Testosterone is a hormone produced by the adrenal gland in both males and females. As we age, testosterone production slows down and the body has a decrease in the amount of free testosterone that is available in the bloodstream. These reduced levels of testosterone can cause a variety of problems including hair loss, irritability, growth of unwanted body hair in women, a reduced libido, and the inability to maintain all of your muscle mass. If you want to counteract some of these problems, there are several ways to increase your testosterone levels naturally so that you can look and feel better.

Raising your testosterone levels can happen if you eat the right kinds of foods. Studies have shown that the proteins in eggs and whey allow the adrenal glands to keep the levels of testosterone in the body steady. Eating fruits and vegetables can also have a positive effect on the levels of testosterone in your body. Because fat contains enzymes that convert testosterone to estrogen, having a lot of fat on your body increases your chances for developing low testosterone levels. Eating fruits and vegetables can help you lose fat and also develop a stronger immune system. Eating meat can also help you to raise your testosterone levels. In a research study, one group of participants ate a vegetarian diet while others ate a diet of meat. Those who ate the meat diet experienced an increase in their testosterone levels. The protein in nuts can also be very beneficial for raising your testosterone levels. Studies have shown that nuts, particularly peanuts, can raise testosterone levels better than other foods.

Weight bearing exercises are also an excellent way to help increase the levels of testosterone in your body. Instead of training one or two of your small muscles, you should concentrate on training large muscle groups to get the maximum effect of these exercises on your testosterone levels. When you are doing these exercises, doing a heavy workload can also maximize the benefits of this type of exercise when it comes to increasing your testosterone levels. Instead of doing many repetitions with a low amount of weight, do five repetitions with a weight that is difficult for you to lift. Working large muscles groups by using a heavy workload has been shown to help with your efforts to increase testosterone levels in your body.

Several ways of increasing your testosterone levels are actually very common-sense approaches to health and wellness. One method of increasing your levels is to limit the amount of alcohol you consume. Consuming alcohol makes your body slow down its production of testosterone and other hormones because it is busy processing the alcohol to clear it out of your system. Another method of raising your levels is to get enough sleep at night. Scientific research shows that people who get a good night's sleep are able to maintain higher testosterone levels than those who are sleep-deprived. If your levels are low, try changing your sleeping habits to get a better night's sleep. Following all of these natural methods of increasing your testosterone can raise your levels and make you look and feel better.

Mike Westerdal is the President of Critical Bench, Inc. He earned his BS from Central CT State University and holds certification as a personal trainer with the American Council on Exercise. His articles are published throughout the Web and in numerous weight lifting magazines. His best RAW gym bench press is currently 450 lbs. He is the author of the Critical Bench Program which can be found at http://www.criticalbench.com/

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Tags: Levels, Raise, Testosterone

Everyone knows that dumbbells are extremely versatile, suitable for people of any age or level and great for training just about any body part. But over the past few years, kettlebells have been getting a lot of attention. Though we're just now hearing a lot about them, they're nothing new-they've been around for more than a hundred years. What is a kettlebell and where does it come from? Are kettlebells better than dumbbells? Well that's what I set out to discover.

Kettlebells are a traditional Russian cast iron weight. They basically look like a cast iron cannonball with a handle. Kettlebell exercises are a combination of strength and cardio exercise that are designed to build endurance and stamina. Proponents say that the kettlebell is simply the greatest tool for all-around athletic development.

Dumbbells are well, dumbbells. They've been around for thousands of years in one form or another. The Greeks and the Romans trained with their own versions of dumbbells. Versatility is a key advantage of dumbbells. They can be used to train nearly any part of the body and because they come in such a wide range of weights, can be used by just about anyone-regardless of skill level. They're also fairly inexpensive.

On the other hand, kettlebell exercises are primarily designed to develop functional strength. Their main focus is to work our 'non-mirror' muscles, the ones that we don't necessarily "see" in the mirror but are important nonetheless. That's not to say that kettlebells can't be used to train specific areas of the body-they can. It's just that the majority of kettlebell routines designed by the pros are more focused on movements that include cardio, strength-building and flexibility.

If you're into mixed martial arts or just otherwise are looking to get into some serious cross-training, then kettlebells have the advantage over dumbbells. When doing cross-training exercises with dumbbells-which mostly focus on specific muscles-you're basically restricted to using lighter weights or you run the risk of injuring yourself. With kettlebells though, the exercises require multiple muscle groups to work together, meaning that you can use higher weights, with less risk of injury (assuming proper form).

If your goal is to strictly "tone up" your body rather than to focus on developing overall strength and flexibility, then dumbbells are probably right for you. Dumbbells would also most likely be the best choice if you are recovering from an injury, are just starting out or are elderly. There are an unlimited number of dumbbell exercise techniques for toning the body or aiding in injury recovery that don't require more than five or ten pounds.

I think that if you belong to one of these categories, then you'll probably have an easier time working with dumbbells. For most of the history of kettlebells, they have been primarily used by people looking for a pretty heavy duty workout. It's only been in the last few years that professional trainers have began to realize their value as an all around fitness apparatus, so you're going to find fewer routines to choose from.

On certain levels both dumbbells and kettlebells are about equal. They both can be used in the home-or just about anywhere else-and don't require any special equipment. They're both very versatile, are suitable for all around, full-body training and can be challenging, rewarding and fun. Each can be used to target specific areas of the body and neither of them requires much of a learning curve-just about anyone can learn to use them without too much difficulty. Lastly, neither of them requires a great deal of skill or knowledge to be able to use them and get results.

So what's the verdict? Which are better, dumbbells or kettlebells? My conclusion is that neither one is "better" than the other. Both have their distinct advantages and disadvantages and can help you to achieve your fitness goals, whatever they might be. My personal choice is a combination of both-kettlebells for focusing on developing core strength and flexibility and dumbbells to isolate particular muscles and body parts. Your choice though is going to depend on your fitness goals, your skill level and ultimately, level of commitment.

Mike Westerdal is the author of "Dumbbell Exercises and Lifting Routines" To Help You Gain More Muscle, Lose Weight, or Just Get Yourself in Better Physical Shape... WITHOUT the Hassles, and Expenses of Health Clubs. Increase Your Muscle Size And Improve Your Physical Fitness In 90 Days - Guaranteed.

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Tags: Dumbbells, Kettlebells, Versus

by Michael Boyle – 5/02/2012

When people used to ask me to explain the difference between a squat and a deadlift, I'd always give a simple, straightforward answer: In the deadlift, the weight is in your hands.

To me, that was the easiest way to distinguish between squats and deadlifts. With squats, the bar is on the shoulders, either front or back; in the deadlift you have the weight in your hands.

So with that definition in mind, this is a deadlift:

And this is a squat:

Funny, they look an awful lot alike, don't they?

I can hear the arguments brewing already. "In the first video she bends forward slightly at the hips." So we're splitting hairs then? Bottom line, the movements are very similar. So, if my definition is correct and a deadlift is defined by a weight in the hands, what is this?

Is that a suitcase one-leg deadlift?

Readers will say, "Of course not, that's a rear-foot elevated split squat," or if you like silly names, a "Bulgarian lunge." But isn't the weight in the hands? True, but the argument will be that it's still a squat because the torso is more erect.

Now things start to get complicated. In a goblet squat, the weight is in your hands but above the waist. It's a squat.

In the kettlebell sumo deadlift shown earlier, the weight is in the hands but you can clearly make the pattern into a knee dominant one. So is it really a squat?

Is the exercise below a trap bar deadlift or a trap bar squat?

Does it depend on how you do it? If you use a squat pattern with a trap bar deadlift, does it become a trap bar squat?

Here's a new one: Perhaps it's a deadlift if you pick the weight up from the ground and then lower it back to the ground?

That might've been my new definition, until I read Dan John and Pavel Tsatsouline's Easy Strength. Pavel and Dan make the distinction of a deadlift having "deep hip movement with minimal knee bend," and squats having "deep movement of the knees and hips."

In other words, a hip dominant movement is a deadlift, and a knee dominant movement is a squat. An example of a hip dominant exercise that jives with Dan and Pavel's "deep hip movement with minimal knee bend" would be the kettlebell swing (shown below).

Another would be the inappropriately named still-leg deadlift (shown below). I prefer the term 'modified straight-leg deadlift' – and don't call it Romanian; we did these long before the Eastern European guys renamed it.

With the popularity of swings and the emergence of the trap bar, the landscape has changed. In fact, this year I'm strongly considering changing the name of our 'trap bar deadlift' to 'trap bar squat.' Truth is, the way we teach the lift is more like a squat than a deadlift.

On the other hand, our one-leg straight leg deadlift is definitely a deadlift (see the video below). Lots of hip flexion with minimal knee flexion.

Let's look at some other lifts and see how they stack up against Dan and Pavel's definition.

1. Sumo Deadlift. Anterior chain? Maybe. Posterior chain? Maybe. Adductor target? Definitely.

But is this a deadlift? When I was a powerlifter this was the deadlift – for squatters. I was a sumo style deadlifter because my legs were much stronger than my back. If you're a wide-stance squatter and more anterior chain dominant, you'll probably pull more in the sumo deadlift than the conventional deadlift.

Basically, you squatted your deadlift while holding the bar in your hands. If we think 'knee dominant' or 'hip dominant,' we have to vote for knee.

In Functional Training for Sports I called these hybrids – exercises that didn't fit simply into knee or hip dominant categories.

The unloaded version of this would be a sumo squat. Add a kettlebell and you have a sumo deadlift. Move the load up to goblet position and we have a goblet squat. Confused? I hope so. The point is that things are never as clear as we think.

2. Trap Bar. It looks like a squat, except the weight is in your hands. Some might say this is clearly a deadlift as the weight is in the hands at waist level, but look at the pattern. It's much more squat than deadlift , at least the way most people do it.

3. Suitcase Style Rear Foot Elevated Split Squat. Is this a deadlift? I don't think so, but when I look at my old rules, it certainly seems like one.

Really, who cares? It's all just semantics. If we're in a powerlifting meet, the deadlift will always be the lift where you pick the weight up off the floor.

However, in gyms and sports performance programs the menu has changed. If it's 'hip hinge with minimal knee movement,' then call it a deadlift. If it's 'shared knee and hip movement,' mark it a squat.

It's funny how much we learn after we know it all.

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Tags: Deadlift, Squat, Whats

by Michael Roussell, PhD – 6/28/2012

When it comes to forging a lean muscular body, total calories, protein, carbohydrates, and fats get the most the attention. It's for good reason, too, since trying to sculpt a noteworthy physique for beach season without being mindful of what you stuff in your gullet is a surefire way to get mistaken for a wayward beluga whale instead of a hard training bodybuilder.

However, often times it's what most would consider the "little things" such as sleep, endocrine disrupting chemical loads, and micronutrient statuses that can be the veritable little hinges that swing big doors.

The most overlooked of this group are the micronutrients: vitamin and minerals. Let's look more closely at two minerals, zinc and magnesium, and the role they play in your physique development.

Minerals play very important (yet often overlooked) roles in your body as they serve as cofactors or pieces to enzymes and compounds that carry out important functions.

Take iron, one of the most well-known minerals for example. Iron sits inside hemoglobin serving as the molecular docking station that holds onto oxygen and keeps the entire hemoglobin compound together. Without iron, this whole system would fall apart. This is typical for all minerals in your body – they do the dirty work for essential functions. Zinc and magnesium are no different.

Magnesium is required for over 300 different reactions and is the fourth most abundant mineral in the body. Magnesium is a physiological rock star, playing a role in regulating blood pressure, blood sugar, and energy metabolism. Nuts, seeds, spinach, and certain whole grains are all good dietary sources of magnesium.

Magnesium supplements come in all different types, however, avoid supplements containing magnesium oxide. While they contain the highest percent of elemental magnesium, research shows they're absorbed the poorest.

Zinc is an essential mineral found mainly in animal protein sources, with oysters being the best source. It's required for the proper functioning of 100 different enzymes. These enzymes play a role in a wide variety of systems in the body ranging from protein and DNA synthesis to immune function to cellular division. Your body doesn't readily store zinc so maintaining a consistent intake is required to maintain the needed levels in your body.

Despite the essential role of minerals, the importance of maintaining high mineral levels in our foods stuffs has been essentially ignored.

Some research has estimated that the mineral content of the food found in supermarkets is 40% lower than that of 50 years ago, making it harder to get what we need to make sure our bodies are running on all cylinders.

Adding back zinc and magnesium to your diet can help fight the depletion effects due to lack of dietary intake and exercise (another main cause of mineral depletion). Blood magnesium levels can decrease as much as 5% from just walking on a treadmill for 90 minutes at 3 miles per hour.

Research shows us some interesting benefits of supplementing with zinc and magnesium to replete our bodies:

Magnesium supplementation improves exercise tolerance during times when you haven't gotten enough sleep.Magnesium supplementation can improve cardiovascular function during exercise.Zinc supplementation can prevent exercise-induced decreases in thyroid hormone and Testosterone levels in both sedentary men and elite athletes.

As noted, the effects of hard training on zinc and magnesium levels further exacerbate the problems already created by the mineral depletion of our soil. Here's what you can do to get your body back on track.

ZMA® or zinc monomethionine aspartate and magnesium aspartate–This supplement was developed by Victor Conte in the mid-late 1990s through his company SNAC, which carried out micronutrient testing and optimization for high-level athletes, amongst other things (wink, wink).

While Victor Conte's role as steroid guru to the stars took away from the growing popularity of ZMA®, it remains a solid supplement that provides two key minerals for hard training athletes – and it's inexpensive. Take it right before bed and you can reap the relaxing effects of the magnesium as well (see below).

Topical Magnesium–As mentioned, magnesium is a muscle relaxant, making topical magnesium a great tool for people who have trouble unwinding and falling asleep at night. The importance of sleep and its effect on hormones such as leptin, ghrelin, and growth hormone can't be understated. Topical magnesium is a simple way to optimize sleep for certain people.

Falling asleep can be the sticking point for many lifters and if you're not falling asleep within 30 minutes, then you have a problem that needs to be addressed. If ZMA® isn't doing the trick, rubbing some topical magnesium behind your knees 20 minutes before bed should help you fall asleep faster.

Top off this night time regimen with a couple caps of Z-12™ and you won't stir until your alarm goes off the next day.

When dosing individual vitamins and minerals I always like to have an actual reason to do so other than X vitamin is good for you so I'll just take more. The best way to do this is through testing your mineral levels, although this isn't the easiest or most convenient approach.

Zinc, however, proves to be the exception. You can get a quick and easy handle on your zinc status by using the oral zinc sulfate test. This test is simple – it involves holding a shot glass-sized amount of zinc sulfate in your mouth for five seconds, then swallowing it. You then describe what it tastes like using one of the following:

Tasteless like water = Low Zinc Status.Slightly dry but mineral-like. A sweet taste developed after a few seconds = Zinc Status Marginally Low.It has a distinct taste that gets stronger over time = Zinc Status Almost Where It Should Be.Instant strong and unpleasant taste = Zinc Status Good.

You'd be amazed how many people fail this test miserably. The first time I did it, I was at Peak Performance in New York and thought that fellow T Nation contributor Dan Trink was playing a trick on me and had slipped me a Dixie cup of plain water. My zinc status was that poor!

If you can't find someone that does the oral zinc test, purchase a zinc tester (Metagenics makes one) and test yourself. Then, based on your results, add ZMA® and/or a standalone zinc supplement. Test yourself again in a couple of weeks and continue the process until your zinc levels get fixed. Once you do you'll be amazed. You'll sleep better, recover better, and have more energy to train.

Unfortunately, there isn't such an easy test for magnesium, although too much oral magnesium is an excellent laxative. So if you happen to overestimate your dosages, you'll know pretty quickly by your increased, perhaps frantic trips to the bathroom.

Several years ago I wrote an article for T Nation with Alwyn Cosgrove called Non-Sexy Training & Nutrition. It was full of effective but less than glamorous training and nutrition methods. Minerals fit into this category.

Taking a ZMA® supplement or complete mineral supplement every night isn't sexy but it will fill some pretty important nutrient holes that will make everything else that you're doing that much more effective.

Questions or comments? See you in the LiveSpill!

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This site may not function properly in the version of Internet Explorer you are using. Please upgrade to the latest version. Or download the latest version of Firefox or Chrome. by Chris Colucci – 7/05/2012

"Good bodybuilders have the same mind, when it comes to sculpting, that a sculptor has. You have to analyze. You look in the mirror and say, 'Okay, I need a little bit more deltoids, a little bit more shoulders to get the proportions right.' So what you do is, you exercise and put those deltoids on." – Arnold in Pumping Iron.

What do Frank Zane, Flex Wheeler, Dexter Jackson, and Phil Heath have in common, other than being four guys you'll probably never get to talk training with over a beer and some wings?

They stood out from the rest of the big guys on stage because of their constant focus on building symmetry rather than simply adding muscle regardless of proportion. They paid deliberate attention to developing each side of the body relative to the other – front, back, left, right, upper, and lower – as well as only building each individual muscle as it relates to "the total package."

Whether we're talking about the delts, arms, calves, or any other bodypart, symmetry and proportion are aspects of bodybuilding that often get overlooked by the recreational lifter. It's considered something only the pros have to be concerned with, or "not important right now because I have to get big before I worry about that detail work." That kind of thinking is as inaccurate as it is shortsighted.

Muscular size without balanced symmetry is like a gym with seven squat racks and only two barbells. The potential for something great is there, but it ends up totally missing the mark because of poor planning.

Not to mention the strength and health benefits of a balanced physique. Healthy joints, surrounded on all sides by well-developed muscle, will be better protected and more resistant to pulls or strains.

As far as using that strength, show me a powerlifter who doesn't think a big, strong back is required for a big bench press and I'll show you a guy who needs to increase his bench.

Let's figure out how we can implement symmetry training into your current plan for even better results.

There are a bunch of examples throughout the body where muscular symmetry, or a lack of it, can be either impressive and noteworthy or laughable and embarrassing.

On a large scale:

Front and back. Take a "big picture" view and compare the chest, abs/waist, and quads to the back, glutes, hamstrings, and calves. "Training the mirror muscles" is the common motto to remind lifters that what you can't see does still exist, and it can have a huge effect on your overall look and performance. One of the biggest indicators is your posture. If you're a sloucher, it's a safe bet your training needs fixing.

Left and right. Look at the right arm versus the left, as well as the right and left legs. The majority of people have one limb slightly larger and/or stronger than the other simply by being dominant on that side. It's normal and expected, but for 100% maximal gains, work to minimize any discrepancy in size or performance.

Upper body and lower body. This should be self-explanatory. Let's all do our part to kill the chicken-legged bodybuilder stereotype by the end of the decade. If you know a guy who gives any excuses for avoiding or minimizing leg work, kick him in the nuts and tell him when his legs are bigger than his arms, he can kick you back.

On a relatively smaller but still significant scale:

Calves and arms. The classic bodybuilder's goal is to have the calves measure the same as the upper arms (biceps/triceps) for a balanced look from head to toe. So find the measuring tape, check your arm size, feel a moment of awesomeness, then immediately check your calf size and feel terrible.

Biceps and triceps. Speaking of arms, it's often pointed out that the triceps take up the majority of space on your upper arm. Then why do you see people in the gym doing "arm routines" that use four different types of curls and only one or two types of extensions? Because most people are, well, dumb. Don't be satisfied with big biceps, make sure you're building big arms.

Traps and shoulders. The traps are one of those muscles that can warn people from a distance, "Do not aggravate this dude." However, if we consider the entire shoulder, trap, and neck region, bodybuilders with a keen eye will point out that overwhelmingly high traps will encourage the illusion of narrow shoulders, and nobody wants that.

Deltoid heads. Check out the shoulders around your gym and you're most likely to see overdeveloped front delts, everyone struggling for side delts, and invisible rear delts. In reality, simply reversing the priority – a focus on building rear, side, and front delts, in that order – would practically be a miracle cure for most folks' physiques and their shoulder health.

Triceps heads, lateral, medial, and long. If your tris look less like a horseshoe and more like a half parenthesis, you've got work to do. There's more to triceps training than just straight bar pressdowns, v-bar pressdowns, and rope pressdowns. If you're skipping overhead work, you're missing a big piece of the puzzle and a big piece of your total arm development.

Forearms and upper arms. While you might not expect to see many underdeveloped forearms, they're used to some degree in almost every exercise, from rows and pulldowns to deadlifts and heavy bench presses. If you look around, you'll find plenty of guys who could use more meat between the elbow and wrist. And a stronger grip never hurts, either.

Calves, gastrocnemius and soleus. If you even train calves on a regular basis, congrats, you're in a small club. If you take the time to include straight-leg work and bent-leg work to address both calf heads, you're in an even smaller club, slightly smaller than the number of people who still consider Nicolas Cage a talented actor.

Now admittedly, those last two examples are a type of fine-tune work that only deserves major attention if you're actually closing in on your physique goal. However, the general idea is worth keeping in mind for the long run so you have that much less catch-up work to do when the time comes.

Other multi-headed or "multi-muscle muscles" such as the quads, hamstrings, or biceps don't necessarily require the same particular attention because it's much more difficult to significantly target or prioritize those heads with special exercises or techniques.

Once you've taken a cold, hard, truthful self-examination, we need to figure out how to fix whatever needs fixing. Now that you've analyzed your physique and noticed what's disproportionate, the first step is to try to figuring out why.

Consider the body part and think back to remember how long it's been slacking and then look at how you've been training it recently (the last month, three months, year, whatever). This is why keeping a consistent, detailed training log is so important.

Your thought process should be along the lines of, "Hey, I've almost got a straight line from my ass to my knee. There are supposed to be hamstrings there. Oh, wait, I haven't deadlifted or done a leg curl since Chappelle's Show had new episodes." Ta-da.

If it's an issue of left/right asymmetry, which is probably the most common discrepancy around, that calls for a different plan of attack. If you ask most lifters the best way to address that issue, they'll shoot you the obvious answer, "Just add some extra sets for the smaller side."

This is like telling a 270-pound lady the best way to lose weight is, "Just eat a little less at each meal." Thank you, Sherlock, I truly wish I'd have tried that first. That method might deliver some results in the short term, but it's not the most effective way and it doesn't really solve the problem.

Arbitrarily doing "a few more sets" for the lagging side just doesn't make sense. How many more sets? Should I keep the same rep range? Do I add the sets at the end of the regular workout or do I add a small-side-only training day later in the week?

At best, you're going to waste time and energy putzing around instead of addressing the issue efficiently. At worst, you'll flip the discrepancy because you lost track of the goal and end up with a new dominant, overpowering side.

If your problem is as simple as one underdeveloped muscle (tiny calves, lagging rear delts, etc.), the most direct way to get things back on track is to attack it head-on with a short-term specialization program designed to give the muscle enough time in the spotlight to get where it needs to be.

John Romaniello wrote a pretty solid guide to specialization workouts here. If you're looking to give a significant boost to one bodypart, you can make a big difference with four to six weeks of targeted work if you go after it with 100%.

If you've got more than one bodypart that needs to be evened out, prioritize. By definition, you can only have one "worst" bodypart at a time. Figure out what needs the most work or what will have the biggest overall impact on your physique or strength, and address it. Then, once you're one step closer to being balanced, work on the next issue.

However, remember when I pointed out that left/right asymmetry needs to be corrected differently? Well, the solution is kinda simple and also kinda counter-intuitive. You're going to focus on the lagging side to an extent, while putting the "good" side on maintenance.

Oh no – gasp and double-gasp – the dreaded "M" word. Surely that means wasted time, several weeks when our strong side does next-to-nothing, practically withering away while we go on and on trying to improve the lazy, lagging side? Hardly.

This approach makes the most sense because the lagging side needs the extra attention without the stronger side coming to the rescue. If you're like most people, when you lift with both limbs and there's a noticeable difference in strength, the weaker side will (obviously) fatigue first and the stronger side will compensate enough to let you finish a few more reps.

However, this is the same as doing a barbell bench press, approaching failure, and then lifting your ass a foot off the bench and bouncing the bar off your chest to continue repping out. Yes, technically you're doing more work than if you'd ended the set sooner, but it's much lower quality work that isn't benefiting you in the long run.

To really give the lagging side a chance to catch up, we need to strategically use unilateral exercises that let one limb, and only one limb, do all the work. We also need to let the problem side dictate the weight and reps used, which it likely hasn't been able to do for quite a while.

If your legs need to be evened out pronto, give these workouts a 6-week trial run, working the rest of your body in two or three sessions the rest of the week.

* Hold each peak contraction for a count of "one-one thousand" and, if possible, touch the target muscle with the fingertips of one hand to improve the mind-muscle connection.

Leg Press (high foot position)* Hold each peak contraction for a count of "one-one thousand" and, if possible, touch the target muscle with the fingertips of one hand to improve the mind-muscle connection.

Begin each set of unilateral exercises (the leg extension, lunge, leg curl, and standing calf raise) with the weaker/smaller leg and perform reps until near-failure, then switch to the stronger side and only complete the same number of reps, even though it should seem "too easy."

If your arms are most noticeably uneven, give this twice-a-week plan a shot for a month or so. The rest of your weekly training shouldn't over stress the upper body too much or else you'll dip into the arms' recovery time. Something like legs/chest-shoulders/back or even a basic upper/lower body split would allow the arms enough rest between direct sessions.

One-arm (not alternated) Supinated Dumbbell CurlOne-arm Horizontal Cable Triceps ExtensionSeated Overhead Triceps Extension* Hold each peak contraction for a count of "one-one thousand" and, if possible, touch the target muscle with the fingertips of one hand to improve the mind-muscle connection.

Begin each unilateral set (the one-arm curl and the one-arm triceps extension) with the weaker/smaller arm and perform reps to near-failure, then switch to the stronger arm and only complete the same number of reps, even though it should seem "too easy."

One-arm Thick Rope Triceps PressdownOne-arm Thick Rope Cable Hammer Curl

Perform one set of each exercise with each side before switching. For example: A1 left, then A2 left, then A1 right, then A2 right, then rest.

Again, as with the other arm day, begin each set with the weaker/smaller arm and work to near-failure, and then switch arms and match the same number of reps.

If you haven't learned that balanced bodybuilding is better bodybuilding, you might be a lost cause. Or you might just be forgetting that there's a bit more to building muscle than picking things up, putting them down, and making the scale read higher.

Whether your current goal is massive size, raw strength and power, or super-crazy-deep abs, maintaining an aesthetic eye in your program design will always pay dividends. You'll still get where you want to go, but you'll end up stronger, healthier, and with an even better-balanced physique to show for it.

If you've had luck dealing with a strength or size disparity, let me know what worked for you in the LiveSpill below.

    @Tony: And while you certainly know your wifey better than me, here's an observation I've made about people in general: many don't WANT to train. They want the results, sure, but they do not want to go to the gym, work hard, make time for it, etc. So they look for excuses. Sometimes that excuse is: "Well, I don't like supplements (swallowing pills, drinking things that aren't Dairy Queen Blizzards, whatever), so I can't workout..." Just make sure she actually wants to train.  

When he's not studying early physical culture, experimenting with new training and nutrition theories, or editing articles, Chris can often be found in the T Nation forums where he uses his 10+ years of teaching and coaching experience to help guide beginners towards the best path for their goals.

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Tags: Strength, Symmetry, Training

by Jim Wendler – 7/09/2012

I've received many questions about how I handled my recent shoulder rehab. While in no way am I qualified to dispense a rehab protocol to anyone – I'm not a doctor or physical therapist – I will share the approach that worked for me.

Still, I ask that you take what I'm about to say with a horse testicle-sized grain of salt and get your aches and pains checked out in person by someone legitimately qualified. I want to make this very clear as there are too many unqualified people in this industry that deem themselves rehab experts and do so without any sort of responsibility to what they prescribe.

So what made me decide to handle my own rehab? First, the closest therapist that I felt comfortable visiting was a pain in the ass to get to. I live in a rural part of Ohio and sitting in morning traffic (or any traffic) is not how I want to spend any portion of my day.

Second, I wanted the challenge.

Before the surgery, I spent a couple of months researching through the internet and talking to others who had shoulder surgery similar to mine (labrum and rotator cuff repair).

I printed off everything and anything I could find and highlighted similarities. Everyone had a slightly different spin on the rehab but there are always going to be things that are similar. These were the things that I was most interested in.

When talking to people who had similar surgeries and rehabbed them, both successfully and unsuccessfully, I found a common theme – and this was the mantra that kept my head on straight during the entire time (and still does today):

"Don't rush the front end of rehab."

What this means is there's no medal, reward, or honor in being the first to bench press 315. Your body has to be given the chance to recover and repair itself. Rushing through and accelerating the rehab process isn't going to make the problem heal itself any quicker.

Take it slow in the beginning and let the surgeon's work do its job. There's plenty of time to press after it heals. Try to be Superman and chances are you're going to end up back in the operating room.

To make it simple: be patient.

About a month out from the surgery, my wife helped tweak my diet to remove some of the inflammatory foods. I felt that this was going to give me a leg up on my recovery and instill some good dietary habits. I stuck to a very simple diet that most of you are familiar with: grilled chicken, steak, rice, and vegetables. I did enjoy a few cocktails but those were cut down dramatically. I'm no saint.

My supplements were also chosen to help my recovery but again, nothing revolutionary. I took Flameout™, Vitamin C, a multivitamin, krill oil, ubiquinol, and astaxanthin. I took these supplements with every meal. This was at my wife's suggestion and it seemed to help the recovery process.

The final thing that I did before my surgery was make a pact with myself. "Nothing stupid for 4 weeks." This was very hard to do because there are many days that you feel great and think you can push it.

But I had a good support system that kept my head on straight. Both my wife and Will Ramsey (whose dad is an orthopedic surgeon) kept me honest and reminded me daily to never get too far ahead of myself.

Finally, and most importantly, I wrote down goals. This helped me guide my rehab every step of the way. If you don't know where you are and where you want to go, you'll just wander aimlessly through life. So I had to have concrete goals and an honest assessment of where I was.

The simple goal was to be able to press overhead and bench press pain-free. But really, that wasn't going to cut it for me. You need to have actual performance goals, or at least I do, to make it worthwhile.

My big goal was to be able to overhead press 135 pounds correctly after 6 months. I've known many people who've done this 6 weeks after the surgery but I wanted to be patient. This goal kept in line with the mantra of not rushing the front end of surgery.

These weeks pretty much sucked. I slept in a chair and was given a pain killer regimen that would've made a rhinoceros loopy. Sleeping in a chair, even a huge, comfy chair, is not comfortable. I spent most of every night listening to music and watching movies. I made sure to order every movie station that was available to me and caught up on some of the worst movies known to man.

During these weeks I did the following rehab:

Ice. I placed a big bag of ice on my shoulder about 6-8 times a day, for 30 minutes at a time. I tried using a special shoulder harness that pumped cold water through it but it never got cold enough. So I invested in some gallon Ziploc bags and those seemed to work great.

Sling. I stayed in my sling all 4 weeks. There are many that ditch the sling as soon as they can, but I saw no reason to stay out of it – especially in public. It seems silly but Mark Rippetoe emphasized that I always wear the sling in public, no matter what. It lets everyone know to stay away from you.

Diet and supplementation. I made sure to eat, even when the pain killers killed my appetite. It didn't have to be a very large meal, just some protein, some carbs, and vegetables. I made sure to eat 4 times a day. Supplementation was continued as discussed.

Passive movement. All movement performed was passive and through a pain-free range of motion. Passive movement means that my wife held my wrist and elbow and moved my arm for me. I did no work. She'd move my arm to the front, side, and all areas in between. Make sure the person doing this holds the wrist and elbow tightly as you don't want any sag in the arm.

This was done three times per day for 1-3 sets of 10 reps in each direction and started the day after the surgery. During the first two weeks, the motion is pretty limited so don't get discouraged. Do not take it too far.

Safety squat. I invested in a safety squat bar prior to surgery and was able to do some lighter squat sessions. I made sure not to stress my shoulder at all and this gave me some tremendous mental relief. I didn't start this until about week three.

Summary of first four weeks: Ice, wear your sling, eat healthy, proper supplements, and all movement must be passive. Do not try to be a super hero these four weeks.

Most therapists recommend you stay in the sling for 6 weeks. At about the 5-week mark I spent half of my day out of the sling. My shoulder felt fine but I also didn't want to take any chances.

I also made sure to sleep in my sling, although I was out of the chair and back in my bed. I didn't want to sleep on my shoulder the wrong way and screw it up. The icing continued but was lessened to 3 times per day. Diet and supplementation continued.

During these weeks the following rehab was done:

Movement Work. This was based entirely on how I felt that day. If the shoulder hurt and I felt awful, the movement would be all passive. This was especially true in the morning sessions. If the shoulder was feeling good, I'd perform the movement by myself. I would do front raises, L-raises, and rear raises – all for sets of 10 reps.

The Rip Fix. To help prepare my shoulder for pressing and strengthen my rotator cuff, I performed the following exercise, courtesy of the brain of Mark Rippetoe.

On my chin-up bar, I hung a sled strap that has two looped ends. Through these looped ends, I hung a 45-pound barbell. (See pictures)

I grabbed the barbell with a narrow grip, flexed my triceps, and walked forward until the barbell was overhead. I pulled the barbell overhead and squeezed my traps and held it there for a few seconds before slowly returning to the starting position, making sure to keep the triceps flexed and arms locked.

On week 5, I did this 1-2 times per day for sets of 5 to 10 reps. On week 6, I did the same routine, but once I got to the top I'd lower the barbell (as if I was lowering a press) until I felt pain. At that point, I'd press the barbell back up into the straps and hold it. I did sets of 5 reps of this modified press. Again, I'd do the modified press 1-2 times per day for 1-3 sets of 5 reps.

I continued to use the safety squat bar for lower body training. I didn't do anything too heavy or hard during this time.

Summary of weeks five and six: Ice, continue diet and supplementation, movement can be both passive and aggressive, use a barbell "sling" to help prepare your body for pressing.

At this point my shoulder could move through a full range of motion pain-free and I knew it was time to start training again. But I wasn't about to start maxing out and killing myself.

I invested in two more bars, the EFS Swiss Bar and the Buffalo Bar. The neutral hand position on the Swiss Bar allowed me to press and bench press pain-free; at this point a straight bar aggravated the shoulder but the Swiss Bar allowed me to press without pain.

The Buffalo Bar is a slightly cambered squat bar that allowed me to squat with no shoulder discomfort. While the safety squat bar was good, it never feels like a true squat to me.

Using the 5/3/1 program, I began training with a ridiculously light training max. I used 95 pounds as 65% on my bench press, thus giving me a training max of 145.

With the standing press, I just used the un-weighted Swiss bar for sets of 5 reps until I felt comfortable.

After a few weeks, I noticed that my form wasn't great on either lift so I took a step back and made sure that each rep I did was complete. I paused at the top and bottom of each rep, not caring about the quantity of reps, but rather the quality of reps. Since I adopted this, my shoulder has gotten much better. This made me realize that 5 great reps are better than 10 fast, sloppy reps.

My pressing was done as perfect as I could – pressing the barbell overhead and pulling my head through. The bench press was done with a slight pause at the top and the bottom.

Yeah, yeah, I know, this is shit that we're all told a million times when we first start lifting. But the quest for more reps or more weight makes it easy to cheat. Then you get hurt and realize you should've listened.

I also began doing chin-ups. The first couple of times, my wife held my feet to take some of the load off. But after a couple sessions, I was able to do clean sets of 5-10 reps, meaning the reps were done with a full pause at the bottom and a strong finish at the top.

I did chins 2-3 times per week. There was no leg swing, half reps, or "kipping" – the reps were done with purpose (like you're supposed to do). Leave the heroics for the wannabe's.

Deadlifts were done very light and all with a double overhand grip, with straps. This lasted about a month, until I felt that my repaired shoulder could handle the supination.

I tried squatting with a straight bar and it felt okay but the Buffalo Bar is still used to remove any chances. I'm in no rush. I still use the Swiss Bar for all pressing movements and will continue to do so. Whether I go back to a straight bar is entirely based on if I'll ever compete again. At this point, that's not on my radar.

It's now about 6 months post surgery and I have the following numbers to my name:

Press – 185 pounds for 5 reps
Bench press – 220 pounds for 11 reps, 300 pounds for 1 rep

All these lifts were very easy and I could've done more, but I have more goals to conquer and plenty of time to reach them. I have goals set for September and for the end of the year. I have no doubt I'll reach them as the plan that I laid out is simple and precise.

If you get anything out of this article, please take this to heart: have a goal, have a slow, methodical plan to get there, and be patient. You'd be surprised at what happens when you make this a cornerstone of your life.

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Tags: Rehab, Shoulder, Style, Wendler

by Craig Weller and James Heathers – 7/2/2012

James Heathers is an applied physiologist working on his PhD, and a stage strongman who doesn't mind the odd bit of pain.

He also likes using himself as his own lab rat and has a ton of equipment most people don't. Most importantly, he's a proponent of the Open Access movement, making scientific research freely available to the public.

After reading a study on the physiological effects of walking one mile every hour for 1,000 straight hours (repeating an ordeal first completed on a bar bet 200 years ago), James began thinking of ways to push physical limits in an unconventional way, learn a few things, and share the results.

A Youtube video titled 1,000 Pound Squat opens with what appears to be an angry fat man being electrocuted in a squat rack. Eventually one realizes that what's actually happening is a 1,000 pound Anderson squat, which is started off pins from the bottom position.

Bud Jeffries, the man in the video, was incredibly strong, but like many men who have spent their lives pursuing maximal strength above all else, he was also fat.

One day he set out to change this, with the goal of retaining his strength.

How? Kettlebell swings. Hundreds of thousands of kettlebell swings.

The results:

"...From my all time highest bodyweight of 385 pounds I'm down to 275 (was 360-ish starting this particular style of training). That's 110 pounds total. I've lost 15 inches off my waist and am wearing pants smaller than when I was in high school. I can still one arm shoulder-press and snatch a 150-pound dumbbell, one-arm row 300 pounds, do 15 rep sit-ups with 500 pounds on my torso, bend spikes, pull 700 pounds from below the knee and 1,000 from above as well as do partials with over 1,000 pounds."

As Jeffries and many others have shown, kettlebell swings work well for body composition changes, especially when they're done at a high volume and with a significant anaerobic emphasis. They can also be used to hit some pretty impressive levels of work capacity.

There's even a group of people on Facebook who latched onto this idea and made 10,000 swings during the month of January a goal.

It was with all this in mind that James formulated an experiment. High volume swings could do some remarkable things but current research hasn't delved much into the results of taking them to extreme levels.

There's also good sport in torturing oneself for research purposes. The 10,000 swings in a month idea was okay, but really, it sounded easy.

James settled on 10,000 swings in 10 days, with as much extra work added in as possible. His goal was to put his body through maximum survivable volume and find out what would happen. He'd be able to test out a few interesting ideas on pacing strategies and see for himself if this thing called overtraining really exists and what it feels like.

Shortly after announcing the project, a handful of people volunteered to join in. They didn't have as much lab access, but they'd be able to track body composition through BodPod and monitor basic data like waking heart rate and even HRV in a few cases. The experiment now had multiple lab rats.

With his toys, James would be able to monitor a wide array of variables on himself:

Blood triglycerides, cholesterol, and fasting glucoseResting metabolic rate (RMR)Full body compositionLactate provocation/recoveryBlood Omega-3:6 ratioWeightTape measurementsHeart rate variability (HRV)C-reactive protein

This raised some interesting questions. What was going to happen?

James interviewed a handful of strength coaches and received an influx of responses from people making their own guesses. Some were less than optimistic. His top three favorites:

You'll get compartment syndrome. Kiss your arms goodbye.This is a recipe for severe and rapid overtraining.You have deep-seated emotional problems.

(To be fair, James works in a lab where shooting electricity through living people in the name of science is a daily occurrence, so #3 may not be that far off.)

Of the less apocalyptic responses, Matt Perryman of myosynthesis.com made one of the most thoughtful (and eventually accurate) statements about what the subjects would experience:

"High volume/high frequency anything sucks ass the first week or three. I'd expect a lot of fears of overtraining and adrenal fatigue, plenty of second guessing, and generally lots of bitching and moaning.

"But it passes. I was as stunned as anyone, but if you just keep going, you shake it off and enter this wonderful land where you feel indestructible. That's not quite right, because you still feel horrible in a way – and your markers of stress will almost certainly reflect it – but it's like you learn to ignore it.

"You go into a different headspace where it doesn't matter, and the motivation to keep going overrides anything else; a very strange place that is, but also wonderful from a training standpoint.

"Body comp changes happen. It's unavoidable. Likewise for neuro-endo-immune markers – unavoidable, but at the same time, so decoupled from the performance variables that you can power through.

"The powering through is what becomes the Useful Thing. It's a skill that can be practiced like anything else."

Everyone started out with a basic plan of multiple sets of between 20 and 50 reps done in one or two daily workouts. The women used 16-kilo kettlebells and the men used 24-kilo bells, except for James who toyed with much heavier weights. Everyone kept a log and took daily notes.

Most of the participants stuck fairly close to this protocol and by about Day #6 were doing a lot of hand-to-hand and single-handed swings for variety.

HRV (heart rate variability) in those who measured it fell for the first few days, briefly recovered and then dropped continuously from about Day #6 onward. Waking heart rate was elevated in a similar pattern.

Soreness was highest between Days #2 through #4 and tapered down from there. It was limited mainly to glutes and hamstrings (which proved remarkably resilient overall) and the upper back from "packing" the shoulder.

Nobody reported any low back pain, although a few felt some tightness during the first few days. The worst soreness was usually in the upper back / traps.

Everyone did at least one extra workout on top of the swings during the ten days, and although nobody felt slow during the actual workout, most felt noticeably more fatigued the following day. A common theme through most training logs was drastically increased hunger, starting as soon as Day #2.

It also quickly became apparent that the mental side of the experiment was at least as difficult as the physical side. Most people hit a wall at Day #7 and this was the only time anyone had serious thoughts of quitting.

There was something inherently daunting at the 70% mark in the short term as well, as several who did all 1,000 reps in one workout noted that they felt the worst around number 700.

James fairly quickly deviated from the standard protocol, and on Day #2 tried multiple sets of 100-150 reps, thinking – incorrectly – that this would make the workout more efficient.

It was on Day #3 that James hit on a very useful idea for managing the workload of high-rep swings.

This method, popularized by Mark Twight, is known as a breathing ladder, and is a way of regulating breathing in proportion to the amount of work done.

The most basic version of this is to pick a big exercise (like a KB swing), do 1 rep, set the weight down, take one breath, do 2 reps, set the weight down and take two breaths, and so on up as far as you care to go.

You can work up and back down again, too. Count the total reps as a way of approximately comparing different ladders – for instance, from 1 rep up to 20 (don't repeat 20) and back down to 1 rep equals exactly 400 reps.

James cribbed together a notation to write this down quickly – the above example would be written as BL(1-20-1)1

BL = Breathing Ladder(1-20-1) = the reps go from 1-20 and back down to 1, in increments of 1 per set, i.e. 1,2,3...19,20,19,...3,2,1. Total reps = 400

During these workouts, don't open your mouth. At all. Breathe normally while working but exclusively through the nose during both rest and work intervals.

You'll have the urge to panic, open your mouth and gasp for air. Don't. You'll find your throat catches and your intake of breath becomes "ragged." Don't let it bother you.

According to James, there are numerous possible benefits to breathing ladders:

BLs decouple "panting" shallow breathing cycles from symptoms of SNS like fatigue and sweating by forcing "calm" breathing cycles instead.The respiratory musculature preferentially uses (and clears) lactate, leading to increased performance.There are possible autonomic changes from slow breathing at 10-12 second cycles.Distraction. Performance can increase from paying attention to something aside from how you feel. It has this in common with every meditative tradition – focus on the breath makes the mind "still."You may enter a state that's best described as autonomic dissociation, in which the link between your physical symptoms and mental state becomes deregulated. In other words, you won't care that you're uncomfortable.

Breathing ladders produce a mental challenge along with a physical one. Improvement in them, given that the weights and set/rep structure is fixed, is marked by an increase in time to completion.

As Mark Twight said, "Record the time for each effort because then, when an effort is repeated one might learn – all other parameters being equal – whether oxygen efficiency has improved or not.

"The longer it takes, the more time was spent breathing, which results from better breath-control and that discipline bought longer rest periods. Apart from training the aerobic system in a gym setting, Breathing Ladders teach breath and mind control.

"The perfect combination of movement/load/reps will keep the athlete in the zone where total panic is a single mistake away and Zen-like calm is the prize for those who can reach it."

James used mainly breathing ladders for the duration of the ten days, using ladders as long as 975 total reps and going as heavy as 48-kilo kettlebells or 2-24 kilo kettlebells.

On Day #7, James hit the wall. His wrists had exploded from using the 48-kilo bell the day before, and he had been up until 1 A.M. editing articles and was 800 reps behind schedule.

This gave him a severe case of "the fuckits" and he didn't want to move. So he tricked himself.

The workout he devised to get back on track wasn't a breathing ladder, took nearly two hours, and when it was over he'd done 1,860 swings. But he didn't know that until it was over and he counted them.

This protocol is based on three concepts:

Emotional perspective and pacing strategy. James had already done 975 reps in a breathing ladder, and that was a pretty big day. That makes 1800 reps a potentially miserable experience. Who wants to spend 1800 reps thinking about 1800 reps?

Open versus closed ended exercise. As James said, "Modern theories of exercise effort put your rate of perceived effort as actually causal, not just a consequence of the fact that you're getting tired. However, perceived effort is badly affected by knowing how much you've done so far. This protocol had to be open-ended, like a bushwalk which just has to go until it stops."

Endspurt. Endspurt is the German word for "finishing strong." Think of any time you've had to run a fixed distance or do a set of heavy breathing squats. As soon as you get close to the finish and the magic words "almost done" float through your mind, you're suddenly able to dig deep and finish with a strong burst of effort comparable to the output you had at the beginning.

Here's how the protocol works: Go find your jar of loose change. Almost everyone has one. Dump it out and grab a huge handful of the small coins. Don't look too closely or count them. To make it even harder to know how many you've got, split them between both front pockets of your track pants.

Each coin represents one set of twenty swings. Do one set, toss one coin from your collection into a container and do another. The sets will go by quickly enough that eventually you'll lose count of how many you've done, and despite furious speculation you'll never be sure how many you've got left. The answer is always, "Just one more."

Like being in a casino, you'll lose track of time and the amount of money in your pockets – Trapped in Vegas.

Once you get towards the end and you can feel only a few coins left, switch strategies to take advantage of the endspurt effect. Line the remaining coins up in rows of five (100 reps per row) and count them.

You now know exactly how many reps you've got left and the final burst is on. Compared to the first phase, this will fly by.

When you're done, count them all up. When James did this he ended up with 93 coins, for a total of 1860 reps. Would he do it again? "No. At least, not for a while."

Body composition results (BodPod or DEXA):

Like his body composition, none of James' biomarkers changed significantly (the loss of muscle is most likely glycogen depletion; DEXA is notoriously sensitive to this). From the perspective of his blood work, almost nothing happened in ten days – hardly overtraining hell.

The major change that he saw was in performance. Using the Borg Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) scale of 6-20, he went from 30 sets of 20 being RPE 15 to an extended set of 650 reps (200+150+100+100+100) being Borg 13.

The best way to convey this is with a picture. By the end of the experiment, a 24-kilo bell had become so light that he fabricated his own T handle weighing just over 60 kilos (about 140 pounds) because that much weight was needed to really feel a set of twenty reps.

The aerobic nature of the breathing ladders seemed to make James both much better at swinging a kettlebell and remarkably capable of buffering lactate in general.

On Day #9 he decided to test this with a quick conditioning circuit. He performed this workout:

5 Hang cleans (60kg/135)
20 Strikes with 20lb sledgehammer (10 per side)
5 Pull-ups
10 Overhead press (24kg)
50 Swings (24kg)

Twice, as fast as possible, no rest.

As soon as he finished the last rep he ran to the lactate analyzer, took a pinprick and analyzed it.

The result: 2.2mmol/L

In science-y terms, that's almost nothing. A max effort running power test will typically drive blood lactate up to 12-20 mmol/L.

This project can be a mentally difficult, tedious way to produce some incredible changes in body composition or work capacity. Several subjects lost as much fat in ten days as most people expect to lose in a month on a dedicated fat loss plan, and they did it while gaining lean mass. To do this, they stuck with anaerobic sets and did all 1,000 daily reps in one or two workouts.

James didn't see noticeable changes in body composition, although his performance level on swings and ability to buffer lactate improved remarkably.

A tentative conclusion would be that significant short-term body composition changes depend heavily on producing blood lactate (i.e. doing anaerobic work). This sits well with everything you've ever read about interval training, barbell complexes, EPOC, etc.

James agrees: "As far as I can tell, breathing ladders are simply too efficient for major body comp changes. Dan John wrote it down first – fat loss is inefficiency."

Finally, the lack of changes in inflammatory markers like C-reactive protein indicate that this sort of protocol can be done without doing much undue harm to the body, although HRV and waking heart rate fluctuations do show an impact and a de-load period would be warranted once it was over.

If you're going to try this experiment, you must be very proficient with kettlebells. If someone certified by a respectable organization like the RKC hasn't coached you, this probably isn't for you. If you walk into a gym with no experience, pick up a kettlebell and make a swing-ey motion like the picture in the magazine for ten thousand reps you'll destroy your back. Don't do it.

1. The role of emotions on pacing strategies and performance in middle and long duration sport events. Baron, et al. Br J Sports Med 2011; 45:511-517 doi:10.1136/bjsm.2009.059964.

2. Effect of deception of distance on prolonged cycling performance. Paterson and Marino. Percept Mot Skills, 2004 Jun; 98(3 Pt 1):1017-26.

3. Regulation of Pacing Strategy during Athletic Competition. Koning, et al. PLoS One. 2011; 6(1): e15863.

Craig is a former member of SWCC, a Naval Special Operations Force. He maintains a blog and does online coaching for Special Operations candidates at www.BarefootFts.com

James is a research scientist and PhD student in applied physiology. People also pay him to break things on stage. More at www.jamesheathers.com

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Tags: Swings, Thousand

by Ben Bruno – 6/29/2012

Recently TC sent me an e-mail asking for an article detailing how and why I train.

It wasn't an easy write. Self-reflection, it seems, isn't always a walk in the park.

When I first started seriously lifting weights, my goals were straightforward. I was coming off a major back surgery where I'd dropped from 163 pounds down to 122 and, not surprisingly, I felt and looked terrible.

I wanted to strengthen my back and put back on the weight I'd lost. I didn't particularly enjoy lifting weights but saw it as a necessary evil to get bigger and stronger, so I did what I always do when I try something new: I dove in head first.

I'm an all-or-nothing guy. I can't stand half-assing things.

Probably the best life advice I've ever gotten came from my good buddy's dad who recently passed away. Back in high school I was bitching about having to do something I didn't want to do and he pulled me aside and told me something I'll never forget:

If you have to eat shit, don't nibble.

That's exactly the approach I took to lifting.

I've made a lot of mistakes along the way and it continues to be a learning process, but one thing I can say with the utmost confidence is that I've always tried my absolute best right from day one. Any mistakes I've made sure haven't been from lack of effort, and if anything have probably come from trying too hard, which at the end of the day I can live with.

My biggest goal initially was to get rid of my back pain because it was essentially ruining my life.

I was told core strength was the key to feeling better so I began training the core like crazy, doing every exercise imaginable for hours on end. I didn't really know which exercises were best so I did them all, just to be safe. And lots of them.

Then I heard spinal stability was the ticket so I started planking like a banshee. I wouldn't be surprised if I spent more time in a side plank during 2006 than any other human being on the planet.

Talk about boring.

Lo and behold though, I started feeling better. Once that happened, I transitioned out of rehab patient mode and shifted my focus to getting "jacked."

Weighing about 145 pounds soaking wet at the time, I figured "jacked" was probably about 165 pounds. Little did I know what I was in for.

I spun my wheels for a little while using volume routines out of the magazines before stumbling across the work of Dante Trudel, creator of DC Training, which I still believe to be one of the best programs around for building muscle.

DC Training really resonated with me. Reflecting back now, it's pretty basic stuff, but that's exactly what makes it so effective. Pick a few key compound exercises that work best for your body and attack them with reckless abandon, pushing yourself hard and keeping a logbook to chart progress. Rinse and repeat. I like simple.

I'm the type of person that likes to put my own spin on things so I never followed Dante's program exactly as he laid it out, but I definitely internalized his principles and still use them today to guide me.

If you want more specifics, here's the basic template I followed for almost four years.

I got a lot bigger and stronger training in that fashion, but more importantly, it made training fun. I enjoy pushing myself to my limits. Volume training certainly works, but to me it feels like a whole lot of foreplay with no real climax, like the training equivalent of blue balls. High intensity training is more my speed: all fun, no fluff.

Why I train now is completely different from why I used to train.

Getting bigger is no longer a priority. I've hovered between 178-185 pounds for the past three years or so and have no intention of going much over that. I realize that's small by internet standards where everyone's 250 pounds at 2% bodyfat, but I'm content where I am.

I've never been after the bodybuilder look. I guess if I had to tell you my ideal physique, it'd be a gymnast (just with bigger legs). Truth be told, I feel my best when I'm around 170, but every time I drop weight my lifts take a dive and I freak out and gain some weight back.

At this stage I want to get as strong as I can at my current size. I realize that this makes strength gains a lot harder to come by, but I'm okay with that.

My reasons for training are far more mental than just physical. I still want to get stronger and fight tooth and nail every day to do so, but it's not because I really care how much weight I can lift. I don't compete in any strength sports so the numbers really don't matter. What matters to me is that I'm always striving to get better.

I've become much more process oriented and much less results oriented, which is extremely important for long-term success. If you live and die by your numbers alone, you're bound to get discouraged when you hit plateaus, which are inevitable the longer you keep at it.

Training used to be a means to an end but it's morphed into an end in itself. I train for the sake of training.

I just feel so much better about life. In a lot of ways, the iron is my therapist.

It clears my head, relieves stress, gets rid of pent-up anger and aggression, and almost instantly puts me in a better mood regardless of what's going on in my life outside of the gym. It's very rare to find me in the gym without a smile on my face. The gym is my "happy place."

I might honestly have a mild addiction, but it's an addiction I intend to maintain for as long as I can.

I've made some slight but important changes to my training to ensure that I stay healthy so I can continue making progress for years to come.

My basic training principles are still very similar. I prefer to pick a few exercises and really hammer them hard as opposed to doing a bunch of different exercises. I actually do even less now than I used to. A typical workout is 2-3 exercises, maybe four if I'm feeling frisky. I usually plan on three exercises and then adjust on the fly based on how I'm feeling.

I'll usually do 4-6 sets of each exercise staying in moderate rep ranges of 5-10 or so. Every so often I'll drop down and crush some really heavy weight or do a high-rep burnout set at the end of my workout just for kicks, but I find moderate reps to be my sweet spot to still get stronger and build muscle without beating myself up too much.

I alternate between total body training (as outlined here) and an upper/lower split, usually switching back and forth every three months or so. I resisted total body training for a while but the more I try it, the more I like it. When I'm doing full body workouts I'll lift 3-4 days a week, and when I'm using an upper/lower split I'll go 4-5 days a week depending on my schedule.

Time abiding, I try to end most workouts with some form of conditioning work, either heavy sled drags or something on the Airdyne bike (aka my nemesis).

I also still strongly believe in keeping a logbook. In fact, if you only take one thing away from this entire article, I hope it's this because it's the single most important thing you can do for yourself. I don't even care what program you do – as long as you're beating your logbook using mostly compound exercises, you're probably on the right track. I've developed a love/hate relationship with my logbook, heavier on the hate. That's what you want.

One big change I've made is that I now only train to technical failure as opposed to complete and utter failure. I used to take my sets deep into failure, letting my form slip quite a bit along the way. I have this uncanny ability to block out anything and everything during my sets, including pain. I've gotten nosebleeds, coughed blood, you name it (oddly though, I've never puked). I'd literally just shut my brain off and go until I couldn't move the weight anymore. It may sound crazy, but I loved training that way because it allowed me to test my mettle on a regular basis.

That being said, it's definitely not the smartest way to train if your goal is to stay healthy for the long haul. I accrued a bunch of minor injuries by getting greedy and trying for that one last rep when I should've put my ego aside and packed it in.

Training in that manner would also leave me brutally sore for days. Back when I was in school, that wasn't so much of a problem because all I had to do outside of my workouts was sit around and study, but now that I'm on my feet coaching and demonstrating exercises all day, I can't afford to be hobbling around like I just got my ass kicked.

I still push myself extremely hard, but now I terminate the set when I know I won't be able to get another rep with good form. When in doubt I end it early. Live to fight another day.

The other big change I've made is in regard to exercise selection. I used to base my lower body work primarily around the deadlift and squat (front squat actually). I love those exercises and if I had my druthers they'd still be the cornerstones of my program, but I started to find that as I got stronger at them, I began to break down.

It's one thing when you're deadlifting 315 and front squatting 185, but once I got up to deadlifting over three times my bodyweight and front squatting twice my bodyweight I could no longer justify it given my injury history, no matter how much I liked them. Those that haven't experienced a serious back problem may not understand this logic, but if you have, then you know exactly where I'm coming from.

I now use a lot of single-leg squatting and lunging variations to replace squats along with single-leg deadlifts, glute-ham raises, and bridges to replace deadlifts. If I get the urge to squat or deadlift, I do it at the end of the workout for higher reps so I don't need to use as much weight. An example of how I structure my lower body sessions can be found here.

I think everyone should learn how to squat and deadlift extremely well when starting out, but I don't think everyone is meant to load them extremely heavy. Let common sense be your guide on that one.

Find compound exercises that allow you to push hard without pain and make them your bitch and you'll be all set.

My basic nutritional template is as follows:

I base my diet around healthy foods that I enjoy so it isn't a struggle to follow. Life is too short to be worrying about food all the time.4-5 meals a day.Protein at every meal. Protein sources include chicken, turkey, eggs, fish, and chocolate Metabolic Drive® Low Carb. I also love (rare) steak and eat it every chance I get when I'm out, but I don't eat it at home because I don't have a grill and steak cooked on a frying pan just sucks.Carbs earlier in the day. I lift in the morning, so I'll have carbs for breakfast before my workout and then in the next few meals afterwards. I eat fewer carbs on days I don't work out but I still have them in the first couple meals of the day. Carb sources include quinoa (the kind that looks like oatmeal but tastes way better), rice, potatoes, black beans, and fruit.Lots of healthy fats later in the day. These include nuts, eggs, and my absolute favorite, avocados.Eat vegetables and/or fruit with every meal.I've never counted calories but I'm a creature of habit and eat a lot of the same things every day so it's very easy to make adjustments. I lower my carbs slightly if I'm trying to lose weight or increase them if I'm trying to gain weight. Everything else stays pretty much the same.I don't keep any junk food in my place (which I highly recommend), but I do enjoy some treats when I'm out with friends. I'm not that anal.

I call it a nutritional template as opposed to a diet because it's really not that rigid. I suppose I should really just call it sensible eating.

I've tried other diets but this is what I always go back to because it allows me to feel good and maintain a body composition I'm comfortable with without feeling deprived and having food run my life. That's really the key in my mind. Find something you can sustain and roll with it.

I honestly don't know a whole lot about supplements so I really just defer to those that do. If enough people that I trust and respect recommend something and it seems safe, I'll try it.

With that in mind, I like Flameout™, Glucosamine, Curcumin, ZMA®, and BCAA Structured Peptides.

I'm a lightweight when it comes to stimulants, so except for the occasional cup of coffee, I avoid pre-workout stimulants.

For me, the best way to ensure a good workout is to get a good night's sleep the night before. Since that's not always possible, a close second is splashing some ice cold water on my face and blaring some loud hip hop in my car on my way to the gym.

I didn't include my actual training program because that's really not the point of this article. I want to get you thinking about how to start creating your own program based on your individual goals and needs.

In order to do that though, you first need to know what your goals and needs are. I can't give you that answer. They may be completely different from mine, and that's fine. I don't think there's a universal "best" program out there and you've got to find what it is that makes you tick.

To do that, take some time and do something similar to what I just did. Write out why you train and what your main goals are. Then ask yourself if your current program is in line with those goals. If the answer is yes, give yourself a pat on the back and carry on as you are. If the answer is no, then you've got some work to do.

I tried my best to outline what I do and why I do it, but if something wasn't clear or you'd like me to expand, just let me know in the Livespill below.

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