Sets and Reps with What Exercise?

     “How many sets and reps should I do?” This question comes up and it is probably one of the biggest “loaded” questions because there are many variables that we have to take into account.  What time of the off-season is it (or is it the in-season?), what the goal is, the training experience of the athlete, injury history, age, how much time you have to work with athletes/clients, etc…I know from my short experience with athletes, especially the younger age guys and girls, we tend to stay with 3-4 sets of 5-10 reps.  These set and rep ranges are including the major movements such as squat (single or double leg), deadlift (single or double leg), presses, and rowing.  These ranges tend to lend themselves more to grooving good technique and not focusing solely on intensity.  But I like some of these (listed below) guidelines for certain movements…

The “Money” Movements: Squat, Deadlift (Trap Bar included), and Bench (Barbell versions)

• These are very technical lifts.  Meaning that 9 times out of 10, staying under 6 reps is a smart way to steer away from technical breakdown.    I agree with this if purely “strength” or “power” emphasis.  For my own training, I hate doing these lifts past 6 reps.

Explosive Movements/Rotational Med Ball Work:
Hang cleans, 1-arm DB snatches, and all the MB work you can think of

• Again, all of these are very technical, which means we need to be explosive.  Doing high rep power movements, in my opinion, just does not work well.  You will lose the ability to be explosive after 5-6 reps.  Don’t forget, 1-arm DB hang snatches  need to be done with both arms so even 4 reps/arm turns into 8 total explosive jumps.

Core Stability/Loaded Carries

• Holding excessively long planks is probably a good choice to assess to see what someone’s core stability endurance is but from a programming standpoint, we want to progress to more difficult variations of those exercises after each phase, not necessarily lengthen the duration.  We have used all of these listed below to determine when the duration of a set.

Counting # of diaphragmatic breaths (2-6 full breaths)

10-30 second holds

Shortening the holds and increasing the reps (i.e. 5 x 5sec holds of belly presses)

Carries: 25-50-or100 yard walks

General Strength Work

• Ok, there is a ton of exercises we could do here (pushing, pulling, knee dominant, and hip dominant lifts)
• The 4 movements I listed above, whatever they are, should be the bulk of the training. 
• These could be primarily single leg (supported or unsupported lifts) or dumbbell versions.
• We tend to stick with 3-5 sets of  4-8 reps for most of these

Cheers,

Matt

Learning To Pick the Bar Up Off The Floor

How many times has someone informed you that they pulled out their back bending over to pick something up?  Probably at least once, and that one time is typically considered the reason why they pulled “their back out.”  The best analogy I’ve remembered that explained the mechanism behind how injuries occur is to think of a bucket sitting underneath a leaking faucet.

Drops are slowly adding to the bucket over time and eventually, overflow happens.  The overflow is the point at which an injury occurs happens.  It probably wasn’t the bending over that one time to pick the basket up that threw your back out, it was not learning how to hinge into your hips (why we learn to deadlift).  Maybe another advocate was sitting at a desk for hours in the slumped posture we have come to learn so much about.  For this post specifically, I wanted to share two videos which I have found to be powerful in teaching people how to learn to stand up, sit down, and pick up/put bars down safely.  Here is something for everyone that may seem stupid but then again crushing your back over and over again with foolish movements is stupid in my book.  I love Dan John’s explanation and typical response to “squats/deadlifts hurt my back.”  The answer after watching them do perform those lifts…No, how you are squatting or deadlifting is hurting your back.

Notice: hips driving the movement while the torso remains stiff.

Tony Gentilcore, who I think provides some of the best information out there, gives one of the best explanations for setting up to deadlift correctly.  Watch, listen, and learn so that you avoid an injury later or so that you can know more cues to help athletes get stronger safely.

Cheers,

Matt

Addressing My Squat Pattern

There are many methods that can be used to help improve various patterns and for this post specifically, I wanted to write about my specific warm-up that I used to improve my squat.  Whatever the training goal make sure that you have a general warm-up that addressess mobility and stability incorporated into each movement pattern.  If you notice some movements that are really restricted, then in-time it may be most beneficial to attack it with more mobilizations/activations/or movements or to customize the warm-up a bit differently to help address these issues.  I typically address everything in my foam roll and warm-up but have recently been trying to nail only the areas that I know are limiting my squat (ankle mobility, hip mobility, & some t-spine as well).  I am going to stick with my ankle and hips for this post and simply list the few things that I have tried and found successful.  Everyone is different when it comes to how they adapt to stressors so this is not meant to be “thee” way to do something.

First, instead of trying to hit a bit of everyhing with the foam roller,  I spent 1 minute on my plantar fascia, lateral calves, glutes, and quads.  These have always been problematic areas to me.  I typically have to roll and remind myself to breath (breathing slowly over the problem areas will help with releasing the tension in tissue!).  Do not forget to be relaxed when you roll!  It may better suit you to hit a few of the problem areas for a little bit longer instead of rolling the typical 10-12 times over everything.  If you do not have a foam roll, get one.  I even have a few friends that I help out with their training and they either have one or in the process of ordering them.  They are 8$, so get on that fo sho.

This was the order of some of the things I did each time I trained…

Lacrosse Ball

• Plantar Fascia
• Lateral Calves
• Lateral Hamstrings
• Glutes

Ankle Rock Straight Or Lateral Rock into Forward Rock x10-15 each day (alternated each session)

3D Hamstring/Adductor mobilizations or 1-leg SLDL rotations

Bowler Squat or Inverted Reach

2-Way Diagonal Hip Rock

Then usually I would end with some squat to stands with 1-arm reach OR  Bootstrapper squats

As you can tell, I performed a good amount on hip mobility in all different planes.  After these which only took 5 minutes or so I did some goblet squats, swings, and followed them up with wall slides or no-money drill.  Each mobility drill was anywhere from 8-12x/side and only took around 10 minutes total.  Moral of the story:  Warm-up well instead of treadmilling for 10 minutes!

Cheers,

Matt

How Deep Should You Squat?

Currently, our athlete’s age range is somewhere from 10 to 16 years old (give or take).  Once the late spring comes around, we will start working with the college athletes again.  All of them have different strong and weak points as individuals and all have varying goals depending on the sport, their size, age, training experience etc…Most if not all (of the ones currently training), have come to us with almost little to no training (lifting) experience so we have to make sure they’re gets proficient at basic movements.  Even the dynamic warm-up takes skill and time to improve upon.  One of our basic lifts for our younger athletes are goblet squats.  If you have not heard yet, goblet squats are probably “thee” way to teach people how to squat properly.  You can use a kettlebell or dumbbell.  At our facility we typically use dumbells because we don’t have enough kettlebells if we were to have a group of 8-10 boys and girls with similar strength levels.  Since this learning tool almost guarantees an awesome squat pattern, the issue then becomes one of squat depth.

Even if these guys do it, does not mean everyone should

I, for one, never broke parallel on a squat, like EVER.  Then for the past month or so I starting doing squat to stand mobilizations and/or bootstrapper squats. I hammered away on soft-tissue work for my proximal hamstrings, lateral calves, and ankle mobility which seemed to allow me to get past parallel. I usually ended the warm up by doing KB goblet squats with a 32kg bell.

Bootstrapper

Squat to Stand

I think our dynamic warm-up is pretty awesome and we foam roll all of our athletes, but we see it with a ton of athletes and people.  They simply seem not able to hit parallel or what major lifters call “ass to grass.”  But what you realize is that some (if not a lot) of people do not have the ability to squat to parallel so simply telling someone to go farther down is not advantageous.  One thing to look for is the pelvic “tuck” at their end-range. We will typically see how our younger athletes goblet squat and if there is any posterior pelvic tilting at the end range we cue them to stay just above that motion.  Some may argue that this is not the most beneficial way of squatting but athletes and many people have varying structures that will prevent them from hitting deep squats and forcinthat’s end range can cause future low back and hip issues.  These are issues that regardless of the depth, risk injury and decrease the progress of athletes.

Cheers,

Matt

The Simplest Most Effective Movements for Success

     Yup, you could call me Dan John’s son.  For my own personal musings with working out and if I had to create a program a program for an athlete in which I knew I could not be there, there is no doubt in my mind that simpler is often better.  Heck, simpler could be better most of the time.  It could probably get people more motivated to lift because it is simple, quick, and effective.  I am basically talking about the human movements that we all can do in the gym.  Dan John is notorious for have a simple successful approach to lifting and if there is anyone who could prove this true, it is him.  If you see the weight numbers his athletes put up, it is impressive and they are legitimate.  No bad form here.  But if you had to make a complete what route would you pick?  These are just some of those human movmements we all have come to know.

• Push
• Pull
• Hip-Hinge
• Squat
• Walk-Runs-Sprints under load 

    

Loaded carries

     If you have these in your program, you are setting yourself up for success.  Most times, however it is how you implement them at certain stages of the off-season that make the biggest difference.  Nonetheless, these simple movements actually offer tons of variety.  You may be thinking, “no way is it that simple.”  Here is all the types of exercises you could plug-in for each movement.  Obviously we are looking for balance with each but sometimes we may need more of one then the other (i.e. usually more pulls then presses). 

Push : DB/Barbell Bench Press, Push-Ups, Suspended Push-ups, stability ball Push-ups, DB/Barbell Overhead presses, Push presses,DB/Barbell Floor presses, Standing Cable press

• With most of these exercises to create variety you could perform them with 1-arm at a time or in an alternating fashion which makes it unilateral (obviously) and can stress the core in a useful way.

I.E. 1-arm cable chest press

Alternating DB Floor Press

Pull: All Rows (Barbell, DB, Chest-supported), Chin-ups (grip can be underhand, neutral, overhand), Lat Pulldowns, Bat-wings, other basic retraction exercises. 

• Just like the pushes, you can make these 1-arm or alternating.

1-arm standing cable row (proper retraction)

Batwing Hold (Kevin Carr demonstrates this nicely)

     **I must say that if there is one movement that is critical to learn and you could probably just knock off all the other 1-arm 1-leg stuff it would probably be Turkish Get-Ups.  This bad boy is simply just one of those movements where just doing those alone could probably make you a beast.

Hip Hinge: These movements include any double and single leg posterior chain movements.  I would also say that you could include explosive lifts as well since that is where the power needs to be generated.  These can include snatches, cleans, and box/vertical/broad jumps. 

• Deadlift variations: straight leg deadlift (knee flexed 10-15 degrees), 1-leg SLDL with either dumbbell inside or outside leg. Cable pullthroughs, glute bridges and all their variations, hip thrusts, Slideboard/Stability Ball hamstring curls.

Slideboard Hamstring Curl w/ 1 -leg Negative: Progression from normal slideboard hamstring curls.

1-leg 1-arm SLDL

Squat: These include double leg and single leg movements (as well) although I would prefer single leg movements more often times then bilateral squat lifts.  Reason being that if there is usually a breakdown in form on a bilateral squat it is almost always the low back that gives not the legs.  For this reason single leg lifts can be safer and have better carryover.  If athletes/clients are experiencing problems back squatting, an awesome alternative is the box squat or just doing unilateral squat exercises.

The list can include:  Any bilateral squat variation (back or front squat). 

• Single Leg: For most of the single leg variations you can hold dumbbells at sides or in goblet position.
• DB/Goblet Reverse Lunges, Rear Foot Elevated Split Squats (dumbbells, goblet, back squat grip, front squat grip), Slideboard Reverse Lunge (a mix of squat and posterior chain), Forward lunges, single leg squats.

I really like the Double KB front squat

I would prefer these instead of pistol squats

Walk/Run/Sprint-Under load: Basically these include loaded carries, sprints with weight vest, sled pushes/drags. 

    There’s these five movements that I provided, yet the variations of those movements are extensive.  These movements are sure-fire ways to be successful for any athletic goals you may have.  You would also probably be 95% ahead of the rest of the typical fitness world if this was your program.  Hope this helps with some exercise selection choices as well.

Cheers,

Matt

Should You Squat Past Your Knees?

     This has been a topic that people, including myself at one time, have misunderstood because of what professors or the typical trainers may say.  The fact is that squatting below parallel is perfectly healthy for your knees.  However, most people lack the necessary mobilities to squat this low and often times, at someone’s end range you will see a “dip” or curling under of their lumbar spine.  This is the person hitting the end range in their hips and continuing  to hit this end range (spinal flexion) is definitely a contributing factor to disc injuries.

     In this video (thanks Kevin), even though it is demonstrating someone with a hip impingement, at the end range you notice the butt dipping under slightly.  I have seen this in countless weight rooms and pushing through the hip end range can cause A LOT of problems.

     In the Biomechanics of Squat Depth it shows that the highest forces on the ACL occur at 15-30 degrees of hip flexion while the lowest forces were at 60 degrees or more of hip flexion.  So those quarter squats you see people doing, not so good, although there may be some certain situations where it may be applicable.  The point is that, yes, not everyone needs to squat to parallel, especially if you do not have the necessary mobilities.  A lot of people, are just not meant to squat.  But it is a completely different story that people can say squatting ”hurts” or is bad for their knees when there warm-up consists of shaking their arms around for 7 secs and touching their toes to pick up their NO-Explode drink.  It is safer, for those individuals who are not meant to squat, to stay 2 inches higher than to cause some back problems later in their progress.  However, it would seem foolish to say that deep squatting is bad for your knees for everyone. 

80's woman overhead squatting with Jorts = Mrs. McDreamy

What to do then if you cannot deep squat?

     This is why I am a big advocate of single leg training because it usually allows the full range of motion without the back being the limiting factor. 

• Reverse Lunges (dumbbell in each hand, Goblet position etc.)
• Rear Foot Elevated Split Squats (w/ dumbbells, or barbell in front squat grip, back squat grip)
• Even step-ups (bench has to be appropriate height)

For some awesome reads on this, check out these  next few articles

Is It Wrong to Squat Like a Child- Craig Liebenson, DC

The Biomechanics of Squat Depth- Brad Schoenfeld

If you do not know how to properly warm-up, here is a quick one David Lasnier put up.  He runs through it quickly to show a quick sample, but each movment is done 8x/side. 

Cheers,

Matt