Strategic Mindset

I was awful at studying in high school. I was able to skate through without as much as opening a text book or doing a single homework assignment. Looking back, I have no idea how I did it.

I had a rude awakening in college though. Without studying skills, I actually didn’t know how I learned, or how I should study to best retain information. I tried buckling down and studying, but nothing happened, since I didn’t know what I was trying to accomplish.

This is the first time I remember thinking about how I think. As the article calls it, metacognition. I realized that I needed to figure out how my brain worked so I could pass these challenging gross anatomy practical tests.

Taking the time to think about how we think, and how we come to decisions develops a strategic mindset. This mindset is an ability to use feedback to course correct and make better choices. Constantly questioning whether it’s the right way, or the most streamlined is a sure fire way to become more efficient. 

Whether you’re running a business, chasing health goals, trying to run fast or be less stressed, developing this mindset is a key to improving. 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Timely

People have expressed one of their biggest concerns when starting back at the gym is finishing within the hour time limit.

In the pre-COVID days, we had no time restrictions, you could take as long as you needed. Many of you took advantage of this policy and would spread your workout over 90 minutes. The funny thing though, we’ve had to make more adjustments to make sure people take longer to complete their workout now with our new system.

We’re more organized. The programs are more efficient, there’s no waiting around at the table to ask a question and no need to wander to find an out of the way spot. You get all your equipment, your own personal space and easier access to a coach.

If you’re worried about taking too long, don’t be. And what do we do if you’re someone who blazes through the day’s workout? We have more time for cardio and mobility, of course! 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Step Ups

Step ups don’t get a lot of love in the strength training world. 

They’re not that complex and they are overshadowed by cooler things people do on boxes like jump on them. It’s too bad, step ups can teach us a lot about how we move. Specifically how to create tension and where our movement faults may come from.

Once you have your foot planted on the box, never let it cave inwards, towards your big toe. A good cue to think about here is knee towards your pinky toe. It’s almost overcorrecting it so if in falls in a bit, you’re still in a good position. This applies to lunges as well.

That knee may also want to push too far forward, lifting your heel off the box. Don’t let that happen either! Imagine your foot as a tripod, big toe, pinky toe and heel. They should all be firmly planted when doing a step up. The thing that clears these faults up for most people is allowing their torso to drop forward. A slight lean, when starting the rep, will aid in keeping your lower body organized. 

These tips will help you whether you’re doing step ups for conditioning, with some load for strength work or most importantly if you find yourself outside the gym stepping up on things. 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Healthspan

As you’re well aware of by now, I’m a fan of playing the long game. Like one of our core values says, consistency and moderation over intensity.

I recently heard a term I was not familiar with on a podcast that represents this long term view, healthspan.

Your healthspan is how much of your life that you are within good health without chronic disease or aging related disabilities. It’s a long term perspective that gets you to think about the small daily choices that accumulate to have bigger impacts down the line. 

I plan to keep my healthspan going for as long as possible. I want to be confident, independent and reliable. Training, sleeping, eating well and moving more are the ticket to get there. Remember, our daily choices add up, make good ones.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Squat Mastery

The squat is an anomaly. 

On one side, the squat is a basic human function. Before toilets, chairs and couches we probably squatted a lot. As babies, we learn how to squat to stand up and take our first steps. Somewhere along the way we lose this innate ability.

Many adults have no clue how to squat. This is such an issue there’s even people out there that say squatting is bad! This is what makes it an anomaly. We all do it at some point, and most of us lose the ability throughout the course of our lives.

Whether you’re a squatting pro, or just an amateur, I have good news for you. It is such a complex, high skill move that you’ll never master it. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try though. It’s a moving target. You should always be trying to make it feel better, smoother and more comfortable.

Here are the top 3 things to consider when performing a squat:

1. Keep your feet on the ground. No heel lifting or toe lifting. Try to maintain even pressure through the whole foot. Let this dictate depth.

2. Stand tall. By standing up nice and tall and the end of every rep, you set the next rep up for success. Be sure to set your hips by squeezing your butt.

3. Let yourself lean forward. In a perfect world, we could all squat with our torso totally upright. The problem with this however, is that it requires more skill and range of motion. I prefer to teach people how to squat with a big lean forward. While this looks more hinge-like than a squat, this teaches you to engage your hips, organize your spine and helps you keep your feet on the ground. 

Even if you’ve been squatting for years. Pay close attention next time and see if you can improve your movement. There’s always space to get better. 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Slow & Steady

Today’s blog is a reminder that this health and fitness stuff can take a long time. Not rushing to the finish line is the key to success. You’ve got to stay determined and diligent, progress takes time. 

In fact, the best progress is the progress you don’t even notice. Progress that happens year to year that you totally miss until you stop and reflect.

I had that realization after a tough run in the mountains this weekend. Completing the run wasn’t due to one training block, one long run or one track workout. It wasn’t due to a single workout in the gym, or a single movements I’ve been practicing. It was the results of the accumulated effort over years. All the runs, all the rest days, all the gym workouts, all the nutritional choices and all the hours of sleep.

It’s hard to notice day to day, but year to year can really paint a picture. Make sure you’re playing the game long enough to reap the benefits of accumulation.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Nutritional Consistency

Since quarantine started on March 17, we’ve eaten all but 4 meals at home.

We typically cook most of our food, but this has gone to the next level.

I have been feeling great, too. I feel more energized, reaching for less coffee and have come to enjoy eating the same breakfast everyday.

We can get caught up in needing variety, just to keep things fresh. More often than not though, we should be shooting for consistency, not shaking things up just because we’re bored.

It happens in the gym too. Sticking with the plan, even though it’s sometimes boring, always pays more in the long run.

Find more consistency throughout your day, it’s the secret to playing the long game.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

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