As long as you keep thinking of training and exercise as “the thing I enjoy doing” you’ll keep running into the mentally barbed wire obstacles of low motivation and diminished willpower. Regardless of how many positive shivers you feel towards training today, there will be days when, much like scooping up strangers dog poop, it’s the last thing you feel like doing.
Instead of trying to break through those obstacles, it’s better to bypass them altogether. To do so, you’ll have to introduce a new way of thinking. You need to eliminate the word “enjoy” from training.
So instead of training being “the thing I enjoy doing”, it’ll become “the thing I do”.
As is with work, you can’t stop going to work (or working from home, as most of us do now) just because you don’t feel like it. Well, you can for a while. But it takes only so long before your employer, clients or your customers will get the shits with your purely hedonistic “here’s what I feel like doing today” pursuits.
Like with work, accept that there will be days when the thought of training and exercise feels like someone asking if there’s a possibility for them to insert a pineapple up your butt. But, regardless of how you feel about pineapples, the feeling becomes irrelevant.
Turn up, do the training, go for a walk, get your exercise in. And feel better once it’s done.
You can easily train most of your body at home without any equipment. But the one most people struggle with is not knowing what to do for the upper back.
Doing any form of pulling becomes tricky unless you have a weight, a suspension trainer, a chin up bar or are willing to risk your face health trying out horizontal rows with a table (I wouldn’t recommend), or some sort of broomstick chair hazard (I wouldn’t recommend this either).
With that in mind, here are three exercises you can do without having any traditional gym equipment. You’ll need a bag of any kind with something added as a weight (how about throwing in those E. L. James novels you’ve been devouring since 2015?) and a towel (ideally not the tea towel you got in your great-great aunt’s will. You know, the one with the yellow flowers? Come on now, the one she bought in Spain?).
Anyways. I told you our garage has a grungy vibe to it.
Bag rows
You could also use a beach towel and put something in it as a weight.
Towel pullapart
Try ripping the towel apart hard enough to make a poop face. I like a wider than shoulder width grip to reduce the tension on the neck. Try 20s max hold with 20s rest x 3 times.
Snow angel in tall kneelingor prone
Tense up the upper back and keep it like that throughout the whole exercise. One reps is all the way down and back up. Do 3-5 super slow. And don’t arch your back.
Emails, calls, (virtual) meetings, keeping up with the 24 hour news cycle. And now that most of us are homebound, another household task is never out of sight. Vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom, planning tonight’s dinner, organising that awkwardly shaped cupboard that looks like Dresden in 1945. There’s always more to do.
Learn to live in the middle of the unfinished. It’s not that all the unfinished will never get done. You’ll get to it at some point. If it’s important enough. But not right now.
Right now is for focusing on the present. Not thinking of what’s coming or what has already passed. If your mind is not where your body is, you’re never really here. You’ll end up as a passenger looking out of a window watching your life go by.
You have a choice. Either experience life through a tour bus window. Or step off the bus, put your boots on the ground and interact with all your senses.
Now that your usual work routine is upended and you are trying to create a new one, start by scheduling the breaks. At what times do you usually have your morning coffee, lunch break and training session? Plan those first and guard them as if you just found a lost lick of a Hendrix.
The upside of working from home is not having to deal with the commute. It’s a daily thrill not needing to sit behind that one tradie who hasn’t showered since the invention of bread. But it’s not all unicorns farting rainbows.
The now missing commute was time spent on switching from work to home brain so we could be fully present by the time we got to the front door of our home.
Set boundaries. Have a separate space devoted only for work. It doesn’t have to be a spare room either. You can corner off a part of any room and make it into your office. Leave your laptop there. Even phone if possible. Walking into there is your commute. Walk out of that space and you are no longer working. You are at home.
I like to think of myself as a minimalist. Not a hardcore minimalist who takes only chewing gum and a stapler to go on a zombie hunt. But a minimalist nevertheless.
I have a somewhat nihilistic view towards most of the gym equipment. Although I work at a gym (Except now. Cheers, COVID-19. You dick.) with options galore of training equipment, I often set imaginary restrictions on the equipment I can and can’t use.
Working with these invisible rules is a sort of creative outlet, I guess. Besides, time is of an essence with a young family. One equipment training makes the whole session more efficient. Which is sort of nice now when most of us train at home.
Let’s cover everything you need to have and know to master full body strength workouts at home. Even better, take the kettlebell to your backyard or a nearby park for some rays. If you have the luxury to do so.
Equipment
One kettlebell
A weight that is challenging for 10-12 reps of single leg deadlifts. For most people, 12-16kg will do just fine.
Ideally without any kids, glass, or pets in the immediate vicinity.
Your body
Makes the training somewhat easier.
Warm up
Let’s keep it simple. Repeat the following warm up for 5-10 minutes, depending on how cold you’re feeling on the day.
Snoop Dog doing Spiderman x 5 per side
Squat to stand x 5
Standing march x 10 per side
Strength exercises
Choose one exercise from each column for the day’s workout. Complete them as a circuit:
Lower body → upper push → upper pull → core
Exercises – choose one from each column
Lower body
Upper push
Upper pull
Core
Single leg deadlift
Push up
Reverse snow angel
High tension plank
Swing or 1-arm arm swing
Single arm floor press
Naked batwings
Bear squat
Goblet squat
1-arm press
Split stance row
High tension side plank
Split squat
Half-kneel bent press
1-arm 1-leg row
Crawl
Programming
Choose one of the rep ranges: 6-8, 8-10, 10-12, 12-15*. *Batwings and planks, do the reps as powerful exhales through pursed lips. *Crawls, take one step forward and one step back. Repeat other side. That’s one rep.
Aim to complete as many rounds as you can in 20-30 minutes.
The goal is to do a strength workout, not mindless high intensity I-forgot-my-name-fuck-the-form-I-am-Troy-is-it-Christmas-yet cardio. After completing a set of one of the exercises, wait until you can comfortably talk before moving to the next exercise.
Then take a bit of extra time after completing a full circuit of the four exercises. Get some water and admire your glistening figure in the mirror. Maybe open the curtains to give the neighbours something to look at.
Never lose your form. Even if it means that you can’t complete the rep range you set out to do. You can always try again another day.
Progressing
If you did 3 rounds last time, try to beat it. Again, don’t sacrifice form to get there.
When the weight is good for some exercises, but too heavy/light for others
If it’s too heavy simply do less reps. If it’s too light you can get creative with pauses, increasing tension, or doing 1.5 reps. Since I am all about tables and columns today, let’s make this into one.
Exercise
Pause
Tension
1.5 reps
Single leg deadlift
5 seconds at the bottom
Up to 5 seconds on the way down
n/a
Swing or 1-arm armswing
n/a
Should be tight as it is
n/a
Goblet squat
5 seconds at the bottom
Up to 5 seconds on the way down and up
All the way down, halfway up, down, up
Split squat
5 seconds at the bottom
Up to 5 seconds on the way down and up
All the way down, halfway up, down, up
Push up
5 seconds at the bottom
Up to 5 seconds on the way down and up
All the way down, halfway up, down, up
Single arm floor press
5 seconds in the middle of the rep on the way down
Up to 5 seconds on the way down and up
All the way down, halfway up, down, up
1-arm press
5 seconds in the middle of the rep on the way down
Up to 5 seconds on the way down and up
All the way down, halfway up, down, up
Half-kneel bent press
5 seconds in the middle of the rep on the way down
Up to 5 seconds on the way down and up
All the way down, halfway up, down, up
Reverse snow angel
n/a
Up to 10 seconds per direction
All the way down, halfway up, down, up
Naked batwings
n/a
Should be tight as it is
n/a
Split stance row
5 seconds at the top
Up to 5 seconds on the way down and up
All the way up, halfway down, up, down
1-arm 1-leg row
5 seconds at the top
Up to 5 seconds on the way down and up
All the way up, halfway down, up, down
High tension plank
n/a
Should be tight as it is
n/a
Bear squat
5 seconds at the top
Up to 5 seconds on the way down and up
All the way up, halfway down, up, down
High tension side plank
n/a
Should be tight as it is
n/a
Crawl
Step, spend 2 seconds suspended before touching the ground
Move in slow motion
n/a
Sample Strength Program
6 minute warm up we covered earlier.
10-12 reps of each exercise with a 16kg kettlebell.
You can get heaps done with a whole lot of nothing and a bit of creativity. As long as you have a kettlebell, a small space and a body, you’re golden.
The hardest part of this housebound living is not deciding what to do with training. The hard part is actually doing the training when you’re stuck on your computer and struggling to switch off work.
Or, if you’re like me, you might have a kid demanding some of your attention. And rightfully so. Being a parent is awesome. More the reason to keep the training short and simple to get on with the other things that matter in life.
Don’t Take Your Strength Training Standards From Powerlifting
A fact: speeding through a red light will get you in trouble with the law. And if there’s no real-life-police or a tech-abled-camera-police to see it, you’ll at least get condemned, huffed and labelled as an irresponsible driver by your fellow motor vehicle operators. And as a bare minimum, you’ll see rude visual gestures from the people eager to cross the road.
The cultural norms around driving are strong and based on the heavy sense of “people like us drive like this”. That’s how it should be. Reinforcing and adhering to strict road standards keeps our roads safer. When it comes to driving there really is the right way to drive and the asshole wrong way to drive.
Unlike traffic, there are no strict right or wrong ways for strength training. No must do exercises, or strict standards that every person should follow.
We are not competing in powerlifting or Olympic lifting, so why should we follow the rules that are meant for those two sports? I mean, you don’t do the collision drills from rugby just to get your heart rate up either.
You don’t have to deadlift off the floor. You don’t have to squat to parallel. Actually, you don’t have to deadlift or squat. Period.
You don’t have to deadlift off the floor
The bottom position of the lift is the most challenging. You have to create enough tension to “break” the bar (whether it’s a barbell or a trapbar). This is where most injuries happen, especially during the first rep when the tension has to come from nothing.*
Not only that, but some people really don’t have the hips to deadlift comfortably off the floor. Hips which run out of available flexion leading to low back taking over. I’m in this category unless I go super wide with my stance. Which in itself makes the whole exercise as awkward as trying to shadow box a ghost.
Don’t get me wrong, I still have clients who lift off the floor. But I only do it with those who can do it really well. Otherwise the bar gets elevated. Raising the bar for 5cm -10cm off the ground will usually do the trick. The lift is easier to set up, and it’s easier on the eyes. Meaning it’ll feel less like shit.
You don’t have to squat to parallel
Sure, you’ll get more out of the squat if you’re able to go lower. Purely because it’s harder (someone smarty-pants can explain all the vector angles and EMG readings). But if going any lower than you currently do causes your knees, back, ankles or other body part to ache, why bother?
Your squat is your squat and as long as you get out of it what you set out to do, well, that sounds good enough for me. We’re not here to collect points on gym performance. But on how what you do in the gym helps your life outside of it.
In the end, gym is just training and exercise under fancy fluorescent lights while listening to Beyonce belt out her vocal chords. Or, if you lucky, you get to listen to something else. Like Crowbar.
But isn’t squatting ass to grass the benchmark for healthy hips and longevity?
Yes, but there’s a difference between squatting for exercise and squatting for the sake of maintaining or re-discovering one’s squat. Squatting for exercise is usually done for multiple repetitions. Squatting for health can mean just sitting in a deep squat once a day. Or as close to a deep squat as the person can do.
How to improve one’s deep squat for health is another article altogether.
You don’t even have to deadlift or squat
Sometimes you might not be able to tolerate any of the traditional exercises that all the cool, hardcore looking people in the gym are doing. I often find that when doing a program with heavier trapbar deadlifts my lower back let’s me know about it, eventually.
As in, “Hey, Joonas. This is your low back. Enough already. Ok? Cool. Thanks. Also, how good are single leg deadlifts? Yeah, you should totally do those instead. Ok, bye. P.S. ease up on the muesli, will ya.”
If your low back doesn’t like heavy-ish loading:
Here are some alternatives that require less loading through the low back while still working your legs and butt just as hard. And except for the skater squat and single leg squat, your upper back gets a decent amount of training in too.
Try switching the barbell or trapbar deadlift to single leg deadlift, skater squat, or even a kettlebell swing.
Try switching the heavier goblet squat or front squat to split squat (and progressions), single leg squat, or kettlebell bottom up squats.
Summary
In movement there are standards on how a human should be able to move. Being able to sit in a deep squat and hinging from your hips are both an important part of that equation.
But in exercise and training? Not so much. The only right way to train is the one that gets you results while staying safe. That’s it. Regardless of what others may think, there are no strict exercise standards that you should adhere to. Especially if they make you feel like shit.
If to not feel like shit means not squatting as low or elevating your deadlift, so be it. And if you have to abandon an exercise altogether because how it makes you feel, that’s cool too.
They’re just exercises, nothing else. Don’t tie your identity to being able to do them in a one specific way. Instead, do what suits you and your body.
*Yes, I know you have to create tension on the first rep. But it’s heaps harder to do for most people compared to any other rep of the set.
Call them rules or principles, either way it’s reasonable to expect that you have a set of them guiding how you live your life. Even if you don’t have them written down, there’s that inner compass of values that you reflect on as you navigate life. You know, don’t lie, treat others with respect, don’t be a dick…
As with life, principles in training matter because they keep you close to the track of what’s important for you. Here are the rules that guide my training. Both with clients and in my own training. And I just so happen to think that more people would be better off by adopting them.
1. Warming up can often feel like an annoyance, but it’s important
The idea of a warm up is to raise the tissue temperature and to prepare the ranges of motion you’ll use in the day’s training. Spending the extra time in the beginning means you’re less likely to pull, strain or do something else that won’t feel nice tomorrow. And you’ll get more out of the workout itself.
But warm up also acts as a vestibule to your mind. It’s the mid-space where you transition from a busy, work-filled headspace into the mental spaciousness and overall “on-ness” required for training. Now that sounds fancy.
Carrying over from the “on-ness” above, you’ll get more out of your training session when you’re with it, so to speak. Simply, it allows you to focus on the parts of your body you’re meant to be using during a certain exercise.
Mindfulness gets sickening levels of hype these days, but it’s not without a reason. Save some of it for your training sessions and you’ll get more out of the workout itself.
3. Have a one main goal per training session
Unless you have the luxury for lengthy training sessions to incorporate elaborate warm ups, mobility, training and conditioning parts, it’s impossible to get everything done. Be clear on what the goal for the session is, or you’ll risk going through a half assed workout that doesn’t move the results needle in any direction.
Work on what’s most important for your overarching goals. Usually it’s either fitness (this includes strength and other parts we expect to be included in the word fitness) or mobility. Improving your mobility isn’t always a must if you know how to choose the exercises that allow you to reach your fitness goals with the mobility you already have.
But most rules have an exception. Here the exception is to think of your single training session as two separate sessions. First session is for mobility. The second for fitness that helps the body to press “save” on the new mobility just created.
4. Never train through pain
Seriously. There are exceptions. But seriously, don’t do it.
5. Don’t train to get tired
Unless that’s your goal. Which to me seems a bit silly.
If you’re stuck on feeling tired, I recommend having a kid. Or if you’re not fond of kids (or have already done your fair share of raising them) adopt an older dog with a weak bladder who needs to go out 5 times between 11pm and 4am. You’ll be tired. All. The. Time.
Instead of chasing tiredness, train to get better. Progress equals success, which means that the next principle is going to come real handy.
6. Have a plan and track your results
If you have a specific goal, you need to reach you better have a trackable plan. When the goal is strength related, it’s mostly about what you do in the gym. Track your weight, sets, reps and anything else that’s paramount for you to gauge progress.
As a side note, when the goal is fat loss it’s a whole lot more about what you do outside of the sessions. Keep a food journal. You don’t have to walk around with a food scale in your back pocket. Hand portions will do. But track it.
7. Challenge yourself
Someone way more articulate than me once said that you can’t just keep doing what you’ve always done and expect to get better results. Or something along those lines. You know the quote.
Challenge doesn’t have to be a hero-training-mode-fuck-everyone-I’m-Troy mindset. In fact, I discourage it. But if you want to keep getting better, you need to stretch your comfort zone a bit and put yourself into situations where you might (safely) fail.
Whether it’s learning a new movement skill, getting stronger or improving conditioning. But as you’ll discover below, it’s not about blindly changing numbers (unless you’re single and on a steamy dance floor).
8. Master the weight before going heavier
This is the one thing I wish I would’ve understood earlier. And the one thing I have to keep frequently reminding myself of. And it sort of contradicts the principle seven.
Patience is the name of the game. In strength training, get really strong at the current resistance before jumping to the next one. It’s not sexy, but it’s the safer, more sustainable option. I even wrote a full article about it.
9. Leave some in the tank for next time
Reasonable done with consistency shits on extreme. The quicker you recover, the faster you can come back and do it all over again and get closer to your goals. It’s difficult to recover enough for the next workout when you walk out of the gym smoked each time.
Competition is another story, save it up and bring your best then. But this is about training for the competition. Don’t try to be a gym hero. Or a dick. Or a hero dick. Unless of course, your name is Dick Hero. In which case, we should hang out. And, I don’t know, maybe talk about your parents.
10. Homework can be even more of an annoyance than warming up. Still, get it done
The more homework you can do at home, the more you can focus on the stuff that counts in each workout. If confused, see number three above.
Summary
The principles that deliver sustainable results are far from sexy and “Instagrammable”. It’s all about consistent hard work. Ideally done with a limited amount of egocentric behaviour.
The Almost-Perfect Training Program for Busy People (Who Might or Might Not Be Going to Mars)
“I’m not the man they think I am at home. Oh no no no, I’m a rocket man” Photo by Nicolas Lobos on Unsplash
On every brilliant record there’s usually that one “meh” song that you’re willing to skip to get to the next. On Appetite for Destruction it’s “Think About You”. Although a good song, it sounds painfully 80s today. They should’ve put “Perfect Crime” or “Shadow of Your Love” there instead. I assume the Geffen suits had their say to make the album appeal for a wider audience. Sigh.
Then, on one of my all time favorite albums, Exile on Main St, it’s “Casino Boogie”. Again, it’s not a bad song by any means. In fact, it’s sort of good-ish. But it’s tough to stand out between “Shake Your Hips” and “Tumbling Dice”.
But there’s one record that’s perfect from start to finish
Kicking off with “Thunder Road” and finishing with the epic “Jungleland” and that big saxophone by Clarence Clemons, Born to Run comes as close to perfect as I can think of. It’s the one record I would take to keep me moderately sane on a solo space mission to Mars (and, ideally, back). [1]
And if I’d be off to Mars I’d want to keep loose and sane with a minimal, almost perfect training program. In case you’re off to somewhere in space anytime soon feel free to print this out.
Or, I don’t know, use this when you need a program on Earth to have all your bases covered.
The almost-perfect training plan for general fitness
Unless you’re into all kinds of war stuff and dynamite, “general” sounds lame. But that’s what most of us already do and need. Stuff that either:
a) forms the base to build on with other, more specific programs, or
b) is fine just like it is when the goal is to stay healthy, look decent, be strong and not to die.
Ramp up / movement prep / warm up
Downward dog to step and rotation x 3
Crawl x 20 frw/rev
Squat to stand x 5
Lateral lunge to overhead drive x 3
Standing cross crawl x 3
Get up x 1-2
The workout
A1) Carry anyhow x 1* *waiter, offset farmer, suitcase, rack, and the combinations of all
B1) 1-leg squat x 8-12 x 3-4 B2) Push up x AMAP x 3-4 B3) Kettlebell swing x 10-15 x 3-4
Don’t rush between the sets of strength work.
Complete for 3-4 days a week. Three is probably enough for the majority of us. Most of the time try to keep the intensity at around 7-8 out of 10. Some days go easier, occasionally go harder. Never judge progress based on any single workout, or even a single week. Or a month, if you have kids under the age of 3.
What makes this program almost-perfect?
Let’s do a run down of the stuff I value in programs.
It’s minimal equipment
Ideally two kettlebells somewhere between 20kg and 28kg range will do. This gives you heaps of options for carries and enough of a challenge for the swings.
If you want to go super-minimal, you can get away with a single kettlebell. Again, anywhere between 20-28kg should do for most. If it’s too light for swings, you can always do them with one arm. But let’s face it, 28kg isn’t too light.
Bonus. If you happen to have a 4-12kg kettlebell, you could do a bottom up variation of the get up. Great for building shoulder health, and destroying egos.
It’s full bodyand covers all the movement patterns
Push: crawl, push up Pull: carry, swing Squat: squat to stand, lateral lunge, get up, 1-leg squat Hinge: get up, swing Rotation: crawl, standing cross crawl, get up Locomotion: carry And single leg because life is so much nicer with a decent balance: standing cross crawl, 1-leg squat
The movement prep itself serves a purpose beyond just warming up the tissue. It also helps you to keep the upper back and hips mobile. Important stuff in a world that revolves around chairs.
Plus I threw in as many cross body movements as I could without turning this into a circus. It’s good for your brain, apparently. The cross body movement, not the circus.
Simple and quick to complete
With adequate rest periods this shouldn’t take you more than 40 minutes. But really, when in a pinch you could be done in 20 minutes. This is great for all us parents who always have to be somewhere soon.
Joint-friendly
Yep. Because, well, yeah it is. As long as you don’t do anything your body shouldn’t do.
But unlike Born to Run, it’s not perfect
You still need a kettlebell
This one’s rather obvious. If you don’t have one I suggest you go buy it, or join a gym. What else is there to say, really?
Not seeing the weights go up from session to session
This can be frustrating or even demoralising for some. You need to have the patience and persistence for constant strength method.
Lack of pure upper body pull
Yes, but we are getting plenty of upper back work from the carry and swings. You could also throw in some inverted rows or pull ups of any variation if you so desire. Great for the arms and whatnot. But definitely not necessary.
And in case you’re thinking this is not challenging enough
I beg to differ. You can do all kinds of evil progression with the exercises.
Progression I
Progression II
Progression III
Progression IV
Carry (suitcase, farmer, rack, waiter)
Slow, high knees with full exhale on each step
Suitcase and rack
Suitcase and waiter
Double waiter
1-leg squat
Slow the tempo
Pause at the bottom
Go lower
1.5 reps
Push up
Slow the tempo
Pause at the bottom
Heels pushed to wall
1-arm progressions
Swing
Less rest
Longer set
1-arm
1-arm less rest
Fancy progression table to please your eyeballs.
But honestly, most people get bored and never go beyond the second progression. That’s a fact.
In closing
Good programs don’t have to be complicated or have a ton or variety. But we trainers have a tendency to make them so because of boredom and trying to impress someone. I’ve been as guilty of this as anyone.
Also, what’s your perfect, or almost-perfect record?
[1] “Which one record/book would you take with you on a solo space mission to Mars?” A question I ask in my new client consultation form. In case you wondered. Now you know.
How To Decide Your Next Training Goal Part III: Measuring Fitness and Filling The Gaps
This is the third and final part of the series. If you haven’t read Parts I and II yet, I recommend you give them a geez before diving into this one. It makes this Part III far easier to get into.
You wouldn’t watch The Godfather Part III before watching the first two, right? Not that I am comparing this to The Godfather. It’s just the first that comes to mind when thinking of a trilogy of any sort.
So this last part is less about how to determine your next goal and more about taking a step closer to that goal.
Fitness – the capacity to do shit
Fitness doesn’t mean cardio, bodybuilding or any of that. At least not today in the bubble that is this blog. Fitness means do you have the capacity and the goods to absorb and adapt to the stress required by your next step?
You’ve looked at the standards from Part I and Part II and perhaps seen some gaps in either your overall health, body composition, movement, strength, conditioning, or a combination of some of them. But gaps for what? What is it that you are specifically training for?
It could be a sport related goal, but it doesn’t have to be. As you’ll see in the first case study, a client in his mid-60s wants to be more fluid and graceful stepping in and out of his car. That’s the stress he needs to absorb and adopt.
The second case study is a lady who wants a better butt to elevate her Kardashian game. For her the immediate goal of absorbing and adopting stress means that she can handle the best exercises that deliver those results.
Finally, in the last case study the client’s goal is a more typical athletic endeavour. For her it’s about being able to return to competitive outrigging and dragon boating and to paddle pain free after a shoulder surgery.
Let’s look at these case studies. It can help you to narrow down your training program and get the results you need to keep progressing towards your goal.
Case Study One: hip mobility to get in and out of the car
A client in his mid 60s has started to notice how getting in and out of a car has become difficult, even uncomfortable as of late. He is already seeing an osteopath for the hip and wants to emphasise this goal during his personal training sessions too.
The curve ball of a thing is that although he has 45 minutes of training booked twice a week, he’s always around 15 minutes late. We need to be able to do the best we can in 30 minutes, without completely ignoring other aspects of his health.
I am telling you this to show that you don’t always need long bouts of training to move the needle forward. A good sessions done is better than perfect that never gets even started.
Here’s a sample of how I divide the session based on his goals.
0-15 minutes – movement prep / hip mobility x 1 round
Diaphragmatic breathing to encourage posterior pelvic tilt
Hip, shoulder, scapula rotations on all fours
Rockback to heels
Hip Pails/Rails in modified pigeon stretch
Hip rotations
Rockback to heels
Glute hip bridges
Carry
15-25 minutes – power / strength circuit x 2-3 rounds
Lateral step (crossover, cross behind) to slam x 5 ea
Reverse step to high knee (trying to crossover to bring knee and elbow to touch) x 5 ea
Single leg squat to box with an isometric hold with the first rep x 8-12 ea
TRX Row x 8-12
Lateral crawl x 5 ea
25-30 minutes – conditioning x 5 rounds
Rope full body waves – emphasising hinging x 20s work : 40s rest
Depending on the day we might go 20 minutes of warm up / hip mobility followed by 5 minutes of power / strength and 5 minutes of conditioning. It’s not perfect, but you do what you can in the time you’ve got.
Case Study Two: Butthurt
A lady with a goal to get her Kardashian to pop. A more advanced client with a few years+ training history.
0-5 minutes – movement prep x 1 round
Breathing to center the busy mind
Hip, shoulder, scap rotations
Downward dog to step to rotation
Glute side bridge
Squat to stand
Carry
5-40 minutes – strength x 3 rounds
A1 Lateral lunge to pulse x 5 ea A2 Hip thrust march x8 ea
B1 Trapbar Romanian deadlift x 6-8 1.5 reps B2 Vertical cable row x 6-8 1.5 reps
C1 Pike push up x 5 C2 Step down heels touch x6-8 1.5 reps
40-45 minutes – conditioning x 5 rounds
Skillmill 30s work : 30s rest
Case Study Three: Return to competitive paddling
Bilateral shoulder surgery. Now at the stage of building more power and strength to return to competitive paddling.
0-10 minutes – movement prep x 1 round
Breathing
Hip, shoulder, scap rotations
Big 3 shoulder activation
Side plank
Glute side bridge
Cable shoulder external rotation (standing 9090)
Carry
10-45 minutes – power / strength x 3 rounds
A1 Get up to hand x 4 ea A2 Split stance chop slam x 5 ea
B1 Trapbar deadlift x 8-10 B2 Landmine single arm press x 8-10 ea B3 Single arm seated row x 8-10 ea
C1 Elevated push ups x as many as possible with perfect form C2 TRX row x 15
Conditioning
Done on her own on a different day.
Summary
When you have a goal in mind, it’s easier to specify the training program to get there. Find the gaps in your current health, body composition, movement, strength and conditioning as they relate to your end goal. Then fill those gaps appropriately.
And if your current goal is a more elusive, say “to stay healthy and don’t get fat”, that’s fine too. Just make sure you are not not letting any of the aforementioned aspects of health and fitness to deteriorate too far from the baseline.
Thanks for reading the full series. You’ve been great. I thought I’d never get this out in time.
How To Decide Your Next Training Goal, Part II: Are Your Strength and Conditioning Up To Standard?
Let’s continue the adventures into the standards. By compering yourself to the standards you can gain clarity on what to work on, narrowing down the goals to set for yourself. Today, strength and conditioning standards.
Strength Standards
Search the internet or ask ten trainers for their standards on strength and you’ll get eleven different answers. Surprisingly to none, trainers tend to be biased on pushing the importance of strength. Getting people strong is our livelihood after all.
But, how much strength is enough? It depends, as always, on your goals. Winning the heavyweight class in powerlifting requires an insane amount of raw strength. But as great as raw strength in powerlifting might be, it is too narrow approach for sports that require more than just moving heavy weights up and down. There is a point of diminishing returns for, let’s say, snowboarding, running, swimming or team sports.
I can’t give you a specific strength standards for every sport, but I can give you my standards
There are certain strength skills that have more carryover than others. The ones that provide the base for the other qualities, such as health, freedom and specific sports skills to thrive on. Beyond specific athletic endeavors where money, status and immortality are at stake, there is absolutely no point gaining strength at the expense of your health and freedom of movement.
Bodyweight exercises hit the sweet spot for measuring general health and wellbeing
I am far from a calisthenic purists who thinks all the world’s problems can be solved with a quality set of pull ups. No matter how much I want a diplomatic solution to all of the world’s problems, I doubt that it’ll happen by getting Trump to rep out on pull ups. Unless he gets a heart attack while doing it, survives, and comes back as a more decent person. But, I digress.
Having the control of your body ticks multiple boxes all at once while acting as a measuring stick for your overall health. Controlling your body weight in space forces you to keep your body fat and weight in check. It’s easier to bang out 10 pull ups weighing in at 85kg compared to 125kg. That’s just physics 101.
And so, we finally arrive at the strength standards for health
Push ups – full range, one second pause in the top and bottom positions
Women 10 repetitions Men 20 repetitions
Push ups are a simple test for upper body pushing strength, core strength and for creating and maintaining full body tension. Really, push up is just a moving plank. All the things challenged in a push up transfer to other activities in life, whether it’s maintaining tension on a bike or a surfboard, or creating stiffness in the trunk while throwing a punch in a street fight.
Note, I discourage street fights. Unless it’s Tekken*.
Pull ups – full range, one second pause in the top and bottom positions
Women 2 repetitions Men 8 repetitions
Pull ups demonstrate upper body pulling strength while being able to maintain a full body stiffness and control. Again, pull up is a plank with an added vertical pulling challenge.
To even get into the starting position of a pull up requires 180 degrees of shoulder mobility. Something that a lot of people lose throughout the course of life due to poor posture and lifestyle habits. Another box ticked.
The get up
Both women and men 1 repetition per side with a cup of water.
Strength and power rolled up into a one heavy iron ball. Trains the rear side of the body like nothing else. If I could only do one exercise for the rest of my life, it would be the kettlebell swing. Yes, it’s that efficient.
Why single leg and not a two-legged barbell squat? Less load on the low back while getting the bonus of working single leg stability. Sure, the rear leg does a bit of work, but whatever.
½ kneel 1-arm landmine press Women 20kg (aka just the bar) x 10 per arm Men 30kg (including the bar) x 10 per arm
As much as I’d like the kettlebell overhead press to be my go-to upper body strength exercise for clients, landmine is a shoulder friendlier option.
Farmer Walk Women 24kg per arm x 50 meters Men 32kg per arm x 50 meters
If I could have a second exercise to do for the rest of my life, it would be the farmer walk. When you go heavy, it feels as if there’s not a single muscle in your body that doesn’t work to a some degree.
Side note on grip strength as a measuring tool
Grip strength has been proven to be a reliable predictor of at least four super important things: a cardiovascular event in people with type 2 diabetes; the length of hospital stay in older patients admitted for rehab; a cause-specific mortality in middle-aged and elderly. Further, a study in 2017 found that grip strength is closely correlated with all causes of mortality. [1] And that’s sort of a big deal.
Training grip strength in isolation isn’t the solution though. Rather, grip strength is a signifier of overall health, vitality and strength. And which people have a strong grip strength? People who are active and participate in strength training. These folks (us?) tend to favor healthier lifestyle choices as well.
You can use the grip to test your daily readiness for training at the beginning of the session. Simply pick up a 6-12kg kettlebell in a bottom up position and notice whether it feels easier, harder or the same as usual. The easier it feels the better your readiness is for the session. As with most things, you need to establish a baseline of “normal” first.
When you look at the strength standards above, are you inching closer to them, or do they seem like a far out of reach?
If reading this made you realise your strength levels needs some work, that’s your goal for now. And guess what, here’s a great program to start with. But if you’ve got enough strength and some to spare, you should look at where you stand with your conditioning.
Onwards!
Conditioning Standards
“If your goal is to maximize your lifespan and stay healthy, you shouldn’t use the same conditioning strategies as a fighter preparing to step in the cage.” -Joel Jamieson
Resting heart rate, heart rate recovery, and heart rate variability are all important tools for checking your level of conditioning.
Resting heart rate (RHH)
As is often the case with general health guidelines the range for “normal” is as wide as Elvis’ pants in the 70s. Wide.
60-100 beats per minute is considered healthy, but for most people mid-to-high 50s is desirable. If you’re participating in a sport with decent conditioning demands (not darts), you should be probably sitting somewhere in the low-to-mid 50s.
Heart rate variability (HRV)
Heart rate variability measures the time between each heart beat. It can get all annoyingly technical so let’s just say that a high HRV is a great measure of your overall performance and efficiency of cardiovascular fitness. It means that the body can quickly change between different activities and demands.
High HRV may also mark how well your body handles different stressors of life. Too much training, poor sleep, lack of rest, and chronic inflammation can all lower your results. HRV goes down as you age, but as is with resistance training and muscle, bone and strength loss, you can control how fast this decline happens.
There’s not a clear “healthy” or “unhealthy” numbers for HRV as it varies depending on the person.*** To establish what’s good for you, establish a baseline from repeatable conditions. Shift your thinking from “higher is better” to a “normal is better”.
Measuring heart rate variability
You can use a variety of gadgets to measure HRV. Apple Watch, Joel Jamieson’s Morpheus and Finland’s own Polar are just a few of the options out there. I’ve personally tried HRV4Training app in the past and found it ok to use with a Samsung phone. Although the flash/camera based reader was sometimes out of tune, causing me periodically lose my shit.
To establish a baseline, take your measurement first thing in the morning when external stressors are low and you’re still in a rested state. For accuracy, try to keep the conditions as repeatable as possible. You should have a solid baseline of readings after four to seven days.
Keep tracking HRV for six months to a year to see any trends. If your readings are consistently normal, it affirms the goodness your current training and rest schedule. And I guess lifestyle habits in general.
I’ll go as far as saying that if you are consistently getting a high reading (and low on planned recovery days) you can probably stop measuring HRV until some factor significantly changes. Either in your training, rest or life and where you need to reevaluate your recovery.
Improving heart rate variability
If you’re getting frequent low readings (based on your baseline) there’s plenty you can do. Since Aerobic fitness improves HRV, I recommend you favor low-to-moderate intensity (about 60-80% of your max heart rate, or simply a pace where you can hold up a conversation) over doing multiple high intensity sessions each week.
Other things that will help you to improve your HRV score: manage stress, get enough sleep, don’t drink too much alcohol, stay hydrated, don’t get into a heated conflict with your wife or husband… As you’re starting to see, focusing on improving just one aspect of health should have a carry over to a host of other aspects too.
60 second heart rate recovery (HRR)
Heart rate recovery tells you how quickly you recover (surprise!) from a bout of exercise. The quicker you return towards your resting heart rate, the fitter you are.
You can measure HRR two ways: check your heart rate immediately after a high intensity effort (e.g. 30 second sprint) and again 60 seconds later. Or, check the heart rate after single all-out effort (e.g. long-distance run, cycle etc) and again 60 seconds later.
If you want to measure HRR specific to your sport, time the efforts and rests according to the demands of your sport.
Your heart rate should fall at least 20 beats within the first 60 seconds after intense exercise[2]. A drop of at least 30 beats within the first minute signals a strong conditioning. Anything less than 12 beats is considered abnormal so it might be worth checking in with your doctor.
How to improve your heart rate recovery?
Similar to reducing resting heart rate, heart rate recovery can be improved by improving aerobic conditioning (seeing a trend here?). You can do intervals at a medium pace, say 20s seconds on and 40 seconds off. The reps really depend on how conditioned you are. As a beginner 3-4 reps are usually enough. For more advanced 10 reps is a good number to aim for.
As with heart rate variability I also recommend long steady state aerobic work at 60-80% of your max heart rate. As an absolute minimum, aim for at least 20 minutes per day on average. Fast pace walking or rucking, cycling or kayaking are killer options for the enthusiastic individual.
As mentioned earlier, for more sport specific conditioning look at the demands of your sport and try to mimic those conditions in your training.
I’ve never seen a single Rambo, but isn’t the third one meant to be ok? And unlike most people, I think the third Godfather was decent. So yeah. Something to look forward to, perhaps.
* I wanted to say Street Fighter. But that would’ve been too obvious. **Recreational athlete is anyone who participates in a sport, however seriously, but isn’t making a living out of it. Although often the case, being a recreational athlete doesn’t have to involve competition. It can be about participating, taking in the nature and being confident in one’s abilities to fully enjoy the sport. ***Although certain HRV trackers can give you baseline based on other users. [3]
