More Pulling

There was a time when I thought it was important to include twice as much pulling as pushing in one’s strength and conditioning program. Like many rules, it was great in concept, but not so much in practice. I’m still sure to include more reps of pulling than pushing, pretty much no matter what. Go ahead and count your reps. 

The reason pulling gets no love is because all the glory goes to the pull up. A beautiful, impressive movement. It requires tremendous full body strength and control. It’s out of reach for a lot of people. It takes so much time and dedication, time in the gym could be spent doing other, more effective things. Like horizontal pulling.

The problem with horizontal pulling, is that it’s vertical counterpart, the pull up, gets all the attention. In order to hoist one’s chin over a bar though, you first need to dedicate time, effort and energy into learning how to pull better, horizontally. 

Once you master the mechanics, you need to build strength. You should at least be able to do a flat, or shoulders under the rings, inverted row. To get there, row heavy dumbbells, use pauses and tempo and build volume over time and before you know it, you’ll have a strong, muscular upper back. Not until then should you worry about nailing that pull up. Respect the movement and get strong first.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Respect the Pull

There’s something we do in our programming that we don’t tell you about.

It’s a secret to build better posture, a stronger upper body and healthier shoulders.

It’s pulling.

Pulling, or rowing, gets neglected in gyms across the world. Not only that, but without rings, or a heavy dumbbell it’s nearly impossible. 

Getting pulling reps in teaches you to use your shoulder blades, how to keep your torso stiff and most importantly, helps us undo all that computer time we log.

Next time you have inverted rows, or one arm rows, or face pulls with a band, give them the respect they deserve. Pulling is the unsung hero of the weight room.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Constantly Varied or Consistently Varied?

Variety gets a lot of love in the training world.

People don’t want to do the same thing over and over. They want new and different. It’s why so many people program hop, gym hop and change diets, they’re chasing novelty.

I get it, too. Variety is nice, it keeps us more engaged. When we do too much variety just for the sake of it though, we’re missing opportunities to improve, to adapt to the training stimulus.

Instead of always making our programs different, just to be different, we look for small ways to consistently add variety. Chances are you’re going to goblet squat on Monday. Sometimes it’s high reps, sometimes it’s low reps, sometimes it’s heavy and sometimes it’s with a tempo or a pause. The movement is consistent. This lets us continually challenge this fundamental movement pattern. The sets, reps, load and volume however, can change week to week to provide a different focus, and different goal for each squat session.

Variety is fun, but we’re also in this for movement mastery, and if you’re always hopping from one thing to the next, you'll never build the proper strength, skill and awareness. 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Maintenance or Growth

I usually have a main focus on my training. Generally, this means more running focus in the summer and more lifting in the winter. I always do both though. One is on growth mode, meaning I’m trying to improve specific capacities. While the other is about maintaining what I’ve got, not necessarily trying to make improvements. This meansI don’t care if my max deadlift improves through the summer, I only care that once fall rolls around, I’m within striking distance of where I was a year before.

We can get caught up always trying to improve everything at once. Not only is this unsustainable, it rarely ever works in our favor.

Instead of trying to lockdown your diet, run more, lift more and learn how to play the piano, classify your endeavors into growth mode or maintenance mode. Try to pick one thing to grow in. For me right now, that’s running. Specifically, running fast. My long running is in maintenance mode right now, just like my heavy lifting.

Get organized and stop trying to do too much. Prioritize something instead of going half in on many things. As Ron Swanson says in my favorite show of all time, Parks and Recreation, “don’t half ass two things, whole ass one thing.”

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

It Doesn't Get Easier

Working out, motivating yourself to go to the gym, going for a run, it never gets easier. I worry sometimes that new gym-goers think all they need to do is show up and everything falls into place. But one, two, three years down the line it’s still hard to show up, it’s still hard to do the work. Proper strength training programs will always be hard. As you progress, so should the workout. This can make you feel like you’re spinning your wheels and not making any progress, that’s just not the case though.

To avoid that trap, focus on the process. Focus on showing up and doing what’s on your plan, consistently.

Continually showing up, working hard is all you can do. There is no finish line. If you’re looking for it, stop. When people start focusing on the finish line, and lose track of the process, their health and fitness takes a back seat. It’s easy to make yourself quit after you convince yourself you get no results. 

Just know that there isn’t a date that a switch flicks and it becomes easy to train. It’s doesn’t get easier. Somedays will be easy, some will be hard, but you’re always going to have those days where you have to convince yourself to show up and do the work. I hope rather than discouraging you, this helps you realize you need to be in this for the long game. Keep your eyes on the process. 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Heavy Training = Posture Training

When using barbells and kettlebells in the gym, we’re using the implements to add external load. They’re a way to make things more challenging. The name of the game is maintaining a good position, or posture, or form, despite these external loads attempting to pull us out of position. Therefore, lifting weights, especially heavy ones, is about maintaining posture and position. 

To improve our form in the gym, we’ve got to be aware of it. We need to check and recheck and constantly adjust based on internal or external feedback. Outside the gym, if we want our posture to improve while we’re driving or on the computer, there’s no shortcut. We must be aware of where we’re at and constantly adjust. Hopefully, over time our focus in the gym will improve our posture outside. Regardless of how experienced in the gym you are though, you’ll have a hard time adjusting your posture without a concentrated effort.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Roll the Windows Down

Another heat wave. You know what that means, it’s going to be hot in the gym.

When I was in college, I was an ice truck delivery driver. Besides being one of my favorite jobs ever, I learned about heat regulation. Going from the air conditioned truck, out to into the summer heat, into a hot, stuffy store or kitchen was brutal. After a while, I learned to keep the AC off, and just drive with the windows down.

When I would get to the delivery location, I was more prepared to deal with the heat - the temperature shift was less extreme. Sure, driving the truck wasn’t as pleasant, and I sweat more. But it made a big difference.

To best prepare yourself for a hot workout at Gain, shut that AC off. Drive here with the windows down, get a dosage of the heat before coming into the gym. If you come from an air conditioned home, to air conditioned car, to air conditioned store to air conditioned car to non air conditioned gym, you’ll be hurting. Expose yourself and it won’t be so bad.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Open and Airy

To be clear right off the back - I do not have any interest in convincing you to come to the gym if you feel it would be unsafe. However, I would be a poor business owner if I didn't want people to come in. And I would have no integrity if I told people to come in and thought it was unsafe.

Now that that’s out of the way, I want to tell you that we’re dialed in with the new normal. This pandemic and shutdown allowed us to make a lot of great changes, and the results are in, the clients are loving it.

We’re better organized, workouts are more efficient, warms up are more fun and variable and every member is getting a lot more personalized attention. Sure, you can’t show up whenever you want anymore. But showing up on time is a small price to pay to get a made-for-you workout in a physically distant space with all your own (disinfected) equipment already set up for you.

We’ll be using this new system going forward with hopes of increasing the session capacity. For now, what we’re doing is working and we’re going to stick with it. Thanks for your patience with the waitlists and new rules, I can’t thank you enough because we wouldn’t be here without you.

As I said in the beginning, I’m not here to convince you, I just want to highlight that we’re taking this seriously and the results are confirming it. People feel safe and are happy to get back to their place. We’re taking on new members, so be sure to send us a message if you’re interested in learning more.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Are You Chasing Fatigue or Progress?

Motivating yourself to workout is hard. Especially if you’ve been training at home and relying on solely on yourself for accountability.

You can imagine how a “good” workout feels. Out of breath, sweaty, heart pounding, need to lay on the floor for 10 minutes afterwards. That’s what a good, effective workout feels like, right?

What if I were to tell you that’s not chasing progress, not actually improving your strength or fitness, it’s chasing fatigue.

We’ve been programmed to think that without feeling like death at the end of a session that it’s unproductive. For those of you at home, finding intensity is hard, and believing you should feel so fatigued at the end of every workout is a misconception.

You want to chase progress. Steady improvement overtime. That means if you skate through a workout without any real hiccups, it’s not a big deal. In the long run, those workouts that feel easy are beneficial. Maybe even more beneficial than those heart-pounding sweat fests that we all associate with productivity. 

Consistency is what matters. Overtime, you will improve and progress and get stronger and more fit. Chasing fatigue gets you no where besides feeling accomplished for a few minutes.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Rolling On Demand

Are you checking in on Gain On Demand? If you aren’t, you’re missing out on a new feature for our members. We have follow along strength and conditioning workouts, cardio focused workouts and follow along mobility sessions.

I just uploaded an 18 minute follow along upper back, lats and adductors foam rolling session. We all need more upper back work to undo those hours spent sitting and on the computer. The lats are huge muscles on our sides hat we don’t often roll. They require a little extra time to relax so they typically aren’t in our rolling sessions. I finish up with some rolling on the adductors, or groin muscles. Another area we could all use some rolling on.

The goal with Gain On Demand is to make a utility for our members. Something you can check in on while traveling, or on that day you can’t make it to the gym. Likewise, those cardio and mobility options are on there for you to get some additional training in when you’re away from the gym.

Gain On Demand is for members of the gym only. If you need the password to get on, just let me know. If you’re not a member, but curious about what we’re doing with it, use THIS LINK to check out my rolling video from today, on the house. Enjoy! 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Still Recovering

You may have heard about the running route I took on about 3 weeks ago. I spent 20 something hours trying to move as quickly as I could through the gnarliest mountain terrain New Hampshire has to offer. It was quite the feat. Such a feat, in fact that I’m still recovering from it today more than 3 weeks later.

We all imagine that when we exercise, our bodies build strength and muscle and more fitness right then and there. However, this is a huge misconception. We don't adapt while exercising, exercise is stressful. Instead, we adapt and improve and see our gains once we recover. My reason for sharing the story above is to help relate that message. It’s easy to see after a massive effort like that you’d be feeling a little slow or tired or unenthusiastic about training, but that happens with our everyday gym efforts, too.

Our efforts in the gym accumulate. Every now and then, you may find yourself out exercising your recovery abilities. And you guessed it, the more fit you are, the better at recovering you are. The point I want to stress today is that your gains happen when you’re away from the gym and it’s all stuff that you know about. Hydration, sleep, nutrition, stress management. All the these play an integral role in our recovery, and therefore our fitness. It’s easy to see in the extreme example that recovery takes a long time, but day in and day out, we forget that we are in control of so much that happens to us outside of the gym.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Stretching Those Hamstrings

Everyone’s hamstrings are tight. At least that’s what 9 out of 10 people tell me when doing an initial consultation at the gym. I’ve come to expect it from everyone, and they all have tried the same solution: stretching. There’s a couple issues with this. The main one being that they don’t actually stretch, or they do what many people call stretching, and that’s holding a position for about 4 seconds before moving on. Of course you didn’t make any change! There was no time spent in the position you’re trying to improve.

Stretching protocols aside, maybe tugging on the tissues trying to make them longer isn’t what we need to release our hamstrings. If you came to the gym today, you know what I’m talking about - hamstrings flossing.

The idea is that we’re tricking the nervous system, our brain, into releasing some of the tension we feel. So sure, it looks like stretching, and even feels like stretching. But we aren’t trying to make longer muscles, we’re trying to disarm the tension by showing our brains it’s going to be okay, that nothing bad is going to happen if we have more range of motion.

So instead of holding an uncomfortable position for a long time. Let's find a position of maximum tension near the end-range of motion we have, and keep moving in and out of that space. Try to squeeze your quads when you do this - turning on the opposite muscles can help too. Every rep when you lock your knee into place should get a little easier, a little less tension.

Do this instead of stretching your hamstrings. I’m always a fan of adding in more movement and control. Let’s be active and engaged when we stretch.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

reGAIN - I need your help

Hello Devoted Blog Reader,

First, thanks for checking this blog on the regular. I’m continually surprised and pleased at all the questions and conversations that have spawned from these posts over the past 18 months.

Today, however, I don’t have one of those posts that’s going to inspire you to think, or challenge your perspective. Today, I’m asking for your help spreading the word about my new online program, reGAIN.

I’ve been working in the fitness industry for 10 years now. For all 10 years, I’ve avoided anything to do with online training. It was always clunky, and I never wanted to film and edit and upload all the demo videos required. On top of that, Google Docs and Excel spreadsheets were always a difficult way to track workout progress and manage accountability.

Well as you know, we’ve started using Truecoach at the gym. I love it. The software makes programming seamless and easy to track accountability. As times of adversity tend to do, this pandemic forced my hand and got me to launch my first official online coaching and training plan through Truecoach.

It’s called reGAIN. It’s designed for former athletes who are struggling to feel as athletic as they used to. For former athletes who know they need a tough, challenging workout, but don’t know where to begin or can never manage their own accountability. The program uses bodyweight strength training, sprinting, core stability movements and a lot of jumping and landing to reclaim what they’ve lost.

As a former athlete myself, I know how tough those first few years post athletics can be. I felt lost without hockey to train for, and as the years passed by, I felt more and more fragile. I stopped training like an athlete, even though I now know that’s exactly what I should have been doing. I got through, and learned how to train for life, not just for sports. And I’ve never felt more like an athlete than I do now. Which is exactly why I’m excited to help others who are where I was.

I want to help get people moving, get them back in the groove and on track. I want to help them reGAIN their athletic self. If you know someone who would be a good fit, do me a favor and send them my way, I would really appreciate it.

The best place to go is my Instagram, which you can find HERE

The finer details:

There is a 5 day per week and 3 day per week option.

People should feel comfortable jumping and sprinting and running if they want to get involved.

You should have a good background in strength and conditioning in order to take on this challenging program.

It’s not for: people with injuries, people who can’t sprint or jump, people who would need a lot of modifications, people who aren’t motivated or who want to lift weights, it’s bodyweight only.

Thanks for spreading the word!

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Simple Long Term Training Solution

Yesterday we talked about how strength coaches write programs to help clients or athletes reach their goals in a progressive and safe manner. Realizing that it’s a little complicated, or more in depth than many of you care to go, I’ve thought of a simpler way to portray my message that each and every workout will not necessarily be more impressive than the previous. Getting strong and healthy is hard, we don’t do ourselves any favors in thinking that progress should be so easy to come by.

Here it is. 

Go hard sometimes. Go medium sometimes. Go easy sometimes. Take a day off every now and then.

Expectations make all the difference. We all expect ourselves to go hard, each and every workout. That’s just unrealistic though. Setting realistic expectations, that sometimes you want to take a day off, or keep the workout light, can make all the difference in your ability to stick with the habit.

This highlights the importance of having a training plan to follow. More than that, it highlights the importance of having a coach. Someone telling you to push a little harder, or back off or even skip the workout all together. Being responsible for you fitness is hard, get some help.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Can Progress Always be Linear?

When we think about progress, we imagine it happening in a straight line. From start to finish we see ourselves steadily progressing in an upward trajectory to our goals. This is especially true with all things fitness related. Weight loss, strength gains, muscle definition, all of it. In fact, even in strength and conditioning the most common way to write a program is named Linear Periodization.

It works great too. Do a little more, and a little more each week and progressively build your strength and make the straight line up. There’s a problem though. If this linear, progressive overload always worked, wouldn’t we all be able to deadlift 500 pounds in due time? Imagine that, adding five pounds to the bar each week and you could just count ahead to the day you’d hit 500. Okay so max deadlift week 1 is 315, only 37 weeks till I pull 5 bills! 

Not only that, but life gets in the way too. You get sick, travel and get bored and tired. Even with planned down time, which is an important part of Linear Periodization, it’s impossible to predict every single session weeks in advance.

Linear’s counterpart, Nonlinear or Conjugate Periodization, forces adaptation in a different way. This approach is more varied and manipulates load, tempo, volume and intensity more frequently to provide new stimulus and to improve several qualities all at once. Linear Periodization is great for training one specific thing, like increasing squat max or a specific event like a race or meet. Instead of planned downtime like we see in the linear model, nonlinear deloads based on feel rather than schedule.

If we zoom in closely, all our progress happens in an undulating fashion. Life throws us peaks and valleys and so will training. The longer you’re in this for, the more nonlinear your program will be. You need to learn to listen to your body and know when it needs a heavy load or something light and fast or long and slow. 

When we’re beginners, adding weight to the bar, or even dropping pounds can be relatively easy. When the linear nature of progress runs out of steam though, expect your gains to go up and down a bit. As long as you’re still headed in the right direction, you’ll be fine. Just keep moving the dirt.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

More Z's More Goals

Regardless of your goal, I have a secret that will propel you towards it. Really. Whether you want to get stronger, lose 15 pounds, get leaner, faster, smarter, anything, really anything, this will help. It’s getting 8 hours of sleep every night. Not most nights, not some nights, but every single night.

Sounds easy, right? Sleep is important for recovery and rejuvenation, without it, we’re leaving major gains on the table. That’s how it can help all those goals, because regardless of which one of those you're chasing, more sleep will lead to better recovery, which leaves you more prepared to face the day’s challenges.

Here’s how I know it’s hard. I barely every hit my 8 hour sleep goal. I track it using my watch, and more often than not, I’m close  to 8, but rarely ever perfect. My best week was 5 out of 7 days greater than 8 hours. I go out of my way to prioritize it too. I cut back on caffeine, screen time, dim the lights and make sure the room is pitch black and cold.

If you want to up your sleep game, and therefore up your game everywhere else, I recommend you start tracking your Z’s. Without knowing how much, or how little you’re getting, you’ll have no direction as to how to improve. You don’t need a fancy watch either, just pay attention to your bedtime and wake up time. Are you consistent or all over the place? Do you wake up refreshed or fight the alarm clock everyday? 

Whatever your goals are, I’m willing to bet better sleep will help. Don’t neglect it!

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Losing Track of Time

For this Monday, I have a quote from my favorite newsletter. If you’ve read any of these blogs, you know I’m a fan of James Clear and his ideas about around habits. After reading this quote last week it stuck with me all weekend.

When you lose track of time you’re either living your best life or wasting it. - James Clear

Have a good rest of your Monday. Set the tone, make smart choices and build momentum for the rest of the week.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Defining Strength and Conditioning - what does that mean?

What does Strength and Conditioning mean? What is it? Who’s method is it and is it a trademarked thing?

The beauty of Strength and Conditioning is that it is many methods and scientific principles put together to be an all encompassing style of functional, physical training.

Is it athletic development? Yes, this is where it started. Just 10 years ago if you said you were a strength coach, that 100 percent meant you worked exclusively with athletes.

Is it powerlifting? No, but powerlifting is part strength and conditioning. Many of the aforementioned strength coaches (including myself) dabbled in powerlifting to learn the principles needed to build maximum strength.

Is it Olympic weightlifting? No, Olympic weightlifting is actually a sport. However, in Strength and Conditioning we can use Olympic weightlifting as a way to train power, explosiveness and skill.

Is it functional fitness? Yes, it can be. But some functional fitness methodologies aren’t Strength and Conditioning.

Is it calisthenics? Well, calisthenics, or bodyweight training certainly falls under the Strength and Conditioning bubble.

Is it yoga? No, but there are many similarities between the two. Specifically, the need to create and maintain total body tension while moving and breathing and using fundamental shapes and positions.

What about Barre? No, Barre doesn’t use full range of motion, or progress people in a linear or nonlinear fashion to train for specific adaptations. Meaning you can get stronger doing Barre, but it’s a side effect rather than the objective.

Is it CrossFit? No, but CrossFit is Strength and Conditioning. CrossFit used Strength and Conditioning movements, and equipment (barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, sleds, etc.) to create their own methodology of training which evolved into a sport.

Remember in middle school how you just had science class, which covered a wide variety of disciplines? Think of Strength and Conditioning as that. When you got to high school you dove deeper into more specific subjects of science. Classes like chemistry, biology, physics and anatomy. Strength and Conditioning is the overarching thing that unites many of these methodologies.

Strength and Conditioning doesn’t follow one methodology or program or only use a specific type of equipment. It uses scientific principles to physiologically adapt to a certain stimulus. The first thing they teach you in Strength and Conditioning 101 is the S.A.I.D. Principle; Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand. Generally, for us that means we want to build strength, promote lean tissue growth, improve joint range of motion and improve cardiac health. How it is implemented is up to each coach or program. Gain isn’t franchised or trademarked because the style of programs we write is something I learned through 10 years of doing this.

There are dozes of ways to reach those goals, but not being tied to a specific methodology, or trademark or franchise allows us at Gain to pave our own path. We use our scientific knowledge in combination with our real-world experiences as coaches to create an effective Strength and Conditioning plan. Based on each individuals needs, we can add some of this or some of that to get the specific response needed.

Not being tethered to certain methodology allows us to use the right tool for the job. Maybe you want to get really strong, so we can use some powerlifting principles. Maybe you’re a former athlete who likes to push hard, in that case we can use some CrossFit workouts to provide a tough cardiorespiratory stimulus. Whatever the problem is, or the goal, we can adapt our training plan based on the needs of each person. Strength and Conditioning transcends fitness methodologies and is in a class of its own.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Shut it Down

One of my good qualities as a coach is telling people when to back off. Our culture around fitness is that more is better, pain is good and if you’re not suffering, you’re not trying hard enough. Our bodies and brains are complex though. They can only take so much, and sometimes a little less is exactly what they need. Rest and recovery is not often part of the fitness equation, but so much relies on it. We shouldn’t be ashamed of our off days, but instead, proud we listened to our bodies. 

You may have seen my wife, Hannah, working out on Instagram this morning. I’ve been writing Hannah’s workouts for 8 years now. She’s been through every excel template, tested all my crazy ideas and always follows the directions. She’s been remarkably consistent through it all. So consistent, in fact, that I spend more time telling her to back off than I do anything else. She knows her technique and besides the occasional tune up, moves really well. She’s tough on herself and hates deviating from the schedule though.

That’s where I come in. I tell her to sleep in and hit ten thousand steps tomorrow and don’t even think about working out. She fights it every time, but has gotten better at listening to her body and being intuitive about backing off, especially during pregnancy. 

The current fitness climate has this resting-is-bad-and-unproductive stance. If more fitness professionals had conversations about taking care of your body, opposed to feeding the push harder to succeed story, maybe we wouldn’t be so unhealthy. Maybe more people would have better relationships with moving and exercising (which, is important to differentiate, by the way).

Most of all, more people would understand how to listen to their bodies. Just like you need to know when you should sleep in a bit and skip the morning workout, you need to know when to crank it and test the waters. The gym can teach us so much about our bodies if learn to listen.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Hannah pushing Alex on the sled - December 2015

Oh Yeah

After you’ve spent a lot of time in the gym you learn which movements expose you. For me, front squats have always been tricky. I prefer a big lean forward when squatting and the upright, rigidness required for an excellent front squat has always been difficult for me. That combined with stiff wrists and repeatedly sprained ankles always leaves me feeling stiff the day after performing them.

All of those reasons are why I need to front squat more though. By exposure, I mean they show me my weak points. They show me I’ve been neglecting my right wrist that doesn’t have much range of motion. It reminds me to keep working on my ankle mobility, even though it’s pretty good, and to always spend time trying to improve strength on tough movements. 

Exposure is one of the reasons we go to the gym. We need to find our weak points, learn our habits and become aware of how we move. If we increase our awareness inside of the gym, it’ll help us outside of the gym. So when we go to lift a kayak, bag of concrete or run up the stairs, we automatically find our good, strong and stable positions. 

Another movement that exposes my bad habits are kettlebell swings. I’m a chronic over chin tucker, meaning I look down while performing kettlebell swings, instead of gazing at the horizon. This particularly holds true when I’m fatigued, since it requires more focus no to drop my chin. It shouldn’t come as that big of a surprise then, when I run and get tired, I tend to round my upper back and drop my chin, and looking at the ground instead of straight ahead. 

A while back, that got me into some trouble. I was tip-toeing down some rocky trail, paying too much attention to my feet, when all of a sudden I found myself on my back with blood running down my forehead and dripping onto my nose. 

While staring at my feet, I managed to run into a tree that fell across the trail. I got a nice scar because of it. This is an example of habits we notice in the gym manifesting themselves during a real life situation. I managed to be okay from my cut, but it could have been a lot worse. I do now, however, pay much more attention to how my head is reacting to movements while training.

Remember that this is the point. Using our in gym time to learn about ourselves and our habits so we can perform our best when life calls. 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain