We're In This Together

Now, more than ever we should be making health a priority.

It’s easy to sit around the house, eat junk, watch too much news, not drink any water and have a couple glasses of wine a night. 

I don’t intend for this message to come with doom and gloom, but instead, a new perspective; an opportunity for growth and a chance to focus in on what matters.

How can I help you? Need a weekly FaceTime chat to keep you in line? Need certain stretches you should do on the daily? What about more customized workouts? Anything you need, Alex, Taylor and I are here for you.

We’re going to keep supporting you however we can. I hope you’ll continue to support us too, so when this is all over, we can get back to our normal routines and schedules in the gym. Until then, we’re going to keep up this massive effort and I hope you stay with us through it.

Thank you.

Justin Miner 

@justinminergain

Fundamental Movements and Training Principles

The beauty of strength and conditioning is that it’s simple. The principles used to create the most complicated, science-backed, high-level, detailed (complicated?) strength and conditioning programs can be scaled down and used by everyone using only bodyweight. 

The fundamental movement patterns are just that, foundational movements that humans should be able to do. They’re movements that look like sitting down, getting up from one knee, pushing things away from you, pulling stuff towards you and bending over to pick something up. We see these shapes in daily life and in high performance athletic events. It’s why we don’t have machines in the gym anyway, can you imagine trying to recreate those movements in the comfort of your living room? 

We define the functional movement patterns as follows:

• Squat

• Hinge

• Push

• Pull

• Single Leg

• Core/Carry

In our world, nothing else exists. These are the global movements that will cover our basis as humans, so long as we train with sound principles. Here are the principles we use to guide or programming, whether in a gym full of equipment or in a living room with no equipment at all.

• Work within a safe range of motion

• Scale movements and add variables as needed

• Build functional strength through skill development, practice and repetition

• Develop a robust core

• Develop your cardiovascular system at different intensities

• Improve mobility, flexibility and stability

As we head deeper into this quarantine, you may start to feel lost. Like you’ve lost direction in your training. That’s understandable, we’re in a unique situation and you’re out of your normal routine. It’s a chance to work on some new, different goals though. Instead of missing out on what you normally do, know that we’re still training you with these principles in mind. Will your deadlift max dwindle a little bit? Perhaps, but if you stay fit, move well and continue to follow these training principles, all your former strength is going to be within reach after just a few training sessions.

That’s what we’re doing with the workouts we sent you and the daily workouts we’re posting. We’re embodying these principles and movement patterns to make approachable workouts for you. Is it as hard as 5 down and backs with a heavy sled? No, but working on your forward lunge pattern is similar, and can have a similar training effect for your muscles, tendons and joints. Stick with the plan and not only will you maintain the strength and fitness you’ve built, you’ll continue to cultivate it so when we’re back in the gym, you’ll jump right back to normal.

Justin Miner

@justinminegain

It's Unreliable, Anyway

Motivation is pretty unreliable. We think it’s the magic sauce that’ll take us to the next level and carry us through to see our goals. Many of you have told me over the past several days that your motivation to workout at home is dwindling. The good news is that you don’t need it, you just need to shift your perspective.

Instead of needing motivation to workout, you need discipline.

The backwards part of this is that from discipline comes motivation.

Let’s back up and define these terms.

Discipline (verb): to train or develop by instruction and exercise especially in self-control.

Motivation (noun): the general desire or willingness of someone to do something.

Motivation can be our initial push to do something. The first time you walk in the gym or the first week you’re quarantined at home and forced to workout via Zoom. The issue arises when you think that motivation is going to stick around for you. It short-term, non-lasting and unreliable. It’s finite, we can always rely on it running out, eventually. 

Whether conscious of them or not, our daily lives are built on habits that we’ve created. When motivation dwindles, it becomes more and more difficult to stick with the new habit, like working out at home. That’s where discipline comes in, and we need to learn how to harness it. We can’t just wait for motivation to come back, you’re calling for it and it isn’t going to answer the phone.

Through discipline, we can set up new rules, which will turn into habits for us to stick to. Set a time for your daily workout. Set small goals to build momentum. Habits don’t need to be epic, they can be reasonable. The point I’m trying to make: don’t wait for motivation to come back, it’s not going to. Instead, shift your perspective, find some discipline and get to work. It won’t be easy, but it’s your only option if motivation is gone.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Set Small Goals

We’re all shifting focus, finding new routines and figuring out how to deal with this situation. Last week, I was all over the place. I stayed up really late, slept poorly, consumed too much news and had a hard time getting in a groove.

Yesterday, inspired by Taylor, I set 3 small daily goals. These mini-goals gave me some structure, something to fall back on yesterday when I wasn’t sure what I should be doing. 

My goals were:

1. Two walks a day

2. Read fiction 

3. Mobility and stretching after dinner 

I got them all in yesterday and it was a nice way to build momentum. So now I’m asking you, what are you goals for the week, or for the day? How are you going to improve, or make the most of this situation? What have you been neglecting that you can focus on?

We can’t control the situation but we sure can try to make the best of it. Set some small daily goals for yourself and you’ll be surprised at how good it can make you feel to have some direction.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Virtual Fitness Opportunities

Hey all, thanks for hanging in there. Last week, many of you stuck to your routine, got after it, and still were able to prioritize yourself, even if just for a moment, to get a training session in.

During this time, it’s important to keep routine and keep taking care of yourself. It’s too easy to fall off. To help you combat that, we’re hosting live workouts everyday this week on Zoom. It’s a chance for you to get coached, hang with your Gain buddies and feel normal, even if only for 45 minutes. 

Here’s the schedule for the week and links to the Zoom classes. For Instagram Live, there is no link to join, just sign on Instagram and see the @gain_sc Live Video on the top of your screen. If you can’t make the Instagram Live videos, scroll through your stories to find the replay which you can watch anytime up to 24 hours after it happens.

Along with the live workouts, we’ll be checking in, providing challenge workouts and educational content to keep you engaged and fit during this quarantine.

Monday 3/23

8am - Instagram Live workout with Justin

5:30pm - Zoom Workout with Taylor

CLICK TO JOIN VIRTUAL CLASS at 5:30

Tuesday 3/24

7:30am - Zoom Workout with Justin

CLICK TO JOIN VIRTUAL CLASS at 7:30am

12pm - Instagram Live Foam Rolling with Taylor

5:30pm- Zoom Workout with Alex

CLICK TO JOIN VIRTUAL CLASS AT 5:30pm

Wednesday 3/25

7:30am - Zoom Workout with Taylor

CLICK TO JOIN VIRTUAL CLASS at 7:30am

12pm - Instagram Live Mobility with Justin

5:30pm - Zoom Workout with Alex

CLICK TO JOIN VIRTUAL CLASS at 5:30pm

Thursday 3/26

7:30am - Zoom Workout with Justin

CLICK TO JOIN VIRTUAL CLASS at 7:30am

12pm - Instagram live mobility/stretch with Alex

5:30pm - Zoom Workout with Taylor

CLICK TO JOIN VIRTUAL CLASS at 5:30pm

Friday 3/27

7:30am - Zoom Workout with Justin

CLICK TO JOIN VIRTUAL CLASS at 7:30am

12pm - Zoom Workout with Taylor

CLICK TO JOIN VIRTUAL CLASS at 12pm

Saturday 3/28

9am - Zoom Workout with Alex

CLICK TO JOIN VIRTUAL WORKOUT at 9am

Let’s do it! Be sure to let me know if you have any questions and let’s have a good week together!

Justin Miner

@justinminergian

Bodyweight Training and At-Home Workouts

Out of the gate, let’s be clear. It’s weird. We can’t go to the gym, we’re out of our regular routines and we’re worried that we’re going to lose all our fitness gain since we can’t touch barbells or sleds or our usual band set up for the time being. Let me reassure you, the workouts we’re sending out aren’t just random bodyweight workouts you’re seeing all over the Internet.

We thoughtfully crafted these workouts. They aren’t your usual customized workouts, but you’ll hit each of the fundamental movement patterns each session, taking your body through required range of motion. We’re progressing the workouts, meaning they’re building on one another, adding more reps, or more rounds or more work in less time. We’re challenging core stability and total body mobility.

Keep training hard, move with internet. Create tension, squeeze your butt and be deliberate. If you keep up with all those things, I have no doubt once we’re back in the gym you’ll have all your old strength gains back.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Training = Adaptation

Strength and conditioning is about adaptation. You stress the body, in specific ways, to create a change, or adaptation to a certain stimulus. Textbooks call this the SAID Principle, Specific Adaption to Imposed Demands. 

What the principle doesn’t account for, is that training one thing, makes you more prepared to train for another. For example, if you spend a lot of time getting stronger, you will have an easier time adapting to a challenge of endurance, like running a 10k or biking for 90 minutes. The strength, motor control, body awareness and the knowing what it takes to make changes and adapt leaves you better prepared than someone starting from scratch. 

To put it in less words, knowing how to train for one thing gives you the ability to train and adapt to a host of other things. You know how it works, how to “put the reps in.”

The point I’m getting to; you can adapt to the current situation. From strength and conditioning, you know a few things to be true. Adaptation takes patience, consistency, a growth mindset and willingness to forgive yourself of mistakes, ditching thoughts of perfectionism and most importantly, believing in yourself. 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Three More Daily Challenges

Here are three things for you to try fitting into your day. We’re all off our regular schedule and routine, so I hope these provide a nice break or change of pace for you.

1. Spend 60 minutes outside 

Nothing complicated about this one. Try to get an hour of outside time, especially if you’ll be working on the computer all day.

2. Serving of Veggie at All Meals 

If you’re cooking for yourself today, be sure to include vegetables at every meal you have. It’s a good opportunity to focus in on nutrition and making healthy choices. More veggies are a gateway to better food choices.

3. Workout Twice 

A workout can be short. It can be simple. It doesn’t have to be complicated and last 60 minutes. Try getting in two shorter session today opposed to one big long one. Maybe some bodyweight movements or cardio in the morning followed by something with weights or a mobility session in the afternoon. 

If you’re in need of some rolling and stretching, join me live on Instagram at 9am, I’ll be leading a virtual mobility class.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Control What You Can

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a big reader in stoic philosophy. I revisited this quote several times over the past week and it helped guide my decision to closed Gain’s doors. 

“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own.”

- Epictetus, Discourses

Control what you can control, don’t attempt to control what you can’t.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Three Challenges for You

I have three challenges you can do while you’re at home. They aren’t workouts, per se, but instead physical challenges that will make you think about how you move and use your body. 

1. Single Foot Dish Washing 

While doing your dishes, you’re only allowed to stand on one foot. This includes taking dishes from the sink to the dish washer, but also reaching to put things in drawers or cabinets. This one is trickier than it sounds. 

2. One Show on the Floor 

When you queue up your favorite Netflix show today, sit on the floor the whole time. You can move and change position as much as you’d like, but you can’t get off the floor for the whole show. Some suggestions are cross legged, 90/90, kneeling and anything else you can think of. 

3. 60 Minutes Nasal Only 

Set a timer for 1 hour. During this hour, you’re only allowed to breathe through your nose. This is a good challenge to take on while working on the computer or folding laundry but not while you’re eating or needing to interact. Every time you lose your nose breathing and catch yourself mouth breathing (it will happen more frequently than you expect!) you do a 5 bodyweight squat penalty. Lowest number of squats at the end of the hour wins! 

If you give these a try, be sure to let me know how it goes. Good luck! 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Friday Quote

All I have for you today is this quote from James Clear’s newsletter:

“Your current habits are perfectly designed to deliver your current results.” 

Be safe out there people, wash your hands and eat your veggies! 

Justin Miner 

@justinminergain

Those First Few Reps

When doing a new exercise, or even doing the first set of something for the day, you’ll notice that us coaches don’t say anything at least until you’ve done 3 or 4 reps. This is intentional. We’re trying to let you figure it out, get a couple of wonky reps out of the way. 

The goal is to help you develop a sense of what a “good” movement pattern is without immediate feedback, that would eventually become a movement crutch. Instead of over cueing, we’re going to let you figure them out. It’s okay the first few are a little weird, you’re learning and adapting. 

As a young coach, this was terribly difficult. I wanted everyone’s reps to be perfect all the time! As I’ve gained more experience, I realize you need those subpar reps to learn what a good one feels like. 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Hidden Reps

Josh Waitzkin is a master of many things. A young chess prodigy, black belt in jujitsu, investor and now he’s pursing foiling, a high-speed version of surfing that requires a jet ski to tow you in. Waitzkin goes deep, and teaches people how to master things in unconventional ways, basically he teaches people how to learn better.

Last week I listened to him on the Tim Ferriss Podcast. The interview was full of insights, but one in particular stuck with me, because it’s an easy thing we can all apply in the gym. Find the hidden reps.

Waitzkin was referring to the easy things that you can be lazy about. Finding the hidden reps means taking those reps seriously, practicing them with effort and focus. These opportunities are abundant in the gym. 

Picking up a kettlebell for a one arm carry. It should look like a good deadlift when you get the kettlebell off the floor. Create tension, squeeze the handle and practice your deadlift, even though you’re just carrying the kettlebell. Taking the barbell out of the rack for a squat. Set your feet, get your breath. Don’t just walk out of the cage letting the bar push you around. Even getting up from the floor is an opportunity to find hidden reps. Are you moving smoothly and fluid? Or are you leaning on the wall just because it’s there?

Find more hidden reps in the gym this week. They live outside the gym as well, picking up the laundry basket, carrying groceries and doing the dishes. Hidden reps are everywhere, make sure you’re taking them.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

237

A year ago I attended a leadership workshop for business owners trying to level up. I learned a lot, more than I can wrap my head around really. The unexpected takeaway from the weekend was this blog. I needed a challenge. A way to share ideas, get out of my comfort zone and develop writing skills. I needed a new practice to commit to, stick with and grind through. Something to both love and hate at the same time. 

Sitting in LAX, early in the morning on March 10th, I wrote the first post, titled “Consistency.” It was a note to myself. Stick with it even if I failed, even if I didn’t want to continue. Well, here we are, 237 posts later. 

There were some thought provoking, conversation starting posts. There were some posts with too many typos to even bother editing. Sometimes the ideas flowed and sometimes I sat on the couch with my face in my palms, worried that this morning would be the morning I didn’t get anything posted. Through practice, grit and planning I posted every weekday for the past year.

Writing doesn’t come easy and my introverted tendency is to never share anything personal. But the words are starting to flow more, I can feel my writing develop and change and this blog provides endless conversations with you all each week. I hope by reading you’re challenged to try on different perspectives, evaluate yourself objectively and you learn something new every now and then. 

I’m proud that I did this for a year in a row, but I’m not pausing to celebrate, I’m keeping my head down and continuing the work. 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain 

Springing Ahead

Our sleep is precious. If you ever had any doubt as to how precious, just talk to someone the morning after daylight savings. Yesterday, we all woke up a little groggy, confused as to what time it really was and we all missed that hour of sleep that was stolen away from us. 

In Why We Sleep, Dr. Matthew Walker explains that there are more instances of heart attacks and car crashes when we spring ahead. We’re such creatures of habit, no wonder fast forwarding an hour ahead throws us all off. 

This isn’t a blog about writing your congress person to ditch the outdated idea, instead, it’s an appeal that you just need to deal with it. Over the past decade as a coach and trainer, every time we spring ahead our clocks I notice the changes in people the next few days after. The people who groan about it, how it throws their routine off, are more disrupted than those who just accept it is 6am now and not actually 5am. 

If you’re still dragging and feel off. Be sure to expose yourself to morning and evening light to help regulate your circadian rhythm, your body can use the sun to wake up or wind down. Shut the screens down tonight and open up a book to try and wind down so you can get to bed at a regular time. Ridiculous idea or not, we need to be able to adapt to it. 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Unplug

You ever have trouble with your iPhone or WiFi modem? You probably know the easiest solution is to turn it off and turn it back on. This reset works like a charm to fix funky electronics, a common problem we all run into. 

When I saw this quote in James Clear’s newsletter, I had to share it. 

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes , including you.”

- Anne Lamott

Unplug this weekend and hit the reset button.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Pace Boat

Alex has come up with a great way to make you push harder on the SkiErg and rowing machine, using the built in pace boat. 

The rudimentary graphics on the screen show two boats (or skiers). The top one is you, and it moves according to your pace per 500 meters. The bottom boat is the pace boat. We can set the pace boat so it’s just out of reach for you to keep chasing it to keep the intensity high, or we can set it at a reasonable pace if we want you to keep it steady and not come out too hot. 

I gave this a shot yesterday on the rower and it brought a whole new level of intensity to my interval workout.

Give it a try the next time you’re on the erg! 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

More Foot Stuff

Lots of good discussion yesterday about feet. Today, I want to provide two simple things you can do to treat your feet better.

Roll the bottoms of them a couple times a week. Two minutes per foot is a good start. This helps untangle the mess of being in shoes and boots all the time.

Walk barefoot. You don’t need to do anything crazy, but ditch the shoes, slippers and socks while you’re cooking dinner and pay attention to what your arch and muscles are doing while you walk and stand around. 

The only way to develop strong, healthy feet is to create an awareness around what they’re doing all day. 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Foot Core

Our feet get no love. We’ve been taught that our feet are weak, that they need special orthotics, maximum cushion and we shouldn’t spend anytime barefoot. Our feet are complex, and have implications for so many other parts of our body.

You probably know that I’m a fan of minimalist shoes. I wear as little shoe as possible to help my feet stay strong and adaptable. It took years of building up their strength, but once I did, I realized how messed up my feet where from years of high heeled Nike sneakers and hockey skates. 

When I saw this concept of the foot core on Instagram and had to share it here. 

McKeon, et al. wrote a paper called "The foot core system: a new paradigm for understanding intrinsic foot muscle function.”  The paper gets into the mechanisms of the foot and why us humans developed an arch to begin with. It’s was to be able to run and carry loads. 

The foot core, according to the authors are the intrinsic plantar musculature. These muscles support and stabilize the structure of the foot and the arch. What the authors call, global movers, are muscles that originate in the lower leg, and cross the ankle joint. These muscles create movement movement in the foot and help stabilize the arch. 

All of these muscles work together to build a strong, well-functioning foot and lower leg. Having a strong “foot core,” can make your feet strong and resilient, just like training your core can make your spine strong, stable and resilient. Want to start working on your foot core? Ditch the shoes during your warm up at Gain, the more time you spend barefoot the better.

Justin Miner 

@justinminergain

More Speed = More Force

Strength is about how much force you can produce. Put another way, force is equal to how quickly you can move the mass of an object, you might remember that from physics class, F = Ma. 

So if force is the strength we produce and the mass is the load of the implement we’re using, whether a barbell or kettlebell or dumbbell, the “a” stands for acceleration. 

I feel bad for the poor small “a.” It gets no love in the strength and fitness world where more weight, or mass rules the concerns of coaches, trainers and fitness enthusiasts everywhere. If you look at the equation though, you’ll realize that if the acceleration improves, the force, or strength side of the equation will improve.  

Let’s take a push up for example. A push up is tricky to add external load. Assuming you haven’t done one on the floor, we can add more load by lowering the height of the bar. It would be in your best interest to also try to do the up motion of the push up with speed. 

This, in turn will help develop strength in that motor pattern, and all you had to do differently was push a little harder. We still want to be under control, don’t forget that, but trying to move a bit quicker will have positive implications for your strength gains. 

Justin MIner

@justinminergain