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.
Number 9
It seemed to me that the month of January dragged on forever. Five full weeks and post holiday normalcy will do that. February on the other hand feels like I blinked and it over. And, I couldn’t be happier about it, Dune Part 2 hits the theaters this week.
Whether the months are going by fast or slow, the truth is that we’re are headed into the 9th week of the year. The 9th Monday morning (my 9th Monday morning blog post), and so on.
So whether the month has flown by or is dragging on for, take some time today to stop and reflect that this year is just getting started. Check in with those habits you wanted to build and make sure any resolutions you had aren’t long lost dreams.
Until tomorrow, the 9th Tuesday of the year.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Friday Thoughts 23
Welcome. Happy Friday. Here are some relevant posts I came across this week on Instagram.
This sequence is awesome. This looks very similar to my nightly mobility routine - not that there’s an exact routine, I just get down and start moving around and figuring out what needs attention. Lately I’ve been doing slide 4 and 5, or something similar. The last one, I call it shin sitting, is a super power.
Enjoy this great video about training the hamstrings. These two have been making excellent educational fitness content for a long time.
Did you know that moving by swinging your arms is called brachiation?
Easy to grasp (and quick) summary of what creatine does and what happens when you stop taking it.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Always Do Something
Imagine this scenario in your head.
You had a long day of work and are feeling the stress to get a project done. Your alarm starts ringing and you can’t possible believe that it’s morning already. It feels like your head just hit the pillow seconds ago.
You have a scheduled workout in one hour. You hit snooze. Then, again.
Twenty minutes later you’re able to drag yourself of out bed. Your muscles are sore, body is stiff and achy. You’re stressed and distracted about the work project on your mind. You think about canceling the session, but something about stress relief and taking your mind off things prevents it from happening.
You get to the gym and you pull up the app to look at your workout. It’s hard. So hard you wouldn’t have come if you looked beforehand. It starts with intervals and you hate intervals because they’re boring. (You’re not alone, everyone hates intervals because they’re boring, btw).
You say, “Hey coach, I’m tired and stressed and don’t feel like this workout today.”
I say, “Cool, let’s get a little movement in instead and take it from there.”
After an extended warm up and a little moving around you feel more awake. Your blood is pumping, your sore muscles are a distance memory and your brain fog is no more.
After a couple more movements and a little foam rolling you’re on your way. You leave the gym feeling better than when you came in, and even though you really didn’t want to, you’re glad you came in and carved out some time for yourself. Always do something.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
10 Workouts
Heading on vacation next week? Want to have a handful of excellent workouts you can do anywhere without any equipment?
Allow me to introduce, or perhaps reintroduce to some of you, Coach Taylor’s 10 Workouts Under 10 minutes.
This free resource is perfect for sneaking in an extra workout, or having with you when you won’t have access to a full gym.
The ebook has detailed workout descriptions, a make your own warm up guide and video links to all the movements if you need a refresher.
You can download and save your copy HERE.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Macro Talk, Day 15
I’m just over two weeks into my yearly macro counting experiment. Each year I spend 6-8 weeks weighing and measuring my food to get a better idea of how I’m fueling.
Here’s a few things I’ve been thinking about so far.
It’s so hard to be consistent! I tend to under eat for a couple days then overeat for a couple days. I’m trying to balance that out and properly fuel each day for the activities I want to do. This is the number one reason I think people should try counting their macros, if you’re just estimating and making assumptions, it’s probable you’re inaccurate.
I typically put the boys’ dinner plates together. Not grazing off their plates has been a tough. Last night, I cut up a honey dew melon and was popping pieces into my mouth as I was cutting and serving. It’s easy to do this at every meal, or to eat the final bites of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich destined for the trash. I’m not swearing off grazing completely, but I’m trying to be aware of it.
Timing is key. Timing my meals around my workouts really helps me stick with the plan and properly fueling my workouts. I eat my oatmeal a 1-2 hours before training. This fuels me up but doesn’t leave me with a heavy stomach when I start training. It seems that if I do this, everything else falls into place nutrition-wise.
Last year I was relying too much on bars. I was eating two or three bars a day plus a protein shake. It felt like I was missing out on actual food. These days, I eat one bar a day. Typically I eat it post workout as I drive home or to pick up kids. I’d prefer to eat a meal, but the timing doesn’t work to sit down and eat, and besides I don’t want to force something down while I don’t feel like it immediately post workout. A bar is convenient and lets me refuel some calories to hold me off until dinner time.
That’s my day 15 update, I’ll check back in next week.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Horizontal Pulling, Unsung Hero of the Weight Room
Horizontal pulling, or rowing, is the unsung hero of strength and conditioning. Deadlifts, squats, bench press and its vertical pulling counterpart, the pull up, get all the glory.
Horizontal pulling supports these compound movements by building upper back strength. Through moving your shoulder blades and rotating through your upper back you’ll improve your posture and have robust shoulders.
Whatever you're rowing, be it rings, a dumbbell, kettlebells, a barbell or even a band, keep the following in mind:
Squeeze! Squeeze the handle with your whole hand. Don't let it hang in your fingers.
Don't shrug. Keep your shoulders away from your ears!
Use your upper back, not just your arms. Slide your shoulder blade across your back. Thumbs to armpits, not wrists to armpits!
Keep your hips square when single arm rowing.
Most importantly, don't forget that all those ring rows, dumbbell rows and bent over rows are part of a well-rounded program and play an important role in busting PRs in the more glamorous lifts.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Friday Thoughts 22
Welcome to this week’s Friday Thoughts, enjoy.
Several people told me they got walks this week despite the challenge being over. Awesome! Keep getting those daily walks in and watch your steps add up.
C2 Bike Fit - The key is to remember what seat number you like.
I came across this video while looking for the C2 Bike Fit video. Here are some nice ways to improve your ankle range of motion. The better your ankles move the better your knees and hips will.
I love this graphic. Often times we think being consistent in the gym is going 110% all the time, in reality, it looks more like this.
Dedicate time to your feet!
Just to keep my James Clear consistency going…
Thanks for reading!
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Training vs. Working Out; Two Valuable Mindsets
When I was a senior in high school my strength coach didn’t allow us to say we were working out.
We were training.
It was serious. He told us that athletes train, and working out is what most people do when they go to the gym.
His favorite example was riding the elliptical while watching the news. He would say, They’re just going through the motions!
We were training because we had a specific intent. We wanted to improve in our sports. We wanted to get stronger and build muscle. We wanted to become better athletes.
These days I frequently use ‘work out’ to describe a training session, although the delineation between the two has stuck with me, and it might be helpful for you to think the same. Instead of thinking about it in the short term like a single session, I expand out and think of phases of the year as training or working out phases.
When in a training phase, I have a strict program to follow, complete adherence to the plan and will make daily decisions around that plan. i.e., I need to wake up and train tomorrow morning because I won’t have time otherwise, or my macros are more dialed in to match my training intensity.
In a workout phase, I don’t follow a strict program. Instead I do what feels right. I’m more open to variety and more willing to skip a session here and there. I spend half the year in this mode, sometimes more. I had to learn to not chase progress, but after spending enough time in the gym it becomes impossible to always keep your foot on the gas.
The good news for you is that if you come to the gym, you’re always training. Even on easy days, by having a coach design your workouts, we can always sneak a little something in to help you improve your movement skill or mobility or strength. However, this is a still helpful thought experiment for you to play with.
Are you in a training or working out phase of life right now? If you have a race on the calendar, a meet to prepare for, never miss a workout or are really pushing the weights for a big strength number, you’re training.
If you don’t have a big event or goal and just want to move your body, maintain or slowly improve your strength, conditioning and flexibility, you’re working out. Maybe work is busy or it’s a time of year when you travel a lot. You just need to check the box and move on.
Both are valuable mindsets and understanding how to utilize both will keep your exercise habit on a steady course.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Pelvic Floor Workshop - Saturday at 9am
This Saturday, Lauren and Stephanie are sharing their knowledge at GAIN!
Pelvic Floor Workshop at GAIN
Hosted by: Lauren LePage and Stephanie Cleary
Saturday Feb. 17, 9-10:30am
$65
This will be part lecture and part practical. You get hands on time with two physical therapists to make sure you have a good understanding of the material and how it should feel while practicing it. This will help you understand how your pelvic floor works and how it contributes to stabilizing, bracing and breathing while working out, plus other movements that promote pelvic floor health, and how to put it all together to feel more connected while training.
Come learn with us on Saturday morning!
Justin MIner
@justinminergain
Nine Physiological Adaptations to Exercise
This list is from a podcast episode of Andy Galpin on the Huberman Lab Podcast. In the conversation Dr. Galpin lays out the nine physiological adaptations to exercise.
Skill/technique - moving better, better positions, precise timing sequence, more efficient movement.
Speed - moving at higher velocity or rate of acceleration.
Power - speed x force.
Force - aka strength, maximum force produced once.
Muscle hypertrophy - how much muscle mass do you have?
Muscular endurance - how many repetitions in a row can you do? Localized muscled fatigue.
Anaerobic capacity - how much work you can do at maximum heart rate. 30-120 seconds all out work. Global failure.
Maximum aerobic capacity - 8-15 min, reach maximum heart rate and vo2 max heart rate.
Long duration - sustain sub maximal work for long period of time with no breaks or reduction.
What’s interesting about this list is that two big reasons people workout aren’t even mentioned. It’s because they’re only a byproduct of training for some of the adaptations mentioned above. Those are improving overall health and weight loss.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Walking Challenge Wrap Up
The walking challenge is over!
If you participated, check your inbox for an email asking whether you made the full 30 day streak.
If you made it 30 out of 30 days you’re eligible to enter a raffle to win a new pair of training shoes.
My prediction is that over 15 if you made the full 30/30. We had 52 sign ups. What do you think?
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Friday Thoughts 21
Happy Friday. Enjoy!
Pelvic Floor Workshop. Saturday February 17. Sign up HERE.
Walking Challenge. Saturday is the final day, you must complete your walk on Saturday to go 30 for 30 days. People on the 30 day streak, keep an eye out for an email.
Gerry. Check out our latest video if you haven’t yet.
I think that’s called discipline.
Breathing and bracing - big lifts vs lifts that don’t require maximal stiffness. So good!
Coaches can use internal cues, something about your body, or external cues, something away from your body. This classic cue blends the best of both worlds and works great. An alternative, is to pretend you have $100 bills in your armpits and you don’t want to drop them!
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Pelvic Floor Workshop at GAIN
I’m excited to announce we’re hosting a pelvic floor workshop at GAIN. I’ve been hounding Lauren to do this for a year, so I’m excited to see it all come together. I am personally excited to attend, because over the past few years especially, we’ve trained a lot of women through and after their pregnancy, and I know the concepts Lauren and Stephanie are going to cover will only help me help them better. Keep reading to learn more about them and whether or not attending is right for you.
Where: GAIN
When: Saturday February 17, 9:00-10:30am
Price: $65
The Instructors:
Lauren LePage, PT and owner of Anchor PT & Performance: having a background in sports performance, I enjoy applying pelvic health concepts for people who enjoy fitness and want to prevent pelvic floor symptoms in the future.
Stephanie Cleary, PT and owner of SC Wellness Technique: she empowers moms to reconnect with their postpartum body and rediscover their strength through integrative pelvic floor physical therapy, and corrective exercise.
Who Should Attend?
all people (men and women), all ages, pregnant/postpartum women, those who have never been pregnant, preparing for pregnancy, as well as coaches/fitness professionals who want apply this knowledge with their clients.
What You’ll Learn:
Learn what the pelvic floor is
Understand how to connect better with your pelvic floor (lengthening and relaxing)
Feel how to perform a kegel correctly
Walk away with their 5 favorite pelvic health exercises you can do at home to help promote pelvic health
Find out if you have diastasis recti (abdominal separation that is common postpartum)
Integrate these pelvic floor concepts to feel more connected in your workouts (jumping, lunging, squatting, etc)
Find out whether or not you may be a good candidate for pelvic floor physical therapy
Gain access their Pelvic Floor Workshop E-book for pelvic health tips and a breakdown of their favorite exercises.
Much more! There will be additional time at the end of the workshop to answer any questions you may have.
SIGN UP HERE
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Melting Ice Cubes and Progress
The following analogy is from Atomic Habits by James Clear.
Imagine an ice cube sitting out on a table. This room where the ice cube is located is temperature controlled. Starting at 20 degrees, we’re going to raise the temperature of the room 1 degree at a time.
After a while, we’re up to 25 degrees. No change on the ice cube, it’s still just sitting there, frozen. Fast forward a little longer, we’re at 29 degrees. Still no change to the ice cube. Once we hit 31 degrees, our ice cube is there, still unchanged and apparently unfazed by the increasing temperature.
Finally, we hit 32 degrees. The ice cube starts to change, it’s melting.
What made the ice cube melt? The 1 degree change from 31 degrees to 32 degrees? Or was the compounding of the temperature change to get there? We saw no progress from 20 degrees all the way to 31 degrees. Just because we couldn’t see the progress, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
You might be going through something similar now. It feels like you’re turning your wheels, not getting any traction. You could be making progress and adapting, it just isn’t visible yet. Remember the ice cube, you could be making change without even noticing it, small actions add up to big changes.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Macro Talk Part I
I tracked my macros yesterday, and will be for the foreseeable future. Macronutrients are carbohydrates, protein and fat (and alcohol) that make up your total caloric intake.
As I’ve mentioned recently, it’s a good yearly practice for me. The 6-8 weeks I spent weighing, measuring and tracking last year helped me eat more protein and be more consistent throughout the year. Tracking macros forces you to see if you’re consistently being inconsistent, the state my nutrition is typically in.
The objective for yesterday, and the rest of the week, is to remember to log everything in the app and get 7 out of 7 days. Last night as I was making dinner, I was popping grapes off Elliot’s plate into my mouth and nibbling on crispy chicken skin, realizing there’s probably a lot of incidental calories like that I’ll need to watch out for.
Besides that, I’m paying attention to protein grams, making sure that it’s high enough.
The hardest part of the first week is remembering to weigh everything, and keeping in mind that gathering my food takes a little longer.
Only after this week will I set some macro/calorie goals. I need to gather more data before making any adjustments and build the habit so I can stick with this long term. I’ll post an update here every week or two.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Walking Challenge, Final Days
Six days left!
Here’s what you need to keep in mind these final days.
Stay strong! Even if you lost your streak some days ago, keep getting those walks in, building the habit will help you move so much more!
If you are still on your streak, keep it up! On Sunday or Monday after the challenge is over, I will email all participants of the Daily Walking Challenge. You will have needed to sign up beforehand to get this email. If you never signed up, but have been playing along, please let me know ASAP.
When you receive that email, if you went 30/30, reply to the email to let me know. There is no sheet to fill out or anything like that, we’re using the honor system. If you say you got all 30 days, I have no reason to not believe you.
I’ll give participants 24 hours to respond, then when we have the final tally of the names we’ll do a drawing to see who wins a new pair of training shoes.
Finish strong!
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Friday Thoughts 20
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.
January by the numbers:
Each month I like looking back at my stats; total workouts, steps, average sleep. This way I can start to use the information to see patterns. Last year, a big takeaway from this was working out too many consecutive days. I would workout for 15-16 days in a row, and not feel any negative effects, but 10 days later there was always a 3 day off stretch. This year, I’m trying to be more strategic and take the rest days BEFORE I need them. Anyway, here’s a look some data I like to see each month.
Workouts: 27 - 4 conditioning workouts, the rest were all weightlifting workouts with a barbell. Squatting and going overhead in all of them.
Steps: While my in gym training has been consistent, walking not so much. I’m surprised to report my step average for January was 7,077. Honestly, higher than I expected.
Average Sleep: 7 hours 37 minutes. Slowly creeping up. I hit 8 hours 5 times! I only got it once in December and November.
Daily Step Challenge:
As of earlier this week there’s about 10 people, that I know of, who are still on their daily walking challenge streak. Keep it up people, 8 days to go!
Athlete or Bodybuilder:
I found it interesting he included rotate here. It’s something that’s becoming more and more important in my own training and in clients’ programs. I think if Dr. Aaron wrote this post a couple of years ago if it would have said anti-rotate, a training concept that seems to be getting more and more outdated as we understand the importance of properly rotating. Regardless, unless your goal is to build as much muscle as humanly possible, train like an athlete.
Pull Up Variation > Banded Pull Up:
I love these, I call them “feet-on-floor barbell pull ups.” It’s a great gap between barbell inverted rows and working towards eccentric reps from a bar.
James Clear, author of Atomic Habits can always make you think.
Thanks for reading!
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Macro Tracking: Pre Tracking Phase
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
Does It Get Easier or Harder?
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
Do This One Thing to Be Stronger the Next Time You’re In the Gym
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