5 Things to Stop Doing in the Gym

1 – Setting the Shoulders and Leaving Them There When it comes to pulldowns, chin-ups, rows, or any other upper back dominant movement, you first engage your back muscles by drawing the shoulders away from the load. That’s like, rudimentary. The mistake is in the details: So, holding a set shoulder position places the rhomboids and lower traps in a long isometric hold that’s sure to fade as the set progresses. Give your muscles the chance to reset in-between reps to allow them to relax, get circulation, and re-contract, which will sustain your efforts. Resetting in-between reps will also help you to develop some much needed scapular mobility. 2 – Freaking Out About Spinal Flexion The idea that all hell breaks loose the second your spine bears load in anything but mild extension is ridiculous. There are entire competition events (think about tire flips in CrossFit or the Atlas stones in strongman) that hinge on a lifter’s strength while in spine flexion. We talk so much about a neutral or slightly extended spine that it can actually cause a bit of harm to a well-intended lifter. To lift the most possible weight, many powerlifters actually find a stronger pulling position when setting up with a rounded thoracic spine. It reduces the amount of horizontal space needed for a lockout and finishing strength, which can prove advantageous in competition under the heaviest loads. None of this is to say that missing deadlifts by using unfavorable form is something I endorse to the general public. Sure, keep a neutral spine when possible, but the phobic resistance to any exercise that may involve spinal flexion – like sit-ups or crunches – needs to die as soon as a lifter has reached a decent level of competency and athleticism. You won’t crash and burn the second you do a trunk flexion. It may even do fairly well in strengthening your anterior chain. Just don’t be stupid about it. The same thing applies to squats. Take a good, deep squat as an example. We may be so concerned with our spine staying flat when doing a bodyweight squat that we contort our body through bottom end ranges to respect this “rule.” The result is a high butt and a torso that’s pitched way too far forward. Forget about the hips and back for a minute; this flat-spine obsession ignores the fact that the knee joint literally never gets exposure to the deep flexion necessary to get a full ROM. The result is extreme weakness in squats, other loaded movements, and even in day-to-day life. No one wants that. 3 – Adding Weight to Pull-Ups We strength coaches and experienced lifters all shake our heads when we see a poor quality squat or deadlift, but we never even flinch when we see rotten pull-ups. If I had a Bitcoin for every time I saw a pull-up with excessive body English, thoracic spine flexion, shoulder glide, and knee tuck, I’d be a very rich man. The kicker is that these same people progress this movement by adding significant loads. Who are they kidding? Chances are your bodyweight, especially if you weigh over 200 pounds, is more than enough to create an ample challenge for pull-ups and chins, provided you’re doing them with good form: You’re hardly training your back anymore if your shoulders aren’t able to depress during the movement, your chin “reaches” for the bar, and your range of motion is compromised. I can’t say this enough: Check your ego at the door and stop doing weighted pull-ups. They’re hardly a progression if you can’t make them look like their bodyweight counterparts. 4 – Playing Mr. Natural, Ignoring Proper Footwear/Gear The idea that you’ll always be able to create the perfect tripod position with your feet (where the foot creates an arch and the heel, ball of the foot, and toes are firmly planted on the ground) when squatting or deadlifting with load is something that’s more applicable in theory than it is in practice. There just aren’t many coaches who have the stones to say it. Anyone can assume the right foot position when unloaded, and that mistakenly gives many coaches the idea that clients can do their whole workout in socks. Things change when you’re trying to move hundreds of pounds, though. Under challenging loads, the body will start succumbing to its habits and predispositions. If you’re someone with foot pronation or fallen arches, that probably means they’ll show up to torment you at some point in your ramp toward a heavy squat or pull. So we can stupidly try to cling to the idea that a shoeless squat is exactly the training tool you need to get better, or we can give our feet the support they need for more stability. We have to decide whether the goal of our workout is to have the best performance by the numbers, or to have a performance that actually addresses our weak links. Decide and adjust accordingly. The same rings true when discussing the use of belts. First, they’re not an accessory. They create a surface for the trunk muscles to brace against, thus helping protect the spine. Wearing a
Origin: 5 Things to Stop Doing in the Gym

Stop Stretching, Start Lifting

Mobility matters. As many experienced lifters have learned, mobility restrictions have harmful repercussions when neglected. But remember when “functional training” began to take off? What started off as a good thing quickly became a circus act. Unfortunately, a similar trend is emerging alongside the rise of mobility training. It’s getting a bit goofy. Your goals are probably simple: you want to build muscle, lose fat, get stronger, improve performance, and feel better. Unless you’re trying to become a yoga instructor or make it as a contortionist, you aren’t going to the gym with the sole intent of moving like Gumby. Within the context of training and performance, the only “mobility” that matters is that which has a direct transfer to what you do in the gym, on the field, or throughout daily life. If your mobility enables you to move well and stay healthy while getting stronger, it doesn’t matter if you can touch your toes or do the splits. Stretching and mobility drills have their place, but there’s more to it. The reality is, if you want to improve your mobility and overall function, strength training reigns supreme. Without it, any transient changes that coincide with other modalities won’t “stick.” Let’s Look at the Facts Strength training is superior to static stretching for improving mobility and flexibility. Don’t fall for the antiquated notion that strength training will make you stiff. The research is clear: stretching is not superior to lifting in terms of improving mobility and flexibility. A plethora of studies show that lifting heavy loads through a full range of motion (ROM) is more effective than any other modality for increasing “functional” ROM in the hips, shoulders, hamstrings, ankles, lats, pecs, etc. One study compared the effects of strength training to static stretching in relation to mobility/flexibility in the hamstrings, hips, shoulders, and knees. The researchers concluded that lifting exercises performed through a full range of motion “can improve flexibility as well as, or better than, typical static stretching regimens.” (1) Another study conducted on a group of elite judo athletes looked at the effects of a 12-week strength training program on ROM. It concluded that lifting weights led to significant improvements in mobility/flexibility at the shoulders, trunk, and hips. (2) Greek researchers looked at a group of men who trained with loads at 40, 60, or 80% of their 1RM or one-rep max. The results showed that higher intensities were linked with greater improvements in mobility/flexibility. That is, the men who trained at 80% of their 1RM were the ones who saw the greatest improvements. (3) Strength training improves your ability to stabilize and control newfound mobility. A dead man can do the splits. Flexibility isn’t a physical limitation; it’s a neuromuscular state that helps limit your movement to prevent injury. The feeling of being “tight” when you stretch doesn’t necessarily mean you need to work on your flexibility. In reality, the “tightness” is a byproduct of your nervous system interpreting the stretch as a potential injury, thus shutting the muscle down. When you perform loaded exercises through a full ROM with a controlled eccentric descent (the “negative”), you’re getting a functional stretch within a stable position. At the bottom of a squat, for example, the muscles of the lower body are lengthened to their most optimal position while tension is maintained. Unlike static stretching, which is often performed with shoddy technique and compensatory movement patterns, a loaded exercise forces you to control the entire movement without exceeding your body’s natural range of motion. When you increase passive flexibility via stretching without being able to stabilize or control that extra ROM, you’re risking instability at the joints and increasing your likelihood of injury. If a lack of mobility is problematic, hypermobility paired with instability is catastrophic. Individuals with hypermobile joints are better off taking a jackhammer to their knees than they are getting under a heavy bar. Strength training, especially when performed with an eccentric focus, allows your body to find the ideal balance of stiffness, stability, and mobility. Strength training increases muscle length. Stretching doesn’t. The mechanisms that improve mobility and flexibility as a result of strength training are vastly different than they are for stretching. The notion that stretching increases a muscle’s length is completely false. Stretching is akin to pulling on a rubber band. Sure, it lengthens when you apply tension, but it returns to its normal length when you let go. During a stretch, temporary improvements in flexibility occur primarily due to an increased stretch tolerance and a decreased pain signal associated with reaching a specific muscle length. It’s a neurological process. Nothing within the structure of the muscle actually changes. You’re simply able to stretch
Origin: Stop Stretching, Start Lifting

Stop Squatting and Deadlifting So Damn Much

Any trainer worth his salt will say the big compound movements like squats, deadlifts, and overhead presses deserve an important place in your program. They deliver the most dividends for strength development, calorie burning, fat loss, and even carry over into hypertrophy (size gains). The problem is, this applies predominantly to beginners. They work best for folks who need to build a solid foundation of muscle and strength. But look at what happens when lifters approach intermediate or advanced status: They often eat up 45 minutes of their hour-long lunch break workout just ramping up to their working weight for their squats and deadlifts, where they stay for 5 or so sets. The uncomfortable truth is that many lifters spend way too much time squatting and deadlifting. No Dis. Just Truth I’m not here to discount the big lifts that built your foundation. Nor am I saying that you should forego those lifts altogether. But I will say that the stronger you get at squatting, deadlifting, and barbell pressing, the less you need them in every last corner of your programming, at least if your goal is general health, fitness, and hypertrophy. Once we become better lifters, we seem to forget to add variety to our training. Instead we focus on not placing a ceiling on how good we get at just 3 or 4 particular skills, which often leads to some form of injury. At the very least, it creates lesser returns for the investment made. It took me a double knee injury, the most invasive of surgeries, and a summer in a wheelchair to see the reality in these truths, and you shouldn’t have to experience the same thing to learn the lessons I learned. If you want, you can instead depend on people who’ve gone spiralling down a rabbit hole of all-or-nothing barbell strength training for advice. But these are often the same folks who think you’re making a grave compromise simply by using a trap bar instead of a regular bar to do deadlifts. In this game, don’t miss the forest for the trees. If your goal is to be stronger than most people, respect your own maturation in the weight room and provide it with more challenges than just the “big 3.” No Squats, No Problem Now that you’ve (hopefully) made the mental adjustment and are willing to spend less time on the big 3, it’s time to gain some perspective on other movements that deserve some of your attention. For instance, it says a lot if you can squat or deadlift a ton of weight, but a simple stability-based trunk training drill leaves you shaking like a leaf! Try these: 1 – Lateral Plane Exercises Stuff like Cossack squats and the glute L-bridges in the video would be a good place to start. 2 – Lunge Patterns Whether we’re talking forward, reverse, deficit, lateral, walking, or drop lunges, lunges are a prime unilateral movement pattern that often gets forgotten in strength training programs. 3 – Leg Presses Stop hating on them. They’re a staple in many bodybuilders’ routines for a reason. There are few exercises that allow you to really isolate the muscles of the lower body while also moving a ton of weight in the process. If great quads are your goal, then it’s time to recognize the benefits leg presses can bring. 4 – Swiss Ball Curl (2 up, 1 down) This is one of the most deceptively challenging movements to do really well, especially if you’re a big, muscular lifter. Pairing this with high reps of kettlebell swings will leave your hamstrings torched for days. 5 – Chinese Plank Variations You’ll be surprised how fast your hips sag with this movement that’s largely based around using just bodyweight or light loads. It’s times like this when you realize that the big lifts alone just aren’t enough to cut it. 6 – Hip Thrusts/Back Extensions/Swings All three of these movements enforce the same biomechanics as a deadlift while utilizing different force angles and curves. 7 – Sled Pushes/Tows/Loaded Carries If you really want to make heavy weight training the basis of your conditioning work, then don’t just pick it up, try moving it somewhere. Take a page out of the strongman book. Embrace the Suck Look, when you choose a new skill that you’re not yet good at, your body has a harder time being efficient at that movement, and that’s something we should welcome. If you’re a strength training hobbyist who strictly wants to improve performance of the big lifts, that’s one thing, but if you’re a health-oriented lifter who’s looking to have skin in the game for life, you need to build some perspective. The amount of good training that strong, experienced people everywhere are foregoing in order to protect the sanctity of their precious squats and deadlifts is exactly what’s holding back plenty of their gains. The truth is, most people don’t have the time (or the energy) to do a two-hour workout, especially when doing barbell squats takes up three quarters of their training time. Hell, most would be lucky to squeeze in two extra exercises before it was time to hit the showers
Origin: Stop Squatting and Deadlifting So Damn Much

Tip: Eat This Way to Stop Achy Knees

Achy knees are as emblematic of long-time lifters as cauliflower ears are of long-time Jiu Jitsu practitioners. Lift long enough and hard enough and your knees (and possibly other joints) will start to grind away and maybe get peed out and carried to the ocean where they might eventually become part of some distant tropical reef, home to some plucky invertebrate. Okay, that’s probably not how it works. Regardless, some lifters will be luckier than others. Their joints will degenerate, but only to the point where they’ll suffer the occasional grumpy knee, usually caused by a cold front that found Canada too limiting for its ambitions. But plenty of not-so-lucky lifters will spend years inundating themselves with alleged cartilage-rebuilding supplements like glucosamine and chondritin, eventually graduate to NSAIDS and opioids, and finally relent to a total knee replacement and spend the rest of their lives getting felt up by TSA agents at the airport because they lit up the X-ray scanners. Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham might have presented people with bad joints an alternative fate, though. They found that simply going on a low-carb diet decreased pain and inflammation in guys with rickety knees. What They Did The scientists found 21 old guys with bad knees. They took serum samples and put them on one of three diets for 12 weeks: A control diet where they continued to eat as they had been. A low-fat diet that consisted of 800 to 1200 calories a day. A low-carb diet that allowed them to eat as many total calories as they wanted, but that only contained 20 grams of carbohydrates a day. Every 3 weeks, the participants were asked questions relating to functional pain, self-reported pain, quality of life, and depression. After the 12-week diet intervention was over, the researchers drew up a last round of serum samples to compare against the pre-test values. What They Found The guys on the low-carb diet reported reduced pain intensity and unpleasantness during functional tasks, as well as less general self-reported pain, as compared with the control group and the low-fat group. They also found significantly lower oxidative stress in the low-carb group. Their blood samples indicated a reduction in the concentration of TBARS (thiobarbituric acid reactive substances), which are a marker of inflammation. “In only 12 weeks, the quality of life and functional pain of this population were significantly improved, which may have been the result of a reduction in oxidative stress,” concluded the team. What This Means to You The results of this study might reflect a chicken or the egg dilemma. The researchers figured that the low-carb diet caused a reduction in inflammation, which of course resulted in reduced knee pain. However, I wonder if they might be looking at the results through a biologic lens rather than an engineering/physics lens. The low-carb group lost a lot of weight, more – perhaps surprisingly – than the low-fat group. That alone could have caused a reduction in inflammation and a reduction in pain. Consider that every time you take a step, the force on either knee is 1.5 times your body weight. Let’s say you weigh 200 pounds. That means when you walk on level ground, you’re putting 300 pounds of force on your knees. Hell, if you walk up some stairs, the force is 2 to 3 times your bodyweight, and it’s 4 to 5 times your bodyweight when you bend at the knee to pick up your iPhone. Let’s say your Fitbit nags you into taking 10,000 steps a day on level ground. Assuming you weigh that same hypothetical 200 pounds, you’re going to put a cumulative force of 3,000,000 pounds (300 pounds force x 10,000 steps) on your knees during that day. But what if you lost 10 pounds of bodyweight, perhaps through a low-carb diet? That same 10,000 steps would then subject your knees to a total of 2,850,000 pounds, which is a daily reduction of 150,000 pounds of pressure. Of course you’re going to experience less inflammation if you lessen the cumulative load. Of course you’re going to experience less pain. Lose more than 10 pounds and you reduce the total load further. So while the low-carb diet may have reduced inflammation and contributed to the improved quality of life in the gimpy-kneed guys, at least some or possibly a lot of the reduction in inflammation was caused by the reduction in weight. Of course, to joint pain sufferers, the specific reason for any reduction in pain probably doesn’t matter as much as the end
Origin: Tip: Eat This Way to Stop Achy Knees

Tip: This Can Stop Fat Loss

Gut Dysfunction and Stalled Fat Loss Gut issues are a major source of stress for the body, and digestive issues can stall efforts to lose body fat. Think gut problems aren’t a big deal? They’re a huge deal. Proper digestion and the absorption of nutrients is essential for fat loss. The body is a complex chemical factory that can’t function properly without the right nutrients available. So asking your body to perform when it’s deficient is like expecting your car to run without oil. Luckily there are some basic ways to assess whether digestion is a problem. Study Your Poop The first consideration is the regularity and consistency of your bowel movements. These should be well formed with elimination at least once a day. Constipation and diarrhea are both red flags of digestive issues that need to be addressed. If you experience bloating, excessive gas, or reflux, then it’s likely you’re having difficulty absorbing nutrients and may have bacterial imbalances or food intolerances. Taking antacids or other medications to alleviate these issues will make the problem worse. They’re temporary fixes for deeper issues. Bad Bugs If your diet is low in processed foods and you suffer from these symptoms then testing for bacterial overgrowth, Candida, parasites, and other bugs may be necessary to identify exactly what’s going on. Food allergies and histamine reactions occur frequently when digestion and elimination pathways aren’t performing well. Gluten and lactose sensitivity are common and may have genetic components. If you find yourself becoming itchy, getting hives, urticaria or suffering from other chronic skin conditions, that’ll be another sign that you have bowel problems. Yes, all these things indicate gut dysfunction. Lots of symptoms indicate problems: gas, bloating, even the excessive feeling of fullness. It’s interesting how many people tell me they think those things are normal. So many fit, lean and otherwise healthy-appearing people have chronic gut issues. It’s not something to brush off. Testing and professional consulting from a specialist may be in
Origin: Tip: This Can Stop Fat Loss