Quantcast
Viewing all 178 articles
Browse latest View live

The Raw Unity Powerlifting Meet Wrap Up w/ Alanna Casey




Bodyweight:  158 lbs
Squat: 386 lbs

Bench: 237 lbs

Deadlift: 451 lbs

Total:  1,075 lbs

Article written by Alanna Casey
This past weekend I traveled over 2,400 miles to compete in the Raw Unity Meet (RUM) 7 Powerlifting meet. This meet is put on by Johnny Vasquez and Eric Talmart, the owners of powerliftingwatch.com. What makes RAW Unity unique is that lifters of all federations are allowed to compete. So, any lifter can qualify to compete as long as he/she has achieved a qualifying total within the last year. Previous champions are also invited back to compete.  Raw Unity draws the best powerlifters from every federation and has them compete head to head. RUM is also known for upholding strict judging standards.  You must squat below parallel, bench with a pause, and deadlift without a hitch.  Since I won the 148 lb weight class in 2012, I was qualified to compete in RUM 7. Additionally, my previous RUM total qualified me to compete at the 148 lb or 165 lb class.

My first decision was to decide what class I would compete in. I have been training at a bodyweight of 155-157 lbs.  Up until about 1 and a half weeks before RUM I was still going back and forth on which weight class I wanted to compete in. I hate cutting weight and know that I will have to cut to 150 lb for the Arnold (Strongwoman) Competition in less than three weeks. However, I really didn’t want to cut weight before I have to. While I was very focused on RUM 7, my most important focus is on defending my title and winning the Arnold. I decided that my primary goal was to hit the highest squat/bench/deadlift numbers that I possibly could, and not worry about my weight. About a week before RUM, I increased my carbohydrate intake slightly and, I focused on stretching and mobility.
I cut off heavy squat and bench training 10 days before I competed. I had my last heavy deadlift session 14 days before I competed.  I did that as my body takes the longest to recover from deadlifts, then squats, and recovers the quickest from bench. After the 10 days mark I switch gears and hit the gym once every three days and do stretching and very light cable machine work. 
I booked my flight to leave in the early AM Thursday morning. Weigh ins were all day Friday and I was scheduled to compete on Saturday around 4:00pm. I wanted to get there a day early because I was looking at two-three hours flights and over eight hours total travel time. Traveling on airplanes really wears on my body and I wanted an extra night to recover.
My trip was off to a great start when I hit unanticipated traffic on my way to the airport and missed my flight by about 15 minutes.  The price I paid was 6 additional travel hours. Instead of getting to Florida at 4:20 pm, I arrived at 10:20 pm Thursday night.  Streaky Jenn Yates very generously picked me up from the airport and we went straight to dinner. 
When I woke up the day of weigh ins I felt very bloated and honestly, constipated. So, I took half a bottle of magnesium citrate.  Now, for those who don’t know what magnesium citrate is; it’s something given to patients prior to surgery to clean out their bowls, available over the counter at Walgreens or CVS. I did not know this. I thought it would just “make me go.” I didn’t realize that it would literally last all day and well into the night. Let this be a lesson to you: never take something that you are not familiar with. If you are going to put something in your body, you need to know exactly what it is and what the anticipated effects will be.

I weighed in a couple hours after I took the magnesium citrate and waited about 5 hours at the convention center for Jill Mills to get there. Jill had flown in on Friday and we were sharing a rental car. But, since Streaky dropped me off at the convention center to weigh in (then had to work) I was more or less stuck at the convention center for a while. Now, I never complained about this because I had no reason to. I was grateful to both Streaky and Jill as they were helping me out. Sometimes, you exchange convenience for money. That is what I had done in this case. It was my choice and I was fine with it. I had packed a bagel and some poptarts so I snacked on that until Jill came, weighed in, got her rack height.  Then, we went out to the Olive Garden for dinner. I wanted something with red meat, carbohydrates, and salt. The salt would help me to retain more water.

It wasn’t until about 9:00 pm that I realized that my taking the calcium citrate was a very bad thing indeed. I was losing a lot of fluid and I didn’t know when it was going to stop. Literally, every 45 minutes I was running to the bathroom.  I talked with Jill and called one of my training partners from home and asked what I should do. I ended up going to Walgreens and getting packets of Pedialyte and Emergen-C. These things had electrolytes and vitamins/minerals that could help force water back into my muscle cells. I ended up not being able to go to bed until around 1:30 am and continuously forced water/electrolytes down.


My saving grace was that the women weren’t scheduled to start lifting until about 4:00 pm on Saturday. I was able to sleep in until 10:00 am Saturday morning and hit up IHOP for a massive breakfast of pancakes, bacon, hash browns, water and coffee.

Honestly, the effects of the magnesium citrate still had not worn off after breakfast. I knew that wasn’t good but I decided not to focus on it. There was nothing I could do to “take it back.” Instead just kept up on the water/Pedialyte and Emergen-C and prayed that I wouldn’t shit myself during any of my lifts. 
Jill and I got to the competition venue around 2:00 pm Saturday. We ended up starting the squat around 4:45 pm. An extra flight of men had been added before the women’s flight and slightly pushed our start time back.  I was nervous about the squat and most looking forward to the deadlift. Over the past 9 weeks I had put a lot of technique work into all three lifts. But, I did the most technique fixing on my squat. The most I had squatted in the gym was 355 lbs, benched 235 lbs, and deadlifted 435 lbs. But, training at the gym, in your own environment, with your lifting buddies (or on your own), with no official judges, is VERY different from performing all those lifts at a meet. The pressure of a meet is much greater than the pressures at your local gym.  Plus, you get to choose your time schedule when you train on your own. You eat a certain time before you train and, you generally know when you will be done. A meet is not like that. You do not know if you will start on time and you have no idea when you will end.  By the time I reached my last deadlift, it had been over 8 hours since I had a real meal. That is difficult. 
I had planned all of my openers to be very light. My last powerlifting meet was the Olympia and I had bombed out. I didn’t hit depth on any of my three squat attempts and was “red lighted.” I was paranoid about bombing out again and decided that I could not allow that to happen. I picked all of my openers as if they were my last warm-up rep. I opened my squat at 303 lbs, bench at 198 lbs, and deadlift at 380 lbs. These were numbers that I knew I could do in my sleep. Their sole purpose was to keep me from bombing out and give me confidence going into my second attempt. I had decided that my second attempt would be a slight personal record (PR) from my heaviest training lifts and my third attempt would be a “balls to the wall” PR.  On the squat I nailed 303 lbs and earned three white lights. I went up to about 352 lbs next; another three white lights. I felt strong, my form was holding tight and decided to go for 386 lbs on my third. I was lucky to have Dimitar Savatinov (recently invited to 2014 World’s Strongest Man) as my handler. He told me to just, “go up faster” out of the whole on my squat. He said that I had the power and to “just do it.” As simple as that may sound, it was just the advice I needed. I took my time setting my squat up. Then, I cleared my head of everything just before I started my descent.  I dipped down with 386 lbs and drove up as fast as I could. Three white lights were the result!

About an hour went by before we started on bench. By this point I could tell that I was getting tired. 198 lbs went up fast but my second attempt, 237 lbs, felt heavier than it should have. I put 248 lbs in as my third attempt but, I wasn’t as confident as I needed to be. After I got the “press” command I moved the bar a few inches up and then stalled. I just felt I had no energy. Because I was tired, my form suffered. I didn’t quite have the mental discipline I needed to keep my form perfect.  When I lowered the weight, I didn’t hit my “sweet spot” on my chest. I was off by a little, and I didn’t have the power I needed to finish the press. I called “nope!” and the spotters took the weight. I knew I needed to eat. I had brought poptarts, Gatorade, trail mix and banana with me (Jill brought the trail mix and I leached).  I grabbed a couple handfuls of trail mix and forced a whole poptart down, along with a few cups of water.  I laid down and basically took a 20 minute nap. When I did get up, I felt better. I did about 3 warm up deadlifts and that was it.  I felt ready. I opened with 380 lbs and it flew up. 425 lbs on my second felt strong and I knew I had 450 lb in me. The question became, do I attempt heavier than that?  I decided not to be greedy and stuck with 451 lbs. It came up pretty quick and after seeing three white lights I finally allowed myself to celebrate.


The women’s flight wasn’t done with our last deadlift until about 9:00 pm. The hardest thing about the entire meet was just trying to keep my energy stores up for the entire 6-7 hours that I was there. Mentally, a meet is exhausting. You must remain focused, sharp, and strong for 3-6 hours, depending on how long the meet takes.  You must be very calculated and conserve your energy. I don’t like to talk to anyone besides my handler while I’m competing. You can usually find me laying down with my eyes closed in between lifts. I warm up very minimally and, I make sure I don’t “blow my load” before I have my competition attempts. My warm ups and lifts consisted of this: 
Squat:
Warm-up
Bar x 5
135lb x 3
225 x 2
Attempts
303 lb (good lift)
352 lbs (good lift)
386 lbs (good lift)
Bench:
Warm-up
Bar x 5
135 x 3
135 x 2 (practiced unracking with my handler only, making sure we were on the same page)
Attempts
198 lb (good lift)
237 lbs (good lift)
248 lbs (no lift)
Deadlift
135 lb x 3
225 lb x 2
315 lb x 1
Attempts
380 lb (good lift)
425 lb (good lift)
451 lb (good lift)
Total: 1,075 lb
Body weight: 158 lb


 

Overall, I had a very positive experience at RUM. I hit a PR in every lift and felt that I made mostly good decisions and recovered quickly from my poor decisions.  It was amazing having a world class pro strongman Dimitar Savatinov in my corner. There were some incredible lifters at RUM and I was glad to be able to hold my own among them. Jill Mills set a new world record as did Dan Green. Jenn Streaky Yates was there with me and very supportive. It was awesome to have my Lift Big Eat Big support. Titan Support Systems had sent me some new gear right before my meet and I was proud to represent them (I designed my singlet and I was in love with it). I wore my Sox Box socks during every lift, and brought my True Nutrition with me to make sure I kept my protein intake high.

I met some great athletes and I was honored when a couple lifters knew who I was and asked to take a picture with me. I was impressed with those women’s lifting and so I was extremely humbled when they said “hi” to me.  I do want to give one last shout out. I had a necklace sent to me right before I left for RUM. It’s a 30 inch ball necklace with a little barbell and plate with the word “strength” engraved on it. The owner of 26febrand.com gave it to me as a gift.  Looking down and seeing that message or feeling the mini barbell swing against my chest gave me that reminder of who I am and what I needed to be: strong. 


Thank you for reading about my experience and I hope you can learn from both my successes and mistakes in this meet. Now it is time for me to change gears and focus on Strongwoman for the next few weeks. I compete in Columbus, Ohio Feb 28thand March 2nd at the Arnold Sports Festival. If you see me there feel free to say “hey.” I will be giving out Lift Big Eat Big wrist bands after each event so be sure to look for me! In the meantime, stay STRONG! 





Box Squat: You're Doing It Wrong



Article written by Matt Mills
Box Squats have got a bad rep recently and with good reason, mainly because people are doing it wrong!  The box squat is great for a lot of reasons but it has to be done correctly and most people I see make me want to rip my eye balls out.  I’m going to go over two kind of box squats, one being the real box squat where I’m going to show you how to sit back properly and the other being the touch and go box squat used mainly to gauge depth. 
First a couple things you DO NOT WANT TO DO:

Do not sit straight down
Do not plop on the box
Do not intentionally rock back on the box
Do not box squat 3 inches below parallel
Do not box squat 3 inches above parallel!


These are just some of the common mistakes I’ve seen made during the box squat, so now let’s go over step-by-step how to do it properly. 

First, the box squat, or any squat for that matter begins when you grip the bar, so be focused!  Make sure you take an even grip on the bar (obvious but I’ve seen it too many times).  I prefer a low bar position, as that’s where I’m strongest, but this can be up to you.  Before unracking the bar, you must get extremely tight first by squeezing your shoulder blades together hard, and engage your lats by trying to touch your elbows together.  Fill your belly with air, not your chest, and unrack the bar.  Unless you have a monolift take two steps back and only two.  There is no reason to travel out of the rack because once you are finished you have to walk all the way back in and that is wasted energy.  Keep the box close, and take two steps back and then widen your stance with your toes out.

When you box squat, you want to drive the knees out hard, so to effectively do this you must have your toes pointed outward.  Once the feet are in position and the upper and lower back are extremely tight, you are ready to sit back.  Your goal is to sit back on the box as far as possible to keep the shins at a vertical angle.  As you descend do not drop fast as you may in a regular squat, this will cause you to plop and round your back at the bottom.  Lower yourself controlled so you can softly sit back and be ready to explode.  Ideally, the knees should be directly over the ankles while in contact with the box.  Now this is difficult to do and will take great flexibility from your hamstrings to get that far back on the box. 

While on the box, you do not relax anything and make sure you hold your air in.  If you breath out then you are going to relax and put your lower back in a very bad position.  Do not pause very long on the box so you should only be coming to a dead stop which should be no more than 1 second.  As you start coming up, think about driving your head back into the bar so you don’t end up doing a good morning or falling forward.  Continue to drive you knees out hard and let your air out slowly at the top portion of the lift. 




The box height is very important, as I see most people with it too low or too high.  Having the box too low is going to put your low back in a very bad position, bringing out the infamous “butt wink”, one of the reasons why box squatting has a bad rep for injuries.  There are very few people that I have seen that can box squat extremely low and if they can, they aren’t getting much more out of the movement then having it set to parallel or slightly below.  Having the box set above parallel really just turns into an ego lift so don’t fool yourself here.  If you have an issue with what height the box should be have someone watch your or video yourself to make sure. 

Now that we have the form down correctly, how can the box squat fit into your current training program?  If you are a geared powerlifter, then that’s simple, but I’m guessing most of you are not, and the box squat is still important to add into your training.  For a beginner, starting with the box squat is perfect.  It will teach them how to sit back, get tight, and reach depth!  I will generally start a new client on a box set at parallel for them and once they have mastered all of the technique the box can be taken away.  Another great reason to use the box squat initially is it will strengthen your glutes and hamstrings, muscle groups that are generally weak with beginners.  During the box squat there is very little stress on your knees. which is another big benefit if you have knee problems.   You will be developing strength in your hips which will transfer to locking out your deadlift.  One mistake I made in the past was only box squatting, mainly because I was much better than my regular squat.  Unfortunately going back to squatting, my power out of the bottom suffered greatly, however I was able to lock out any deadlift that I was able to break the floor with, and load a heavy stone with ease.  For the raw powerlifter (no suits, briefs) I don’t feel these will improve your squat directly but I would still recommend them as accessory work.

The box squat is sometimes confused with the touch and go box squat.  I’m not getting into any technique for these but the box is only used to gauge depth so there are again a couple things you have to be careful about when using it.  If you like to rebound out of the bottom, using a box is going to throw you out of your form completely from trying to bounce off of the box.  Again you must descend slowly and lightly tap the box but stay extremely tight the entire time as you would a regular squat.  These are great for beginners who have trouble reaching depth but I would recommend using a pad to make a softer touch. 

Training Deadlift: Targeting Your Weakness, Part 2



Article written by Alanna Casey
Read part #1 here
When bringing up your max deadlift, I suggest you train efficiently. Part of training efficiently is focusing the majority of your attention on your weak portion of the deadlift. If the slowest part of your deadlift is at the top half of your pull or lockout, then you may want to try the following exercises.

Rack or box pulls: Set the bar on pins or boxes that puts the bar just below your knees. Many people do rack pulls, but they start with the bar above their knees. While this isn’t “wrong” it’s not the most effective way to bring up your max deadlift. Start the bar below your knees. This will force you to get your hips involved and generate more power through your sticking point. I suggest working with 80%-110% of your 1RM.

Chain deadlifts: These are great because you are essentially adding more weight to your deadlift as you pull. Place 2-6 chains overtop of the deadlift bar. I usually use 2 chains that weigh about 25-30lbs each. I place one chain on either side of the bar and get ready to deadlift. Because you have more weight at the top of your pull, you are forced to accelerate through your pull in order to overcome the added weight from the chains.


Band resistance deadlifts: Band pulls work similarly to chain deadlifts but give you a different kind of added resistance. You REALLY have to be explosive to pull against the bands. You can loop bands around either end of the barbell and through a deadlift band platform (only hardcore powerlifting gyms have these) or around the bottom of a power squat rack or even around heavy dumbbells. Some gyms will have four hooks in the deadlift platform that you can loop your bands through. The idea is that the bands give you little to no resistance at the start of the pull and 20-80lbs of resistance at the top of the pull. 


Ab work: Don’t forget your abs! I like to do weighted ab strap pull downs. I like these because they are quick and effective. I do three sets of 8-10 reps and I’m done. I don’t have time to do 200 crunches and even if I did, I wouldn’t do them. I prefer to work my abs in a standing position. Think about it (exception being the bench press), when you are performing powerlifting or strongman movements you are not laying down. You are standing/walking/running. Therefore, I prefer to train my abs while in a similar position. Standing ab pull downs allow me to do that. Strong abs will aid you in just about every movement, especially the deadlift so don’t neglect them! At least 3 sets of heavy abs once-twice a week.



The biggest mistake that I see people make on deadlift is that they overtrain it. I have experimented with deadlifting every other week, once a week, and twice a week. I’ve found that training deadlift 3-4 times a month is most effective for me. It might be different for you BUT, you need to slowly progress your deadlift and be patient with it. Training heavy pulls twice a week and trying to max out once a month is a recipe for disaster. You will plateau and you will get frustrated.

Tip: If you want to add some of these assistance lifts, pick ONE of the modified deadlift exercises and add 2-3 sets of that after you do your regular deadlift working sets. Except for rack pulls you want to work with about 50-60% of your max for these assistance exercises (from “Training Deadlift” Part 1 & 2). If you feel your form slipping a little, do your best to correct it and continue. If you feel your form slipping a lot, either lighten your load considerably or stop that exercise all together.



Bringing up your deadlift might seem impossible but, it’s not. Identifying and attacking your weakness is a great first step in bringing up your deadlift. About 4 years ago I deadlifted 330lbs. Since then, I have gained about 20lbs and now deadlift 450lbs. It took me FOUR years to add 120lbs to my deadlift. So, be patient. Once you develop a good strength foundation, your deadlift will increase in slower increments. That’s okay. Be patient and attack your weakness. Experiment with your programming and figure out what your body responds best to. There is no “secret” deadlift programming. The “secret” is figuring out what works for you and keeps you healthy and on a slow and steady progression.

Casey out!

Deadlift Cues & The Paused Deadlift

Article written by Matt Mills
Here at LBEB, we are all about the deadlift, and with good reason:  If you want to get bigger, you have to deadlift.  Want to compete in Strongman, Powerlifting, or Crossfit?   Well you better be deadlifting, and deadlifting a lot for that matter.  When it comes to novice and even intermediate lifters, I see a lot of common mistakes, which leads to a lot of missed deadlifts.  I’m not going to go into great detail as far as stance and hip position, because I feel that differs from lifter to lifter. However I have a couple quick tips to improve your deadlift right away, along with a brutal deadlift variation to make sure your technique is spot on.  Just in case you haven’t checked out Alanna’s articles on training the deadlift, make sure you read both Part 1 and Part 2.

First, get your lats as tight as possible.  I can’t tell you how many times I have seen a bar get away from someone on a lift they should have locked out.  Not only do the lats keep the bar in tight to your shins, they also stabilize the spine.  The closer the bar is to you, the easier it will be, so keep it in tight!  Tightening the lats will also keep the chest up throughout the initial pull.  Now, contracting the lats does not mean retract the shoulder blades, this is another common mistake on the set up, which seems to be especially prevalent in the Crossfit community.  

Once you retract your shoulder blades, you are also making your arms shorter, and making the pull longer.  At heavier weights, the shoulder blades will detract right away, taking you out of you form and making you resemble a scared cat, that is if you even get the bar moving.  If you are unable to find your lats, try this drill with a partner: put your hands together and bend down into the position you would deadlift in.  The hands will be inside the knees as they would in a sumo deadlift.  Have your partner get behind you (I know bear with me here) and push against your hands.  When you push back you will feel your lats contract.  This is the exact tightness you are looking for on your set up.  This alone will make the initial pull off the ground much easier.  



Another big mistake is not getting tight on the bar and taking the slack out.  The arms should stay long and locked out in the set up.  Having the arms slightly bent and jerking the weight off the floor is simply losing strength, and slowing down progress.  What I generally see when this happens is the hips shoot right up, and the chest caves in.  When the hips shoot up first, the knees lock out too soon, and your lockout is far more difficult than it has to be.  We generally see the lifter get very shaky because the glutes are unable to fire, and the erectors have to pick up the slack to lock it out.  I can easily say that having the hips rise first is the most common mistake in the deadlift, and it’s something that I struggled with for some time on my conventional deadlift.  When reaching down for the bar, focus on keeping the arms straight, and as you grip the bar, squeeze as hard as possible.  When you set the hips down, use the weight of the bar to pull yourself into position, this will take the slack out of the bar. 

Another great cue that helped me a lot is to think about pushing your feet through the floor, and not just pulling the bar up.  Focusing on feet through the floor will again keep the hips and chest in line coming off the floor, as well as locking the hips and knees out together.  The knees should be slightly bent by the time the bar comes to your patella.  Having the knees in this bent position will ensure the glutes fire properly, and the lockout will be much smoother. 

The bar should roughly travel in a straight line right up your body, and the previous cues I went over will help this greatly.  To make sure the bar moves in a straight line, you want to think about falling back with the bar.  Don’t worry at heavier weights this will not happen.  The shoulders should be set in line with the bar, and even a little behind it if you are able to.  You do not want the shoulders in front of the bar.  This will again lead to the bar traveling away, and the hips shooting up leading to a very ugly lockout if you are able to get there in the first place.  You will be trying to fall back with the bar but all this will really do is ensure the bar path will be straight along your body. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Now, before we move on to my favorite way on how to enforce all of these cues, lets review:

1. Get the lats tight and keep the bar in close.
2. Take the slack out of the bar before you pull, the arms remain locked off the floor throughout the lift.
3. Think about pushing your feet through the floor.
4. The hips and chest rise at the same time.
5. The knees should be slightly bent at the halfway point.
6. Squeeze your glutes through the lockout.
7. To ensure the bar travels in a straight line up your body, get the shoulder in line with the bar or behind it if possible, and think about falling back.


Now that we have all of that out of the way, let’s move on to the paused deadlift. Aside from a bad set up and form, deadlifts are missed mostly for 3 reasons.  One is they can’t break the floor, two is a weak lockout, and three is a weak grip.  I will save being weak off the floor and grip strength for another time, but the paused deadlift will dramatically increase your lockout strength.  The technique is very simple; you will set up as normal following all of the steps I just outlined, except now you will pause anywhere from mid shin to right below your patella for 3 seconds.  Where you pause is going to be where you are weakest, but I generally have people pause right below the knees.  With this exercise you want to have impeccable form!  You do not want to pause with a heavy ass weight in this position with the knees locked and back rounded.  If you have never tried these then start with 55%-60% of your one rep max.  In the first few weeks, work on perfecting your technique and SLOWLY adding weight to the bar each week.  Make sure you are in the proper position at the pause, and do not let out your air, just like with the paused squats.  Have someone count and once they say 3 drives the hips, and squeeze the glutes hard to lock the bar out as fast as possible.  A 2 second pause is fine too, but I feel most people turn it into one second so make it 3 to be sure.

For programming purposes, I like to add these in as accessory work for deadlifting.  For example, you may be going for a heavy double on the deadlift, and then add in the paused deadlift directly after.  Who doesn’t want to do two different kinds of deadlifts in the same workout?!  Keep the sets on the lower side with only 3 working sets.  Generally in my training, I may take 10 sets to work up to my goal weight so going any more than 3 sets on paused deadlifts is overkill.  If you’re looking for a new deadlift program then make sure you pick up Matt Falk’s new LBEB Deadlift program HERE. If you have any questions drop a comment below or on the LBEB Facebook page.

10 Reasons Why You Aren't Making Progress In Your Training



Progress: it is the reason why the majority of us are in the gym every week. However you measure progress, whether you want bigger lifts, bigger muscles, less bodyfat or a faster 400m split, progress is what keeps us training day in and day out. Disregard the individuals that are going to the gym to "maintain", that is just an excuse to not work hard. But, what if everything you put into your training doesn't amount to a hill of beans? Here are 10 things that can indicate whether or not your programming & training is being spent wisely.

1. You don't understand the difference between difficult and useful.
Just because something is hard to do, does not mean it is useful, or will do anything to progress your lifting career.I could spend 3 months mastering a strict muscle up, but will that really help me as a Strongman? Spend your time wisely, time is finite.

2. You aren't eating enough carbs.
If I had a nickel for every time we added carbs in to someone's diet improved their lifts, I would have more nickels than you. Carbs are not your enemy, stagnation is. Steak and broccoli is not eating big, so for the love of progress, put a potato on the barbie.

3. You ask everyone on the internet for advice, and listen to all of it/none of it.
Either way you end this equation, you are going to lose. If you try to follow everyone's cues and tips, you will go nowhere, because everyone on the internet has different opinions about the "right" way to do things, which may not apply to you at all. If you listen to none of it, you are wasting everyone's time, especially yours. Pick someone's advice that you trust, put on your blinders, and follow their orders. 


4. You think a supplement will make up for calories.
  No supplement is going to replace the calories you need to get bigger and stronger, if it comes in a pill, it has little or no calories in it. Pills and powders don't get you big on their own, that's why it is called a supplement, not a replacement.

5. You want to get better at everything, and you want it to happen yesterday.
Arguably, a lot of us are guilty of this. However, the line that separates those who want to be good and those who want to become good is the ability to break goals into smaller pieces, and accomplish them in segments. World records aren't built in a day.

6. You view training gear as non-primal/cheating.
I am going to let you in on a secret: if you are reading this article while connected to the internet, you are about as far removed from a primal state as you can be, why should your training be any different? I am not afraid to venture a guess that I am stronger than my cave dwelling ancestors, because I am not afraid to use proper assistance gear when lifting. Belts, straps, chalk, and wrist wraps are your friend, if you think that is cheating, you should start walking barefoot to work and start living in the nearest redwood forest.

7. You aren't recording your lifts.
Unless you are doing bodybuilding movements, you probably don't need to watch yourself in a mirror while lifting. However, recording your lifts and watching them after is an excellent way to study your movements and learn how to improve them next time. If you think good athletes don't record and post their videos, you are in for a rude awakening.

8. You are afraid to compete.
I can personally attest to this, because I was once afraid to compete. Sometimes failing at a competition is exactly what you need, in order to do better the next time. I have yet to work with someone who, after their first competition, did not have a fire lit under their ass to compete again ASAP.

9. You think bench/squat/deadlift is all you need to do to be a good lifter.
This may be true for those first starting out, but as you progress, you will see that it is simply not true. By not adding in supplementary bodybuilding movements, your weaknesses will still be your weaknesses as you get stronger. Suns Out, Guns Out.

10. You don't know how to detach.
What if I told you that there was a whole world out there, full of people and places that have no idea about lifting, or care about it? Sometimes getting out of the "community" for a short period of time is exactly what you need to get your mind right. Familiarity breeds contempt, and all too often we get extremely familiar with our lifestyles. Take some time off and hit lifting with renewed vigor.



How To Get Bigger & Stronger Quads


Article written by Matt Mills
So you want to get your Quad Squad shirt but don’t have the legs to fill out your spandex short shorts?  Maybe it’s about time you focus on the big four knee extenders, get those tear drops popping out, and turn you into a lean mean Squatobot!  There has always been a lot of talk about the glutes, hamstrings, and rightfully so.  In general, a lot of back and knee pain stems from having weak hamstrings, and glutes.  However, if you can knock out glute ham raises with ease, and crack a walnut with your ass, then you’re ready from some quad specialization.   With that being said, most of the exercises I’m going over do not fully isolate the quadriceps, but mainly focus on them. 


Walking Lunges
Walking lunges have been a favorite of mine for years now.  When I worked at a commercial gym, I would get a lot of funny looks when I would grab some heavy dumbbells, and head into the aerobics room.  Make no mistake, this exercise is not just for girls, as your average meathead with no legs thinks.  There are honestly not many exercises that are more brutal for your lower body then high rep walking lunges.  Any variation of the lunges should be a staple in your lower body program, but walking lunges puts much more emphasis on the quads like we are going for.  I prefer these with a pair of dumbbells held at my sides, but you can easily go with a bar on your back if you are able to step out of a rack with enough space.  Dumbbells tend to be the safer choice as you will nearly be falling over due to your quads giving out.  Walking lunges are a fairly simple exercises, but there are a few common mistakes.  First, stay as tall as possible to get more quad activation.  Think about a string being attached to the top of your head and someone pulling you up.  Do not take an extremely long step, so when you are at the bottom of the lunge your back knee is directly under your hip.  You can also take a slightly shallower step to hit the quads harder, but if you have knee issues that won’t be the best choice for you. 

Step Ups
Step ups can be a much better exercise for those that want to hit their quads more, but walking lunges hurt their knees.  The problem is most people do these completely wrong.  What you will generally see when someone performs these is heavy dumbbells in hand, and instead of making the leg work that’s on the step do the work, the lifter uses the back leg excessively to step up to the bench.  For most people a body weight step up done correctly is more than hard enough.  Here’s how to do it the correct way: Place your foot on top of a step, (the higher the step the more difficult) and again be as tall as possible with no leaning forward.  Lower yourself down, and keep all of your weight on your front foot.  Drive your foot through the bench to bring yourself up.  Try not to use the other foot for balance as you raise up, so instead raise your knee up and squeeze your glutes hard to maintain balance.  Aside from the basic step, up I included another version I really like where you will step up and over the bench, going side to side.  This is a much more difficult variation, so make sure you master the basic step up before you try it. 


Rear foot elevated split squats (RFESS) or Bulgarian squats

Another single leg variation that is extremely difficult, aside from deciding on which name to call it is the RFESS.  These can be performed using dumbbells, barbells and even kettlebells   I like to rotate each of these through my training as you will feel them in different areas.  I will say my favorite way to do them is with the bar in the front racked position.  You will hit the quads the most with this bar position and use a good amount of weight compared to dumbbells and kettlebells.  Balance can be a big issue here, so start light and stay tall!  Again, keep the back knee under the hip, and if you are able to put a small pad beneath your knee so you can gauge your depth, and also to maintain balance in case you lose it (which you probably will).  For those with knee issues here, try lowering the step you use to elevate the back leg. 


Snatch Deadlift
The snatch deadlift is not to be confused with the snatch grip deadlift.  Both are great variations of the deadlift, however we are going for big quads here!  Put on your pair of weight lifting shoes for these as the raised heal will get more quad activation.  Here lies the difference from the snatch grip deadlift and the snatch deadlift.  Think about squatting the weight up, so the hips must be very low compared to the chest, and focus on driving the feet through the floor.  The weight you will be using on the snatch deadlift will be significantly lower then what you will be able to do on a snatch grip deadlift.  This is mainly because the hamstrings and glutes will come to help more with a higher hip position.  I love both variations here and rotate them both for my accessory work after I hit my main deadlift.  With the snatch deadlift, keep the reps in the 3-5 rep range as any higher will turn into a snatch grip deadlift if you are using a good amount of weight. 

Deficit Trap bar Deadlift with Chains
I’ve been a big fan of using the trap bar deadlift for some time now because it is a combination of a squat and a deadlift.  As future members of the quad squad you want to turn this into more of a squat, so we are going to perform it from a 2 inch deficit.  The hips must be extremely low compared to the chest, and as you drive your feet through the floor to come the chest must up.  If you have issues leaning forward then you must lower the weight, so think big chest!  The chains not only look bad ass but they will make for even more help for the quads as you lock out a heavier weight.


Heavy Reverse Sled Drags

Sled drags are mainly used as a conditioning tool or as a “finisher” at the end of a workout, so a lighter load is used.  However if we want to pack on some muscle then you have to go heavy.  The load should be heavy enough that you are able to keep moving your feet, but it should be a grinder the whole way.  If you can simply back pedal then you need to throw on a few more 45’s.  The great thing about sled drags is that they are also knee friendly, and a great alternative to lunges if you are unable to perform them.  These can be performed with a strap or with a belt, if you have access to both, then mix it up.  I typically will do these for 120 feet or 60 feet each way, but that’s just the length of turf I have in my facility.  Going outside is always a great choice where you can drag until your legs give out, but let the distance you have access to dictate the load you use.


Front Squat and Leg extensions to failure

Yes that’s right, I’m using a dreaded machine in this article!  Now don’t get me wrong here, I rarely do leg extensions by themselves so, bear with me and give this one a try.  You can thank me when you are limping off the machine.  Choose a weight you can front squat for about 7 reps, and you are going to perform 3 sets of 5 at that weight.  After each set of front squats, jump on the leg extension, and perform 15-20 reps to failure.  Keep the rest periods in check here, and make sure you don’t go over 90 seconds to keep the pump going.  In case some of you do not have access to a leg extension simply sit on a bench and attach a band behind you to do them.  Move the bench forward, or backward to get the right tension.  For a different variation here try squatting with two kettlebells racked up instead of the bar.  The kettlebells come out further then the bar making the quads work even harder, so just be warned!

Leg Press
That’s right another machine!  The leg press is great for increasing the size of your wheels and there is no doubt about it.  However never make the leg press a priority in your training, injuries aside.  Squats should always take precedence, and be first in your training.  Now, to get more involvement of the quads,place your feet slightly lower on the foot pad, and go with a more narrow stance.  Remember we are going for hypertrophy here, so don’t try to load the sled up to max out.  Pain tolerance needs to be high here, so keeps your reps high in the 12-20 rep range.  Range of motion is important as always, so make sure you keep your hips tight against the pad.  Bring the knees into the chest but stop before your butt begins to rise up, this can be very dangerous for your back at heavy loads. 

Narrow Stance High Bar Olympic Squats
Squats are always king for good reason.  As a powerlifter I can move more weight in a wide stance, low bar position, but as always never train only one stance.  I haven’t seen a great Olympic lifter yet that doesn’t have massive quads that any body builder would be jealous of.  The difference here compared to a powerlifting squat is the torso is more upright through the lift, which if you have seen a theme here is what will hit the quads harder. 

To give an example of how to use the exercises I outlined here this is how I trained yesterday:

Wide stance low bar squats 3 sets of 3 at 485 (don’t make fun of me I just competed last weekend)
Hatfield Squats 605/1, 655/1, 675/1
Narrow Stance High bar Olympic paused Squats 390 3 sets of 3 (3 sec pause)
RFESS 3 sets of 6 each with 75lb dumbbells
GHR and Ab work to finish.


As you can see I used two of the exercise I have outlined here and the following week I could simple switch out any of the accessory work.  The accessory work being anything after my main squat, as I am training for an upcoming powerlifting meet.  As always any questions drop a comment below or on the LBEB Facebook Page.



Alanna Casey: Arnold Strongwoman Champion


Article written by Alanna Casey
Background: The Arnold Sports festival is one of the biggest sports festivals in the United Sates. It draws hundreds of thousands of people to Columbus, Ohio to experience the madness. Some come as competitors, some come as viewers, and some come just for the experience of being surrounded by other “strong” people.

2014 was my second year at the Arnold. I had competed in 2013 and won the title as the Arnold Amateur Strongwoman Fitness Champion. 2013 was the first year that strongwomen premiered at the Arnold as a competitive show. It was named “Fitness Strongwoman” as there was only one weight class (under 150.4 lbs).

This year there were two strongwomen weight categories. One class was a combination of middleweights and lightweights (150.4 lbs) and second was a heavyweight (unlimited) weight class. This year, I won the overall title for the middle/lightweights and Kristin Rhodes won the heavyweight division. I believe that there were 14 total light/middleweight women and 10 total heavy weight women. But, only the top four women made it do the second day of competition. There were five events on Friday: monster dumbbell clean and press, super yoke, Husafel carry, farmers carry, and a deadlift medley.  Strongman is scored by points. An athlete gets more points when she does better in an event and typically the maximum points available for each event corresponds to the total amount of competitors. For example, if there are 10 women competing, the first place finisher of an event would be awarded ten points for that event. Second place would be awarded nine points, and so on.  After day one events, all points were recalculated/weighed to reflect the change to from 10 competitors to the top four competitors who would compete day two. This year, the recalculation meant that the two point gap between first and second place was converted to less than a point gap going into day two events.  This recalculation does not happen in an all multi-day strongman competitions, but it is typical for the Amateur Arnold competition.

Athlete Schedule:
Weigh ins: Feb 27, Thursday: 8:00-10:00am and/or 4:00-6:00 pm
Rules Meeting: Feb 27, Thursday: 7:00 pm
Day One Events: Feb 28, Friday: 8:00 am, Competition start (five events)
Day Two Events: March 2, Sunday: 1:30 pm, Top Four, completion start (two events)


My experience: I will now begin the tale of my experience this weekend…

Three weeks before the Arnold, I competed in a prestigious powerlifting competition, The Raw Unity Meet. I weighed exactly 158.0 lbs at the meet. I knew I would have to cut eight lbs after that meet in order to weigh in at a maximum weight of 150.4 lbs at the Arnold, three weeks later.

My decision to compete in Raw Unity was not an easy one. It meant that I would have to peak in static strength while simultaneously trying to peak for strongman three weeks later. It meant I would have to travel across the country twice within a three week span. Ultimately, it meant I was sacrificing my performance in both competitions in order to train for the two different sports. I made the decision that I would do it anyway. Powerlifting is at the core of my strongman programing so I figured I could get away with it. But, the reality was that I gave up 3 weeks of event training, and I paid the price for it by feeling under prepared for the Arnold. I was very strategic with my training and did the best that I possible could to prepare myself for both events. I knew that I would have to time my programming perfectly, and I knew that I inevitably I was sacrificing my Arnold performance. That was a fact I accepted. At the same time, I really wanted to win the Arnold. It was more important to me than RUM. But, I felt I needed to legitimatize myself as a raw powerlifter; especially since Titan Support Systems is one of my sponsors. So, I did Raw Unity, hit 3 new powerlifting personal records (386 squat/237 bench/451 deadlift) then, I turned around 3 weeks later and competed in the Arnold Strongwoman Fitness. 

I started my weight cut about ten days out from the Arnold. My plan was to cut about 3-4 lbs with my diet and 3-5lbs through water manipulation. I slowly started cutting my carbs and lost 2 lbs after about 5 days.  About 4 days prior to weigh-ins I started water/sodium loading. I weighed 154.6 lbs two days prior to weigh ins. One day before weigh-ins I was 153.4 lbs. I knew that I was perfectly on track but that I couldn’t drink more than about 2 cups of water that day and that I couldn’t eat past breakfast.  This made my four hour plane ride to Columbus extremely uncomfortable. I even started spitting in a cup to try and get out a bit more water weight.  Wednesday night I weighed myself and was 150.0 lbs. Since I know that I typically lose about a lb when I sleep, I allowed myself about 1 cup of water before I went to bed.

On Thursday Morning, I weighed in as early as possible. At about 8:30 am I stepped on the official competition scale and weighed in at 149.6 lbs.  I immediately started rehydrating with Pedialyte and Emergen-C and refueling with simple carbs (a white bread bagel).  I then had a huge breakfast with protein, a ton of carbs, and a ton of water. My job for the rest of the day was to eat, drink, and rest. Rather than try and stuff myself, I tried to keep a steady stream of food and water all day long. 

By the rules meeting (7:00 pm), I felt okay but, not my best.  I felt heavy and slow to be honest. But, I didn’t want to appear that way. At the elite level, strongman is just as much a mental battle, and it is a physical battle.  I made sure to ask a question that I thought might place stress on my fellow competitors. I asked, “Suppose I’m in first place going into day two, will I get to see second-fourth place log attempts before I put in my attempt?” I wanted to communicate the fact that I planned on winning. I wanted my competition to start worrying about me before the first event even started.  I wanted to get inside their heads; I wanted them to know that, in my mind, I’d already won.

Note: I was not so mentally brutal when I first started strongman. There was no reason to be like that when I was a beginner. But, I now enter every completion with one goal: to win. I do not enter to participate or to compete. I enter to win. In ANY sport, if you are competing to win, your mental game is important. Your interaction with your competition matters. How you present yourself matters, if you come across as stressed/worried/nervous, your competition will sense that. If your competition goal to win, they will feed off your nervousness; your nerves will enable them to succeed. For that reason, I always make a conscious effort to present myself as calm, cool, and collected when I’m in a competitive setting. 

I got to bed at a reasonable hour on Thursday night and woke up early to get to the convention center by 7:15 am on Friday.  Honestly, I did not wake up feeling strong. I woke up feeling tired. But, I did everything I could to not let that show.  After all the athletes gathered and a group picture was taken, we were told the show would begin.


I was in heat three of four during the monster dumbbell clean and press. The dumbbell is one of my stronger events, and I confidently approached my dumbbell before the start of my heat. After the starting whistle went off, I did a few reps and remember thinking to myself, “Why are you going so slow Alanna? Speed the f*** up!” I quickened my pace a bit and ended with 12 reps. I knew that Maya Winters was going to be my biggest competition and watched her closely in the heat after me. Her form had drastically improved from last year, but she ended with 11 reps, and I felt good about my first event win.


Yoke was next. I got my chalk and was getting myself set up when I heard the MC said “Athletes ready!?” I responded with “NO!” but a second after came the “start” whistle and I figured that I better get up and go anyway! My time was decent, and I won my flight but I wasn’t particularly happy with it. I should have either been ready at the start whistle or been more adamant that I wasn’t ready.  Maya went next, and I was confident she had beaten my time. Originally she had been given a 2 second time penalty for dropping/sliding the yoke before the finish line. But, I was told that she had video, and was disputing the call. However, I couldn’t be concerned with that. It was not anything I could control and so I didn’t pay any attention to it.

When the updated score sheet came out I did look at it to see the current point spread. The score sheet reflected that I had come in third in the yoke event. I knew that wasn’t right and that the judges had recorded the incorrect time for one of the competitors in my flight (an athlete from Finland). I knew that because I was shown the stopwatch from my time and Finland’s time directly after the event. I brought this up to Dionne Wessels (event director), and she corrected it.



The Husafel carry was next. The top three competitors were together in the last heat. That heat included myself, Maya, and the competitor from Finland. Before the start, I told my judge, “Tell me when they (Maya and Finland) drop it.” My strategy was to hold onto the Husafel until I knew everyone else had dropped. Then, I would know what distance I had to reach in order to beat the others. I picked up the stone, and it didn’t feel light. I started on a decent pace, but I wasn’t at all quick. Even though I had a good pick on the stone, it was starting to feel heavy to me. I was getting tired. I heard a “thunk!” next to me, and I knew Finland was done. My judge was telling me, “Keep going!” It was getting very painful, but I kept going. I heard another “thunk!” and I knew it was Maya. I said, “How much further do I have to go?” My judge replied, “Ten feet, just go ten feet!” I gathered myself and “sprinted” about 15 feet further. I stopped and asked my judge, “Did I win!? Am I good!?” He said, “Yes, you’re good!” I threw my shield down in front of me and dropped my knees and crawled off the field. I felt good; I did what I needed to do, my strategy worked… and then I saw the score sheet. I was scored second in that event. I went over to the scores keeper and before I even said anything she blurted, “I know, we miscounted. Maya was ahead of you by a lap when she dropped it. You really needed to go further.”  I responded with, “okay, thank you.” I wasn’t upset with my judge. He did what I asked him to do. It was unrealistic for me to ask him to keep track of my competition and me. I knew Maya started off on a faster pace than me, and I was the one who made the decision to drop the Husafel. It was no one’s fault but my own.

Going into farmers, I felt that I NEEDED to win the event. I thought to myself, “It’s only 75 feet, and its only 175lbs a hand. I will do whatever it takes to win this event.”  Finland and Maya were in my heat. I was ready this time.  I knew exactly what I needed to do. As soon as the whistle sounded I was off.  I was in the lead, and I knew it. I just needed to get across that line. About ten feet before the line I felt unbalanced. I was leaning forward a bit too far, and I knew I was going to fall. I thought, “Just get across that line! Just hold on to them across the finish line!” So as I was falling forward I was still trying to push those damn farmers across the finish line. I hit the concrete pretty hard. I immediately jumped up, asked my judge if I’d been given a time penalty and stormed off towards my lifting bag. I ripped off my lifting belt, screamed “FUCK!” and slammed my hard belt, and then my soft belt into my bag. I walked outside of the contest area, leaned up against unused strongman wheel barrows and put my head down. My fellow competitor Sue Metcalf came up to me, patted me on the back and said, “Let it go mate,” and walked away.

After Sue walked away, I took a minute to appraise the injuries I had sustained during my fall. I had a bloody left hand, and long scratch down my right arm, and a couple red marks on my right thigh; they were all superficial, and I wasn’t concerned about them. What I was worried about was my left calf. It was hurting badly. I must have smacked it into the farmers on my way down.  I thought to myself, “It’ll just bruise. It can’t be anything too bad. There’s just muscle belly there.” But, I found myself beginning to limp. As soon as my limping was brought to my attention I stopped it. I couldn’t be seen limping. That would just be fuel for the competition. I needed to act uninjured. Besides, more than anything, my pride was hurt. How could “Alanna Casey” fall on farmers? It was practically impossible, but here it most certainly happened. I had video to prove it.

I stood there, with my head down for a few minutes and then walked back toward the athlete area. I sat on a chair, crossed my arms, and looked straight ahead. I didn’t talk to anyone. I didn’t smile. I just sat there in rage.  About 5-10 minutes later, heavyweight competitor Zim Kimmerman approached me. She told me to calm down and regain my focus. She commented that if I just would have slowed down, just a tad, on my farmers, that I wouldn’t have taken a tumble. I remained closed off while she spoke but, slowly felt myself softening as Kim went on. She was adamant that I was letting my anger get to me; that I would be perfectly okay if I calmed down, refocused, and let my frustration go. I knew she was right.

Zim was right; I wasn’t out of this contest. My fate was still in my control. Deadlift medley was next. I wasn’t looking forward to it at all, but I just needed to get through it. I was hoping the deadlift medley would just be 3-4 different one time pulls but it wasn’t. The medley involved carrying a light sandbag and then 45lb plate into a deadlift “pan,” and deadlifting that pan as many times as possible in the time remaining. I was the quickest on the carries, but the deadlift was painful. Each rep felt heavier than the next. By the 5th or 6th rep I was grinding them out. I didn’t know how many reps I had; I just tried my best to keep pulling. I ended that event with 18 reps, which was good for second.

After day one, I felt awful. I returned to the house I had rented with my fellow strongwomen Nia Llenas and Amenah Razeghi, and strongman Kalle Beck. I felt feverish and weak. Nia and Amenah said they thought I was dehydrated, and I agreed with them. However, I didn’t feel like eating and I didn’t feel like drinking. I forced some Gatorade and down then felt nauseous. I made the decision then that I would not go to the convention center the next day. I would use the day in between events to only rest, eat, drink, and repeat. I figured I could go to the convention center and make my sponsors happy by taking pictures and meeting people, or I could win. To me, it was more important to win, so I decided to stay in and rest.

Kristin Rhodes asked me how I was doing, and I told her I was sick. She recommended that I take a contrast shower and that doing so would help to “reset” my central nervous system. So, that’s what I did. I took one contrast shower in the morning and one before I went to bed. The contrast shower included 1.5 minutes of warm water immediately followed by 1 minute of very cold water, for three rounds. Nia says that contrast showers are, “the bee’s knees” but I say, “they suck.” It was very challenging for me to force my whole body and head under the cold water, but I trust Kristin, and I listened to her advice. I’m glad I did. I definitely think those contrast showers helped me.

By the time I went to sleep I was feeling better but, not 100%. I never posted my “sick” status on Facebook or took any pictures. In fact, I only told Kristin and fellow competitor Sue Metcalf about my condition. And I asked both of them not to tell anyone else about the state that I was in. I didn’t want my competition to know that I was barely hanging on. I wanted them to assume I was in great condition and that I was ready for battle.

I remember walking up the stairs and having a brief vision of Maya with the first place medal. I immediately shook my head and replaced that vision with one of myself on stage with the first place medal. Every time I had a negative thought I replaced it with thoughts of my success, the announcing of “Alana Casey” as the 2014 Arnold Strongwoman Fitness Champion. I had to KNOW that I would win. I had to let my mistakes go. I had to ignore that fact that Maya had beaten me in more events on day one. I had to completely shut out the memories from day one. I had to pretend it never happened. I had to envision day two as a blank slate. I had to regain my focus and put my frustration aside. I need to put every emotion aside, and that’s what I did.

Day two I was grateful I didn’t need to be at the venue until noon. I slept in as late as possible and had a solid breakfast. Sue Metcalf had volunteered to help me during day two since she was done competing (she placed fifth).  When I got to the venue, I was not yet allowed behind the stage. I used my bag as a pillow and laid down until the athletes were allowed to set up behind the stage. Sue met me there and asked if I needed anything. She had brought Gatorade and energy gel packets for me which I was very grateful for.  She asked me if I needed any cues on the log, and I asked if she would yell “stay TIGHT” after I had cleaned the log and had it on my shoulders. I asked her to yell “keep going” on the atlas stone if I ever took a break.

Day two also meant that we got to compete on the main stage, which is quite a feeling. There was a good amount of people watching us and bright lights were shining down to illuminate the athletes. There was also someone filming us so we could be shown on multiple big screens for the viewers further back from the stage. I perform best under pressure, so this set up was the best possible situation for me. Before starting the events, all competitors’ names were announced as we were called up on the main stage. “In second place, ALANNA CAAASSEEYYYY!!” Michael Johnston was the master of ceremonies which immediately comforted me. Michael had been the VP of North American Strongman, so I was used to hearing his voice over the speakers. I ran up on stage and smiled in excitement. There were so many people, and they were cheering and shouting! I loved the energy and felt my own energy levels drastically increase. This was it. This was MY stage, no one else’s; only mine.


After all competitors were announced I returned behind stage and continued getting my log gear readied. I put on my Titan wrist wraps, elbow sleeves, soft belt, Titan hard belt, my “SUPER HERO” Sox Box socks, SBD knee sleeves, and Olympic lifting shoes. There was a women’s log for the competitors to warm up with. I did one press with it empty and one press with an additional 50lbs. It felt light. It was a perfectly balanced Slater log, and I knew I was going to be good. I decided that 170lbs would be my opener and then 190 my second and 210lbs my third (you had to move by 20 increments which actually made my attempts easy to pick).

Log clean and press is one of my best events. So, I had to wait a bit for my first attempt as the other middleweight women opened with a weight lower than 170lbs. When my name was called, I jogged up and quickly cleaned and locked out the 170lbs. 190lb went up even better than 170 as my form was tighter. I had already won the event with 190lbs, but I wanted 210lbs. A couple women tried 190lbs and 210lb before me, but I refused to watch. I didn’t want to see anyone struggle with those weights. I didn’t want my brain to see someone else struggling and think that those were “heavy” weights. I needed to maintain my mindset that 210lb was a perfectly manageable weight. When my name was called, I chalked up, gave myself a little shout then went to work. I cleaned 210 decently, and took a couple seconds making sure I was properly set before I initiated my press. I dipped my hips back then drove up and started pressing. I thought, “Keep pressing, keep pressing.” Once I locked it out I gave a war cry as my judge, Pro Strongman Mike Mastell, signaled the “down” call. I guided the log down to the mat and jumped up in elation. I had done it; I had won this event and I knew that was big.



After getting off stage forced some food and Gatorade down and assumed my “sleep” position. One more event, I thought. I can do this. I changed my shoes, shorts, and t-shirt and geared up for the stone. About ten-fifteen minutes prior to when I thought I would go on stage, I put on my stone sleeves and tacky. There were two stones on stage so fourth and third place went before myself and Maya. After the log event, I was ahead of Maya so technically, I only needed to get second place in stones to win. As I walked on stage, I heard the MC announce that nine reps was the number to beat. I got myself ready and prepared for 75 seconds of hell. When I got to tenth rep, I knew that I had won it. Pride (of course) kept me going anyway. I went as fast as I could and just kept on going. I focused on keeping my form and keeping a decent pace. After the whistle blew, signaling our 75 seconds was over I turned around in exhaustion. Maya walked toward me and asked. “What you get?” I responded with “13.” Maya said, “me too.”

The contest was over, and we both knew I had won. I could now see her as another human being, and not just a competitor; someone who was only trying to block me from getting what I wanted. I could now speak to her and her to me. We both cleaned up our tacky behind stage and then spoke to each other. She told me, “I’m sorry if I didn’t seem friendly during the competition. It was just… competition.” I said, “Oh no, I get it. I was the same way. I felt like we had to be that way. We took each other seriously, and that’s just how it is.”

We spoke a bit more and then prepared ourselves to go back on stage to accept our awards. I felt relieved more than anything else. I had worked very hard, and this was my reward; the feeling of no regret. I had put my free time, money, my relationships, and my body’s wellbeing secondary to my desire to win. I had lost sleep, I had calculated my food and protein intake, I had revolved the last few months of my life around this competition. My sponsors had sent me products in hopes I would wear them for this competition and represent their companies well. I didn’t want to let them down and most importantly I didn’t want to let myself down, and I hadn’t. Relief was the overwhelming emotion that I felt. I had also done this of my own accord. I had previously worked with Jill Mills. She had done my programming for the past two and a half years. However, previous to this competition we both decided that I needed to spread my wings and fly (or fall) on my own. I had no “coach.” I was my own coach; I was doing my own diet, I was my own everything. I had a great powerlifting team I could lean on for powerlifting advice but no one to direct my strongman training. I had to figure it out on my own. Callie Marunde Best and Nick Best were very generous in allowing me to train out of their garage a few times and I am very grateful for that. But, I had to figure out what to do when I got there.

The Arnold was the ultimate test for me. Could I take what I have learned from my mentors Jill Mills, Kristin Rhodes, Steve Pulcinella, Dimitar Savatinov, and Nick Best and put it all together on my own? I drew tremendously from my instruction and programming with Jill. On game day, I drew from Kristin’s competition confidence and unwavering winning attitude. I applied technique tips I had been taught by Nick and Dimitar. I demonstrated my ability to be an asshole like Steve Pulcinella. I drew from all my role models, and I think I was able to do it in the right way. I was proud of myself.

Winning the title of 2014 Arnold Strongwoman Fitness Champion was not easy. It was hard. Everything about it was hard. Afterwards, my body was a wreck, and I was mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted. But, it was worth it. Being the best was worth it.

Watch the full competition video HERE

5 Common Beginner Athlete's Questions Answered


Nearly every time I begin consulting with a new client, I ready my programming paperwork, my application forms, and my video technique tutorials. Another thing I always like to have present in my mind is a short list of answers for questions that I am inevitably asked by new clients. These questions seldom vary from person to person, as a great deal of new people simply don't know the answers to what some of us consider to be fairly obvious questions. This doesn't mean my new clients are stupid, they just don't know, and it is my job to educate them. I have assembled a league of extraordinary questions that most of my new clients ask during our first call, in hopes that some of you will no longer have to wonder what the answer is, for fear of looking like a simpleton when you ask.

1. How long should I rest between sets?

This is a question that I, along with others, get asked on an almost daily basis. New athletes want to know how long to rest in between sets, and this question has its roots in bodybuilding. Some bodybuilders, when chasing the pump, like to keep rest intervals short, so as to maximize their muscle pump during their training. While this can be beneficial for bodybuilders, it does not necessarily apply to the training that a lot of us are doing. Now, this is not to say that we don't use it on occasions, in fact I personally use short rest intervals when I finish my main lifts and am doing high rep accessory work. 


However, attempting to keep rest periods short when you are working with heavy weights will usually only hinder you. Let's say you have to squat for sets of five rep squats at 82% of your max. This isn't back-breaking weight, but it is heavy, and as such, requires recovery in between sets, so you can hit the next set effectively. If you plan on taking 60-90sec rest intervals between these sets, there is a high chance that you will be failing the sets you should be accomplishing easily. Our cookie-cutter response to this question is: "Rest as long as it takes for you to hit the next set as effectively as possible." This is not a race, and as such, should not be treated like one. The goal here is an increase in strength, not a muscle pump. Save the pump for lighter hypertrophic movements. Read more on this topic HERE, with sources.


2. Does it matter when I eat my macros?

You can ask three different people this question and get five different answers, but since you are on my site, you get my answer. I have found that it does not matter what time you eat, when you get protein after a workout, when you eat carbs, etc. Instead, what matters more to me is that you reach your daily macronutrient allotment. Some have found great success with carb-backloading, timing breakfasts, or having butter in their coffee. There are also a great deal of people that have noticed no benefit from doing any of these things. Instead, we have worked together to find the right amount of macros they require for the day, and simply reaching that number is enough to get them what they want. 

I find that this allows them a great deal more freedom with the way they eat, and it seems to be more beneficial when approaching it from a long term point of view. One issue I find with these other methods is they can be a diet that is a short term approach to reach a short term goal. I would rather see someone approach their eating in a way that they can continue to use after they have reached their goals. This is just my approach, however, you are free to do as you please (Unless you pay me to tell you what to do, in that case, do as I say).


3. Should I eat less on days that I am not lifting?

When I hear this question, I instinctively want to plant my hand on my forehead, but then I remember that the question could almost make sense, so I see where they are coming from. I believe their mentality is "since I am not lifting, I naturally require less calories, otherwise it will just convert to fat." Fortunately for everyone, that isn't how it works. What are rest days for? To recover and grow from the previous training sessions, in order to adequately prepare for the upcoming sessions. Now, how will you recover properly if you deprive yourself if the necessary calories you need in order to repair and grow stronger the muscle damage you have inflicted from your previous sessions. If anything, I would suggest eating MORE than you do on training days. One day of food won't make you fat, and if you want to properly recover, you will finish everything on your plate, then go back for seconds.




4. How long should I spend warming up?

This is another good question. Most of us see warmup videos, mobility stretches, and various other mobility walkthroughs all over our Facebook feeds. This can give the impression that one should spend 30-45mins warming up before lifting. The drawback to this is, of course, the fact that most of us don't have an extra 30-45mins to spend at the gym before training just warming up. This does not mean that you should avoid stretching, I did that for awhile, and it wasn't great. Instead, you should work on getting to a level where your mobility is so on point that your warmup is 15mins or less every time you train. You can reach this level by working on your mobility OUTSIDE of the gym, like at home when you watch TV, or just before you go to bed. Address your stretching issues outside of the gym, so you don't burn through gym time. If you have "plateaued" your squat at 315lbs for over a year as a male, you probably don't need to spend 40 minutes doing 10 stretches from MobWod, you need to make better use of your gym time by actually lifting, not stretching.

AGAIN, I am not saying to avoid stretching, just find a better time for it instead of training time. Jace, Matt, Alanna, Nick Best, and myself spend less than 15-20mins warming before lifting.



5. How often should I test my maxes?

This is also a valid question, and can be easily answered with excerpts from my previous article:
 

Simply put, it is my opinion that new athletes aren't really in need of testing a 1RM for quite a long time, and even intermediate athletes do not need to test single maxes very frequently. I used to think that new and intermediate athletes should be testing a 1RM, as you can see in some of the older programs I have written. To me, new athletes don't need to test 1RMs for a few reasons. The first reason is elementary: 1RMs do not really contribute to strength. For new and even some intermediate lifters, a 1RM amounts to little more than mental masturbation to make yourself feel better about what you are doing. 
This seems to be suitable to athletes across all strength sports: A new lifter would gain much more benefit from higher volume training, even a 3RM or 5RM would be more suitable for someone whose primary goal should be building strength, muscle mass, and joint/tendon thickness. This leads to the second error I see with lots of 1RM implementation: 1RM testing does not increase muscle mass, joint thickness or strength in any worthwhile amounts. 1RMs are mostly a stressor on the CNS, and while "frying the CNS" isn't really our worry here, newer lifters should be focused more on increasing muscle density and strength.
Now, this isn't to say that heavy singles can't be a useful training tool. Sometimes we put heavy singles into newer athlete's programming, but there is a difference between getting in lots of volume of a lift, and then adding a little amount of weight for 4-5 singles. We do this, knowing that it is not their max, we simply want them to get to feel some heavier weights and build some confidence under load, without making their confidence and technique go down the drain when a true 1RM is approached.

The third error I see committed when following programs based off percentages are lifters that can't resist testing a 1RM on a day they feel good, a day that doesn't call for testing. I definitely understand the desire to test a new max when I am feeling good, the issue is that the progress of a program can be altered when an intermediate athlete tests a 1RM out of turn. I said "intermediate lifter" because I don't feel that percentage training is an efficient way to train new lifters. I am not alone in that mentality, for reasons that were stated above: New lifters need volume and multiple rep maxes, not 1RMs.

Intermediate lifters still will benefit from multiple rep maxes, rather than monthly or bi-weekly 1RM. I consider competing as one of the stages of being an intermediate lifter, and competitions are an appropriate place for 1RM testing to occur, usually on the third rep attempt. Leading up to a competition is still not an appropriate time to test 1RMs, in my opinion. Instead testing heavy doubles would be more beneficial until the lifter gains more experience and muscle memory with the movements.

 

Hopefully these answers helped clear up some questions you may have. If you have any other questions, drop it on the Facebook page.

How To Build Your Superior Posterior


Article written by Matt Mills
If you have read any of my previous articles here then you know big I am on weak point training.  With that being said, I see a growing trend in America that I’m not happy with:  There are way too many flat asses out there!  I have come up with a name for this that I call Flat Saggy Ass Syndrome (FSAS), and I have the fix for it!  FSAS can be attributed to lack of exercise, the fact that we sit for most of the day causing tight hip flexors, and the glutes to fire improperly.  For the guys, I’m sure you are like me, and like to see a girl that fills out a pair of LBEB booty shorts.  And Ladies I would hope you feel exactly the same about guys, well aside from a dude wearing booty shorts, but you get the point.   



I think it’s safe to assume that all of us following LBEB are interested in improving both our squat and deadlift.  Stronger glutes will absolutely improve these lifts drastically.  With that being said, I’m leaving squats, and deadlifts out of this article, as you should always be performing them.  So without further ado, here are my top 5 glute assistance exercises. 

Barbell Hip Thrusts
This is a fairly simple but painful exercise.  I love this exercise because you are able to hold the top for a second, and really squeeze your glutes hard.  There is no doubt you will be feeling this one the next day if you haven’t tried it already.  The first time I performed Hip Thrusters I was sore for days, so start light and  ease into them.  If you use less than 135lbs on the bar then I would recommend using bumper plates, as it will be difficult rolling the bar into place otherwise.  Once the bar is loaded, position a flat bench against something sturdy, as you will be pushing your back into it as you drive your hips up.  Now, there is one thing that’s acceptable that goes against the LBEB squat commandments, it’s ok to use the bar pad.  I know a few crazy people that have worked up a tolerance to having the bar there, but I’m not one of them, and I want to use as much weight as possible.  If you have a good deadlift you will most likely need a thicker pad, but just make sure you hide them in the gym as newbies will most likely grab them when they have to squat (it’s happened at my place before).

 If you have bigger legs then you will have some difficulty rolling the bar in place.  Deadlift mats, or small bumpers plates will work well to elevate the bar to get it in the proper position.  Once the bar is in the crease of your hips, position your upper back slightly on top of the bench, and get your heels directly underneath your knees.  If the heels are a little further out from the knees, you will be activating your hamstrings more.  Now you are ready to hip thrust properly, so begin by thinking about pushing the knees forward to elevate the hips.  If you drive the hips up too high, you will most likely be over-arching at the top, and not working the glutes as you should.  At the top of the movement, you want a straight line from your shoulders to your knees, and hold the top for one second squeezing your glutes as hard as possible.  Some common mistakes you want to avoid is not to look forward at the bar, this can be problematic for you neck, so keep your head back.  Make sure you drive through the heels of your foot and not through your toes.  If it becomes a problem, simply pick your toes up through the movement.


Heavy ASS Kettlebell Swings

This is another exercise that really gets butchered, and gets a bad rap for being bad for your back.  The problem is, like most exercises, it is done with horrible form.  Just to be clear, I’m not covering the American swing used in Crossfit as it’s not the best variation for glute activation. 

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Please never swing like this, or listen to anything Jillian Michaels has to say.
I say Heavy ASS Swings because most people don’t use enough weight on these to really build any muscle.  Don’t get me wrong, doing some light kettlebell swings for high reps, or time circuits is great conditioning, but that’s not the goal here.  Start by having the kettlebell a few feet in front of you, and grab it with both hands.  Begin by hiking the kettlebell back, and push your hips back like you are doing an RDL.  The knees should be loose, not locked out, so do not turn it into a squat.  A properly performed Russian Kettlebell Swing should look like a fast RDL.  Be careful not to have the kettlebell too low as you will look like the picture above.  The low back should stay tight, and arched throughout the movement.  The wrists should come directly into your thighs, and think about absorbing the kettlebell with your hips.  Quickly stand up, and squeeze your glutes until you are completely upright.  The finish of the swing is just like the deadlift.  Stand up tall, but do not lean back, as this will only stress your lower back more, and less on the glutes.  Remember that the arms do nothing but hang on for the ride, grip tight, and keep them straight.  You are not trying to turn this into a heavy front raise, so the hips do all of the work here.  I like to keep the reps in the 8-12 range for strength, and power.  Another added benefit of heavy swings is the added grip work.  Heavier kettlebells have very thick handles, and you will find your grip giving out before anything else in the beginning.

 If you do not have a single heavy kettlebell then try double swings. 

 
 Split Squats
This is one of my recent favorites because you will have no choice but to activate your glutes to maintain balance.  These can be performed a number of ways with a barbell, kettlebells in the racked position, or dumbbells. If you haven’t performed a split squat before, you may want to start with just your body weight, as they can be tough to balance the first couple of times.  Spread your feet apart as if you just did a lunge, but do not move them from here.  You are now going to align your feet so a straight line should go from toe to toe.  An easy way to set up is if you have mats down at your gym simply get on one of the breaks, and line your feet up this way.  Immediately you will notice the balance will be tough, so squeeze your glutes hard to maintain.  Lower yourself down until your back knee almost touches the ground.  If you have trouble at this point grab some kind of a mat and softly touch your knee down, but do not plop.  Keep the glutes tight throughout the movement, and stay as upright as possible.




Reverse Lunge from a deficit
Reverse Lunges from a deficit are not for beginners, so be warned.  Reverse lunges by themselves cause excessive soreness for most people so make sure you are ready for these.  Again, these can be performed with different tools but I like using the bar here, and specifically the safety bar, as it adds difficulty to the lift.  Choose a deficit of about two inches; I use one of the steps you would find in an aerobics room, as they are pretty cheap, and useful for a few things.  Get the weight in position, and as always stay tall to maintain balance.  Take a big step back and drop the back knee almost to the floor again.  Same as before, use a pad if you have trouble here.  Squeeze the glutes hard coming up, and push hard with your front foot to return to the starting position.


Single Leg Elevated Hip Thrusts
These are a little different then the basic barbell hip thrusts, but equally as difficult.  The hamstrings will come in to help more on the exercise, which is never a bad thing, but focus on squeezing the glutes as usual.  Take a flat bench and position it in front of you.  Lay flat on your back, and place one leg on the bench with only the back of your heel making contact.  Put your hands straight out to your sides with your palms up.  Keep your weight on your upper back, and drive your heel through the pad to elevate your hips.  As always squeeze the glutes hard at the top and hold it for a second.  Control the eccentric portion of the lift until your butt nearly touches the ground before returning to the top.  To make this exercise even more difficult, make the eccentric a slow 5 seconds down.  These are also great as a warm up to get the glutes firing before squats, and deadlifts.

Conditioning for the Strength Athlete


Article written by Matt Mills
I think it’s safe to say that most of us following LBEB absolutely hate “cardio.”  Personally I don’t even like the “C” word, considering anything we do that raises our heart beat, and lungs is cardio.  We can all agree a high rep set of squats is far more taxing then a brisk jog on the treadmill.  I’m not covering traditional forms of cardio that we are all accustomed too, and seriously never do the Elliptical in the first place. 

The conditioning I’m going to outline here is to be done on your off days, or for the non crossfitters it can be done as a finisher at the end of your training.  My current training program is geared toward powerlifting at the moment so it breaks down to this: Day 1 is Bench day (I know typical Monday), Day 2 is squats, Day 3 is Overhead with more bench accessory work, and Day 4 is Deadlifts.  After each compound lift I perform accessory work based on my weak points, in more of a bodybuilding/hypertrophy rep range (an article for another time).  If you are like me, I would love to train hard every single day if I could recover from it.  Unfortunately we are human, and need adequate rest to train hard another day.  This is where conditioning will come in, to not only give you your training fix, but it will also promote recovery but pumping more blood into the muscles.  I perform conditioning only 2 days a week because I believe we all need one complete day of rest, or at least to get out of the gym for a day to do your “cardio”

  

For the strength athlete there are a lot of benefits to improving your aerobic capacity.  Powerlifters generally shy away from conditioning as they feel it will take away from their static strength, which can be true depending on the intensity.  However, at the right pace, conditioning has many benefits for powerlifting.  For those of you who have never competed in powerlfting,  a contest can run as long as 10 hours.  With a higher work capacity you will be able to perform more quality reps, without being as exhausted by the deadlift.  I have seen many great deadlifters completely gassed by the time they get to their final lift, which can be up to 8 hours after your first attempt on the squat.  For strongman, there is a greater demand on your aerobic system as you will most likely be sprinting, and carrying heavy objects to load.  Again save the balls to the wall conditioning for the medleys when you train for events, and off day conditioning at a much lower intensity.  I have done plenty of strongman contests that have started at 10am, and do not finish until after 9pm.  It can be an extremely long day, and you have to be conditioned to keep you energy levels up for that long to give it your all on the final event. 

The conditioning you are going to do is very simple.  You will choose a conditioning exercise, and pair it with a body weight exercise.  I will outline a list to choose from, but feel free to get creative with your own favorites.    Just remember this is supposed to promote recovery, and get the blood flowing.  You are not to go balls to the wall, leaving yourself in a pool of sweat lying on the floor.  Your heart rate should be slightly elevated, and you should be breathing heavily, but not gasping for air.  I generally will perform 12 to 20 rounds depending on what the rest of my training, and goals look like.  When I have to lose weight for a contest I will be doing 20 rounds to promote fat loss.  At the moment I am 12, as I am trying to gain weight with as little fat gain as possible.  For the moving exercises I will go for 100 feet, or 30-45 seconds.  The bodyweight exercises will be for only 10-12 reps.  One round will consist of a conditioning exercise, and a bodyweight exercise.



Conditioning (30-45 seconds)
Sled Pushes
Sled Drags (reverse, forward, belt)
Farmers Walk (I prefer suitcase famers, or one arm carries)
Airydyne Bike
Jump rope
Battle Ropes
Sledge Hammer
Overhead Yoke carry (I don’t like to do normal yoke here, as it loads the spine too much for an off day)
Kettlebell Swings
Med ball throw variation (side, overhead)
Bodyweight
Push ups
Pull ups
Inverted Rows
Ab wheel
Trx Fallouts
GHR sit ups
Dips
Hip extensions
Box Jumps (step down, do not jump off)

Again these exercises are just suggestions, and some of the examples that I am following.  Your options are limitless here, but again DO NOT GO TO EXHAUSTION!  Typically I will start the circuit feeling pretty beat up, and tight from the past training.  As I keep moving I feel far better, and by the end my energy levels are through the roof.  For example following a heavy bench, and squat day, my conditioning went as follows:

Round 1 Prowler Push high to low handles (100 feet) followed by ring push ups 10 reps
Round 2 Belt Sled Drag 100 feet followed by Inverted Rows 10 reps
Round 3 Jump Rope 30 seconds followed by fall outs 12 reps
I repeated this circuit nonstop until I reached 12 rounds which took me 25 minutes.

Start slow if you are new to doing any conditioning, and I guarantee that within a few weeks you will have more energy, better recovery, and a higher work capacity.

Thoracic Mechanics: Ditching the Quasimodo




Article written by Seth Larsen
Let's imagine everyone reading this article is in a large seminar room.  You are surrounded by Strong(wo)men, Powerlifters, CrossFitters, Olympic lifters, and every other manner of strength athlete.  Got it? Good.  Ok, everybody close their eyes.  Now raise your hand if you've ever had shoulder pain.  Upper back pain? Neck pain?  Now look around.  By this point, I'd venture a guess to say each one of you has a hand in the air.  I'm equally as confident in saying that before you started on this crazy journey of strength athletics, you could raise that hand at least somewhat, if not significantly, higher.  It's no secret that our chosen past time wreaks absolute havoc on the shoulder girdle and thoracic spine.  This is likely not news to any of us.  Now what if I told you that many of these problems we have developed can be mitigated, if not prevented, by increasing the mobility and stability of your shoulders and thoracic spine?  I bet you're a little more interested now.

We all know that having a strongupper back is crucial to performing well in our strength sport of choice  However, as many of us injury prone idiots have discovered (myself included), strength is not enough.  Strong, powerful shoulders and upper backs are pretty useless if they cannot move in an efficient fashion to perform the lifts we train and compete in.  Whether it is in the bench press, overhead press, snatch, clean, or even squatting and deadlifting, poor posture and bad mechanics are a recipe for disaster.   It's no wonder that shoulder and back injuries account for nearly 50% of the injuries in strongman (I would argue it's likely higher than this, but that is for another time).

This all seems pretty obvious, right?  You would think so.  Unfortunately, as we get bigger, stronger, and busier, mobility tends to be the first thing that suffers.  I can say firsthand that I'd much rather be moving some heavy iron around than doing what looks like weird yoga movements next to the squat rack.  It's pretty difficult to get bigger and stronger if you're beat up all the time, however.  Some basic understanding of upper extremity anatomy and dedication to some easy prehab exercises can nip many of these injuries in the bud.

Let's start with the anatomy of the shoulders and upper back.  First the big guns; our prime movers here are the deltoid, trapezius, and latissimus dorsi.  These are the muscles that we tend to think of when we train our shoulders and upper back, but they are only a piece of the puzzle.  We also have our postural muscles: the rhomboid major, rhomboid minor, teres major, and levator scapulae. Lastly, we come to the stabilization complex of the shoulder joint, the rotator cuff.  This is composed of the supraspinatus, infraspinatus, teres minor, and subscapularis.  While each muscle has a specific action, their overall functions fall into these groups; any imbalance between them can lead to a mobility and/or stability dysfunction, which can ultimately result in reduced performance and increased likelihood of serious injury.  If the big guns are strong, but have no support from the postural muscles, you'll cave when trying to move heavy loads with them.  If you've managed to strengthen both of these groups and try to throw a big weight overhead without properly taking care of your rotator cuffs, you can literally blow your arm out of the socket.  If everything is strong but tight and immobile, you run into a different set of problems which can lead to injuries that are equally as scary.






There's no reason for me to write about how to get your delts, traps, and lats stronger.  You guys already know how to do this.  However, has this really helped your posture? Your shoulder pain? I'm betting it probably didn't fix your neck issues either and that you're still walking around with your head pushed forward, shoulders internally rotated, and a hyperflexed thoracic curve that makes you look like Quasimodo.  Sitting at a desk in front of a computer all day and tightening up your anterior musculature is only making this worse.  WAY worse. Not only is it keeping potential mates away, but this posture is very problematic from a biomechanical standpoint.


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
                               Bad thoracic mechanics mean you have to date gargoyles. Science.
 An easy way to make sense of why this is such an issue is in the back squat, when a large external load is being placed directly onto the thoracic spine.  When the spine is in flexion, the posterior disc space widens.  Therefore, hyperflexion due to poor posture creates an even greater posterior disc space.  Due to spinal ligamentous anatomy, the vast majority of disc herniations occur in the posterior direction.  So lets put two and two together: increased spinal flexion with a compressive load puts us at an increased risk for vertebral disc injury.  Increased thoracic flexion also puts you in a compromised position in pressing movements.

 In the overhead press, these poor mechanics, coupled with the lack of shoulder mobility that often accompanies them (increased flexion of the thoracic spine automatically throws the shoulders forward), create difficulty in getting the head through and shoulders back without hyperextending the lumbar spine.  It doesn't take an orthopedic surgeon to tell you why hyperextension of the spine is a poor choice for athletic longevity.  Ever see the big, fat guys walking around with their butts sticking out?  They are in constant hyperextension of the lumbar spine.  I can tell you from clinical experience that this is an extremely common cause of low back pain. Poor thoracic mechanics and shoulder mobility also creates problems in the bench press; when the thoracic spine is locked in flexion, the lifter loses his or her arch, lengthening the path the bar must travel.  Not only will this reduce the amount of weight you are able to lift (both via the change in distance and the way it impinges your leg drive), but it also makes it more difficult to keep the glutes on the bench, ultimately resulting in those horrible red lights no powerlifter ever wants to see.

I could sit here and list a bunch of studies I read to get ready for this article about injuries related to forward head posture and poor thoracic mechanics, such as brachial plexus syndrome and thoracic outlet syndrome (which can lead to paralysis of the upper extremity, among other nasty things), shoulder impingements, frozen shoulder, scapular dyskinesia, rotator cuff tears, and spinal osteoarthritis, but enough with the postural boogeyman stories.  Let's start fixing this mobility issue so we can get back to smashing PR's, right? Now that we have a good grasp on the anatomy and its importance, we can break down the aforementioned functional groups and fix their problems.  I'll go through some basic warmup/prehab movements first to improve mobility and activate the muscles we all need to get better at firing, some specific strengthening exercises to create a more stable upper back and shoulder girdle overall.  Here's a list of what I do every training session (well, almost; I'm human too) to maintain and improve in these areas, followed by a video of what they should look like.

Thoracic/Shoulder Mobilization Prehab Complex (before training)
-Arm circles (small) x10 each direction
-Arm circles (big) x10 each direction 
-Alternating internal/external rotations in abduction x10 each arm
-Thoracic spine SMR rollout (slow and controlled, let all the vertebrae open up)
-Roller shoulder external rotations x10
-Wall press 2x10
-Pullup bar dead hang 2x10-15sec (not in video. Just hang from a pullup bar at full extension)
-SB pec minor stretch 3x3-5sec each side (contract and push for 3-5sec, then relax and sink deeper into ball.)
 -Shoulder dislocations with stick/PVC pipe x10
 -Band external rotations x10 each arm
 -Band pull-aparts x50
 -Thoracic bridges (This is a more advanced movement, and I am still learning them myself.  They are very difficult if you have poor mobility, so do all the other stuff for at least a month before you try them.  My form needs serious improvement, so here is a much better video explaining them from my good buddy and ridiculous athlete Max Shank:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm9L0RIhR3s)

Thoracic/Shoulder Stability and Strength Complex (to finish training)
-Prone cobras 3x30sec (progress up to 60sec each, relax glutes completely during exercise)
-Band face pulls 3x15
-Band pull-aparts x50
-More thoracic bridges (see above)


One thing to focus on through all of these is to make sure you keep your head neutral.  This will further aid you in prevention and correction of thoracic hyperkyphosis and forward head posture.  I can't promise you this is going to fix all your shoulder issues, but it should give you a fighting chance.  Disclaimer: if any of these movements cause you significant pain, DON'T DO THEM!  A little mobility work, some SMR, and playing around with bands is no substitute for a medical professional.  With any luck, though, this will help you stay out of the doctor's office and on the platform.  It will even assist in prevention of (or at least delay) the development of chronic neck and shoulder pain as you age, in turn keeping you stronger, longer. Improving your thoracic mechanics should also make you look a little more like the guy on the left in the picture below than the guy on the right.  And let's be real, who do you think came out on top in that battle?


P.S. Now that you've just spent a few minutes hunched over a computer with what is probably awful posture, get up and move that thoracic spine around.  Do this consistently and often.  You'll thank me in the gym. 

Seth Larsen has a Bachelor's of Science in Biology and Neuroscience and is a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine candidate for 2015 at Midwestern University.  He is a former NASM-CPT and student athletic trainer.  He currently serves as a reserve officer in the US Navy Medical Corps while he finishes medical school with a specialization in primary care sports medicine.  Seth is a former NCAA football player who now competes as a LW (105kg) strongman, Highland Games athlete, and Powerlifter.

References:
1.      Simons, S.M., Dixon, J.B. “Physical examination of the shoulder.” Uptodate.com, Nov 2013.
2.      Quek, J., Pua, Y-H, Clark, R.A., Bryant, A.L. “Effects of thoracic kyphosis and forward head posture on cervical range of motion in older adults.” Manual Therapy, Feb 2013; 18(1):65-71
3.      Nairn, B.C., Azar, N.R., Drake, J. “Transient pain developers show increased abdominal muscle activity during prolonged sitting.” Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology, Dec 2013; 23(6):1421-1427
4.      Anderson, B.C. Office Orthopedics for Primary Care: Diagnosis, 3rd edition. WB Saunders, Philadelphia 2005.
6.      Tsang, S., Szeto, G., Lee, R. “Altered spinal kinematics and muscle recruitment pattern of the cervical and thoracic spine in people with chronic neck pain during functional task.” Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology, Feb 2014; 24(1):104-113.
7.      Winwood, P.W., Hume, P.A., Cronin, J.B., Keogh, J.W. “Retrospective injury epidemiology of strongman athletes.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, Jan 2014; 28(1):28-42
8.      Simons, S.M., Kruse, D. “Rotator cuff tendinopathy.” Uptodate.com, Jul 2013.
9.      Parsons, C. “Rehabilitation principles and practice in shoulder impingement syndromes.” Uptodate.com, Nov 2012.

Direct Calf Training


Article written by Matt Mills
In most articles I have read on calf training, it’s all from a bodybuilding perspective about how to make them bigger.  Generally using some line like “turn your calves into cows”, well I’m not here to talk about only make them bigger.  Hypertrophy will occur on this program, but I am writing this mainly for injury prevention.  A lot of strength athletes say to avoid calf training as it will cause a “pump” during a competition, making it harder to move with the weight.  This simply is not true, and the calves, like any other body part, need some direct training.  I have always done direct calf training in my programs while I trained for strongman, and never once experienced a calf pump during an event.


 It’s a well-known fact that bicep tears are a common injury when it comes to strongman.  I have always recommended plenty of arm training to combat this, and to make the tendons stronger.  Calf training is no different, and I have been seeing more and more calf injuries in not only in strongman, but now in Crossfit.  One of the worst injuries I have seen is an Achilles tendon tear, and I hope none of you experience it.  In Crossfit, there is a LOT of jumping, and high impact.  It’s not uncommon for an athlete to go from double unders right to box jumps.  Stronger calves will equal stronger tendons, preventing these kinds of injuries. 

Without getting into too much anatomy, the calf muscle is made up of the smaller Soleus, and the bigger Gastrocnemius consisting of a medial, and lateral head.  The soleus will get more activation while the knee is bent during a seated calf raise for example.  The soleus is also a very slow twitch muscle, so it will respond better to very high rep training (20 reps +).  The Gastrocnemius is a fast twitch muscle meaning it will come in to play during more power movements, such as a jump.  A forgotten muscle of the lower leg is the Tibialis Anterior, which dorsi flexes the foot (think toes up).

I’m sure most of you have had shin splints at some point in your life, so we will be strengthening this muscle as well to balance your lower leg.  Remember to always have balance in your training, as imbalances will cause injures.  I know most of you may not have access to some of the machines to target your calves and that’s totally fine as I am going to outline exercises that can be done with just a barbell, dumbbell, and a sled.  So if you’re ready to get some “fat guy” calves let’s get to it.

Standing Calf Raises
If you have access to a standing calf raise machine this will be the easiest way to perform this exercise.  I like to keep the reps in the hypertrophy range of 8-12 reps, but you will be using a tempo to do so.  The tempo will be: down 2 seconds, hold the bottom 2 seconds, 2 seconds up, and hold the top for another 2 seconds (2222).  If you are unable to access a standing calf raise then you will simple do single leg raises with your foot on a step.  If you are able to hold weight then hold a dumbbell in your opposite hand.  For example if you are doing calf raises with your right leg you will hold onto the dumbbell with your left hand.  You will then being using the same tempo of 2222.  At the bottom of the movement you should feel a big stretch, and at the top contract hard like you are trying to raise your heel as high as possible. 




Seated Calf raises
This will work the same way as the standing calf raises do, as you will be using the same tempo.  Keep the reps higher here in the 20 rep range.  Also, if you do not have a seated calf machine then you will be doing these seated, one leg at a time, with a dumbbell held on top of your knee as you will see in the video.  Prop your foot up so you can get a good stretch at the bottom, plates will work if you don’t have a step.



Toe raises
These will be supersetted with your direct calf training, and again with the same tempo.  Keep the reps higher here as well, and if you have never done these be prepared because the burn sets in fast.  You will do these both standing, and seated.   These can be done just about anywhere you can hold on for balance, I will do them both standing and one leg at a time with a band.  For one leg at a time simply take a mini band, and wrap it around a dumbbell.  Place the band around your toes, and go to work. 

 

Heavy Sled Pushes
These should be a staple in any athletes program but to make them more challenging, and to hit your calves even more, then push at a lower angle.  As you are on the lower handles make sure your butt is down, and in line with your hands.  Make these heavy enough that you can’t run with the sled, so it must be a slow grinder to strengthen your calves the most. 

Jump Rope
I’m sure this is an obvious one for the Crossfitters, but I feel this exercise is a necessity for any athlete.  Not only will you build rock solid calves, but your conditioning will improve immensely.  There is hardly a day that goes by that I don’t jump rope for at least a few minutes.  Jumping rope is big in boxing and with good reason.  The entire fight the boxer is on their toes bouncing around.   The next time boxing is on check out their calves to see what I mean.  If you can’t jump rope then just start slow.  Start with just one jump at a time, and then move to two in a row, and then 3.  A couple tips are to stay on the balls of your feet, and make yourself land as softly as possible.  The first time I trained for boxing I could hardly walk the next day just because I was made to jump rope for half of the workout.  Jumping rope can be done in a simple timed circuit, or how I like to do them as a warm up, and on my off days for conditioning. 

Why You Can't Just Squat, Bench, & Deadlift Forever



Article written by Matt Mills
As a strength athlete, I tend to stick to a lot of the same exercises that I am strongest at.  This of course is nothing new, as we like a nice ego boost in the gym so we can go post about it on Facebook right after.  I fell into this trap for way too long, only working on my strengths, and avoiding all of my weaknesses.  I don’t care how strong or conditioned you are, we all have them.  When I first started Powerlifting I was lucky enough to be taken in by one of the best female powerlifters in the world, Disa Hatfield, daughter of Fred Hatfield.  Disa had shown me how to properly set up on the bench press, arching, tightness, leg drive, as well as how to do a sumo deadlift.  I had squatted and deadlifted all through high school, but I was never shown how to properly perform them.  Half squats were a regular thing for me until I was shown what proper depth was.  I literally went from what I thought was a 405 squat to a 135 below parallel squat.  It was very humbling, but I knew it was something I absolutely needed to work on.  Now, followers of LBEB are definitely not quarter squatters, but the point was instead of letting my ego get the best of me, I dropped the weight and slowly worked my way back up the right way.  

Prior to Powerlifting I trained strictly as a bodybuilder with high amounts of volume, and all kinds of body part splits to hit every single muscle I could in isolation.  Looking back this wasn’t the best way a beginner should train, but I did get bigger, and stronger.  Now I’m not saying any of you should get some posing trunks, get oiled up, and tanned to step onstage, unless that’s your goal of course.  If you have read any of my previous articles you can tell I am a big fan of using bodybuilding training to bring up weak points.  I never advocate only using the big lifts to get stronger.  Don’t get me wrong: squats, deadlifts, and presses should always be part of your program no matter what your goals, but don’t be afraid to switch things around.
 
I have been guilty many times of sticking to my strengths and yes, I got somewhat stronger, but it also caused numerous minor injuries in the process.  Performing the same lift the same way will only bring up the stronger muscles, and keep the weaker muscles weak.  I have many examples of this from my own training.  One being that I always loved the bench press, but then again, what high school kid didn’t?  We used to have a contest on a weekly basis, so my train of thought was I had to bench press nearly every day!  It was safe to say that my chest took over most of the movement while my shoulders and triceps were lacking big time.  I know plenty of lifters that have the complete opposite problem as they are all triceps and no pectoral development.  Not having addressed my weak points only led to me getting hurt in a charity event of all places.  I completely tore my pec major in half on a 445 bench press.  I was lucky enough to make a full 100% recovery, but I needed to know why it happened after all these years of benching with no problems.   



As a Powerlifter my best pull is in a sumo stance by far.  My conventional pull was honestly embarrassing compared to my sumo.  For years I would only pull sumo, and occasionally throw in some rack pulls. I didn’t want to pull from the floor, because I was incredibly weak at that point.  Even as a Strongman competitor I was lucky enough that most of the deadlifts are generally raised off the floor so again, I avoided conventional deadlifting.  After deadlifting only in a wider stance I began to develop some nasty hip tendinitis, which, paired with my wide squatting only made things worse.  I finally realized I needed to bring both of my stances in, which immediately made the tendinitis go completely away in a matter of weeks.  I changed to a conventional deadlift, and also brought my squat stance in considerably.  Now I was extremely weaker on both lifts, and I literally had to lower the weight I was using by over 100lbs.  Once my weaker points started coming up my body hurt far less, and I even packed on a lot more muscle from lifts I wasn’t used to.  

Once my focus changed solely to strongman training I was forced to work my conventional deadlift even more, as well as take flat benching out of my program.  My upper body training focused more on strengthening my shoulders, triceps, and far less on my chest, which is just what I needed.  On occasion I would put my sumo pull back into my training, and the craziest thing happened every time I did…I was stronger!  This was a pretty big light bulb to me as I would only conventional deadlift in my training since I was much weaker at it. My squat was no different as I was far better in a wider stance, but I had brought my stance in considerably, as well as making front squats a priority for Strongman.  Training for the Arnold in March of this year I only trained narrow stances as it was more specific to the events.  Only 4 weeks after the Arnold I had signed up for my first Powerlifting meet in over 3 years.  I only had 2 ½ weeks of solid training ahead of me before I had to start deloading again, so I didn’t have much time.  My compound lifts were switched back to my stronger stances, both immediately felt better than ever.  The main goal of this meet was to pull 800lbs so the plan was to hold back a little on the squat and after 3 pec tears I had to take a token bench.  


I’m not here to discuss the details of the competition but I was able to hit a PR on both the squat and deadlift with hardly training my stronger stance in the 8 months prior.  I was able to hit an extremely low 665lb squat and my all-time goal of pulling 800lbs.  





The reason I discuss Bodybuilding training is that bodybuilders that compete are perfectionists, and they will spend countless hours bringing up their weaker muscles.  Arnold used to spend at least an hour on just his calves after every training session, as he always thought they were a weak point for him.  Again, Bodybuilders are solely concerned with how they look, but a small muscle group is likely to be a weak muscle group.  I can honestly say I only have only known and heard of a handful of great lifters that have purely gotten stronger performing the same compound lifts all of the time.  There are quite a few programs out there like this, and I’m sure many of you have tried them without much success.  I’m not going to get into any specific programs here, but I will say in my experience working with hundreds of clients, along from my own experience you cannot back squat heavy nearly every day.  Any lifter that has been on any of these programs is constantly pushing through pain, and let me tell you that is not a good thing, and does not make you “hardcore”.  As an advanced lifter there is pain I have to push through at certain times to get the job done just like most of you as competitors do.  However there is a fine line between pain you can work through, and pain you can’t that will result in injury, or even surgery.  

I also love using different types of bars in my training.  Just as changing your stance on squats and deadlifts can increase your strength and size, so can switching up the bar you use.  If you have seen my previous videos, I use the safety bar quite a bit in my training with good reason.  One being when I low bar squat for a while I get some pretty bad elbow pain.   I low bar squat because that’s where I’m strongest, so I make sure to train it hard for an upcoming contest, but when your shoulders and elbows need a break, the safety bar is a good choice.  For those of you that are trainers, you will be sure to run into people who simply cannot put a straight bar on their back, as it will be too much on their shoulders.  Don’t be stupid here and make them force it, because you will only have an injured client that will no longer be a member.  

What I want you to do is abandon all of your strongest lifts.  If you have never tried sumo deadlifting, then give it a shot.  If you find out you are a terrible sumo deadlifter, you know what you need to work on.  If you use a moderate squat stance then try it wider, then more narrow.  If you have access to any specialty bars, give them a shot for a training cycle, as I guarantee you it will be humbling experience.  For those of you who are interested in getting your overhead press up, as I always I recommend trying a different grip.  Press in a neutral grip with a swiss bar, or strict press a log if you have one.  Train like a bodybuilder, find out what muscle groups you are lacking in, and make it a priority in your training to bring them up.  Despite what some strength athletes think, the added muscle can only help your big lifts.

It's Time To Shut Up About Rounded-Back Deadlifts



 Article written by Seth Larsen
It's time to address every YouTube form expert's favorite topic: the deadlift.  We've all seen it. As soon as anybody posts a video in which their spine is not in an absolutely perfect line, the trolls come out of the woodwork.  “You're going to hurt your back lifting like that!” “It's really not safe to let your back round. Stop lifting with your ego and drop the weight!” “Don't you know you're supposed to keep your back straight when you deadlift?” These are just a few examples of inane babble from couch potatoes who wish they could lift like grown-ups.  They, like many of you reading this, have read a book or two about lifting and have appointed themselves masters of the deadlift.  I'm here to tell you how wrong all of you are.  There is NO single way to deadlift.

            Let's start with the basics.  We all learned to deadlift in roughly the same way, and I'm sure we can agree on a few things about it.  Pull yourself into the bar on set-up, keep your back tight, and resist  flexion of the lumbar spine during the lift.  I have no problems with any of these cues.  However, the misapplication of them has created a monster.  Not just one monster, mind you.  Many trolls have been born of these ideas.   I will grant that for a beginner, focusing on these things is of paramount importance.  They are fundamentals that will keep you healthy as you develop the proper technique that will suit you the best.

            The previous sentence is the key to all of our success as lifters.  Please don't waste anyone's time arguing that a 5'5” 225lb guy should have the same deadlift technique as somebody who is 6'5” and weighs roughly the same amount.  Yes, we should be telling that lanky bastard to eat more, but we need to be aware of the fact his deadlift will and SHOULD look vastly different from his Hobbit of a training partner.  Their lever lengths, the ratio of those levers to each other, and thus the direction and amount of force produced by each of their individual muscles will be different.  Based on these mechanical differences in leverage coupled with differences in mobility, the angle of force transfer through the lifter's muscles and bones, through the barbell, and up off of the ground must vary. What does all this biomechanical mumbo-jumbo mean?  A slight round in the taller lifter's back isn't going to cause his spine to shoot out his butthole!

            This is where the trolls start to freak out.  They talk about shear forces on the lumbar spine in flexion, degrees of kyphosis, and anatomy of the intervertebral discs.  They spout off quotes from popular beginner lifter books written by drunks who couldn't hold Ed Coan's jock strap (truthfully, I'm not sure I'd be worthy of said jock strap myself, but that's neither here nor there), let alone tell real strength athletes how to lift.  If you read my last article (insert thoracic curve article link), I even talk about hyperflexion and the danger it poses over the long term.  Unfortunately for the trolls, what I said before does not necessarily hold true during one individual lift.  This once again brings us to the problem with misapplication of knowledge.

            The only way to settle anything about this debate is to take us all back to the anatomy.  I'm not going to get into the effects of cervical curvature on the deadlift at this time, so just try to keep your head neutral and save yourself some money at the chiropractor.  The most important skeletal anatomy when discussing the “rounded back” deadlift is that of the thoracic and lumbar spine.  Each portion of the spine has a distinct curve at rest: the thoracic is in kyphosis (flexion) and the lumbar is in lordosis (extension).  The musculature of the trunk, shoulders, and hip girdle keep these curves in their proper places relative to the other bones.  See that word relative? That's a big one.  This means that depending on the length of one's torso, femurs, and tibias, that person's spinal curvature will differ.  The degree of difference may be small to the naked eye, but from a biomechanical standpoint, that change in angle has a major effect.  Alterations in the lumbar lordosis and thoracic kyphosis result in significant changes in muscle force, muscle length, and internal spinal loads.  It would seem to follow then, that each lifter would be best served to alter these angles to the optimal degree for their individual anatomy.



The technique waters have probably become a bit muddy at this point.  I understand that, so I'll make some overarching generalizations that we should all (probably) stick to the vast majority of the time.  Should you deadlift with completely straight legs and a hyper-flexed thoracic and lumbar spine, making your back do all the work? No. Even doing stiff-legged deadlifts calls for a little more control than this.  Should you squat down to the bar (as some coaches who will not be named teach), keep your lumbar and thoracic spine fully extended during your entire pull?  No, unless you want to have the best looking 300lb deadlift at your local Globo Gym.  Should you keep your lumbar spine hyperextended and round your upper back completely? NO.  The magic technique is somewhere in the middle, and it will take time for you to develop.  Personally, I pull well over 600lb with a noticeable round in my upper back and slight round in my lumbar spine.  I've got long arms and a short torso, and that's what works for ME.

            I can hear the trolls and online form heroes in the distance, and they are approaching rapidly.  “But the lumbar spine is weaker in flexion!” “You even said in that other article that a compressive load on the spine in flexion creates a greater risk of disk herniation!”  Both of these things are partially true.  The lumbar spine is far weaker in extreme flexion, where the lordosis has completely disappeared.  A compressive load directly on the spine in extreme flexion poses a greater risk of disk herniation.  However, this is not the end of the story.  Multiple studies, published in journals far more reputable and peer-reviewed than any online forum and performed by researchers far more qualified than any of us, have shown that a slight to moderate flattening of the lumbar lordosis is actually protective to the fragile structures of the spine.  Blasphemy, you say? Well, sorry folks. The biomechanics speak for themselves.  The internal load on the disks, the shear force on the ligaments, and the compression of the vertebrae themselves are all reduced when the lumbar spine is taken out of full extension and given a slight “round.”  This actually reduces the risk for injury, which I'd say is a good enough reason to set your ego aside when judging others' lifts.
            Now that I have given you all the green light to have a little more leeway with your pulls, I want to make one thing very clear: this only applies if you maintain the same spinal curvature throughout the lift!  The protective effects of this reduction in lumbar lordosis completely disappear if the angles are shifting during the pull. The same goes for the thoracic spine.  Rounding it can be ok, and works for many people (go watch Konstantinovs lift, and tell me that thoracic flexion doesn't work), but trying to dynamically change from flexion to extension of the spine under load can be very dangerous.  If you're curious as to what can happen with these types of dynamic changes, go look up an X-ray of spondylolisthesis.  It's a bad time. This is where “keeping your upper back tight” comes in as a cue.  I know some really strong guys that get away with using their thoracic spine like a whip when they deadlift, but purely from a health-preservation standpoint I recommend against it. Of course, there is always going to be spinal movement as we come off the floor or get closer to lockout, but this should be minimal.  Whether you are going to deadlift with a completely neutral, hyperextended, hyper-flexed, or more of a balanced spine, one thing remains the same: you must keep the curve relatively constant to reduce the risk of serious injury.  Your personal choice of form is up to you, your coach, and your mechanical advantages.  Hell, even though I wrote this more from the standpoint of a conventional puller, if you want to go sumo, be my guest!  Just keep your back tight and your curve consistent and you will pull stronger, longer.  Now, how about we all just shut the hell up about everbody else's form and go deadlift? Got it? Good.

Seth Larsen has a Bachelor's of Science in Biology and Neuroscience and is a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine candidate for 2015 at Midwestern University.  He is a former NASM-CPT and student athletic trainer.  He currently serves as a reserve officer in the US Navy Medical Corps while he finishes medical school with a specialization in primary care sports medicine.  Seth is a former NCAA football player who now competes as a LW (105kg) strongman, Highland Games athlete, and Powerlifter.

References:
1.      Shirazi-Adl, A, Parnianpour, M. “Effect of Changes in Lordosis on Mechanics of the Lumbar Spine-Lumbar Curvature in Lifting.” Journal Of Spinal Disorders, October 1999. Vol 24, 335-352.
2.      Arjmand, N, Shirazi-Adl, A. “Biomechanics of Changes in Lumbar Posture in Static Lifting.” Spine, December 2005. Vol 30(23), 2637-2648.
3.      Mitniski, A, Yahia, L, Newman, N, Gracovetsky, S, Feldman, A. “Coordination between the lumbar spine lordosis and trunk angle during weight lifting.” Clinical Biomechanics, March 1998.  Vol 13(2), 121-127.
4.      Khan, N, Husain, S, Haak, M. “Thoracolumbar Injuries in the Athlete.” Sports Med Arthrosc Rev, March 2008. Vol 16(1), 16-25.
5.      Cholewicki, J, McGill, S, Norman, R. “Lumbar spine loads during the lifting of extremely heavy weights.” Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, October 1991. Vol 23(10), 1179- 1186.
6.      Bruno, A, Anderson, D, D'Agostino, J, Bouxsein, M. “The effect of thoracic kyphosis and sagittal plane alignment on vertebral compressive loading.” Journal of Bone & Mineral Research, October 2012. Vol 27(10), 2144-2152.
7.      Kaji, A, Hockberger, S. “Spinal column injuries in adults: Definitions, mechanisms, and radiographs.” Uptodate.com, last updated 2/12/2014, literature current through 3/2014.
8.      Hansebout, R, Kachur, E. “Acute traumatic spinal cord injury.” Uptodate.com, last updated 1/15/2014, literature current through 3/2014.
9.      Knight, C, Deyo, R, Staiger, T, Wilpf, J. “Treatment of acute low back pain.” Uptodate.com, last updated 9/26/2013, literature current through 3/2014.


Training The Farmer's Walk


Article written by Matt Mills

The farmers walk is one staple of my programming that I never take out.  If you want to get bigger, leaner, and more athletic, then the farmers walk is the answer.  If you are a strongman competitor, the farmers walk is absolutely essential to your training. If you are not a competitor of any kind, the farmers walk is about as functional as it gets, and should be performed by anyone.  No, I’m not talking about squatting on a bosu ball because that’s considered “functional” for some reason beyond me.  I’m talking about an exercise that we all do single day.  Any time you carry a weight you are performing a farmers walk to some degree, hence where the name came from.  One of the most rewarding things as a strength coach is when I have a member of my gym come to me all excited telling me how they were able to carry all of their groceries in at the same time.  If you ever need help, moving be sure to ask the guy or girl that has a good farmers walk!


If you are a powerlifter, or just someone looking to get their deadlift up (and who isn’t?!) you want to carry some heavy weight in your hands.  One of the biggest benefits of doing farmers is the increased grip strength.  Whenever I see someone miss a deadlift because of their grip I can’t help but cringe.  Having a strong grip is essential to living a healthy life, and ladies, I know you don’t like asking your guy to open that jar up.  For those of you interested in more fat loss, the farmers walk is a perfect finisher.  Literally every muscle in your body must work to either stabilize, or move the weight efficiently.  The more muscle groups you work, the greater the metabolic effect is burning calories.  One of my favorite benefits of the farmers walk is the amount of work your traps get.  Whenever you see someone with some big traps and neck, you know they have put some work into the gym.  In fact the farmers walk is my favorite builder for the traps, and is the first exercise I suggest when someone asks for advice.  


The core is taxed heavily here, and is one of the best ways to get strong abdominals without doing any direct work.  For you competitors that have a weakness on the farmers walk, and it is not your grip, then it is your core.  A great way to fix this is with suitcase carries.  Simply take one farmers handle, and load it up to a fairly light weight of about 50%-60% of your max and carry it for a given distance.  I generally stick with 50-100 feet.  Make sure you stay as tall as possible, and do not slouch to the side you are carrying the load.  You will feel your obliques of your opposite side screaming by the end.  Suitcase carries are also another great way to increase your deadlift, as strong obliques are essential to a big pull.  Another great way to build your core strength is to carry uneven loads.  Load one weight up to 75% of your max and the other to 50%.  The challenge to stay upright will be extremely difficult. Improve on your core strength with these variations and watch your farmers go through the roof.


I would say for most competitors, grip is the biggest weak point on the farmers walk, and its what the event really tests in a contest.  For those of you who are against straps, this is the reason why they are allowed in strongman on the deadlift most of the time.  Strongmen arguably have the best grip in the world, and it is tested heavily on events like this.  Put farmer walks in a contest with a husafel, keg, sandbag carry, stones and your grip will be fried by the end.  If you are looking to hit farmers as hard as possible, look into getting a pair of lifting straps and use them on your deads and heavy rows.  I do have to make a statement about one thing in your training that I get asked about quite a bit, and have even read in another article.  NEVER USE STRAPS ON A FARMERS WALK…EVER!!! 




When grip is your main weak point, you have a couple ways to make it your strength.  First, use a pair of fat grips to make the farmers handles much thicker.  You will have to drop the weight down quite a bit but once your grip increases from the thicker handles, the normal farmers will feel like tooth picks.  Another option that I love to do on my final set of heavy farmers is to hold them once you finish your carry.  Squeeze the handles are hard as possible and for as long as you can.  Just make sure you save this for your last set because otherwise your grip will be shot for you other sets.


In a strongman competition, you will most likely run into a farmers event that will have a turn involved.  Turning with farmer handles is incredible hard, and will tax your grip immensely.  There are a couple tricks to help you master the turn.  A common mistake I see are competitors trying to make a complete stop at the turning point, staying in place while slowly turning around, and then trying to pick up speed again.  Stopping is only going to slow you down, and make you have to hold onto the handles even longer then you should have to.  Instead of making this mistake, take a wider turn and keep your feet moving, so you don’t lose any speed.   

You will have to slow down slightly to keep the farmers under control, but you will make the turn much faster, and be able to pick up momentum once you make the full 180 degrees.  The most important part here is when you start to come around from the turn, you must not let the farmers handles continue to turn.   Turning with the handles at a heavy load is extremely difficult to control, and without controlling them they will continue to turn you until you lose your grip.  Right before you feel the handles start to turn you, push back against them hard in the opposite direction.  When you turn against the handles it will actually keep them straight in line, and allow you to continue to the finish line in a straight shot.  Finally while turning do your best to keep the plates in contact with one another.  Once the plates stagger the turn will even be more difficult as the load will be unbalanced.



Here are a couple quick tips that make a huge difference on the farmers walk:
Grip the handles not in the middle but just a hair back from the center.  Your grip mainly comes from your index, middle finger, and thumb.  I grip the farmers in the middle then move them back just a half inch.  Once you start moving with the weight the handles will dip slightly making you move the weight faster from the momentum.

Dig your hand into the handle for your grip.  You should curl your wrist in as deep as possible.  Once you pick it up your wrist will straighten.  This will pinch your hands more but your grip will be better, which is more important than your sensitive hands.

Use a staggered stance when the weight is light enough.  This is a little trick that will save you a second or two on your time.  If you start in a staggered stance you can take a step right away as you pick the weight up.  I line the toes of my back foot up with the heel of my front foot. 
Take short choppy steps, do not try to take long strides as this will make the handles swing more, making them much harder to control.  

Programming Options
I like to make my training more difficult then it will be for an upcoming contest.  If this is possible for you always train an event slightly heavier then what you will be doing in a contest.  For example, for the Arnold Classic I recently competed in I had to carry 345lbs in each hand for 75 feet.  Leading up to the contest I trained only for 100 feet starting at a lighter load of 280lbs.  By the final heavy week of training my heaviest carry was 365lbs in each hand for 100 feet.  If you are not able to go slightly heavier, then work at the heaviest load you are able to for the given distance of the contest.  Once you have reached a heavy max drop the weight down to about 65% and perform multiple sets of speed runs with short rest periods of 60-90 seconds.  As always, find what your weak point is on the farmers as I have outlined above and make it your strength!




Bouncing Is For Lowriders, Not Deadlifts


Article written by Seth Larsen
            Strength athletics are a dangerous pursuit.  There is no denying this.  We subject ourselves to things that the average person would consider insane and most medical practitioners would say are severely detrimental to our health.  I consider that half of the fun, but there's no reason to be an idiot about it.  One of the steps on the path out of the realm of idiocy is this: stop bouncing your deadlifts! That's right, I'm joining in with the trolls on this one.  I'm not about to go around to each of your videos and critique them, but I am happy to say that bouncing your deadlifts off the floor is both stupid and dangerous.  Yes, it helps you hit more reps for time and makes you look more bad ass when your non-lifter friends watch your videos, but to those of us in the know, you look like less like a bad ass and more like a jack ass when you do it.

            Did I hurt your feelings? Good. Maybe that will make you pay attention so you don't wind up walking around like Herbert from Family Guy in your mid-twenties.  Pop culture references aside, this is a serious issue in the age of high-rep deadlift WODs and YouTube heroes.  If you have a minute, go watch some videos of people doing the Open workout 14.3 from last month.  You will see countless deadlifts accelerated into the floor with such force that they literally fly up into the next rep due to the rebound.  I'm not talking about touch-and-go deadlifts here; I mean the bounces that were heard around the world that week.  Newsflash, guys, this is not what bumper plates were designed for!  Now I'm not going to sit here and talk about the benefits of dead-stop pulls versus touch-and-go, as many people far stronger than I am have already beaten that topic into the ground.  At this point, we should all be aware that the dead-stop has a far greater strength benefit.  It is also significantly SAFER than bouncing, which is what I'd like to address.


The importance of a stable and tight back position while deadlifting can not be overstated, but it has been discussed ad nauseam by myself and others, so I will not rehash proper positioning here.  However, it is this position that is compromised when one attempts to bounce the barbell off the ground to gain momentum for the subsequent reps.  It takes a significant amount of tightness in the upper and lower back and force from those same muscles to achieve lockout on any deadlift, but the same can not be said for the bar's path back into the ground.  Controlling the eccentric phase keeps you in the same strong position you used for the lockout.  Now I'm not saying a negative is necessary on every rep, or even that you can't set the bar down quickly. Bouncing is the key issue here.  When you actively accelerate the bar into the ground, the force shifts from your posterior chain to your anterior musculature.  This makes it difficult, if not impossible to maintain the proper curvature of your spine to prevent injury during heavy lifting.  Repetitive cyclic flexion of the lumbar spine has been shown time and again to result in injury.  Why do you think construction workers, movers, and all manner of laborers wear back braces and trusses to protect themselves?  When you attempt to bounce a deadlift, you deactivate the muscles that compose your own anatomic back brace.  These muscles are designed to resist flexion, so when you accelerate into flexion, you are taking them out of the equation.  I don't know about you, but this sounds like a pretty bad idea to me.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
They must have bounced a lot of deadlifts
            Now that we've established the muscular issues with the bounce, we need to talk about the forces resulting from this accelerated impact into the floor.  Multiple studies have documented the extra force on an athlete's body when landing during plyometric exercises, and this is no different.  Gravity is responsible for this increase in force.  I'm going to get a little mathematical on you here, so I apologize in advance for that.  The equation for force is mass times acceleration, something basic physics has taught us.  When gravity is added into the equation, it multiplies that force by 9.8.  That means that gravity is taking your force of bouncing the bar and making it almost 10 times stronger.  10 times! And where do you think that force is going?  Into YOU.  These forces are rebounding from the floor, through the bar, into your muscles, joints, and bones, all of which are in a compromised position now due to your desire to get that extra rep, that faster rep.  The supportive musculature has been disengaged, throwing all that force into the joints, specifically those of the spine.  As I have discussed before, your intervertebral discs are fragile and protecting them is paramount in maintaining your long-term health as a lifter.  By bouncing, you are essentially causing a self-induced whiplash injury, which is as detrimental to your lumbar spine and its discs as it is to those of your neck.  However, it is actually worse than such an injury caused by a car crash, since in such a collision your body can actively use its supportive musculature to resist the force.  Unfortunately, that has already been shut down.

            Don't take what I've said here the wrong way; like I said, touch-and-go deadlifts are not going to kill you or put you in a wheelchair.  When you are deadlifting for time, feel free to continue to use that method.  I can't argue that it isn't going to be faster than resetting on every rep.  But do yourself a favor and stay tight, touchingthe bar to the floor instead of bouncing it.  Unless you'd like to increase the chances of playing with your children and grandchildren from a wheelchair or repeatedly going under the knife to fix what's left of your spine.  Stay strong and healthy, my friends.

References.

1.      Chiu, L, Schilling, B, Fry, A, Weiss, L. “Measurement of Resistance Exercise Force Expression.” Journal of Applied Biomechanics, 2004.  Vol 20, 204-212.

2.      Sandhu, J. “Low Back Pain and Concept of Segmental Stabilisation.” British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2010. Vol 44(Suppl I), i1-i82.

3.      Hoops, H, Zhou, B-H, Solomonow, M, Patel, V. “Short rest between cyclic flexion periods is a risk factor for lumbar disorder.” Clinical Biomechanics, 2007. Vol 22, 745-757.

4.      Fast, A, Sosner, J, Begeman, P, Thomas, MA, Chiu, T. “Lumbar spinal strains associated with whiplash injury: A cadaveric study.” American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 2002. Vol 81, 645-650.

5.      Solomonow, M. “Neuromuscular manifestations of viscoelastic tissue degradation following high and low risk repetitive lumbar flexion.” Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology, 2012. Vol 22, 155-175.

How To Build The Best Training Environment


Article written by Matt Mills
There are a lot of reasons you may not be making progress in the gym.  Some of the common reasons are: you flat out aren’t working hard enough, lack of proper nutrition, lack of sleep, you don’t keep a training journal, you do the same things over and over, just to name a few.  If a lack of programming is your problem then do yourself a favor, and pick up the AJAX Methodto take your training to the next level.  But what about your training environment?  I would say this is one of the most overlooked aspects of making progress in the gym.   The training environment is everything from where you train, who you train with, and even what music you are listening to.  Building the right training environment is crucial to your training success, and finding the right training partners is most important yet the most difficult.

If you are a follower of LBEB then I’m guessing you like to make a little noise when you train, drop weights, grunt on a heavy lift, etc.  Unfortunately there are few commercial gyms that allow this anymore.  Your first line of business is to find a gym that suits your needs.  I don’t care how far the drive is either.  We are all busy and training should be a top priority for you so if you have to drive an extra 15 minutes to the big boy and girl gym then that is what you have to do.  You’re not going to be hitting deadlift PRs at a gym that doesn’t even allow you to use chalk.  I know you will miss the free pizza and tootsie rolls, but your results are more important.  For those of you in the Strong(wo)man and Powerlifting community, I highly suggest you check out Kalle Beck’s Strongman gym locator: http://letkallelift.com/starting-strongman/strongman-gym-directory/.  You want to find a gym that is based on results, not on looks.  If I were to be looking for a new gym to train in, I would stay far away from the ones that have endless cardio and if they have TVs, then forget it.  Give me the dusty old gym with equipment that hasn’t been updated since the 70’s, and I’ll be at home.  You need a gym with no distractions, and definitely not a “health club” that is really just a social scene.  At my facility I don’t allow my members to use their cell phones.  Cell phones will only be a constant distraction, and I’m sorry, you’re not that important, you can go without your phone for one hour.  



If you are a gym owner then building the right training environment is even more important for your gym’s success.  You will have to start by not allowing the negative people in.  I know this will be difficult as you will be losing money, but I promise it will only hurt your business in the long run.  You will save yourself endless frustrations, and your other members will thank you.  You want to build a positive, motivating atmosphere, and this will be impossible to do with toxic people.  Not only will these people drain the energy out of your training, it will also reflect badly on your business.  If you own a gym like mine, or a Crossfit gym, then your business is built on referrals.  Getting referrals from your members will only come from getting them results.  In my 14 years of being a coach and trainer, I can tell you that you will not get results out of whiners, and excuse makers.  “The path to nowhere is paved with excuses” is something I remind my members of everyday.  Trust me, I have tried my hardest over and over only to waste my time an energy that would have been better spent on my positive hard workers.  

Asking people to leave your gym is not easy to do, and will take some time to get used to.  I will simply take that person aside, and tell them that my style of training is not for them.  Most of the time people will appreciate your honesty.  Look for people that will only add more positive energy to your facility.  If they don’t bring anything to the table, then they can’t train with my crew.  There is an old saying in business that goes “you must put the right people on the bus”, meaning you need the right people in the right places.  You can use this as your model for the employees your hire, but I like to think of it as getting the right members in your gym.  With a positive training atmosphere and good coaching, your training business with only thrive.  You overall want to train at a gym where you are the weakest one as this means you will have the most room to grow.  The sad thing is that many people that ask me for advice like being a big fish in a little pond.  Trust me no real lifter is impressed that you can leg press the most at Planet Fitness.  You need to get out of your comfort zone, because that is how you will make real gains.

As I said before, finding the right training partners will be your most difficult task.  If you have been training for as long as I have then I’m guessing you have gone through dozens of them.  First you want a training partner that actually shows up when it’s time to train.  If you haven’t read Matt Falk’s article on lifting etiquette check it out here: http://www.liftbigeatbig.com/2014/02/lifting-etiquette.html.  A good training partner is someone that will push you when you need it, but is also someone that will tell you to back off when you are about to do something stupid. A training partner should be someone that is somewhat on your own level.  I have had people ask to train with me many times that were beginners and this would only be a recipe for disaster for them.  First it will only slow your own training down, and second they will most likely get hurt by trying to keep up.  The beauty of training with someone of similar strength is that you will be most likely be stronger at different things.  I recently had this conversation with two members of my gym that started training together.  One of them is stronger at the barbell lifts so he pushes his partner to do more here.  The other is stronger on the events so he pushes his partner to do more here.  Personally my training partners and I like to do a lot of shit talking the day before a heavy day of training.  We are all competitors, and we are just as competitive in a competition as we are in training.  Nothing gets me more excited for a big squat day then having one of my friends tell me how he is going to do more than me.  Now let me state that this is all in good fun and when it comes down to training we are all business, and want each other to succeed.  This goes back to having negative people in your life.  Having a training partner like this will only hold your progress back, so get rid of them.  


If you train alone, as I know many of you do, then you better be keeping a training journal.  For years of my training I never recorded anything.  The only lifts I could remember were my PRs on the big 3 so whenever I couldn’t beat my previous max I felt like I was going nowhere.  Once I started recording my training I was able to hit a PR nearly every time I trained.  Just because you can’t hit a big number on your squat for that day, then maybe you will be able to hit one more rep, or 5lbs more on your accessory work.  Either way you are still getting stronger, and slow progress is still progress.  I have a few members of my gym that have great home gyms but still like to train at my facility just to be around like-minded individuals.  When you are having a bad day and feeling tired, there is no way you can’t get excited to train when you have a whole team behind you pushing you to do more. 
If you want to build a gym that attracts the hardest working people around, then you better compete.  Not only will you promote your facility through competing, you will also make great connections and lifelong friends along the way.  I can easily say at least 25% of the members of my gym have come to me because of my competitions.  Whether it is from my team competing, or from holding competitions at my gym it will draw new members.   

With competing, you also need to create a competitive atmosphere.  This is something Crossfit has done a great job with.  Nothing motivates people more than putting them in a group atmosphere where everyone has to push each other to be better.  This is a huge reason to have a record board.  Everyone wants to see their name at the top, and will push themselves harder to do so.  Since I started a record board at my gym I am amazed at the progress people have made.  We have had battles back in forth for the top spot many times, and these people never thought they would have been able to accomplish these things without that motivation. 
Drop a comment below or on the LBEB Facebook page and let us know what you think builds a great training environment.

Being A Purist Won't Make You Stronger


I would like to preface this article by stating that I don't like to write out long rants that often, unless I am repeatedly bombarded by a topic that just won't seem to go away. Today, that topic is going to be related to "purists" in strength sports.

Webster's Dictionary defines a purist as "a person who has very strong ideas about what is correct or acceptable and who usually opposes changes to traditional methods and practices."Thank you Webster, I could not have come up with a better definition of a purist myself. A purist is easy to spot, whether it is online, or in person: picture someone with their arms crossed, a sour look on their face, and are usually whispering little drops of inadequacy to whomever is lucky enough to stand next to them in the gym or at a competition. 

In strength sports, a purist is usually someone who can be found deriding the accomplishments of others, mainly due to training gear the other person uses, a stance that they or comfortable with, and sometimes, even the use of chalk (I can't make this stuff up). In the mind of a purist, no lift is considered acceptable unless it is completed under the personal rules of the purist. For example, I recently posted a video of Pat Mendes squatting 800lbs using an Olympic-style squat, no spotters, no belt, and he walked it out of the rack. 


Now, I personally think this is one of the most impressive squats of all time, the speed and depth of it combined with the weight makes it a squat that will not be easily accomplished by anyone else. And like clockwork, the purists had to come out of the woodwork to point out that it wasn't really a "raw" squat because he is wearing rehband knee sleeves. Did you notice that I wrote SLEEVES and not WRAPS? That's right, he used knee sleeves, which add a whopping infinitesimal amount of weight to a lift, especially in the 800lb range. I wish we all had 3-D printers, so I could send over a blueprint of my open palm to this purist so he could slap himself with it.

The problem with a purist's mentality, in my opinion, is that they like to claim that they are "the most raw" of all lifters as an excuse for them not being able to lift as much weight. This is also why they need to constantly make more and more new federations in Powerlifting, to accommodate their idea of "real lifting", instead of just lifting in the multitude of federations that are already in existence.

Powerlifting is not alone with it's prevalence of purists, however, they are present in Crossfit, Olympic Weightlifting, and even Strongman, though not as much in the latter. In Crossfit, as we have discussed in previous articles, their idea of purity is a nasty leftover from this idea of "functional training", "training like a caveman", etc... (Don't even get me started on the Primal crowd). Unfortunately, there are so many inconsistencies with their thinking that they can't even be taken seriously. Yes, we were all in fact born naked, with no clothes on our bodies, no wrist wraps, and no lifting shoes on our feet. Does this mean that this is how we should approach a lifting sport? No! It is a SPORT, there are tools you utilize in sports if you want to be a winner. Would you expect a football player to play four rounds of football with no cleats on, because it is more "Primal"? Not unless you want him to make an ass out of himself. If you participate in a sport that has parameters of what is allowed and what is not allowed, you better do every possible thing that is allowed in the sport if you want to win.

There are some folks who like to post videos of athletes training out in the dirt, using makeshift equipment from rocks, or other random farm equipment and say "see! You don't need fancy equipment to work out." Yes that's true, but there is a marked difference between training to win, and working out. When was the last time you saw someone who throws around boulders in a cornfield while wearing Vibrams as their main mode of training win anything noteworthy?

Constantly using the logical fallacy of Appeal to Antiquity, some lifters like to talk about how lifters "these days" have forgotten all the strength secrets of the old guys, and we need to get back to that, away from all of our fancy machines and tools. Guess what: How many numbers from the old days can even compare to the numbers that people put up now? With or without steroids, there is no comparison. People stopped training with the old ways for a reason: The newer ways gave them better results and made them stronger! The reason people mostly gave up using kettlebells is because a barbell and dumbbells are superior in almost every way. Yes, there are some random things you can do with a kettlebell to build hip strength, but a kettlebell was a cheaply made and easily mass-produced piece of equipment that was abandoned as soon as better equipment came along. There is a reason for that.

I normally don't pay too much attention to purists, until they start crossing the boundaries and creeping into my camp. If people choose to lift without wrist wraps, belts, knee sleeves or wraps, that is fine with me. Most (not all) of the time, the folks who like to pretend that they are "training" by lifting this way are usually just gym-goers that compete in nothing, so why should they need to use training gear? The problem is, the rest of us want to win and we are using tools that we are permitted to use. You can pretend to "train for yourself" all you like, but if you were training for yourself, you wouldn't need to spend so much time nitpicking the training methods of others. In fact, if you are truly training for yourself, you wouldn't need to put your lifting videos, photos, and training thoughts online at all! That is specifically done so others can read it.

Wowee that was quite a rant. I think I have said all I need to say with this one, so in closing, please remember that just because someone is training differently than you, you aren't more "pure" than they are, just because you make up your own rules or federations that say so. If you TRULY want to become as strong as you can possibly become, you will use all the necessary tools at your disposal to get the job done. History isn't going to remember the person that squatted the most amount of weight in a small-town gym while wearing no belt, no shoes, no sleeves, and most importantly, NO MUSIC! Because we wouldn't want music to be a crutch, now would we?

Elbow Pain: What You Need To Know





Article written by Seth Larsen
Unfortunately, “golfer's elbow” and “tennis elbow” aren't just for the country club crowd anymore.  If you've been in the iron game for longer than a couple weeks, I can just about guarantee that you've experienced some kind of elbow pain.  Moving heavy weight around beats all of us up, and few body parts (the lower back being one of them) take as much punishment as the elbows.  Presses, rows, pullups, deadlifts, carries, loads, arm work, and even lifts we don't think about as involving the upper body, such as squats, put significant pressure on the elbow joint, especially with the frequency that we train them.  This repetitive stress on such a small joint can lead to a host of problems down the line if we don't protect ourselves.  Couple this with our jobs outside of the gym and we are in for trouble.  If you work in a job requiring a lot of manual labor, this will replicate the stress placed on the elbows in the gym and compound upon it.  Construction workers, welders, stockroom workers, grocery baggers, cleaning personnel, restaurant workers, and many others all have a significantly higher incidence of elbow pain than the general population.  Unfortunately, with our increasing reliance on computers for our non-labor jobs, the incidence of elbow pain is increasing in the white-collar world as well.  Sitting at a computer all day in a chronic position of elbow flexion, pronation, and wrist extension coupled with the repetitive finger movements of typing can make the forearms and biceps tighter than one might expect and puts a surprising amount of stress on the elbows.

 As with any other body part, it all comes down to the anatomy.  Similar to the knee, the muscles both proximal (closer to the torso than the joint) and distal (further from the torso than the joint) affect the elbow significantly.  Because the elbow joint itself is fairly complex, I won't go in depth into it's anatomy, but will focus more on the muscles around it that can produce pathology, resulting in the pain we are all trying to avoid.  There are five major muscle groups in the arm that we will delve into that affect the elbow: the extensors of elbow, flexors of the elbow, extensors of the wrist and fingers,  flexors of the wrist and fingers, and the pronators/supinators.  Imbalance in any of these muscle groups over others, just like I've talked about previously in relation to the shoulders and back, is what not only leads to pain, but compromises our abilities to move maximal loads.  Yeah, I said it, not taking care of your elbows will make you weaker in the long term!  Nobody wants that.


 Let's start with the forearm.  There are 20 muscles here, so I won't go into each one.  Instead, we can separate them into intrinsic and extrinsic muscles.  The intrinsic muscles act on the forearm, performing the actions of pronation, supination, and elbow flexion.  So as not to go into to much detail, I'll focus on the big gun of the intrinsic muscles, the brachioradialis. This is the large muscle belly you can see on the lateral side that crosses the elbow and assists the biceps with flexing it.  It is one of the things you are training in hammer curls. Ever get that weird cramp in your forearms when doing front squats?  That is your brachioradialis, and it is a major culprit in elbow pain.  It gets hammered constantly during many movements, especially those in which the hand is pronated or in a neutral position.  From controlling the speed of descent in a bench press, to holding the arm in place during squats, to flexing the elbow in rows, pullups, and olympic lifts, this muscle gets verytight.  The tighter it gets, the more it pulls on the lateral aspect of the elbow, resulting in pain and point tenderness.  If it becomes even tighter, the nerves supplying the extrinsic muscles of the forearm can become compressed, resulting in a loss of grip strength and wrist stability.  


 These extrinsic muscles are what act on the hand and wrist, and can be divided into 2 compartments: anterior (flexors) and posterior (extensors).  These functional divisions are all the detail necessary for this article.  They can also become extremely tight, and are why athletes tend to get elbow pain when they overtrain their grip.  The extrinsic muscles take a beating from deadlifts, any type of loaded carry or pulling exercise, axle work, and of course, stones.  Whether you are squeezing your fist tightly or have your fingers open as you would in a stone load, these guys are working hard.  Pathology in the anterior compartment can result in medial epicondylitis (golfer's elbow), while posterior compartment issues can result in lateral epicondylitis (tennis elbow).  Unfortunately, the two are not mutually exclusive, so when I happened to develop both simultaneously, I decided to call it “lifter's elbow.”  Trust me, you do not want this.

 Now for the upper arm.  This is a bit simpler, but no less important.  The major muscles here are ones we should all know at this point: the triceps brachii, biceps brachii, and brachialis.  As you might expect, the triceps can cause posterior elbow pain and the biceps anterior.  I don't need to explain further about these two, but the brachialis is often an underrated muscle.  Its muscle belly lies primarily on the medial side, deep to the bicep, where it originates on the humerus and inserts onto the ulna.  It can create pain in a variety of places, from tenderness on the lateral aspect of the upper arm deep to the bicep that radiates to the medial elbow and vice versa, in addition to pain directly over the anterior aspect of the elbow, as it makes up the floor of that area.  Similar to the brachioradialis, if it becomes too tight or inflamed, it can compress the nerves that travel through the elbow and supply the forearm.

So now that we've broken down the anatomy to a degree, where do we go from here?  I could go into a bunch of complex case studies about neural tension and compression, kinematics of elbow movement, hypertonicity and weakness of upper extremity musculature, and all their effects on elbow pain and pathology, but that would just make for excess reading to get to a relatively simple point: we must keep our muscles balanced and relaxed!  This may sound like something you'd hear at your local yoga studio, but it is of paramount importance to us meatheads as well.  We can all agree that overly tight muscles are painful and less effective, but there is more to it than that.  It is related to the concept of reciprocal inhibition, which can be applied in the case of elbow issues as the idea that if one muscle is overly tight, its antagonist will be weak.  This means that if your extensors are tight, your flexors will be weaker.  


 In the elbow, this results in overcompensation with certain muscle groups to make up for it, ultimately making those muscles do more work than they are intended to.  This is problematic for multiple reasons.  First of all, when a smaller muscle and its tendons have to take on more load than they should, one or both can tear.  Good luck trying to grip anything if you rupture your flexor pollicis longus, the muscle that flexes your thumb.  Second, these smaller muscles are easier to overwork, causing them to become tight and start our vicious cycle of reciprocal inhibition again.  You'll soon run out of muscles to overcompensate with, meaning you will be able to do essentially nothing.  The third reason, and arguably the most important from a performance standpoint, is that these smaller compensatory muscles that you have now pressed into service are not nearly as strong as their larger counterparts.  This means you will be weaker.  It would be like trying to squat without glutes.  I don't see that leading to any kind of impressive performance at a competition. 

Curing and prevention of elbow pain can be time-consuming and frustrating at times, but it is relatively simple once you get going.  First and foremost, if you are having pain right now, whether it is acute or chronic, go get it evaluated in person by a professional!  I can not be more adamant about this.  There may be other underlying issues involved that are leading to this pain, or structural issues within the joint that are causing it.  Neither of these things can be properly assessed in an online forum!  If you have a slight tear in your ulnar collateral ligament, and you start over-stretching it in the hopes of reducing your pain and it ruptures, you are in for likely surgery or at best a long, painful recovery.  Neither you or I want you to be in that situation, so be smart.  Even if there is no significant injury found when you get evaluated, there may be other factors contributing to your elbow issues.  For example, up to 70% of elbow pain patients also report pain and dysfunction in their cervical and thoracic spines.  Elbow tendinopathies have also been linked to weakness in the middle and lower trapezius, along with scapular dysfunction.  So the problem with your elbow could actually be a result of issues with your neck and back!  

Once an exam is performed, we can start attacking your elbow issues.  First and foremost, take a look at your training program.  Some lifts make you more prone to elbow problems than others.  Skullcrushers, dips, heavy dumbell rows, carries, stone loads, olympic lifts, and front squats can all be elbow killers.  I have noticed this more than once in my own training.  This isn't to say you shouldn't do them ever (you should know by now that I think absolutes in training are idiotic), but you may want to back off on the intensity, the volume, or both for some time while you rehab your elbows.  There are also ways you can adjust some of these lifts.  For the skullcrushers, try them with an EZ-curl bar on an incline bench and don't go back as far.  For the dips, play around with your hand positioning and weight distribution, as leaning too far forward or too far back can change the stress on your individual muscles and joints.  When training stones, stop being a hero and use some tacky.  This will place less stress on your elbows and your biceps.  Front squats put far less stress on your elbows if you do them with a barbell grip vs. an olympic grip.  And if the lift isn't essential to your goals and causes you a significant amount of pain?  Scrap it!  There's no reason to keep doing something a magazine told you to if it does nothing but increase your ibuprofen intake and piss you off.  The second thing to do is to roll your biceps, triceps, and forearms before every training session, and even when you are at home relaxing.  Buying a little $20 trigger point roller and scraping my forearms and biceps with it while watching TV has been huge in treating my elbow pain.  Preferably do the rolling with something very stiff like a PVC pipe, because it generally takes some real pounding to break up the adhesions in these areas.  The third part is stretching.  Stretching the biceps and triceps is pretty self explanatory, and the forearms aren't much different.  If your anterior/flexor compartment is tight, pull your wrist back towards you with both a flexed and extended arm and in multiple directions medially and laterally.  If the posterior/extensor compartment has problems, simply do this  in the opposite direction to stretch it out.  Never neglect good old fashioned icy hot (or whatever your liniment of choice is) on your elbows before you throw on your sleeves either.  This all probably seems really basic, but some subtle changes can really aid in prevention and management of chronic elbow issues from lifting.


If none of this stuff works, don't freak out.  Your elbows are not beyond repair.  My own personal battle with elbow pain has been a long and arduous road, but I can tell you there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  Sometimes, we just have to suck it up and get treatment from a professional.  Active Release Therapy (ART) was the silver bullet for my elbow problems.  It didn't fix it immediately, but it has made a huge difference.  ART and other soft tissue techniques such as osteopathic manipulative therapy, sports massage, fascial distortion therapy, and Graston are powerful tools.  Acupuncture and trigger point injections are other options that myself and other athletes have had success with.  If you're still struggling with elbow issues and have been told there are no structural abnormalities, I recommend looking into one of these.  Don't let your ego or misguided beliefs about alternative treatments keep you in pain longer.  Protect those 'bows and you will be rewarded with PRs.  I guarantee it.  If nothing else, at least you'll have one less excuse for missing lifts.

Seth Larsen has a Bachelor's of Science in Biology and Neuroscience and is a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine candidate for 2015 at Midwestern University.  He is a former NASM-CPT and student athletic trainer.  He currently serves as a reserve officer in the US Navy Medical Corps while he finishes medical school with a specialization in primary care sports medicine.  Seth is a former NCAA football player who now competes as a LW (105kg) strongman, Highland Games athlete, and powerlifter.

References:
1.      Hume, A, Reid, D, Edwards, T. “Epicondylar Injury in Sport.” Sports Medicine, 2006. Vol 36(2): 151-170.
2.      Jayanthi, N. “Epicondylitis (tennis and golf elbow).” Uptodate.com, last updated Jan 2014. Literature current through Mar 2014.
3.      Berglund, K, Persson, B, Denison, E.  “Prevalence of pain and dysfunction in the cervical and thoracic spine in person with and without lateral elbow pain.” Manual Therapy, 2008. Vol 13(4): 295.
4.      Bhatt, J, Glaser, R, Chavez, A, Yung, E. “Middle and Lower Trapezius Strengthening for the Management of Lateral Epicondylalgia: A Case Report.” Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy, 2013. Vol 43(11): 841.
5.      Herlquelot, E, Gueguen, A, Roqeulaure, Y, Bodin, J, Serazin, C, Ha, C, Leclerc, A, Goldberg, M, Zins, M, Descatha, A. “Work-related risk factors for incidence of lateral epicondylitis in a large working population.” Scandinavian Journal of Work and Environmental Health, 2013. Vol 39(6): 578-588.
6.      Anderson, B. “Evaluation of elbow pain in adults.” Uptodate.com, last updated Sep 2013. Literature current through Mar 2014.
7.      Tsai, P, Steinberg, D. “Median and Radial Nerve Compression About the Elbow.” Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery, 2008. Vol 90-A(2): 420-428.
8.      Shmushkevich, Y, Kalichman, L. “Myofascial pain in lateral epiconylalgia: A review.” Journal of Bodywork & Movement Therapies, 2013.  Vol 17(4): 434.
9.      Feger, M, Hart, J. “Evaluation and Treatment of Median Nerve Neural Tension in a Collegiate Athlete.” Athletic Training and Sports Health Care: The Journal for the Practicing Clinician, 2013. Vol 5(4): 189.
10.  Milne, C. “Lateral Elbow Pain: A Sport and Exercise Physician's Perspective.” Sport Health, 2009. Vol 27(1): 49.
11.  Kaczmarek, C. “Lateral Elbow Tendinosis: Implications for a Weight Training Population.” Strength and Conditioning Journal, 2008. Vol 30(2): 35-40.

How And When To Use A Belt




Article written by Matt Mills
There has been a lot of talk recently on the internet about what really is raw, and does a lift really “count” if you use any gear.  I’m not here to get into any of that, as it has been covered already, and in case you haven’t seen it, check out Brandon’s article on this subject here first.  I will start by saying, wearing a belt is a performance enhancer, and for some it is a necessity to perform certain movements pain-free.  Your core should be strong enough by itself to support yourself through the main lifts, injuries aside.  If you choose not to wear a belt, AND are not a competitor, then you are going to be perfectly fine without one.  However, if you want to push the maximum amount of weights, then you will need to use a belt, and to use it the right way.  

I have noticed that most people, and even competitors, don’t know how to use a belt properly.  The cheap belts you get in the sporting goods stores are not the way to go.  Most of these belts are smaller in the front and wider in the back.  Ideally, you want a belt that is wider all around, because the pressure you create from the belt does not come from your back, but from your abdominals.  Personally I like to have my belt right over my belly button, because that is where I am able to push out the hardest.  In case you have trouble choosing a belt, check out Alanna’s tutorial here:


To push out against the belt, you must learn how to breathe correctly called the Valsalva Maneuver.  As you are reading this take a deep breath in, but do not let your chest rise at all.  Breathe deeply, and let your belly fill with air (I know not the most attractive look).  If you have trouble doing this, lie on the floor, place your hand on your abdominals, and practice making your hand rise.  I have known some powerlifters to actually stand on each other to practice this as it is that important.  Once you have this down, try to exhale but keep your throat closed to create pressure.  Whether you choose to wear a belt or not, this is how you want to breathe while lifting.  Now put your belt on and try this technique.  If you do it correctly you should feel an incredible amount of pressure.  This intra-abdominal pressure will help keep you back flat and arched.  Your belt should be tight, but how tight is up to you.  Personally I like to have mine with some room, mainly because I am able to expand my midsection to a great degree.  For some competitors I know it takes another person just to tighten up for them before going into a big event to get it as tight as possible.

Now that we know how to use a belt correctly, let’s go over when you should use it.  For the big lifts, you should always wear a belt when you are going for a max attempt.  Squats and Deadlifts should go without question here, but you should never rely on wearing your belt.  There is an old argument that all you need for abdominal training is heavy squats, and deadlifts, but with a belt it does take your abdominals out slightly.  For this reason you should not wear a belt until you need it.  All of your warm-ups should be done beltless, but still practice breathing correctly even without a belt.  When you reach near a maximum lift, that is when you want to put the belt on to move more weight.  Again, I have to be clear that you can safely lift without a belt, and be strong.


At what point you will need a belt will depend on when you are going for a maximum lift.  The rep range can really be anything from a one rep max to 10 (I very rarely go over 10 reps for my main lifts).  However if I am in a contest where I know I will get 10+ and even 20+ then I will definitely wear a belt as it will help keep you in better form.  This rule will go for any event in strongman.  A heavy yoke or farmer walk you will absolutely need a belt, especially in a contest.  Again on my warm-ups I will go as long as I can without a belt to engage my core as much as possible.  Once I feel my form would break down on a heavier set, then it’s time for a belt.

If you have an injury, this will change things as to when you will put your belt on.  Recently a new member joined my gym, and has been having a nagging back pain when she squats and deadlifts.  Her form was solid, so I suggested trying a belt.  After teaching her the correct way to use it she was able to squat and deadlift with no pain at all.  Now in her case I would say it is totally fine to wear a belt much earlier in her sets then someone who has no issues.  If she is able to lift pain-free with a belt then I’m not going to argue with it.

When it comes to accessory work, I will rarely wear a belt for the same reasons you shouldn’t wear one on your warm-ups of your main lifts.  For example, yesterday after my main sets of back squats I went to paused squats where I went without a belt.  For that specific day I wasn’t going incredibly heavy so I knew I could handle the weight without a belt.


Another example would be working up to a heavy 50 feet in the farmer’s walks.  Now to move the maximum amount of weight you would put a belt on to do so.  After you establish that weight, at let’s say 300lbs, I like to perform speeds sets at a lighter weight at roughly 65%.  With 200lbs in each hand I would then do 5 sets with a one minute rest.  Because the load is so light I would not be wearing a belt for all 5 sets to engage my core as much as possible.

On a side note, just please don’t be that guy that does preacher curls with a belt on, you might as well be wearing matching gloves. 
Just to review, here is what you need to know:

Get a high quality belt because it does make a huge difference
Learn how to breathe properly and push out on the belt to create intra-abdominal pressure
Use a belt only when you need it, and if you are a competitor always use a belt in competition. 
When it comes to accessory work do not use a belt.
Viewing all 178 articles
Browse latest View live