Those Last Few Reps

When strength training, the last few repetitions of a set should be challenging. More challenging than the first couple. Those reps where you have to push a little harder to grind out the set is where strength is built. 

After doing that a couple times in a training session. Your body says, "wow, if they’re going to keep pushing to that limit, we better adapt to it.”

Your body spends the next day or two recovering and repairing the damage from the (good) stress of strength training. 

Don’t mistake difficult reps for sloppy reps. Form is always priority number one. If you’re looking to get stronger though, make sure the weight is challenging you enough to force adaptation.  

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Going Under

Breathing while exercising can be frustrating. Beginners hold their breath, intermediate trainees know to breathe but aren’t sure exactly when. For a coach, it’s a tricky situation. Here we are trying to teach you to squat, already having given you too many things to think about, adding breathing (and don’t forget counting) into the mix and it can become overwhelming. 

Breathing is important during strength training for a reason you might not suspect. Your breath creates pressure inside your body, which results more stability.  More pressure = more stability = more strength. 

This technique should be used for heavy sets of squatting and deadlifting. With lighter loads or bodyweight movements, our breathing can be more fluid throughout the lift. Heavy weights however, we want to be cautious of when we breath. Both to increase performance and safety. 

Imagine you’re heavy goblet squatting. It was challenging just getting the kettlebell up to your chest. At the top, you take a couple big breaths in. Simultaneously, you’re going to squeeze your abs and maintain outward pressure in your trunk. When you start the squat, imagine you’re going underwater. 

Since we can’t breathe underwater you're going to hold your breath to maintain pressure and stability. Once my head cracks above the surface when rising, you can exhale. After finishing the rep, standing tall and squeezing your glutes, big inhale and start the process over again.  

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Consistent vs Heroic

We all associate a great workout with heroic efforts, puddles of sweat and red faces. While that’s all well and good, gasping for air and sweat aren’t the only markers of a good workout. Many of us fall into this trap of believing that our training sessions need to leave us laying on the floor.

While heroic efforts are great, consistent efforts are more impressive.

We can have great workouts by showing up, practicing good movement, getting quality repetitions in and taking care of your body. This idea that your workout is punishment for whatever poor lifestyle choices you made makes me want to scream.

Not only is that unsustainable, it builds on the unhealthy relationship of moving and working out by requiring you to do something “bad” in order do something “good.” It’s how many people think about fitness.

Motivation and willpower are diminishing resources. You can’t always rely on them to produce superhero like workouts.

So where does that leave us in our definition of a good workout?

A good workout is anytime that you take care of yourself.

Anything you do to make your body feel better or to move more.

You should workout to feel better, not to punish yourself. That means, sometimes an easy workout is okay, and probably necessary.

Stop being so hard on yourself. Focus on consistency, your body will thank you.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Building Momentum

Momentum is a powerful force of productivity. When we have the ball rolling, decisions become clear and we feel unstoppable. 

How can you build momentum to start your day? For me, I do the dishes first thing. Once I check off that brainless task, it becomes easier to wrap my head around making coffee and starting to write or edit a blog post. 

Maybe you hit the gym and get a workout in. Maybe getting that workout in on Monday builds momentum for you to hit the gym more often than the snooze button this week. It might be setting the tone and having a salad for lunch today. Whatever builds momentum for you - use it! 

Find places to build momentum to get stuff done. Get on a hot streak of workouts, healthy food choices and early bedtimes. Figure out how to build momentum in your day so one good choice can lead to many more.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Boots and Feet

This time of year it’s not uncommon to hear clients mention their feet are achy or tired or stiff. It’s January after all, we’re in the midst of boot season, it’s a New England necessity to get around in the winter. You might be doing some snowshoeing, skiing and hanging out in your slippers at home too. 

What I’m getting towards is that it’s hard to find time to be barefoot. Our feet like being on the ground, not jammed and squeezed in tight boots. Since we need boots to get around, we can do a couple things to mitigate foot crankiness for the rest of winter. 

First, spend a little time here and there barefoot when at home. I love my warm fuzzy Ugg slippers, but I also notice when it’s been a little too long since I’ve walked around with nothing on my feet. The other thing I do after a long day playing in the snow wearing boots and microspikes is roll my feet.

Take a ball, lacrosse ball is the perfect size, and simply roll and press the bottom of your foot into the ball. You’ll notice this feels pretty good and I promise it’ll make your feet happy. Give it a shot! 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

800g Challenge

I’ve talked to many of you about this new challenge I’ve been undertaking. I first mentioned it to the Fall Nutrition Group way back in November and wrote a blog post about it in early December called Breakfast Salad.

Many people have been intrigued by this undertaking, but most ask, “how much is 800 grams?”

I’m learning as I get older the answer to most questions is: it depends. Tuesday was a great example of how I’m eating this many veggies. I had two big meals, both of which I got all my veggies for the day and two other small meals that didn’t have veggies at all. What I’m saying is that it isn’t impossible to do if you’re busy.

My first meal of the day was a Perfect Bar after an at home workout. This was around 8am.

At 11am I ate my big ass salad. Romaine, red and white cabbage, peppers, onion, and cherry tomatoes all counted towards the 375 grams you see below. I also added sliced almonds, olives, Parmesan cheese, sunflower seeds and some Primal Kitchen salad dressing.

A couple hours later, I had a chicken salad sandwich that I made.

When I got home later that night, I had 1 cup of rice, 4 eggs and a whole bunch of veggies. The shredded brussels, whole yellow pepper and whole zucchini added up to 408 grams.

Now if you’re doing the math at home, you’re right, I fell 17 grams short. Truthfully, I don’t care. The purpose of the challenge (to me) is to eat more vegetables, I checked that box on this day.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Willpower

Driving past Planet Fitness the other morning, I couldn’t believe the amount of cars in the parking lot. Later that day, I drove past another one, packed house. It was then I realized it’s January, and peoples’ motivation is high. 

In just a few weeks, the parking lot will clear about but peoples’ bank accounts will still get hit with a monthly membership and they’ll proclaim to their friends, “I tried doing the gym thing, but just couldn’t stick with it.”

This New Year’s crowd relies solely on motivation. They’re hoping that their will to get to the gym more frequently will carry them to chiseled abs and smaller jean sizes. Now, if you’re reading this, you’re probably already aware that motivation will only take you so far. You cannot rely on your willpower to do something, as Charles Duhigg says in The Power of Habit, willpower is finite, it diminishes as you use it. 

So if you’re playing the long game, which you should be, you know you can’t rely on willpower or motivation to keep you hitting the gym 3 times a week for 3 years. So what does it take? Well, to be blunt, it takes discipline. It takes the ability to tell yourself to shut up and go do it anyway. Sometimes it’s hard, and sometimes it’s easy, but regardless of how long you’ve trained, you’re going to have that battle. 

Build a habit. Go when you don’t want to go and notice how good it feels when you leave the building, sweaty and accomplished.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

The Goblet Squat

There’s a secret exercise that many gyms don’t know about. They’re rarely seen in Planet Fitness and athletes everywhere scoff at the light load. The movement is a goblet squat. It’s the best tool in the toolbox when it comes to learning how to properly squat, i.e., squatting in a safe position without making your hips or knees or back mad at you.

By holding a weight, a kettlebell or dumbbell, in front of your chest you automatically “turn on” your trunk muscles that create stiffness. This does two things, it protects your spine when you move, and it allows you to keep your torso more upright than if you didn’t have the weight. 

This upright torso and automatically braced core cleans up a lot of peoples’ squat pattern. It lets you know what it feels like to “load” your hips, maintain a balanced foot and will transfer to other squatting and hinging variations.

Whether you have worn out knees, buggy hips or a nagging lower back injury, goblet squatting can be a safe way to load and train the lower body.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Shorten Your Time Frame

I had a lot of great goal chats last week. The gym was buzzing with new ideas, new found motivation and a desire to kick ass in 2020. A funny observation, no one told me their goal for January. Many of you have big plans for 2020, but no one seems to know what they’re going to do in January that will affect the rest of the year. 

I’m not a New Year’s Resolution basher, but if you’ve spent the last couple weeks thinking of all the stuff you’re going to start doing in the New Year, but have no action plan as to what you’re going to accomplish today, you don’t really have goals, you have a desires list. 

You need something to work towards, something you can check a box off on every day. A year is a nice time frame. We have a starting an ending point so it becomes easy for us to say “I’ll do X this year.” This mindset however, bypasses the short term. What do you need to do now? What do you need to do the first 3 months opposed to the last 3 months? 

If you have some solid goals, great, I’ll do everything I can to help get you there. If you’re unsure what you want to do this year, forget thinking about goals in terms of a year. What can you do in January, February and March? What can you do this week or today?

Shorten your timeframe if you’re overwhelmed or unsure what you’re trying to do.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Training for 2030

I’ve noticed that for the past few weeks, a lot of people have been reflecting on the fact that we just closed out a decade and are starting a new one. It’s been a good exercise, thinking back to what you’ve done over the past 10 years, mistakes you made, big ah-ha moments and life-changing decisions. 

A nice exercise to figure out if your training regimen is appropriate is to think about how it will impact you in 10 years. A while back, I wrote a blog about how it’s too bad we couldn’t all just train for 10 years from now and throw away these expectations of fast results. In this first week of 2020, I challenge you to think about how you’re going to train, how you’re going to feel and what you’re going to be doing the first week of 2030. What habits will get you there? What habits will sabotage you? 

Check you goals. Saying you’ll do something doesn’t mean you’ll succeed. What are you going to do to get there? What does the day to day look like for the first 5 years? The last 5 years? It’s a difficult exercise, and if you’re able to actually sit down and examine yourself, I bet you’ll come up with a couple of really good process goals.

From James Clear’s Instagram:

Aim to be great in 10 years.

Build health habits today that lead you to a great body in 10 years.

Build social habits today that lead to great relationships in 10 years.

Build learning habits that lead to great knowledge in 10 years. 

Long-term thinking is a secret weapon.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

My 2019 in Numbers

I’ve been reflecting on 2019 for the past couple weeks. Yesterday, out of curiosity, I crunched some numbers on stuff I did, enjoy.

198: blog posts

I hit every week day since March 11 besides holidays and two random days that I forgot. 

986: miles ran

Missed my 1000 mile goal. It wasn’t in the cards to get the number. This was less of a big goal more of, I realized it would be cool to hit that milestone sometime in the summer. I’ll take the improvement over my 738 in 2018. 

27: 4000 footers summited

Lots of repeats, lots of new ones. I have 8 left to finish. Top 3 favorites: Pemi Loop in July, Huntington Ravine with Alex (also in July) and Washington winter summit in March. 

15.7: Hannah’s longest run ever

On our Honeymoon at Sete Cidades. The scenery and experience was amazing. The best time running I had all year. 

9 - Number of days I slept outside.

Three backpacking/camping trips wasn’t enough. Need more of this next year. 

113: Runs at Stratham Hill Park.

Climbed the tower once...

450: lifetime deadlift PR

I was scared to deadlift heavy after a long history of back pain. In 2019 I got to a place where I was no longer scared and the patience paid off.

5: Gain’s Five Year Anniversary is today.

On January 2, 2015 I trained 5 people. Karen, AJ, Judi and Elizabeth are all still members.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

How to Review Your Year

Not sure how to think about goals or come up with new challenges? Sometime this week, sit down for 30-60 minutes and reflect on these questions. I started doing this in 2016 after reading about it on Nate Green’s blog. It’s a simple template to get you thinking about the past and what you can change in the future to get better results. 

The questions are: 

What’s been working? That’s, what went well, what are you proud of. 

What hasn’t been working? Where are you biggest opportunities of growth.

How can I fix what’s not working for better results? What specific things can you do better at. 

Once you finish, take a moment to soak it all in before you start nailing down an action plan. Focus on the need to improve category and you’ll start mining out of worthwhile goals. 

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Holiday Schedule

The end of the year is the perfect time to shut down, reflect and recharge for the upcoming year. We’ll be closed several days over the next two weeks to allow us to do just that.

Monday 12/23 - normal hours

Tuesday 12/24 - closing at 10am (9am session added to regular schedule)

Wednesday 12/25- Sunday 12/29 - CLOSED

Monday 12/30 - open 6am-1pm

Tuesday 12/31 - Open 7:30-10am

Wednesday. 1/1/2020 - CLOSED

Normal hours resume Thursday 1/2/20

Happy Holidays!

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

I Can't Breathe!

A final conditioning piece on someone’s program yesterday was a 2000 meter row, using nose breathing only. This really ups the skill and awareness required. 

Having to nasal breathe only really slows down your pace. You can’t get away with being in a poor position, you feel it immediately - it gets more difficult to breathe.  The idea is that the easier it is to get a good, deep breath in, the better position you're in to produce force and be safe.

The nose tells us if we get a good breath because its use requires solid breathing mechanics. You have to use the right muscles and expand in the right spots. It’s difficult, without question. Mostly because we don’t do it very often and slumping in poor posture over time makes it a more difficult skill. 

Slowing down and nasal breathing also positively affects your aerobic system. It’s a build in pace car to make sure your moving at a sustainable rate and that you can maintain proper form. The more time you can spend doing that, the bigger the engine you’ll have. 

It’s quite difficult and can be frustrating. Sometimes gifting you a feeling like you can’t breathe at all. Learning to slow down while exercising and breath through your nose is a worthwhile project. 

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Breakfast Salad

I’ve been on a mission to eat more vegetables. It was clearly an area that had been lacking and I needed up my game and tame my appetite for cookies*. For the past 3 weeks, I’ve been doing just that. 

I’ve been trying to hit 800 grams of fruits and veggies everyday. As someone who doesn’t like a lot of rules and restrictions, this one appealed to me for its simplicity. Did you get it or not? What I’ve found is that without any planning, it becomes impossible to hit the number. 

On days that I’m not able to prepare a lot of food, breakfast salad has become my savior. Eating a big serving of veggies in the morning does a couple things. It sets me up for success the rest of the day. It eliminates guilt in any other food choices I make throughout the day and it gives me a huge head start towards hitting the mark. 

I’m starting to settle into a good routine where more vegetables is less effort. If you’re curious about the challenge, you can learn about it here. 

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

*My cookie appetite isn’t tame, its cookie season…but at least I’m eating more fruits and veggies!

Training to be 100

Recently, on the Tim Ferriss Podcast, guest Dr. Peter Attia shared his idea of training for the Centenarian Olympics. This is Dr. Attia’s way of stay motivated to train and make sure he’s working on the proper movements to keep him healthy and able-bodied well into his late 90s, with the goal of hitting 100 years old and still owning all these skills and abilities. 

Attia, who is an MD specializing in longevity, took a look at what he would want to be able to do for the rest of his life to stay independent. Things like the ability to carry 10 pounds of groceries up and down stairs, have a perfect deadlift form (which is works with a coach for) so he can pick stuff up from the floor and will be able to pick up grandkids, and he wants to be able to squat a 30 pound kettlebell late into his life for the same reason, to pick up and play with young grandkids. 

The most basic skill he talked about was getting up from the floor. Specifically, he said getting up using one point of contact, like placing a knee or hand on the floor. Seems simple, but how many people do you know that haven’t reach 100 that can’t do that? 

The Centenarian Olympics are a fantastic idea. If you’re ever losing motivation, or don’t have anything ultra specific to train for, be sure that you’re doing something that will allow you to stay confident and independent as you age. 

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Consistency

First, thank you all for coming out to the Gain party this past weekend. Getting everyone in the gym all at once made me realize how much this community has grown and how thankful I am that so many of you call Gain your gym home. 

Decorating for the party had me remembering the old days, back when we had 4 kettlebells, no treadmill and two medicine balls. Many of you shared stories with me from the early days too. Days of sore shoulders, achy backs and missing confidence in your life. 

Out of all the people who have “come out on the other side,” there was consistency. Sure, they missed some workouts here and there, but over years, they were consistent about making time to take care of their body. You have to put the work in to reap the benefits. Start thinking about how much you’er going to work out, not just in January, but in all of 2020 and beyond.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Final Reminder: Gain Holiday Party - TOMORROW

Tomorrow’s the day. I hope you can join me, your other coaches and all your gym friends for some tacos, beer and holiday cheer. We’ll be kicking off at 5pm. Stop by anytime!

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

New Kind of Sore

For the past few years, I’ve relied a lot on the same exercises in the the gym. I cycled through whether they were light or heavy, and did many different variations. One thing I have neglected is bodyweight movements. Back in September, during the Gain Habit Challenge, I looked face-to-face with my nemesis, push ups. The dedicated month of 30 a day forced me to get better. It was successful is making me hate them less since I saw so much improvement.

Since setting up the garage gym, I’ve been working on some new skills and exercises like ring dips, and muscle ups and doing more pull ups than normal. My shoulders are experiencing a whole new kind of sore. I’m being exposed to areas I haven’t used enough.

It’s the same thing when you get a new program and it’s a big shake up. Most of the time we like to build on what you’ve been doing. Small changes here and there. Then, just like I’m doing, there are times for a big shake up where we tinker and add lots of new stuff, change the format and the stress on your body.

So now I’m trying to dedicate a little more time with a band stretching into the tough to get spots and rolling my triceps on a roller or ball. I know with consistency and a little extra maintenance, I’m going to get stronger and improve, even if it’s frustrating now.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Aging Muscles and Inflammation

We have a problem. It’s that muscle has become demonized and many people are scared of it. The uninformed think all lifting weights is bodybuilding and that you’ll start to look like Ronnie Coleman if you touch too heavy of a dumbbell. The problem with this logic is that it forgets one of the most fundamental reasons to train in the first place - to keep muscle around as you age.

As we age, our muscles start to shrink. Weak muscles can lead to falls and breaks and loss of independence. Many think that increased inflammatory factors throughout the body contributes to the decline.

Dr. Todd Trappe and his colleagues have been studying physiology of older athletes, specifically noticing that the more physically fit someone was, the less inflammation. They became curious to how they respond to weight training stress and inflammation.

The researchers gathered 21 fit men who have been running or cycling since the 70s, 10 cyclists and runners in their 20s and 10 healthy but sedentary elderly men.

After putting the participants through some strength training they checked everyone for inflammation markers. The young athletes showed the least amount. The trained elderly men saw slightly higher makers with the untrained group showing the highest.

When we train it’s stressful for the body. Everyone has an inflammatory response post workout to kickstart the repair process. It appears from this small study that the more physically fit you are, the quicker you can clear that inflammation post workout.

You can find the original article here.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach