Your Decathlon

I’ve written before about Peter Attia’s idea of training for the Centenarian Olympics - specifically designing your training plan and goals to hedge your bet on having physical capabilities for the last decade of your life.

Peter now is referring to this as the Centenarian Decathlon and I think it’s a better name, which is more descriptive of this idea. You can learn more about this and the specific items on hIs list on this recent podcast. The idea is to have a list of physical tasks that you want to be able to do, or specific gym tasks that you want to continue doing for the years to come.

Included on Peter’s list are things like, being able to pick up and goblet squat a 35 pound kettlebell, so he would know he has the strength and mobility to pick a baby out of a crib.

How about covering 3 miles on foot within 3 hours. If you’re reading this, chances are a 20 minute mile is palpable for you right now. What about when you’re 80? And that’s the point, even if it feels silly now, it’s helpful to spend some time thinking, what do I want to be able to do?

Other items on Peter’s list include performing a one minute farmers carry with body weight, a sit to rise standard, and a couple of physical tasks involving stairs.

Even if your terminal decade is off in the distance, start thinking now about how you can train to maintain your physical capabilities in the future.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Strong Side

Will my [insert non dominant hand] ever be as strong as my other side?

I don’t think so. I also don’t think it’s an issue of strength, rather, it’s an issue of coordination and control.

Consider all the daily tasks you can do with finesse. Whisking eggs and throwing a frisbee, smoothly dragging butter across your toast and the classic example, bushing your teeth. These are all skills that rely heavily on our dominant hand.

Through years of practice these skills feel easy. Our nervous system has these fine movements tightly wired for precision and accuracy.

Sure, getting stronger will help. Lifting teaches you how to create tension and stability, you need it to in order to move the weight. Simultaneously, the nerves engrain the movements and you become more skilled as your motor control improves.

So as we grease the groove and feed our bodies good movement stimulus in the gym, hopefully our non dominant side's reliance improves. If we’re going to keep living in our modern world though, it’ll be tough to balance out all the potential imbalances we encounter in daily life.

Through my experience in the gym, It’s better to understand it, accept it, and continue to focus on moving well and building strength, stability and control.

Your off side may always feel different when one arm pressing, but I’m not convinced that means it’s weaker.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Progress Without Numbers

Quantifying gains can be a little frustrating. Seeing a scale number go down, or weight on the bar go up isn't the only way you can track your fitness progress though. Some markers of progress are difficult to quantify, and therefore often go unnoticed by gym-goers everywhere.

1. Energy

What's your energy level like first thing in the morning? Notice yourself jumping out of bed or feeling a little less groggy? Don't chalk it up to coincidence, exercise will help you feel more ready to take on each day.

2. Sleep

Many newbies are surprised to find themselves crashing hard at night after starting a new strength and conditioning routine. Through training, you're burning up more of your daily life battery, which leads to better, more restful Z's.

3. Confidence

When you realize you weren't intimidated by the heavy grocery bags, the spontaneous hiking trip invite or casually moved a dozen awkward shaped boxes into the basement. Thank your new found physical confidence.

4. Less Creaky

Several years ago I was playing ping pong with a friend. I ran after a stray ball and quickly bent over to grab it before it rolled under a table. I realized then and there that my mobility work had been paying off. Normally, a rapid duck and reach would seize my lower back up for 4 days. That time, the only thing I noticed was the lack of pain. You'll notice the same thing, but it will take a while. Getting out of the car, going up stairs and other daily tasks become easier as you get stronger.

5. Snowball Effect

Your exercise routine can be a keystone habit - a habit that encourages other more positive choices. By exercising on the regular, you're more likely to walk more, make more conscious food choices, drink more water and appreciate your physical self.

Playing the long game is tough, especially when you feel like you're not making any progress. If you ever find yourself in that boat, which you will, remember, there are other progress markers that are difficult to quantify. And just because we can't assign a number to it shouldn't erase its importance.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

How to Make Weight Jumps for a PR

Nothing is worse than planning to hit a big PR in the gym, and instead you fry yourself on the build up to the goal weight. There is a fine line between doing enough work to actually get warmed up, and managing fatigue so you feel fresh when you get there.

Here are some basic rules to follow when trying to ring the PR bell.

• Do the minimum amount of work to get there, i.e., don’t do all sets of 10 working up to a 3 rep max.

• When in doubt, spend more time with just the bar. I’ll typically do AT LEAST 50 empty bar reps when warming up for a heavy back squat.

• Keep the weight jumps the same, or smaller, as you get heavier Even if this makes plate math more difficult.

• Minimize attempts over 90% of your best to just 3 lifts. Managing CNS fatigue is just as important as having strong muscles to hit a big lift.

• Rest 3-4 minutes between all sets. Seriously.

Here’s an example of someone’s build up to hit a 200 pound squat.

2x10 @ 45 LBS

1x8 @ 95

1x6 @ 115

1x4 @ 135

1x3 @ 155

1x3 @ 175

1x1 @ 185

1x1 @ 195

1x1 @ 200

1x1 @ 205*

*adding in a fourth single above 90% is usually a sign that you’re having a good day.

While these aren’t hard, fast rules that will apply to all of you, for all of your PR attempts. I hope they can be used as guardrail to help guide your weight selection. The ability to plan out a big lift attempt is an important skill for all seasoned lifters.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Back On

The holiday weekend has my brain feeling hazy. What day is it? Is it still raining? What am I doing today?

It’s easy to go haywire when our routines and schedules are thrown off. We like routines and simplicity and to know what’s coming next, at least I do.

When there’s a holiday, and kid schedule changes, and work schedule changes and all of those types of things happening all at once, I fall back on a few principles and habits to get the most from a non-typical day. These things are simple, but they set me up for success on days when I need it.

Water and electrolytes. I make sure to get these first thing in the morning.

Prepare my food. All of my meals are accounted for today, already. That way there’s no decisions that need to be made.

Steps. Nothing makes a day better than hitting a good step number.

Move with intention. I want to workout today, but on busy days it can’t always happen. What I will find time to do is move with intention. I’ll roll or stretch or mobilize or practice something, at least.

If you’re getting back to business today, or you’ve got a few more days of a summer break, find a handful of things that can help ground you, and point you in the right direction when you need a nudge.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

How Low Should You Squat?

My answer may surprise you.... It depends!

Trying to set a powerlifting world record? You should probably know what the required depth is and be sure to uphold that standard.

At GAIN, we have a simple standard for squat depth, and it can change each and every day for each person.

Your should squat as low as possible while maintaining good technique, stability and control.

That means no funky spine movement, no heels lifting off the floor, nothing weird going on with your knees and that you're able to breathe throughout the set.

If we want to be effective, capable humans, we should be able to get into a nice low squat and hang out - or least be able to get off the couch and the toilet without too much trouble.

Depth will be a moving target. Overtime, as your skill and strength improves, hopefully your mobility will too. That means better ownership on the bottom, resulting in a more impactful, bigger range of motion squat.

Not there yet? Not a big deal at all. In fact, who cares. I would even argue that a half squat is far more effective in building strength and movement competence that no squatting whatsoever.

So how low should you go? As low as skill allows, but always chase more depth through sound movement and consistent strength and mobility training.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

How Many Reps

As you progress in your strength training career, it's helpful to remember that you don't always have to strictly follow the prescribed rep scheme.

The reps we choose have a specific intent. Either to build strength, promote muscle growth, improve coordination and skill or challenge your stamina. The reps have a counterpart they rely on - how hard you're working. In strength and conditioning terms, volume and intensity.

Generally, the last two reps of something should be substantially more difficult than the first two. If you're doing 8 goblet squats, and they're all relatively easy, I'd like to empower you to do a few more reps, which is called adding volume.

Conversely, if you don't want to do more but you probably could, you could increase the weight. This is adding intensity while keeping the volume the same.

Listening to your body is a useful skill to hone in on. Knowing when it wants a little more will excel your strength and stamina.

Bonus thought:

There are certain times when I'll have you do 10 reps of something, and it's okay if it feels like you could 100 of them. Specifically in conditioning components when the goals is to improve endurance. Also when learning new movements, doing a movement for the first time in a while, coming back from a week off are the obvious ones that come to mind.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Trail Thoughts

On Sunday, I run a 30k trail race. Here are a few of the thoughts that popped in my head during the first lap of the run. During the start of every race, everyone is packed together and figuring out their own pace. As I try to stay calm during these crowed starts, my mind always wanders to these things that I’m happy to know now.

Run your own pace.

When the first climb appeared, less than half a mile in, all the runners in front of me “ran,” up it. From experience, I know that early in the race, I should just hike up this hill. Which I did, and so did the conga line of people behind me. I felt like I should run, because that’s what the people in front of me were doing.. Don’t just do what the person in front of you is, run your own race.

No feet slapping.

In long races, running hard and fast downhills can really beat up your legs. If you want to run a fast race, there’s no avoiding it, but if you’re after sustainability, don’t let your feet slam on your way down the mountain. Instead, control your descent, using momentum, but feel slapping and making a lot of noise on the way down is going to tire your legs out faster.

Trail Shoes.

Don’t wear your road running shoes on the trail. Even if it isn’t a technical trail, with lots of rocks and roots and mud, having better traction on the ups and down is a necessity.

Aid Stations are Time Sucks

This course had an aid station every couple of miles. It would have been easy to not carry anything with me, but I decided to carry a water bottle in my hand. This way, I could drink between aid stations, especially important because of how hot it was. Primarily, I didn’t want to have to stop, chug water, refill, throw a cup away every time an aid station came across. If my bottle still had fluid in it, I just kept on running straight through the aid station, leaving a lot of people who had to hang out there behind.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Red Light/Green Light

A few years ago I wanted to run fast, push the pace, and see how quickly I could cover large distances.

The same notion fires me up, but I no long have the desire to burn the house down each and every time I line up for a race.

With the seasoned lifters at my noon class, we call this maturity.

When you’re new the game, you can push it hard, make expensive decisions and be able to buffer it off. But as you become more seasoned, you realize the juice isn’t worth the squeeze, and you start making better, more mature training decisions. Something along the lines of, I could do another heavy set of 8, but I don’t need to.

In an effort be more mature in my training, I realized what I wanted more than being fast, was being capable. Meaning, I would rather run a race a little slower, but not have to limp around for 48 hours afterwards. I didn’t want training to disrupt training.

So I focussed on running these long distance races with the idea that, if I want to, I can train tomorrow. I should be in good enough shape that this effort won’t sideline me.

Nothing made me realize how important that was than yesterday. I pulled in the driveway after driving 50 minutes home from a 3 and a half hour race. I was stiff, achy from the drive, dehydrated, hungry and ready to get out of the sun. Elliot didn’t care about any of those things though. He wanted to play red light, green light and run through the splash pad in the backyard. He wanted to chase me, so there was no hiding. Right back to running.

I knew I could have pushed a little harder on the last lap of the race. I knew I could have shaved a little time off, and dug a little deeper. I could have suffered more. But it wasn’t worth it, because being able to get out of the truck and start playing was.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

July Fourth Weekend

Saturday marks the start of July, and we’ll be gathering at the gym for a community workout at 9am.

This is a fun excuse to host a Saturday workout at the gym, and a chance for you to come by at a different time and workout with some other GAIN members. Family and friends are invited too, just make sure they RSVP using the link below.

RESERVE A SPOT

We’ll be open regular hours on Monday July 3rd, and Wednesday July 5th, and closed on the 4th.

See you at the gym!

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Constant Cues

Lean-Fall-Pull.

Kiss the heel.

Settle! Settle!

Easy.

Find the rhythm.

Faster cadence.

Be springy, be smooth.

Pull! Pull! Pull!

Lift the heel.

Lead with your belt buckle.

Breathe.

Stop shrugging.

Stop looking at your feet.

Stop looking at your feet!

Breathe. And stop looking at your feet!

Running is a skill. I have a never-ending stream of these cues floating through my head during most runs. Trying to adjust and find the perfect stride is how you get better.

Most of the time I feel like I'm almost doing it, and other times, I feel like I'm effortlessly floating along.

If you're headed out for a run this weekend, hopefully one of these cues will stick and help you feel fluid an smooth out there!

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Feel Through Your Feet

Feeling movement through your feet is a super power.

Your feet provide sensory input and stability up through the whole leg.

When doing any movement that begins standing up, you can benefit from paying close attention to what they’re doing.

Are they wobbling around? Collapsing inward? Is all your weight shifting to your heel? Or too far forward towards the toes?

The mid foot is the sweet spot. It’ll allow you to find balance and stability.

If you have a hard time finding that sweet spot, especially on things like split squats, SLDLs, lunges and similar movements, you may want to ditch the shoes. You’ll feel better connected, have better awareness, and a better opportunity to let all those little feet muscles shine.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Isometric

Isometric contractions happen when your muscles are keeping you in one spot.

These improve stability and strength in the shape you're holding, plus a few degrees in either direction.

Split squat iso holds, bottom of push up iso holds, march iso holds, or anything like that, will improve end range strength, get you comfortable in certain positions and build more stability. In other words, they can have a dramatic impact in your over all strength.

They're a no brainer to include into a strength and conditioning program. Use this caution though, iso holds are notorious for being more challenging than they look.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Macro Talk Pt 6

Over the weekend our oven broke. I wouldn’t have been a big deal, except for each Sunday we meal prep, and I make each of us our own batch of personalized egg bites. These are our go-to breakfast each morning, which is especially helpful when trying to wrangle kids out the door. There’s nothing to cook, they’re easy to reheat, and most importantly, we know the macronutrients of each muffin.

I haven’t been tracking for a couple weeks. I weigh my food occasionally to make sure I know how much I’m getting, and to keep my eyeball scale sharp. I eat similarly most days, and entering it into MyFitnessPal became redundant.

Expect for Yesterday. I needed a new plan. What was my breakfast going to be? How would it compare in macros to my normal breakfast? What time am I going to cook? Will it keep me full? These seemingly insignificant questions were a big deal because for a couple months, I haven’t had to think about them at all.

I pivoted. I made scrambled eggs with a little bit of cheese, and a bagel. The scrambled eggs were the same in fat, but lower in protein than my homemade egg muffins, which contain cottage cheese, upping the protein. Otherwise, the rest of the day played out normally. I hit my numbers without issue and didn’t go over on fat like I expected.

While it was frustrating to have to figure out a different meal, and will be frustrating to deal with this oven, overall it was easy to adapt to. I had put in the time tracking my macros, and building the necessary skills to know how to properly fuel myself. Nutrition is tricky, and you might need to approach it differently, but tracking macros has not only greatly improved my understanding of food, but how my body reacts and responds to it.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Heart Rate Monitors, Chest Strap vs Wrist.... Continued

Last week I did a running workout with Taylor. I forgot my heart rate monitor at home, so we wouldn’t be able to compare data like we normally would since my heart rate would be recorded by the built in wrist-based monitor built into my watch.

This begs the question, is your wrist heart rate monitor as good as a chest strap?

My wrist monitor seems to be good at measuring my resting HR and my overnight HR while sleeping. I’ve done workouts comparing both at the same time, and the lag alone on the wrist can skew the data and paint an inaccurate picture of what happened. If you want to use your heart rate to measure recovery times or get as certain amount of zone 2 work, the chest strap's accuracy is incomparable.

After last week’s interval workout, I sync up my watch to check out the data anyway, and I’m surprised to see it looks like I wore my heart rate strap. You can clearly see a steady, subtle build in our 1.75 mile warm up run, then 3 distinctive spikes for our 3 intervals. The numbers are right around where I would expect them to be for a chest strap.

While I’m still not going to trust the wrist strap, I was happy to see such a similar reporting based off my perceived exertion. Of course, the only way that I could in fact correlate the data, is because I usually wear the chest strap.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

My warm up and 3 sets of running (and biking) intervals recorded from wrist based HR monitor.

Taylor’s intervals recorded with chest strap.

Beginner Checklist

These are my top strength training movements for beginners.

These basic movements are easy to learn, provide a coach with lots of intel on movement patterns and play a foundational role in the development of a long-term strength and conditioning program.

1. Box Squat

The box squat teaches people how to use their hips, control the descent and maintain a rigid torso position. The box exaggerates the squat, and makes it easy to spot (and feel) funky movement patterns.

2. Push up/Elevated Push Up

This pressing movement allows for plenty of reps to create stable shoulders and groove sound shoulder mechanics. Elevating the hands allows for most everyone to get some horizontal pressing in.

3. Ring Row

The same as a push up, except this is a pulling movement opposed to a pressing movement. Simple, feels good and easy to correct sagging hips or poor shoulder mechanics.

4. Split Squat

This stationary lunge gets your knee behind your butt, a vital movement for healthy hips, and builds single leg strength, stability and balance.

5. Kettlebell Deadlift

The deadlift teaches control of the spine and emphasizes utilizing the hips rather than the back.

6. Anti-Rotation Press

This sneaky hard movement teaches you to resist unwanted motion and maintain a stable trunk.

When in doubt, choose one of these movement, or a variant from it. It’s an excellent way to create a well-rounded workout and hit most the movement patterns.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Interval Warm Ups

Getting properly warmed up for intervals will get you much more out of the session. If you were to dive right into the first interval, not only would it be an unrealistic pace for you to hold (because you’ll feel good but fatigue quickly), but there will be a lot of heart rate spikes and dips since the bout of exercise started immediately instead of gradually.

When we’re at rest, the majority of our blood is centered around our organs, helping the body rest and digest. When we start exercising, say riding a bike, our muscles need more oxygenated blood. So it is taken away from the organs and delivered to the muscles.

Without a gradual warm up, we open the flood gates to send blood out. Your heart rate spikes, and you feel like you’re working hard, but your body is just trying to keep up delivering oxygen to the working muscles. You intervals will play out the same way. Erratic paces, heart rate spikes, feeling like you’re breathing heavy but you aren’t working that hard are all signs of too short a warm up.

In an ideal world, a longer, more gradual warm up is better. In the gym, tight on time, at least 5-8 minutes of extra moving should do the trick.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Positive Influence

The gym will impact other areas of your life. Showing up to the gym consistently is huge. Just showing up isn’t all you have to do if you want to make real lifestyle changes though.

You see, most of your progress happens away from the gym. And most of your time is spent away from the gym. Ideally, your time in the gym has a positive influence your behavior when you’re away from the gym. This is the key to making long-lasting, healthy changes to your life.

Doing the little things over and over like:

Choosing nutritionally dense food.

Skipping the alcohol.

Drinking more water.

Walking and moving more.

Sitting less. Stretching more.

Managing your stress.

Having a community to belong to.

You can't write any of those things down on a strength and conditioning program, but they're all equally as important as adding weight to the bar or lowering your 500m pace on the rower.

Hopefully a good workout inspires you to make better food choices, gives you a dose of like-minded people, and reminds you to sit on the floor and use that foam roller tonight instead of slouching on the couch.

The gym is important, but so are the things that happen away from it. Show up consistently and let your practice of showing up for yourself bleed into other parts of your life.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Feet and Eyes

Where are you feet? Where are your eyes?

No matter the movement, its quality would benefit from considering these two things. Are your feet turned out? Collapsed inward with no tension? Are you looking around, at your feet, or keeping your chin down and eyes straight ahead to best align your trunk for maximum horsepower?

Even during the bench press, leg drive is an important factor to make or break a heavy attempt.

Whether it's jumping rope, box jumps, deadlifts, kettlebell swings, squats, lunges or rowing, take a moment to notice what your feet and eyes are doing. A small adjustment can make a big difference in movement quality and performance.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Ring Rows

Ring rows are a silent champion of the weight room.

This simple, versatile movement, can easily be written off as a beginner exercise, however, there’s so much going on here, it deserves to be a staple in most peoples’ program.

We get horizontal pulling, a plank-like challenge for the torso, grip strength and endurance and it’s easy to see and feel if you’re doing it well.

Keep these things in mind when ring rowing, or performing any other rowing variations at the gym.

• 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. Try to feel your shoulder blades moving as your arm works.

• Keep your hips square - don’t snag, arch or twist your torso.

Ring rows are a total body strength movement. If they feel easy for you, take a couple of big steps forward and find a few challenge. Get to work!

Justin Miner

@justinminergain