Tip: Do This Medball Exercise Before Squats

Doing an explosive exercise prior to lifting fires up your CNS and gets your body physically ready to lift hard and heavy. Olympic lifting variations are often used, but here’s one that almost anyone can do: the medball thruster. This exercise works great before squatting. Make sure you drive your knees out as you squat down. Utilize the stretch reflex (the bounce you feel at the bottom of the squat) to rocket your body back into a standing position. Once you reach this standing position, continue to explode up while forcefully extending the
Origin: Tip: Do This Medball Exercise Before Squats

Tip: Fire Up Your CNS For Better Lifting

Use the Force This is a great way to begin any lifting workout. The idea behind “rate of force development” is to do an exercise that’s explosive in nature and that utilizes all of the body’s major muscle groups. Doing an explosive exercise prior to lifting fires up your central nervous system and gets your body physically ready to lift hard and heavy. Some lifters do rate of force development work by incorporating jumps, explosive push-ups, or variations of the Olympic lifts. While these are undoubtedly great ways to produce force, there are people that need less impact on the body. Heavier-set lifters and those recovering from an injury will have a hard time absorbing the impact from a jump. And beginners may not have the technical skills to perform Olympic lifting variations. If you’re one of these people, try out some of the exercises below before your next lifting session so you can still reap the power and strength benefits from force production. Medicine Ball Force Production Options Medicine Ball Chest Pass Similar to a basketball throw, step out with one leg while pushing off the other. Explosively extend your arms as you throw the ball to a partner or against a wall. This exercise goes well with any pressing day. Medicine Ball Thruster Make sure you drive your knees out as you squat down. Utilize the stretch reflex (the bounce you feel at the bottom of the squat) to rocket your body back into a standing position. Once you reach this standing position, continue to explode up while forcefully extending the arms. This exercise works great before squatting. Backward Medicine Ball Throw Keep a strong, flat back as you bend down towards the medicine ball. Explosively drive your hips forward as you go to rip the ball from the floor. Make sure you’re bracing your core the entire time and don’t hyperextend the back at the end of the throw. This exercise fits well on deadlift day. Jumping Force Production Options Banded Broad Jump This one is great for practicing a broad jump without as much impact. Placing a resistance band around your waist will greatly reduce ground impact as you land. Make sure you land with a flat back and knees tracking outward to prevent injury. Banded Lateral Single-Leg Hop This will feel awkward at first but it’s great for producing force laterally as well as activating the glutes and hamstrings. When you set up, remember to get your arms involved. Pretend you’re skating or running and hop using your opposite arm and opposite leg. Think of bringing your arms from your chin to your back pocket as you hop from side to side. Sets and Rep Scheme Remember that rate of force development is supposed to be explosive in nature. Don’t do these exercises as conditioning prior to training. Do 3-5 sets with no more than 5 reps per set. Give yourself plenty of time to recover between sets. These exercises are neural in nature which means you should be taking longer breaks between sets and should attempt to produce as much force as possible with each
Origin: Tip: Fire Up Your CNS For Better Lifting

Tip: Pros and Cons of the Bro-Split

Most popular among bodybuilders, the bro-split involves devoting each workout to 1-2 muscle groups, such as: Monday:Back Tuesday:Chest Wednesday:Legs Thursday:Shoulders/Calves Friday:Biceps/Triceps Pros If you’re already huge and strong, your muscles will take between 4-6 days to recover from training. Therefore, training each muscle group once a week is likely ideal. You get to train 5 days a week, which many lifters enjoy. Many lifters enjoy the idea of dedicating an entire workout to a specific muscle/muscle group. The bro split has lots of benefits! Problem is, those benefits are usually offset by a very pesky drawback: Cons If you’re not huge and super-strong, your muscles will take between 1-3 days to recover from training. Therefore training each muscle group once a week is probably not frequent enough, and you’ll lose ground between sessions. Is there a better training split? I like a hybrid split. A hybrid split incorporates both whole-body days as well as upper and lower days into a 4-day training week. Check it out here: The Hybrid
Origin: Tip: Pros and Cons of the Bro-Split

Tip: Build Pecs with the Hex Press

Pain-Free Pressing Lifters suffer from a lot of anteriorly directed shoulder pain. It happens when the head of the humerus is pushed too far forward in the glenoid fossa. It feels awful. This position is exacerbated at terminal horizontal abduction, elevation, and external rotation, which are all components of traditional bench press variations. But this can be avoided by using a squeeze press, even when you’re managing some nagging shoulder pain. The Hex or Squeeze Press Use dumbbells and squeeze them together as hard as you can throughout the concentric (lifting) and eccentric (lowering) portions of the lift. You’ll get a legit training effect without flaring up your shoulders. By forcing your shoulders and deep humeral and scapular stabilizers to initiate tension into internal rotation and depression, the head of the humerus will translate more posteriorly and will be more centrated in the shoulder socket. This positioning allows you to use internal tension and torque production through the shoulders and still train
Origin: Tip: Build Pecs with the Hex Press

Tip: Do Pull-Ups Anywhere Like This

Push-ups, planks, bodyweight squats, and lunges can be done literally anywhere. But pull-ups require something to hang from, and that won’t always be available. If you travel a lot, you know that it isn’t easy to find a gym. If you’re lucky, the hotel you’re staying at has a gym, but you’ll have to be real lucky for that gym to be equipped with a pull-up bar. But there’s still a way you can do pull ups. All you need is a door and a couple of towels. Just follow these steps. Step 1: Tie a knot on one end of each towel. Make sure it’s tight. Step 2: Hang both towels over the door. The knot should be on the inside of the door when closed. Step 3: Close the door so it latches. Make sure the towels are laying flat enough on top of the door to get it to close. Step 4: Use the towels to do pull-ups. Your body will slide up and down the closed door. As a bonus, towel pull-ups really hit your grip and forearms hard. Find yourself a set of towels or rags made from a thin material and keep them in your suitcase. And never skip your
Origin: Tip: Do Pull-Ups Anywhere Like This

Tip: How to Customize Your Fat Intake

How Does Fat Affect Your HEC? If there’s one thing I’ve learned from being a clinician it’s that individuality reigns supreme. When it comes to fat, or any macronutrient for that matter, I’m looking to help my patients understand their unique reactions. Science can guide us, but research regresses everything to the mean. It’s a tool of averages and not a tool of individual reactions. Off-the-shelf diets and protocols can be of use too, but in the end each individual will respond differently. I’m interested in helping my patients learn what works for them and what doesn’t. When it comes to fat for health and weight loss it really comes down to understanding how it affects hunger, energy, and cravings or what I call HEC (pronounced “heck”). If including fat in a meal makes HEC stay in check for longer, then I want my patients to discover that. If eating fat results in HEC going out of check, that’s also extremely useful to understand. The Protocol When I start this process I like for my patients to separate their macros as much as possible. This means they’ll choose from a few categories: Lean protein Fatty foods Fiber/water foods Starchy/sugary foods I instruct them to eat a base of protein and vegetables: an egg white veggie scramble, a piece of lean white fish and asparagus, chicken and broccoli etc. I ask them to note how that meal impacts HEC. Then I have them add fat to the meal. To make this easy, I use the “1 tablespoon of fat is 10g of fat” rule. Does adding 2 tablespoons of avocado to the egg white scramble stabilize HEC and result in less calorie intake later? Does adding a tablespoon of butter to the asparagus and broccoli help or hurt HEC? This simple strategy immediately tells my patient how fat impacts them. (And this can be done for starch as well.) Giving Power To The Patient Let’s face it, for some adding fat satisfies and stabilizes metabolic function, allowing them to feel full faster and for longer. This helps their food be more enjoyable and can result in them eating less overall. For others, adding fat can trigger cravings for other calorie-rich foods, may not satisfy them, and results in worse eating later and higher calorie loads for the day. Depending on their reactions I can then advise on a lower fat or higher fat ratio on their macros. Perhaps fat as 20% of total intake or fat as 40% of total intake. Perhaps I even learn they could thrive with a keto approach. This is a patient-first approach and saves me from my own bias and the uncertainties of research. It also gives the power to the patient to stop being a dieter and trend follower and start being a student of their own
Origin: Tip: How to Customize Your Fat Intake

Tip: Pull Before You Push and Pull More Often

You need to keep a balance between pulling exercises (rows, pull-ups etc.) and pushing exercises (bench press etc.) If you don’t pay attention to that balance, you’re setting yourself up for bad posture, muscle tightness, and even joint pain. Train Your Back More People usually remember to get their back workout in to counter their chest or shoulder workout they did earlier in the week. But it doesn’t end there. Not even close. Due to our lifestyles, a 1:1 ratio isn’t enough when it comes to creating and promoting – and in many cases, restoring – balance among the muscles. It means training the back more frequently, with more volume, and for higher rep ranges than we generally do with our anterior muscles. Pull Before You Push There’s more. When you do an upper body workout that contains both front and back side muscle groups, program the pull exercises first, before doing the push exercises. Why? Scapular stability. Doing your pull-ups before doing your overhead presses, or your rows before bench presses, will create a much more stable shoulder environment for the second of the two exercises. Your rotator cuff muscles attach to your scapulae, and increasing blood flow and tightness to that region will do plenty to give the shoulder joint enough support to steer clear of unwanted injuries or general instability. It also means pain-free pressing. Even if you’re doing a straight pressing workout, prime the shoulders to bear load by stabilizing them with a couple of high-rep sets of rows of any variation, using any means of resistance – dumbbells, cables, or even bands. The goal is just to get the upper back to start feeling a mild pump and get activated. Pull Day Before Push Day Program a pull day before a push day in your weekly program cycle. If you’re already training back (or pull exercises) more than once weekly, just make sure at least ONE of those pull workouts is programmed before your major pressing workout. Tough workouts can produce DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness), which can decrease range of motion or flexibility of the muscles. Take advantage of that restriction by getting the upper back muscles mildly sore before a chest workout. This won’t affect your chest or pushing work. The ROM inhibition can have the same effect on shoulder stability specific to heavy
Origin: Tip: Pull Before You Push and Pull More Often

Tip: Ditch the Oxygen Deprivation Mask

When you’re seriously pushing the limits of your training, isn’t the simple act of breathing already hard enough without strapping a mask to your face that makes you breathe through a half-clogged garden hose? The oxygen deprivation or “altitude simulator” mask makes you look like the skinny-fat version of a Batman villain, but it can also do damage the cardiovascular system and breathing mechanics. It’s actually difficult to correlate studies that evaluated the efficacy of various forms of hypoxic training such as high elevation and closed chamber, oxygen-deprived rooms. The research is spotty on specifically using an oxygen deprivation mask itself, and it wouldn’t do any good to make ballpark comparisons with this style of training. The mask truly stands alone in its stupidity. With all the oxygen deprivation mask’s shortcomings, there was actually one meta-analysis that showed that training in an oxygen-deprived environment may have the ability to reduce waist circumference and effectively reduce arterial stiffness. I’m sure that’s exactly why so many Average Joes are strapping this thing to their faces while repping out supersets or running around the track. For their arterial health. Bad Posture and Deep Breathing Something I often see in my clinical practice is an alarmingly-high rate of dysfunctional, and sometimes even painful, breathing patterns directly attributed to posture or a lack of it. Posture with increased kyphotic spine positions, internally rotated and protracted shoulders, and a forward head position predispose our respiratory muscles to overexertion on a frequent basis. And this debilitating postural cycle is just when we’re sitting still. Think about what happens as we include training volume, intensity, and exercise choice into the equation. Posture obviously has a major carryover into training and performance, and it can actually predispose certain regions of the body, such as the lumbar spine and shoulder region, to increased rates of injuries. Using an oxygen deprivation mask with an individual who already has dysfunctional posture and poor mechanical breathing patterns is a recipe for disaster. Take Off the Mask In a society that “likes” social media pictures of NFL pros and MMA stars hitting the treadmill wearing this dysfunctional gimmick, I challenge you to break away from the crowd. Master your posture, enhance your breathing strategies and techniques, and only then might you even begin to think about taking the next step to train in a legitimate hypoxic
Origin: Tip: Ditch the Oxygen Deprivation Mask

Tip: Your Fitness Tracker Sucks

Since fitness trackers and smart watches have become popular, several bloggers have attempted to test their accuracy. Most have noticed the same thing: these suckers just aren’t very accurate. When the bloggers wore several of the gadgets at once, the devices all gave them different readings when it came to heart rate, steps taken, calories burned and other metrics. Not good. These were just regular folks doing the testing, but now science has stepped up to really put these devices through their paces when it comes to two important metrics: heart rate and energy expenditure (calories burned.) The Study In a Stanford University Medical Center study, researchers recruited 60 volunteers to test out several devices in a lab setting. The subjects wore up to four devices at the same time and did various activities such as walking, running, cycling and even just sitting. They were also hooked up to “gold standard” lab instruments that measure heart rate and energy expenditure. The idea was to compare the mass market gadgets to the super-accurate lab instruments. The Results For heart rate, most of the fitness trackers did okay. The Apple Watch had the lowest error rate (2%) while the Samsung Gear S2 had the highest error rate (6.8%). But that’s close enough for non-medical purposes. The problem was in the “calories burned” or energy expenditure readings. They all sucked: No device achieved an error rate in energy expenditure below 20%. The most “accurate” device was off by an average of 27%. The least accurate was off by 93%. The error rate was worse for males and those with darker skin tones. The Apple Watch had the most favorable overall error profile while the PulseOn had the least favorable overall error profile. Here’s an overview: Apple Watch: Not as shitty Basis Peak: Still kinda shitty Fitbit Surge: Pretty darn shitty Microsoft Band: Super shitty PulseOn: The shittiest How to Use This Info Whatever you do, don’t adjust your training or diet based solely on what a wearable fitness gadget is telling you. When it comes to “calories burned” measurements, they’re grossly inaccurate. The algorithms stink and what you’re basically getting is a broad, educated guess. But if you’re absolutely determined to buy one, the Apple Watch looks like the best bet based on this study. Or you could use that inexpensive, highly-accurate fitness assessment tool you already own: a
Origin: Tip: Your Fitness Tracker Sucks

Tip: Metabolic Brownies – The Best Recipe Ever

Pumpkin is a great way to add a ton of moisture to your desserts without a ton of calories, and the flavor can be masked fairly easily. It doesn’t have to taste like pie or overpriced lattes. And sure, as lifters we can afford the extra calories, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a generous portion, one that actually fills you up, without topping out on your allotment for the day? You can with this. Metabolic Drive Protein Brownies Ingredients 1 can of pumpkin, 16-ounces (not pumpkin pie filling) 1 cup chocolate Metabolic Drive® Protein (or 3 heaping scoops) 1 cup Splenda 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon baking soda A pinch of coarse ground salt Option: Nuts or seeds to sprinkle on the top Directions Preheat the oven to 350. Mix all the ingredients together. Get a medium-sized pan. (I use a round 9-inch cake pan.) Spray it with coconut oil, then dust it with protein powder to keep the brownies from sticking. Spoon the batter into the pan and distribute evenly. Lightly sprinkle the top with nuts or seeds (if using) and the course ground salt. Bake for about 18-20 minutes or until done. Cut it into 6 pieces, and enjoy! Nutritional Information Per Slice Calories:88 per slice, without nuts/seeds Fat:1 gram Carbs:9 grams Protein:11 grams
Origin: Tip: Metabolic Brownies – The Best Recipe Ever