Estimated Reading time: 4 minutes. In my last post about my return to the powerlifting platform. I posted my planned pivot out of that block. The Pivot went well, fatigue dropped, sore things got a lot less sore. Then I ran another developmental block, so I figured I’d post about that and how it went. The goal of the block was to explore some meme variants, get another block of drama-free strength training in, and see if I could reverse grip 3 plates. For no other reason than the meme factor of doing it. The Microcycle for Dev Block 2 was as follows. Day 1: Front Squat x5@8, Drop 5% Reverse Grip Bench x1@8, x3@8, Repeat till x3@9 Bulgarian Split Squats 3 sets @9 Day 2: Trap Bar Deadlift x5@8. Drop 10% Paused Closegrip Bench x3@8, Repeat till x3@9 DB Overhead Press 3 sets @9 Day 3: SSB Squat x1@7 Reverse Grip Bench x1@7 Sumo Deadlift x1@7 Prior Rationale. From my previous training, I’ve really never managed to do a great number of sets on lower movements. Even while I was just doing more hypertrophy-style training, I really struggled to get past 4 work sets at a higher intensity. Having had my main block going into my last competition being to test out minimal effective dose stuff, I averaged 1-2 drop sets per week. In this dev block, I aimed to see what volume was like at a couple of breakpoints. I also kept upper volume minimal with repeats, though I’ve never had issues with upper volumes ever. Along with me not really having the time to train for hours, I need to keep sessions pretty concise. Here are a couple of tables regarding fatigue % drops. I’ve already written about them in depth here. But TL;DR higher % drops take longer, and equal more total volume on average. Whilst being auto-regulating. I’ve picked out 15% total volume for the week between my Front Squats and Trap bar Deads. So we’re going in pretty low, but remember I’m not very accustomed to this. I chose an SBD day on the third day, to limit my total volume, and also to see how it works. I’ve never done one in a block before and they seem fairly popular now, with the rationale of sports practice (doing all three lifts on the same day). I also decided to play around with measuring bar speed and using it to help make some decisions through training. Overall my training priorities went something like: Pain lead. If something goes past a 3/10 on the pain scale, we call it. RPE. My own perception of how performance felt. Average bar speed on the app. If I couldn’t decide based on how it felt, I’d watch the video and decide based on the video and the measured speed. Let’s look at some top sets from week 1. Reverse Grip Bench x1@8 120kg 0.27ms Front Squat x5@8 110kg 0.46ms Trap Bar Deadlift x5@8 200kg 0.42ms These singles are technically week 2. I did my first-week session in a warm-up room at a comp, so I didn't get vids. SSB x1@7 150kg 0.41ms Sumo x1@7 180kg 0.23ms Everything looking fine. No massive drops post-pivot. Though the variations are really different, so it’s hard to tell even versus my pre-comp block. Now let’s compare them to the peak week of the block, week 7. Reverse Grip Bench 1@10 140kg 0.13ms Front Squat x5@8 125kg 0.38ms Trap Bar Deadlift x5@8 230kg 0.38ms SSB x1@7 170kg 0.41ms Sumo x1@7 210kg 0.27ms Overall a very good block for increases. +30kg on the trap bar deadlift is the most notable. +30kg on the sumo deadlift +10kg on reverse grip bench +15kg on front squat Going forward I’m going to pivot out and hopefully decrease fatigue a bunch. My rough plan to get towards my next competition looks a bit like this.
Given that I don’t know when in November the competition is yet, I think my next development block will be another more exploratory block, aimed at progressing some less specific work. Hopefully, you found some of this information useful, and if you’re keen to see how things go and how I develop things, stay tuned, and I’ll post the new dev block construction and implementation.
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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes. One of the concerns I hear from people, most often, as to why they are hesitant or nervous about going to the gym for the first time, or the first time back in a very long time, is that they’re worried they don’t know what they’re doing, and it’ll be very obvious to everyone else. Alongside the concern that other people may point that out, or make them feel bad. Firstly, if you are concerned about that I highly recommend trying to find a small to medium box gym, rather than a bigger commercial one. Smaller spaces tend to generate a much better sense of community and comradery, and asshats don’t tend to last/aren’t tolerated. Whereas big chain gyms are harder to police in terms of behaviour, and likely more concerned with making money than fostering a truly positive and healthy community. Secondly, as much as I can’t offer much advice on how to deal with idiots in the gym being rude, apart from just ignoring it, and if it’s of great concern, report it to the floor manager. We can do something about not feeling super confident about looking like we know what we’re doing. Every movement in fitness and sport is built from 7 fundamental movement patterns, and they are:
Once we get some practice and competency with all of these, everything else builds off of them. Not to say you’ll be smashing out front levers on your first day in the gym, but you’ll be a lot more comfortable grabbing a kettlebell and hitting some goblet squats if you’ve already done a bunch of squats at home. Let’s build this at-home workout. First we will go through each movement then at the end I'll give some advice on how to put it all together in one workout. I’ll throw in some regressions and progressions for each as well. Horizontal push: The classic push-up. If you can’t do full pushups (chest to the floor, then locking out to straight arms without bending your body en route) I highly suggest doing some incline ones. You can do these against a wall, on the edge of a table. The aim is to use gradually lower and lower surfaces until you are in the full pushup position on the floor. Image credit to silver sneakers Vertical Push: For this one, you’ll need a bag or container that you can fill with things to add some resistance. Once you have your bag, you’re just going to push it overhead while standing upright. We can regress or progress this by changing the weight of the object or bag. Don’t worry too much if there isn’t perfect symmetry in how you press it overhead, we’re just doing the best we can with minimal/no equipment. Image credit to Men’s Health Horizontal Pull: To pull horizontally at home we have to get a little creative. I recommend the wall or the doorframe pull. Find a doorframe or even better a vertical pole/post that you can hold onto or wrap an old towel around. You’re then going to lean back away from the wall, and then pull yourself towards it. Image credit to The Whitecoat Trainer You can progress this exercise similarly to an incline push-up, by finding ways to lower yourself closer to being parallel to the ground with your weight entirely held by your hands. If you’re feeling frisky you could also look to combine a hinge and a horizontal row for a bag/object bent over a row to fulfil both movement patterns at once! Image credit to Redefining Strength Vertical Pull: This one is very tricky without any equipment. If you have a resistance band this is easy peasy, just tie it to or lob it over something (even shutting one end in the top of a door is good). Then either sit or kneel relative to the band so that you can pull it from overhead down to your chest. If you do not have a band, we can just change what direction vertical is! If we go back to our object/bag and lie down and press it out to full arm’s length. Then we’re going to lower it until it gently touches the ground above our head, then return it to above us, while maintaining straight arms throughout. (Like the photo, but using whatever we have to hand instead of a dumbbell) Image credit to Women’s Health Squat: This one is pretty easy equipment-wise, though I am going to recommend finding something sturdy and about 3-6cm in height to put under your heels. A hardback book you aren’t precious about, even scrap wood would work great. Just to give your heels a bit of a lift, which will likely make the exercise a lot comfier. From there it’s just bending the legs and lowering the hips to as low as you can go without letting any part of your foot lift from the floor, and without leaning over too much. To progress the squat we can through one foot behind us up on a chair or a sofa, and turn it into a split squat. For regressing it we can set up close to a door frame, or something sturdy we can hold on to and use that to assist us up and down until it’s comfortable enough to not use hand support. Hinge: The hinge can be a bit challenging for folks. Just because it’s not a pattern we do regularly (unless you golf) the simplest way I get folk to a hinge is to assume that position as if you’re really out of breath, where your hand are on your knees. Then from here we just remove our hands and stay rigid, then pull the hips forward until we’re back standing upright. For progressing this, we can simply add load into our hands in the form of objects or bags. Or we can curl one leg back and go single-leg hinge Image credit to Men’s Health Rotation: There are a bunch of different ways we can get some rotation in, but one of my favourite starting points for new people is the lying trunk rotation. Image credit to My rehab connection You lie on the floor, and bring your feet halfway up towards your hips, then lower your knees to the side together, then control them back into the starting position, then go towards the other side. To progress these we can bring the feet up from the floor so the legs make a set of right angles and the hip and the knee. Then we can progress onto full straight legs, extended towards the ceiling. For the workout itself, start with just 2 sets of 8 repetitions of each movement, in whatever progression/regression works for you best. If you’re fairly sore the next day, don’t repeat the workout until the soreness has dissipated, but aim to build up to going through this daily. Add in 1 extra repetition each time until you get to 15, then on the next workout go back to 8 repetitions but do 3 sets of each instead of 2. Then go through the cycle again at 3 sets of each till you hit 15 reps.
Hopefully, you found that helpful! If you’re swithering about going to the gym for the first time, feel free to check us out @atsapproved on all social media, or just give us a call on 07843024606 and have chat! Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes I’m approaching this from a fairly biased viewpoint, however, I don’t think I’m understating anything when I say that exercise is probably one of the top 3 most powerful tools you have at your disposal for improving your health and well-being, both long and short term. Within exercise as a whole, one specific discipline has benefits unique to it that you can’t get from any other form of exercise, which is why I’m such a personal advocate for it. That being resistance training. The best approach would be to have a mixture of both cardiovascular exercise (heart/lungs/circulation) and resistance training (muscles, bones joints). Which should hopefully shine a light on the popularity of things such as circuits, CrossFit, Hyrox. They are not for everyone, however, and keeping them in separate workouts also has benefits. Weightlifting helps increase your overall day-to-day energy, there are a few mechanisms involved in this, but at the most basic level, if you are stronger, you’re more efficient at moving yourself through your daily non-exercising tasks. Walking the dog, picking up kids, and doing household chores, and if those take up less of your total daily energy, you’ll have loads more left to do with whatever you want. Lifting weights builds muscles and helps you reduce your body fat. Both of which will affect your appearance in and out of clothes, which is what a lot of people begin their training with in mind. Dieting can only get you so far if you aren’t lifting weights, you can drop all the body fat you want, but if there’s nothing under it to provide shape, you may not get the appearance you’re looking for. It also makes any reduction in body fat easier. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue, it requires caloric expenditure to stay around and function, whereas fat has a far lesser demand. Lifting will also strengthen, not only your muscles but all of your connective tissues as well. I realise there’s a bit of a dark cloud over lifting weights regarding form and making sure you’re ‘doing it right’ but this (like a lot of stuff) has been blown up a lot more than is realistic, normally to attract attention to content, or to sell specific things. Is there potential for increased injury risk if you do silly, non-appropriate things relative to your level of ability? 100% yes. Are you going to immediately snap something if you try and do a beginner program using appropriate loads and maybe just need more practice on your form? 100% no. If you are still concerned about getting some advice or oversight for your training or technique, then you should hire a coach. You don’t have to think of this as a long term commitment, plenty of people visit us for some consultations on certain aspects of training, and then go off and continue on their own, to great success.
Hopefully, this has convinced you that this year is the year to try out lifting! If it is, please consider coming down to ATS and giving it a bash. Feel free to get in touch on 07843024606 or @atsapproved on all socials. Estimated reading time: 2 minutes. With the fresh start, the new year brings, many people will be taking their first tentative steps into pursuing health and fitness, perhaps stepping inside the gym for the first time ever. It was once everyone’s first time in the gym, and there will be some nervousness and anxiety about going anywhere new, especially when you are a beginner. Here are some practical tips for your first few visits to any gym. oneCheck online or over the phone before going to see if they have any inductions or paperwork that need filling out prior to becoming a member or using the facilities. This will save you from having to feel rushed in your session or having to cut it short on your first visit. twoIf you have any health concerns about specific exercises and how they relate to you, especially if you have pre-existing health conditions, consult your GP or PPC first before engaging in any formal exercise program. threeWear clothes that you feel comfortable in. Whatever you feel comfortable, or the least uncomfortable in will be the best bet to start with. Try to pick things that won't impair your movement and you won't mind getting sweaty in. FourRemember to bring a water bottle and towel. Staying hydrated through your sessions is important, and having a towel to help clean the equipment after you’ve used it is just gym use courtesy. fiveOnce you’re done with a piece of equipment put it back where you found it. Most gym kit has a designated storage place and it’s just good manners to put things back where you find them. Even if some people struggle to follow this one.... sixDo your best to minimise using your phone during your session. Yes, there are use cases for apps, and some people like to record themselves to check their form or technique. But scrolling away on social media is a massive time sink and will not only lessen your focus on your session but will also likely mean you use a piece of equipment for longer than you probably could have. Hopefully, you found some of those tips helpful, and if you’re just starting out on your fitness journey this year I wish you all the best and hope you stick with it!
If you’d like guidance and support on getting started, or how to get the results you want from your fitness and exercise, feel free to give us a shout. @atsapproved on all socials, except Tik Tok because we’re old. Estimated read time: 2 minutes. Anxiety around the gym and exercise in general is our content theme for the first part of 2022. For people as deep in the fitness world as we are, we have fully forgotten everything it was like being new, or having not even started yet. However we fully believe that no one should find the gym or pursuing their health and fitness journey intimidating. It’s the onus of coaches and veterans of the gym life to make the environment is as open and welcoming as possible. With that in mind, here are 9 tips for dealing with gym/fitness anxiety. One If you’re worried about the amount of people there, especially given recent events, a lot of people aren’t keen on crowded spaces. Try to go in off peak hours to start out. twoMisery loves company! That’s one reason why crossfit is so popular. Bring a friend, not only is it good to have company when trying something new, it’s also great for accountability. threeHave a plan. Knowing what your session entails before you go to the gym will help you focus on the task at hand, and less on those anxious thoughts. Photo by Tom Hosking fourGet yourself some gym clothes that you feel confident and comfortable in. That’s different for everyone, some people enjoy leggings and crop tops, some people like a baggy crew neck. fiveConsider choosing a private facility, they’ll be less busy and you're far more likely to find a friendly welcoming community. SIXRemember everyone is at different points in their journey, you’re just starting out. Everyone who looks super confident and super strong also once had their first nervous steps into a gym that they didn’t know what to do with. SEVENIf you’re able to, hire a coach or PT to help you get started and teach you some fundamentals. You’ll have a confident base knowledge of things to do, and you’ll have a plan to stick to even if you’re on your own. Photo by Tom Hosking EIGHTRemember fitness and health is a lifelong pursuit, there is no ‘completion’. You never complete playing an instrument, or learning a language. There’s always more to learn and more to do, and none of it happens fast. NINEResearch the gym you plan to go to, and it’s equipment ahead of time. Then research some exercises you can do with it will mean you are better prepared ahead of your visit. Photo by Tom Hosking Hopefully some of these were of use. If you are considering starting your health and fitness journey but are feeling anxious about it, please get in touch! We’d love to have a chat and see if we can help you out.
How has your training been affected by the lockdown? A lot of our clients and members have had their regular training turned upside down by this, and left them wondering what they can get done in terms of training outcomes at the moment. Will they be able to achieve their goals, or is it all a total waste of time? Caveat to all I am saying, if you have a great home gym, you are all good and we are jealous of you. Let me start off by saying if you are feeling the same way. We get that. Our own training has been derailed as well and our plans of what we wanted to accomplish have been impacted by this as well. However all hope is not lost. In the words of Gandalf the Grey, the greatest Wizard of our time. Jokes aside there are positives to this time where our training is all thrown up in the air. What we need to do now is adapt, and overcome. So let's break it down. What do we need to adapt to, what will the new outcomes be, are we happy with them, and how will we go about achieving them. For this I will split this down into three groups, general population (GP) who are people who are training to be fitter, healthier, stronger etc however don’t compete in a specific sport. Powerlifters, who are now unable to train with their usual training weights, and athletes involved within a sport. First up the general populationThis group of individuals, are the least likely to have their goals significantly impacted due to the lack of gym equipment. Goals like increased muscle mass, increased cardiovascular performance, general health, can all be improved with body weight exercises programmed together in a proper fashion. At the current point in time you are still able to go out for a run/cycle etc. You may have to shift the expected time frame you will achieve your results however. It may take you a bit longer to get your 10k time down, or to get as lean as you want. Or to add that extra muscle mass. This is ok as you are not doing this for a competition or specific playing season but for your own personal benefit. Your routine will be all messed up so try to re-establish some form of routine as best you can and maintain that. It helps to have some accountability on this whether that be a partner or friend, or a paid coach is also a good option as you will be more likely to adhere to the training they give you. If you don’t currently have a coach but are thinking of getting one we have written an article on how to go about choosing one that fits you best. You can find that here. Our advice for this group is just to allow for extra time for you to reach your old goals, and change your training to accommodate for the lack of availability to resistance training approaches and you will be grand. Now Powerlifters
There I said it, here is where most of you probably laugh at me and close the tab. For those that are left there is great benefit to this and let me describe how this will lead to you having a bigger total further down the line. There are two aspects you can look at this from, one is weight class based, and one is training performance based. First up weight class. You may be hovering above or just in your weight class. This is a great opportunity to get some body composition work done, and either get yourself comfortably in your weight class, or give yourself plenty breathing room so that you can even bulk into your next comp. Which is sadly unheard of in a lot of powerlifting as lifters are very tied to their weight classes. Imagine being able to eat to your heart's content during your peak and strength phases and fully recover between sessions. The impact to your performance on the platform would be significant, don’t you agree? Next up training performance. We at ATS have spoken often about the importance of increasing muscle mass to get better at powerlifting so I won't dive into that right now. If you want to see our thoughts on it jump here. The best way to do this is by high volume sets, and one of the limiting factors in your performance during high rep sets is your ability to recover in between sets, and your ability to complete high rep sets. How many of you have felt that you could do more weight for sets of 10 but you have been so out of breath you couldn't add more weight? I know I have been there. This is where your general conditioning comes in. Improvements in the various energy systems within the body that produce energy for exercise and their ability to stave off fatigue will allow you to improve your ability to complete hard, high volume sets. Long story short, improving your conditioning, means you can train harder, for longer, and recover better both during workouts and in between workouts. One other factor to consider is to do as much as possible to maintain as much muscle mass as possible. Strength takes 2-3 weeks to start dropping, and muscle mass up to 8 weeks to start to drop. This is with no training and we can improve those by certain training methods. So outcomes from changing up your training will be to improve your overall conditioning and maintain as much muscle mass as possible. Are we happy with these outcomes, probably not as it's exactly what powerlifters hate, but the long term benefits to your total make it worth the effort. So how will we achieve this? Via a combination of HIIT circuits aimed at improving conditioning, and resistance training sessions utilising body weight movements and items we can find around the house to add additional resistance to exercises. Finally Athletes involved in sportDepending on when your season is or was means shifting the advice in different directions. However there are two large aspects that change how you will be affected by this. Your skill acquisition training (team practice), and your physical acquisition training (gym time). For all sports now training will be cancelled, so unless you can practice by yourself in your back garden your skill acquisition time has dropped to zero. You can do things like study techniques and your play books, however without the repetitions physically this isn’t totally helpful. There also isn’t much we can do about this, so it is best to not worry about it for now. What we can do is work on our physical preparation, each and every sport has its different requirements and its different importance on various training outcomes. What you need to do is decide which are of the most importance to your sport, then how effectively you can train each one. For example you are going to really struggle to train absolute strength, however you can work on your anaerobic and aerobic capacity, as well as your relative strength and rate of force development. So your new training outcomes would be to build on your current work and improve in the areas that you deem important and achievable with the equipment you have. Are you happy with these? If yes crack on and do what you can. So you can now go ahead and put together a training program to improve on your anaerobic and aerobic capacity with different running/cycling workouts. You can make improvements on your relative strength with workouts based around body weight exercises, and rate of force development can be done with sprint and jump variations. ConclusionNow I have just skimmed the surface on all of these, and each individual's circumstances, needs, and obstacles will be totally different. If you would like any additional info or to talk with us about how we can help you put together a training program to get the most of your lockdown training then don't hesitate to get in contact via our social media channels or email John. contact info is here.
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