Consistent Pursuits

The other day I listened to runner Rickey Gates on the Rich Roll Podcast. It was a great episode, and Rickey has done a lot of cool things like run across America, run every single street in San Francisco and competed at a high level all over the world in ultra trail running.

Fascinating stories aside, something Rickey mentioned on the podcast really stuck with me. He talked about consistent pursuits. Specifically, he talked about how he’s been running for 25 years, and how sticking with something that long lets you really get to know it, which, translates to knowing yourself. Gates was very clear - this pursuit doesn’t need to be physical, it can be knitting, reading, woodworking, painting, lifting or a host of other things. My question to you: what you you consistently pursued for many years on end? If you’re in search of something, I have good news for you, strength and conditioning can fill that void. 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

More Weight Please

Back in 2015 we had just two medicine balls. An 8 pounder and a 12 pounder. For most of the year, the 12 pound ball got zero use. No one wanted to use it, not because it was heavy, because it was the heaviest. People would look at their options and shy away from the heavier ball purely because it was the heaviest option. Once we added a 20 pound ball to our arsenal, people would casually grab the 12 without second thought. 

I expected the same thing to happen when we added the huge 88 pound kettlebells. Except I was wrong. Instead of shying away, people wanted to pick them up. People wanted to see if they had the strength to lift that thing off the floor. Deadlift confidence went up. We were pumped. 

Since so many of you are casually deadlifting the 88, we got a 100 pound kettlebell. I’m predicting two things. Many people who have lifted the 88 will easily progress to the heavier, larger bell. The people who were maybe scared of the 88 no longer will be, since it’s no longer the heaviest. Who’s going to be the first to deadlift it? Will any one be able to swing it? What about a get up? I’m excited to find out. 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Struck a Nerve

When I got home on Monday night, I was reflecting on how my day went. The past two Monday’s punched me in the face and I felt like I was reacting to everything and totally unprepared. On Sunday, I took 20 minutes and organized my week in my notebook, a practice I normally do but have gotten away from over the past couple months. I came up with a rough idea for workouts for the week, coaching schedule, meetings and even came up with a game plan as to how I would eat each day. It was really helpful and instead of Monday morning being a total shock to the system, I was ready and prepared. 

Back to Monday night. I was home and reflecting on the day and I still needed to make an Instagram post to the Gain page. So I asked the Gain Community a question, “Grade yourself, how did you start the week?”

To my surprise, this was the least interacted with post ever. People did not like that I asked them to be introspective and actually grade themselves on how they did. Now, I don’t really care about the likes, but I hope it made you stop and reflect and ponder how things could have been better or different. In order to improve, we need to be able to reflect and be introspective and frequently ask ourselves, how did I do today? 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

First Gain Social of 2020

The last Wednesday of every month we host a get together for Gain members to flex their social muscles, have a bite to eat and enjoy a drink with some other Gainers. 

I’ll be making chili for the occasion tomorrow. Stick around after your workout or come back and hang with your gym friends and coaches. 

Wednesday 1/29

6:30pm-8:00pm

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Dialed

There are 16 weeks between now and the race I’m training for. It’s time to double down on focus, sleep, food and of course, running. Most of the year, my workout plan is to do whatever I feel like. Sometimes I’ll do something I’ve been neglecting and other times there are dedicated periods of focus on one particular movement or movements. Probably once a year, for 12-16 weeks I get dialed in as best I can to ramp up for a big race.

There’s a misconception that you need to be dialed in all the time for training to be effective. This of course, is not true. As we head into the 5th week of 2020, remember, it’s okay not to be all in, all the time. Choose periods where you’re going to workout more, be more strict and also pick periods of downtime. This is crucial to long term fitness success.

Trying to be in race shape all year is a formula to burn out. Ramp it up hard once or twice. Work toward something specific. The rest of the time, make sure you’re still getting after it, but maybe it’s less focused than a ramp up for an event or goal, and that’s okay too. 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Beyond Impossible

Have you had an impossible burger yet? They weren’t on my radar until I started noticing McDonalds, Dunkin and Burger King advertising their healthier-than-red-meat alternatives.

That’s when I became suspicious. I have vegetarian friends and clients telling me how tasty they are and how much healthier they are than real meat. Why are fast food chains who are driven by profit, and not the health of their consumer, trying to sell them? It doesn’t make sense. 

The other day in McKinnon’s I saw an advertisement for vegan seafood. 

My issue, and the reason I’m bringing this to your attention isn’t to bash vegans or vegetarians. In fact, I think we can all up our vegetable game. The issue is that you’re being lied to. Impossible Burgers and non-meat shrimp aren’t health food. They’re highly processed, multi-ingreidient, fake food. They’re as fake as Twinkies and Oreos and all that other stuff we like. It’s junk food in disguise as health food. 

As I already mentioned and would like to reiterate; I have nothing against being vegan or vegetarian. There’s no doubt about it though that real, whole, unprocessed foods are the path to a long and healthy life. If fast food chains are hawking your new favorite product, I’d question their motive and I’d question whether or not it’s actually a health food or a marketing scam. 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Sleeping More

I was never the teenager who slept until noon. The early morning is my favorite part of the day. Waking up between 4-5am has a drawback though, you need to get to bed early in order to get a full 8 hours. I’ve never focused on getting 8 hours. I usually just go to bed when I’m tired. 

For the past week, I wanted to see if I could get a solid 8 hours every night. What would I need to do differently and how different would I feel getting an extra 30-60 minutes each night? 

Here are my stats for the past 7 nights:

1/17/20 -  7h31m

1/18/20 -  7h46m

1/19/20 - 7h15m

1/20/20 - 8h6m

1/21/20 - 8h40m

1/22/20 - 7h29m

1/23/20 - 8h43m

I feel more awake and more willing to do things like clean the kitchen, do the dishes and pack myself a lunch when I hit that full 8 hours. On days I only get 7, I find myself reaching for an extra cup of coffee early in the morning and again later in the day. Nothing shocking there. I try to take a short power nap every day, regardless of the amount of sleep I get.

Nothing surprising here, right? I feel more awake and alert when I get more sleep. We all know that and we all know we should probably be sleeping more. The reason I’m sharing this with you today is two fold.

First, to hold myself accountable. By sharing, I now have some social pressure to keep going with my experiment. Secondly, if you’re one of the many people who have talked to me about getting more sleep, I wanted to show you that it isn’t going to happen by just hoping you sleep more. Work on your night time routine, set a hard bedtime, try some breathing or tea or no screens and figure out what works for you. Track your nightly Z’s to get some data on how you’re doing so you can figure out how to improve. It won’t happen without some effort. 

Justin Miner 

@justinminergain

Long Term Thinking Isn't Slow Moving

I talk a lot of thinking long term. It’s important and the inability to do so is why people have the relationships with health and fitness that they do. They can’t see one, five or ten years into the future to see how small daily actions impact the long run. 

James Clear posted this on Instagram yesterday:

“The paradox of life is that the greatest returns come In the long-term, but opportunity cost of moving slowly is huge.

Long term thinking is not slow acting.

Act fast on things that compound. Never let a day pass without doing something that will benefit you a decade from now.”

These small decisions we make everyday impact us years in the future. It’s about making small tweaks each day over a long period of time. What are you going to do today that will help your future self?

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Trigger Point

You’ve probably done this week’s warm up by now. If you have, you’ve already experienced the discomfort of rolling your shoulder muscles with the lacrosse ball. Rolling, or sometimes annoyingly called myofacial release, is a method of applying pressure to cranky spots on your muscles. 

These cranky spots, sometimes known as trigger points can limit range of motion, create discomfort and even lead to postural imbalances. Nothing takes the place of a skilled massage therapist, but with a ball we can take a pretty good crack at sore or tight or stiff muscles. Rolling will restore motion and give you access to ranges you didn’t think you had.

The posterior shoulder, which we’re focusing on this week is particularly tender. That’s because it’s a high traffic zone. Lots of muscles, tendons and ligaments and fascia all merge together and connect on the shoulder or shoulder blade. These muscles all want to move with one another. Rolling can help restore these sliding surfaces, essentially making everything under your skin cooperate better. 

It’s uncomfortable. But don’t cut it short. If you’re skeptical, try a test and retest to see the difference it makes. Try a push up before and after your 2 minutes of shoulder rolling and you’ll notice the difference right away. 

Justin Miner 

@justinminergain

Universal

My favorite coaching cues work for multiple exercises. I’m not sure they’re even cues, but principles of movement. Today, we’re going to talk about foot pressure, and keeping the weight on your mid foot. Whether you’re deadlifting, squatting, lunging olympic lifting, jumping, rowing or skiing, the mid foot principle applies. 

The idea is simple. We want our weight balanced between the toes and the heel. Not too much in the heel that your toes lift and not too forward that your heel lifts. In the middle, in the sweet spot. This allows you to call in for reinforcements and recruit all your potential strength. It almost guarantees proper body alignment elsewhere, your feet won’t lie. 

Whether you’re deadlifting, squatting or even bench pressing today, see if you can find that sweet spot of pressure on your foot. You’ll be surprised how much it cleans up your movement.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

The Sweet Relief of Pressure

I registered for two races yesterday.

I was telling Hannah about the races and my potential plan to sign up for them. Just thinking about having something on my calendar to train for brought a huge relief. It was like a weight lifted off my shoulder - I’ll have something hanging over my head to make me push hard, train consistently and get out of my comfort zone.

I needed the pressure of something to train towards. It makes running in the rain and mud easier, easier getting in pre-dawn runs and after sunset runs. I’m excited to dial it in.

What’s on your calendar holding you accountable?

Justin Miner 

@justinminergain

Those Last Few Reps

When strength training, the last few repetitions of a set should be challenging. More challenging than the first couple. Those reps where you have to push a little harder to grind out the set is where strength is built. 

After doing that a couple times in a training session. Your body says, "wow, if they’re going to keep pushing to that limit, we better adapt to it.”

Your body spends the next day or two recovering and repairing the damage from the (good) stress of strength training. 

Don’t mistake difficult reps for sloppy reps. Form is always priority number one. If you’re looking to get stronger though, make sure the weight is challenging you enough to force adaptation.  

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Going Under

Breathing while exercising can be frustrating. Beginners hold their breath, intermediate trainees know to breathe but aren’t sure exactly when. For a coach, it’s a tricky situation. Here we are trying to teach you to squat, already having given you too many things to think about, adding breathing (and don’t forget counting) into the mix and it can become overwhelming. 

Breathing is important during strength training for a reason you might not suspect. Your breath creates pressure inside your body, which results more stability.  More pressure = more stability = more strength. 

This technique should be used for heavy sets of squatting and deadlifting. With lighter loads or bodyweight movements, our breathing can be more fluid throughout the lift. Heavy weights however, we want to be cautious of when we breath. Both to increase performance and safety. 

Imagine you’re heavy goblet squatting. It was challenging just getting the kettlebell up to your chest. At the top, you take a couple big breaths in. Simultaneously, you’re going to squeeze your abs and maintain outward pressure in your trunk. When you start the squat, imagine you’re going underwater. 

Since we can’t breathe underwater you're going to hold your breath to maintain pressure and stability. Once my head cracks above the surface when rising, you can exhale. After finishing the rep, standing tall and squeezing your glutes, big inhale and start the process over again.  

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Consistent vs Heroic

We all associate a great workout with heroic efforts, puddles of sweat and red faces. While that’s all well and good, gasping for air and sweat aren’t the only markers of a good workout. Many of us fall into this trap of believing that our training sessions need to leave us laying on the floor.

While heroic efforts are great, consistent efforts are more impressive.

We can have great workouts by showing up, practicing good movement, getting quality repetitions in and taking care of your body. This idea that your workout is punishment for whatever poor lifestyle choices you made makes me want to scream.

Not only is that unsustainable, it builds on the unhealthy relationship of moving and working out by requiring you to do something “bad” in order do something “good.” It’s how many people think about fitness.

Motivation and willpower are diminishing resources. You can’t always rely on them to produce superhero like workouts.

So where does that leave us in our definition of a good workout?

A good workout is anytime that you take care of yourself.

Anything you do to make your body feel better or to move more.

You should workout to feel better, not to punish yourself. That means, sometimes an easy workout is okay, and probably necessary.

Stop being so hard on yourself. Focus on consistency, your body will thank you.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Building Momentum

Momentum is a powerful force of productivity. When we have the ball rolling, decisions become clear and we feel unstoppable. 

How can you build momentum to start your day? For me, I do the dishes first thing. Once I check off that brainless task, it becomes easier to wrap my head around making coffee and starting to write or edit a blog post. 

Maybe you hit the gym and get a workout in. Maybe getting that workout in on Monday builds momentum for you to hit the gym more often than the snooze button this week. It might be setting the tone and having a salad for lunch today. Whatever builds momentum for you - use it! 

Find places to build momentum to get stuff done. Get on a hot streak of workouts, healthy food choices and early bedtimes. Figure out how to build momentum in your day so one good choice can lead to many more.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Boots and Feet

This time of year it’s not uncommon to hear clients mention their feet are achy or tired or stiff. It’s January after all, we’re in the midst of boot season, it’s a New England necessity to get around in the winter. You might be doing some snowshoeing, skiing and hanging out in your slippers at home too. 

What I’m getting towards is that it’s hard to find time to be barefoot. Our feet like being on the ground, not jammed and squeezed in tight boots. Since we need boots to get around, we can do a couple things to mitigate foot crankiness for the rest of winter. 

First, spend a little time here and there barefoot when at home. I love my warm fuzzy Ugg slippers, but I also notice when it’s been a little too long since I’ve walked around with nothing on my feet. The other thing I do after a long day playing in the snow wearing boots and microspikes is roll my feet.

Take a ball, lacrosse ball is the perfect size, and simply roll and press the bottom of your foot into the ball. You’ll notice this feels pretty good and I promise it’ll make your feet happy. Give it a shot! 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

800g Challenge

I’ve talked to many of you about this new challenge I’ve been undertaking. I first mentioned it to the Fall Nutrition Group way back in November and wrote a blog post about it in early December called Breakfast Salad.

Many people have been intrigued by this undertaking, but most ask, “how much is 800 grams?”

I’m learning as I get older the answer to most questions is: it depends. Tuesday was a great example of how I’m eating this many veggies. I had two big meals, both of which I got all my veggies for the day and two other small meals that didn’t have veggies at all. What I’m saying is that it isn’t impossible to do if you’re busy.

My first meal of the day was a Perfect Bar after an at home workout. This was around 8am.

At 11am I ate my big ass salad. Romaine, red and white cabbage, peppers, onion, and cherry tomatoes all counted towards the 375 grams you see below. I also added sliced almonds, olives, Parmesan cheese, sunflower seeds and some Primal Kitchen salad dressing.

A couple hours later, I had a chicken salad sandwich that I made.

When I got home later that night, I had 1 cup of rice, 4 eggs and a whole bunch of veggies. The shredded brussels, whole yellow pepper and whole zucchini added up to 408 grams.

Now if you’re doing the math at home, you’re right, I fell 17 grams short. Truthfully, I don’t care. The purpose of the challenge (to me) is to eat more vegetables, I checked that box on this day.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Willpower

Driving past Planet Fitness the other morning, I couldn’t believe the amount of cars in the parking lot. Later that day, I drove past another one, packed house. It was then I realized it’s January, and peoples’ motivation is high. 

In just a few weeks, the parking lot will clear about but peoples’ bank accounts will still get hit with a monthly membership and they’ll proclaim to their friends, “I tried doing the gym thing, but just couldn’t stick with it.”

This New Year’s crowd relies solely on motivation. They’re hoping that their will to get to the gym more frequently will carry them to chiseled abs and smaller jean sizes. Now, if you’re reading this, you’re probably already aware that motivation will only take you so far. You cannot rely on your willpower to do something, as Charles Duhigg says in The Power of Habit, willpower is finite, it diminishes as you use it. 

So if you’re playing the long game, which you should be, you know you can’t rely on willpower or motivation to keep you hitting the gym 3 times a week for 3 years. So what does it take? Well, to be blunt, it takes discipline. It takes the ability to tell yourself to shut up and go do it anyway. Sometimes it’s hard, and sometimes it’s easy, but regardless of how long you’ve trained, you’re going to have that battle. 

Build a habit. Go when you don’t want to go and notice how good it feels when you leave the building, sweaty and accomplished.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

The Goblet Squat

There’s a secret exercise that many gyms don’t know about. They’re rarely seen in Planet Fitness and athletes everywhere scoff at the light load. The movement is a goblet squat. It’s the best tool in the toolbox when it comes to learning how to properly squat, i.e., squatting in a safe position without making your hips or knees or back mad at you.

By holding a weight, a kettlebell or dumbbell, in front of your chest you automatically “turn on” your trunk muscles that create stiffness. This does two things, it protects your spine when you move, and it allows you to keep your torso more upright than if you didn’t have the weight. 

This upright torso and automatically braced core cleans up a lot of peoples’ squat pattern. It lets you know what it feels like to “load” your hips, maintain a balanced foot and will transfer to other squatting and hinging variations.

Whether you have worn out knees, buggy hips or a nagging lower back injury, goblet squatting can be a safe way to load and train the lower body.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Shorten Your Time Frame

I had a lot of great goal chats last week. The gym was buzzing with new ideas, new found motivation and a desire to kick ass in 2020. A funny observation, no one told me their goal for January. Many of you have big plans for 2020, but no one seems to know what they’re going to do in January that will affect the rest of the year. 

I’m not a New Year’s Resolution basher, but if you’ve spent the last couple weeks thinking of all the stuff you’re going to start doing in the New Year, but have no action plan as to what you’re going to accomplish today, you don’t really have goals, you have a desires list. 

You need something to work towards, something you can check a box off on every day. A year is a nice time frame. We have a starting an ending point so it becomes easy for us to say “I’ll do X this year.” This mindset however, bypasses the short term. What do you need to do now? What do you need to do the first 3 months opposed to the last 3 months? 

If you have some solid goals, great, I’ll do everything I can to help get you there. If you’re unsure what you want to do this year, forget thinking about goals in terms of a year. What can you do in January, February and March? What can you do this week or today?

Shorten your timeframe if you’re overwhelmed or unsure what you’re trying to do.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain