Each year in February or March I start tracking my calories and macronutrients. By tracking, I mean counting my calories, and weighing my food to count total grams of carbohydrates, protein and fat. This year will be no different and I’ll start tracking my macros soon. A critical piece to tracking your food is actually having a ball park idea of what you’ve been eating most days.

That way, when you start figuring out how many grams of carbs/protein/fat you need, you have an idea and aren’t completely guessing or setting up unrealistic expectations.

I call this my pre-tracking phase. I start taking note of what I’m eating, and will weigh out some things here and there. I’m gathering more information for when it’s time to track for real.

This does two things. Now, I have an idea of what 7 ounces of ground beef looks like, or how much 200g of yogurt is because I’ve practiced, and when I do it for real it won’t feel as overwhelming. More importantly, I have a better idea of my total calories and how many grams of protein I’ve been having, so I use that information to set a protein goal and work the rest of the numbers based on that.

I think of all of this as an experiment. It’s a fun challenge to be consistent, tune into yourself and dedicate time to focus on what I’m using to fuel my body. If you think macro counting is in your future, be sure to plan at least a week for a pre-tracking phase and gather important information to set you up for success.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

It happened again, someone asked if push ups ever become easy.

I had to break the news. Push ups are always hard.

Good training puts you right on the edge. When 3 push ups become easy, we slow the tempo and add a pause, we then start doing 5 and they’re hard again. When you can do 10, we’re on to the rings, the band resisted, plate loaded and increased range of motion.

Progress like that it can make you feel stuck, like you’re doing the same thing over and over again. The level of difficulty is increasing but the end is no where in sight. The endlessness of the gym is scary when you’re new, but once you’ve been training for long enough you realize it’s crucial to keep you there.

Just know that in the gym, it’s helpful to think of the process, that each rep you do is contributing to your improvement. Training will get easier, and it should. But it’ll never feel easy, it’s going to continually be hard, even as you improve. Keep training!

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

If you want to get stronger, like move up to the next kettlebell for your goblet squats, or add pounds to your deadlift, or even if you want to do more push ups in one set, this one thing will help you, rest more.

That’s the big secret tip. Take more time between rounds. You’ll recover more, your muscles will have had a chance to get ready for the next bout, and if they’re fresher, they feel better and can apply more force.

There are times when we don’t want you to rest, where we do want to build up fatigue and stress the system in a different capacity. What we’re referencing today is building strength, and an effective way to do that is to be properly recovered between sets.

If you feel like you could rest 2 minutes, and move up 10 pounds on your bench press, or squats, do it!

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Twelve days to go! How much more winter weather will we endure?

At this point, it should start to feel automatic. If it hasn’t yet, it’s coming soon. No more forgetting to walk, no struggling to find time, you’ve done the work and built the habit. Keep it up this week and finish strong headed into February!

Keep an eye out for a poll on Instagram. I’ll be putting out a poll today or tomorrow to see how many of you still have the streak going.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Happy Friday. Here’s this week’s edition of Friday Thoughts, where I share helpful Instagram posts I saved over the week and sometimes work out new blog ideas. Enjoy.

• A couple months ago I followed a program called Easy Strength, where for every workout you do 2 sets of 5 repetitions of a movement (or two or three or four movements) and keep the load at a weight that feels easy. As you accumulate these frequent sessions, you slowly put weight on the bar, essentially upping your max by raising your base and getting a lot of practice. I had a ton of success on it, and this past week two members hit big PRs by following the similar plans. Jeff bench pressed 300, which, not many people have done at GAIN (definitely not me…yet), and Riley squatted 200, which even less have. Both have been on the program since before Thanksgiving. Neither missed a scheduled training session and slowly built the weights up over the weeks.

• This post from Meg Squats was timely, leaning during splits squats had come up a couple of times this week, many of you might find this demo valuable. The more upright you are, the more they’re going to target your quads. If you lean forward, thus keeping the shin more vertical, the movement will target your glutes more. This is helpful if you’re trying to rehab or build strength in a certain area, or trying to avoid movements that hurt, i.e., split squats hurt your knee, but if you learn forward to make the more hip dominant, they no longer hurt your knee.

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A post shared by Meg Gallagher 💪 CPT, CPPC, PnL1 (@megsquats)

• I’ve been wearing a belt more frequently and it has definitely helped my bracing. For me, what it does most, is give me feedback to expand my brace into. I breathe into the belt to create pressure. Far too often I see people crank belts as tight as they possibly can, this has a negative effect, and while it might feel supportive, it’s actually preventing a proper breath and brace.

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A post shared by Zach Long, PT, DPT, SCS (@thebarbellphysio)

This was a great video.

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A post shared by Jason Pak & Lauren Pak (@jasonandlaurenpak)

See you next week!

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

The old adage, what gets measured gets managed, holds true for health and fitness too.

For a couple months I’ve been tracking my sleep. Well, I have been tracking it since 2019, but recently I’ve been making a point to look at the information each day.  I look at what time I went to bed, what my 7 night average sleep duration is and how many hours I got the night before. Ultimately, I’m aiming to get my seven night average consistently over 8 hours.

Taylor has been tracking his steps this month. Everyday he makes some decision about his schedule based on getting those 10 thousand steps in. It can be as simple as I need to walk this morning since I won’t have time this afternoon.

If you’re trying to up your sleep, or steps or protein, give tracking it a try. It’s not an immediate solution, but by tracking it, you’ll learn more about yourself and your habits, and be better equipped to make adjustments and tackle your goals.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

AMRAP - As Many Rounds and/or Reps As Possible in the time limit.

This is a style of density training - how much work can you complete in the allotted time?

Let’s take the following workout as an example to understand this concept.

AMRAP 6 minutes, max reps of deadlifts @ 135.

You complete 50 reps.

Besides total reps, we can look at total pounds moved, which in this case would be 135 pounds x 50 reps = 6750 pounds moved.

To progress this workout after week 1 you could complete more than 50 reps, add load to the bar, or try to complete 50 reps in less time.

Any of those scenarios would increase this workout’s density, requiring you to do more work.

Here’s another example.

AMRAP 8

50ft sled march

10 mb slams

10 breath high plank hold

This one is a bit more complicated. There are multiple exercises to deal within the 8 minutes. The sled will make your legs burn and get your heart rate up, the slams will spike your heart rate even more, and the plank breaths will be challenging since you’ll be gasping for air.

In this scenario, pacing will have a huge effect on how much work you complete. Start out too fast and finish 3 rounds within 3 minutes, the remaining 5 minutes will be a suffer fest. After completing this workout once, we would track it by how many total rounds + partial rounds you completed. The following week, your fitness would improve just because you know how to pace it better, an important lesson AMRAPs can teach.

AMRAPS are a way to get you to cram as much work, whatever that is, in a time period. By doing this, you’ll learn about pacing and get a great conditioning stimulus.

When doing an AMRAP,  find a sustainable pace to complete the task and get to work!

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

I have this sneaky, but obvious once you see it, thing in many of the programs I write. It’s an important consideration of mine, especially for someone who’s older.

I’ll pair something seated or standing with something on the floor.

Often times, I’ll notice, or the person will it bring up to me, that they’ll just do all the planks, or glute bridges, or whatever while staying on the floor, and thus not pairing it as written on their program.

While I understand their hesitation, I explain the gym is the perfect place for some exposure and practice reps.

Three rounds can become 3 chances to do a floor to standing transition - a critical life skill!

Get those sneaky reps in when you can. Maybe getting up off the floor is no big deal for you, but can you sneak in some squats throughout the day? Spend more time balancing on one leg? Carry something without putting it down, for no reason at all, other than see if you can.

Listen, don’t take it too far. I’m not saying make all life movements look like gym movements. I’ve tried and it’s not the way. I’m saying there’s plenty of opportunities to get sneaky reps in. For some, it’s as simple as adding some reps to get up and down from the floor. For you, maybe there’s another way to accumulate some sneaky reps in throughout the day.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

We thought last week with rain and snow were going to be a tough test, how about single digit temperatures to deal with this weekend? I hope you all got out despite the cold and were able to power through to keep your streak going.

The key to having a good time on a walk on a cold winter day is the same as it is for all outdoor winter activities, layering.

The old hiking/running adage, be bold start cold, doesn’t apply to walking around the block though. The idea is that after hiking uphill or running for a while, you’ll warm up and start to sweat. Starting cold allows you to get started and get warmed up without getting too hot or having to stop and take off a layer (you’ll probably still need to, anyway).

But for walking, I find this doesn’t apply. I don’t want to be cold when starting a walk, in fact, I want to be comfortable and warm. My body temperature might rise during a walk, but not like it will on a trail run or venture into the mountains. Nevertheless, here are some strategies I use when venturing out in the cold, whether for a walk in the neighborhood with the family or a cold run up a mountain.

• Warm socks, but not too warm. My extra thick, cozy socks are too much and my feet feel sweaty.

• Neck/face covering. A gator/balaclava/Buff, whatever you call it, can seal you up and give your face protection from the wind.

• Zippers! Be able to unzip for some air when you need it.

• Mittens > Gloves when it’s really cold.

• Good hoods. I love a hood that I can tighten down so I can still move my head around and see.

How did you layer up for your walks this weekend?

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Welcome to this week’s edition of Friday Thoughts, where I share some posts I saved on Instagram or work out some half formed post ideas. Enjoy!

• Daily Walking Challenge Day 8! We’ve had it all in the first week, rain, snow, cold and windy winter days. Many of you have reported in that you’re checking the box everyday, keep it up!

• Should you exercise if you have a bad night of sleep? In summary, yes but reduce intensity by 25-50%.

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A post shared by Andrew Huberman, Ph.D. (@hubermanlab)

• Goblet squats are probably the best core exercise for you, even thought it’s hard to “feel” it in your abs. It takes some heavy and challenging sets to learn this lesson.

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A post shared by Squat University (@squat_university)

• SEE: daily walking challenge. The most powerful thing the gym can do is influence your choices throughout the day. Take a walk, eat some protein, hang out with your friends and prioritize your sleep.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Joel Jamieson (@coachjoeljamieson)

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

General Physical Preparedness, or GPP, is a way to describe a broad application of strength and conditioning. The focus is on general development of strength, power, speed, skill, movement quality and conditioning. Originating from the sports performance, building GPP is the base building or off-season phase of an athlete’s training plan. Eventually, GPP leads way to more specific training (SPP - sport-specific physical training), increasing intensity, and finally peaking for a specific event or sports season.

For our purposes, your level GPP is a great way to think about your fitness, and to start defining what you want your base to be. Training for a race or triathlon, or building to a certain deadlift number or hitting watts on a bike workout are all clear training goals. Defining what you want your general physical preparedness levels though is different. It’s more broad, and less easily defined.

One way to think about it is your work capacity. Just how much stuff can you get done in a certain time period? Once again, in the gym this is easily defined, but it’s going to take a little more imagination when considering outside the gym.

The right amount of GPP will allow you to complete life’s daily tasks with ease, plus the ability to do whatever else you want.

Let’s take the recent snow storm for example. Having proper GPP levels for you life could mean you can clean of your car, shovel the deck, travel around on the slippery and uncertain terrain and also hit the gym, work all day and be a useful and reliable human.

The point is that everyone’s baseline will be slightly different, but the take away is that you can define it for yourself. What do you want to be able to do? What’s holding you back from doing that? Maybe defining what you consider your base level of general physical preparedness will help you get there.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Join us tonight at Bowl-O-Rama at 5pm for a GAIN Community Bowling Night.

Lanes and shoes are taken care of, friends and family are welcome. Food and drinks are available for purchase.

We’re bringing the kids if you have little ones as well.

5:30 & 7:00pm classes are cancelled.

See you tonight!

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Push ups can be frustrating. On one hand, they’re a simple exercise, no equipment required and something most people are familiar with. Many people think they should be able to do them based on that alone. But that’s not the case, they require a lot of strength and technique, and practice.

Eventually, poor technique will halt your progress.  Whether your shoulders starts to feel achy or you’ve plateaued and can’t tack on any more reps, it’s likely that both strength and technique are your issue.

Here’s a checklist to ensure you’re doing everything to build the strength and technique required for big set of perfect push ups.

They should be hard but not too hard.

Reaching failure is a sure fire way to halt progress. We want you to use variation that is challenging to get the reps done, but not impossible, leading to frequent misses. When you train your body to fail, it doesn’t adapt as well. Whatever the goal reps are, always try to leave one or two more reps ‘in the tank.’

Frequency

If push ups are really on your mind, talk to your coach and add in an additional day to get the reps in. One day should be hard, grinder reps and the other day should be an easy volume building day. Maybe on Monday you do eccentric only reps, building up some time under tension and on Friday you do hands elevated push ups to get some smooth reps in and groove your technique.

Place a premium on accessory movements.

A push up is just a plank where you bend your arms. Really lock in your plank technique, grip the ground, engage your glutes, use your upper back, breathe purposefully and realize that the more robust you are here, the better transfer over to push ups.

Mobilize those wrists.

If your wrists are really stiff, it can place more pressure on your shoulder while doing push ups. Stretching them out prior to your set can make a significant difference. Sometimes this is all it takes to unlock better technique.

Even if you were to never get a push up on the floor, chasing one is a worthwhile training pursuit to build total body strength, awareness and control.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

You did it. The first weekend. We always tend to start things with a new month, a new year, or seemingly always on a Monday. It sometimes feels like procrastination when you could just start now. The Friday start to this challenge was deliberate, I wanted to throw you all into the first weekend right away. Bonus points that we had some nasty weather to deal with.

For some of you, maybe the weekend was easier to get it in, and this week will take a littler more planning. Either way, your weekdays are probably different than your weekends, so be sure to consider that and plan out when you’ll get your daily in walks this week.

If you messed up, and forgot to start, or only got one walk in this weekend, don’t quit! The challenge isn’t over just because you messed up. Get back to it today and build some momentum!

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Welcome to this week’s edition of Friday thoughts, where I share half formed blog ideas, and posts I saw on Instagram throughout the week. Enjoy!

• Daily Walking Challenge kicks off today! You can still sign up through the rest of the day. We have 38 sign ups, let break 40! CLICK TO SIGN UP

• GAIN Bowling Night - Wednesday January 17th @ 5pm. Bowl-O-Rama, Portsmouth. Toddler parents, Hannah and I are brining the boys.

• Read the caption of this post. Often, the real benefits of training can go unnoticed. Having more energy, not getting out of breath so easily, feeling less stiff in the morning, carrying groceries with ease (I know, I know, strength coach talking about carrying groceries is so cliche, but it’s SO TRUE!). People will sometimes draw the conclusion that they aren’t making progress, or seeing any changes, but they’re usually looking at times or weights. How you deal with stress, and your energy levels aren’t as quantifiable as weight on the bar or on the scale, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t as important.

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A post shared by Joel Jamieson (@coachjoeljamieson)

• I don’t know who this guy is but I agree with everything he said about training shoes. And I lived through all the trends he talked about, and am in fact one of those people who will tell you five finger shoes changed my life but there’s no way I would be caught wearing them today.

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A post shared by Marek Health (@marekhealth)

• This is me lately, “I should do some conditioning today”…Lifts weights instead.

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A post shared by Fit Clinic | Gym & Online Coaching (@fitclinicau)

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

2011. five finger shoes and a 44kg get up

Right before starting a workout the other day, a friend teased me, and asked if we were going to put music on. I’ve written before about how I love running with no music, and I’ll sometimes train in the gym with nothing on the speakers. Everyone thinks I hate music, or don’t realize that listen to music while lifting has performance enhancing benefits.

In 2012 I was working at a gym and commuting an hour to school to finish up my final college credits. I headed to school early in the morning, hustled back to the gym to coach for a few hours and then would try to workout.

Back then I would take a scoop of pre-workout powder before every workout. Even after taking some caffeine, these training sessions would often go poorly. After a while, I realized, why do I need to get so amped up just to workout? What’s the point of this? Why can’t I just lift without (more) caffeine and loud music that I’m constantly tinkering with?

The same thing happened when I started running. AirPods weren’t around yet. I had wired ear buds, shorts with a specific pocket and a zipper, and the wire was always getting tangled up on me. I spent the whole time wanting to change the song or skip all of them all together. The whole run would be preoccupied with skipping songs, trying to find the perfect one.

I created barriers to entry. I needed maximum stimulation. I needed loud music and a heroic dose of caffeine to get some bench press sets in. Instead of just being able to start. Over the years, training in a hyped up environment yielded results for me, and that became the norm. Prolonged exposure to the same stimulus dulled the effect though, and before I knew it, I needed two scoops of Jack3d 3D, or needed to create the most perfect playlist

I still have caffeine before I train. But I’ve stayed away for the pre workout powder since this realization, and stopped listening to music while running long ago. My point about being able to train without those things that I want to train a lot. I want to train for a long time. I want to train to be the best version of my self, and relying on specific, cranked up music and caffeine just to get moving was becoming a crutch, no longer a training aid. I wanted to get to a place where the environment didn’t matter, I wanted to be in control.

You’re not always going to be able to pick the music, or have a normal pre workout routine. Sometimes you just need to be able to get the workout done and get on with your day, and that’s tough to do when maximum stimulation is required.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Our first ever Daily Walking Challenge kicks off on Friday January 12. If you haven’t already, you can sign up HERE. The link is good for members and non members, so feel free to send it along to your friends and family to get them moving more too.

Here are the rule for participation:

• Take a 20 minute walk every day for 30 days.

• Must be a 20 minute continuous walk. No 4x5 minute walks. We’re trying to build a habit and be consistent, not game the system.

• I’m all for more incidental walking, parking farther away, taking the stairs, stuff like that. That’s not what this challenge is about though.

• Keep track of your walks, somehow. Use an app, a piece of paper, carve a mark into a rock, tattoo it on your arm, whatever works best for you. You need to track your habit to help you stick with it, but also to prove you went 30/30.

• If you want to see everything quantified at the end of the 30 days, like how many total miles you accumulated, etc. use an app like Strava to track your walks.

• Anyone who gets 30/30 days gets entered to a raffle to win a pair of training shoes. You can choose any shoe you’d like (as long as they’re approved by me).

If you still haven’t signed up, get involved here!

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

When you use barbells, kettlebells and dumbbells in the gym, you’re using these implements to add external load. They make things more challenging on your body so you adapt and get stronger. The name of the game is maintaining a good position, or posture, despite these external loads attempting to pull you out of position.

Therefore, a fundamental part of lifting weights, especially heavy ones, is maintaining good posture. 

To improve your form, you’ve got to be aware of it. You’ll need to check and recheck and constantly adjust based on internal or external feedback. If you want your posture to improve outside the gym, while driving or on the computer, there’s no shortcut. You must be aware of what position your body is in and constantly edit it.

If this seems like a daunting task, consider this. The stronger you are, the less likely your position will degrade in stressful situations. Your posture will become more robust through training. The goal is that our focus in the gym will improve our posture outside subconsciously. After enough practice you’ll reach a new default.

Regardless of how experienced you are, postural awareness always takes a concentrated effort, but lifting heavy things is one of the best ways to get there.

Justin MIner

@justinminergain

The New Year brings a lot of excitement into the gym. It also can bring a lot of pressure to do something, because you’re supposed to. I get caught up thinking that way too.

The fresh start is so enticing, I’ll have thoughts like… I better start a new back squat cycle since I missed a few sessions around the holidays… And I should run more so that doesn’t continue to wither away… And since I’ll be running and lifting my diet should be dialed in… I’ll start counting my macros… And there’s the GAIN Walking Challenge… And so on.

The freshness and excitement can overwhelm you with ideas and prevent you from making any positive changes though.  Today, I want you to consider this, what do you need to de-prioritize?

What’s no longer helping you, or maybe getting in the way of a new habit?

Adding too much in at once is straight path to burn out. Ask yourself this, can you cut something out instead of adding something in?

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Walking challenge starts in 1 week. Sign up HERE.

• Mark your calendar for bowling night - Wed Jan 17 @ 5:30pm, Bowl-O-Rama

Here are some yearly stats I pulled from my Garmin watch.

• I took 3,380,809 steps in 2023, 1,100 steps less per day on average from 2022.

• I ran 271 miles, 51,000 feet of vertical gain. This was actually more than I thought it was going to be. I didn’t focus much on running at all this year. I want to do enough to keep my skills sharp, but I’ve enjoyed chasing other training goals.

• I averaged 7 hours and 18 minutes of sleep.

• Keep going strong this weekend if you have a new habit you’re working on!

Justin Miner

@justinminergain