More Time

For the past two weeks, I’ve been helping Taylor improve his hip mobility in hopes of alleviating his chronic back pain. We’re doing a lot of the movements and exercises you’re familiar with. The biggest difference for Taylor is spending more time doing the mobilizations.

Many of us (including him and me) fall victim to doing a stretch for 20 or 30 seconds and hoping that will reap the benefits of a longer hold. That will help with maintenance, sure, but besides helping to restore baseline, it isn’t going to make a big change.

Taylor’s now focusing on doing a drill for 3-5 minutes, he’s breathing, contracting, relaxing and trying to move from the correct spot and feel what’s tight. This added time is the missing link for many to improve mobility. Improving your range of motion is a big task. It’s also not just about muscles, but joints, fascia, your brain and nervous system. Giving his body the time to relax and get comfortable in a shape is a game changer.

When the mobility work comes up in your program, do yourself a favor and give it more than 20 seconds, the longer you can last, the better.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Fall Lifestyle and Nutrition Program

We’re holding an informational meeting tonight at 7pm. We’re going to discuss the Fall Lifestyle and Nutrition Program that kicks off in one week. If you can’t make it, here are the bullet points.

• 45 day program focusing on consistency, planning ahead and cooking a lot of your own food.

• Starts Mon. Oct 14 ends Wed. Nov 27 (first day “off” will be Thanksgiving).

• You’ll have a food list to guide nutritional choices.

• Must exercise for 10 minutes minimum everyday.

• Third category, optional, meditation, sleep, hydration or mobility.

• To track, you’ll have a scoresheet to keep honest and making sure you’re sticking with it.

Hope you can make it tonight!

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Too Much Information

I’ve been reading Stillness is the Key, by Ryan Holiday this week. Holiday is one of my favorite authors and his blog turned me into a reader many years ago. His new book, focuses on slowing down, being deliberate, and creating time to pause, think, reflect and stay present.

We’re all blasted with news alerts, texts, calls and social media all day. If you’re not precise about having quiet time, you’ll never get it. We have so much information coming at us all the time. The news is on all day, we’re bombarded with information on Instagram, we can get lost down a YouTube hole and the answer to any question takes us less than 5 seconds to type

I’ll leave you with the quote that started a chapter:

“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” - Herbert Simon

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

High or Low

The coaches and I have been having good discussions about high intensity training. Specifically, whether or not high intensity training is the best solution to improve health for the average person. In this context, high intensity means training with heart rate percentages near your maximum.

What we keep coming back to, is that many people need more low intensity training before cranking it up. I think high intensity training is great and that intervals are an invaluable tool, but are we missing the boat if we’re loading up on high heart rate work without spending time in lower heart rate zones?

As a coach, I get it, telling someone to do a 45 minute Airbike cruise at a low intensity is a hard sell. Now, if you’ve been on an Airbike, you know it’s not usually a low intensity affair - but a lot of the time you spend in the gym is. From your warm up, to strength exercises and sometimes during the accessory movements. When we program a workout or training session for you, we try to ramp up the intensity as you go, trying to cover a variety of work at a wide range of heart rates.

That time in the gym may not be enough though, especially if long term health is your goal. I urge you to walk more, go on leisurely bike rides, and maybe come in for an extra day and hop on the rowing machine for 30 minutes. The high intensity training is sexy, it leaves you gasping for air, sweaty and feeling accomplished. Those are all great things, and let me be clear, I don’t think that’s bad. However, do you get any exercise that doesn’t leave you huffing and puffing and laying on the floor? If you don’t, it might be time to add in something long, slow and easy once or twice a week.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Fall Nutrition Program

For the past two years, we’ve held a gym-wide Whole 30 during the month of October. Many of you learned a lot doing this difficult dietary challenge. It requires tedious preparation, planning and deviating from social norms. For some of you, it’s a worthwhile challenge, but for most, it’s simply too difficult and the failure rate is high.

I wanted to do another nutrition group this fall, using foundational principles of healthy eating: cooking your own food, planning meals ahead, limiting processed foods with too many ingredients and too much sugar. It needed to be more sustainable and much more approachable than the Whole 30.

Starting on October 14th, we’re going to have our own nutrition program lasting 45 days, ending on Thanksgiving. The light at the end of the tunnel will keep you motivated to make tough choices through October and November. While I do think the Whole 30 is too big of a task for most, the principles are sound, so we created a menu to help make all your food choices. It’s Whole 30-ish in a sense, that it’s about eating whole foods, planning, cooking and being consistent for a long time. I wanted to create some wiggle room, so more of you would be willing to give it a shot.

We’re allowing one glass of wine per day, rice, and aren’t going to be as strict with things like butter or cooking oil. This menu is adapted from the Whole Life Challenge, which essentially works people up to doing a Whole 30. You’ll still have to stay away from cake and donuts and ice cream and French fries, but this less aggressive challenge will keep you consistent through all 45 days.

In addition to the nutrition component, you’re going to exercise for a minimum of 10 minutes per day. Yes, every single day for 45 days. Before you stop reading, going for a 10 minute walk is exercise, a type that we’d all benefit from more of. You’re also going to pick a third category, sleep, meditation or mobility, and work on that with terms that you define.

We’re going to be using a scorecard to make a game out of it. Each week, like we did with the Whole 30, you’ll hand in your scorecards to me for some added accountability.

If you’re interested, on Monday October 7th at 7pm, I’m holding an informational meeting to show the menu, the scorecards and answer any questions that you may have. If you’ve been thinking its time to lock it in before the holidays, this is for you!

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Post Habit Challenge Thoughts

I ended up getting a lot of out the habit challenge. At the end of August, I wasn’t sure what I would pick, I had two weeks of a honeymoon to kick off the challenge, so I knew I needed something that was doable anytime, anywhere and didn’t require any equipment. One night while falling asleep, it dawned on me that this is my chance to force myself to get better at push ups.

As I’ve written before, I suck at push ups. Shoulder issues limited me from doing them for years. Once my shoulder issues cleared up, I stayed away from them because I hadn’t done any for years. It was no longer in my training repertoire.

I started the challenge off hot, I got my push ups in the first 15 days. On day 16, the first time I did an in-gym workout, I forgot to do them. I missed 3 other times as well. I did a good job tracking to begin with and then around the 20th I stopped using my tracking app called Done.

Even though I messed up 4 times, I want you to remember that I kept going! So many times when someone breaks a hot streak, they call it all off. We all need to do a better job of cutting ourselves some slack in order to make progress, ditch that perfectionism.

My take aways: I need to keep doing push ups! They made my posture feel better, my shoulders craved the movement and I got a lot better at them! Doing 100 push ups within a workout was not possible for me in August, I did that twice during the month of September. I’m really happy, and honestly, a little surprised at how much they progressed.

I hope you learned a thing or two in your habit challenge. It was really just a warm up for our Fall Program that will be announced soon!

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Move with Intent

Here’s a rule of thumb you can universally apply to most exercises: lower under control, move up with speed. I call this moving with intent. It’s about controlling one part of the movement, and making sure to turn everything on by moving fast on the other.

Here are a few examples:

• Bodyweight squat - lower down for 2-3 seconds, come up really fast. Squeeze your butt at the top!

• Bench press - lower down under control, maintaining tension on the bar and not letting your elbows flair out, push the bar up with as much speed as you can!

• One leg SLDL - lower under control to maintain your balance, snap back to the top by driving the leg that’s in the air back to the floor.

Not only will this give us better training effects, but you’ll find new strength from producing more velocity. There’s a time and place for only slow movements and a time for pure explosiveness. If we live in the middle though, we’re sure to check most of the boxes off. Move with some intent this week and you prepare to hit the gym!

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Keep it Simple

There’s so much variety in strength and conditioning and in the fitness world. We’re told to keep our muscles guessing (whatever that means) and constantly change what we’re doing so we never hit a plateau. There’s something to be said about variety for variety’s sake, but there’s a difference between rotating exercises and randomly picking them.

The best way to keep progress going, over a long period of time, is keeping it simple. The answer is probably doing more squats, more lunges, more inverted rows, more carrying kettlebells and more ankle and hip and thoracic spine mobility.

Whether you’re a total beginner or an advanced gym rat, these movements are staples in a good strength and conditioning program. Complicated workouts and training sessions can be fun, and might be necessary sometimes, but hammering the basics consistently is the superior way to train.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Habit Check In

How are you doing on the September Habit Challenge? I hope you haven’t abandon your task due to disinterest. You need to stay committed to make real changes. We have 5 days left to go, and even if you’ve been off the wagon for the past few days, I urge you to lock it down for the rest of the month.

I’ve slipped up a couple more times on my push ups. Ironically, it’s usually when I do a workout at the gym. I never incorporate them into my workout, which I need to. It’s always surprising how difficult they feel after missing a day of doing them, I didn’t expect that.

Whether you checked your box everyday or not, I hope you learned something about yourself and how much commitment it takes to make changes. We have something cooking now that’s going to continue the good habits training for you all the way to Thanksgiving. Keep an eye out for details.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Low and Slow

In fitness we like talking about hard efforts, HIIT training and sweaty workouts. We often neglect, perhaps because it isn’t as sexy, low intensity training. This is the total opposite of the hard hitting, lay on the floor type of fitness we’re often exposed to.

Low intensity training isn’t about burning the most calories, or even having the most time efficient workout. It’s about slowing down, breathing well and moving more. The example that I bring up everyday, that everyone needs to do more of, is walking. But it can also be an easy 20 minutes on the rower or ski machine, or a casual bike ride.

Lower intensity works on your endurance and is good for you heart. It can help you recover in-between bouts at the gym and shouldn’t make you sore. If you’re a gym rat always trying to add more in, try adding 60 minutes of low intensity work, like an easy run to your weekly sessions. If you’re a gym beginner and you want to build some healthy living momentum, prioritize talking a walk everyday.

In a world where we’re always looks for the next best thing, slowing down and doing some low intensity work might be just what you need.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Floor Time

Getting up and down from the floor is an often cited longevity test. Put simply, you should be able to get yourself from a seated position on the floor to standing, without using your hands. This is a monumental task. Passing not only says you have some good hip mobility, knee stability and ankle mobility, but that you’re less of a fall risk, or if you do fall, you can get yourself back up. 

What can you do to improve this? Spend some time on the floor! It’s uncomfortable, and maybe a little awkward, however, it will show you tight spots, and teach you how to find comfortable position over time. Take a meeting on the floor or your next phone call or spend the next episode of your favorite TV show trying to sit on the ground. It makes a big difference. 

The other things we can do are in-gym. We can master single leg exercises, like splits and reverse lunges. We see those shapes and movements when we’re making a ground to standing transition. Which, is the other exercise you can work on - Turkish Get Ups. These are literal practice of getting from laying to standing with a kettlebell in your hand. 

I like this as a “health screen” for yourself. If you want to be strong and independent, you need to be able to get up from the floor. Spend a little less time in a chair and a little more time on the floor and it will make a world of difference! 

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Stretch More!

There’s a crisis. Too many people are unaware of the drastic changes some daily stretching can do for you. As a society, we have become allergic to stretching, and I’m not sure why. Walk into any gym on the planet, and you’ll be faced with dozens of people who hate stretching, warming up and cooling down.

I want to break this formal barrier. You can stretch anywhere. In fact, it’s probably better if you did it away from the gym. It’s another chance for some movement, and connection with your body. An opportunity to break up the sitting, check in with yourself and feel better.

The benefits are so obvious, I can think of a reason you shouldn’t give yourself some love and do some daily stretching, breathing or mobility work. Get on it!

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Goals and Rules

We all suffer from this thing called perfectionism. When we want to do something, we want to go all in or bust. Sometimes, this works great. More often however, it leads to a quick failure and abandonment of the goal. At the nutrition chat last night, Briana made a really good point, rules are things you follow, goals are things you aim for.

We all think that goals are rules for us that cannot be broken, and if we break them, game over. If we shift our mindset though, and realize goals are what we’re striving for, and that a little bit of failure is okay, we’d be much better off. The same could be said about the goals we choose, I think we can do a better job of setting the bar lower.

What I mean, is choosing specific goals that are actually do-able for you. Goals are tricky because we don’t want it to be too easy. If we hit the mark easily every time, is that too easy of a goal? Maybe, but that will build momentum and allow us to take on more challenging goals.

In closing, maybe you should have an easy goal and a stretch goal. Or maybe you just need to set the bar a little lower in order to build some momentum for other, loftier goals down the road. Don’t forget there’s 10 days left in the September Habit Challenge. If you got off to a rocky start, there’s still a chance to work on improving yourself over the next 10 days.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Squeeze

Someone asked me how to get better at opening jars. I said, all the grip training you’re doing must be helping with that. She of course asked, well what am I doing for my grip?

Grip strength is a side benefit of many exercises in the gym. In fact, grip strength is a good predictor of total body strength. Carry variations, deadlifts, hanging/pull ups, inverted rows, dumbbell rows, gorilla rows, rope climbs, sled drags and the first several that came to mind. It’s important to note, and this is what our jar opening discussion led to, you have to squeeze what your holding.

When you grip the bar firmly, say during a bench press, not only are you getting benefits of improving grip and forearm strength, you’re actually turning on more muscles throughout your arms and shoulders. Getting all the muscles to fire will help you maintain good form and get more bang for your buck in training.

In summary, if you’re holding something in the gym, be sure to squeeze it, hard, like you’re trying to melt an ice cube in your hand.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Ask the Dietitian

On Thursday evening, at 7pm, Briana is coming to the gym to do a Q&A about all things healthy eating.

If you’ve come and chat with her before, it might be a nice reminder of things as you start dialing it back in for the fall. If you’re overwhelmed and aren’t even sure what protein is, this is for you.

Hope you can make it!

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Deep Nutrition

In the past month, more people than ever has asked me about collagen, how to get more and if it really does all the things it says. To be honest, I’m a supplement skeptic. Everyone asks, if I take it, will I feel better? No, probably not, and it’s important to note that’s not what supplements are anyway. They’re to supplement what you’re currently eating and taking in for nutrients, I doubt that any of us will notice a drastic effect from adding in collagen or protein powder or BCAAs or what have you. Cumulatively, with other positive lifestyle changes, like more sleep, better hydration, managed stress and frequent training will handle most of that load. We can use supplements to bring up a deficiency or to get more of something that we don’t often get. That’s where collagen comes into play.

In the great book, Deep Nutrition, Dr. Catherine Shanahan goes over her Four Pilars of Health. She uses these principles of healthy eating for humans, not by forcing this restricting diet over this one or that one. These principles can be added into any current diet of someone looking for health benefits without the dogmatic, in-your-face style we’re used to with diet books.

First, what is collagen anyway?

“Collagens are extra-cellular proteins that give skin its ability to move, stretch and rebound into shape…Collagens aren’t just in skin; they’re everywhere, imparting strength to all your tissues… [they] hold our outermost layer of skin together, unite adjacent cells in all your glands and organs, they’re in the bones, heart valves, brains, liver and lungs. Bundles of collagen form extended strips and sheets in sturdier tissues like ligaments and tissues that surround your joints and hold your skeleton together.”

Deep Nutrition, pg. 306-207

One of her principles is to eat meat off the bone. This way, without remembering to make a smoothie with collagen power in the morning, or take a daily pill, you can get a hearty dose every now and then. Shanahan recommends making soup with bones or drinking bone broth to get all the collagen building nutrients.

Before you reach for the latest and greatest supplement, try a slight modification in your diet. Cook some cuts of meat with bones to get some tendons and ligaments, order the bone marrow for an appetizer and make a hearty soup with some bone broth.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Halfway Habits

Yesterday marked the halfway point of our September Habit Challenge! I often talk about perfectionism slowing us down or stopping us all together. I was quite proud of my 13 day push up streak I had going. Ironically, the first day I went to the gym in September, I forgot to do my push ups.

It didn’t occur to me until the next morning when Hannah asked if I had done them the night before. Totally forgot, didn’t even cross my mind once all day. Come Sunday, I was unmotivated for my daily total. Once I got around to them after dinner, they were hard, it felt like I was back on day one.

The important thing is that I didn’t miss twice in a row. Streaks are motivating. However, if you miss your streak, the productive thing to do is forget about and build another. Don’t quit for one mishap, it’s no big deal.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Daily Check In

I’ve found a nice side benefit of my daily push ups. Since I’m doing them every day, same amount of reps and not within a typical workout structure, I get a daily check in as to how my body is feeling. Some days I bang them out and feel pretty good, a couple times, I got a big rush of energy doing them, or yesterday after spending the day hunched over traveling, they showed me how stiff my body was.

After finishing my push ups when we got home, I knew I needed to spend a little time moving around and stretching out. Pretty obvious after a long travel day, but without the check in, I might not have taken action on doing something about it.

You might have a daily check in routine already without even knowing it. Maybe it’s foam rolling, seeing how your body responds to the pressure and if it feels like it normally does. It could be hanging out in a squat, or doing a daily mobility drill like a deep lunge, box hip opener or couch stretch. It might be a combination of all those depending on the day.

What’s important, is that you develop a way to check in with your body and see how it’s doing each day.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Airplanes

Airplanes are one of the noticeable areas where you can see the benefits of training. Fitness people, myself included, claim that improving shoulder mobility will help with overhead bins. It’s a bit of a cliche thing to say, but i’s so obvious when you see people trying to lift their suitcases into the overhead bins. There’s also quite a bit of strength required, especially if you’re an overpacker.

I’m impressed when I see someone toss their bag up there effortlessly, since it’s certainly not the norm.

These are the moments for you to appreciate what you do in the gym. To realize that you’re building skills that will not only keep you healthy, but independent and confident as well. Rarely do these test show up like physicals feats in the gym. More often, they’re lifting you own suitcase, carrying groceries, or going for a pain free walk.

Sometimes, it feels like you’re making no in-gym progress, but I promise you’re making out of gym progress.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Get Organized

Yesterday we went on a boat to do some whale watching off the coast of Ponta Delgada. As we headed out of the port, the boat floated and crashed and bobbed in the waves. You had to have a tight grip on the handrail if you didn’t want to get knocked. Watching people move to get a different view while the boat moving was a bit comical.

I was most impressed by the life guard on the boat. He stood on the bow, feet firmly planted, knees straight, hands crossed behind his back, with no support. He wasn’t subjected to the waves and bobbing like everyone else. He knew how to stand and not lose his balance. He was organized.

He created tension in his feet, hips rotated out, butt squeezed and I imagine his core was engaged. It’s the same stance to take before performing a heavy squat in the gym, or the top of a deadlift or kettlebell swing. This was a great example of how things we do in the gym can teach us how to be more stable and have better balance. I’m not sure if this guy trains or not, but if we threw him into a gym and put a bar on his back, I’m willing to bet he’d have no trouble figuring out how to squat.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach