The Best Training Program is the One You Follow

Working out is hard, there is no denying that, that must be why it is called work. I mean you get sweaty, smell bad, and you hurt. What happens though when you don’t even know what it is you’re doing, you use all that effort and don’t even get much out of it. That is why people will follow a program, whether it is by their design, a blog, a coach, or something they read out of a magazine, people are following a program. Now if you are someone who is following a program that someone else is designing, you have to do one thing...follow and believe in it!

If you are following a program but always questioning what it is you’re doing or you’re picking and choosing what to do then you won’t see as much progress as you should see. That is why if you are offered the greatest, most personalized training program that is perfectly suited to you and written by the best coach, but if you still don’t believe in it and only do parts of it, then you won’t see many benefits. If on the other hand, you follow a program that is written for a general population and isn’t tailored to your needs, but you follow it and believe in it, then those benefits will be great.

A lot of people forget about the mental component of exercise, and if they think about it, they underestimate its power over your success. That’s why if you believe, you will achieve. Now everyone, go find a program (or if you are already following one, stay on that program) and follow it. If you can find one that represents similar goals to yours, that’s even better. I promise you won’t regret it.

How to Stay in Shape on Vacation

Vacations are some of the happiest times of the year, you get to go somewhere different and relax and have fun. They are much-needed breaks from the real world when you can get them. However, they can also kill your fitness. All that relaxing and the “vacation diet” are not a great combination for keeping fit for when you get back home. I’m going to have to deal with this myself from 3/14-3/23 when I am on spring break and going to Los Angeles. Here are some tips that I have learned from previous experiences as well as from friends and family.

1. Don’t do nothing.

You don’t necessarily have to hit the gym or visit a different box while you’re away, although it makes it a lot easier, but you can do things as simple as some push ups, sit ups, air squats, and burpees in your room. Combine those movements in different ways and I assure you, you’ll be feeling some burn. You can also go out in the landscape and go hiking, swimming, skiing, or whatever is local to that area. That is the key though, don’t do nothing.

If you do plan on visiting another CrossFit gym while you’re away though, plan ahead and email them at least a week in advance to work out any logistics. I’ve already figured out where and when I’ll be going, as well as have planned some cool hikes in the area.

2. Treat yourself to local delicacies and allow 1 big meal a day.

You’re going to want to splurge and eat everything in sight because you may not be able to have that food again; don’t do it! Most of the food you’re going to want to eat is the exact same as what you eat on a regular basis, but is just worse for you. However, if there really is something that is local to that area, go ahead and eat it. It is a vacation and you should allow yourself something fun to eat, so have that fun food. If you like splurging on vacations as well, don’t do it each meal. You’re allowed to one meal/day at the very most, otherwise you’re going to spend too much time eating and not enough time exploring the area.

3. Have fun with good people.

Trying to stay in shape on vacation is nearly impossible, and if you’re all by yourself on that it will be even harder. If you’re with good people who are willing to help you out and be supportive, that helps tremendously. Also, if you’re having fun, then the stress won’t build up and you will do better at keeping in shape.

All in all, it is very tough to stay in shape while on vacation. You’re going to lose something, it is bound to happen when you’re no longer in your normal routine, but if you can stick to these 3 things, you will do a lot better in keeping as much of your fitness as possible, and set yourself up for success when you get back. 

You Should Never Skip Squat Day

There are a lot of people who just don’t like squatting at all. It is hard, tiring, and makes you sore. Why would anyone want to do something that has those affects? They would because squats are the king of all exercises.

Squatting is the king of all exercises for many reasons, but it all stems from the fact that squatting to full depth works your glutes, hamstrings, quads, and your hips, the biggest muscles in your body. By working the biggest muscles in your body, you will see great benefits.

Some of the biggest benefits from squatting are increased muscle mass, which in turn means a faster metabolism, which can lead to increased fat loss. There is also an increase in mobility and flexibility in your hips, hamstrings, quads, and ankles.

Squatting not only has the previous benefits, but also translates to just about everything else. By being stronger, you also are able to exert a greater amount of force, you’re faster, and can jump higher. Squatting not only makes you stronger in your squat, but it makes you better at everything else.

While squats are phenomenal for your body, there is also a great mental affect from squatting, and squatting heavy. Regularly subjecting yourself to heavy squats can build incredible mental toughness by giving you the ability to really fight against something hard. Doing that can also build great confidence; handling heavy weights on your back (or front rack or overhead) makes everything else feel and seem easier because there isn’t anything as hard as having to get out of the hole with big weights. Squats are also very humbling, there is nothing like sitting in the bottom of a squat with a lot of weight and not being able to stand up, but then after some work being able to sit in the bottom of the squat with that weight and somehow get back up. Squatting humbles you and teaches you hard work.

Squatting is not only the king of exercises for its ability to improve everything physically but also teaching mental toughness. Squatting may not always be easy, but if you’re able to still go at it, you will see amazing results. So now go out and when you see that squats are part of the plan for that day, go squat, squat heavy and I promise you won’t regret it.

Restarting your New Years resolution, this time smarter!

Did you make a New Year’s resolution? To lose 10 pounds? 15? Or something completely different? I’m guessing that for most people, right around now your diet has started to slip a little bit and maybe you aren’t hitting the gym as much as you were planning. At this point, 2 months later is about the time when almost half of those resolutions have failed and people are no longer working toward them.

As I posted in the middle of January about how we should be setting process goals instead of outcome goals as our “resolutions”, now is the time where it becomes even more important. For those who made that outcome goal, many people don’t know exactly how to achieve their goal and now their lack of knowledge and lack of time with the real world catching up is causing them to fail and give up on their resolutions.

How can someone maintain that resolution or start over now? Process Goals! I said it before, but these are truly the only goals that are sustainable and will get you to where you want to be. If you want to lose weight, stop eating junk! But that is a little extreme, isn’t it? So you start slowly, first just take away pop, and then make a commitment to go to the gym 3 times a week. After that you will see great progress, and once that becomes ingrained in your lifestyle, then you can take away something else and maybe add a day at the gym. Making those small changes slowly until they become a part of your lifestyle is the way to really see results and achieve your goals.

Now is the time that most people will see failure in their New Year’s resolution. Don’t be just another person to fail. Now is the time to restart and really get your life set by making small changes. Anyone can do it, you can do it!

To a better day, week, month, year, and most importantly, to a better life.

Getting My Butt Kicked Like I Can't Remember

This past Wednesday 2/5 I had my first day as an intern at CrossFit DoneRight in Rockville, MD. I met the other intern and some coaches and everyone was really nice and I became even more excited about this than I was before. The people are really nice and I like it.

For myself and the other intern, they are first putting us through the 6 intro sessions required by all new members to go through except they are packing them into 3 sessions. That first session, te learned technique and also how to see movement faults in the plank, push up, ring row, hollow body, hollow rock, sit up, air squat, front squat, press, push press, and deadlift (I think that was everything). We then did a quick WOD of tabata squats and sit ups. For those who don't know what "tabata" is, it is 8 rounds of :20 on 10: rest of the same movement. It looks easy enough but it absolutely crushes you if you really go all out. My quads were absolutely trashed after the air squats and since we went right into shadowing a class we didn't really have time to cool down. Since my quads were trashed so much, the next day of 5x5 back squats at 165# (70% + 5#) welt like max lifts each time, it was terrible.

We then met again Friday. I came in earlier than the other intern to shadow a class. It was kind of funny, the coach who was leading the class didn't introduce me so during the warm up, one of the athletes asked him who I was, why I was watching them and if I was lost. I was then introduced and all went well. After the class I did a quick deadlift session of 3x5 @ 195# (70% + 5#) plus a set of 15 at 135#. After that we then almost immediately went into the next intro sessions with the other intern. We went over double unders, went over the deadlift again where the other intern and I critiqued each other. I actually realized some issues I was having that were probably holding me back, especially when doing multiple reps. We then worked on pull ups, did more push ups, went over the overhead squat, handstands, burpees and wallballs. We then did another conditioning workout of a 7 min AMRAP (as many reps/rounds as possible) of 7 wall balls and 7 burpees. I was able to get 7 rounds and 2 wall balls. For me the strategy was to just keep moving and I think I did ok. My legs weren't as crushed as after Wednesday but that was a lot of squatting to do over the past few days and I'm glad I was able to have the weekend as a break for my legs.

These 2 conditioning workouts definitely showed me how much I have been favoring strength recently, but I still feel that I need to get much stronger to be more successful in CrossFit so I am going to stick it out.

To a better day, week, month, year, and most importantly, to a better life.

Monthly Review: January

After doing a year in review for the first time, I have decided to do a monthly review, so here is the first one for January. January was a relatively uneventful month for the most part with the last week being pretty exciting. For the first 3 weeks of the month it was very consistent of just doing a morning workout at CrossFit Haven and then going on with whatever I had for that day. We were doing a strength program based on Wendler’s 5-3-1 and it helped me get back to the strength I was at before having some issues last semester. It is a good program and if you need something more than a linear progression but not a complicated or advanced program, it is a good one to go at.

That next week we maxed out on the front and back squat, deadlift and strict press. I don’t like to max all that often but it was perfect timing for me because it was the last week I was home and would allow me to transition right into a new cycle at school. For my front squat I hit 185#, which tied a lifetime PR of mine so I was happy with that after having a lot of issues with my knee last semester. I got 225# for my back squat. I was happy with hitting that, and while it may not be a lifetime PR I am very happy with it. I can’t remember a time in the past that I maxed out for a single on my deadlift before this, or at least there is no record for it, so hitting 275# was good for me. I hardly deadlifted last semester so I’m pretty confident that with consistent pulling I’ll be able to surpass that pretty quickly. Lastly for my press I hit a lifetime PR of 120#. I was absolutely ecstatic about hitting that because I had been stuck at 115# since May; I had moved up all my rep maxes, but I couldn’t push past 115# so that was a great feeling.

After a rough day of traveling back to school, the next day I went to the Baseball Injury Prevention and Peak Performance Workshop at Nationals Park hosted by the Washington Nationals, specifically Dr. Weimi Douoguih, the Director of the Washington Nationals Medical Staff, Angela Gordan PT DSc, the Director of Physical Therapy for the medical staff, and John Philbin, the Head Strength and Conditioning Coach of the Nationals.

This was an incredible opportunity for me, for one because I got to spend the day in a major league clubhouse, which I found incredible as a huge baseball fan, but also because it was an opportunity to learn from some of the best in the business. I learned a lot about the risks with baseball and balancing health with performance among other things. This was a very cool workshop, and if it is hosted again in the future, I will definitely consider going again.

This past week was the beginning of starting my next cycle as well as the first week of the semester. Like I said in the past, I am doing a 5x5 (3x5 for deadlift) starting at 70% and moving up 5# every week (every other week for press because 70% is so close to my max and I’d stall pretty quickly on that). It was a good start to it and I realized that adjusting to the relatively higher volume squatting will take a bit because while the weights were fine, it was harder than expected with the volume. I foresee this going well and progressing pretty well.

Friday I interviewed at CrossFitDoneRight in Rockville for an internship and Friday evening I found out I was accepted for it. My first thought was of pure excitement because it is a great opportunity for more experience and being in an affiliate setting will be really cool for me. My stomach then sank a little bit for how busy I am going to be. After some careful looking at everything going on though, I think I’ll be able to handle everything and I am extremely excited about this.

To a better day, week, month, year, and most importantly, to a better life.

Going Back to Basics

A lot of athletes think that they need the most advanced programming out there to get them to whatever goal they have. If you want to just get strong, you might think that you need to go hardcore in the conjugate system or if you’re a CrossFitter you want to do whatever Rich Froning is doing, and that applies to all sports. People think they need the most advanced things ever. Admittedly I used to think that. I thought that if a beginner program was working then an advanced program would work even better and my results would sky rocket. Well, I was oh so very wrong. The key to making fast gains is to do the most basic thing possible, assuming it works, and ride it out as long as possible. If you can keep adding weight to the bar each week, DO IT! Keep adding weight and ride it out.

I feel like going back to basics can not only benefit those who are interested in fitness, but also those just in regular life. In so many situations people want to go to extremes to do something or use advanced techniques. It just isn’t worth it. The basic techniques are the foundation for everything we do. In everything we do, cooking, computer science, comedy, writing, everything. The basics are called the basics for a reason. You need to master them and use them up before it is worth moving on to the more advanced techniques.

YOU THERE! READER! Stop reading for a second and think about something that you do and like to do…..still thinking? Ok I’ll give you a second…..Done? Good! Whatever it was I’m sure that you had to master the basics before you move on to advanced techniques. If you haven’t then go do that, go master your basics.

In everything, going back to basics and truly mastering them is truly the key to advancing the best. Plus, mastering the basics will also allow you to advance the farthest in the shortest period of time. Going back to the basics is so important to do for everything.

That is why I am vowing to go back to the basics with my strength training. After testing the main lifts this past week, I have established a reliable 1 rep max for my front and back squat, my strict press, and my deadlift. What is the most basic strength “program” one can do? Linear Progression! I am going to start a linear progression program. I am going to take 70% of each of those and do 5x5 (3x5 for deadlift, I don’t need as high of volume for that, plus my back can’t always take it) at 70% the first week and I’m thinking I’ll add 5 pounds to my lifts each week (I'm considering doing the same weight for strict press for 2 weeks at a time because otherwise that is advancing very quickly, much faster than the rest of the lifts). Once I can’t do all 5 sets, I will attempt the same weights the next week just in case it may have been a fluke. Once I officially stall out at 5x5, I will then drop back to 75% and do 3x5 and do the same thing. Once I finally stall after all of that, then I will finally retest. I expect this to go on for about 12-14 weeks, and I am sure that my lifts will increase a pretty good amount. I don’t currently have plans for a strength cycle after that, but I actually think that is a good thing. It will all be based on how I feel.

In addition to those 4 main lifts, I am also going to try and get better at strict pull ups, eventually working on my weighted pull ups, but I think as of now it will be just strict. I am also going to work on dips. They are an incredible accessory movement that helps strengthen the deltoids, pecs and triceps very well. I will also work on my close-grip bench press, but not on a specific cycle, I’ll be treating it more as an accessory instead of as a main lift.

For my conditioning I plan to do mostly interval based conditioning. Whether it is running or rowing, or even doing every-minute-on-the-minute (EMOTM) training. It has less beating on the body than a traditional MetCon and I think will benefit me better while still allowing me to gain strength well.

As a kinesiology major at Maryland, we are also required to take an activity class, and this semester I am taking jogging. Based on everything I have heard regarding it, it is a traditional long-slow-distance based program taking place on Tuesdays and Thursdays. As such, I will try to also run on Saturdays then, but do those as intervals alternating long and short intervals. I’m hoping that the jogging class won’t impact the strength training too much.

I hope you all can look back and maybe see where you can advance by just picking the low hanging fruit. Good luck to you all!