strength
Strong Enough?
One of my older clients, an 84 year old golfer, recently asked when I would stop increasing the weights he uses in his workouts. I told him I’d stop increasing the weight if he ever stopped getting stronger, but that I thought he underestimated his potential and would probably continue to improve for quite some time. He then asked how strong I expected him to get, to which I replied “as strong as possible”.
His primary concern is maintaining his health and mobility, and his golf game is also a big priority. Both have improved considerably since I’ve been training him and he’s happy with his current level of strength and condition. However, I do not believe in just being strong enough because you never really know what “enough” will be for everything life might throw at you. What may be “enough” strength for your normal daily routine or typical physical activities may turn out to be far too little under different circumstances, and it’s better to be stronger than you need to be 99% of the time than not strong enough during that 1% when it might really count.
Unless you are omniscient and know all the challenges you will face in your life there is no such thing as strong enough. Stay hungry. Focus on consistent, gradual progression in your workouts and always strive to become at least a little stronger than before.
Survival of the Fittest
“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general.”
- Mark Rippetoe
The phrase “survival of the fittest” refers to the process of natural selection - the members of a species best suited to survival in their environment are more likely to live long enough to reproduce and pass along their genes, with each successive generation becoming better suited - more fit - to survive in that environment. Having already been born, there is little we can do to improve our fitness in the genetic/evolutionary sense. That is decided for us at the moment of conception. However, we can and should do everything we can to improve every aspect of our fitness in the physical sense.
In most parts of the world natural selection no longer operates the way it does in the wild due to agricultural and medical advancements and cultural and societal changes. These changes have lowered the genetic bar for survival significantly - have almost gotten rid of the bar altogether. Advancements in labor saving devices and easy access to calorie dense food have compounded this by minimizing the physical effort required for daily survival to practically nothing, resulting in a society that is mostly weak, slow and fat. Most people alive now in developed countries would be incapable of handling the physical demands of the day to day lives of our ancestors, and would have no hope of surviving in such an environment. There would, however, be far fewer hungry bears and lions. › Continue reading
Physique Versus Function - A False Dichotomy
Bodybuilding and training for performance need not be mutually exclusive. In fact, a training program and diet geared towards performance - specifically building as much strength as possible throughout the entire body while maintaining a low body fat percentage - will result in a physique that is both highly capable and impressive.
A major reason for belief in the physique versus function dichotomy is probably the greater use of isolation exercises in bodybuilding, which are often erroneously considered “non-functional” by many in the functional training crowd. They believe that an exercise must be performed in a manner that mimics how the body moves during activities of daily living, work, or sport for the strength or other aspects of fitness gained in that movement to effectively transfer to those activities. However, it is not necessary to work the muscles involved in a particular movement using a similar movement for the strength gained to transfer. Regardless of how a muscle becomes stronger, the greater strength can be applied to any movement involving those muscles, and any program that effectively addresses all of the major muscle groups will improve function, even if it includes isolation exercises. › Continue reading
More Modified CrossFit Routines
Since the CrossFit post I’ve received several requests for more “CrossHIT” routines - CrossFit routines modified to be more consistent with high intensity training principles. The difference between these and more bodybuilding-oriented HIT routines is a greater emphasis on metabolic conditioning and incorporation of more bodyweight and gymnastic exercises, which I believe are of considerable value. While there may be no positive transfer of skill from bodyweight or gymnastic movements to different movements, regular performance may improve general kinesthetic sense and proprioception as well as awareness of and confidence in one’s physical abilities.
CrossFit’s Greg Glassman has described the method as “constantly varied functional movement executed at high intensity” . Although an exercise is commonly considered to be “functional” if it mimics a movement of daily living, work or sport, since only the strength gained from an exercise will transfer to other movements and not any specific skill, any exercise that effectively strengthens the body and contributes to improvements in other general aspects of fitness could be considered functional. By replacing the Olympic lifts and certain other movements with exercises involving the same muscle groups you do not sacrifice any functional benefit. It is unnecessary to move fast during exercise to develop speed and power in other activities and there is no transfer of skill from an exercise to a different movement. For example, the skill of performing power cleans will not positively transfer to the different although superficially similar movement of a football lineman exploding off the line any more than the skill acquired performing football blocking drills will positively transfer to swimming. › Continue reading
Single Versus Multiple Sets - A Historical Perspective
A few months ago I was reading the DeLorme and Watkins 1951 book Progressive Resistance Exercise as historical research for the book I’m working on, and found the following statement about single versus multiple sets:
Pages 27-28
“Three sets of exercise in which the resistance is increased after each set offers the advantage of warming up the muscle but probably does not contribute toward increasing the muscle strength. By doing 10 repetitions only with the 10-RM strength increases would be approximately the same as when three sets are performed. In fact, if it were not important to set the physiological stage preparatory to a maximum exertion, only one set of 10 repetitions would suffice. This has been demonstrated time and again in the clinic in the treatment of injuries in young athletes. The validity is also attested to by the fact that many of the strongest strength athletes never perform more than 10 repetitions for any one exercise. Incredible as it may seem, many athletes have developed great power and yet have never employed more than five repetitions in a single exercise.”
According to Bill Hinbern, David Willoughby said nobody used “sets” prior to World War II, although it was common to perform two or three different exercises per muscle group. Decades of research and in-the-gym experience show the single-set approach is just as valid today as it was back when our grandfathers and great grandfathers might have started lifting weights.
The Ivanko Super Gripper
Our home gym has a small but respectable collection of grip tools. A few Iron Mind Captains of Crush grippers, an Iron Mind Rolling Thunder revolving deadlift handle, pinch-gripping block and 15″ loading pin, and my favorite, the Ivanko Super Gripper. While all of them have their place, if I could only keep one it would be the Ivanko.
The biggest advantage of the Ivanko over spring grippers is the ability to adjust the resistance from about 45 up to 345 pounds in over 50 steps. This exceeds the range of the first nine Captains of Crush grippers, from the 60 pound Sport to the 322 pound number 3.5. Only the Captains of Crush number 4 is harder to close than the Ivanko at it’s hardest setting, requiring a massive 365 pounds of force. This should be of little practical concern to most people, however, since only five people have ever officially closed the number 4 › Continue reading
CrossFit
Over the past couple years CrossFit has been gaining popularity as a way of training for “functional” fitness or general physical preparedness. According to the CrossFit web site, CrossFit is,
“…a core strength and conditioning program. We have designed our program to elicit as broad an adaptational response as possible. CrossFit is not a specialized fitness program but a deliberate attempt to optimize physical competence in each of ten recognized fitness domains. They are Cardiovascular and Respiratory endurance, Stamina, Strength, Flexibility, Power, Speed, Coordination, Agility, Balance, and Accuracy.”
The program consists of constantly varying routines incorporating a mix of “functional” movements such as various gymnastic and body weight exercises, plyometrics, Olympic lifts and other compound/multi-joint free weight exercises, and activities like running, cycling and rowing performed for varying durations to target different metabolic pathways. Workouts typically last well under an hour, and the recommended frequency is six days on, one day off.
While CrossFit will no doubt produce results, the same or better results could be achieved more safely and with a fraction of the weekly time invested with a few modifications. Safer, more effective exercises could be substituted for the Olympic lifts, plyometrics and exercises performed in a fast or explosive manner. › Continue reading