Message to My Peers:

There is no better day to start than today. So many times I hear, “I’ll get started in a few months” or “I’d love to work out now but I don’t have enough time. I’ll start when I am not as busy” or “I don’t need to workout. I am still ripped and I eat whatever I want.” Sometimes it’s not even a thought. There isn’t an excuse or reason they don’t train, they just don’t. All of this is understandable. I get it, we are all at the point in our careers where we are trying to build something. We may have terrible hours we have to work and that’s okay. However, there is always time. Most of the people we idolize all train whether it’s once per week or 7 days a week. I am positive all of these people are busier than we are, yet they make time. Look, as my friend/coworker Beth Lewis says, “Lifes a bitch, and it’ll catch up to you.” There is no better time to start a habit than when you do not need it. Yes, some of us are lucky where we can eat anything we want and not gain a pound, be as sedentary as possible and look the same as we did when we were 18, or drink like a fish and have no repercussions. There will be a point in time where this is not the case. You do not want to get to that point and then have to build a habit to undo years of being unhealthy. As we get older it becomes a lot harder to build new habits. It becomes more difficult to lose fat and very challenging to gain muscle. I beg you to start today. Do not think about how far you have to go. Instead, focus on the now and the habits you can start to build today that will lead to a healthier you in the future. Learning to balance your nutrition, move your body frequently, change your mindset to one of strength, and really take care of your body from your teeth to your feet. All of these things will benefit you in the long run. You will feel amazing, you will feel sexy, you will feel Strong. That is the true Power of Strength.

DO LESS and DO IT BETTER

DO less and DO it better…

Wise words by my good friend Sarah Polacco of Achieve Fitness in Boston. I love talkin shop with fellow fitness professionals. It’s a good way to get my rants off my chest and to soak up new information from different perspectives. This time around we ended up talking about the common misconception of “more is better.” This is often the mindset of those just beginning to get into fitness and even those who have been “working out” for years.

I’d be lying to you if I said this wasn’t my own mindset for many years. Let me walk you through my old workouts. I would do set after set of bench presses until I couldn’t bench anymore. Then I would move on to dumbbell bench presses and tricep pushdowns. This was followed by more and more sets of different chest and tricep exercises. My workouts lasted at least an hour and a half. Easy to do during the good ol days of having all the time in the world and my only worries were school work and lifting. All that lifting, in combination with back/bicep days and leg days, definitely helped create a solid base that allows me to do what I currently do today. However, it was wayyyyy too much and not sustainable.

So, what ended up happening when I had the mindset of more is better?

Every few weeks my shoulders would be jacked up and my knees slightly swollen. I’d have zero energy throughout the day and was becoming allergic to things that never bothered me before. What I was experiencing was overtraining. It was far too much added stress on my body and it left no time for recovery. My body kept trying to warn me, but I continued to ignore it.

Many people are still stuck in this cycle of going hard, or balls to the wall, then crapping out and doing it all over again. When you are initially getting into exercising, you may get decent results by doing this. Except, it isn’t the healthiest relationship with exercise nor is it sustainable. There will be a point when your body rebels through an injury, reversal of results, or staying stagnant. Usually when people hit these plateaus, they add in more and more stuff thinking that’s the solution. It’s not the solution.

You get 80% of your results from 20% of the stuff you do, which means you get the most out of the small amount of what you do. This is where learning to do less but do it better comes into play.

People are so concentrated on burning a shit ton of calories to attempt to out-train their diet. What’s lacking is that there isn’t a whole lot of concentration on movement quality or quality of reps. The concentration is just on getting as many reps as possible. This is flawed because you can’t out-train a bad “diet.” Simply doing more and not adjusting your diet won’t help. Instead of trying to get as many reps as possible, try focusing on movement quality and adjusting your diet. If you are not sure what to do about your nutrition you can click here.

So, make sure you DO less and DO it better. This is why I love the StrongFirst way. They treat Strength as a skill, a skill that can be developed and worked on infinitely. When you take the concentration off trying to burn a ton of calories during your workouts and more towards moving well and feeling each and every rep will allow you to enjoy the process much more. Moves that are great to focus on that tend to have a great ROI (return on investment) are squats, deadlifts, planks, pull ups, and Turkish get-ups. There are other exercises that you can practice that also have a great ROI depending on what your goals are, but the few I mentioned tend to be the most butchered.

Results are what you want. I promise you, you will get results if you just trust the process. Learn to move better. Learn how to stack your joints so your body works in an efficient and safe manner. Learn to feel all reps. In turn, you will stay healthy, you will be able to train without being set back, and you will have a lot less additional stress in your life. As a bonus, you will also get a lot stronger, which will help you feel the Power of Strength.

Muscle Confusion?

“You gotta confuse your muscles if you want to get strong, Bro. Muscles are sooo smart. You gotta always keep it fresh. Switch up your workouts and exercise selection every time so your muscles don't catch on to what you are trying to do.”  Please get out of here with that nonsense. Muscle confusion variation will not make you stronger. Oftentimes, when someone stops seeing gains after doing the same weight for the same number of reps week-in and week-out, they switch exercises in an attempt to confuse the muscle so it can get stronger again. Well, no, you did not get stronger from going from incline bench to flat bench just because you can use more weight during flat bench. Here's the real trick, the real Mccoy, if you are trying to get stronger. It's called progressive overload and it's a must if you are trying to get your weight up.

Progressive overload is “the gradual increase in stress placed upon the body during exercise training.” This can be achieved in a number of ways. First off, in order to implement progressive overload, you have to record your workouts. I don't mean videotape them, I mean write down what you did on paper, or iPhone, or some ish. One way to implement progressive overload would be to have a cycling rep scheme. For example, one week you do sets of 8 reps, the next week 6 but using heavier weights than you were the week before, then the following week sets of 4 reps. Then when you cycle back through, try to use 5-10 lb heavier weights for each set.

For some, adding weight and doing less reps may not work that well or they might be limited by resources. In this scenario, you can add more sets of the same exercise doing the same number of reps. For example, if you start off doing 3 sets of 8 with 40 lb dumbbells, the next week do 4 sets, and then the following week you can do 5. Adding more volume is another way for your body to get used to doing “more” work, creating more adaptation over time.

Progressive overload is a gradual increase in stress over time. You can get creative with this, but it must be done and it must be consistent. So, whether it’s undulating the rep scheme (waving the reps so some weeks they’re high reps and other weeks low reps), adding more sets, getting the same amount of work done in less time, more time under tension or speed at which the weight is lifted, doing one of them is a must to always keep the wheels churning.

This does not mean you won’t hit plateaus or that your muscle growth or strength will be a perfect incline, but it should decrease the amount of time that you hit a plateau. If you change one of the methods of implementing progressive overload, it should help you break through the plateau sooner. Choosing a method and sticking with it for about 6-12 weeks is what I would recommend if you are looking to get strong, add size, or discover the Power of Strength 😉. So, the next time someone tells you that you need to confuse your muscles to make gains, drop some knowledge on them. 

One Diet Fits All

One diet fits all. I used to say this does not exist because the same thing that works for me to lose or sustain current bodyweight may not work for you. However, after perusing the workings of some mystical magic, I have discovered the hidden gem. This hidden gem is Precision Nutrition. This is not a diet, it is more about guidelines that should be applied to each meal. These guidelines, if followed and adjusted for your lifestyle and goals, will work for anybody. This is not something I made up, but rather, my way of saying what I have learned through Precision Nutrition’s system.

This system is based on 5 relatively simple habits. I suggest to learn and incorporate one habit at a time and working on whichever one you feel you struggle with the most.  You eating slowly? Where’s the protein? Where are the vegetables? Where the carbs at? What about the fat?

Each of these look simple and they’re about to get even simpler once I’m done with them.

You eating slowly? Each and every goshdarn meal that you eat should take 15-20 minutes...minimum! If that sounds like a long time, well it kind of is. But, what’s the rush? Learning to eat slow helps the body send out warning signs to the brain that it is getting full. It usually takes about 15 minutes for the body to communicate with the brain that it is full. So if you wolf everything down as fast as possible, you won’t know when you started to feel full until it’s too late. Adjusting your schedule so you have 15-20 minutes to eat may be a necessary part of your lifestyle change if you wish to sustain your bodyweight or lose a few “el bees.” I know we live in a world where we don’t like to waste food, so not eating it all may seem terrible. However, I urge you to stop eating when you are 80% full because it will ensure that you do not overeat. This skill, like any other skill, takes practice. Most likely you won’t get it right away, but once you do it’s a great tool to have.

Where’s the protein? It’s easy to spot. Looks like chicken, steak, eggs, fish, and turkey. Also, if you aren’t big on meat, you can opt for greek yogurt, beans or tofu. There are obviously other sources, these are just often easy to find. For guys, you should look to eat 2 palm sized portions of protein at each meal and ladies should look to eat 1 palm size portion. Using your hand as portion control is great for individualizing portion sizes. Unless you are a certain thin haired politician, the bigger you are, the bigger your hands are, and the more food you will need.

Where are the vegetables? You’d think none of us ever watched Popeye the way we avoid dem greens. Veggies should look like a mound on your plate. You’ll want a lot of veggies and you’ll see why when I go over carbs. To measure the amount of vegetables you should consume at each meal, you can use your fist for measurement. One fist is a portion size and at each meal you should have multiple portions. Many of us do not eat enough of a variety of vegetables, often just opting for lettuce. Try to opt for some alternative choices such as spinach, kale, broccoli, beets, collards, and tomatoes when looking for veggies to mow down in the future.

Where the carbs at??? Actually, this one is a trick question. If you have fat to lose or would really like to sustain current bodyweight, eat less starchy carbs. Some examples of things to eat less of would be rice, bread, pasta,  and potatoes. If you just worked out, then yeah, you should have a handful of one of those options just to help revitalize your muscles that were just “broken down.” If you didn’t just work out, then the carbs you have will primarily come from more vegetables.  Instead of a heavy carb, have a larger portion of vegetables.  And yes, vegetables are carbs, so no, I am not suggesting to get rid of carbs.

What about the fat? Fat is found in many of the sources of protein I suggested, such as fish, eggs and steak. You can also find it in most, if not all, nuts as well as olive oil and avocado. A thumb size portion is all that is generally needed per meal.  Choosing different sources of fat for each meal is ideal, but if that just adds confusion when getting started with this habit, you can stick to the same source for a bit.

The goal of this is not to confuse you with calorie talk or overload you with information. It’s to give you simple habits to build that are tested and proven, easy to understand, and relatively easy to implement in a variety of situations. This is not a diet. There aren’t any restrictions on what you can and can’t eat. This is what the food pyramid, that we all learned, should have been.

"Success Overnight"

Prepare to live or prepare to die. Wanting results overnight, whether it’s losing a ton of weight, becoming the CEO of a company, being able to deadlift 500 lbs, or mastering the saxophone, is only setting yourself up for failure and disappointment. None of these things come overnight. Even the seemingly overnight success of Desiigner, whose hit song “Panda” is killing it, didn’t necessarily happen overnight. He had to create a lot of music that flopped or didn’t quite reach the masses before he came up with the hit “Panda.” There was a point in time where I used to want shit to happen instantly just because I thought about it. I wanted to be in the NFL but did not want to work towards it. I thought my potential was enough and someone would find me without even putting myself out there. I wanted to play the saxophone like John Coltrane and I wanted it to happen yesterday, but never wanted to practice. Through these failures and “dreams” being shattered I learned about preparation. I learned about the journey. All my coaches used to preach about the preparation and the journey, but I never understood what it meant. I thought showing up was enough. Now that I am wiser than I was at 21, I am able to reflect on what I could have learned from those players who were around me and went on to play at the next level. I now apply their lessons to my life and help spread the message.

One of the biggest traits that stood out to me was my teammates overall mental strength. They were undeniably focused on being the best football player they could possibly be. This meant intensely focused film study sessions after a rigorous practice, extra field work and drills after we were already worked to a pulp. They murdered the weight room like there was no tomorrow and attacked the recovery process like it was some fresh…. Myself on the other hand, studied when I was told to, lifted weights because I enjoyed it (but only the exercises I liked), and dipped the fuck out of the practice facility as fast as possible. I did nothing extra! I was doing work. The pros, they did all these things while balancing school and being tired as hell. I am sure they may not have enjoyed doing all of those things, but they knew what needed to be done in order to get to where they wanted to be.

Major key alerrrrt. If you want to be great at something, you must prepare. Preparation is a major key. It’s either you prepare to succeed or you prepare to fail. If you want to lose weight, what must you do? Prepare Mofos. There are a lot of obstacles that come with wanting to lose weight. If you don’t prepare to tackle those obstacles before you reach them, it just became substantially harder to reach your destination.

In order to prepare, you must first know what you want to accomplish. Once you have that out of the way, you must then learn what the proper steps are in order to reach that goal. Preparation is all about planning ahead and executing.

For example, let’s say you want to become Strong. Nice job, step one complete. Step two would be to come up with a plan on how to accomplish the goal. How many days a week you are going to strength train? Generally, at least 3 days per week is ideal, but remember, something is better than nothing. Once you have figured out how many days a week you are going to train, you then need to write the program. Once the program is created you then need to mark on your calendar a week in advance what days you are going to follow your program. Then, of course comes the last step, you must be consistent. When prepared, being consistent is much easier to do than when you have no plan. Get all the planning away at once. If you are anything like me, you hate having to constantly plan. Just being able to act is great.

Preparation is a must if you wish to learn the Power of Strength. In order to make the things you are good at your strengths, you must prepare. If you want to accomplish something you have never done, you must prepare. Sometimes we are lucky and that’s how we gain our success. Most of the time it’s not all luck and we need to be prepared in order to take advantage of opportunities that strike.