Exercise Breakdown: Proper Shoulder Blade Motion During Rows

If you've followed me for any extended period of time you'll know one of my favorite yet easily butchered exercises are ROWS!!!

One thing that I continue to see is the idea of "STAYING PACKED" as opposed to allowing for free motion of the shoulder blade. The shoulder blade needs to be able to move freely on the rib cage to maintain positioning of the ball in the socket.

See if you keep the shoulder blade packed (squeezed hard down and back) then you create a lot of torque going across the glenohumeral joint. To put it into plain English: the more you stress out that part of your shoulder, the greater the chances you will create some sort of impingement. By not allowing the scapula to move, you create a lat dominant style row (I.E: imbalanced movement).

This is in contrast to proper movement during a row where you're allowing protraction of the scapula and retraction when pulling your arm back. It all comes down to this:

When your arm moves forward, so should your shoulder blade. When your arm moves back , your shoulder blade should move back. This concept applies to pull ups as well.

Exercise Breakdown: Scap Pull-Up

• The Scap Pull-Up is one of my favorite "feeler" moves that help individuals groove the initial movement pattern of a chin/pull up.

Most of us sit in an anteriorly tilted position (seated desk hunchback position) which is a result of tight internal rotators and weak external rotators. This move helps to facilitate pulling through posteriorly tilting the scapula via serrates anterior, traps, rhomboids and most importantly using their lats.

Tip:

• I coach my clients to think about pulling through their lats by imagining strings attached to their elbows pulling them down to their sides and not only using their arms. 
• Aim to squeeze the lats and pull the shoulder blades together.
• Squeeze for 2-3 second count, and relax but careful to not aggressively shrug, "keep your neck visible". 

Don't You Have Any Other Interests?

I recall a conversation with a fellow trainer in our facility who said something along the lines of 

"All you talk about is training and food, don't you have any other interests?"

Of course I do.

I love sports, cats, and I'm even growing an interest in the geopolitical landscape. My biggest "outside" interest which I suppose ties into fitness and food is a burning desire to improve society on a much larger scale.

But all those things take a back seat to what I'm currently focus on. 

I live, breathe and sleep exercise, nutrition, cooking and all that my business entails. 

Here's the thing, if you're happy with the current life you have as a trainer, office worker or salesman; then don't change a thing. Keep doing what you're doing and feel free to mock me and my lack of diverse interests. 

But if you want to make big changes. Make big moves. And you're still late, wasting money or unfocused; how on earth are you ever going to get there?! Your actions don't map out your words. You my friend are, pardon my French, full of sh*t.

I can say this because I once was as well. I would talk a big game, say I'm going to make a lot of money and make a difference in this world. And how is that going to happen by waking up at 10am and barely working a few hours. Hell I watched more TV than I worked!

I've cut out Basketball (which pains me), poker, and "hanging out" because I don't have time for these things these days. This is the classic "I don't have time" excuse. Making more time often comes at the expense of the softball team or the bowling team or the book club; something you've decided to occupy your time with. It should never come at the expense of family time. This feels right to me, while it may be "unhealthy" to you. Whatever the case may be: YOU need to DO YOU.

Every moment, every minute of my life is consumed by the burning desire (you might say obsession) to be the best.

Every morning I wake up not content wanting to be the best version of myself, but to be
The Best

Exercise Breakdown: Losing Tension During Deadlifts

If you've ever set up for a deadlift, conventional or sumo, you should feel two things.

1. Tension in the hamstrings
2. Tension in the core and lats

What you get results in added stress to the lower back with a suboptimal set up.

First would be to address the initial hinge. Are you feeling it in hamstrings? If not that's the first place you would want to address. A drill I like for that is the butt tap hinge.

From there you continue down, a great cue from Dead Somerset is to squeeze behind your knee continuing to crank up the tension. All before you even grab the barbell or kettlebell. 

At this point you should be over the barbell, from the side view you should have your armpits directly over the barbell once you drop down to the bar.

The goal is always to create tension in the lats without changing the position of your arms. If you retract the shoulder blades aggressively. You want to "squeeze the orange" under your arm pit. 

From there big breath, brace the core, and continue the maintain the tension in the hamstrings and then pull to lockout.  

5 Misunderstood Principles of Eating Healthy

Ate an extra carrot stick...so I need to add the calories! Carry the one...

1.  Eating healthy isn't 100% science. Keep things simple by following basic principles and using common sense

I don't count calories, macros or use any sort of fancy complicated formula or equation when preparing my food. 

I did a great job if: I ate real whole foods (especially plants), ate when I was hungry, stopped long before I got stuffed and fit in an hour of movement. 

Nutritional Science is the backbone of proper eating recommendations. You however don't need to actually know or implement all of that fancy-pants science into your dietary protocols.

The healthiest and leanest people I know don’t overthink nutrition science each day. But you know the people who do? Yo-yo dieters. These are the kinds of people who need an app for every single food they consume and freak out at any deviation. 

Take home: Unless you're an elite athlete or a physique competitor, you don't need to worry about the science. Being healthy and lean for life is EASY without a 4 year degree in Nutrition. Principles over plans.

Did you remember to soap and scrub your food? Yeah. No.

2. Healthy eating isn’t black & white. It’s doing your best with what you have.

You can have the world's greatest meal plan and guess what? You just ran out of Kale and the store is closed! But..but..my plan calls for kale. NOW WHAT!!!!!????

Great scrap the whole thing, I'm going to eat that pie I bought?

Instead if you run out of kale, do you have ANY other vegetables in your fridge? Spinach? Romaine lettuce? Even frozen vegetables would suffice. 

Being able to make swaps and not just follow a black and white approach to your meal planning is vital to long term success. 

Take home: Even the best laid out plans can go awry and to make the best of any situation. Often we scrap our plans because we have unrealistic expectations for how we should be eating. 

3. Healthy eating isn't calorie counting. It’s paying attention to your body’s natural hunger and fullness cues.

This is a tough one for people to understand. They think if only I could eat "x" calories each day, I'd be so friggin hot and ripped. 

Except trying to tabulate your calorie intake and expenditure is a losing proposition. There are so many factors that can change nutrient density of vegetables and your proteins like: Variables during growth, your cook preparation style, and even varietal of vegetable. 

For some, if they are unable to count calories they don't quite know what to do with themselves. But if you were to look around the world, there are many people who are in great shape because they are more in tune with their body's hunger cues. 

Take home: Learning to pay attention and knowing when you're 80-90% (I'm comfortable) versus being stuffed (think after a buffet) is vital to not needing an app for that.

I'd say that Roast beef looks pretty good...I made this =) 

4. Healthy eating isn't always AMAZING. It's good but not that good either

Okay let's be honest steamed vegetables and baked fish isn't nearly as good as a hamburger or pizza.

You can however retrain your tastebuds to enjoy different types of foods, healthier foods. It takes time but it can be done. It's why we eat something from our childhood that we recall as AMAZING, and now it's only okay. 

Take home: Food should always taste good, but not so good that it blasts you out in outer space every time. Again this goes back to expectations about how food is going to taste. If you've only been eating big sugary and salty foods, of course the broccoli is going to taste awful.

5. Healthy eating isn’t easy. But if you get organized with your daily routine it enables living healthily, and you'll find it gets easier and easier

Piggybacking off the last point, yes it's tough to eat 2 cups of roasted cauliflower instead of that basket of fries. 

Remember the hardest part is starting. Decide to have oatmeal instead of cereal. Choose roasted chicken over fried tenders. Great job! Now there will be a bevy of friends, family, co-workers, Dr. Phil, TV, and magazines telling you otherwise. Stay the course! Have a support system that will back you when things get hard and remind you of the goals you need to achieve.

Take home: Luckily the more often you choose being healthy over a late night taco truck run, the easier it will get. I promise you it will. 

Bonus:  Healthy eating isn’t restriction. It's about striking a balance seamlessly into your life so you can make better healthy choices without feeling "deprived"

If I said to a client, starting tomorrow they could no longer have any dessert, I might end up in the poor house. Can't get between a person and their dessert!

But what might also happen is said client going home and inhaling all the ice cream, cake and cookies they can get their hands on. 

There's no such thing as "clean" or "good" foods and bad foods. There's simply food. 

I recommend to all my clients, indulge a bit everyday.

Take home: We don't set restrictions. But we do practice good portion control. Have a few cookies, just don't eat the whole bag!