Category: Training

Before announcing my new book, I had detailed across four parts the first couple of month of my recovery from bipolar.  In those articles, I mentioned basically treating my training as coming back from a layoff.  Now for reasons I’m not entirely clear on, people seem to be fascinated with what my own training (and usually diet, which is insanely dull to talk about) look like.

Maybe it’s because I have spent a goodly amount of time talking previously about or they just want to stalk me, I don’t know.  But whatever, this is an easy update for me to make and that, above all, is enough of a driver for me to write it.  This details from start to about now what my (boring as hell) training has looked like in the weight room.  My other days are just various cardio days.   This is not going to be exciting stuff but will basically give a real-world example of how to come back from an extended layoff.… Keep Reading

Ok, my brain must be feeling better since it’s, oh my god, new content.  This is actually one of many pieces that have been floating around my brain but, let’s just say I had other things going on for a bit. Anyhow, what I want to look at today is the arguments surrounding the topic of round backed deadlifts.

Now I have previously done technique articles about the clean-style deadlift as well as the RDL vs. SLDL and in both I certainly seem to be against any sort of back rounding in the deadlift.  Well, yes and no.  Even in the first linked article I specifically stated:

And just as I was talking about a very specific style of bench press in the previous technique article, I want to make it clear that this piece is only detailing the clean style deadlift.

I mention this in that, in recent years, other deadlift techniques have become somewhat more common.

… Keep Reading

Continuing from Part 5, it’s time to finally wrap-up.  Today I want to talk about progression in the weight room, when to add variety/make changes and then touch on when someone stops being a beginning trainee.

Progression as a Beginner

So you’ve started now, hopefully light and building up.  What happens next?  Well the name of the game in improving any aspect of fitness is progressive overload.  Over some time period, the training you’re doing now is no longer sufficient to make you get better.  So over time you have to do more.   I’m not saying this has to happen at every workout or even every week.  It happens over time.

That more can take many forms.  It could mean lifting heavier weights, it could mean doing more sets (up to a point), it could mean training more of often or increasing what is called training density.  For the purposes of beginner training, we’re only interested in increasing volume (total number of sets/work done) and intensity (weight on the bar).… Keep Reading

Having looked at a variety of beginner training programs in Part 4, I want to wrap up this series by looking at a grab back of different topics including warming up, cardio and stretching and when and how to progress or introduce variety into training.

Warming-Up

I’ve written extensively about warming up on the website but want to look at the topic briefly here as it pertains to beginners.   It’s generally recommended that some type of general warm-up such as low intensity cardio be done prior to weight training.  The goal here is to generally warm up the tissues of the body in preparation for harder work.

At the same time, many who lift don’t bother with this at all and simply use their first exercise to warm-up for that exercise.  My old mentor for example suffered from squat rank anxiety.  When he’d get to the gym he’d run to the squat rack to claim it for fear of it getting taken.… Keep Reading