Welcome to the GAIN Blog
The blog is updated Monday-Friday. Tune in for posts and discussion about health, fitness, nutrition, training experiments and reflection. We share articles, videos and more. We post the link to our Instagram story every day, make sure to follow along there to never miss a post.
Your Next Position
I was recently flipping through my copy of The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook recently. It’s full of different techniques to self-mobilize your soft tissue, something we do at the gym everyday with foam rollers, lacrosse balls and the like. It’s an old book, so it’s a little dated, but there are some valuable takeaways nonetheless.
I was flipping through and this passage caught my eye:
“Staying in any position too long, even a comfortable position, is hazardous to muscles. A static position favors the formation of trigger points because it hampers circulation. Muscles need a certain amount of contracting and relaxing to stay healthy. Many jobs are static by nature, particularly anything done sitting at a desk. Unfortunately, sedentary or inactive work gives you the impression that your work is easy, that you’re not straining anything. On the contrary, you might be well under a great deal of subtle physical stain and not recognize it.”
Remember, posture is just a word or what position you’re in, and your best position is your next position, because the more you can move, the better. Avoid static positions and try to move frequently. Take breaks and instead of searching for the most perfect set up, try a variety of positions throughout the day to expose your tissues to many different stimulus.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
The Perfect Program
As an exercise science major, a majority of my classes were focused on program design and exercise selection.
How could you maximize perform outcomes by controlling the variables you could control. I loved it.
We learned about what exercises paired with each and other and which pairings to avoid, how to order exercises, proper rest period timing and building macro and microcycles. Using that knowledge and a little bit of creativity, you can create a training program. It was really clear to me; if you weren’t strictly following a perfectly designed training program, you were just wasting time in the gym.
At the time I was playing hockey and I trained to get better on the ice. One summer, I became obsessed with having the perfect program, it killed all of my progress.
If I missed a day or two, I would throw away a whole week to start fresh on Monday. Eventually, this led to program hopping - I’m not making progress on this plan, I’ll create a new one! And the cycle would start over. Eventually I stopped trying at all.
Of course, it wasn’t the plan’s fault. It was my inability to stick with it. Or rather, my inability to get back on the horse. To just keep going with pretty good rather than thinking I needed perfection.
That summer was crazy. I was working full time as an ice truck driver, taking a college class, interning at a gym and training for the upcoming hockey season.
Trying to be perfect halted any progress I could have made. Instead of starting the program over and over again, I should have just kept going, even with some missed days. Sure, the plan wouldn’t be perfect or ideal, but the benefits of doing something far outweigh what you get with nothing.
Justin Miner
Great Bay 5k Recap
I didn’t want to do this race. I spent all day Friday thinking of excuses, and Saturday morning was no different. My goal was to run under 20 minutes, and that pressure made the idea of racing feel more stressful than fun. I procrastinated, delayed, and finally—after eating my usual breakfast sandwich—I got out the door.
With a short race like a 5K and a cold morning in the 40s, the warm-up is crucial. Luckily, I parked far away. I opted for short sleeves (the right call) and wore gloves for the warm-up. For the record—short sleeves and gloves is an elite running combo.
At the start line, I knew what I needed: a 6:25/mile average to break 20 minutes. If I executed well, each mile would get just a touch faster. The field was big, so I focused on running my own race. When we hit the 1-mile marker, I rounded a corner and saw the clock—6:26. Perfect.
That first mile felt smooth, and now it was just about hanging on. I tried to pick things up slightly for mile two. Whenever my form started to fall apart, I zeroed in on cadence and mechanical efficiency. Just after mile two comes a small climb before the long downhill finish. I worked that hill, made a few passes, and then opened up the stride coming down to the finish.
Final time: 19:42.
This year has been a quiet battle with my 2019 self—am I fitter now or then? Better at training? Stronger, even with more life on my plate? After running a 5:30 mile and now a 19:42 5K, I can confidently say: it’s working.
Enjoy some of the data below, and here’s to no more races on the calendar this year.
—Justin Miner
Monday Check In
I’m sure you’re keeping track, today marks 300 days into year. Just 65 days left until we’re in 2026.
That means there’s just 9 more Monday Check Ins, 9 more chances to get a week started off on the right foot.
Of course you’ll have plenty of chances to do that in 2026, too. To me, the end of the year is motivating. A chance to carry some momentum, habits and routines into the New Year.
Whether you’re day dreaming about the New Year, or trying to get your stuff together for this upcoming week—be sure to take a few minutes and get yourself organized. What are your goals this week? What do you need to get done? Are your prioritizing time for yourself?
See you in the gym!
—Justin Miner
Friday Thoughts 102
Welcome to this week’s edition of Friday Thoughts, where I share what’s been on my mind and in my feed this week. Let’s get into it.
Big’s Backyard Ultra
The original backyard ultra went down last week (and this week) as it always does in Tennessee. This years winner, Phil Gore ran 475 (not a typo) miles over 113 hours — that’s 4.2 miles every hour on the hour until no one is left. What’s more impressive than the nearly 500 miles is the crazy sleep deprivation is takes to pull something like this.
Great Bay 5k
Last race of the year is tomorrow—the Great Bay 5k—starting at Stratham Hill Park and running down to the Great Bay Discovery Center. I’m nervous for the pain and anxious to get it over with!
Kettlebell History Lesson
This was informative about the history and origination of the kettlebell.
Eye of the World
I’ve been nervous to read Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time Series because it’s just expansive—14 books! I finally cracked open book 1, the Eye of the World, and while it’s still early on I think I’m already hooked.
See you in the gym!
—Justin Miner
Balance, Agility and Coordination
There’s a great book called Balance is Power by Jim Klopman.
If you’ve seen those little blue balance blocks in the gym, they’re called Slack Blocks and he created them.
Here, he defines agility:
Agility is the ability to control and operate one’s body at high speed, under stress and in space.
Coordination, on the other hand:
Coordination is a component of agility. Coordination zeros in body control.
Klopman’s point is that you need to be coordinated to have the best agility and that the two are related to one another. Therefore, balance is the sum of coordination and agility, as represented in this equation.
Balance = coordination + agility
When an athlete improves their balance, they improve their coordination and agility as a result.
Not many people come into the gym considering agility a trait they need to improve, but from this perspective, it’s a key component to having a robust body.
Justin Miner
Color coodinated
Do you know why all the kettlebells in the gym are color coordinated? Sure, it keeps things organized—but there’s another reason, too.
When I first started coaching, I primarily worked with middle school and high school athletes. One of my most memorable groups was a varsity girls’ soccer team. Many of them had the talent and drive to play in college, and they needed to get stronger.
At that time, it was the Wild West of kettlebells. You couldn’t just buy a full set at Target or online, and if you managed to track down a mail-order catalog, you’d pay a ridiculous price. Basically, if you had a chance to buy a kettlebell, you took it.
That meant the gym’s collection was a mismatched mess—different sizes, diameters, colors, and markings. Most were labeled only in kilograms, others had pounds stamped somewhere hard to read.
Because of that, I would hand out kettlebells for each session so everyone got the right weight. Since the bells were so inconsistent, and no one could easily tell what they weighed, the athletes simply squatted whatever was in front of them.
After a few weeks, I noticed something interesting: the girls were progressing on their goblet squats but not their trap-bar deadlifts. I couldn’t figure out why—until it hit me.
With the deadlifts, they loaded their own bars, and it’s very clear how much a 45-pound plate weighs. When they knew the number, it made them nervous. When they didn’t, they just lifted.
Once I realized that, I did two things: I went to the hardware store, bought a bunch of spray paint, and spent the afternoon color-coding the kettlebells by weight. Then, during future sessions, I’d simply tell them, “Grab the yellow,” or “Grab the blue.”
I also started loading the trap bars myself. Only after a successful lift would I tell them how much was on the bar.
That simple shift taught me an important coaching lesson:
Numbers can be intimidating. Seeing them can make people think, I’m not strong enough for that or That’s too heavy—I’ll get hurt.
So the color-coordinated kettlebells stuck around. Now, when new clients start training, I tell them not to worry about the pounds—just think of it as the orange or blue or yellow kettlebell.
That subtle mindset shift can unlock even more strength gains.
—Justin Miner
Aerobic Base Building
This video by running coach Steve Magness is outstanding. It’s about how to build your aerobic base.
The videos geeks out a bit about mechanisms that drive your aerobic system, but what I loved was the big takeaway.
In order to improve your aerobic system you need many different inputs, of varying intensities and volume and, in the right doses.
While that sounds like a vague protocol, my main takeaway was, it depends!
It depends on the person, goals, training, history, schedule and so many other factors.
My other takeaway: a lot of stuff works. There is no perfect protocol.
Enjoy the video and let me know if you watch it.
—Justin Miner
Monday Check in
Happy Monday! Time to start another week.
All summer I was locked into training. I would plan my days around my runs. I would get up early, do double sessions, and plan all my meals around recovering from my run.
Now, training is on the back burner…and it’s nice.
It’s hard to stay “on,” all the time, and while I’m still training most days, it feels less burdensome and more enjoyable.
Phases like this, and developing this mindset, are important to stay in the game.
In a month or two I’ll be ready to turn it on for something, but in the meantime, I’m going to enjoy this phase of working out instead of training.
—Justin Miner
Friday Thoughts 101
Welcome to this week’s edition of Friday Thoughts, let’s get into it.
HRV TRend
I’m happy to report my HRV has been trending in the right direction. As it gets settled within the baseline, my resting heart rate has finally dropped into its normal range too. This was a long ordeal. So long you can see my baseline even shifted down slightly.
October Challenge
This month’s challenge workout is a doozy. Most people—even amongst the fire breathers of GAIN—won’t be able to finish it. It’s just a lot of reps, in a short period of time with heavy dumbbells. I thought my score of 8:41 would have held up against everyone, until Nate Kingsley visited. Nate beat me by more than a minute in an impressive display of benching prowess. He made the 50 pound dumbbells look like toys. Impressive effort Nate!
Here’s the workout:
3 Rounds for Time:
500m c2 bike
25 db bench press @ 50s/25s
250m row
11-minute time cap
Cold Running
I had a hard time figuring out my layering on yesterday’s run. It was in the low 50s, but with very strong winds. It was nice in the sun, but in the shade of the trees with the wind whipping it was much colder. I opted for shorts and a light windbreaker with a hood. As I walked away from the truck I grabbed gloves too, and took them off about 1 minute later when I started climbing up the hill. I felt out of practice layering and it made me miss running in the long days of summer.
That’s it for this week. Have a good one!
—Justin Miner
One Year Later
We’ve been reflecting on last year’s October Habit Challenge—and where we are now, a year later.
To refresh your memory, last October we picked one habit to stick with every day for the month. Some people read for 10 minutes, some journaled, others focused on eating without distractions or hitting a daily walking goal.
Whether you participated or not, take a minute today to look back on something you tried or started a year ago.
How’s it going now?
Are you still doing it, or did it fade away?
Either way, the reflection is a worthy check in.
—Justin Miner
When to Train Barefoot
If you want strong, resilient feet, one of the best things you can do is spend more time barefoot.
Without shoes, your balance changes and you feel more connected to the ground. The muscles, tendons, and ligaments in your feet and lower legs get a chance to do their job and strengthen naturally.
When should you ditch the shoes?
Whenever you can.
Warm-ups and cooldowns are a great place to start. But any exercise where your feet stay planted on the floor is fair game.
Barefoot jump rope? Bad idea.
Barefoot deadlifts? Good idea.
Squats and most single-leg movements are perfect opportunities too.
If you want strong, healthy feet — get those shoes off and get to work.
—Justin Miner
Vulcan’s Fury Half recap
On Sunday, I headed to Pawtuckaway State Park for the Vulcan’s Fury Half Marathon—about 14 miles and 2,300 feet of gain across some rugged New Hampshire trails. That place is massive, and it was fun to get back out there.
This has been the year of shorter trail races for me: Sunapee Scramble (9 miles), Loon Mountain Race (6 miles), and now Vulcan’s Fury. I’ve really enjoyed these distances—they let you open it up without worrying about saving your legs for a full day.
Heading into this one, I wasn’t sure how I’d do—or even if I’d show up. September was lackluster, and early October wasn’t looking much better. The added pressure: trying to beat my 2019 time.
I kept my watch simple: elapsed time, pace, and heart rate. I don’t usually monitor HR during races, but it helped this time, especially on the early climbs. I let people pass me, knowing I had to run my race. On the descents, I made sure my pace stayed well under my goal average of 10:30/mile. I broke the race into three sections between aid stations and never looked at miles.
Around halfway is my favorite part—the climb up North Mountain through wide open woods and massive boulders, followed by a wild, steep descent off the ridge. It’s a brutal section, but I bombed down it feeling smooth and confident. In 2018 and 2019 it wrecked me, but this time I stayed in control. You’ve got to trust every step.
After one more big climb, it was mostly steady running to the finish. I fueled with three maple syrup packs and a quick swig of Coke at the mile 10 aid station. My energy dipped late, but I kept moving, trying to stay quick through the rolling singletrack. I carried a small water bottle—wasn’t sure if I’d regret it, but on that mid-race climb, I was very glad to have it.
What I was happiest about was how my legs held up. I pushed the descents, climbed strong, and still had enough to keep running the flats. Climbing gets all the attention, but in trail racing—especially these shorter ones—it’s really your downhill speed that determines your result.
Even though it was my slowest Vulcan’s Fury yet, I’m proud of it. 2019 Justin was fast—about ten minutes faster, actually—but this version of me feels fitter and less wrecked from the effort. The season’s been full of “then vs. now” comparisons, and while I didn’t beat my old time, I think I’m stronger and more durable.
Next up: the Great Bay 5K, October 25th!
—Justin Miner
Half the cheer squad
Monday Check In
Another Monday, another week!
The gym is open normal hours today.
Whether you’re working today or not, getting a workout in will kickstart a week full of good habits.
Make sure to get it in!
See you at the gym.
—Justin Miner
Friday tHoughts 100
Welcome to this week’s edition of Friday Thoughts, triple digits! As always these are the things that have been on my mind and in my feed this week. Enjoy!
HRV IS BACK
Back in the green! It’s taken a long time to climb out of this not-recovering hole. I first dropped into the red on August 7th, so almost two months. I’ve been focusing on the basic sleep habits—getting into bed early, limiting caffeine intake (how much and when), and trying to get some movement in most days.
Going forward, it will be interesting how see if this low period is part of my yearly training cycle, or if this was just a big fluke. I guess only time will tell!
Vulcan’s Fury
On Sunday I’m heading to Pawtuckaway State Park for the Vulcan’s Fury Half Marathon. I’ve done the race twice before, in 2018 and 2019. I’m looking forward to getting out there, despite the fact that training has been less than ideal. I have no expectations and am looking forward to a long run in the woods.
States of Elevation
It was awesome to watch Killian’s latest mountain project. He connected a bunch of mountains by running and biking. Starting in Colorado and ending in Washington. The stats are INSANE. 500 hours of movement over 31 days. Dive into the data in the post below.
Some more fun stats about Killian’s project.
Born to Run
This isn’t surprising if you’ve read born to run.
USA Weightlifting
The weightlifting World Championships are underway in Norway, enjoy these Team USA highlights.
Stay warm out there this morning! See you next time.
—Justin Miner
Eyes and Balance
It’s rare that someone comes in and doesn’t mention wanting to work on balance.
Balance can be frustrating to train because you have to challenge it in order to improve it. I learned this acronym in Built to Move, and it’s one worth knowing:
SOLEC — Standing On One Leg, Eyes Closed.
That’s the test.
Stand on one leg, close your eyes, and see how long you can last.
Your eyes play a huge role in balance, and when you take that input away, the challenge increases dramatically. Try the test once with your eyes open, then again with them closed, and compare the difference.
There’s a wide range of what’s “good” here — even a few seconds eyes-closed is a solid start, while 15 seconds is the gold standard.
This simple test shows just how much your vision influences your stability. Give it a try today and see where you stand.
— Justin Miner
Leave Room for Improvement
I had several clients start new programs this week.
My advice to many of them was simple: leave room for improvement.
When you’re in week one of a plan and everything feels new and exciting, it’s easy to do too much. Even if it goes well, it can come back to bite you later.
Here are a few examples of what leaving room to improve looks like:
A. Deadlift x5, building to a challenging set in 5–7 sets
On week one, don’t rush to your heaviest possible weight. Leave room for next week and see what happens. More than heroic efforts, we want replicable efforts.
I fell into this trap a lot when I was Olympic lifting. I’d hit big weights in week one, then struggle to repeat them in week two or three. With experience, I learned to take about 10% off my best early on — and then build from there.
B. 3–5 rounds of:
8/s split squat
10/s one-arm dumbbell row
8-breath low plank hold
When a workout shows a range, you don’t always have to do the max. In week one, choose the lower end. Everything else in the workout will take longer than expected anyway. You can add rounds later to build overall volume.
C. Conditioning
10–12 sets:
30 sec @ fast pace
30 sec @ slow pace
When there’s a range like this, start with the smaller number. Use week one to dial in your paces and figure out what “fast” actually means for you. Over the coming weeks, you can progress by adding rounds, upping your intensity, or both.
The big idea here: it’s not one workout that matters — it’s all of them compounded over time.
The more sessions you complete, even at a slightly lower intensity, the better your long-term results. Once you start leaving room for improvement, you’re playing the long game.
— Justin Miner
209 grams of protein
I took 21,455 steps yesterday.
I spent 10-hours on the gym floor coaching and was able to sneak in a run, too. In order to have a good day, I knew that I needed to pack plenty of food and snacks to keep my energy levels high.
Chat-GPT might be the best macro calculator app, if you have enough base information to spot if something is off, like when my breakfast sandwich breakdown on had 6 grams of carbohydrates. Other than that, it was really easy—I knew all the ingredients of my food, or just snapped a pic of the wrapper to add to the running tally it was building for me. Overall pretty impressed.
Here’s everything I ate yesterday.
7:15am - First BReakfast
10:07am - SEcond Breakfast
11:50am - Pre, Pre-Run Snack (Elevenses)
1:30pm - Pre Run
3:30pm - Post 60 min trail run
7:40pm - Dinner
8:20Pm
totals on the day
Today will be a similar effort, and this is what most of my eating has been looking like lately. I’m trying to keep it simple, stuff that easy to prep and transport. I’m thinking it’s a rest day from training, so I’ll adjust accordingly by cutting out some of the pre and post training snacks.
—Justin Miner
MOnday Check In
Welcome to another week! It’s going to be a fun one, Coach T is away at a wedding and I’ll be on the coaching floor all day today and tomorrow. I’m looking forward to it. The key to success—packing enough food.
I, like many coaches, used to just starve my way through long coaching sessions, surviving by slurping down tons of caffeine.
There was a problem though, when it came time to work out, I needed a nap.
My key to having a good day: packing enough food to fuel and recover from my workout this afternoon.
See you at the gym!
—Justin Miner
Friday Thoughts 99
Distractions
Cleaning companies often reach out wanting to give me a quote to clean the gym. Years ago, I actually answered one. They asked how big our locker rooms were, how many bathroom stalls we had, if there was a smoothie bar or a basketball court . I laughed and said, “We don’t have any of that.” Their reply: “Well, then you’re not a gym.”
That interaction stuck with me.
These days, the “fitness country club” model is everywhere. All the latest and greatest equipment, smoothie bars, saunas, ice baths, workspace—you name it. Honestly, I think some of that stuff is pretty cool. But the problem is, it’s still missing the point.
We’re missing one key point: it matters how you move.
Movement quality—how well you can move and control your body—rarely gets mentioned but it’s the ultimate caveat to every training protocol out there. Just knowing which exercises are “good” doesn’t guarantee you’ll do them well. But once you understand that movement is a skill, you can practice it forever. Usually, in order to do that, you need a coach.
The gyms without the frills, without the smoothie bars or golf simulators or locker rooms—places like GAIN—those are the ones that actually care about movement and real coaching. Everything else is just a distraction.
More HRV Ramblings and Training Update
I’ve been chatting with a lot of you about this lately and here’s an update and a couple more takeaways.
Still tanked, but on the upswing. More importantly, sleep has been long and scores have been high. I’m feeling well-rested and refreshed in the morning. Overnight HRV averages are swinging more, and I think that’s a good sign.
After reflecting on my summer of training, maybe it isn’t so crazy that it’s dropped like this. I was going hard! I ran a lot of double days, and not only that—I made training a top priority almost every day. After getting sick in September and losing that training rhythm, it’s been nice to just exercise without it being on the forefront of my mind.
I have periods like this every year, usually in the fall, after a big running summer. Had my foot on the gas all the summer and then training motivation is low. I focus on shorter, low-barrier-to-entry workouts to keep my sputtering fitness spark alive.
This raises an interesting question.
Does this massive HRV drop happen every year?
Has the pattern always been there? I just didn’t know because I didn’t have a watch telling me?
I don’t know, and the only way to find out is keep collecting the data.
I’ve reached the orange square!
The Watch Isn’t Always Right
Despite the scary look graph above, I really have been feeling good this week when training. I just don’t “feel” like training or have the enthusiasm I’m used to. That’s why when I headed out to do my local trail loop on Sunday morning there way no way I expected to randomly throw down and set a huge PR.
I stalled for a good hour before finally getting out the door. I’ve run this loop about 50 times. It’s 4.6 miles with 550 feet of elevation gain. It’s a big climb at the start and then ups and downs the rest of the way.
I set my PR way back in 2020, and for the past couple years I’ve been thinking that time is untouchable. I would often hit the trail intersection around mile 3.5, and see that I would have to finish in 5 minutes to beat my PR. It seemed so out of reach, to the point I was questioning the accuracy of my time.
And then, someone on Strava beat my course record.
I was annoyed, but also relieved—it was possible to break.
So when I was running up the big climb on Sunday morning I noticed my legs felt amazing, my heart rate was high—like very high, but it felt, comfortable. So I thought, I’m going to keep pushing to the top at the 1 mile mark. I’ve had plenty of runs go well until the high-point where I realize came out too fast. But not this time. I knew the average pace I needed to stay under and on the downhill I tried to stay way under it. It felt great. Like the cumulation of a hard summer of training.
I kept saying that to myself on the loop: you ran a faster mile this year than in 2020, you can run faster!
I ended up shaving 41 seconds off my time, I was pumped. I missed taking the crown back, but it’s within reach, and more importantly I beat my own previous time.
The watch didn’t tell me that was possible. But I listened to my body and knew I felt good. Even though I was dragging my feet to get started, I just knew I could—because I listened to my body.
Dear Garmin, the hold HR chart was better
Almost hit that 220-age number. My watch also adjusted my estimated max HR after this run, it was the highest it’s been in a while!
It’s So Easy
Thanks for reading, see you next time!
—Justin Miner