Welcome to the GAIN Blog
The blog is updated Monday-Friday. Tune in for posts and discussion about health, fitness, nutrition, training experiments and reflection. We share articles, videos and more. We post the link to our Instagram story every day, make sure to follow along there to never miss a post.
Components of a Strength and Conditioning Program
Strength - Adaptation intended to improve force production. Usually between 2-8 reps, or 20-30 total repetitions. Rest 90 sec- 3 min between sets. Aim for the last two reps of your set to be challenging to get the most strength gains.
Power - A strength display with speed! Power is about generating as much speed in as little time. Power training comes in many contexts, medicine balls, olympic lifts, jumping and we can even focus on it with a barbell or kettlebell. We aim for 2-5 reps and multiple sets at the same intensity, i.e., don't slow down.
Hypertrophy - Muscle building sets. Higher rep ranges between 8-12 reps. We like these sets for joint and tendon health and getting the blood pumping. Less rest is required here compared to strength sets.
Muscular Endurance - Even higher rep ranges, 12+. Does what it sounds like, improves the ability for your muscles to keep doing the same thing. We'll expose you to high rep ranges like this within the context of conditioning with little to no rest.
Accessory/Assistance - Not necessarily something we need to strive for load/rep progression. Often times it is an exercise to help a main strength lift, like doing some DB floor presses after benching. Of course, this means accessory work is ALSO hypertrophy and/or muscular endurance, and/or even strength.
There is no clean line between these different rep ranges - the training effect will blur between them.
Skill - A component of all the above. Movement and awareness of your body is a skill. Specific technique of each exercise is a skill. Showing up to the gym and training consistently is a skill. Strength and conditioning gyms are skill factories, and if you learn how to learn new skills, you'll be unstoppable.
Mobility - You have the requisite range of motion to do something, which is how we define flexibility, and you also have the stability to display control there. Consistent exposure to valuable positions is the best way to improve mobility.
Conditioning - Creating adaptations using specific metabolic pathways intended to improve endurance and stamina at both moderate to low intensities and very high intensities.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Night Time Wind Down
I'm on a hot streak with my training, and have been for a while. In fact, I can quantify it; I've trained 89 times in the past 81 days.
There are a lot of factors playing into my streak.
Besides the new found discipline from becoming a father, I've redefined what I deem a successful workout doing (very) short sessions - really hammering the minimum effective dose idea. There's something else that deserves a lot of credit, and it starts with the night before.
I've written before about how doing the dishes at night got me started training early in the morning, but there's something else I've been doing after the dishes, and I'm here to tell you it makes all the difference between a productive day of training or going through the motions.
I warm up.
Not in the sense that I get sweaty, and start bouncing around and getting amped to train. The opposite in fact.
I do any soft tissue/mobility/restorative work in anticipation of what I'm going to do the next day. Planning on some pull ups, I'll spend a few minutes working on my forearms, elbows and lats. Deadlift session? I'll open up my hips and hamstrings. For running intervals, I'll give my calves some love and hang in the couch stretch.
This accomplishes a couple things. 1. It gets me mentally prepared for tomorrow's training and helps when I'm tired and don't feel like going into the cold garage at 5am, 2. It saves me from doing those things in the morning! Instead of rolling and stretching in the morning, I focus on getting sweaty and getting started.
If you're looking for a secret weapon to get more from your training, I can't recommend enough that you get on the floor and get some quality work in the night before.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Strength and Conditioning Can Help You:
Pick up grandkids
Feel athletic
Get into a routine
Start a new lifestyle
Get stronger
Do good push ups
Build confidence
Become healthier
Rebuild an injured area
Go skiing
Have more energy
Learn how to use barbells
Upgrade your cardio
Get better at running
Go for a long hike
Improve mobility
Have a baby
Gain muscle
Reverse bone loss
Be powerful
Climb the rope
Do pull ups and box jumps
Improve balance
Handle heavy grocery bags
Belong to a community
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Intervals, Some Examples
I love intervals. They're a fantastic way to upgrade your cardio routine. You'll get a better training effect from intervals opposed to steady state conditioning. Which does have its place, but won't be the focus of this post.
Here are a some of our go-to interval protocols, how you should feel and what we're trying to accomplish.
10 sec FAST / 50 sec EASY
Feel: Lung burner. Ten seconds is short, but you should be gasping for air by the end of the round. Push the pace past your comfort zone and hang on. During the easy, take it nice and slow and work on regulating your breathing.
Goal: Increasing high intensity time. By working really hard for that short burst, we're trying to improve our anaerobic energy system and get comfortable working at high outputs.
2 min FAST / 1 min EASY
Feel: Pacing. Twice as long on the on interval will force you to pace yourself. The short rest will limit how hard you can go. Aim for being able to speak a couple words at a time, maybe 6/10 effort. If you can speak in full sentences, you need to dig a little deeper.
Goal: Aerobic capacity. By working at a slightly faster than normal pace with a short rest, we're challenging your aerobic system. Imagine you do a 10 minute AirBike time trial and get 5500m. Let's say you're doing 5x2min/1min. That's 10 minutes of "work." Ideally, since you have the rest in-between, you will get further than 5500m if you add up your work intervals.
30 sec FAST / 30 sec SLOW
Feel: Sustainable. When doing 30/30's, you should feel in control the whole time. Keep in mind, everyone's fitness levels are different, but for the most part, 30/30's are a nice introduction to interval training. We want to elevate the heart rate/breathing just a bit during the ON, and work easy enough that we can down regulate during the slow 30 seconds.
Goal: Ease into longer conditioning sessions. For some, 10 minutes steady is too much at first, and this is a good way to build up to more intense interval options. For a more trained endurance athlete, this protocol serves as a nice low intensity interval, fluctuating your heart rate slightly without letting it get too high.
This scratches the surface of some intervals we use @gain_sc. I hope this gives you an idea of how each protocol should feel so you can get the most from your training.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Counting!
A sneaky high level strength and conditioning skill is counting your reps.
There are a lot of things to think of all at once. Screwing your feet to the floor, squeezing your butt, the weird exercise names, keeping your core engaged and on top of all that, you need to remember to breathe.
At first glance counting seems like just another annoying thing to occupy your mind. It isn't. In fact, not only will it make sure you get the proper dosage of reps, it'll actually help you do all those other things, too.
Counting forces you to be engaged. Ticking off each rep, 1,2,3,4... gives you an opportunity to check in on your form, and make sure you're doing all the aforementioned things like breathing and squeezing your butt. Each time you count, remind yourself to breathe, or squeeze or get your elbows up, or whatever the thing may be.
Like I mentioned, counting is high level. But don't just count, use counting as an opportunity to clean up your movement and be more engaged on with what you're doing.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Horizontal Pulling - An Unsung Hero
Horizontal pulling, or rowing, is the unsung hero of strength and conditioning. Deadlifts, squats, and its vertical pulling counterpart, the pull up, get all the glory.
Rowing variations support these iconic movements through building upper back strength, creating healthy shoulders and improving posture.
Whatever you're rowing, be it rings, a dumbbell, kettlebells, a barbell or even a band, keep these things in mind.
Squeeze! Squeeze the handle with your whole hand. Don't let it hang in your fingers.
Don't shrug. Keep those shoulders away from your ears!
Use your upper back, not just your arms. Slide those shoulder blades across your back.
Keep your hips square (especially with single arm pulling)
Most importantly, don't forget that all those ring rows, dumbbell rows and bent over rows are part of a well-rounded program and play an important role in busting PRs in the more glamorous lifts.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Defining Confidence
At Gain we help people feel strong, confident and independent.
The most important word there is confidence. Without that, the other words don't mean nearly as much.
We define having confidence as knowing you're capable of your best effort regardless of the circumstances.
Strength and conditioning teaches you to trust your body. You learn its limits by touching the edge with good training.
Controlled exposure of adversity, problem solving and uncertainty in the gym creates the opportunity for you to give your best away from the gym.
Life might not look like deadlifts, AirBike sprints and lunges, but knowing you're capable of those things will allow you give your best effort on any task you desire.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Infinite Game
There is no winning fitness.
There will be no moment of arrival.
There won't be a point you can stop.
You just need to keep playing.
Chess, hockey and football are all finite games. They have rules. A start and an end. Clear winners and losers.
In fitness, business and life, however, there are no rules. There is no clear finish line.
You can keep playing though. And that's how you win; staying in the game.
But what about the races I train for? What about my goal to lose 10 pounds? What about my Whole 30?
"Finite games can be played within an infinite game, but an infinite game cannot be played within a finite game. Infinite players regard their wins and losses in whatever finite games they play as but moments in continuing play."
- James P. Carse, Finite and Infinite Games
You've got to play the long game. It's the only way to be successful and keep playing. Maybe it looks different over time, or you have different goals [finite games] that motivate you and get you in the door. But the game is always there. There's no destination.
I hope this perspective doesn't overwhelm you. Instead, I hope it brings you relief. There is no rush. No need to hurry to the finish line. To end on a cliche, it's the journey not the destination. Keep yourself in play.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Muscle Contractions
Imagine yourself in the gym squatting. Not just that, you have to lower the weight down for 3 seconds, pause for 3 sec on the bottom, try to explode out of the hole, and then pause at the top for 1 sec.
We call that a 33X1 tempo. Each character corresponds to a specific task our muscles are performing. Tempos use muscle contractions to elicit a better training effect.
There are 3 types of muscles contractions, and we use them all when we're navigating life and training.
Concentric
When the muscles shorten under load. Standing up from a squat or pushing from the bottom of a push up. For a dumbbell row, the concentric contraction happens as you bring the DB towards your torso, since the muscles are shortening to get it there.
Eccentric
When the muscles are lengthening under load. Lowering portion of squat, bringing a barbell down to your chest on a bench press, and lowering a pull up are all eccentric contractions. We're typically stronger during the eccentric phase than concentric. If you've ever gotten pinned by a bench press after lowering the bar down, but just didn't have any juice to get it up, that's why.
Isometric
During an isometric contraction the force produced by the muscles is equal to the load, so nothing moves. Iso holds work on strength in a specific range of motion and stability.
Back to our 33X1 squat example.
The first number is the eccentric portion. Three sec to lower. This allows us to build in more time under load. Since you're stronger with eccentric contractions, we can drag them out to promote muscle growth and strength adaptations.
The next 3 sec is an isometric hold. After lowering the weight, you'll pause, maintaining that contraction for 3 sec. This gives you a chance to work on range of motion by maintaining proper position on the bottom and will further challenge your strength.
The X part is our concentric contraction. During this muscle shortening phase, we want to try to move as explosively as possible. This will ensure we are recruiting many muscle fibers, and therefore will reinforce strength gains.
The final number is simply an isometric hold at the top portion of the lift. It's rare this number is more than a 1.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
What's a Snatch
There's a sport called weightlifting. The athletes perform two lifts. One of them is called a snatch.
The snatch is highly complex though the goal is simple, get the barbell from the floor to overhead in one motion.
At Gain, we distill from best practices. Through solving the problem of how to get the most weight overhead from the ground, these athletes have taught us valuable lessons on how to train power, strength and coordination.
Due to its complexity and learning curve, most people don't need to snatch a barbell. It falls into the risk vs reward category for me as a coach. Only the dedicated should take on the challenge. However, many people can easily learn a snatch variation with a dumbbell (or kettlebell) and the benefits are practically the same.
Dumbbell snatches provide us with:
Learning to drive our hips forward by pushing our feet down (aka how to jump)
Proper landing mechanics
Pulling
Transferring force from lower body to upper body
Stabilizing
It demands coordination, timing and concentration.
It will develop explosiveness, strength, skill and transferability to other athletic movements and scenarios.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Work Capacity
When I was shoveling last night I couldn't believe my back didn't hurt like it would have several years ago. Not from shoveling, but from running and deadlifting and shoveling on the same day. I hadn't even realized I made the pairing till I was almost done. It felt good that it didn't matter. My body could handle it.
A simple definition of strength and conditioning is a training program intended to improve your work capacity.
Work capacity is how much effort you can expend over a certain time period. Basically, much can you do?
Work capacity is broad. It scales. We can think of it over an 8 minute density workout in the gym (an AMRAP), or over 60 minutes while shoveling, or even over an entire week. Work capacity not only reflects how much you can do, but how well you can recover.
To use the shoveling example, shoveling is short bursts of exertion (scoop, lift, carry) followed by an aerobic recovery (walking back to prepare for the next scoop). A strength and conditioning workout at Gain is designed to improve your work capacity. Rather, it's a well-desired side effect of programming for improved strength, better movement quality and more endurance.
A typical pairing we use is lift something kind of challenging, do a bodyweight movement, do a core movement or some mobility. Repeat 3-8 times. That improves your ability to show strength (through quality of posture/movement) over time. We can even look at it within different contexts. The time it took to do the pairing, 10 minutes, and within the context of the whole session, 60 minutes. Therefore not only does the specific thing that each of those exercises and pairings are intended for improve, but also your ability to keep expending effort over that duration.
Work capacity is a very basic, and measurable way to generalize how we train. Doing more work in less time has endless carryover to life. Dare I say it's even functional.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Praise for the EMOM
The first time I ever heard of the concept Every Minute On the Minute I was jumping rope. We did a certain number of jumps each time big hand hit the 12 on the wall clock.
Little did I know back in 2009 that the EMOM would become an effective and efficient training tool I still use to this day.
Through my experiences with a variety of training modalities, I've used an EMOM in countless contexts.
Greasing the groove and building density while learning kettlebells, dynamic effort speed work for powerlifting, interval workouts for ultra marathons, honing technique and building volume for Olympic weightlifting or even for building muscle and strength. It can be time efficient and skill driven. Which as a coach, I appreciate.
When creating an EMOM, I first want to identity the goal stimulus. This can be anything. Technique practice, speed work, volume and conditioning are the usual cases for us at Gain, and maybe even sometimes we're tackling all those at once.
Once that's taken care of, we can pick the exercise. Total body, compound lifts are best. Squats, swings, deadlifts, overhead press variations or the Olympic lifts work well.
From there, I determine how many total reps would be appropriate for the desired outcome.
Let's say, for example, you've been goblet squatting 5 sets of 8 repetitions for the past several weeks.
For your next workout you EMOM 10, 5 goblet squats.
We're automatically increasing the volume (how many total reps), the density (total reps within a time period), we get fixed practice of squats (I.e., you don't have to concentrate on anything else) and you get a side dish of conditioning because after 4-5 rounds, not only will your legs be burning, your heart will be pounding too.
The following week we can easily increase the volume by adding a couple minutes to the EMOM.
It's a sneaky way to build serious fitness.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Start Small.... No Smaller
Most professions have that thing people always ask them or tell them. Being in the fitness industry means everyone justifies what they’re eating to me and tells me about how they’re going to start getting after it.
When a prospective client at the gym tells me they want to train 5 times per week, I’m skeptical of their dedication.
Do they know how hard it is to show up every single day?
Can they deal with the soreness, the mundane routine, and and doing it on all the days they don’t want to, or can’t make it?
Usually people need to set the bar lower. They need to back off their overzealous ideas of exercise and create an easier routine first. They need to accumulate the discipline required to train 5 days a week by showing up for 2 days a week for 3 months before jumping straight to 5.
When it comes down to it, you need the discipline to keep doing the same thing over and over and over. When you're able to let the system to run its course, strength and conditioning works. If you're on and off the training bus though, it can seem like nothing ever works.
I'm here to tell you it does work, you just need to stick with it. Set yourself up for success by setting the bar lower than you think it should be.
Want to eat healthier? Start with breakfast
Want to run more? Start with 1 run.
Want to lift and spin? Do one of each a week.
Need to stretch more? Start with 1 stretch 1 minute a day.
Want to journal? Write 1 sentence.
Don't let the perfect plan stand in your way. Start small. Then go even smaller and prove to yourself you've got it before adding more.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Upgrade Your Kettlebell Swing
Use these 3 tips to make sure you’re getting the most of your kettlebell swing.
1. Exhale at the top
Breathe in when the kettlebell falls, and use a sharp exhale at the top while squeezing the handle, your butt and your belly.
2. Break the handle
Speaking of squeezing the handle. At the top, squeeze hard and twist your pinkies down. You'll feel it from your wrists to your shoulders, arm pits and upper back. As you breathe in on the way down, you can briefly relax you grip before the next rep. Be sure to be tight when the kb falls between your legs though.
3. Spread the floor
But not too much. Screw your feet into the ground to create tension and stability. When the kettlebell falls, push your knees apart from one another ever so slightly. Don't go so much you're on the outside of your feet though. Keep your toes on the ground and push through your mid foot as you snap the kettlebell to the top.
The All Day Workout
My friends and I once had a month long pull up contest to see who could accumulate the most reps in the month.
It quickly got competitive.
It was clear that doing pull ups throughout an hour long gym session wasn’t going to get you the win.
We all got doorway pull up bars and started doing reps whenever we could get a chance.
After a couple weeks of doing frequent, sub maximum effort sets, I noticed a couple things.
We could get a ton of training in without it feeling like a workout. And, we could still get a regular workout in if we wanted since we didn't need to use our training time for only pull ups.
Not only that, but once a week or so when I would test my max reps in a row, it always got better.
Since then, I've become a big fan of "all day" workouts.
Things like pull ups, bodyweight squats, push ups, and pretty much anything with a kettlebell are perfect for this. Legendary strength coach, Pavel, calls this greasing the groove. Many sets of sub maximal reps to avoid failure and hone in the skill of the movement.
While it doesn't feel like a big stimulus while you're doing it, it's easy to accumulate big reps and get a huge adaptation.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
