Sunday Routine
How do you get ready for the week ahead? Coach Sarah Walls shares tips for the Sunday Routine to keep you ahead of the curve.
How I get ready for the week ahead, in my experience, will determine the outcome. I tend to use the “Sunday routine” method to help me stay ahead of the curve.
The Sunday Routine is simply the act of dedicating a few hours of the day to preparing for your work week. Of course, you can use whatever day of the week works best for your schedule.
If you have children and/or a spouse, then it can feel like a pretty heavy investment of time. But, it’s completely worthwhile. The return on the investment is the ability to cruise through each day in your week feeling successful, on track, and less stressed.
When time gets tight *BAM* you’ve already got plenty of food ready and waiting in the refrigerator. When your day gets hectic *SURPRISE* you already scheduled time for your evening workout, have food to eat before leaving work, and have your gym bag waiting in the trunk of your car.
My Sunday Routine always involves making sure my family is ready for the week, too. In this case, it was having some fresh cookies on hand for my kids.
How to get the Routine going:
Grab your calendar: get a sense of your week - are there any after work events you will be attending? What is the schedule of your kids activities? When will you fit in your trips to the gym?
Hey, while you’re in there - go ahead and schedule a time for your workouts and any other mid-week meal prep you anticipate needing to do.
If the week looks really jam-packed, can you schedule time for an after dinner walk or a home workout?
Does your gym require an appointment? Then go ahead and actually BOOK the appointment now.
Take action! Hit the grocery store, start your laundry, clean the house… Do the actions that you can do TODAY to set yourself up for a successful week.
Make some food or whole meals in bulk. This doesn’t have to be fancy. And, if you’ve never done this before, be patient. The first go-round, you may not get it perfectly.
Here are some of my go-to’s - they all keep well for at least a few days:
Burgers (turkey or beef)
Chicken (any type)
Fish
Beef stew
Hearty soup
Rice
There are unlimited options here
No cookies for me, this is more what my personal prep tends to resemble!
Having the discipline to get all your meals ready and gym bag packed ahead of time is important. The more you can create a grab ‘n go situation for yourself (and even your family), the better! So, pack your meals the night before and get your clothes ready ahead of time, too.
On the occasions when I arrogantly ignore my weekly prep, foolishly thinking I’m ready, when I’m not, or that I’ll “make it through.” I always end up regretting it! Food I thought I had on hand, quickly diminishes within a day or two and low-and-behold, I have virtually no clothes to wear. Seriously, it gets bad.
Take some time today or on whatever day you like and set yourself up for success with the Sunday Routine.
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Upper Body Blowout: Push-up Negatives
BlowOUT and BlowUP your upper body at the end of your next training session with this push-up variation that improves work capacity, conditioning, and strength.
Finishers are a great way to complete your training on any given day. Depending on what you select, you can bring up weak points by improving work capacity.
One of the keys about conditioning is that we are generally pushing the body pretty hard. So, you expect to see some break in form, but you need to know what is acceptable failure in form and what isn’t.
For example, if I were having an athlete perform a shuttle run, unacceptable failure would be when we reach ANY biomechanical failure - we can only condition as long as we’re being safe - acceptable failure would be from the standpoint of the aerobic system (times get a bit slower) or because the muscles start “burning” and times slow.
Once failure of form is reached - and this applies to conditioning scenarios as much as lifting - the set must stop immediately.
The other rule is that we don’t want to burn in movement patterns that - while they may be highly unlikely to cause injury - are an incorrect pattern we are working on correcting through other parts of our training. A great example is the push-up. Push-ups are often butchered resulting in way too much strain on the lower back and shoulder than they should when done with “perfect” form.
If your push-ups don’t look like the ones in the video, then you are probably not ready for Depletion Push-ups. To get some tips on how to troubleshoot your push-up, check out SAPT’s guide to Diagnosing the Push-up.
Depletion Push-ups + 90-Second Negatives
This sweet little combo of Depletion Push-ups + 90-Second Negatives are best used for areas of the body that are already fairly strong. If you’re just learning to keep your hips elevated and hold a brace, this would not be a recommended finisher.
I think this is a perfect variation for athletes who may lack work capacity in the upper body, but can solidly hold a brace for… well, close to forever. Since it’s easier to control the body as it’s lowered to the ground, we can still accumulate a ton of volume to improve work capacity if the upper body.
Progressions
Add more sets: starting with one set of :90 is often plenty, but you can add another 1-2 sets to get even more volume. Keep rest times minimal.
Add weight to the back to increase difficulty: using a plate, chains, weight vest, or even making these band resisted will ramp up the challenge.
Full Depletion Push-ups: once you’ve maxed out progress on the negatives and are certain your form is excellent, go ahead and remove the emphasis on the slow negative to knock out as many push-ups as possible with PERFECT form for 1-3 sets of 90-seconds.
Give these a shot if you feel like you’re ready! I bet you will be surprised with all the muscles that get involved and get sore the next day.
Circuit Training
With the holidays and travel and gyms being closed, I figured regular trainees might have limited time to work out. Thus, a post from the archives on circuit training hopefully will provide a few useful ideas for training with limited time. Enjoy!
Picture this:
You got out of work later than ususal... perfect timing to hit rush hour at its height and extend your normal 20-minute commute to the gym into an all-out 45-minute crawl full of frustration.
By the time you get to the gym, you only have about 25 minutes before you need to leave.
What do you do? Do you literally throw in your towel and just go home? How can you possibly salvage a decent training session out of the train wreck that was the afternoon?
Circuit Training is waiting to save the day! Well, so are Time Turners, but us Muggles don't have access to one of those things...
What is Circuit Training?
The possibilities are limited only by your imagination (and your physical capacity. I know from personal experience that performing box jumps after a barbell sumo deadlift is a baaaaad idea).
Typically, circuits are comprised of 5-8 exercises and you want to work with weights about 75-80% of your max. Translation: pick weights that you could probably perform for 8-10 challenging repetitions. String them all together, and work through the circuit with minimal rest between exercises.
In terms of time, you can set up your circuit a couple of different ways:
1. Set a particular rep goal per exercise and then have at it for 15-25 minutes and see how many rounds of the circuit you can perform.
2. Pick a number of rounds to complete and try to finish as quickly as possible. Usually, if you have about 5-8 exercises, 5 rounds will be around 20-ish minutes.
Benefits of Circuits:
1. They're a great way to improve overall conditioning without watching your hard earned muscle mass wither away. Two recent research reviews (abstracts here and here) have found that steady state cardiovascular training can a) decrease power output (yikes! Not good for athletes that need to produce power aka: everyone) and b) compromises muscle mass (and thus strength) gains. This effect is seen most prominent when aerobic training is 3x/week for greater than 20 minutes- so one jog here and there won't hurt you. The metabolic pathways that aerobic and anaerobic (that is, strength training and sprint/interval training) are conflicting. It's very hard to maintain a large amount of muscle mass and be a long-distance runner!
Circuit training is similar, metabolically, to sprint/interval/hill training in that it preserves lean muscle mass.
Steady state cardiovascular training, on the other hand, can lead to elevated levels of cortisol (stress hormone) which can decrease the effectiveness of muscle-building hormones such as testosterone and insulin-like growth. It also encourages muscle protein break down. Again, based on the research, this was steady-state cardio training 3x/week at 20 minutes or more.
While strength training too breaks down muscle tissue, the anabolic (building) environment produced by strength training encourages repair more than the catabolic (break down) environment of aerobic training. Strength coach Charles Poliquin says:
Whereas endurance exercises compromise anaerobic performance and body composition, anaerobic training modes such as sprint intervals and weight lifting will benefit endurance athletes if programed properly. To improve endurance performance, do a strength-type resistance training program with loads of 80 percent of the 1RM or heavier. This will train the type IIA muscle fibers so they increase the rate of force development and get faster.
Type IIA muscle fibers = strong, powerful muscles. We want those!
So if you're still with me, we'll move on to the second point.
2. It's time-efficient. After a quick dynamic warm-up and maybe a warm-up set or two of the planned exercises, the total time of a circuit should be no more than 25-minutes start to finish. 15-minutes would even be sufficient depending on the intensity of the exercise selection and weights used. Nice huh? It's just long enough to make you feel like you've worked out but not too long that you're home late for dinner.
3. (but really 2.5) Not only are they time-efficient but they're efficient in the sense that a circuit can hit a lot of muscle groups, through full ranges of motion, in one fell swoop. While a jog will really only get your legs (and, I would argue, not very well since the range of motion is small, the force production is low, and the intensity isn't that high either) and maybe some low level core activation, a circuit can be full body. Take a look at this sample:
Goblet or barbell squat x 6-8
Pushup x 8-10
Step back lunge x 6-8/side
3 Point Row x 8/side
Kettle bell swing x 10
Can you see the total body genius in that? We have lower body (both bilateral and unilateral movements), upper body (push and pull) and a delightful amount of full range of motion exercises. All of which, if one wanted, could be done with just one kettlebell.
Run through that baby 5 or 6 times and try to tell me that's not cardio. Oh wait, you can't. I can't hear you over your screaming lungs and gasping breaths.
4. Because circuits demand so much from your muscles and cardiovascular system, they're pretty calorically expensive, which means your body will be burning calories longer post-workout than they would after a lower intensity training session (aka: low-intensity, steady state cardio). On those above-linked research reviews, it was found that athletes reduced body fat when they performed high intensity exercise (sprints or circuits).
So, if you're looking for an efficient way to reduce body fat, preserve lean tissue, AND improve your cardiovascular fitness, circuit training is definitely a tool you want in your toolbox!
I feel obligated to note that strength training, solid strength training sessions, need to make up the bulk of your training week. Picking up heavy things repeatedly is the best way to build muscle and get stronger. Circuit training, while it won't make you weaker and can aid with strength gains, is inferior overall to 80-90% max lifting in terms of producing maximal strength gains. While I don't recommend basing your entire training plan around circuits, they are beneficial and even fun (yes, fun.) to throw in every once and a while.
The Battlefield is in the Kitchen: Part II
Maria Halkiadakis, once again, graces the Blog of SAPT. Take it away Maria!
Last Friday’s post began the discussion, The Battlefield is in the Kitchen. Before moving on to Part II let’s do a quick recap on the topic…
Training alone is not enough to help anyone achieve the results they are after. Common sense tells us that eating right and exercising are the two key elements to taking care of our bodies. It is important to find a balance between the two by not over training or depriving oneself of proper nutrition. Translation = pick up the right amount of heavy things and eat the right amount of good food.
Today we are focusing on what needs to be done in the kitchen to reach our goals. Last week we discussed how planning and preparation are crucial factors. This means creating weekly menus, using these menus to make grocery lists, and dedicating time to prepare meals. Two days a week my kitchen counter looks a little something like this…
We also discussed purging your pantry last week. If you find yourself eating junk food because it is around the house, get rid of it! Donate it, throw it in the trash, or give it away. It is perfectly okay to have snack foods in the kitchen, but it needs to be the healthy kind, which brings me to the first new point of today’s discussion.
EAT REAL FOOD
There are no secrets or anything new to be learned here. Just eat real food. It really is that easy. Eating a variety of real food, meaning fruit, vegetables, meats, grains, legumes, nuts/seeds, and dairy, will provide the human body all the nourishment it needs.
A good rule of thumb is not to eat anything that has more than five ingredients. Unless of course you made it yourself and know it is filled with wholesome ingredients. For example, grains and dairy products are perfectly acceptable as part of a healthy diet.However, be cautious when deciding which ones to purchase from the grocery store. As far as ingredients go on prepackaged items, less is definitely more. (Note from Kelsey: How To Read Food Labels.)
EAT IN MODERATION
Slow down, set aside the fork for a minute, and enjoy how your food tastes. I hate seeing people practically inhale their meals. Food is NOT fuel, it is so much more than that. Therefore, don’t treat your body as if you would treat your car at the gas pump: by filling up with the cheap stuff and going on with your day.
Food is delicious! Slow down and enjoy every bite of it. Strive to be mindful of what you are eating while you are eating it. Avoid distractions during meals such as watching television or talking on the phone. Doing these things won’t allow you to pay proper attention to your body’s hunger signals.
It takes approximately 20 minutes for the human body to realize it’s full. For this reason it would make sense to allow yourself at least 20 minutes to eat a meal.
Below are a few tips:
- Try drinking water between bites to slow down.
- Eat meals with friends or family whenever possible.
- Lengthen mealtime by enjoying their company and engaging in conversation. As a bonus you’ll be killing two birds with one stone; adopting healthier habits and spending time with the people you care about.
Sometimes you may need to eat in a hurry. If this happens make an active decision to do so and pay attention to your portion size realizing you may not feel full by the time you have eaten enough.
You do not have to deprive yourself of your favorite foods and restaurants. Follow the 90% rule, meaning aim to keep your diet on point about 90% of the week. If you eat 3 meals a day, roughly 21 meals per week, and 90% of that is 19. Therefore, you can eat out twice a week, make your favorite meal twice a week, or some combination of the two.
MAKE SMALL CHANGES
Don’t expect to do a complete 180 over night. This is why hasty, lofty New Year’s resolutions tend to fail. In order to be successful it is better to start by making small changes rather than throwing all caution to the wind and diving into unknown territory. Here are a few ways to implement small changes into your routine:
- Start by swapping out snacks like chips or candy with something healthier such as fruits, veggies, or nuts.
- Try learning one new recipe a week or every other week if you all ready have some healthy favorites.
- Gradually reduce portion sizes if you are eating too much.
- Be willing to try new things! You might just fall in love with a fruit or vegetable you’ve never had before.
- Substitute things in your diet one at a time. For example, swapping out yogurt with a list of unpronounceable ingredients you can’t understand for plain yogurt with fruit or honey mixed in.
Remember to apply these suggestions at your own pace. Set small term goals while you are planning your menu each week and write one at the top of it, such as, “this week I will put one less teaspoon of sugar in my coffee and next week I would like to try this new kale recipe.”
Take care of your body, feed it right, and you’ll see the results you are working so hard to achieve. Use this advice, find people to support you, and ask for help if you need it. It may not always be easy, but you can do it!
"That's A Load of...." Debunking Media "Fitness" Terms
Glance at the front of the magazines at grocery stores and you'll see a variety of "fitness" or "health" claims such as "tone," "fat-blasting," and other such nonsense as that. I find myself rolling my eyes so much that my occipital (eye) muscles are as big as a body builder's biceps. Sorry, strength coach joke.
Moving on, today I'm going to rip through debunk a few of those outrageous claims so that you too can strengthen your occipital muscles as you wait in the grocery check-out line. I can not possibly cover all the silliness out there, but I've narrowed it down to a few of the common ones (that seem to appear month after month on magazines such as "Self" or "Woman's Day"). A lot of these claims are found on women's magazines, mainly because I think we're fed more crap than the fellas, but they apply to both genders.
CLAIM: "Tone," as in "tone those jiggly arms"- First off, let me remind you that everyone's arm jiggles; that's what happens when a muscle is relaxed. The main definition of "Tone" in exercise physiology is: the normal state of elastic tension or partial contraction in resting muscles. For example, the postural are constantly contracting and relaxing to keep you upright (or slouched...stand up straight!). The fitness magazine "tone" refers to the ability to actually see the muscles' shapely form. (So really, they should say "definition" not "tone.")
In order for a muscle group to be defined, say your arms, two things must occur: 1) the muscle is big enough to be seen (so those stupid tricep kick-backs or bicep curls with 5 pound weight ain't gonna cut it when it comes to muscle growth.) and 2) there needs to be less subcutaneous (under the skin) fat. How does one accomplish bigger muscles with less body fat? Why, picking up heavy stuff and eating a vegetable and protein laden-diet! Glance through a women's magazine at those "arm toning" exercises and you tell me if you think they would actually succeed. As for eating healthy, the details look different for each person (i.e. paleo, vegan, omnivore, etc.), however it should be 90-100% REAL FOOD with minimal crap (though a Christmas cookie or two is ok.) 90% of the time.
FACT: "Tone" means: less fat, bigger muscles.
CLAIM: "Fat-blasting" food- The media makes it seems as if these foods (and it's a new one each week!) has heavy artillery and upon entrance to the body, starts blowing up fat cells left and right.
Uh, sorry, that's not how the body works. Fat cells, once formed, don't go away. They do however change size depending on how much fat is stored in them. So, in order to reduce the amount of fat in each cell, the body needs to be in a caloric deficit. This means you need to eat LESS than what you're using up, for the basic metabolic functions, exercise, and other activities. The body will burn it's excess energy, aka stored fat, to make up for the lack of energy intake. Altering body composition is a life style change; I guarantee you that just eating a serving or two of "fat blasting" foods will NOT be enough to reverse years of bad eating habits. There is a wealth of solid (and scientific) advice out there, and there are definitely more details than I plan on elaborating in this post (maybe another time...) however it boils down to this:
Stop eating crap, eat real food, and pick up heavy things. Take note that I put the nutritional advice first. You can not out-train a crappy diet, so clean that up first! There will be a blog post later on this month regarding that whole aspect of fat-loss.
FACT: Eating a whole-foods based diet, with minimal crap, and exercising regularly OVER TIME will reduce body fat levels.
CLAIM: "Target" body part, usually for fat loss- This myth just won't die! It keeps reappearing week after week on the covers of magazines and on the interwebz. People, YOU CANNOT SPOT REDUCE!!! The body doesn't say, "Oh, I see that you are doing thousands of crunches, I should reduce the body fat I store there so you can have a flat tummy." Really, it says, "For the love of all things iron, STOP CRANKING ON THE SPINE ! It HATES that!" Targeting is about as effective as trying to grow eye-stalks.
Oh, if grunting made it so!
For "targeting trouble areas" see the above two points: an overall body fat reduction will promote definition of muscles and those "problem areas" will be not so problematic. Again, it's a life-style change, not a quick fix.
*This is not to say that isolation work has no purpose. How else are you supposed to have guns for the ladies? Some isolation work thrown in to an already compound-movement heavy (lots of multi-joint exercises such as squats, deadlifts, pushups, pull ups etc) work out can provide some extra stimulation to a muscle group that can lead to hypertrophy (growth).
FACT: Compound movements should be the bulk of you training program. That combined with a diet of whole foods will reduce body fat levels and thus reducing the need to "target" certain areas. (anyone picking up on a theme?)
CLAIM: This is an actual quote from a celebrity trainer, who is a disgrace to our industry:
"Oftentimes, heavy weights can tear the muscle fiber causing it to bulk, but using a lighter weight for a longer duration and allowing your body to move in many different ways to target all of the muscles will lengthen them without tearing."
-Tracy Anderson
Multiple other coaches and trainers have ripped into this (and other nonsensical claims that spew forth from her mouth). Sadly, she is not the ONLY trainer out there who thinks this is true, she just happens to profess this poop where more people can read it. I'm not going to touch the first half of that statement except to say, uh, that's the method by which the body grows stronger...by tearing and repair muscles. Oi!
The phrase "lengthening muscles" is also found, unfortunately, in other fitness "experts" mouths and in their writings. It is physiologically impossible to lengthen a muscle without breaking the bones and extending them or altering the attachment points of the muscle. Yes, the muscles lengthen and shorten during normal movements, however, the actual length of the muscle doesn't change. Got a problem with that? Take it up with your parents, they passed the genes along.
I think that term is really just "tone" said in a different way. Ultimately, the phrase is intended to indicate "definition" just like the word "tone." If a trainer says/writes that claim, it's a pretty solid indication that the trainer/coach has absolutely NO idea how physiology works and therefore you should turn and flee. I'd also like to note her splendid use of the buzzword, "target."
FACT: "Lengthening" a muscle is impossible, and the intended implication is "definition" which is attained via the methods described ad nauseam above.
Now, my SAPT readers, you are armed with the knowledge to see through the baloney that fitness magazines and products proudly display and you have the ability to recall the truth: a great, healthy body is created by... do I really need to say it again? Don't allow the stupidity of the outrageous claims dissuade you from thinking that anything but consistent hard work (both in the kitchen and in the gym) will accomplish your performance and/or physique goals.
Maximize Each Workout: 3 Practical Tips on Mindset
The mindset associated with any training plan is really what makes the difference in achieving your goals. Sets, reps, exotic exercise selection, equipment, etc. doesn't make a drop of difference if you are only 60% engaged, focused, and mentally committed. Here are 3 practical tips to get you in the zone - and keep you there - for your next workout session:
- Music: I think everybody knows about this one, but it bears repeating. Music is so powerful because it has the ability to change your mindset and push you in the direction you want to go or need to be for a great training session.
- Environment: Make sure your training environment is conducive to you achieving (and be able to focus on achieving) your goals. Constantly getting stopped by other gym members to chat? Always feeling ashamed of making any noise whatsoever? Tired of being harassed for breaking out chalk? Well, all these are signs that you may need to reconsider your training environment and get into one that supports your focus and goals.
Alright, you've got at least two of three tips that you can implement TODAY to get your training dialed up and instantly more productive.
