few things you should keep in mind:

  • “Treat the light weights heavy and the heavy weights light.” Move everything fast, be methodical in your approach, take advantage of every set as repetitions in good form. By doing so, you will set up for successful top sets, prime your CNS to deliver more powerful, coordinated efforts, and be more confident under heavy loads.
  • Keep your weight jumps consistent. How many pounds each jump should be will depend on how dictate how many warm-up sets you’ll take on the way from A to B. Just make sure to keep the jumps consistent, 10, 20, 30lbs, etc.
  • Just because the top sets call for multiple reps doesn’t mean the sets leading up to them need to be the same. I often take singles and doubles at the heavy weights that land near my top sets, and recommend you do the same. I advocate any additional volume (work done) you need to add be done via drop down sets, or via supplemental lifts.

Here are two examples of how to work up to the top sets in a program:

Deadlift 3 x 3 (Assuming my top sets will be between 475 and 505lbs)
135 x 3, 225 x 3, 315 x 1, 405 x 1, 455 x 1, 475 x 3, 495 x 3, 505 x 3

A1. Squat 3 x 5 (Assuming my top sets will be between 365 and 405lbs)
135 x 5, 185 x 3, 225 x 2, 275 x 1, 315 x 1, 365 x 5, 385 x 5, 405 x 5

You'll notice that the sets that "count" toward my working total follow the 90% rule that Eric outlined HERE.

2. Understand How to Modify Total Work as a Fat Loss Diet Progresses

You will be more successful with your fat loss dieting when you understand a simple concept: the harder you train, the hungrier you get.

The most important thing in losing fat is, has been, and will continue to be your nutrition. Your strength training program should be the priority in training when dieting. You want to maintain as much lean mass as possible, and what made the muscle (resistance training) is what’s going to keep it on you. However, you can’t just continue to strength train, add more conditioning, and eat less. It just doesn’t add up. Either you’re going to fail on the diet or get super weak. Neither of those sounds good to me.

So what’s the solution? Lower the volume as you lower the calories. Whether that comes in the way of shorter strength training workouts (focus on the top sets of big lifts and keep the accessory work limited), or you do less conditioning, you have to do less somewhere.

People are really into metabolic resistance training protocols nowadays, but in reality, all training is metabolic; your diet needs to come first, and these programs are just basic better management of total work done. Base your training around your diet, and as you eat less, do less. Pretty simple.

3. Make Kale Taste Better.

Kale by itself does not taste good. Fortunately, I have a simple recipe to make a delicious dressing to spice it up. I must admit that I am not the originator of this, so thank you to the person who showed me the recipe!


In a bowl, mix the following to “dress” four cups of uncooked kale:

• 3 TBSP Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 3 TBSP Balsamic Vinegar
• 3 TBSP Dijon Mustard
• 1 TBSP Pepper
• 2 TBSP Crushed Red Pepper Flakes

Enjoy!

4. Make all Reps Quality Ones When You’re a Beginner.

When teaching a new athlete or client an exercise, trainers and coaches must understand the importance of using lighter loads. From a safety and development standpoint, it just makes sense. Moreover, a novice lifter can make gains from loads far below their estimated one-rep maximum.

In order to achieve technical proficiency with the exercise, make sure that you are also keeping the rep ranges low - even when the weights are light. While the person in question may very well be able to move the given load for 12 reps (as an example), you are better off splitting that into 3 sets of 4 reps. Even if that means they are doing 12 sets of 4 instead of 4 sets of 12 overall. Keep the rest a bit shorter, get quality reps, and don’t set them up to fail.

5. Make Sure Your Arm Care Program Includes Upward Rotation Training (from Eric)

I speak a lot to our staff about the importance of training scapular upward rotation to prevent and correct upper extremity problems (especially shoulders) in our clients, and one of my most prominent points is to consider not just "front to back" shoulder balance, but also "top to bottom."  This point was verified yet again by research from the Musculoskeletal Research Center at LaTrobe University in Australia.  Investigators found that "The major difference between groups was that the shoulder pain group displayed a significant downward rotation of the scapula in almost all shoulder positions. There were no differences between the two groups for training factors, range of motion, or in clinical test results."

Below are a few exercises we regularly include in our warm-ups to address these issues.  Forearm wall slides at 135 degrees stops short of full upward rotation and gives us a chance to train the lower trapezius in its line of pull.

 

Wall slides with overhead shrug and lift-off gets us to near full upward rotation of the scapula and recruits the upper trapezius more.  Remember, while upper trapezius recruitment has gotten a bad rap, the upper traps are actually tremendously important, as they elevate the scapula and directly oppose the depressive pull of the latissimus dorsi, which is heavily overrecruited in most folks.  As a heads-up, I generally teach this with the hands a bit closer together throughout the movement.

 

The upper and lower traps work with serratus anterior to get the scapula upwardly rotated (serratus recruitment is already optimized because we are slightly protracted and above 90 degrees of humeral elevation).

Summarily, remember the importance of scapular upward rotation when you see arm care programs where all the exercises are done with the arms at the sides.  Assuming folks can get there pain-free, get the arms up and start training upward rotation functionally.

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Is Metabolic Resistance Training Right for Everyone?

Today's guest blog on Metabolic Resistance Training comes from Joe Dowdell, co-creator of the Peak Diet and Training Summit DVD set. Metabolic Resistance Training has received a lot of attention over the last few years, especially for fat loss.  However, the reality is that many strength coaches have been using this technique with their clients and athletes for a very long time. Before we go any further, and so we are all on the same page, my view or definition of metabolic resistance training is any strength training session that employs a series of 4-8 exercises (which are predominantly multi-joint in nature), while utilizing little (i.e., under 30 seconds) to no rest between sets.  In other words, these metabolic resistance training sessions incorporate things like the Olympic lifts, squats, chin-ups, push-ups, kettlebell Swings, medicine ball throws, etc. in order to call upon as many muscle groups as possible in a single training session.  In addition to the shorter rest periods, one may see “timed sets” as another variable, where the client performs as many reps as possible in a given time frame.

The overall training effect of metabolic resistance training is a greater metabolic disturbance in the body’s physiology, which in turn can elevate your caloric expenditure for a greater period of time following your workout.  Compared to a traditional strength training session, this style of training can be very effective for body composition changes as well as an increase in one’s work capacity. All of this sounds pretty great, especially if a client’s goal is fat loss, right?  Well, yes and no.  You see, the problem is that some people just aren’t ready for metabolic resistance training, especially when they first come to see you (or at least not to this degree).  Many people, especially sedentary individuals, have underlying muscle imbalances that can lead to faulty movement patterns.

And, I’ve also found that some people are too weak to even get a proper metabolic training effect.  So, in both of these cases, wouldn’t these people be better served by doing some structural balance work and maybe just some overall strength training?  And, if we wanted to get some conditioning in with client, perhaps it might be better to use a Airdyne, VersaClimber, or Prowler after the strength training program wraps up for the day.  This way, we can still get them a bit of a sweat, but the learning curve is pretty low.  Just a thought. So, you may be asking yourself, what should you do instead?  Well, you can actually still set up a strength and conditioning program that will improve someone’s body composition without using metabolic resistance training.  In fact, I often use more of a German Body Comp style of training for client’s in the early stages of training, especially for beginners or sedentary individuals.  In other words, I may pair up a lower body exercise (like a split squat) with an upper body exercise (like a flat, neutral grip DB bench press) and allow the client 60 seconds of rest between each set of the two exercises.  Or, I may use agonist-antagonist sequence, like a TRX high row followed by a push-up while employing the same protocol for the rest period.  This type of training program will allow me to get quite a bit of work done while also giving me the flexibility to target a client’s weaknesses, develop better overall strength and stability while also giving me the opportunity to teach them how to move more effectively.

On the other hand, if I just fast tracked them into a more metabolic style of training like I see many trainers doing with their clients, I’m not allowing that client the opportunity to develop the kind of solid fundamental movement patterns that I want them to have.  And, I may be just building strength on top of a dysfunctional foundation, which could lead to a setback further down the road.  So, next time, you sit down to design a new client’s fat loss program, ask yourself the following question:

Is this client ready for Metabolic Resistance Training or do I need to first progress them to that point?

Joe covers more on this, as well as proper periodization models, energy systems training, how to structure and sequence a training session, and a lot more in our new Peak Diet & Training Design Home Study Course. Grab a copy before Friday at midnight and you'll save $100, get a handful of other goodies and bonuses, and earn 2.0 NSCA CEU credits.

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