Rowing Machine

When using the rower, it’s more helpful to think about your legs than your upper body.

The name of the machine, rower, tricks us into believing it’s an upper body machine, when in reality, it’s more about your legs than anything else.

When rowing, forget about your arms. Instead, concentrate on pushing with your legs. Just like standing up from a squat or deadlift.

After a big, long push from your legs, then you can row, or pull the handle towards you.

When resetting, or coming back to the start, we need to keep our legs in mind too. Don’t just slide the seat back towards the front following you hands. You want to hinge at the hips. This will reload your legs for the next push once you get back to the starting position. 

This slight mindset shift when rowing, thinking about legs and pushing instead of arms and pulling, can make a big difference. Give it a shot! 

Justin Miner

Ditch the Recipe

At the gym, there are so many exercise combinations, movements variants, conditioning protocols, effective pairings and ways to load amongst so many other things. With all these variables to choose from, good coaches use principles to simplify the training menu and make effective choices to design a workout.

The same things could be said about cooking. With so many foods to choose from, so many good pairings, flavor combinations and balance. All these things can make up a recipe.

Always using a recipe is tiring though.

It can be complicated or require too many ingredients or too many steps. We end up skipping the recipe and ordering take out instead. I see the same thing happen with training. People create the most complex, difficult to follow workout program and burn out after a couple sessions.

Let’s take a lesson from good gym coaches and use it in the kitchen. Let’s cook with principles instead of recipes.

Here’s how we think about cooking dinner at my house.

1. What’s the protein? All meals start by identifying this. This is your A1. in the gym, the main course. Usually squats, pressing or deadlifts.

2. What veggies can we make with this? Cooking steaks on the grill? Let’s chop up anything grill-able for fast clean up and cooking ease. Baking something? Which veggies would be good sautéed or baked? Short on time? Let’s just throw the protein on a salad. This is the accessory work. The not-always-fun but have to do them moves like SLDLs, split squats and inverted rows. Get them in, even if they’re boring.

3. Do we need more carbohydrates? Did I run or train hard today? How hungry am I? If I’m feeling like more carbs, I’ll cook some rice or potatoes to go with dinner. This is your post-workout finisher. Not always necessary for an effective workout, but sometimes it makes everything go together nicely.

4. Always cook more than you need. The leftovers make a great or head start on dinner the next day.

Justin Miner

How Long Can You Go

Six second in.

Six seconds out.

This simple breathing drill is a game changer.

How long can you last?

Try to go fro at least 5 minutes.

Justin Miner

Laying Wires

Over the past week Elliot is flinging him arms, turning his head and starting to smile. He’s developing motor control. This is exactly what happens when you learn or refine a movement in the gym.

I call it laying wires.

He’s learning how to fire the right nerves to perform certain task with precision. Each movement accumulates more information for his body to learn about force, control and how to deal with gravity.

It’s easy to forget that we were all there once. Unable to perform basic tasks like type on a computer, or a touch screen, aim a fork into your mouth or even walk. All these tasks we perform each and every day are controlled by our nervous system. We’ve created the pathways and laid down the wires to do the tasks well.

In the gym, we want to feed our bodies good movement to develop awareness, skill and precision to perform our best outside of the gym. Just like Elliot, you’ve got to build some pathways. Lay down a foundation and learn to move.

Justin Miner 

Major Workout Moments from the Past 16 Years

Location: Stratham, NH 

Age: 14

Workout: First time ever training. My uncle, who was my hockey coach at the time, took me through a variety of movements in my parent’s driveway,

I jumped rope, threw a medicine ball against the chimney , benched pressed with those cement filled plastic weights everyone seems to have in their basement and ran down the street with a parachute tied to my waist.

Location: The Rinks at Exeter, Exeter, NH 

Age: 17

Workout: Ladders and Stairs

After hockey practice, it was common for us to run the stadium stairs for 40 minutes. Run up, across the top, down, then right back up. So boring. But looking back, probably some of the most effective training I did. We always started off doing ladder drills too and would occasionally squat with a smith machine.

Location: Exeter High School Weight Room, Exeter, NH 

Age: 17

Workout: Back squats and Bench Press 10-8-6-4-2 

My junior year of high school we got to take elective gym classes. I signed right up for Weight Room. The class was full of kids who wanted to lift heavy and get bigger. I can’t believe I get to do this at school I thought. Each workout was based around back squatting or bench pressing. We would start at 10 reps, and lower the reps as we increased the weight. No misses were allowed and we tried to go a little heavier each week. The assistant football coaching running the show didn’t do much coaching, but instead did crunches on a stability ball the whole time. 

I learned about consistency and progressive overload here. We all got stronger and I really felt it outside of the gym.

Location: Ironman Fitness, Exeter, NH

Age: 18 

Workout: I thought I was strong and fit until I met Matt. He was my first real strength and conditioning coach who taught me what performance training really was. My first week there we did what they called Strongman Friday. We went to the back parking lot and did all sorts of crazy stuff I had never seen before. We flipped tires, swung sledge hammers, carried really heavy yokes and did push ups with chains on our backs. I was hooked.

Location: UNE Campus Center, Biddeford, ME

Age 21

Workout: Learning how to kettlebell snatch. Kettlebells were coming in vogue at the time, and I really wanted to get my hands on some but they were impossible to find. One morning I stumbled into the gym, maybe a little hung over. I couldn’t believe what I saw. I brand new rack full of kettlebells of all sizes. In learning how to snatch one, I sent it flying across the room, luckily no one was there to see (or get hit by it). 

Location: Hard Nock’s Gym, Amesbury, MA

Age: 24

Workout: After a long slump of not training, I needed a better place to workout. A friend took me to Hard Nock’s, a hardcore bodybuilding gym in the center of downtown Amesbury. We did back squats, pull ups and I used a rowing machine for the first time. After about a year off I was so sore I remember I couldn’t sleep that night.

Location: Portsmouth, NH

Age: 25

Workout: Thanksgiving 2014. Although we had no rubber flooring and all of the equipment was still in boxes, we wanted to do our annual Thanksgiving lift at what would eventually become Gain. We took out 3 barbells, a handful of weights and a rowing machine. Me, Hannah and our friend Cam did sumo deadlifts, power cleans and some rowing. I couldn’t believe I was working out in my own gym. (see picture below)

Location: Salisbury, MA 

Age: 27

Workout: My first 10k run. We lived near a paved rail trail that went straight to the Newburyport Commuter Rail. It was exactly 3.1 miles away. I ran there, took a 2 minute break and ran back. My furthest run ever. Little did I know what that run would eventually propel me into. 

Location: Baxter State Park

Age: 29

Workout: Climbing the remote Northwest Basin trail up and over Hamlin Ridge with a heavy pack. I was coming off my first ultra marathon, which I did to see if I could do it. This first backpacking trip made me realize what I want to use all this fitness I’ve been building for, getting into cool, natural places.

Location: Barrington, NH 

Age: 30

My first garage gym workout with Hannah in our new house. She front squatted and I overhead squatted. My biggest concern when looking for a house was a two car garage so I could create my own garage gym to lift, tinker and play. Having this set up has been priceless. 

Justin MIner

Gain, Thanksgiving 2014

Do More of This

I like making choices that have little to no downside.

Investors would call it asymmetrical risk.

Meaning, there are no consequences for making a the choice. A good example of this is unsubscribing from emails. After we buy something online, we let the store pepper our inbox with sales and discounts and all sorts of reasons to log back in and buy more. Without those emails, we might not click and shop. Missing a potential discount is a zero downside for me. Other examples include drinking more water, eating more vegetables and of course, walking.

Walking is one of the things I recommend to most people. 

There is no downside.

You get outside, move, breathe, and get a wonderful dose of low-level cardio that’s great for you health and well-being. 

It’s great for stress management.

It’s great when you’re sore from lifting in the gym.

It’s good for your sleep cycle to get outside and exposed to sunlight. 

Your joints will be thankful for the easy movement.

Your brain will thank you for the screen break.

How can you fit more walking into your day?

Justin Miner 

Feeling Connected

In the warm up today, we have some bodyweight squats. The focus on these squats is to lower for 3 seconds, then get up as fast as possible back to the top.

If you were to say this is about control and speed, you’d be right. 

But it’s also about pressure. Specifically the pressure of your feet pushing into the ground. 

The transition from slow to fast can leave us shifting our weight back into our heels, or getting too forward on the toes.

Instead, try to feel the squat in the same spot through you feet the whole time. 

Having trouble? A great opportunity to ditch the shoes and see if you have better feeling and awareness.

Justin Miner 

@gain_sc

Short & Simple

Despite having a newborn at home, I’ve been remarkably consistent with training.

Yes. I’m tired. And drinking a bit too much coffee. But I’ve realized I feel better when I move and when I can prioritize 15-20 minutes for myself.

How have I done it? 

I’ve lowered the bar.

I’m not expecting to have mega-long, challenging workouts.

I just try to do something, and even if it’s only a jog around the block, I’m happy with it - not upset that I didn’t do more.

That’s been the key.

Justin Miner

@gain_sc

What a Dilemma

After seeing a preview of The Social Dilemma on Netflix, I didn’t want to watch it. 

I felt called out for my frequent social media use. Over the past couple years I really ramped up the time I was spending on it. After feeling attacked by the preview I started paying attention my compulsive phone checking, constant refreshing and how I was too frequently in search of a dopamine hit provided by a notification or distracting piece of content. 

I forced myself to watch the documentary and it was quite alarming. It’s all stuff we’be heard before. It’s designed for us to be addicted, always in search for more and more.

The implications are vast, and right then and there I deactivated my personal Instagram account.

I’m hoping that a break will help me reevaluate who and what I’m following, when and where I’m using my device and hopefully let me get a little more clued into when I’m using it compulsively.

And yes, it’s true, that means no more Elliot photos for a little bit, but he was at the heart of this decision. When I’m home, I want to be with him and enjoying him and not distracting myself.

From the business perspective, there’s utility in it for me. I’ll still be using Gain’s account to share, post and educate and I’ll still be working on my passion project, Gain Endurance.

I’m not gone forever, but needed to make a change. If you haven’t watched the film yet, I encourage you to do so.

Justin Miner

@gain_sc

Not Just the Shoulders

One of the reasons push ups, and various overhead pressing movements are so important might surprise you. 

It has nothing to do with building strength or gaining muscle.

It’s about getting your body to work better together.

On movements like a push up, overhead press or angled bar press, the shoulder blade must move with the shoulder. This is key to healthy, robust shoulders. When we do a floor press, or a bench press, our shoulder blades are “pinned,” meaning they aren’t moving in congruency with the shoulder joint itself. 

One isn’t better than the other. Rather, they’re both important in a strength and conditioning program. 

Other movements we want to see your shoulder blades moving include:

Sled marches (arms out straight allows this to happen, imagine it as an iso hold of the position I’m referring too, just like planks)

Wall balls

Medicine ball slams 

Medicine ball chest passes 

Anti-rotation presses

And we even want to see shoulder blades engaged on things like high and low planks - this shows us your shoulder is in the most stable position. When this doesn’t happen, we can see a winging happening where the scapula is poking out of your shirt.

Remember, it’s not just the shoulder, but all the other stuff that attaches to it as well. 

Justin Miner

@gain_sc

Gary shows us a solid high plank position here.

PushPress Goes Live Thursday

I just wanted to give one last reminder that we’re moving on from Mindbody starting on Thursday 10/1.

That means all payments and scheduling will take place through the new system.

If you haven’t added your credit card via the email from Gain, you need to do so ASAP to prevent any disruption in your membership.

If you have updated your credit card and personal info, you’re good to start booking sessions through the new app called PushPress Member’s Portal.

So far, people are liking the simplicity of the new app and I’m looking forward to easier payments and scheduling for us all.

In another note, you’ll notice your favorite times might be easier to get into.

We’ve upped the session capacity from 5 to 6 people. We’ll still be able to keep everyone physically distant and keep up with all the new protocols. We’re expecting our rack expansion any day now which will make things even better.

Justin Miner

@gain_sc

Slowing it Down with Tempo

You might have had some crazy slow squats in your program last week. The emphasis of the entire week for many of you was tempo.

When we program in tempo, or slow, controlled reps, we’re doing a few things.

First, we’re hoping to increase strength via time under tension. The more time your muscles and tissues are under load, the more stimulus they have to make adaptations. It’s feedback to the system that you’re ready for more.

On top of that, it’s all about motor control. Meaning, can you slow down and control your body? Your joints, your breathing, your balance and stability? When forced to slow down, you get exposed. You can speed through sticky spots, or places where you slightly lose your balance. This slower tempo demands more control from you, more focus.

The final reason is from a practicality standpoint. At some point, the weights you use might be enough. While it’s important to always chase more strength, we don’t always have to make things harder by adding more load. Slowing you way down can make the same weights much more challenging. Think of it as extending the effectiveness of the same load. 

Think of the runner who does the same route every day. They know exactly how long it’ll take them. After a while, it no longer becomes challenging for their system. They’re physiologically adapted to be really good at that route. Make them run with a friend one day and they might get cooked running faster than normal. 

If you were to do the same weight, same tempo, same rep scheme all the time, you’d get really good at squatting that weight. But as soon as you try to do more, it would be disproportionally difficult. Instead, a well-thought out strength and conditioning program varies the load, rep schemes, volume and tempo to allow you to always be challenging your physiology. 

Since we’re so good at adapting, we must modify some variables to maintain the right amount of stress on the system. 

Justin Miner

@gain_sc

My Foot Journey

I recently listened to a wonderful podcast all about the evolution and subsequent devolution of our feet.  In the episode, Dr. Peter Attia interviews Dr. Irene Davis, a researcher and expert in all things feet and running mechanics. I’m also on my third (or fourth) reading of Sapiens, which I can’t recommend enough. It’s a deep dive into the origin of humans. All of this of course, coincided with the birth of my son. This got me thinking about his development, and specifically, what kinds of footwear we’ll put him in as he’s growing up. Shoes have barely been around for most of human history when you stop and realize that we’ve been walking around on two feet for almost two million years. 

The podcast recommends minimalist footwear, more time barefoot, and staying away from maximally cushioned running shoes. Today, however, I want to share with you my foot journey and how I curated my healthy, resilient feet and why I’m not always so fast to recommend a minimalist shoe for everyone. 

It all started in 2010.

I was in college and I was spending the summer interning and training hard for the upcoming hockey season at a strength and conditioning gym.

One day, someone brought us in a copy of Born to Run. If you’re not familiar, McDougall’s book is a wonderful exploration of running mechanics and history of human beings using running to survive. 

I was anti-running at the time. I was bad at it, it always hurt and I found it incredibly boring. I did however appreciate the ancestral perspective of the book. Of how humans needed to run in order to track down game to eat. Something Harari talks about in Sapiens as well. Back then of course, there were no Nikes, no Hokas, no shoes at all. Just bare feet on earth. That made sense to me. I found it fascinating at how adaptable we were.

Throughout the book McDougall makes reference to a Vibram Five Finger shoe. 

Training barefoot was not a new idea to us at the gym. For years we had been doing our deadlifts in socks and squatting exclusively in Converse Chuck Taylor’s. We didn’t do it for health reasons though. We did it for performance. We knew that if our heel was on the ground, instead of raised up by a sneaker, we would transfer force better, and therefore lift more weight. 

Now, let me back up just a bit. 

While we were spending time training in the gym barefoot, my feet certainly were not in good condition. I had spent most of the past 18 or so years jamming my feet into hockey skates. My little toe had disappeared under my foot, and my three other toes had wedged themselves together. Like most other hockey players, I had developed bone spurs on my heels, aptly named Bauer bumps after a brand of skates. 

As I read McDougall’s case against modern footwear, I couldn’t help but feel singled out. His argument made sense to me. I needed to get myself a pair of these five finger shoes. 

If you’re not familiar, the Vibram Five Finger shoes are exactly what they sound like. A glove for your feet, if you will. Comprised mostly of neoprene, each toe has it’s own individual sleeve, forcing them to spread out. On the bottom is only a thin slice of rubber there to protect you from hot surfaces, but if you stepped on a small jagged rock, you would really feel it. 

After I found a pair, I did something unintentionally intelligent. I only wore them while coaching, probably just a few hours a day. My toes hurt and my arches were sore but I was committed to doing the natural human thing. I only wore them while coaching because they’re silly looking and they smelled really bad.

After a while I started deadlifting in them and then before I knew it I was doing all my training in them. 

Fast forward to that winter and I couldn’t stand putting them on they smelled so bad. It was just my luck that New Balance came out with the first shoe in their minimus line at the time. A new concept, this shoe was designed for strength and conditioning, had a wide toe box to let your toes spread, had no arch support, and had only a few millimeters difference between the heel and the toe of the shoe, something known as drop, which I had learned about in Born to Run. 

Since these looked like normal shoes, I wore them much more often than the five fingers. To my luck, my feet were ready to spend more time in this style of shoe since I had spent the summer building my tolerance.

Over the years, my toes continued to spread out, my bone spurs have completely disappeared and I try to exclusively wear minimalist shoes, which were barely a thing back when my journey started.

Nowadays, footwear is swinging the other way.

Its common to see maximally cushioned, high arch, high heeled shoes, and I think we’re missing the boat. Born to Run is to blame for this too. See, after the book, thousands of other people were inspired like me and went out to get themselves some five finger shoes. Runners everywhere ditched their traditional shoes and went right back to training with a less protective, much less forgiving shoe and all of a sudden, minimalist shoes had a bad reputation because so many of these people got injured.

As the shoe’s popularity was grew, Vibram did something stupid. They said their shoes will prevent injuries. They didn’t recommended starting slow, building your tolerance and not trying to do too much too soon. Remember when I said I did something unintentionally intelligent? That was starting slow, only wearing the shoes for 12-15 hours a week at first. I didn’t do any running in them and also worked on stretching, rolling and improving mobility in my feet and ankles. 

This led to a somewhat-famous lawsuit, which in my opinion is why maximalist shoes have now become so popular.

People wanted to throw these Five Finger shoes on and expected their running technique to transform into a fluid natural stride like the Tarahumara Indians in Born to Run. It’s not that simple though. Just like it took my feet years and years to start looking more like hockey skates than feet, it takes years of dedication to bring them back to a more natural state.

The reason I’m not too fast to recommend a minimalist style shoe nowadays is because I worry people will expect too much from them too soon. An ideal way to dip your toes in the water is to wear them just at the gym. They’re better to train in. Period. You’ll be more stable, have better balance and wearing them for 3-4 hours a week will slowly let you build up a tolerance to more barefoot time. If you’re a runner, it may take even longer since you’re not going to want to start over. I think running in a shoe your comfortable in while spending some time with shoes off when not running is a good start.

When you’re home, I recommend making sure you get some time with nothing on your feet and you’ve probably seen a lot of people walking around the gym in just their socks, another great way to start rebuilding your feet. 

The key point is that your feet were designed to be barefoot. Humans walked around with nothing down there for far longer than Nikes have been around. We’re really good at adapting, which is why it might take you a full year or two until you start feeling more comfortable in a more barefoot style shoe. Expecting too much from your feet is what gets people into trouble and, as I mentioned above, led to the pendulum swing of ultra cushioned shoes that do the exact opposite of what we need. 

Today, I still spend as much time in a minimalist shoe as possible. In the podcast, Dr. Irene Davis defines a minimalist shoe and something you can fold up and put in your pocket and has zero difference between the height of the heel and the height of the toe. I realize there’s utility in other shoes and don’t spend all my time in a zero drop shoes. My trail/mountain running shoes have a bit of a lift (4mm) and I even have a cushy pair for days on the trail when I’m feeling beat up. I wear 3/4 inch drop olympic lifting shoes when practicing my cleans and snatches and my everyday pair is a 2mm drop. 

In summary, your feet are important and jamming them into dress shoes, high heels and traditional sneakers with a 1 inch drop all will slowly deform your feet and transform them into something different. Remember, don’t drop your current footwear and go total minimalist yet. Start slow, a few hours a week is enough to build your strength and tolerance. If you play the long game with this I promise it’ll be worth it.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Squatting, Lunging and Hinging

What we do at Gain is functional, in that it’ll help you do normal life stuff not in the context of a gym with set rep schemes and nice evenly distributed weights like kettlebells. 

Hannah and I have gotten a first hand dose of how important that stuff really is after being home with the baby for a week. 

There are countless times I’ve found myself squatting, hinging and lunging. Either to pick up something up while holding the baby, picking him up out of the crib or carefully going about household chores with him in tow. 

I’m sharing this as a reminder of what we do in the gym is about so much more than just getting fit, or looking good or perform well. It’s about being about to tackle life without any restrictions and not letting your physical self hold you back. Remember that when you’re lacking motivation.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Goodbye Mindbody

The day has finally come to move on from Mindbody.

After years of headaches, missing class times, multiple profiles, members being unable to find Gain in the plethora of gyms, spin studios, doggie day cares and hair salons, we finally have a solution for all of us.

Our new system is call Push Press.

This switch will give you, the member, less headaches and will let us coaches focus on what we love doing; training you.

You will receive a few emails from Push Press starting today.

The first thing you'll have to do is update your credit card information. Use the link to be taken to a secure site so you can save your info.

Once you update your billing info, we'll get you set up on your plan. We'll be honoring all membership prices and billing dates. i.e., if you paid on 9/15 through MB, you won't be billed on Push Press until 10/15.

While you're updating your profile, please make sure your mailing address, phone number and all that good stuff are up to date too. You'll have to resign the waiver before booking your first session too.

Scheduling on Push Press will take effect on October 1.

NO CLASS TIMES BOOKED AFTER SEPT 30 THROUGH MINDBODY WILL BE HONORED.

Once you get your profile updated and create your password. You can download the Push Press Member Portal on your phone. After logging in, it may take a day or two until you're able to book a class, I need to manually update everyone's plan before it'll let you book. I'll be updating as quickly as I can, with the goal of having everyone up and running by the end of this week.

Next week may be a little chaotic, using MB for booking Monday-Wednesday and Push Press for Thursday and Friday. Please bare with us as we make this upgrade. The quicker your info gets updated, the easier it'll be for us all.

Details to Keep in Mind:

Rules are the same. Book before 6 hours, cancel within 2.

Waitlist rules are the same too. The first time you sign in for a waitlist you'll be asked if you want to be notified via text or email. You'll be able to make changes to your preference in your profile.

You'll be able to book classes out as far as you'd like.

Thank you all for you taking time out of your day to help us with this sizable transition.

The coaches and I really appreciate your help with this transition and are looking forward to easier scheduling for you all in the near future.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Reset

First things first. If you haven’t heard through the grapevine yet, Elliot was born a week ago on Monday September 14th.

We’re home, healthy and happy. I won’t be around the gym this week, I’m going to soak up as much time as possible with him and Hannah.

I wanted to use today as an opportunity to talk about training though, and how we, even in times of uncertainty and sleep deprivation need to take care of ourselves to enable us to help others.

I haven’t ran in 2 or 3 weeks. Honestly, the break has been nice and I haven’t missed it too much yet. Many people run to relive stress, but when the baby was going to show up at any moment I found it too difficult to drop everything and head to the woods. 

I still need movement though. I still need to sweat, breathe and get outside. So I’ve been prioritizing two things.

I’m walking with a goal of 15 thousand steps a day. Since we’ve been home with the baby I’ve been able to achieve this, or come close. All it takes is two walks. A medium-length and a long one, plus a lot of running around the house. 

The other things I’ve been doing is 5 minute workouts.

There are no expectations to these sessions. No goals, no warm up. Just pick two or three movements and get a couple of sets in.

This has been huge for me. I try to do it outside. 

The break. The sweat. The focus on my breathing and moving my body resets me and lets me get back to what’s important.

Remember, it gets hectic out there, and it’s all too easy to put yourself on the back burner. Every little bit helps, give yourself some time, even if it’s just a walk and a few sets of bodyweight squats.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Action Beats Inaction

Happy Monday.

A new week. Another chance to begin.

A fresh start.

Remember. Action beats inaction. Don’t wait. Start something today.

Do something that’ll create momentum for the rest of the week.

Keep it going.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Variability Produces Better Training Effect?

I saw an interesting article summary about training plyometrics on different surfaces. It has some interesting insights about creating variety within your training.

One group did their plyometric drills only on grass. The other group used different surfaces for their plyo training. Wood floors, rubber track surface, sand, etc. At the end, each group was tested on grass only.

Surprisingly, the multi-surface group tested better on the grass than the grass-specific group at the end of 8-weeks.

This provides an interesting insight about variability across similar exercises. The more I’ve been doing this, the less important I think specific exercises are. Instead, I think we need to train certain patterns frequently, and not necessarily specific exercises.

Take a lunge for example. I think it matters less if you do a forward lunge, walking lunge, reverse lunge or split squat. What matters is you hit that movement pattern on the regular. Maybe the actual exercise changes week to week while the pattern stays the same.

Powerlifters figured this out a long time ago and use different types of bars, bands and chains to create variability within the specific movements of their sport - squatting, bench pressing and deadlifting with a barbell.

I think we can all get too caught up in changing things and creating variety just for the sake of it. This however, provides some insights where slight variability across similar patterns can produce a more effective result.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Sensory Deprivation Chambers for Your Feet

Over the past few years I’ve heard a name come up from many coaches and physical therapists whom I respect. I finally went to relentless.com and ordered Phillip Beach’s Muscles and Meridians. Beach is a DO who specializes in the integrated way the body functions. Put another way, he looks at how everything works together to help us move, be stable and navigate the world.

I flipped through the pages this morning as I opened up the package and the first headline that caught my eye was this:

“Free your feet from the sensory deprivation chambers.”

Beach goes on to explain that by wearing shoes, for fashion opposed to function, has reduced our feet to a “jumble of oversensitive, delicate and disordered tissue.”

He makes the comparison of wearing a mouth guard over your teeth for 40 years. The bones would become misaligned and sensitive to normal function when you took it off.

Just this weekend I saw a friend's one and a half year old running around. I complimented his shoes, saying they looked nice and flat. The mother responded by saying she didn’t think there was enough arch support for him.

The point Beach is making, throughout the whole book, not just this small mention of feet, is that we’re an integrated system. Everything works together to function and move. Everything is there for a reason. Blocking the sensory information we can get from out feet has negative effects up the chain. 

The nerves that irrervate the bottoms of our feet are the same nerves that innervate the deep muscles of our pelvis and lower back. Spending most of our day in shoes that desensitize our feet can have negative impacts on our lower backs.

You don’t need to ditch your shoes all together. That’s not the point I’m making. I am however hoping to shed light on to the fact that we’re integrated. Our bodies don’t work in muscular groups like the bodybuilding training plans I started following when I was 15. We’re much more complex than that. 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

relentless.com

When I was an up and coming strength coach, I followed this guy named Jason Ferruggia.

At the time, he owed a warehouse-style gym, like Gain.

Ferruggia is covered in tattoos, and one always stuck out to me. On his forearm, in big letters he has the word, “relentless.”

I’ve been thinking about that word a lot lately as I’m figuring out how to run a business during a pandemic. It feels a lot like starting over, and when starting out, you’ve got to be relentless in your efforts.

Hannah and I were recently talking about the crazy sum of money Jeff Bezos has. It reminded me of a story I heard about him on Jay Ferruggia’s site back in the day.

Go to relentless.com

Go ahead, I’ll be here when you get back.

Yup. That’s real.

While the name was eventually changed to Amazon, way back in 1994, Bezos registered, and and still hangs on to relentless.com

He was committed to his idea and was willing to be relentless in his pursuit of excellence. This resilience is something we can all admire. Want to do something great? You better be willing to be relentless. 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain