To Wear Gloves or Not to Wear Gloves...

Hi Shane,

Is it better to wear gloves or build up hand callouses when lifting? If hand callouses are better, then what is the hand care to prevent painful bloody rips?

:)

Sunny

Hi Sunny,

Good question! Definitely building up calluses is the better route. When you wear gloves you remove bar feel. It's like the difference between driving a standard and automatic. There's an intangible "feel" of the road with a standard, and there's a similar "feel" to the bar that you just don't get when you wear gloves. Some people feel like the gloves give them a better grip because their hands get sweaty. For you guys.. use chalk! Chalk delivers the ultimate bar grip while retaining 100% bar feel!

Finally.. to prevent torn calluses... and the caveat here is that there is no perfect system for preventing them 100% of the time, but when you start to notice that the calluses are getting tipped or pointy and/or are starting to fold over a bit, it's time to get out some good old coarse sandpaper and just smooth them over a little. Get rid of the tip/point but don't get rid of the thickened base.

A number of years ago after three heavy months of deadlifting, I tore a good callus off my hand and yep..it was damn painful and bled like crazy! That was my lesson. Now every month or two I'll use some sandpaper to keep them even.

Hope that helps!
:)
Shane

What's The Plate Under The Heel For?

Hi Shane,

Sometimes I see people put a plate under their heels when squatting. I tried it and found that I could squat more deeply than normal. I know you're a proponent of deep squatting, so at first I thought it was a good idea, but lately I've seen you having your clients squat without their shoes on at all. So what's the deal then.. shoes off or a plate under the heels and why?

Thanks,
Dale


Hi Dale,

Thanks for your question... it's a real good one. The plate under the heels is definitely a common sight in most gyms. In fact I used to do it myself years ago, and along with a slew of other bad habits I used to have, I give it partial credit for some of the laxity of my knee ligaments.

The squat when done properly is a deep squat. The safety issue of the depth of the squat is really a non-issue and is rather an issue on misunderstanding the mechanics of the muscles that act upon the knee during a squat.

When most people try to squat deeply, they do it with poor technique, allowing their lumbar spine to lose it's natural arch, and their knees to move too far forward, with the pull of the quadriceps on the tibia unrestrained except for the role of the Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL). Both of these technique flaws increase the risk of injury to the lumbar dics and knee joints. BUT... for those without the flexibility in the ankles, hamstrings and hips, this will be the only way they will be able to squat deeply.

So knowing they shouldn't let their low back lose the arch, some bright fella has come along at some point and showed young Jimmy that if he places some plates under his heels that he can now squat deeply without losing the arch in his back.

Feeling confident now, young Jimmy is off squatting deeply with a plate under his heels.

The problem is that what really happens when you put a plate under your heels is that you're circumventing the problem of tight hamstrings which prevent you from squatting deeply. Usually you'll find young Jimmy off stretching his hamstrings at the end of his workout anyway, which won't do much to lengthen them permanently. And of course by virtue of circumventing the position in the squat where your hamstrings reach the end of their functional range of motion under load, you remove likely the most effective way to increase hamstring flexibility. Done correctly, the squat when taken to the point where the hamstrings become taught under load, over weeks and months of practice will increase in length to accomodate the deeper hip position required to squat deeply and safely.

The plate under the heel merely raises the ankle joint which allows the knees to travel forwards further (this motion if it occurs should come from increased ankle mobility, not raising the heel). But when the knee moves forward, the insertion point of the hamstring on the hip also moves forward, allowing the hamstring to remain loose enough for the hips to go deep.

Back to the orginal question... Why is it bad? It is bad because when the hamstrings stay loose as the hips descend, they do not restrain the tibia under the forward moving knee. So the only restraint engaged is the ACL. You won't often hear of ACL rupture from this, but over the years you'll definitely increase the laxity of the ACL and in turn compromise joint stability.

The second part of the question (much shorter answer I promise!) was about my clients not wearing their shoes when they squat. The primary reason is because most people come to the gym with either absolutely awful shoes that are ready for the garbage (You know who you are! ;p) or with fancy-schmancy running shoes which have great big cushy heels (which are perfect for absorption of forces during heel strike when running)... but are lousy for transfering loads effectively through the foot to the floor during a squat. When you're squatting the last thing you want is to have something under your foot thats going to absorb the force you're trying to create and transfer to the floor. Especially when the absorption may not be perfectly even from left to right foot. Running shoes can create a scary wobbly feel under you when squatting with any decent loads. So short of having my clients go out and buy thin, hard sole shoes, I just have them squat with their shoes off. This way all the force that their muscles create is transferred directly to the floor. Safer, and more effective.

Finally, it makes it a little tougher to get deeper into the squat and thus encourages increased hamstring flexibility.

So either get some thin, hard soled shoes, or take off the running shoe. I promise you'll notice a postive difference right away!

:)
Shane

Bench Press Safety Tip

I was at the gym last week and saw a guy doing the bench press with a thumb-less grip. I approached him and respectfully suggested for safety reasons that he use a full thumbed grip on the bar citing injury potential as outweighing any potential or perceived benefits of a thumb-less grip.

I found it a bit odd that he really tried to persuade me that it was safe enough if done "carefully", and that he was careful.

Granted, you may never have an accident, but just like the risk of lumbar disc injury from rounding your back during a deadlift, the thumb-less grip on bench press is just asking for trouble.

Take a look at this video and see for yourself the kind of "impact" the thumb-less grip can have on you!

If that isn't enough to get you to use a full thumbed grip... then just make sure you do this kind of thing in your home gym so we don't have to deal with your ignorance here!

Grip it right or get out!

;)
Shane

Sunday's Workout - Dynamic Effort Lower Body

We went to the Freedom Fight Title Quest Mixed Martial arts fight on Saturday night and were treated to some amazing fights. As always conditioning plays such a crucial role in allowing these athletes to continue into the later rounds. Watching these guys is definitely motivating to say the least. So throwing some Prowler pushes into our Sunday workout was influenced by our Saturday night outing.

The goal of Dynamic Effort (DE) training is to improve the ability to accelerate loads. High rates of acceleration require very high forces. Consequently DE training improves rate of force production which contributes to maximal strength. We use accommodating resistance modalities such as chains or bands to increase the tension on the muscles as the natural strength curve of the exercise gives us improved leverage.

Generally we start with a bar weight equal to about 50% of your 1RM and then add either chains or bands to give a top position weight of between 90-110% of your 1RM. The goal is to then explode from the bottom as hard as possible so that you are accelerating right through to the top position.

That said, here's what we did yesterday:

Warmup:
Skipping 10 min
Foam Roller: Quads, IT Band, Hams, Glutes, Adductors, T-Spine.
Tennis Ball: Piriformis
Band external rotator cuff work to warm up in prep for the low bar position.

DE Box Squats (did a few warm-up sets of 5 reps with various band tensions then decided to use chains.)

2x95 + 1 set chains
2x115 + 2 sets chains
2x135 + 2 sets chains
10x2x155 + 2 sets chains
We took just as long a rest between sets as it took the other person to do their set.
So around 30-45 seconds rest. I haven't weighed them yet, but I'm pretty sure each set of chains is around 60 lbs.

DE Deadlifts - For this exercise we sat the bar on the ground inside the rack and just threw a doubled up monster miniband over the bar from the two band pins.

I haven't had deadlifts in my program for the past 8 weeks, so going pretty light we did:
10x1x185 + 1 doubled monster mini. (I would estimate the tension the band added was close to 100 lbs at the top.

After this a little volume work..

Dumbbell Step-ups 2 warm-up sets then 3x10
45 degree hypers w/bands 3x10

Reverse Hypers 1x20x20lbs fast, 1x15x20 slow w/ 2 sec isohold at top, 1x15x20
(unilateral)
Grappler Barbell Twists: 16 x bar, long handle 2x8 x bar

Hanging leg raises 20, 15, 15, 9

Then after all this we headed outside to push the Prowler.

Here's some video footage of our work outside!




We even got my brother in law's baby girl to try giving the Prowler a push.. but she wasn't into it! LOL


So all in all it was a pretty brutal session. Thankfully we'd just changed the water in the hot tub and it was still a balmy 74 degrees.. so we hopped in to cool down afterwards.

That's it for our training logs. A new week is upon us!

Have a great one!
:)
Shane

High Intensity Intervals for Fat Loss - Work it like a Dog!

So we live in a suburb where there's quite a few Labrador Retrievers. We own a black Lab, her name is Sona. In our neighbourhood the other Labs are often out for long walks with their owners. Some are really slow (doesn't really count for cardio) and others are faster. One guy goes out on his bike and his Lab runs beside him. I've seen another lady out jogging and her Lab is running with her. So what does all this have to do with high intensity intervals for fat loss?

Well... if you've seen our Lab you know she's very lean. We feed her very well, including oats, carrots, broccoli, Udo's oil, cottage cheese, blueberries, tomatoes, apples, bananas, as well as a few cans of Natural Balance dog food daily. So she's getting plenty of nutrition. To top it all off, she always finishes all our leftovers after we eat. So her calorie levels are as high as most labs, but we take her out three to four times a day for a 10-15 minute high intensity interval training session that we call "Play"... Basically we throw the tennis ball using the whippit and she retrieves the ball. Her sprint out to get the ball is at maximum effort, and then her return is a slower pace.

When we bring her in the house, for the next couple hours her breathing is heavier, and she's quite hot. This is the excess post-exercise oxygen consumption period where her body continues to burn calories at a much higher rate.

It's also what we do outside when we push the Prowler up and down in between our house and our neighbours.

When we have very limited time our workout looks like this:

Prowler push 3-5 sets of 30-60seconds with 60-120 seconds rest intervals.

If you give it all you've got.. this can pretty much flatten you!

Admittedly when we did it a few weeks back I was a little out of shape cardio-wise, and it took just 3 sets 60 seconds of all out effort to put me out of commission for nearly 20 minutes.

There's an intuitive feeling that this kind of effort is really good for you. So here's to high intensity intervals for fat loss!

Work it like a Dog!

:)
Shane

Real Core Stability...

This is getting ridiculous! Can I please go one day without hearing another so called fitness expert or Pilates person or whoever talk about "drawing your navel towards your spine" during exercise to protect the spine.

Based on an Australian study in 1996 where they found that the firing of the transverse abdominus (TVA) was delayed slightly in the people in the study who were suffering from low back pain. Their advice was to draw the navel back towards the spine (which does engage the TVA) and hope that over time this "drawing in" would become automatic.

I am not aware of any study that shows that drawing in on the navel has ever or could ever become automatic. Additionally, others have drawn the same conclusion before me. Shirley Sahrmann has stated, "I don't know of a study that shows that drawing in becomes a subconscious reflex", Sahrmann is a professor of physical therapy at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and is author of "Diagnosis and Treatment of Movement Impairment Syndromes", arguably one of the best references for everything related to joint disfunction. I have personally learned more from this book than any other relating to muscle length/tension relationships and their effect on joint function and disfunction.

A name that if you're not already familiar with, you will be before too long is Dr. Stuart McGill. Dr. McGill is the foremost back specialist in the world. His research into the mechanics of the spine is shedding new light on the causes of disc injury and prevention.

Dr. McGill states clearly that although the TVA is definitely important in core stabilization, it is just one muscle, and all of the muscles that act upon the core are involved in stabilization. Dr. McGill says if you want to see an easy example of how just pulling in your navel reduces your core strength, sit in a chair and try to stand up by just pulling in your navel versus "bracing" your whole abdominal wall.

"Bracing" is the new key word. You'll see it popping up everywhere and I think we've finally got it right with this one. Of course it was instinctively done thousands of years ago by anybody who was straining to lift a heavy object. Dr. McGill explains that to "brace" your abdominal wall, pretend you're about to get punched in the abdominals and do what comes naturally. A contraction of all the abdominal muscles as well as the musculature that surrounds the spine at the back occurs when you brace.

Another example is consider what you would do if you had to lift a very heavy object in a hurried fashion. Lets say a heavy object fell on someone and you were going to try to lift it off. You would bend down, with knees and hips, and take a very deep breath and drive the pressure down into your stomach by "bracing" all your abdominals. Then you would try to lift the object.

You may have heard of the "Valsalva Maneuver" named after the 17th century physician Antonio Maria Valsalva is taking a deep breath and forcibly exhaling against a closed glottis. This causes an increase in intra-abdominal pressure by the contraction of the core musculature.

So please folks, even if your Pilates instructor says to draw in your navel when you're exercising, just brace your core by tensing all of the muscles in your abdominal region.

It could save your discs!

:)
Shane

What Motivates You?

When you set out to accomplish a task be it physical, academic, or other, we often have motivating factors that help push us along when we might otherwise pack it in.

With physical tasks such as exercising we do it because it's good for our health, it helps give us more energy, or even to look better on the beach. Whatever our reasons, we all have them.

Now take Dick and Rick Hoyt, a father and son team who compete in marathons and Ironman triathlons. It was Rick who convinced his father to enter these races with him.

So this was Dick's motivation. Now... that sounds nice and all.. but watch the video and you'll really understand the depth of commitment on Dick's part to his son.




Sorry to suck you in to a nearly 10 minute video, and I'm not a big fan of the music in the video.. but the story is simply incredible.

When I see something like this, I want to never make an excuse for why I couldn't or I didn't do something that was important. Whether it's a favour for a friend, a loved one, or something as simple as getting in some exercise.

I hope you enjoyed the video as much as I did.

Excuseless...
:)
Shane