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.
Thanksgiving Community Workout - Thursday at 8:30am
Join us tomorrow morning (Thursday) for a group-style, all-fitness-levels Thanksgiving morning workout.
We do Community Workouts just a few times a year, usually around or on holidays as a way to break out of our normal routine, get some movement in and hang with your gym friends.
Here’s all the details for tomorrow.
Who: Anyone. Any fitness level. Newbies and fire breathers alike will get an effective and appropriate workout for themselves.
When: Thanksgiving morning 8:30-9:30.
How: Use this link to reserve a spot. You can sign up other people too.
Why: Move, sweat, have a good time, do a different workout than normal, workout with different people than normal, get out of your house for a little bit, open up the legs before a long car ride, gym friends.
See you there!
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
How Much Protein?
If you're ready to level up your nutrition, the next piece to figure out is how much protein you're eating.
Protein is important. We all know that it’s important for building muscle. But it’s also about recovering from workouts and having a well-functioning body.
Many people are surprised at how little protein they eat once they see it quantified.
If you Google how much protein you should eat, you’ll find answers like .6-1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight or desired bodyweight. The problem, is you need to know how much you’re eating to begin with, before picking a goal, there is no context for the number.
The best way to find out exactly how much protein you’re eating is to weight your food. Do a few days in a row and see what you average. From there, you’ll have more information to figure out a good target.
f you're consuming 75g of protein a day, and want to be eating 125g, don't jump straight there. Build slow and be consistent with 100g first and see how it goes before adding more.
Use these tips to make sure you're setting yourself up for protein success each day.
- Protein at every meal. No matter what.
- Find protein rich snacks
- Add a protein shake
If possible with protein powder, try a couple different kinds to see what you like and how your body reacts. You can also add it to oatmeal to to turn it into a meal of mostly carbs to a meal of protein and carbs, or even to yogurt, pancakes and muffins to up the grams of protein.
Once you figure out a good level of protein, you can use that as a way to create healthy nutrition habits and guide your food choices so you’re getting muscle building nutrients daily and consistently.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
How Newbies Get Started
Potential members at GAIN start with a 3-session trial. This serves as an opportunity to meet the coaches and see how we do things at GAIN. Our individualized, feels like a group, but isn’t actually a group, vibe is different, and unlike any other gym you’ve been to.
On the first session, you’ll work closely with a coach doing our Intro Workout. This gives us an opportunity to go over some finer details like bracing and breathing and seeing how much range of motion and stability your body has. We talk about injuries, training history and what you want to get out of your gym time.
Regardless of your fitness level and experience, we want you leaving the gym after that first session feeling as though you could have done more. Our saying is, we can write hard workouts, but don’t need to prove that one day 1. We want you to build a new habit you can stick with, easing in is key.
You’ll learn some new movements and lingo, and it can be a bit overwhelming. Just know that we’re aware of this, and try to take it slow and not overload you with gym jargon. On the first day we primarily focus on learning and breaking down the squat pattern, body weight upper body movements, the push up and ring row and some of our core training drills.
By the second workout, we’re ready to introduce some more movements and will do some conditioning (cardio) and get introduced to some of our favorite cool-down mobility drills. This workout focuses on pressing and pulling with the upper body, along with some single leg movements.
On the last workout of the trial, you’re learning and working on the hinge pattern. This can be a tricky one, but is important for everyone to learn. We revisit some movements from the previous two workouts here if needed. This will feel like a bigger workout for most, because we usually give you more to do on the third day as your body is starting to adapt to some new movements.
All in all, the 3-Session Trial is a crash course in all things GAIN. Learn our favorite exercises, get your movement broken down by an experienced coach and learn how to move better, feel more connected and get a plan that unique to what you need and want to accomplish. GET INVOLVED.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Friday Thoughts #11
Welcome to this week’s edition of random Friday thoughts and links. Enjoy.
Want to know where your hip flexors are, and how many other layers of muscle they’re underneath? Check out this post and see why they can be a tricky muscle group to stretch.
We’ve been on a kiwi kick here in the Miner household and I was always frustrated with my yield after cutting the skin off. I even thought I was clever using a vegetable peeler instead of a knife. Maybe I’ve been living under a rock and you already know this, but you can scoop the kiwi right out of the skin.
A lot of people have asked what shoes I’ve been wearing, especially after my squat video from last week. Those are called weightlifting shoes. Not weight lifting shoes, as in shoes for lifting weights, but weightlifting, as in the sport comprised two moves, the snatch and the clean and jerk. The primary objective is to get a barbell from the floor to over your head in an athletic, fluid motion. These shoes are stiff and rigid, perfect for transferring and absorbing force and the elevated heels give me more ankle range of motion to get my torso more upright, or in a stronger position to hoist a bar.
By the way, this was 355, a PR. the difference between 350 on 12/24/21 vs 355 now. (swipe over to see the 2021 squat).
Final thought for the week. This excellent post from Jon Goodman about being boring.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Gain's First Thanksgiving Workout
Next week we’re hosting a community workout, where anyone can get involved for some training on Thanksgiving morning. It got me thinking about the first time we trained on Thanksgiving at GAIN.
It was 2014, and the equipment order had just arrived the day before Thanksgiving.
I spent the day unboxing and the next morning at 9am, me, Hannah and our friend Cam broke in the new space with some sumo deadlifts, rowing and push ups. It was a memorable workout, and I’m excited to bringing back the Thanksgiving workout at GAIN this year.
High Protein Snack
If you’re lifting weights trying to build strength and muscle, you know that getting enough protein is important for recovery and new muscle growth.
Getting enough protein can be tricky. Having a few go-to high-protein snacks can help get you there. Here’s one of those meals I’ve been using lately.
Greek yogurt with frozen berries. Sometimes I defrost them, some times I half heartily defrost them and mash them up in the yogurt. Depending on my macro needs, I can use full fat or non fat yogurt, and toss in a banana and/or honey when I need to up the carbs.
It’s a highly tunable, I can adjust it based on what I need that day.
While it’s simple, it helps me get to my protein goal and makes for a great dessert.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Continuing the Streak
There have been several people who have mentioned to me that they’re still going strong with their habit from the October Habit Challenge. Now, 44 days later!
It got me thinking, how many days are left in the year? 48.
That’s only 7 weeks.
As we approach the holiday season, and a busier than usual time for most of us, it can be easy to write off your goals and aspirations and wait till next year. I urge you to reconsider. There’s still plenty of time to build positive habits, remember, tiny small ones create big wins over a long enough time period.
That being said, what are you going to do with the remaining 48 days of the year?
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Sore? Do This!
While soreness isn’t the best indicator of effectiveness or progress in the gym, it is something that all of us experience at one time or another. Whether you’re chasing PRs, learning new movements or getting into a strength training routine for the first time, you’ll experience muscle soreness eventually. And while it isn’t something we want to chase, it is something experienced gym-goers should know how to deal with.
Get moving!
Taking a walk is the best thing you can do for sore muscles. It’s going to get your joints moving, promote blood flow to the muscles, and moving around will even help your lymphatic system get to work, helping to clear the gunk from the system. If you feel stiff and achy when you start, I can almost guarantee you’ll feel better in just a few minutes.
Roll it (and breathe)
The foam roller tells you when you need it most. When your muscles feel the most sensitive is one of the best times to get on there and noodle around. Once again, you can really notice the change after just a few minutes. What seems unbearable when you first start soon gives way and you’ll be looking for ways to get more pressure.
Getting some feedback into your sore muscles can increase blood flow, and make everything cooperate better, especially when paired with some focused breathing and contract/relax techniques.
Mobility Circuit
Set a timer for 10 minutes and pick 3-5 of your favorite mobility drills. Cycle through each one, say some 90/90 hip switches, planks to downward dogs and rotational arm swings. After a few minutes your body will be thankful for the movement and feeling far less sore.
When you’re feeling sore and unsure of what to do, move! The more you sit, the stiffer you’re going to feel. Get moving!
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Friday Thoughts #10
Welcome to this week’s edition of Friday thoughts, where I share cool things I saw on the internet and/or random thoughts that aren’t quite ready for a full blog post. Enjoy.
Read the caption to check out this excellent squat check list. Then watch his form, so smooth and no change whatsoever from the bar all the way up as the weights get heavier.
2. How to bail a back squat. If you want to squat some heavy weights, which some of you do, you’re going to be faced with the challenge of not knowing if you’ll be able to stand the bar up or not. There are a couple ways to bail, and @squat_university touches on them in this post, however, much of the video is dedicated to what all things in the gym come back to - mid foot pressure.
3. Thinking about specific muscles when training is not productive. I try to get people to think of the movement pattern they are performing, rather than, this push ups is for the pectorals and anterior deltoid. Movement patterns make you more aware that each movement is in fact a total body movement, and this illustration shows that.
4. This was an excellent article about breathing, and the bucket cue was new to me, and one I’ll be using.
Breathing on Purpose Rob Wilson
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Thanksgiving Hours
Thanksgiving is just two weeks away.
Here’s the GAIN schedule:
Thursday 11/23 (Thanksgiving): 8:30am Community Workout
Friday 11/24: Closed
To reserve a spot for the community workout, look for “Events,” under the schedule page on the Members app and you’ll see it. You can also CLICK HERE and send the link to your family and friends. You can register for someone else too.
See you in the gym!
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Foundation of Easy Days
I saw this quote the other day on Instagram:
“PRs are built on the foundation of easy days.”
It really resonated with me, and I hope you can relate to it too, because not every single session you come to the gym needs to be a heroic effort.
Most of the stuff we do in the gym will feel pretty easy. Progress can feel so slow.
Every session doesn’t have to end with you laying on the floor, or feeling sore muscles. All that stuff is made up, that soreness and sweat levels are indicators of effectiveness.
Most of the time, you need to go in and check the box.
Move around, elevate your heart rate, expose your body to some ranges of motion and move on with your day.
Over a long enough time period, most of the sessions feel pretty easy.
That isn’t a bad thing, it’s training.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
The Lindy Effect, Barbells and Good Old Fashioned Strength and Conditioning
Have you ever heard of the Lindy effect? It’s a strange concept to grasp, but basically it goes something like this; the longer something has been around, the longer it’s going to be around.
From Wikipedia:
The Lindy effect (also known as Lindy's Law) is a theorized phenomenon by which the future life expectancy of some non-perishable things, like a technology or an idea, is proportional to their current age. Thus, the Lindy effect proposes the longer a period something has survived to exist or be used in the present, the longer its remaining life expectancy. Longevity implies a resistance to change, obsolescence or competition and greater odds of continued existence into the future.
I have two Strength & Health magazines from the 1930’s. You may have seen them, they’re hanging in the bathroom at the gym. While there are some silly headlines like “Cigarettes, do they give you a lift?” There’s equal headlines that hold up to what we know today. “Facts in Progressive Training,” reads like an intro to a strength and conditioning textbook. My favorite part, however, lies on the back cover. It’s an advertisement from York Barbell Company (still around today).
The advertisement claims: The strongest men, the best built men of EVERY nation are barbell and dumbbell built. Underneath the headline it reads, “The barbell and dumbbell system of training by graduated, progressive methods are the accepted methods of building real strength and muscle, the world over.
That advertisement was published in 1935. Since then, at least, we’ve known that the strength and conditioning principles work. Barbells and dumbbells, when following a progressive, thoughtful program will make you strong, promote healthy muscle growth and stave off injuries. Why is it then, each and every year we create another thing or method or piece of equipment to get us fit?
Consider for a second that fitness fad is a common phrase we’ve all heard. There’s always a new and novel idea around how to get fit, and my point is that stuff is often more about entertainment than real, long-term beneficial training for your health. Why do we keep trying to reinvent the wheel? To keep our minds engaged and hope that we can distract ourselves all the way to achieving our goals.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there is no shortcut. The sooner we realize there isn’t an easy way or that the next flashy thing isn’t better than an old rusty barbell and a few hours in the gym each week, the healthier, more fit and happier we’ll all be. Real strength training has stood the test of time, and when considering the Lindy effect, it’s obvious it’ll continue to be around far longer than any fitness fads.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
53 Laps
Give Coach T a fist bump when you see him today.
He wanted to retest his half marathon a year after completing his first. A worthy pursuit, to see how a year of consistent running would pay off.
To make it interesting, and to provide a unique challenge, he decided to take on the distance around a 400m track. A 53 lap pursuit.
To make it fun, his family came to the track to join him on laps, toss him a water bottles, count laps and to provide camaraderie. The boys and I went to by chase him around too.
Needless to say, it was awesome. More fun and memorable than any old half marathon could have been.
Taylor, way to come up with your own challenge and take it on in a fun and unique way.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Nearly Half of Two Decades
November 4rd has been a special day for me since 2014.
It wasn’t the day I started my business. I hadn’t gotten a paycheck since September 30th, and registered the name and such with the state that month as well.
But November 4th was the day it all felt real, it’s the day I celebrate the fact that I went for it.
I remember 25 year old me climbing into my truck, and taking this photo of my new keys with an iPhone 5 after writing a big number on a check. I felt sick to my stomach, excited, and eager to get started. I was, to sound a little cliche, fulfilling my dreams of opening a gym.
I sat there, thinking about how I would be driving here a lot. I sent the photo to a couple friends before posting it on Twitter.
Looking back it seems like a crazy, reckless decision, one I would try to talk people out of. But I was confident, or at least, I had the illusion of confidence. I was naive and inexperienced, but committed to show up every day and give it my all.
When you open a business, people like to tell you statistics they know, like 90 percent small businesses fail within the first year. Then 90 percent of those businesses fail within 2 years, and most of those fail with 5 years, and most of those don’t make it to 10 years. So it goes.
Well here were are, heading into year 10.
What really makes GAIN special is the people. In closing today, I want to thank anyone who’s been a client over the years. When I look at the member board, I’m so proud of how many of you there are committed to the process and stacking up years and years of training of with us.
There’s other people too, Hannah, of course, for supporting me through the 16 hours days, the stress and uncertainty. Alex and Taylor, I am so thankful that two people who are as passionate about training, getting better and living this unconventional coach-life as me, found their way in and believed in my ideas and what I wanted to build.
Here’s to many more years to come.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Getting Strong is Easy, Being Consistent is Hard
Building strength is easy. Staying strong is even easier.
It’s hard to stick with your training and be consistent over the long haul.
It’s hard to showing up when you don’t feel like it.
It’s hard to get right back to it after a vacation.
It’s hard to prioritize when new things come up.
It’s hard to be excited about doing the basics over and over.
Having a gym like GAIN is a refuge to your fitness habit. You always do something appropriate for you. We modify as needed based on how you’re feeling, and it’s one of the only places you’ll go that everyone has a single goal that unites them; improve themselves in some way through physical fitness.
What to do is easy. Continuing to do it is the real challenge.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Easy Strength Breakdown by the Numbers
I finished my Easy Strength program yesterday.
Here’s a look of some of the numbers.
40 squat workouts in 59 days.
Filmed every session but one, the third day.
7 total rest days.
12 non squat workouts; kettlebells or bodyweight only, or running.
Longest squat streak: 12 days
Most consecutive days without squats: 4
Runs: 3 (5k, 2.5 miles, 10k)
Lightest set: 135
Heaviest set: 325 x 2 reps (92.5% of my PR from December 2021)
Total Squats: actually not that many, 400 “work reps” and I did minimal warming up, few with the barbell, few at 135. So maybe 500 total? Not that many considering in the workout “Murph,” you do 300 squat reps.
Total Pounds moved: 93,610 pounds
Average weight squatted: 234.025 pounds
Takeaways:
If you want to get better at something you just need to do the thing. But there’s a fine line with doing too much, which I think I flirted with for most of this challenge. I made the weights too heavy about the 25th workout mark, and even though they felt easy in the moment, and my legs weren’t getting sore, I carried on and it all caught up to me 7-10 days later when I had to take 4 days off from squatting. I just didn’t feel recovered, and my positions felt sloppy. If I were to do it again, I would have spent more time with 225 in the beginning, rather than more so at the end. Overall, a great practice, a compelling challenge, and a true lesson that strength is a skill. More thoughts soon.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Gym Lingo: Iso Hold
Here’s one that trips up many people on their program, iso hold. It’s short for isometric. Which is short for isometric contraction.
An isometric contraction is muscle contraction in which the length of the muscle does not change. A firing of the muscles where no joints move, rather the muscles keep everything in place.
In simple terms, sitting in chair with your best posture is essentially isometrically contracting lots of things.
Holding a plank is an isometric contraction (especially if you do it right).
An isometric contraction is present on any sort of pause squat or bench press as well.
Other common iso holds we use at GAIN are split squat iso holds, anti-rotation press iso holds, bottom of push up holds, wall sits, and if you were around for some Zoom workouts, bat wings.
Iso holds get you stronger in specific ranges of motion, they’re helpful for building strength and rigidity, and one of those things we could all use a little more of. Not to mention, a great way to train around an injury.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Things I Hope You Learned During the Daily Habit Challenge
Progress not perfection. Trying to be perfect with everything leads to spinning your wheels, or never even trying. I hope you realized it doesn’t matter if you missed a day or screwed up your plan, what matters is staying in the game, continuing to play, even when the circumstances aren’t ideal.
Doing it every day can be unsustainable, but a nice kickstart. Boot camp for a habit, if you will. If you want to continue on with your nightly stretching routine, but 7 days per week seems unsustainable, adjust accordingly heading into November.
Small things add up. If you read 5 minutes every day in October, that would be 2 and a half hours of reading, without even having to try that hard. Imagine the same reading schedule for a year; over 30 hours.
There is no hiding from consistency. People think they’re much more consistent than they actually are. “No, I eat healthy all the time…” Enter the weekend and 6 alcoholic beverages, 4 hours of less sleep, and a diet void of micronutrients. You’re not consistent if you follow a 5 days on 2 days off plan with your nutrition.
There are no shortcuts.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Friday Thoughts #9
I don’t know how long this has been going on, but I know it’s been a while, maybe forever. Taylor and I were creating a shared photo album on our phones the other day, and after a while he says, say that word again, “alBLUM,” I reply, “dude, there’s only one L in that word.”
One of my favorite activities is looking back through my training logs and seeing what I was doing one, or two or three years ago. A practice I had dialed in when I was younger, then stopped doing all together for several years. I started tracking my workouts again in December 2020, and it’s so valuable to be able to peak back and see exactly what I was doing.
Don’t give up! Overcoming the resistance you meet in these final days is exactly what will make your habit strong. It will also build reps of a transferable skill, discipline.
With the warm fall weather this weekend, get outside and go for a walk. It’s one of the absolute best things you can do for your health.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Training Ramblings; The Road to 300/400/500, PRs, Muscle Mass and Russian Proverbs
I’m closing in on the end of the strength program I’m on. It’s called Easy Strength, from Pavel Tsatsouline and Dan John.
For 40 workouts in a row, you pick up to 4 movements, a squat, hinge, push and pull. And do each of them, never changing the exercises, for 10 reps. And the 10 reps should feel extremely easy. The goal is to increase the max by improving the foundation.
For even more simplicity, I chose only 1 exercise, the back squat. Since it’s easy, you up the frequency of your training sessions, instead of back squatting once a week, I have been hitting the lift 4-6 days a week since September 5th.
When I started, the squats didn’t feel great. Part of the motivation for this project was dealing with hip and lower back issues from heavy squats earlier this year. I hoped that, through upping a my exposure, I would overcome any movement deficiencies. I was treating squats like my sport, hitting it every day, and working on the skills and technique.
About the halfway mark, I got too aggressive with the weights. I after the second week, I made a big jump in weight, it felt easy after all. What I didn’t account for was how my body would handle that weight 7 or 8 squat sessions later. I was beat up and instead of feeling easier, it was getting harder. I started taking more rest days, only squatting 4 or 5 times a week rather than 6 or 7, and lowered my daily weight back to 225 from 275.
I started to feel more recovered, and my squats started feeling much snappier. Desire to train increased as well. I started doing some more barbell lifts this past week, seeing how things are feeling. My bench press, power clean and deadlift are feeling crazy strong. I benched 225 for 10 reps, doubling my best, at the classic challenge.
I’ve gotten some runs in too, and despite being neglected for the past 10 or so weeks, since my ultra mountain run in August, my aerobic system is holding up well. Any conditioning besides those few runs have been kettlebell circuits, usually with a 53 pounder for 10-20 minutes.
After rounding out the 40 workouts, I’ll test for a new “training max.” Meaning, I won’t go for an all out max, but will try to leave a little in the tank. I’ll then use percentages of that number to create squat workouts for another month or two, until l feel ready to hit a powerlifting total; the accumulation, in pounds, of a one rep max squat, bench press and deadlift.
I last did this in December 2021, hitting 350 back squat, 250 bench press and 455 deadlift. All PRs at the time, (pulled 500 sumo, this was conventional), and I’ve since beat those bench and deadlift marks at 265 and 490.
An important note with all these PRs and big weights, is that while I’m no doubt feeling stronger than ever, I’m also heavier than ever. For years my walking around weight was 200 pounds. When I started running, I dropped a lot of weight and slowly gained it back, settling around 195 in 2020. Since then, I’ve been running less and less each year and lifting more and more. I adjusted my diet to eat more protein, and for the past two years have been walking around at 220-225. I don’t feel too heavy, but I’m less lean, maybe a fair trade for so much added strength. I felt weak when I was mostly running. Now, I still feel nimble tip-toeing down mountains and can crank out 15 pull ups.
As the old Russian strength coach proverb goes (probably), mass moves mass.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain