Women Who Lift Weights Gain Muscle Definition Not Bulk

Ladies - do you fear weightlifting because you think you will develop bulky muscles and look like a man?

This inaccurate info is nothing but a fitness myth that should have been debunked years ago. Actually, I thought it was no longer a thing - but many women still fear to lift for this reason.

Women and Lifting

The truth is women simply don't have enough testosterone naturally to produce extreme muscle mass. 

What does happen when women lift weights is a beautifully sculpted and toned feminine body. A small part of how you are built is also based on genetics. Because every woman is unique in body type, lean gains will look different for each female. For example, I am tall with long levers (arms/legs) and a hard gainer compared to a shorter female who may develop muscle easier.

What remains in common with lifting for females is all women will continue to look like women.

Women who are purposely eating to reduce body fat expose their muscle development a bit more - along with reduced breast size. However, these women still look like women. 

Women and Steroid Use

Over-developed female bodybuilders who appear 'manly' are using illegal drugs, steroids, testosterone enhancers, and human growth hormones. These are banned substances that are used but not openly talked about. 

For the typical active gal who lifts weights and eats healthy, you will develop some muscle, but not to the degree of a female bodybuilder enhanced with steroids. This is a whole other level of muscle development not applicable to active women in the gym.

Unfortunately, seeing overly muscled women has caused many gals to fear heavy resistance training. 

Weight Lifting Benefits 

Applying a regular weight training program can create noticeably toned arms, butt, legs, and an overall fit look. The other benefits include feeling great, boosted confidence, and enjoying how your clothes fit. The compliments for your healthy lifestyle are also nice.

About Me and Weight Lifting

I have been lifting weights for thirty years, have muscular curves but definitely not bulky. What allows my muscles to show more is maintaining a lower body fat percentage year-round. However, I keep that within a healthy range to not screw around with my hormones. 

As a woman in menopause, I understand the importance and health benefits of weight-bearing exercise. I enjoy how my body looks, but more importantly, focus on my bones remaining dense and strong as my estrogen levels continue to decline. Weight training is prescribed to all women going through this phase to reduce the risk of osteoporosis and/or osteopenia. 

I am genetically lean thanks to my Dad and my body has also responded well to weight training. I actually used resistance training to put on muscle weight and provide more curves. Being naturally thin also comes with challenges. I am a hard gainer so work even harder in the gym for the muscle I have.


Some may think I look bulky, but if you met me in person, you would have a whole different opinion. Can I flex it up in images? Yes and especially after an intense lifting session when the muscles are full and vascular. When I'm dressed in jeans and t-shirts, you might say I look like a woman who takes care of herself. 

More Health Benefits

The health benefits of weight training go beyond what is visible. The following is a shortlist of benefits gained from lifting weights:

• Improved bone and joint function
• Increased bone density
• Increased muscle, tendon and ligament strength
• Improved metabolic function
• Improved overall health
• Weight loss and healthy weight maintenance
• Improved confidence

The numerous benefits of lifting are awesome and all women should embrace weight training as a very important part of their health programs. 

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Practical Uses of Variety in Training

A lot of my readers have been asking me about programming. This week, I was luck enough to have my friend Steve write a guest post for me. Steve Bare is a professional strength coach (CSCS, USAW) and competitive weightlifter. His experience includes work in the private industry and an internship at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, California. He now coaches at a high school, where he is thankful to work with a huge number of adolescent athletes, and give them all a great start in strength training. You can occasionally catch him writing on his coaching blog, BareStrength.



“Ya gotta switch it up, bro!” 

Variety in training is a very popular, yet polarizing, concept. From P90X marketing as “muscle confusion” to CrossFit purporting to be “constantly varied,” many brands are built by attempting to break the monotony of training. In this article, I’d like to discuss the practical application of variety in training, as well as the extents to which variation can be either be useful or counterproductive.

What qualifies as variety?

Loosely, any meaningful difference in training. This can come from changes in exercise modality (e.g., lifting versus swimming), exercise selection (e.g., lunges versus squats), implement (dumbbells versus barbells), rep range, rep tempo, training frequency, and more additional possibilities than I care to list at this time.

Why should you use variety in training? 

For one, introducing variety can diminish the risk of overuse injury. Athletes who engage in repetitive motions in practice and training tend to wind up with sport-specific injuries: baseball pitchers’ shoulders, rowers’ backs, tennis players’ elbows, runners’ shin splints, et. cetera. The primary recommendation to alleviate such symptoms is to decrease usage and strengthen relevant muscles and movement patterns, typically in an off-season period.

This is also relevant to recreational gym-goers. Your body doesn’t care whether you consider yourself a competitive powerlifter or not; if you’re maxing your bench press every chance you get, you’re likely to rack up some small injuries eventually. These injuries aren’t likely to go away without taking some time off from the movement.

Additionally, if you’ve been doing the same exact weekly schedule for months on end (and aren’t a beginner), chances are you’ve found yourself stagnating eventually. This can be referred to as “adaptive resistance,” when the same repeated exercises no longer disrupt homeostasis enough to drive adaptation. Changing a couple of key variables such as those mentioned above can be a powerful factor to continue to drive adaptation and get stronger.

So how much variation is enough? How much is too much? 

To answer these questions, you have to consider your goals.

If your only goal is to lose weight, for example, then your objectives in training are primarily caloric expenditure. Introducing a great amount of variety is fine, because just about any choice in exercise is sure to expend energy, provided it is performed with sufficient effort and for a sufficient duration. You could jog one day, lift another day, swim next week, fight crime another time, and continue to see results on the scale, provided you net a negative calorie balance. Of course, from a psychosocial perspective, most people enjoy seeing their performance improve, so it’s not a bad idea to stick with something for a while and enjoy the benefits of consistency: your running speeds up, your distances lengthen, your weights and reps increase.

However, if you have athletic performance goals in mind, you’ll need to ensure your training directs adaptation towards these goals. Whether your goal is to beat your old 5k time, or to win gold at the Olympics, your success hinges on specific performance improvements. It isn’t enough just to make sure you “get up and move”. You can run as far as you want, but it won’t ever be enough make you a great weightlifter; you still need sufficient specificity. If you change your exercise regimen each time you work out, you risk never providing sufficient overload. As such, we find some constraints on the limits of variation.

Beginning athletes can usually progress with just about anything, which leads to some polarizing conclusions.

On the one hand, there are proponents of systems capitalizing on very low variety for beginners. The benefit here is that the athlete quickly adapts to the cognitive demands of training, learning the lifts without getting confused by a great amount of variety, and is then able to reap the many benefits of strength training before eventually reaching a point of adaptive resistance.

On the other hand, recognizing that beginners will progress with just about any strength training program, you can also use this time to introduce athletes to a wider range of exercises. You could employ a teaching progression by having the athletes spend a couple weeks perfecting a goblet squat before moving on to a front squat, then a back squat, then a low-bar squat. You could instruct the athlete through different exercises every day of the week. However, you should still use the same exercise from one week to the next for a few weeks, so that the athlete has a chance to repeatedly practice one movement, and also see some progress in weight or total reps performed (overload). See below for a few example blocks:

The benefits here are many. The athlete is excited to train, with a greater variety of exercises. You can emphasize proper movement in a low-risk exercise, and then accumulate a lot of high-quality reps before moving on to a slightly more advanced variation with a greater load. Additionally, with each exercise the athlete knows, it becomes easier to teach additional movements in the future; for example, once an athlete knows how to front squat, lunge, press, and deadlift, it is a lot easier to teach them to clean & jerk.

*One thing to note: unlike many strength coaches, I often teach front squats before back squats. I do this because it gives me the opportunity to teach my athletes to stay upright in the squat, and I find that even beginning athletes are better at squatting deep with a front rack than they are with bars on their backs. I teach close-grip bench before a competition-width bench for similar reasons. On occasion, I have also taught sumo deadlifts before conventional because many non-contact athletes have disproportionately strong legs to a weak back, and they tend to prefer sumo initially for this reason; of course, this is also a great reason to eventually include conventional deadlifts, to ensure their backs grow accordingly!

This is not the kind of variety you need...

For intermediate and advanced athletes, most decent strength & conditioning programs will follow a system of phases emphasizing the adaptation of different physical qualities, such as aerobic conditioning, hypertrophy, strength, power, and peaking for competition (usually in that order). As a whole, this system would be referred to as a macrocycle; each 3-6 week chunk is referred to as a mesocycle; and each week can be referred to as a microcycle. By its very nature, such a system introduces variety in rep ranges, as well as often including variety in modalities, exercise selection, and tempos. Within a macrocycle, each mesocycle should gradually become more specific than the previous mesocycle, culminating in a major meet or a competitive season.

The earliest mesocycles will be the least specific to the goal, often outside the modality of the sport, to increase general fitness and work capacity. A great example of this is Olympic weightlifting champion Ilya Ilyin investing his time and energy swimming in his early mesocycles. This enables him to build up his general work capacity while letting his body heal from the repetitive trauma of his sport-specific movements.

Earlier mesocycles will include a greater number of unique exercises per session, per week, and between mesocycles. One hypertrophy block might have an athlete front squat and Romanian deadlift in one session, and then leg press and sumo deadlift in another session for 3-6 weeks. In the next mesocycle, the athlete might back squat and goodmorning in one session, and then conventional deadlift and step-up in another session for another 3-6 weeks. The goal here is to rack up great volumes without increasing the risk of overuse injury from any one particular movement.

In contrast, later mesocycles will increase specificity, decreasing variety. The final strength block for a weightlifter will include high intensity work on snatches, cleans, jerks, along with front squats and/or back squats, and possibly some additional work to target the athlete’s unique weaknesses, all performed several times per week for several weeks on end. Non-barbell athletes will typically maximize increases in strength, power, and/or speed (depending on sport and position), as well as increasing sport practice in preparation for the competitive season.

Introducing training variety can be a great way to avoid overuse injuries, drive greater physical adaptations, and generally enjoy your training more. However, it can also be tempting to overuse variety and under-apply the principles of specificity and overload. Be sure to use sufficient variety in your training that you avoid stagnation and overuse injuries, but not so much that you don’t make definite progress towards your goals!

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Contrast Training: How it Works, and How to Use It for Impressive Gains

I'm gonna let you in on a little training secret: it's called contrast training. It's used by elite athletes to improve power output, and the results are pretty impressive. Contrast training, also known as PAP (post activation potentiation), is the pairing of heavy strength exercises and explosive or plyometric exercises. If you want to get the most out of your training, PAP is the way to go.

Try contrast training, and you'll learn to levitate like this dude.

PAP is especially useful for athletes looking to enhance power output. Jumpers, weightlifters, sprinters, and shot putters are a few such athletes who can reap big benefits from this type of training. The benefits are not just limited to elite athletes, however, and can be used safely for intermediate lifters (with 2+ years of training experience).

In essence, contrast training is exciting the nervous system, and improving motor unit recruitment acutely. The more fibers activated on any given movement, the greater the benefit. To quote Roxanne Horwath and Len Kravitz (and no, not the "Fly Away" Lenny Kravitz), "The greater the muscle activation, the greater the duration of calcium ions in the muscle cell environment (referred to as sarcoplasm) and the greater the phosphorylation of the myosin light chain protein (Rixon, Lamont, Bemden, 2007). As a result, faster contraction rates and faster rates of tension develop."

One study done by Chatzopoulos Et. Al. found that heavy resistance training helped acutely improve 10 and 30 meter sprinting times. The sprints were performed after a 5 minute window of resistance training. The participants (young male athletes between the ages of 18-23) performed 10 single repetitions at 90% of their 1 repetition maximum back squat. After only 3 minutes of rest, however, the sprinting times did not increase. It is important to mention that adequate rest seems to be a very important factor here.

Here's a great list of the benefits of PAP, in the words of Bret Contreras:

1. Short-term enhancement – May increased neuromuscular performance in an actual competitive event through PAP
2. Chronic adaptation – May increase training effect using PAP in training which would result in increased Rate of Force Development (RFD)
3. Increased workout density – Combined training allows for more activity with less actual resting time which is critical if total workout time is limited
4. Increased dynamic transfer – By combining biomechanically similar activities athletes may groove more efficient neural patterns by learning to perform the lift in a manner more specific to the athletic activity
5. Increased work capacity – By increasing workout density athletes will increase their work capacity which is characterized by high levels of average power output over an interval (which I call power endurance)

Now that you get the gist for how it works, you may be wondering how you can use it and reap the benefits. Like I said, we want to pair heavy lifting with fast, explosive movements. You want to wait about 30 seconds after the strength movement to execute the explosive, plyometric movement. Rest for about 3 minutes or longer in between sets. The following list provides some pairing options for strength and power movements.

• Bench presses: Standing chest passes, supine chest passes, clapping push-ups, and push-ups to plates
• Strict/weighted pull-ups: Ball slams, clapping pull-ups (advanced), and overhead medicine ball passes
• Deadlifts: Broad jumps, 10-50 m sprints, explosive cable pull-throughs, banded kettlebell swings, and power kettlebell swings
• Squats: Jumping squats, depth jumps, hurdle jumps, jumping lunges

One thing to remember is that you want to keep total volume (reps per session) low. We're not trying to accumulate 100 reps, or anything crazy. This is about intensity, not volume. I'd suggest doing no more than 5 reps of each movement, and 5-6 sets should be enough!

If you're looking for a new way to spice up your strength training routine, contrast training may be just what you need!



Works Cited:

1. Chatzopoulos, Dimitris E., Charalambos J. Michailidis, Athanasios K. Giannakos, Kostas C. Alexiou, Dimitrios A. Patikas, Christos B. Antonopoulos, and Christos M. Kotzamanidis. "Postactivation Potentiation Effects After Heavy Resistance Exercise on Running Speed." J Strength Cond Res The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 21.4 (2007): 1278. Web.
2. Contreras, Bret. "Post-Activation Potentiation: Theory and Application." Bret Contreras. N.p., 05 Apr. 2010. Web. 06 Apr. 2016.
3. Kilduff, Liam P., Huw R. Bevan, Mike I.c. Kingsley, Nick J. Owen, Mark A. Bennett, Paul J. Bunce, Andrew M. Hore, Jonathan R. Maw, and Dan J. Cunningham. "Postactivation Potentiation in Professional Rugby Players: Optimal Recovery." J Strength Cond Res The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 21.4 (2007): 1134. Web.
4. Kravitz, Len, and Roxanne Horwath. "Postactivation Potentiation: A Brief Review." University of New Mexico. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Apr. 2016.

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How Often Should You PR?

Adding more weight to your lifts is always exciting. Getting a personal record is tangible evidence that all of your hours of hard work have been effective. One thing that I've noticed, though, is that getting PRs can be addictive. By this, I mean that many lifters (especially beginners) get so caught up with testing their 1 repetition maximum, that they make it a regular ritual, constantly seeking to add extra plates on the barbell. While it can be tempting to constantly push your lifts to your physical limitations, it's not realistic to get a PR all of the time.

If you've ever followed a general or customized program, you've noticed that the majority of your training sessions included percentage work: some days were a bit easier, and other days were exceptionally grueling and torturous. Generally, the recommendation to increase your strength is to work at around 80% or higher several sets of 5 repetitions or fewer. Lighter days will allow you to practice movement repetition, while the heavy days are going to help you gradually build strength. Following a program allows you to lay down the foundation of strength, which will eventually increase your 1 repetition maximum.

Easy there, big guy.

Now, let's get into the basis of programming. A program is divided up into microcycles (usually 1-2 weeks), mesocycles (around 1-6 months), and macrocycles (which can be a year or longer). Ideally, the microcycles are planned with the bigger picture (mesocycle) in mind. For a competitive athlete, the amount of repetitions and intensity (weight used) per week and month is closely monitored to prepare for competition and hit target numbers.

There is no such thing as a "perfect" program. Rather, there are a million and one different modes of progression that will be equally effective for increasing strength levels. Two basic principles of programming are the linear and the daily undulating periodization methods:

• Linear Periodization basically uses the same repetition scheme. For example you might do 4 sets of 5 repetitions for several weeks, then 6 sets of 4 repetitions for a few weeks.
• Daily Undulating Periodization utilizes a different amount of sets and repetitions in each workout. An example would be to do 4 sets of 5 repetitions one workout, then the next workout you could do 2 sets of 8 repetitions at the same weight. The idea here is that you're constantly changing the rep scheme and the amount of weight used.

Both types of periodization provide results (although many studies have found that DUP is more effective).

Now, if you're following a specific program, you would most likely max out at the end of a mesocycle, once you've accumulated a decent amount of heavy training sessions. Allowing for several weeks in between 1 rep max attempts will ensure that you see the most amount of improvement.

In the meantime, you can get "rep PRs." This means that you will use a specific weight and you'll be able to perform more reps with it than you previously have. Let's say, for instance, that your best deadlift is 210 pounds. During a training cycle, you may be asked to use that weight for 3 repetitions. Now, the weight that you could only lift for 1 repetition is an easy triple. These "PRs" will still give you the same satisfaction, but can help you continue to make progress.

Ultimately, whether you're competing in a sport or not, planning your workouts is essential. If you want to continue to evade a potential plateau in strength, then you can't just walk into the gym and "wing it." Just going for PRs all of the time isn't going to get you stronger, and you mind end up disappointed.

There are a ton of free strength programs available on the internet, if you can't afford to pay a coach. For optimal progress, find a steady program to follow, rather than just making up your workouts on a whim. Be patient with adding weight onto the bar, and the numbers will come, in time.

Works Cited:

1. Baechle, Thomas R., and Roger W. Earle. Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2008. Print.
2. Prestes, Jonato, Anelena B. Frollini, Cristiane De Lima, Felipe F. Donatto, Denis Foschini, Rita De Cássia Marqueti, Aylton Figueira, and Steven J. Fleck. "Comparison Between Linear and Daily Undulating Periodized Resistance Training to Increase Strength." Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 23.9 (2009): 2437-442. Web.
3. Rhea, Matthew R., Stephen D. Ball, Wayne T. Phillips, and Lee N. Burkett. "A Comparison of Linear and Daily Undulating Periodized Programs with Equated Volume and Intensity for Strength." J Strength Cond Res The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 16.2 (2002): 250. Web.

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Up, Up, and Away (Exercises to Improve Your Vertical Jump)

I don't know if there's something strange in the air lately, but for whatever reason, I've gotten a lot of questions about how to improve a vertical jump. Some individuals are naturally gifted with hops, but for the rest of us who need to work hard to become more powerful, we have to add more explosive movements into our routines. If you want to sky like Jordan, you want to make sure you're using the correct exercises.

This could be you! (Don't quote me on that, though...)

So what determines how high you can jump? There are a couple of factors, but I'll name the most pertinent:

• Muscle fiber distribution. Okay, so, in a nutshell, you have two different types of muscle fibers: type I and type II. Type I fibers (also known as slow twitch), do not fatigue easily. An endurance athlete will have well-developed type I fibers. Think: marathon runner. Type II fibers (also known as fast twitch) are split up into type IIa and IIb, and type IIb is the most easily fatigued. Someone with a higher percentage of type IIb fibers would be a 100 meter sprinter or a javelin thrower. Movements that are really short in nature require more speed and power. The fiber makeup of a muscle is determined by your genetics, but your training can help express and further develop either fast twitch or slow twitch fibers. If you train in an explosive, high-intensity manner, you are going to develop your fast twitch fibers to the best of your genetic ability.
• Rate of force development. This builds on the first bullet point. Let's say you tried to do a power clean for the first time. Initially, while you're learning the movement, you will probably pretty slow moving under the barbell. Two years later, your bar speed will be significantly faster. Granted, you've also become more competent and confident with the movement, and you are stronger, but your rate of force development (RFD) has improved significantly. How quickly you can express force is incredibly important in working your ups.

Now that the bulk of the science-y stuff is out of the way, we can get to the meat of the article: here some exercises that will help you leap tall buildings in a single bound. (Actually, maybe don't try to jump buildings just yet...)

1. Back squats (I have faith I don't need to post a video for this one...)
2. Power cleans
3. Power snatches
4. Push jerks
5. Depth jumps
6. Jumping lunges
7. Bulgarian split squat jumps
8. Low hurdle hops
9. Barbell jumping squats (no need to go heavy, here. Maybe 20-30% of your best squat.)
10. Barbell pogo jumps (similar as the previous exercise, but not as much hip/knee bend)

Ideally, we want to train strength in conjunction with plyometrics. For example, a six week study by Adams and his colleagues found that individuals who performed strength and plyometric exercises, saw a greater increase in vertical jump than the strength group and the plyometrics group alone: 

"Examination of the mean scores shows that the [strength] group increased 3.30 centimeters in vertical jump, the [plyometrics] group increased 3.81 centimeters and the [strength/plyometrics] group increased 10.67 centimeters. The results indicate that both [strength] and [plyometric] training are necessary for improving hip and thigh power production as measured by vertical jumping ability."

 A 10.67 centimeter increase in vertical jump in only 6 weeks is pretty solid! Basically, just jumping a lot will increase your jumping height, but if you perform strength training on top of that, your results will be significantly better.

If you want to get the most bang for your buck, Olympic weightlifting (snatch, clean, and jerk) movements are superior. "Olympic [weightlifting] exercises seemed to produce broader performance improvements than [vertical jump] exercises in physically active subjects," found Tricoli et. al. They continue to say, "groups using the [weightlifting] program increased [10 meter sprinting speed] more than those using the [vertical jump] program." So, not only did these movements effect the jumping height of the test subjects, but it also made them sprint faster!

In short, if you're looking to improve your jumps, try the exercises in the above list. Both strength training and plyometric training can be combined so that you can slam dunk like the pros in no time.

Works Cited:

1. Adams, Kent, John P. O'shea, Katie L. O'shea, and Mike Climstein. "The Effect of Six Weeks of Squat, Plyometric and Squat-Plyometric Training on Power Production." J Strength Cond Res The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 6.1 (1992): 36. Web.
2. Chelly, Mohamed Souhaiel, Mourad Fathloun, Najet Cherif, Mohamed Ben Amar, Zouhair Tabka, and Emmanuel Van Praagh. "Effects of a Back Squat Training Program on Leg Power, Jump, and Sprint Performances in Junior Soccer Players." Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 23.8 (2009): 2241-249. Web.
3. Makaruk, Hubert, and Tomasz Sacewicz. "Effects of Plyometric Training on Maximal Power Output and Jumping Ability." Human Movement 11.1 (2010): n. pag. Web.
4. Tricoli, Valmor, Leonardo Lamas, Roberto Carnevale, and Carlos Ugrinowitsch. "Short-Term Effects on Lower-Body Functional Power Development: Weightlifting vs. Vertical Jump Training Programs." J Strength Cond Res The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 19.2 (2005): 433. Web.

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You Are More than Your Numbers

Fitness is a numbers game. Weather it's your bodyweight, inches around your waist, the weight on the bar, your mile time, you're continually looking for those numbers to budge. Active people are constantly weighing, measuring, and comparing. That's how we track our progress.

To a degree, keeping track of numbers is important and necessary, but it can also be counter-productive, when done in excess.

With social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, we are bombarded with status updates, videos, and pictures of people rejoicing over their fitness-related victories. I think this is excellent, but it's also a double edged sword.

We have this tendency, as competitive beings, to compare ourselves to others. We want to be stronger or faster than someone, or we want to look like a cover model in a bikini. It's easy to look at someone who's at a different level than you are and feel as though your accomplishments are, somehow, insignificant.

I, myself have been guilty of this. I've watched more competitive athletes in action and felt frustrated that I was not yet at that level.

I regularly hear my friends or clients say comments to the effect of "I'm not strong. I can't lift that." They look at others in awe, but refuse to entertain the idea that they, too, could reach the same level of athleticism.

The truth is, we get so fixated on a specific number, that we lose sight of the bigger picture. Yes, it's great to quantify your goals, but that's not the only important factor. You want to focus on how you feel, and how you've changed in the long run!

Remember this: the triumphs of others does not take away from your own achievements. Just because someone can run a mile 2:30 minutes faster than you can, does not mean you're slow. If someone's best deadlift is 75 pounds above yours, that does not mean you are weak. If you do not look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, you aren't scrawny.

Our fitness journeys are our own. Celebrate your own successes. A PR is a PR, regardless of whether or not you're going to set a national record. Compare yourself to...yourself, only! The numbers aren't as important in the bigger picture. Consider all of the sacrifices you have made to get to the gym when your schedule was hectic, or when you pushed through a really tough workout. The days you wanted to give up and you chose not to are feats of mental strength. Perseverance is an admirable trait, and every step you make in the right direction is still pushing your forward, in the long run.

Yes, other people are making progress, but so are you! Revel in even the smallest of improvements. Don't tear yourself down just because someone is ahead of you at this time. Instead, use that for motivation to work harder and keep pushing towards accomplishing your goals!

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4 Big Benefits of Eccentric Training

You know the old saying "slow and steady wins the race?" Well, in strength training, I believe slow and steady reps win the gainz. Eccentric training is, in my opinion, the Unsung Hero for improving athleticism. If you want to maximize strength, build muscle, and increase flexibility, stressing the eccentric portion of your lifts is a priority.

If you're asking "what the heck eccentric training," well, keep reading! There are three main types of skeletal muscle actions:

• An isometric action is when a contraction is maintained for an extended period of time. Planks and wall-sits are two well known isometric exercises.
• The concentric phase is aptly named, because it involves the contraction of the muscle. When you are standing up from the bottom of a squat, your quadriceps complex is concentrically contracting.
• The eccentric phase allows your muscles to lengthen under load. An example of this is when you are lowering yourself down from the top of a pull-up bar.

Most exercises emphasize the concentric portion of the movement. A standard push-up, pull-up or squat are traditionally used to improve the contraction of the agonist (initiating) muscles. Think about it this way: when you set up for a bench press, usually you lower the bar down relatively steadily and then accelerate the bar on the way up, as you extend your elbows. This is the traditional way to perform the movement, and the way it is performed in competition.

Now, what if I told you that, by training the lowering phase of a bench press, you could actually improve your strength and acceleration on the press? Do you ever find that with heavier weights you just tend to let the bar drop right to your chest, with absolutely no control? In that case, you are weak eccentrically.

This is just but one example of how eccentric training can help boost your performance. Here are some of the best benefits you can reap from utilizing the lengthening phase of an exercise:

1. Heavier loads. Research suggests that you can manage about 1.75 times as much weight in the eccentric phase than you can in the concentric phase. With a partner, load a heavy weight on the bar for bench. Try to control the weight down slowly and let your partner assist you in lifting the weight back up to the rack. This will help you increase your lifts at a rapid rate. I would recommend only doing only 3 sets of 4-5 repetitions the first few times you try these, as it is going to place a lot of stress on your muscles and your central nervous system.
2. Increased muscle size (hypertrophy)! Strength coach Charles Poliquin frequently writes about the effects of eccentric work for maximum hypertrophy. He says "The eccentric phase causes more muscle damage and leads to greater rates of protein synthesis post-workout. Training that includes a concentric phase as well as an eccentric phase will cause the most muscle damage." This is a great way to get massive quickly. Here's an example: for a biceps curl, you could do tempo sets. Count 5 seconds on the way up, and 10 seconds on the way down. Try this for 2-3 sets of 10 repetitions.
3. Injury prevention. Several studies have used eccentric training of the hamstrings to prevent ACL tears and hamstring strains. One such study was performed on competitive soccer players. Askling et. al. concluded "[the] results indicate that addition of specific preseason strength training for the hamstrings – including eccentric overloading – would be beneficial for elite soccer players, both from an injury prevention and from performance enhancement point of view." Russian leg curls are an excellent example of an eccentric movement for the hamstrings complex. These can be pretty tough initially, so 3-4 repetitions for a couple sets will be enough to light that posterior chain on fiya.
4. Improved flexibility. As you may or may not have deduced from my previous articles, I'm not a huge fan of static stretching. Eccentric training is a fantastic alternative to static stretching that will promote lasting changes on your level of flexibility. Dr. Yessis noted that "Good mornings are excellent. Here you're gonna get some stretching on the way down, and some strengthening on the way up ... You'll find the hamstrings kick in almost immediately." You can do this instead of a traditionally prescribed standing or seated hamstring stretch. Romanian deadlifts are another movement that can do wonders for your posterior chain.

One thing to keep in mind, though, is that slow eccentric movements can have an exceptional effect on the central nervous system. With that in mind, it's not necessary to perform them for very many reps or sets, and you'll only need to do them once or twice per week to reap the benefits. Performing heavy eccentric exercises on a regular basis can be counter productive, so use them sparingly! Using these concepts appropriately, however, you will see tremendous improvements in strength, power, and many other facets of athleticism.

Works Cited:

1. Askling, C., J. Karlsson, and A. Thorstensson. "Hamstring Injury Occurrence in Elite Soccer Players after Preseason Strength Training with Eccentric Overload." Scand J Med Sci Sports Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports 13.4 (2003): 244-50. Web.
2. Cowell, John F., John Cronin, and Matt Brughelli. "Eccentric Muscle Actions and How the Strength and Conditioning Specialist Might Use Them for a Variety of Purposes." Strength and Conditioning Journal 34.3 (2012): 33-48. Web.
3. Farthing, Jonathan P., and Philip D. Chilibeck. "The Effects of Eccentric and Concentric Training at Different Velocities on Muscle Hypertrophy." European Journal of Applied Physiology 89.6 (2003): 578-86. Web.
4. O'sullivan, K., S. Mcaulliffe, and N. Deburca. "The Effects Of Eccentric Training On Lower Limb Flexibility: A Systematic Review." British Journal of Sports Medicine 48.7 (2014): 648. Web.
5. Raj, Isaac Selva, Stephen R. Bird, Ben A. Westfold, and Anthony J. Shield. "Effects of Eccentrically Biased versus Conventional Weight Training in Older Adults." Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise 44.6 (2012): 1167-176. Web.
6. Schoenfeld, Brad. "The Use of Specialized Training Techniques to Maximize Muscle Hypertrophy." Strength and Conditioning Journal 33.4 (2011): 60-65. Web.

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Training for Symmetry: Using Bodybuilding Exercises to Improve your Lifts

Biceps curls, lateral shoulder raises, and shrugs, oh my. These are just a few staple exercises of the bodybuilding community. Although individuals who belong to the more "functional" end of the spectrum can write these exercises off as being useless and purely vain, isolation exercises for the sheer purpose of hypertrophy (muscle growth) certainly have their place in a well-constructed strength training routine.

Bodybuilders aim to achieve symmetry and balance. They use open chain exercises (isolations) to attack specific muscle groups.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have the strength athletes (in sports like weightlifting or powerlifting). While movements like squats, presses and pulls are excellent for building power and brute strength, the big lifts can sometimes fail to target certain groups of muscles.

Let's use a powerlifter, for example. A squat, bench press and deadlift will, yes, activate nearly every muscle in the body. In each of these lifts, however, big prime movers will be responsible for generating the majority of the force required to move the weight. The smaller muscles may not get the attention they require or deserve.

There are three major reasons why I believe bodybuilding exercises can help take your strength to the next level.

1. They target lagging muscles. Now, as I alluded to above, while movements like a deadlift do require nearly every muscle in the body to work in unison, the synergistic (assistant) muscles may not fire to a very high degree. It is quite common that powerlifters need to add some assistance work to focus on weaker areas. Barbell hip thrusters could help you improve glute activation and take some stress off of your lower back. Cable triceps extensions could be just the exercise you need to strengthen your triceps. Now, your triceps can work in conjunction with the latissimus dorsi, pectoralis major and minor muscles, and deltoids to create a stronger drive in your bench press. Depending on your technique, you may not be strengthening all of the necessary muscles from the big lifts alone.
2. They improve muscular balance. When there is a lack of balance between the right and left sides of the body, or even between the anterior chain and the posterior chain, problems can arise. If your left side is significantly stronger than your right (as you might find in a pitcher or a tennis player), it is extremely important to give your weaker side some extra love. Similarly, issues like knee pain can arise when a lifter is quadriceps dominant with comparatively weak hamstrings. Similarly, if I hear someone complain of shoulder pain, I look for a lack of balance in the upper body. I will have them strengthen the posterior deltoids, the middle and lower trapezius, and the external rotators. An ideal physique in bodybuilding is one in which all areas of the body are equally developed. "[A] symmetrical body is also less prone to injury. A particular muscle group will be less likely to compensate for a weaker muscle group, thus overburdening that muscle group while further weakening, and potentially injuring, the under-developed muscle group, if the weaker muscle group is balanced with the stronger grouping," says David Robinson, CPT. Some isolation work will go a long way to build a more symmetrical physique.
3. Bigger muscles are stronger muscles. Pretty straight forward. Greg Nuckols, a powerlifting coach, said it well, "Think of muscle mass as potential strength. If you gain mass, you may not necessarily be stronger right away (i.e. if you trained with lower weights and lost a bit of technical efficiency with max weights), but you have the potential to be stronger. If you stay the same size, you have a cap on how strong you can possibly get. When comparing two individuals, the one with more muscle may not necessarily be the stronger one (for all the factors listed above – muscle attachments, segment lengths, technique, etc.), though he probably will be. However, when comparing small you to jacked you, all other things being equal, jacked you will be stronger." Basically, the bigger your muscles are, the more force they can produce! Weightlifters fixate on training for strength, but sometimes they forget to include hypertrophy work into their accessory sessions. This small change can have a big influence on your performance.

Doing "curls for the girls" is fantastic, but isolation movements can also provide a multitude of other benefits. In fact, building bigger muscles overall can potentially improve your main lifts and simultaneously make your body more resilient to injury! Improve aesthetics and get stronger. Channel your inner Ahhhhnold and add some more bodybuilding exercises into your workout routine.

Works Cited:

1. Nuckols, Greg. "Powerlifters Should Train More Like Bodybuilders • Strengtheory." Strengtheory. N.p., 07 Feb. 2015. Web. 10 Sept. 2015.
2. Robinson, David. "Symmetry: Why It Is Important, & How To Achieve It! - Bodybuilding.com." Bodybuilding.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Sept. 2015.

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Your Grip Strength is Limiting Your Other Lifts

Have you ever played that game at an arcade where you squeeze these metal handles as hard as you can and it determines how strong your grip is?

One of the most understated elements of training is, in my opinion, grip strength.

Whether you're gripping a baseball bat, holding onto the pull-up bar, or picking up a heavy deadlift, you need to have strong forearms.

I find it so unfortunate that many people use and abuse straps for their lifts. Yes, straps have their time and place, but as I've said before, I'm a minimalist when it comes to lifting. I believe the more you are able to learn to create tension, and the stronger you get, the better off you will be. You can deadlift more weight with straps, but you are using a crutch. If your forearms are the limiting factor in a deadlift, then maybe you just need to strengthen them!

The muscles in the forearms connect all the
way up to the neck and shoulders.

According to Thomas Myers's Anatomy Trains, the whole arm and shoulder functions under one fascial web. The fascia is a thin, protective layer of connective tissue that surrounds the muscles. When one part of this fascial web is activated, so too, is the rest of it. With this, we can deduce that a better grip on the bar will allow for a stronger press.

Let's take, for example, a strict press. This is a shoulder exercise, right? Well, yes, but that doesn't mean we don't need to recruit other muscles in the body! Creating tension from the feet, all the way up through the hands, will activate more muscle fibers, and thus, make the weight fly up faster! One cue in particular that helped me was to think about actively squeezing the barbell as hard as possible.

Charles Poliquin notes,

"when your grip strength improves, less neural drive is needed for the forearm and hand muscles to perform other exercises. That is why many trainees report breaking training plateaus in a host of lifts, ranging from dead lifts to curls, after doing a grip specialization routine."

All of the big lifts require you to create a tremendous amount of tension in your body. The "tighter" you get, the better. Any areas of weakness will make a lift that much more difficult. Strengthen your forearms, and you will be able to get a better grip on the bar, which can result in more weight. A+!

Aside from improving total body strength and motor control, training the forearms may prevent pain in the wrists and forearms.

"There are 35 muscles involved in movement of the forearm and hand, with many of these
involved in gripping activities," notes Jason Shea, CSCS. He then continues on to talk about how inadequate grip strength may result in injuries like tennis elbow, UCL tears, and other elbow and wrist-related issues. If the forearms are weak, you will place an unnecessary amount of stress on your tendons and ligaments around the elbow and wrist joints. Charles Poliquin also mentions that

"these ailments are often caused by improper strength ratios between the elbow muscles and the forearm muscles. If the elbow flexors, like the biceps and brachialis, are too strong for the forearm flexors, uneven tension accumulates in the soft tissue and results in elbow pain"

Therefore, if you're spending a ton of time strengthening the muscles in your upper arm (biceps, triceps, etc.), but minimal to no time strengthening the muscles downstream, you're setting yourself up for injury.

Additionally, some studies have linked rotator cuff health to the integrity of the forearm muscles. When your grip is activated, so too are the muscles of the rotator cuff (teres minor, infraspinatus, supraspinatus, and subscapularis).

You need to have some strong freaking forearms to pull that kind of weight!

Now, for the exercise portion! Here are eight of my favorite ways to make you a pro at grabbing things:

1. Plate pinches
2. Farmer carries (unilateral and bilateral)
3. Plate flips
4. Hangs from the pull-up bar (for an extra challenge, try unilateral)
5. Rock climbing (no video necessary)
6. Fat bar deadlifts or pull-ups
7. Heavy kettlebell swings
8. Finger board (used for climbers)

Note that grip strength is going to be positional, meaning that your forearms may be very strong holding a very small or narrow object, and weak holding thicker objects. It's important to vary the width of the equipment you use every once-in-a-while.

You may have noticed that wrist curls and extensions are absent from this list. I'm not much of a fan of training the grip in this way, because it has less of a carry-over to other activities. We want to train for function, not necessarily for size!

Now go find some heavy objects and grip them! Open pickle jars for your friends, or swing from branches like Tarzan. Build your forearms and reap the tremendous benefits from all of this newfound strength.

Works Cited:

1. Czitrom, Andrei A., and Graham D. Lister. "Measurement of Grip Strength in the Diagnosis of Wrist Pain." The Journal of Hand Surgery 13.1 (1988): 16-19. Web.
2. Dhutia, Maitri, Tara Ruttley, and Sudhakar Rajulu. "Elbow Strength in Reference to Various Shoulder Positions." (2001): n. pag. Web.
3. Myers, Thomas W. Anatomy Trains: Myofascial Meridians for Manual and Movement Therapists. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone, 2001. Print.
4. Poliquin, Charles. Winning the Arms Race: The Ultimate Training Program for Arm Size and Strength. Place of Publication Not Identified: Www.CharlesPoliquin.net, 2001. Print.
5. Shea, Jason. "THE IMPORTANCE OF GRIP STRENGTH." (2011): n. pag. Web. 8 July 2015.

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Breathe Your Way to Bigger Lifts (Part 2)

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post on breathing properly for your lifts. This week, my friend Nate Henry, a competitive powerlifter, wrote a wonderful follow-up article. His strongest lifts include a 523.5 pound squat in competition, and a 535 pound squat in the gym, weighing 206 pounds. His best meet total is 1,372 pounds! He is also currently pursuing a bachelors degree in Kinesiology and an NSCA CPT. If you want to move big weights like this guy, follow his advice.

I mean...look at this guy.

Brief Squat Overview (Kinesiology)

Before I get into anything, let's review all of the primary muscles that are used within the squat because a lot of people overlook them.

When you’re lifting or doing anything and figuring out what muscles are being utilized, you have to analyze the dynamic (moving) joint to be able to identify the muscles worked. The muscles being worked are the ones that are fighting against the load.

As you squat there is movement in these joints:

• Hip (femoral acetabular joint, femur connects in the acetabulum in the coxal bone) 
• Knee (tibio-femoral joint, where the femur connects to the tibia)
• Ankle (taleo-tibula joint, where the tibia meets the talus)
• Spinal column (vertebral column)
•  Sacroilliac (SI, or lumbo-sacral) joint which is where the column connects to the illiac.

Analyzing the movement against resistance, standing up when you squat, we can identify the action of the muscle taken. In this case:

• Hip extension
• Knee extension
• Plantar flexion (ankle)
• Spinal extension (and depending on the lifter, there can be a posterior or anterior pelvic tilt in the SI.)

Rather than listing out all of the muscles involved, here are some nifty graphs I made to show what muscles are responsible for what movement:

Keep in mind these are only the primary muscles and these do not include the statically loaded muscles or the secondary muscles involved in the movements.

Now what?

Now that we’ve identified all the muscles we can get into this cueing business, the muscles will come into play a little later. Outside of reminding everyone reading this that their set up is the most important part of the squat (don't rush it, set up every set the same, etc.). I’m going to assume you’ve squatted before in your life, and I'll get right to it.

One of the biggest things that helped me advance my own squat was learning to properly brace and learning to “breathe into my lower back.”

A lot of lifters rant about “getting tight” and “getting your breath,” but what the heck does that even mean? It’s one of those things that if you know it, you get it. If you don’t, it’s hard to explain fully.

The whole point of getting “tight” or bracing is to prepare your body to handle load. Usually in the form of the Valsava Maneuver (holding your breath). However, a lot of people can’t even breathe correctly without load, so getting your breath and bracing properly is hard to do if you’re just starting out.

Rather than explaining it further, Arianna has written an awesome article already!

That breath and bracing is the most important and overlooked aspect of the squat next to having a proper unrack/walkout.

The reason this is so important is because if you’re not bracing completely you’ll put a lot of pressure on different muscles. We talked about spinal extension as one of the movements in a squat right? Well, when you’re just bracing the frontal core (the rectus abdominis plays a huge role in stabilizing the muscles responsible for spinal extension), you’re leaving your back completely unprotected, even with a belt! When you’ve got something heavy on you, that weight will zero right in on your weakest part of the back and that’s how back injuries happen and why.

This cue is especially important for low bar squatters who tend to use more extension in the back to leverage heavier weight on the way up.

To add to that, a lot of lifters might get the back tight (flexing it rather than creating the tension through the diaphragmatic breathing) and then tip forward because there is no brace on the front. This can also create some havoc within the muscles being worked. The quads may try to take proportionally more load than needed and the hip extensors try to pick up the slack. Things can get weird.

The point is, you need to brace and create that pressure. This is how I learned to do that.

Why breathe into my lower back?

Your core musculature wraps all the way around. A lot of lifters just breathe into their stomachs, creating little pressure, and not getting 360 degrees of tightness throughout all the musculature, extrinsically, nor intrinsically. They lack the understanding of what full abdominal expansion feels like; that’s where this cue comes in handy.

Put your hand on your lower back. Breathe into your stomach with a proper breath (fill it like a balloon). Not much going on in the lower back right? Or the sides, really, correct?

Now, do the same thing but try to breathe into the back while still trying to fill in the balloon (if that’s not helping, try to breathe into the lower back lying on your back and try to focus on pushing against the ground). If you’re doing this correctly, you should feel your back, stomach, and sides fill with air. Put your hands on your sides as well, you’ll feel it.

This is what I mean by breathing into your lower back. Proper inhalation helps your muscles in the core/lower back get tight/brace. Think of your core musculature as your body's own belt.

Using this, let's go over a quick squat without getting too much into the whole process:

1. Approach the bar, get your hand placement. 
2. Without rushing, get under the bar and get your placement down (high/low/hybrid). Dig into the bar, get the hands set, get everything nice and stable. 
3. Get your hips under you (both feet, not split stance this will prevent injuries in the back as well)
4. Breathing into your lower back, and getting the full breath first, unrack the bar.
5. Take your first step back, settle. 
6. Bring your other leg back, settle. Adjust this foot if need. 
7. If you’re squatting really heavy and the bar is whipping, let it settle. Good walks, make good lifts.
8. If you let out some air during the walk, retake the breath but make sure you create pressure during the walkout phase because even though you’re not squatting, you’re still having to move around that weight. 
9. Squat
10. Stand up
11. Retake the breath (don't descend without completing the breath!)
12. Repeat

I like using Chad Wesley Smith as an example, since he’s the one who introduced me to this cue. Here he is squatting 825 for a double.

Notice the control, the time put into the set up, and how he breathes. Now, Chad is an Elite Squatter. He’s quick about it. Take your time.

The cool thing is this applies to all disciplines: CrossFit, Powerlifting, Strongman, Weightlifting, Bodybuilding.

Try these tips, and add serious weight onto your lifts.


Works Cited:

1. Nuckols, Greg. "Squat Mechanics – The Red Pill." Strengtheory. N.p., 23 Feb. 2015. Web. 02 June 2015.
2. Smith, Chad W. "10 Steps to Great Squatting Technique." JTS Strength. N.p., 20 Aug. 2014. Web. 02 June 2015.
3. Smith, Chad W. "Squatting Specifics - What Technique Is Best for Your Sport?" JTS Strength. N.p., 22 Aug. 2014. Web. 02 June 2015.

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