The Edge

Over the weekend, I watched Iron Cowboy a documentary about James Lawrence completing 50 Ironman Triathlons, in 50 states, in just 50 days. Wow. What an impressive feat of endurance. The part of the documentary that stuck with me was Lawrence’s quote, “I’m doing this because I haven’t found my physical and mental limit yet.”

For us normal humans, the gym is a place to test our physical and mental limits. We don’t need to find it every day (leads to burnout/injury) or even that often at all. We do want to explore where our edge is though, the line we cannot cross, cannot push any harder. If we know where that is, it's eye opening as to how much more we’re capable of.

Push your pace on the sled this week, put some extra zest on those medicine ball slams and put your head down and suffer a little bit on the AirBike. Try to find the edge, see where your limits are and what you’re capable of.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

100

“Disipline is commitment to the process regardless of motivation.”

Logan Gelbrich, Going Right

Today marks 100 consecutive blogs on this site. It’s been a tough challenge. Sometimes, topics and words flow easily, and other times I stare at the computer screen with my face resting in my palms convinced this will be the day that I fail. Some days I’m pleased with the post, other days I hate it. It’s been a challenge of commitment.

Beside the commitment to share more ideas and develop writing abilities, I needed to develop some new habits. I write every morning. It’s not even a thought anymore. As soon as the coffee is done, I open up the laptop and start working on whatever idea is floating in my brain. Carving out this time, and treating it preciously, has helped keep me to it.

So really, 100 blogs is just a blip along the way. I’m going to continue to practice, learn and build new skills and abilities. It isn’t about staying motivated, it’s about being discipline and sticking with something over time. Just like going to the gym. Thanks for reading and following along.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

When to Shut it Down

Knowing when to take a break, or how to listen to your body, is key to long-term training success. You probably have some clues that, if you’re paying attention, can tell you whether to shut it down, take it easy or push through and get your training in. Identifying these signs is a skill itself, and will take some time to hone.

I usually have a pretty good desire to train, so I look for other clues that let me know I should take an easy day or skip my run all together. The obvious one is how I feel first thing in the morning. Did I pop out of bed with excitement for the day or did I want to stay under the covers for another hour? Another clue is if I’m hungry first thing in the morning. I usually am not, so if by 8am I’m looking for something to eat, I may be pushing it a bit too much.

There is technology called heart rate variability that can help you identify your readiness to train. It measures the time in-between heart beats, the more variation the more recovered you are. When you have a steady time between beats, you may be on the edge of over-training. This can be useful, but if we’re playing the long game, we can sharpen our awareness to how we feel and bypass the technology all together.

Start looking for your clues that you’re running out of steam. If you catch it, you may avoid a gym burnout all together and your body will thank you for the break. Take a long walk, ride a bike, come in to do some stretching and rolling or shut it down all together and log some hours in a beach chair.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Interval Basics

One of the most effective conditioning tools is interval training. The idea is simple, work at a difficult to maintain pace for 20 seconds to a couple minutes and then work at an easy pace for slightly less than, the same or longer than your work period. Besides improving cardiovascular fitness, the goal is to mainipulate your heart rate.

We want to see your heart rate build up over the work interval and partially (or fully, depending on the goal of the session) recover during the rest period. This style of training lets you get in more work in less time. By ramping up the intensity (how hard you’re working) we can dial back the volume.

Intervals, for the most part, should be brutally challenging. If you’re doing 10 rounds of 30 seconds fast, 60 seconds slow on the bike, you should really crank during those 30 seconds, trying to produce the most output possible during that time. If you’re still gassed after 60 seconds, dial back the intensity to find that working pace.

That’s the side benefit of interval training. It can teach you how to pace, how to breathe and will tell you how much work you’re capable of. If you’re thinking about adding in some additional training, talk to us about getting an interval day throw into the mix.

Justin MIner

@portsmouthcoach

Tried and True

There’s a problem in the fitness industry. Everyone wants the next new thing, the latest and greatest trend that’s going to get results faster. The next guru who will promise the results you need, after drinking her detox tea for 30 days. It’s gross. It plays upon you, the consumer, to keep trying the next thing, hoping the quick results will happen this time.

Unfortunately there are no quick results. If we want to make long-tern, permanent change, we need to put the work in. There is no way around it, no guru’s tea, no Instaceleb’s booty workout program or hot-pilates-yoga-flash-burn-HIIT-with-goats that will bypass the work ethic required.

Strength and Conditioning is tried and true. It’s been around for a hundred years and we know it works. It would be the most boring, non-effective infomercial ever: use this barbell, with thoughtful form, 3-4 times a week for 3 years and you’ll get stronger!

No one wants to admit the commitment has to be long term. If we’re going to make a change, we all need to realize that there are no shortcuts. We need to stick with something for a long time. Whatever that is for you, great I’m on board. I’m just not convinced some of these new methods or diets are going to stand the test of time like strength and conditioning has.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Take a Seat

How comfortably can you sit on the floor? Can you sit criss-cross style? Does you back scream at you or are you able to hang out down there for 20 minutes and come out the other side unscathed? I’m a fan of doing things that are good for your health without being in the way of your life. For example, occasionally opting to sit on the floor instead of the couch.

It’s an opportunity to tinker with your movement. To find a comfortable position and to realize some areas or movements that need some extra attention. It’ll show if you can stabilize your spine, rotate your hips and move your ankles. No equipment is required. Just simply sit on the floor. Feel the stretch, move around a little and when you are sick of it, get back on the couch.

It’s a fool proof way to add in some additional movement throughout your day. Unlock your hips and rediscover that skill you used to own so easily but lost somewhere along the way.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

How to Start Strength Training

My new favorite person, James Clear, Author of Atomic Habits, posted a great infographic on Instagram yesterday. While his usually topics are about habits, this one was specifically about strength training. Clear is not only drawing from the research of his book, but from his own experience strength training for the past 10 years.

For people just getting started, he recommends these three principles to help you stick with it for the long haul. I agree with all of them and they are principles we use at Gain to help guide our programming when starting new people.

1. Start too light

Do easy stuff first. Get practice reps in. Learn the skills required and build volume at these lower intensities before going heavy.

2. Don’t Miss Workouts

Your effort must be sustained if you want to see changes. We tell people all the time, don’t skip the gym if you don’t want to workout, come and do something different if you need to but keep the consistency going by always coming to scheduled appointments.

3. Make Tiny Gains

“Average speed can take you far if you just keep walking.”

Honestly, a lot of the gains people get they don’t even notice until they go do something and realize it isn’t as hard as it used to be. That’s a good way to progress. Don’t expect massive gym PR’s all the time. Look for the little things outside of the gym that are easier than they used to be.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Posture

Everyone wants better posture. I bet after you read that first sentence, you sat up a little straighter, I know I did after I wrote it. People are looking for an answer, an exercise that will magically get them to sit upright and not hunch over their phone or computer. Unfortunately, that doesn’t exist.

Sure, we can do lots of horizontal rowing exercises to strengthen your upper back and teach you how to use your shoulders, but that won’t fix your posture while watching TV at night. You need to become sensitive to what you body is doing in order to improve posture. You have to constantly catch yourself and adjust your position.

Remember, there isn’t one static position that rules them all. We want to be moving and adjusting and spending sometime in all sorts of different positions. The key to improving your posture is awareness. Catch yourself and adjust, over and over and over.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Just Show Up

There are no shortage of fitness options. In every town and city you can pull up Google and find 20 different gyms. Some will be similar to each other, some totally different. Price points are all over the map, starting with Planet Fitness all the way to exclusive one on one training. This is great news. Everyone needs to find what will work for them - something they can be consistent with.

I find people give into their fear sometimes. When you know you have a hard workout on Monday, you dread it and eventually skip it because you don’t want to do whatever was planned in that workout.

At Gain, we teach people to just show up. Don’t feel like squatting today? No problem, let’s find something you can do and get excited about. Didn’t sleep well last night? No big deal, let’s do some mobility work and send you on your way to get an extra cup of coffee. Not being locked into a group class gives us the freedom to call an audible.

This lets you take change of your fitness, learn to listen to your body and above all else, develop some consistency. Not all workouts need to be 110% effort. Sometimes, you get to have a 60% effort workout and I’m here to tell you there’s nothing wrong with that

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Predictive Fitness

We’ve all been to the doctor’s office and gotten a strange reading called BMI, or body mass index. It’s famously inaccurate at predicting people’s health and wellbeing. The height to weight ratio often claims many are obese who clearly aren’t. However, it’s a system designed to categorize mass amounts of people so we can compile data. That doesn’t mean it’s the best way possible though, or that there isn’t another way. Recently, the BMI Scale has been called into question whether it’s an accurate predictor of mortality and disease.

If we ditch the body mass index, what else can we look at for predictive numbers for our health? Is there just one number or reading or test that can solve this issue, or like many health issues, is it more complex than figuring out one number? Well, one number is your walking speed. In a large study published in the Journal of America Medical Association, those who walked about 33 minutes per mile were likely to hit their average life expectancy. With faster walkers the change of dying in the next 10 years fell by 12 percent!

At first, this sounds a bit silly. But think of grandparents and parents who have a hard time moving around. Average walking speed is in indicator that you can move confidently, react to the ground and other objects and have some cardiovascular fitness. I frequently talk about the benefits of walking, add this to the reasons to walk more.

Another simple measure of longevity or health is grip strength. Squeeze this meter as hard as you can and if you can produce some force, it looks good for you lifespan. Grip strength is correlated with total body strength, so if you’ve done some working out, it’ll probably show on the grip-meter.

Yesterday, I read about a new way we can predict health. This study claims that the ability to do a push up can predict heart disease. Stefanos Kales, a Harvard Medical School professor, looked closely at firefighters and heart disease. He concluded that push up capacity was associated with decreased of cardiovascular disease.

Are any of these methods perfect? No. But people are pushing to make some changes to stop relying on BMI as a health predictor. These newer methods empower you. With BMI you get a number that you can’t do much about besides try to lose weight, which is a vague and difficult task for many. If we get people to focus on performance, like walking faster, building functional strength and doing push ups, we can empower people to take charge of their lives instead of being subjected to a silly BMI number.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Maintenance

We have this idea that if we’re not moving forward or progressing, we’re losing. However, maintaining a level of physical ability, weight, endurance etc., over time is equally as impressive as constant gains. Maintaining implies that you’re doing all the right things to not move backwards and start regressing or losing skills/abilities.

Thinking that maintaining is bad can be troublesome. Imagine you’ve worked towards a goal, almost reach it and then failed. Many people will then throw it all out the window and severely backtrack. Fast forward a few months later and they’re on the train again trying to get better. Classic yo-yo behavior.

If we think mainitnence is okay, we can think, I made it this far, let me hang on to it while I have these crazy things happening and then I can get bak to it once I have motivation/time/resources. If you’re stuck deadlifting a PR, remember, it’s still an impressive thing that you’re holding on to the ability, maintenance is good!

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Use It

If you’ve been working out for a while, I hope you’ve gotten a chance to use your fitness. Whether it’s going for a long walk on vacation, signing up for a triathlon, taking on a big hike or mulching the garden yourself this year, you need to have a challenge to use your fitness.

Don’t workout just to workout. Have fun, use your new skills, body awareness and endurance to have fun. You might just surprise yourself that you can do something you thought you couldn’t. Remember, we workout to enhance our life outside of the gym, not to live in the gym.

This weekend, get outside, do something challenging, scary, productive or fun. Use your body, be physical and enjoy that accomplished feeling afterwards.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

It's Hot

It’s been a hot week in the gym, especially if you’re an evening session person. The gym bakes in the sun all day and by 4 or 5 pm it’s quite toasty in there. Be sure to drink more water, take an extra break if you need to and know that you’re not losing all your fitness if your performance suffers a bit on hot days. The good news is that we love to adapt. By exposing yourself to some hot environments your body will make some changes to make you work in the heat more efficiently.

Why is working out in the heat so much different? Simple put, it's difficult for our bodies to regulate temperature. To dissipate heat, our blood vessels vasodilate, or expand, sending more blood to the surface of our skin so it can leave our body. Along with that, we utilize sweating and the sweat evaporates off our skin. Very humid conditions makes this process difficult because of all the water molecules in the air.

A few things happen when we become more adapted to train in the heat. Increased sweat rate and decreased electrolyte concentration in sweat are two key factors. Along with blood plasma volume expansion, lower heart rate during exercise and a decreased cost of metabolic work (i.e., you operate more efficiently).

When top-performers are looking to heat adapt for a specific event, they usually need about 7-10 days to totally adapt and operate more efficiently in hot environments. The big changes come within the first few exposures.

What does this mean for you? Well, it means you first 3-5 workouts on hot and humid days are going to be tough. The good news is, even if you’re someone who historically doesn’t do well in the heat, you will adapt if you give your body the chance. It will get better. It’s about managing the exposure and know that you may need to back off the first few times. It’s good for your body to be able to work at a wide range of temperatures. Instead of always sticking to the AC in your room, car, office and gym, getting a little bit of heat exposure may be a good thing.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Training Age

Did you know that you have a training age? It’s how long you have been consistently training. My training age is 15 years. I started working out in my driveway with my uncle during the summer when I was 15. After that, I did some body building (because that was all there was back then) then eventually joined a formal strength and conditioning program with a coach and never looked back (except that year that I didn’t step into a gym, but that’s a story for another day).

Your training age dictates how you will progress and what you can do in order to progress. Someone with a low training age will develop strength and athleticism regardless of what the training is. Any sort of stimulus is good when you have a young training age. Our bodies love to adapt. This is a chance to get a lot of quality reps in, under maximum load, to groove the proper movement patterns.

As your training age grows, you'll have a more difficult time building strength, muscle or endurance. Your body doesn’t like to adapt like it did when your training age was younger. Training will need to become more formalized to ensure proper progression and management of stress. You’ll need to spend more time at high percentage lifts and manage your training volume.

Once you crack 12 or 13 years, things begin to change again. You start to get away with more days off and less frequent maximum effort lifts. You’ll hang on to strength because you’ve been adapting to it for a long time. You’ve made positive changes. Increasing strength or endurance takes a specialized approach at this point. Doing the minimum will allow you to maintain, but concentrated effort will be required to see a deadlift PR.

Strength and conditioning is a lifetime pursuit. The principles will stay the same, but the way you adapt will continue to evolve. Just be sure to stick with something long enough to earn a training age.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Correlating with Tech

Every hour more people come into the gym and a lot of them are wearing Fitbits, Apple Watches and you name it. This wearable technology has spread into our everyday lives and hopefully made people aware that they need to move, spend time exercising at high intensities and get enough deep sleep.

While I see the benefit of these devices, I want people to avoid the dependance trap of them. You shouldn’t have to track your sleep to know if you got a good night’s worth or not. These watches are great because they can correlate you to what your normal is, what is too little and what is too much.

Hannah has been wearing a tracking watch for 6 months now. Her watch tracks her heart rate all day and provides a resting heart rate every morning. When she is starting to feel sluggish, or her body is beat up from hard workouts in the gym, we know that her resting heart rate has probably been rising for the last few days. The same thing happens when she stays up late a couple nights in a row. After several months, we use the watch to confirm what we think is happening, instead of relying on it to tell us what to do.

This wearable tech is great and I hope more and more people wear it and get moving more. I’m urging people to avoid dependence on this technology. Use it as a tool to learn how to listen to your body. It’s a skill that needs to be honed over many years. Developing that skill will keep you training safely for a long time. You should know when to push and when to back off, the watch isn’t always right.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Body Armor

Legendary strength coach, Dan John, used to talk about body armor training. He was talking in the context of contact sports. You would want to build up a rugged body that can handle the brutality of the sport so you could perform well and come away uninjured.

Specifically, he was talking about kettlebell complexes, sled variations, crawling, carrying heavy objects and barbell movements. In everyday life, building armor is more important than you think. Building muscle, or armor can be the difference maker between a minor fall and a major one. Stack your chances on getting away from a car accident, bailing on a bike or handling a freak accident.

We can learn from extreme situations and distill the important information down to what really matters or what will help the average person. You may have heard, Alex fell through the ceiling a couple weeks back. A misstep while on the storage platform caused him to drop 10 feet to the ground below. He walked away unscathed and I can’t stop thinking that if he didn’t train the way he did it would have ended in a much different situation.

You don’t need to pile on slabs of muscle like Alex. Remember, we’re learning from the extreme. He has lots of muscle that he's trained hard for. He also took a 10 foot fall like nothing. Doing some squats, deadlifts and push ups a couple times a week will probably be enough to make you more resilient. Getting strong and building some lean body mass (aka muscle) may be the difference maker between a minor fall and a major one.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

How to Balance

In every intro session we do, the people mention that they have poor balance. I have yet to meet the person who comes in and claims they have excellent balance while exercising, walking or performing daily activities. The trick with balance is in order for it to improve, you need to put yourself in situations where you may be wobbly or off balance.

The key is practice. It’s motor control, or have good control of your body and how it moves through space. Other factors that help are: improving joint stability, increasing core strength, learning how to stabilizing (i.e., finding tension throughout your body when lifting something).

My favorite balance drills are walking with funny patterns. Walk heel to toe, walk with high knees, go sideways, backwards, with weights and a combination of all of them with added in pauses and step backs. Start easy, keep a wall nearby. As you improve, inch away from the wall. Once you start walking a little faster, it’s time to throw some tricks into the mix. Work the agility ladder. Work on funky feet patterns without tripping up on the ladder.

Chances are you once told me you’re bad at balancing. What are you doing to get better at it?

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

HOLIDAY HOURS

CLOSED - THURSDAY 7/4

OPEN - 9am-12pm FRIDAY 7/5

COMMUNITY WORKOUT - SATURDAY 7/6 at 8am

Is This Necessary?

“Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquility. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘is this necessary?’”

-Marcus Aurelius

When stress starts to take over, I follow the advice of the stoics and try to simplify my life and be deliberate. Asking yourself this question serves as a reminder that not all things need to frustrate or fluster you. We often have more time and freedom than we think. Being stressed out or angry is one thing, the way you react to those moods is another.

There’s a lot of extra fluff throughout our day. Let’s focus on the things that we care about, the things that make us better and happier and more productive, not the unessential.

If you find yourself flustered today, reflect on if it’s necessary.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Another Short Week

There are two ways to go about handling a shortened training week. Both are good. It isn’t about one way against the other. It’s about figuring out what’s going to work best for you in your current situation.

The obvious way is to stick with your plan as best you can. Try to get all your normal training days in, but maybe you take the 4th of July off to give yourself an off day. Maybe you stay up late one night and opt for more sleep instead of rolling out of bed to hit the gym early.

The other option is to back off a bit. You probably have a day or two off from work, hopefully we’ll have some nice weather and it’s the 4th of July! Giving your body a break from training is productive. It likes recovering just as much as it likes training hard and pushing it. Pack up the car, head on a road trip or head to the beach. Don’t worry about your strength training but be physical: play games, walk more, occasionally stretch. Integrate gym things into your everyday life.

What you don’t want to do is fall into the summer trap. Taking a full week off can do this. You head on vacation, recharge and come home next week to a busy schedule and the priority of the gym keeps getting demoted. If you feel like you’re slipping, get back on ASAP. The longer it lingers, the harder it will be to overcome.

Let’s start July off on the right foot.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

PS: Fourth of July Hours:

CLOSED - Thursday July 4

OPEN 9-12am - Friday July 5

COMMUNITY WORKOUT - Saturday July 6 @ 8am

Most Important Turns

Recently on a podcast, former chess prodigy and world campion in Jiu Jitsu, Josh Waitzkin described what the 3 most important turns are when on a ski run. Waitzkin now spends his time helping top performers and decision makers to operate at full capacity. This question was one that a high level skier friend asked him when teaching Josh how to ski.

The most important turns are the last 3 before you get on the lift. Not the first 3 at the top or in the middle of the run when you’re going to maximum speed, the last 3 just before you shuffle into the lift line. Most people get lazy here, Josh explains. The run is almost done, the turns you take at the bottom usually aren’t as sound technique-wise.

Lazy technique creates bad habits and can set you up for injury. To build on that, Josh claimed that after those lazy turns, you get on the lift and sit down and your body is unconsciously remembering what the most recent turns felt like. If you focus, turn into the line with good technique, there’s some skill in there your brain will remember.

The lesson, don’t mail it in at the end. Keep working diligently till you’re finished so you don’t create any bad habits and you give your brain good information to adapt to.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach