Keep it Simple

Keep it Simple 

By: Ian Cutting

It seems that more and more so, we are approaching the whole realm of health and fitness backwards. We have spent so much time and money making them complicated, and into more of a perception than a reality. They have become topics muddied by secrets and gurus, detoxes and details, filters and photoshop, marketing, and social media. Keep it simple, and here is how.

I’m going to break a few things down into real, actionable, and simple pieces.  They may seem too simple, perhaps even frustratingly so.

Do you want to have a stronger more functional upper body?

Do a lot of push-ups. (Need some guidance? check out this handy video.)

Do you want to have stronger and more functional lower body?

Do a lot of squats. (Also need some help here? Here is another helpful video.)

Do you want to be a healthier, more durable, capable, longer-lasting, functioning, aesthetic… human being?
Do a lot of both.

Do you want to breathe better?
Walk more.  Take the stairs.  Park further away.  Go for easy and relaxing walks (with your head up, not buried in your phone).

Do you want to move better?
Move more.  Stand up and stretch.  Watch less TV, change seats or exercise during the commercials, or watch from the floor.

Do you want to feel better?
Slouch less.  Sit or stand up straighter.  Go outside.  Read a book.  Turn off whatever screen you’re looking at, and go to bed.

Do you want to look (better)?
Drink more water, and have an apple.  Put down or don’t buy the XL chips and cookie boxes, children’s cereals, processed snacks decorated by cartoon characters, and sugar-liquids of questionable contents and origin.  Say no a little more often, confidently, and a little less guiltily.  Say yes appropriately, not overwhelmingly.

Do you want to make a change, fix a problem, heal a hurt, or get better from an injury?
Take action.  Complaining is ineffective.  Telling yourself you’re broken or settling for sympathy doesn’t help you grow (and usually makes it worse).  Doing nothing rarely helps solve anything.

Do you want to make more progress?
Stop seeking or relying on the validation of others.  Fitness exists without hashtags.  Sweat and struggle a little more, stare and scroll a little less.  Double-taps are fine, but they don’t affect the work you have to do. (I’ve found a small committed fitness group can help with this.)

Do you want to be healthier?
Stop thinking that it only counts if the world sees you trying to be healthier.  Some of the healthiest people in the world don’t have online platforms.  Likes don’t really matter.  Effort all adds up.  Just live.

Keep your exercise simple, and do it more often.  Equipment is unnecessary.  It doesn’t take a perfect plan, schedule, or secret exercises.   There is no perfect plan or schedule, and the best exercises are the simplest ones done consistently.

Keep your food simple.  Counting calories, tracking macros, and different diets are fine, if you can stick to them.  However they often create more stress than is worth the changes they might cause, and raise more questions than they answer.  They can confuse the incredibly simple facts of food.  Eat more of the things you already know you should be eating, eat less of the things you already know you shouldn’t be eating as much of.  Look in the mirror regularly, check the scale occasionally, and adjust the quality and quantity of your intake accordingly over time.

Keep it simple, and repeat all of these for the long-term.  Adjust as needed, and have more patience.  The biggest problems are that you wanted all of these changes to have occurred yesterday, are disproportionately motivated by the world seeing them, and are overly concerned with the reactions of others.

How you treat your body you affects how you’ll feel today, how you’ll look in 6 months, and who you’ll be in 10 years.  It doesn’t matter where others have started or what others are doing.  Start wherever you are; that’s the only place you can, the only place that matters.  Get to it.  Keep getting to it.

We know what we have to do to be healthier.  We know, and yet insist on making it more complicated than it needs to be.  Move more, eat better, work harder, repeat.

Filter the noise.  Dilute the details.  Take action.  Be patient.

Keep it simple.

Training Mistakes: Barbell

Training Mistakes: Barbell work

If all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail.

What are you trying to get from a training session? What is the appropriate tool for the job? I frequently find that the barbell is the go to tool for most people. Weightlifting here in America has found itself in resurgence thanks to Cross-fit really putting it in the spotlight with their WODs and Games. I honestly think this is an amazingly exciting thing.

I even think the barbell is an all-encompassing tool for achieving appropriate resistance. That being said is it the right tool? 9 times out of 10. No. No it is not. I love to lift heavy stuff. When I think about the anatomy of a training session what is my ultimate goal for client(s) and for myself.

STRENGTH, right?

You would be dead wrong.

MOBILITY is the correct answer.

Mobility
mo·bil·i·ty
1.) The ability to move or be moved freely and easily.

BDWT Squat

(minimum squat to 90 degrees)

Without mobility, you cannot truly develop great strength. If you can’t bend, move, accelerate and decelerate through a full range of motion then there is no reason to attach yourself to an object that:

1.) Limits range of motion.
2.) Requires great range of motion to be effective.

The barbell is your graduate degree. It comes from moving you, your own personal physique effiencently. In multi dimensional planes, under control, then and only then can you really consider yourself capable to move on to adding resistance, this is especially the case in a bilateral activity such as barbell training. So before you decide to go and grab a bar, load it up and then move poorly. Ask yourself. How are my push-ups? How are my pull-ups? How are my mountain climbers? How are my bodyweight squats? Is my full range of motion getting better? Am I capable of doing good squats to 90 degrees without pain, discomfort, or valgus collapse? If the answer is No, then choose what will make you better.

Be excellent at the simple things and everything else will fall into place.

Dave Back Squat

(It’s a goal not a standard, always remember that)

Sir Mix-A-Lot had it right!

Prelude

In the last couple of weeks I have been collecting information from my youth and collegiate athletes regarding their strength and conditioning programs. Knowing their current training plan at school, I can build the structure for their training plan while they are at CA over break. Talking with all these student athletes revealed a new trend in the world of exercise and fitness that I have to comment on, because it debunks one of my favorite exercises: The Back Squat. (Cue the epic drum roll… Dun, dun, dunnn)

It seems that the back squat has become a dirty word in some schools; it is essentially banned in many of my student-athletes’ training facilities. The front squat has become the go-to lift. When I interrogated them about this, none of them seemed to have an answer to my persistent “why?!”. (This made me rather aggravated, because whenever they train at CA they generally want to know the “why” for every exercise and ask a fantastically annoying amount of questions. <-This is a good thing!)

Is this the new fitness trend?

Is this the groundwork for a war with the back squat?

For the love of all ninjas, I seriously hope not.

 

::Now, dragging my jump box to the front of the lecture hall to stand on. (These boxes are heavy!)::

 

In Defense of the Back Squat

As a foundational movement of the body, the squat is one of the most basic components of most athletic weight training programs. Debate on effectiveness of squatting techniques and variability of muscular engagement is frequent (and heated) between those with the PhD’s and us, nuts and bolts guys (and gals).

When you look at the hard scientific numbers behind different squat techniques, there isn’t a whole lot of difference. These numbers are based on electromyography (or EMG) activity. Whether it is the front, back, wide, narrow, partial, or full squat, there is minimal change in the muscle groups engaged.

Change in gluteus maximus (butt muscle) engagement is really only effected by squatting depth and stance width. The hip adductor (muscles of the hip, crazy you have muscles there right?) and vastus intermedialis  (middle muscle of the thigh, yup the front of your leg isn’t just one muscle) activity can be increased using half squats and a wide stance, but this change is minimal. Often, the front squat is given preference over the back squat in order to decrease compressive knee forces.

So, yes, definitely do front squats, for the love of all things, PROTECT YOUR KNEES! I partially agree with the highly paid professionals in our university systems. (Note: This is said tongue in cheek. Most of them are underpaid in my general opinion.) However, simply erasing the back squat isn’t the answer. Let’s break it down.

 

The Front Squat

Front Squat:Front BW

Front Squat:BW Side

Photo Breakdown

Deep front squat, heels flat, knees pushed out over the toes, elbows in line with the shoulders. Still inside of the knees. As you can see, I prefer using clean grip.  This forces the athlete to firmly rest the bar in the crux of the shoulder and helps build confidence in a deep squat position for the catch phase of a floor “power” clean.  (I also see a lot of rotator cuff inflexibility, so they try to hold the bar instead of support it. That is for another post though.)

I prefer the knees to flair out so as to increase development of the vastus lateralis (inner quad) through the drive phase of the squat, and to counteract valgus collapse (knee falling in) for those that suffer from that very fixable and over looked issue.

Synopsis

By placing the barbell across the shoulders, you load the front part of the body and force the body to pull forward. This increases knee flexion as the athlete descends into the squat. This puts greater load on the quads rather than the glutes. In addition, this requires the lower back and spine to remain engaged to prevent the upper body from falling forward and dropping the weight. All of this means that front squats are great for working on deep squats, stability, and core development.

 

The Back Squat

Back Squat: Front BW

Back Squat:BW Side

Photo Breakdown

Deep back squat, heels flat on the floor, knees pushed out over the toes. Glutes close to the ground. The bar sits directly over the ankles; and the line created from the knee to the ankle is parallel to the line created from the shoulder to the hip.

 

Synopsis

By placing the bar on your back you load up the posterior half of the body. This creates a compressive force that causes the hamstrings, hip abductors, and glutes to engage in order to protect the vertebrae of the spinal column. Many people argue that the back squat will lead to back issues later on because of this large load on the spine. However, the spine is a pretty amazing thing. It can actually take huge amounts of compressive force, as long as you don’t compromise it by flexing or rotating it under load.

The real issue is this: any exercise can cause trauma, if done incorrectly. By maintaining a strong upright torso and not collapsing during the drive phase (bottom to the top), you ultimately can lift heavier weight over time because the spine is such a strong support. The back squat will also develop a hugely under appreciated power source: your butt.  As some of my youngest athletes like to say, “There is nothing wrong with a big dump truck!” (<- This means butt.)

Note: To be clear, we do a lot of body weight squats at CA. My deep-rooted belief is that until they can move themselves; there is no reason to add resistance. This rule applies to adult athletes as well.


In Summary

When front squats are used exclusively, I often see underdeveloped glutes and hamstrings and over developed quads, generally vastus medialis (outer quad). In women, this imbalance is far more prevalent as all women are quad dominant. (It’s that whole making babies thing. Yay biology!)

In my youth athletes, I frequently see front squats that aren’t deep enough for increased range of motion as their ankle flexion is not nearly good enough to develop good lifting posture and depth. Their core strength is not well developed, so they tend to dip forward from the upper torso to “get deeper”. This sacrifices the whole getting stronger thing that they are trying to work on. This dip also comes from trying to lift too much weight.

The back squat is my go to lift at CA when it comes to lower body development for both the posterior and the anterior. It increases flexibility, without demanding it. It balances development between the quads and the glute/hamstring system. And finally, it supports large loads, without damaging the spine. This means faster, more powerful, and more explosive athletes. It may mean you have more developed glutes, but there is nothing wrong with a big dump truck, right?

So, Sir Mix-A-Lot had it right… long live the back squat.