Lessons from the Training Vault 2 of 3

13. Form is Critical

This one may also seem like common sense, but it is amazing how much we can cheat without even knowing it. In my notes I spent 2 years doing diamond push ups in the exact same rep range, yet my bench was improving every 2-3 months and my triceps had grown a lot. The only thing I had improved over 2 years was my form, but it was enough to make the exercise at-least twice as hard.

Good form makes real progress possible and builds focus and prevents injury. Only an idiot or an ego manic will use poor form AND BELIVE that improvement is happening. We have all seen the guy who keeps adding weight to his squat and removing inches from his squat depth who thinks he is improving. Don’t be that guy, have some standards (of movement).

With all the cheating going on nowadays and numbers being thrown about people keep trying to reach high numbers too fast and ultimately cheat to make it look like they are progressing. Believe it or not but the following lifts are legitimately difficult and are excellent lifts for a athlete from any sport other than power or weight lifting-

a.       Double Bodyweight Full Squat

b.      2.5 Times Bodyweight Conventional Deadlift with no rounding of the back.

c.       1.5 times bodyweight bench press

d.      15 Full Pull Ups

e.      20 Straight Legged Hanging Leg Raises

f.        Bodyweight overhead press with no back bend or jerk with a full ROM.

If you are finding achieving these numbers easy you are either a genetic freak or you are cheating the hell out of these movements. Take a good hard look at your form; chances are you will be embarrassed by how low your numbers really are. But humility is the first step towards training success as it exposes your weaknesses.

 

14. Do not do bridges more than twice a week

I have already spoken about how great bridges are in a previous post. If you want to find out why you should be bridging look at the archives of this blog. But there is something called doing too much of a good thing. Almost all gymnasts who started training when they were children have completely wrecked lumbar vertebra from all the bridging that they did.

Of course this is mostly due to the fact that the skeletal structure of children is just not mature enough to handle such training without detriment. Of course these are the sacrifices people make to achieve that level of skill in any field. But it is also important to understand that movements like bridging will realign the vertebra and while almost everyone needs it from time to time, realigning them all the time is only going to ruin them.

Whenever I have bridged more than twice a week, I have developed severe pelvic pain. Whenever I have bridged less than once a week I develop severe lower back pain. For me the sweet spot is 2 sessions a week, one hard and one easy. You need to find your own sweet spot that gives you maximum returns. This is not just for bridging of course.

15. Uneven Push ups (and movements) are harder than they look

Uneven variations are the movements that bridge the gap between bilateral variations (like Push ups) and unilateral variations (like one arm push ups).  The point is, if they are not hard enough, you will never be able to make it to the unilateral variations. These movements are supposed to be significantly harder than the bilateral variations. But if you just try to get your reps with these variations, you will never move forward.

A good example is uneven chin ups (one hand holding the other wrist) and chin ups. There are people who can actually do as many uneven chin ups as they can chin ups. While it’s awesome that they have such a great grip it’s also stupid because uneven chin ups are supposed to be a lot harder than regular chin ups. If it’s not harder, then there is no point doing it. You have to make an effort to put more weight on the working arm and force it to work properly. I know a guy who can do a one arm chin who can only do 10 uneven chin ups, and you can bet it’s not because he is weak.

Make uneven exercises worth it, make your form perfect.

16. I press too much

This is probably a very common problem, but there is no denying the awesomeness of raw pressing power. This does not mean you press all the time. And if you are, make sure it’s the overhead press, and be sure to do a lot of external rotator work and lots of rowing as well. And don’t forget to work on shoulder and thoracic mobility!

But even if you did all that it still does not give you the right to press all the time, at least until you know your body well enough to control the intensity and volume. Not only do you reach the point of diminishing returns, but you also eat up all your training time doing something whose application in sports is questionable at best.

17. The Ham Glute raise is the most awesome posterior chain developer I know

It works great for me and my trainees. And it may be the exercise you are looking for. It’s easy on the body as there is no external load, but if done correctly, it rocks. Perfect form is critical though- use a full ROM, do not use your arms (there are better ways to work up to your first rep which I shall discuss some other time), do not bounce your chest off the floor, don’t hyper extend your lower back, keep your abs tight and glutes tight.

When done this way, on the floor with your heels wedged under something and your knees on a towel, it will fry your calves, hamstrings and lower back. Admittedly it is a sub-par glute developer, but you won’t be worried about your glutes if you really are doing full squats the way you are supposed to.

18. Pull Ups are the Best Way to work the grip

It’s the Squat of the grip training world. Don’t even think of buying a Captain of crush gripper unless you can do 12 pull ups from a real thick bar. By the time you get to the stage where you can do uneven chin ups (one hand holding) from a towel draped over a bar, your forearms will be strong enough for any purpose short of wrestling bears. If you don’t think this is that hard, go and try just hanging from one arm from a vertically hanging dry bathroom towel. Unless you can crush a number 2 gripper chances are you will slip.

I feel it’s because static gripping seems to be a fundamental function of the human hand. And statically gripping heavy weight is very stressful, especially since you need to train forearms with relatively high volume and frequency. Hanging and gripping will only make you feel better, if anything.

19. I change routines too frequently

It’s not just about consistency with movements but you need to use the same system of exercise to get returns from it. But most people change their routines too frequently. This may be due to good and bad reasons, but at the end of the day it compromises your results. Sometimes patience is the greatest virtue.

If I look over my notes, if I had just stayed consistent for 6-7 months with any one of the dozens of programs I have used, I would be a better man today. And as my notes show, I had everything “very well thought out” every time I changed routines.

20. Nothing Beats Raw Milk for Supplementation

This is of course if you know the milk you are getting has not been treated with hormones or something.  Living in India where ‘modern food technology’ had not yet had great penetration, it makes me happy that I can drink as much milk as I want. My rule of thumb is simple- if you want to lose weight, cut out the dairy. If you want to gain some weight drink a litre of milk a day. If you work out and have an active lifestyle, 2 litres will do the trick. If you want to grow 2 shirt sizes in one summer, a gallon of milk a day. You will never think of protein supplementation again.

I do think cretene, omega 3 (fish oil), multiminerals and multivitamins are really really useful though.

21. Consistency in Flexibility Works

While this may seem like common sense, consistency does not just work with strength training, it also works with flexibility. The primary reason you are tight and inflexible is because you never made your body adapt to a consistent flexibility stimulus. Just pick 3-4 dynamic stretches and active stretches and do them along with every workout. Every single workout. Before you know it you will be more flexible than you ever have. Remember, flexibility is not something you gain, but something you lose. Any 2 year old baby can sit in a rock bottom squat. Almost no 17 year old can. And the reason is because they were not consistent with using that ROM. Regularly put your body through a full range of motion (ROM) and you will be flexible.

On a side note, guys who use a full ROM in all their exercises rarely get tight.

22. Too many sets don’t work on a consistent basis

Things like ladders (1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3), or many sets with low reps only work for some time for me. At some point you are either going to have to cut down the number of sets by increasing the weight or increasing the reps, depending on your objectives. In fact the purpose of high set low rep approaches is to enable you to handle more weight per set or set rep records. Such an approach can definitely help you break out of a training rut, but it won’t last long.

Just to clarify when I say high sets, I don’t mean 5 or 8 sets. I mean doing 10 to 20 sets per exercise with 70% + weights. After a point you just burn out. At some point it is important to move back to working towards and backing off from 2-3 hard sets of each exercise per workout.

23. Pressing Requires High Volume but not that much intensity

To press a lot you must press a lot. This old expression is as true today as it was when it was first uttered. But you do not need great intensities to improve your pressing. In fact anything 65% + will improve your pressing power. You may or may not respond to high frequency training, but high volume is critical for pressing, as muscle mass in important for pressing. Bodybuilders with great legs may or may not have impressive squats, but guys with bug arms, shoulders and pecs always bench a lot. In fact a grossly obese person can probably bench press a lot more than you can, even if you have the same or more lean body mass as him. Also the pressing groove needs to be worked pretty often for your CNS to increase your strength.

24. Uneven Towel Chins are no good for pull ups in general

I have personally experimented with and tried on a lot of other guys, the uneven towel chin up. It seems like great idea on paper- Your grip can’t handle holding your entire bodyweight while you move up and down so make it uneven by using a hand-spacing on a vertical towel. Except the grip becomes even more of a factor and you just can’t pull to one side to make it uneven. It’s great for grip and bicep development but it does not do squat for your chinning ability per say.

25. Laying off the Deadlift works- If you are consistent

What this means is, it’s probably not a great idea to deadlift every third day, especially if you are good at it. It just beats up the body too much. But on the other hand it’s too valuable an exercise to omit. For me the balance is dead lifting once in 2 weeks, with a lot of RDLs, one leg dead lifts, one arm dead lifts, good mornings and hyper-extensions the rest of the time.

Of course if you are a natural squatter you need to layoff the squat and deadlift a lot. Plus do a lot of Bulgarian squats, pistol squats, front squats, goblet squats, overhead squats and jumping squats the rest of the time. You need to find your balance.

26. Once a week training works- with consistency

You do not need to train 4 times a week or even twice a week. You can make decent progress with just one workout a week if you are consistent with it, keep trying to beat the record books and work hard. Of course this workout has to be minimalist, but a couple of good things happen when once-a-week training in this fashion is used. You always recover and somehow you are able to make progress every single workout. And somehow you never need a back off cycle and Periodization becomes obsolete. Let me be clear here, you will not make the same progress you would make if you work out 3-4 times a week and periodize in some fashion, but if you just stick with this one system, you can still make great progress.

If you do this, just make sure you use the double progression system. For those unfamiliar with this mother of all progression, you pick an exercise you can do for a certain number of repetitions (say 3) and keep using the same weight till you can do a certain target number (say 6) and then increase the weight and go back to the same number. Never have more than 4 hard sets per exercise. But make it hard, because you only work out once.

I did the following workout once a week for 4 straight months. And I gained 8 pounds of muscle, and my strength increased by 10-20% on all lifts and that is saying something about the value of such an approach.

Clean and Press

2 warm up Sets

2 Hard sets of 3-6 (3 is the starting rep range, 6 is the target)

1 Hard Set of 6-12 high Incline Presses

Full Back Squat with heels flat

No Warm up as Cleans have been done

2 Hard Sets of 5-8

2 Hard Sets of Ham Glute Raises

Weighted Pull Ups

2 Hard Sets of 5-8

1 Set of As many as possible Chin Ups

1 Hard Set of 6-20 Barbell Rows to the lower Abdomen with the forehead on a bench

Finisher

Deadlift a weight and farmer’s walk it for 100-200m twice

That’s it! It would last about 40 mins and it had everything I could have really asked for. And I made more than decent progress.