That Time I Got Pinned

After I got my license, I started driving myself to the gym everyday after school.

Great Bay Athletic Club was never overcrowded at 3pm like it would be in a couple hours. Besides me, there were afternoon regulars. A couple of old-school bodybuilders with thick training logs and the trademark thin and low tank top, a pair of older kids from my high school and my lifting buddies. I had just gotten into working out. I wanted to be a better hockey player but mostly, I wanted to look good.

In the strength world, it’s a right of passage to do something with 135 pounds. The barbell itself weighs 45 pounds, and before bumper plates we common, the only large diameter plates were metal 45 pound plates.

On this afternoon I was the only person there, none of the weekday usuals were around. I went on to do my typical warm up. Shot some free throws on the basketball court, worked on striking the speed bag, and a mainstay in warm ups at the time, arm circles with 2.5 pound plates.

This meant I was going to bench press. It's what all the stronger guys in the gym did before they benched, and that was pretty much what most people here did, bench press.  I got my program from Flex magazine. A true bodybuilding split-style. Chest, shoulder, triceps twice a week, back and biceps twice a week and two lower body days. One dedicated to hamstrings and glutes, the other was quads and calves.

The program, my first introduction to progressive overload, decreased reps each week, intended to make you use heavier weights. Towards the end of the program, I was down to 4 reps for my main exercise of the day.

I continued the customary warm up, 10 reps with the bar, small 10 pound plates on each side, 10 reps there. I remember looking around, surprised none of my friends had shown up or at least the bodybuilder who always wore zebra print pants. I swapped out the 10’s for the stout 25’s. The reps there felt good enough that I put the 35 pound plates on the bar, now equalling 115 pounds. 

The reps were good, and I rested a while. Eager to become strong I loaded up the bar with status, 135 pounds. I walked around in my Nike Shocks, obligatory homemade tank top and basketball shorts. I was going to get it, for the first time. 

If you’ve been lifting for a while, you know if you can get the weight as soon as it leaves the rack. I hadn’t had nearly enough reps to know there was no chance I could get this barbell of my chest. I lowered it under control, using what I thought was good technique. 

When the bar touched down, I stopped thinking about lowering the weight and pushed with all my might. The bar started lifting, gaining a bit of speed, then dropped onto my chest. My right leg kicked out when it landed. I was pinned. No one was around. Embarrassed, I wiggled, grunted and heaved, trying anything to get out.  I couldn’t budge the bar.

Finally, some guy walked down the hallway from the locker room on the the gym floor. Immediately he noticed me on the bench. Several minutes into my predicament, I was just laying there, hoping for rescue. He ran over, lifted the bar off my chest and asked if I was okay. Instead of lecturing me, which I’m sure would have resulted in me abandoning the whole gym thing due to embarrassment, he said it happens, don’t worry about it, and went on his way to the cardio theater.

That wasn’t the last time I would get pinned, but it would be the last time I did it without a spotter. I kept working my bench press too, eventually, building to the point where 135 pounds was an acceptable warm up weight.

I’ve been reflecting a lot on how I got started working out, and how I was able to instill this important habit into myself at a young age. Looking back, I’m thankful that guy was nice, and didn’t scare me away from the gym. To whomever you were, thanks for the help.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

How Long Can You Go?

Here’s a simple breathing drill I sometimes use in the morning to get ready for the day.

It starts out hard, but get better with each breath.

Inhale for 6 seconds, exhale for 6 seconds. I first heard of this protocol in James Nestor’s book, Breath.

Try it today. Notice how starts, and how easy it becomes after a few big deep breaths in with sound mechanics.

Can you make it 5 minutes?

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Tomorrow Night!

Join me, the GAIN coaches and the GAIN community on Friday evening at 4:30pm for at Liar’s Bench Beer Co. They (obviously) serve beer and have some food available as well.

We’re looking forward to a fun evening of hanging out with you all!

Please note the 5:30pm class has been cancelled on Friday.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Irradiation

I first heard the term muscle irradiation in college when reading Russian kettlebell master Pavel Tsatsouline’s book, Enter the Kettlebell. This book was much more than a kettlebell tutorial, but through Pavel’s writing, I actually learned how to be strong. Like how to use your feet when pressing a kettlebell overhead, RKC Planks and what muscle irradiation is.

Sherrington’s Law of Irradiation states:

“A muscle working hard recruits the neighboring muscles, and if they are already part of the action, it amplifies their strength.The neural impulses emitted by the contracting muscle reach other muscles and ‘turn them on’ as an electric current starts a motor.”

In less words, turning muscles on can help turn other muscles aid in the work.

It’s really fascinating. By doing nothing differently, creating more tension throughout your body can have you lifting more weights. This can take novice lifters some time to learn.

Want to see muscle irradiation in action?

Stand up and squeeze your glutes. Now, while squeezing your glutes, make your hands into tight fists and squeeze them as well. You’ll notice the glute contraction gets increased from squeezing your hands.

The simplest way to get the most of out muscle irradiation is to squeeze whatever you’re holding more. Squeeze the barbell, the dumbbell or kettlebell more than normal and you’ll notice the muscles through your forearm and into your shoulder turn on to help move and stabilize. Imagine trying to melt the handle with your fist.

If you’re only holding a weight on one side, try squeezing the opposite hand into a tight fist and feel the stability kick in.

Muscle irradiation, and understanding how to create more tension and stability will upgrade your workouts and your movement quality.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Strength & Conditioning Basics

Strength

Adaptation intended to improve force production. Between 2-8 reps per set, 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

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 blurs 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.

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

Kicking Off a GAIN Summer

This weekend marks the unofficial start of summer, I have two key dates for you.

On Monday the 29th, Memorial Day, the gym is open from 8:30am-11:00am for anyone who wants to give “Murph” a shot. You can reserve your spot under “Events” in the PushPress App. No running skills, push up skills or pull uo skill required.

With a much anticipated return, on Friday June 2nd, we’re kicking off summer with a GAIN gathering at Liar’s Bench Beer Co. at 4:30pm

Get involved!

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Curl It

Originally posted 5/24/21

Curls for healthy elbows, not just big biceps.

I can quantify my development as a coach by how many things I change my mind on. The field is constantly evolving, and there are so many things that work, it's easy to get stuck in your ways and forget to question your own assumptions.

One of those assumptions I've recently flipped on was that curls were a waste of time.

I figured our time in the gym is precious and therefore, we shouldn't spend any time on single-joint isolation movements when we could instead use that time to do functional, multi-joint compound movements.

But for the past 18 months, we've been adding in more and more curls to our programming repertoire.

Why?

We realized we were missing some big gains in terms of building tissue tolerance, perfusing tendons and ligaments, and doing more targeted muscle building.

In other words, some occasional curls will help keep your elbows and forearms healthy, which is our main reason for giving them some love. Secondly, there's a nice side effect of getting more jacked.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Time Scale and Mediocre Workouts

Don’t forget, mediocre workouts over a long enough time frame has massive benefits. Especially when compared to zero workouts over the same time frame.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Macro Talk, Pt. 4, No Bars

I’ve been macro tracking for 6 weeks now. I never thought I would continue for this long, but it has become easy to do, and has been fun to play around with my nutrition. Two weeks ago I realized I was relying heavily on bars to hit my daily macronutrients. While there’s nothing particularly wrong about eating bars, it felt a bit excessive and I wondered, could I hit the same macros without a bars? How would I adjust? Here’s exactly what I did to eliminate one of these daily bars.

The first bar I was having each day was a Perfect Bar. They’re soft, peanut buttery and filling. An excellent companion to a mid morning coffee, sandwiched between first and second breakfast. First breakfast is at 7am, homemade egg muffins (think Starbucks egg bites) and second breakfast is oatmeal at the gym between 10-11am.

To eliminate this bar, I increased the size of my first breakfast and second breakfast. I upped the amount of oats by 15 grams and added a banana. I changed the recipe for my egg muffins to include more eggs and cottage cheese in order to make up the missing 20 grams of protein from the bar.

A couple weeks later this simple change is still going strong. The bigger issue I was having, and the reason for this bar in the first place, was that I was hungry after finishing my breakfast. Making my meals slightly bigger is having an impact on fueling for the rest of the day. It’s a simply change, without tracking and seeing the actual numbers, I wouldn’t have been able to make this adjustment.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Weight Vest

Some of you have mentioned wanting to try Murph with the weight vest on this year. This adds an additional layer of difficulty to this already brutal challenge. For the few excited for a new challenge, here are some things to consider.

Have you done Murph without a weight vest yet?

Can you do a set of 10 pull ups, any day of the week?

Can you rip out 100 push ups, no problem?

Have you run at least a handful of times in the past three months? Any of those times with a weight vest?

If you can check off those boxes and are ready for a tough challenge, give it a shot!

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Functional

There are a few words in the fitness industry that have been used so much they've lost their meaning. Some that come to mind: core, HIIT, Tabata and perhaps the most offensive, and one that I use often; functional.

Today, I'm going to provide the definition of functional as we use it at GAIN. And it has nothing to do with balance boards, Bosu balls or complicated kettlebell flows that are choreographed.

Functional fitness is having the ability to do a wide range of physical demands with ease.

The broad goal of all our programs is to help people feel confident and navigate life more easily. We use basic human shapes like squatting, hinging, pushing and pulling to create robust movement patterns that help outside the gym.

You may not jump on boxes, lift symmetrically loaded barbells over your head or climb a rope in real life. But you will need to move a couch, react quickly, move fast, get up from the floor and be generally useful.

Getting stronger and better at these movements have a direct carryover to your performance and function outside of the gym. Therefore, strength and conditioning is functional because it will help you do a wide variety of physical tasks with confidence and without hesitation.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Memorial Day at GAIN

Last year, for the first time, we hosted the workout “Murph” on Memorial Day and will be doing the same this year.

Mark your calendar:

Monday May 29th

8:30am-11:00am, start any time, finish by 11:00am.

Reserve on PushPress (UNDER EVENTS, not classes).

*does NOT count toward check-in limit for limited memberships

If you’re unfamiliar or could use a refresher, Navy Lieutenant Michael Murphy was killed in action in Afghanistan on June 28th, 2005. It has become tradition in gyms across the country to perform a favorite workout of his on Memorial Day to honor him, and all the others who served and lost their life.

The workout is both simple and extremely challenging. Like always, we will be scaling the movements and reps to make sure you’ll get a workout that can both honor those who served and give you a good workout sweat that is appropriate.

Whether that is the full workout or a modified version (examples below) with barbell push ups, walking or biking and ring rows. Some others have asked to do a different hero workout of their choice, and that is encouraged as well.

“Murph”

1 mile run

100 pull ups

200 push ups

300 squats

1 mile run

*partition reps of pull ups, push ups, squats as needed. i.e., 20 rounds of 5 pull ups or ring rows, 10 push ups and 15 squats.

Modified Version

walk 1 mile or bike 5000m

10 rounds of:

10 ring rows

10 push ups

15 bw squats

walk 1 mile or bike 500m

Modified version 2

Half Murph

800m run

10 rounds

5 pull ups or ring rows

10 push ups

15 squats

800mrun

I’m looking forward to a fun morning at the gym. Let us know if you have any questions!

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

Use a sharp exhale at the top while squeezing the handle, your butt and your belly. Breathe in while the kettlebell falls.

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. On the way down, briefly relax you grip before the next rep.

3. Spread the floor

But not too much. Screw your feet into the ground to create tension. 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. Keep your toes on the ground and push through your mid foot as you snap the kettlebell to the top.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Moving Dirt

There’s a big white flag in the gym depicting a shovel and a spoon.

It represents a powerful saying about training.

It was introduced to me years ago by former NFL player and strength training enthusiast, John Welbourn. His quote reads, “Training is like moving a pile of dirt. Some days you move a shovel full, other days you move just a spoonful. Either way, if you moved some dirt, you’re headed in the right direction.”

Not all training sessions will be heroic, so long as you moved some dirt, you accomplished something.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Not How Much, How Well

The bench press is a staple of weight rooms and gyms all over the world.

Too often it’s described as a meathead exercise reserved for bodybuilders. When performed with proper grip and tension, packed shoulders blades, a slight arch, and the correct bar path, its legitimacy as the best upper body strength builder is unmatched.

It’s not how much you can bench, but how well you can.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Muscle Memory

After correcting someone’s goblet squat this week, they proclaimed, “How did I forget that, isn’t muscle memory a thing?” 

Did you play sports growing up? If you played for a while, you may be able to close your eyes and think about exactly how everything of a certain movement felt. I spent hours as a kid shooting hockey pucks against the basement wall. I can think back and imagine exactly how the stick blade felt as it dragged across the cement floor. How I shifted my weight into my right hip so my right arm could lean on the stick, creating a bend that snapped the stick straight; propelling the puck ahead as I guided it wherever I wanted it by pointing the stick with my right arm.

I can imagine how softly catching and absorbing a pass feels, I still know what the timing is to take a mega slap shot - even though I haven’t done these things for years. It’s not muscle memory either, it’s your nervous system. After we practice a task so much, we commonly say it has become muscle memory, but really it’s the nervous system becoming efficient at the task.

Taking it back to a goblet squat. You’ll need to remind yourself of some of the more nuanced cues to clean up your squat or other more complex movements in the gym. It takes a lot of reps until you won’t have to concentrate on sitting back, pushing your knees out and maintaining weight on your mid foot. Just like it took me years and years to master a solid snap shot, it’s going to take a while for your muscle memory to take over your movement, and until that happens, try to notice how each and every rep feels.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Quote of the Week

I saw this quote on the Instagram from author and coach Steve Magness and had to share it. It echos one of our core values; consistency and moderation over intensity, be strategic not heroic.

Consistency compounds. Small steps repeated over time lead to big gains. Don’t aim to be consistently great. Aim to be great at being consistent.- Steve Magness

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Training Notebooks

Like most of you, I track my workouts digitally using TrueCoach.

The other morning, Hannah came into the garage with a brand new notebook.  She had filled another notebook with handwritten workouts. Something about that made me envious, and I longed for the days when I tracked my workouts with notebook and pen.

I started a training log when I was 16. All the bodybuilding magazines I was reading emphasized the importance of keeping track of your training to measure progress, and have a detailed history of what worked and what didn’t. A few years later, when I got my first coach and joined a strength and conditioning gym, I was handed a notebook and told to write everything down in it.

When the same squat, bench, clean or deadlift workout would come around, me and my lifting group would flip back through our notebooks to check our numbers from last time. We would try to beat the previous weight every single workout.

I continued logging workouts this way on and off throughout college and even tried a couple times in the early days of GAIN. I could never get back in the groove though, and maybe from writing them down so many times, I usually keep track of all the important numbers in my head.

Anyway, the point I’m getting to is that writing your workouts down in a notebook is really powerful. It connects you to your training in a unique way. It helps you learn your numbers, recognize patterns and be more progressed focused. Perhaps the reason I stopped writing my workouts down is there was always too much focus on progress, and getting bigger numbers. That tenacity is useful, but for periods of time, not permanently.

If you’ve got a race, or want to lock in a new consistency habit this summer, consider a training log to get more connected with your workouts.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

I'm Doing It!

I’m doing it I’m doing it!!!!

*An actual thought while running intervals recently.

Being smooth and efficient is hard. Occasionally, while running you can hit this sweet spot. Falling forward feels effortless and the body is properly aligned. Everything feels right. Effortless. Then it’s gone, and you try to find it again and again.

Technique is always a work in progress. At least, if you keep that mindset you can always strive to get a little better each time.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Barefoot Summer

The nice weather this past weekend had me hanging out barefoot in the yard. Join me this summer in prioritizing time without shoes and socks. Let your feet, and all the connective tissue, bones and musculature, work like they’re supposed to without sensory depravation chambers (shoes) lashed to them.

If you want to log some barefoot time, here are a couple tips. Despite seeming so simple, if you have’t been exposed to this for a long time, tread cautiously and build up over time. I wear minimalist shoes year round and am extremely particular of what I’ll put on my feet. That being said, I still only spent 10-15 minutes completely barefoot outside yesterday.

During daily life I always walk on hard, flat surfaces, like at the gym. There’s no variety, different textures or really too much of anything going on for my feet. When I’m hanging around barefoot, I’ll try to walk or even just stand on crushed stone, brick pavers, grass, gravel, big rocks and asphalt. All these different textures are unique stimuli and exposure for my feet that they don’t get most of the year.

If you want to be barefoot because you think it’ll be helpful for the rest of your body, you should already be considering what shoes you’re wearing as your daily driver. If you’re wearing ultra supportive, maximalist cushioning, and you want to be barefoot more, I would start with wearing a more stripped down daily shoe to get your heel closer to the ground, and start getting some feedback from your feet.

Don’t forget to roll out your feet with a ball. You can manipulate just the right pressure with a hard ball to those arches to help your feel start feeling like the powerful springs they are. You can stretch your toes with your hands as well.

Strengthen your feet, and make your body become more robust by logging plenty of barefoot time this summer.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain