Catalysts For Change

What's something you say you want to do but don't actually do?

Why do we fail to follow through on many things that we should be doing; one that many will bring up revolves around becoming more active. 

I want to run 3x a week

I would recommend starting with once a week.

Once a week?! thats not going to do anything!

Therein lies the problem many fall prey to into thinking it's an all or nothing proposition. We'd rather dream about running three times per week instead of actually following through on once per week.

If I get my mind right, then I'll be able to do it

We have it backwards: First change your behavior and the attitude will follow. 

We want to wake up early and hit the gym or get out for a morning run. Change the focus from "I need to wake up to go to the gym" to "how can I create an environment for success". It can be as simple as laying out your clothes the night before and pre-making your breakfast shake. For others it might be getting to bed at a reasonable time. Those are three examples of behaviors you can adopt that will facilitate change. 

What do you consider success?

We want to go 0 to 60 overnight. We want those 6 pack abs and shapely glutes fast, but fail to acknowledge that one month ago you didn't go to the gym period and now you hit the weights three per week and perform cardio twice a week as well. Results take time and consistency. 

A simple system is to shrink the change: 

The 5 Minute Rule

Example: If you've been putting off cleaning a room forever, set a timer for 5 minutes and pick ONE spot in the room to tidy up. Once the timer goes off, if you still don't feel like cleaning, you're done. I'm going to take a shot in the dark that once you get going you're just going to keep going. 

In psychology this is known as "Attribution Theory" which is our way making sense of our choices and behaviors. This "explains" to yourself that you are choosing to clean this room of your own free will and thus you wind up cleaning the whole room. You ignore the fact that you set up a timer to give you an out at 5 minutes. This can apply to every facet of your life. 

We Never Question the Stories We Tell Ourselves

"I can't lose weight because of my metabolism"

"I'm not a morning person"

Are these statements actually true? Ask yourself is this really who I am?

If you tell yourself these stories enough, soon they become a self fulfilling prophecy. You won't be a morning person. You won't ever lose the weight. We can live our lives for years and never question these invisible scripts.

Take control of your life, DECIDE that you want to be a morning person. DECIDE that you will no longer lean on your supposed slow metabolism as a crutch for the inability to lose that weight. You will not be the kind of person who allows these self imposed limitations to hold them back any longer. 

I Don't Have time

Every day we each have a decision to make, how to spend the 24 hours in our day. Answering that differs from person to person. 

Where does the time go!?

The notion of not having enough time is simply an excuse we tell ourselves to avoid the uneasy truth: It simply wasn't a priority. It wasn't as high of a priority, fun, distracting, profitable or urgent enough to make it to the top of the to-do list. Your priorities dictate your schedule. If you're unhappy with how your schedule looks, I would reorder your priorities.

This of course need not apply to people who actually have no extra time like the single parent working two jobs to support their family and spend what little free time with them.

Time is a finite commodity. People are constantly deciding what appointments to honor, how much time to dedicate to TV shows, and to go or not to go to the gym. The solution won't be solved by giving someone more time (impossible) but by creating a greater sense of urgency. 

Every minute needs to count. Well they need to count if you feel like you weren't able to do everything you wanted to do. Need to take a break? Hang out at the bar? Play on the softball team? There's absolutely nothing wrong with those things, so long as you're not complaining about not being unable to accomplish other goals in your life.

Those activites are the types of things that need to be sacrificed in order to get other things done when time is tight. And speaking on the topic of sacrifices, how about we talk about money, specifically your job.

The job you do takes up the majority of your day. Combine that with the 8 hours of sleep you should be getting and we're left with 8 hours a day, 56 hours per week. 56 miscellaneous hours a week for family time and your other goals is more than enough, so what exactly isn't getting done? Sometimes it's a matter of evaluating your happiness versus money.

Here's a real example:

John (not really his name but lets just use John) LOVES basketball. Any free time John has he's playing pick up basketball at the park and plays in two leagues during the week. John also works 40+ hours at an office job he greatly dislikes.

He would always say if he could leave his job and coach basketball while working a part time job he thinks he could be much happier. Unlike the other regulars at this park who told him he'd be dumb to leave a $60K/year job for $40k/year, I asked him would he realisticly be able to live off that? John said he'd have to get rid of his BMW and scale back in a few places but yes he could. I went a different route and said to him, your happiness is worth more than $60k/year and a BMW combined. I told him to be smart, but ultimately to follow what would truly make him happy.

I recently saw John and asked him how things were going. He's made a business out of coaching youth basketball skills and is making a little less than he did at his job (49k/year) but he's immensely happier with his life.

What do you want to do every single day?
If you could do one thing for 12, 15, 18 hours a day and truly be happy, what would it be?
One day you will wake up and it's going to be your last day on this planet. Will you look back happy with the life you lived? Or one mired with regret.

I look back on who I was one year ago and am proud of how far I've come but also ashamed that I had allowed myself to get that low. I borrowed money to make rent. I maxed out multiple credit cards to live. And I could easily blame my business not working or the economy but in reality I simply was not using my time effectively. I wasn't working hard enough. I wasn't making the necessary sacrifices to succeed. I was simply NOT HUSTLING, not prioritizing the things I didn't want to do but needed to do.  

I now live my life according to this quote: 

“Work like there is someone working 24 hours a day to take it away from you.”- Mark Cuban

Now get back to work. 

Technique Breakdown: Split-Stance RDL

This is a great exercise to mix it up and get in some single leg work without actually having to be standing on only one foot. You can use a trap bar if you have access to one as well. Steps outlined are for the standard straight barbell.

1. Stand with a shoulder width or less stance. Step back with one foot about 12-18 inches and begin by hip hinging back. Focus on keeping a slight arch in the lower back, knee slightly bent and pushing your butt as far back as possible.
(I would not take too big of a step back when performing this as it only makes it harder to maintain proper position and tension on the correct muscles.)

2. Keeping the barbell as close as possible to the lead leg, I would not go past the knee on the split stance (B-Stance) RDL. 

3. The back foot should push forward slightly as the lead leg reaches full hip extension and you lock out that glute. 

4. Perform 5-8 reps per leg.

Give it some time and load wise it can be comparable to your bi-lateral RDL. 

I'm Not a Powerlifter

Once upon a time I trained with the goal of competing in a powerlifting meet.

My all time best would be (in a self conducted pseudo-meet) as I never quite had the nerve to pull the trigger to get on the platform in my Wrestlemania singlet. 

Squat: 330lbs
Bench Press: 300lbs
Deadlift: 415 lbs
Total: 1,045
At a weight of 149lbs

I no longer squat ass to grass and hardly barbell bench press or deadlift off the floor with a straight barbell. Not because I can't but because I don't need to. 

Squat

I have fantastic mobility and am able to perform a back squat that rivals most lifter's front squat yet I have no reason to squat that low and heavy on a regular basis. Aside from a brief flirtation with olympic weightlifting, there's almost no reason me to go that deep other than "just cuz, hit depth bro".

I now perform a variety of split squat/lunge variations and almost exclusively perform barbell squats to a box (about a hair below parallel, but I'll mix up box heights depending on how I feel after a run). For ME to get ready to squat ass to grass required a good amount of stretching and mobilization which I decided I no longer wished to do every other workout.*
*(Note: This isn't to say I still don't have to stretch, roll out and mobilize, it now takes a fraction of the time which is important to not waste time or energy pre-lift.)

If I do perform a free standing squat it's because the box is taken, and I'll perform front squats or an anderson squat off the pins. I will also throw in DB or double KB goblet squats during the week where I'm squatting as deep as possible to maintain mobility. 

Barbell Bench Press

This is the one lift I've taken out and noticed zero changes in performance or physique. I had finally achieved a 2x bodyweight bench press and was ecstatic, however I also had a chronic pain in my shoulder and elbow. I no longer wanted to push through the aches and pains. 

I occasionally will perform a shoulder width barbell bench press with zero arch. In terms of muscular development and joint health using dumbbells has been much better for ME. If I need to do something heavy, it'll be dips which I'm close to performing one rep with my bodyweight hanging off me. I can still press 100lbs+ dumbbells and about the only thing I can no longer do is barbell press heavy which makes sense due to the lack of specificity. 

Deadlift

One of the last times I deadlifted 400+ off the platform, of course my client only took a photo instead of a video

My FAVORITE lift. 

When I was 17 years old, I threw my back out performing a deadlift incorrectly. It no longer bothers me but there are certain movements which when performed heavy enough makes my low back tick. Heavy deadlifts do the trick. I got to 405, that's good enough for me. 

I will usually pull a conservative stance sumo now anytime I get the itch to pull off the floor, but now almost exclusively use the trap bar to do all my pulls. I can pull multiples of 405lbs off the platform without having my low back/sciatic nerve hate me the next day.

If you don't compete, you don't need to be programming with a fixed mindset of "the big 3" lifts and everything else being an after thought. 

If you train to be a better athlete, you don't program like a powerlifter. If you want to have bigger glutes or larger pecs; powerlifting MIGHT work for some while leaving much to be desired for other individuals. 

I routinely work 12-15 hrs/day, and what's often lost in the sea of social media PR's is a simple fact that if I'm tired there's a higher likelihood I might get hurt...
which then means I can't work...
If I can't work, I don't make money...
And then my cat's can't eat. Ain't nobody taking kibble out of my cats mouths!

To ME it's risk-reward, and it's simply not worth it to me any longer. You can still get at it without performing "the big 3".

I squat, deadlift, and pull to improve my running performance. And I bench to make sure I don't wind up like a typical long distance runner. That's why I lift, why do you? Just something to think about. And now some photos of my cats! 

An excuse to post photos of my cats? D'uh!

The Meathead Runner

Ran a half marathon with my super friend-client Megan who's in training to PR a marathon!

10 years ago I completed my last half marathon at a scorching time of 1:16. I also was 20 lbs lighter and made the decision to stop running and focus on "gaining muscle" and "being strong". I figured at age 20, this was the peak time for packing on lean muscle and I could always go back to running. I made a promise to myself that I would revisit distance running at 30. 

In the decade that followed I have moved my weight to a steady 147-150lbs and been able to deadlift 3x my bodyweight in every version of the lift (conventional, sumo and trap bar). Yet I still felt unfulfilled and somewhat unhealthy. As a former runner, I had the cardiovascular endurance of elderly sedentary man. 

Prior to turning 30, Megan approached me with helping her get ready for the NYC Marathon. The more research I did the more intrigued I became with the notion of maintaining strength while becoming an elite level long distance runner again. We recently completed a half marathon together and all things considered I'm content with my 1:52 finish. Still had a lot left in the tank and was happy to acknowledge the 10 years of strength training had made me more resilient* and able to push a lot harder when I needed.

*In particular my ability to maintain pace regardless of incline has been awesome!

Later during the week I also did this.

Fellow meatheads (male and female), don't be scared to perform cardio. A recent article here very eloquently laid it out, give it a read when you have an opportunity:

https://www.readpt.com/big-man-cardio-primer/

To quote said article:

"Loaded work doesn’t get the same heart response as unloaded work does. Normal cardiovascular exercise, such as running or rowing, stretches the main chamber of the heart eccentrically and allows it to hold more blood. On the flip side of this the strength trained heart gains thickness and your heart responds to training in the same way your other muscles do by becoming thicker and stronger. While a thicker, stronger heart may sound appealing this isn’t necessarily the case. A thicker heart wall can impact the internal diameter of heart. A big thick heart can actually end up with a smaller internal diameter meaning that it can actually hold less blood. That’s bad. That means that despite looking like a Mack truck on the outside you’re being powered by a Prius engine on the inside.

You can’t do intervals. HIIT isn’t your friend. By adding all that muscle you’ve already spent a massive proportion of your time on anaerobic work. You need to do some aerobic work."

Piggybacking off that excerpt from the afformentioned article are two benefits to lower intensity steady state cardio for everyone:

• Improve Recovery: What many lifters don't realize is that an efficient aerobic system can help you recovery more quickly as you won't be tapping into your sympathetic (think fight or flight) nervous system. By getting your nervous system into a parasympathetic (netflix and chill), you'll even sleep more soundly which will aide in repairing those muscles. 

• Improved Cardiac Efficiency: When performing steady state cardio (about 120-150 bpm) you'll improve cardiac output, which is a fancy way of saying your heart is better able to pump more blood all while decreasing resting heart rate.

If you're a runner and/or lifter looking for more guidance, I also offer distance coaching via exercise.com. Message me for more details about joining my group where I'll post monthly workouts along with a forum to interact with other members.

Let's make cardio a more acceptable part of strength sports again.