Not Just the Shoulders

One of the reasons push ups, and various overhead pressing movements are so important might surprise you. 

It has nothing to do with building strength or gaining muscle.

It’s about getting your body to work better together.

On movements like a push up, overhead press or angled bar press, the shoulder blade must move with the shoulder. This is key to healthy, robust shoulders. When we do a floor press, or a bench press, our shoulder blades are “pinned,” meaning they aren’t moving in congruency with the shoulder joint itself. 

One isn’t better than the other. Rather, they’re both important in a strength and conditioning program. 

Other movements we want to see your shoulder blades moving include:

Sled marches (arms out straight allows this to happen, imagine it as an iso hold of the position I’m referring too, just like planks)

Wall balls

Medicine ball slams 

Medicine ball chest passes 

Anti-rotation presses

And we even want to see shoulder blades engaged on things like high and low planks - this shows us your shoulder is in the most stable position. When this doesn’t happen, we can see a winging happening where the scapula is poking out of your shirt.

Remember, it’s not just the shoulder, but all the other stuff that attaches to it as well. 

Justin Miner

@gain_sc

Gary shows us a solid high plank position here.

PushPress Goes Live Thursday

I just wanted to give one last reminder that we’re moving on from Mindbody starting on Thursday 10/1.

That means all payments and scheduling will take place through the new system.

If you haven’t added your credit card via the email from Gain, you need to do so ASAP to prevent any disruption in your membership.

If you have updated your credit card and personal info, you’re good to start booking sessions through the new app called PushPress Member’s Portal.

So far, people are liking the simplicity of the new app and I’m looking forward to easier payments and scheduling for us all.

In another note, you’ll notice your favorite times might be easier to get into.

We’ve upped the session capacity from 5 to 6 people. We’ll still be able to keep everyone physically distant and keep up with all the new protocols. We’re expecting our rack expansion any day now which will make things even better.

Justin Miner

@gain_sc

Slowing it Down with Tempo

You might have had some crazy slow squats in your program last week. The emphasis of the entire week for many of you was tempo.

When we program in tempo, or slow, controlled reps, we’re doing a few things.

First, we’re hoping to increase strength via time under tension. The more time your muscles and tissues are under load, the more stimulus they have to make adaptations. It’s feedback to the system that you’re ready for more.

On top of that, it’s all about motor control. Meaning, can you slow down and control your body? Your joints, your breathing, your balance and stability? When forced to slow down, you get exposed. You can speed through sticky spots, or places where you slightly lose your balance. This slower tempo demands more control from you, more focus.

The final reason is from a practicality standpoint. At some point, the weights you use might be enough. While it’s important to always chase more strength, we don’t always have to make things harder by adding more load. Slowing you way down can make the same weights much more challenging. Think of it as extending the effectiveness of the same load. 

Think of the runner who does the same route every day. They know exactly how long it’ll take them. After a while, it no longer becomes challenging for their system. They’re physiologically adapted to be really good at that route. Make them run with a friend one day and they might get cooked running faster than normal. 

If you were to do the same weight, same tempo, same rep scheme all the time, you’d get really good at squatting that weight. But as soon as you try to do more, it would be disproportionally difficult. Instead, a well-thought out strength and conditioning program varies the load, rep schemes, volume and tempo to allow you to always be challenging your physiology. 

Since we’re so good at adapting, we must modify some variables to maintain the right amount of stress on the system. 

Justin Miner

@gain_sc

My Foot Journey

I recently listened to a wonderful podcast all about the evolution and subsequent devolution of our feet.  In the episode, Dr. Peter Attia interviews Dr. Irene Davis, a researcher and expert in all things feet and running mechanics. I’m also on my third (or fourth) reading of Sapiens, which I can’t recommend enough. It’s a deep dive into the origin of humans. All of this of course, coincided with the birth of my son. This got me thinking about his development, and specifically, what kinds of footwear we’ll put him in as he’s growing up. Shoes have barely been around for most of human history when you stop and realize that we’ve been walking around on two feet for almost two million years. 

The podcast recommends minimalist footwear, more time barefoot, and staying away from maximally cushioned running shoes. Today, however, I want to share with you my foot journey and how I curated my healthy, resilient feet and why I’m not always so fast to recommend a minimalist shoe for everyone. 

It all started in 2010.

I was in college and I was spending the summer interning and training hard for the upcoming hockey season at a strength and conditioning gym.

One day, someone brought us in a copy of Born to Run. If you’re not familiar, McDougall’s book is a wonderful exploration of running mechanics and history of human beings using running to survive. 

I was anti-running at the time. I was bad at it, it always hurt and I found it incredibly boring. I did however appreciate the ancestral perspective of the book. Of how humans needed to run in order to track down game to eat. Something Harari talks about in Sapiens as well. Back then of course, there were no Nikes, no Hokas, no shoes at all. Just bare feet on earth. That made sense to me. I found it fascinating at how adaptable we were.

Throughout the book McDougall makes reference to a Vibram Five Finger shoe. 

Training barefoot was not a new idea to us at the gym. For years we had been doing our deadlifts in socks and squatting exclusively in Converse Chuck Taylor’s. We didn’t do it for health reasons though. We did it for performance. We knew that if our heel was on the ground, instead of raised up by a sneaker, we would transfer force better, and therefore lift more weight. 

Now, let me back up just a bit. 

While we were spending time training in the gym barefoot, my feet certainly were not in good condition. I had spent most of the past 18 or so years jamming my feet into hockey skates. My little toe had disappeared under my foot, and my three other toes had wedged themselves together. Like most other hockey players, I had developed bone spurs on my heels, aptly named Bauer bumps after a brand of skates. 

As I read McDougall’s case against modern footwear, I couldn’t help but feel singled out. His argument made sense to me. I needed to get myself a pair of these five finger shoes. 

If you’re not familiar, the Vibram Five Finger shoes are exactly what they sound like. A glove for your feet, if you will. Comprised mostly of neoprene, each toe has it’s own individual sleeve, forcing them to spread out. On the bottom is only a thin slice of rubber there to protect you from hot surfaces, but if you stepped on a small jagged rock, you would really feel it. 

After I found a pair, I did something unintentionally intelligent. I only wore them while coaching, probably just a few hours a day. My toes hurt and my arches were sore but I was committed to doing the natural human thing. I only wore them while coaching because they’re silly looking and they smelled really bad.

After a while I started deadlifting in them and then before I knew it I was doing all my training in them. 

Fast forward to that winter and I couldn’t stand putting them on they smelled so bad. It was just my luck that New Balance came out with the first shoe in their minimus line at the time. A new concept, this shoe was designed for strength and conditioning, had a wide toe box to let your toes spread, had no arch support, and had only a few millimeters difference between the heel and the toe of the shoe, something known as drop, which I had learned about in Born to Run. 

Since these looked like normal shoes, I wore them much more often than the five fingers. To my luck, my feet were ready to spend more time in this style of shoe since I had spent the summer building my tolerance.

Over the years, my toes continued to spread out, my bone spurs have completely disappeared and I try to exclusively wear minimalist shoes, which were barely a thing back when my journey started.

Nowadays, footwear is swinging the other way.

Its common to see maximally cushioned, high arch, high heeled shoes, and I think we’re missing the boat. Born to Run is to blame for this too. See, after the book, thousands of other people were inspired like me and went out to get themselves some five finger shoes. Runners everywhere ditched their traditional shoes and went right back to training with a less protective, much less forgiving shoe and all of a sudden, minimalist shoes had a bad reputation because so many of these people got injured.

As the shoe’s popularity was grew, Vibram did something stupid. They said their shoes will prevent injuries. They didn’t recommended starting slow, building your tolerance and not trying to do too much too soon. Remember when I said I did something unintentionally intelligent? That was starting slow, only wearing the shoes for 12-15 hours a week at first. I didn’t do any running in them and also worked on stretching, rolling and improving mobility in my feet and ankles. 

This led to a somewhat-famous lawsuit, which in my opinion is why maximalist shoes have now become so popular.

People wanted to throw these Five Finger shoes on and expected their running technique to transform into a fluid natural stride like the Tarahumara Indians in Born to Run. It’s not that simple though. Just like it took my feet years and years to start looking more like hockey skates than feet, it takes years of dedication to bring them back to a more natural state.

The reason I’m not too fast to recommend a minimalist style shoe nowadays is because I worry people will expect too much from them too soon. An ideal way to dip your toes in the water is to wear them just at the gym. They’re better to train in. Period. You’ll be more stable, have better balance and wearing them for 3-4 hours a week will slowly let you build up a tolerance to more barefoot time. If you’re a runner, it may take even longer since you’re not going to want to start over. I think running in a shoe your comfortable in while spending some time with shoes off when not running is a good start.

When you’re home, I recommend making sure you get some time with nothing on your feet and you’ve probably seen a lot of people walking around the gym in just their socks, another great way to start rebuilding your feet. 

The key point is that your feet were designed to be barefoot. Humans walked around with nothing down there for far longer than Nikes have been around. We’re really good at adapting, which is why it might take you a full year or two until you start feeling more comfortable in a more barefoot style shoe. Expecting too much from your feet is what gets people into trouble and, as I mentioned above, led to the pendulum swing of ultra cushioned shoes that do the exact opposite of what we need. 

Today, I still spend as much time in a minimalist shoe as possible. In the podcast, Dr. Irene Davis defines a minimalist shoe and something you can fold up and put in your pocket and has zero difference between the height of the heel and the height of the toe. I realize there’s utility in other shoes and don’t spend all my time in a zero drop shoes. My trail/mountain running shoes have a bit of a lift (4mm) and I even have a cushy pair for days on the trail when I’m feeling beat up. I wear 3/4 inch drop olympic lifting shoes when practicing my cleans and snatches and my everyday pair is a 2mm drop. 

In summary, your feet are important and jamming them into dress shoes, high heels and traditional sneakers with a 1 inch drop all will slowly deform your feet and transform them into something different. Remember, don’t drop your current footwear and go total minimalist yet. Start slow, a few hours a week is enough to build your strength and tolerance. If you play the long game with this I promise it’ll be worth it.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Squatting, Lunging and Hinging

What we do at Gain is functional, in that it’ll help you do normal life stuff not in the context of a gym with set rep schemes and nice evenly distributed weights like kettlebells. 

Hannah and I have gotten a first hand dose of how important that stuff really is after being home with the baby for a week. 

There are countless times I’ve found myself squatting, hinging and lunging. Either to pick up something up while holding the baby, picking him up out of the crib or carefully going about household chores with him in tow. 

I’m sharing this as a reminder of what we do in the gym is about so much more than just getting fit, or looking good or perform well. It’s about being about to tackle life without any restrictions and not letting your physical self hold you back. Remember that when you’re lacking motivation.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Goodbye Mindbody

The day has finally come to move on from Mindbody.

After years of headaches, missing class times, multiple profiles, members being unable to find Gain in the plethora of gyms, spin studios, doggie day cares and hair salons, we finally have a solution for all of us.

Our new system is call Push Press.

This switch will give you, the member, less headaches and will let us coaches focus on what we love doing; training you.

You will receive a few emails from Push Press starting today.

The first thing you'll have to do is update your credit card information. Use the link to be taken to a secure site so you can save your info.

Once you update your billing info, we'll get you set up on your plan. We'll be honoring all membership prices and billing dates. i.e., if you paid on 9/15 through MB, you won't be billed on Push Press until 10/15.

While you're updating your profile, please make sure your mailing address, phone number and all that good stuff are up to date too. You'll have to resign the waiver before booking your first session too.

Scheduling on Push Press will take effect on October 1.

NO CLASS TIMES BOOKED AFTER SEPT 30 THROUGH MINDBODY WILL BE HONORED.

Once you get your profile updated and create your password. You can download the Push Press Member Portal on your phone. After logging in, it may take a day or two until you're able to book a class, I need to manually update everyone's plan before it'll let you book. I'll be updating as quickly as I can, with the goal of having everyone up and running by the end of this week.

Next week may be a little chaotic, using MB for booking Monday-Wednesday and Push Press for Thursday and Friday. Please bare with us as we make this upgrade. The quicker your info gets updated, the easier it'll be for us all.

Details to Keep in Mind:

Rules are the same. Book before 6 hours, cancel within 2.

Waitlist rules are the same too. The first time you sign in for a waitlist you'll be asked if you want to be notified via text or email. You'll be able to make changes to your preference in your profile.

You'll be able to book classes out as far as you'd like.

Thank you all for you taking time out of your day to help us with this sizable transition.

The coaches and I really appreciate your help with this transition and are looking forward to easier scheduling for you all in the near future.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Reset

First things first. If you haven’t heard through the grapevine yet, Elliot was born a week ago on Monday September 14th.

We’re home, healthy and happy. I won’t be around the gym this week, I’m going to soak up as much time as possible with him and Hannah.

I wanted to use today as an opportunity to talk about training though, and how we, even in times of uncertainty and sleep deprivation need to take care of ourselves to enable us to help others.

I haven’t ran in 2 or 3 weeks. Honestly, the break has been nice and I haven’t missed it too much yet. Many people run to relive stress, but when the baby was going to show up at any moment I found it too difficult to drop everything and head to the woods. 

I still need movement though. I still need to sweat, breathe and get outside. So I’ve been prioritizing two things.

I’m walking with a goal of 15 thousand steps a day. Since we’ve been home with the baby I’ve been able to achieve this, or come close. All it takes is two walks. A medium-length and a long one, plus a lot of running around the house. 

The other things I’ve been doing is 5 minute workouts.

There are no expectations to these sessions. No goals, no warm up. Just pick two or three movements and get a couple of sets in.

This has been huge for me. I try to do it outside. 

The break. The sweat. The focus on my breathing and moving my body resets me and lets me get back to what’s important.

Remember, it gets hectic out there, and it’s all too easy to put yourself on the back burner. Every little bit helps, give yourself some time, even if it’s just a walk and a few sets of bodyweight squats.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Action Beats Inaction

Happy Monday.

A new week. Another chance to begin.

A fresh start.

Remember. Action beats inaction. Don’t wait. Start something today.

Do something that’ll create momentum for the rest of the week.

Keep it going.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Variability Produces Better Training Effect?

I saw an interesting article summary about training plyometrics on different surfaces. It has some interesting insights about creating variety within your training.

One group did their plyometric drills only on grass. The other group used different surfaces for their plyo training. Wood floors, rubber track surface, sand, etc. At the end, each group was tested on grass only.

Surprisingly, the multi-surface group tested better on the grass than the grass-specific group at the end of 8-weeks.

This provides an interesting insight about variability across similar exercises. The more I’ve been doing this, the less important I think specific exercises are. Instead, I think we need to train certain patterns frequently, and not necessarily specific exercises.

Take a lunge for example. I think it matters less if you do a forward lunge, walking lunge, reverse lunge or split squat. What matters is you hit that movement pattern on the regular. Maybe the actual exercise changes week to week while the pattern stays the same.

Powerlifters figured this out a long time ago and use different types of bars, bands and chains to create variability within the specific movements of their sport - squatting, bench pressing and deadlifting with a barbell.

I think we can all get too caught up in changing things and creating variety just for the sake of it. This however, provides some insights where slight variability across similar patterns can produce a more effective result.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Sensory Deprivation Chambers for Your Feet

Over the past few years I’ve heard a name come up from many coaches and physical therapists whom I respect. I finally went to relentless.com and ordered Phillip Beach’s Muscles and Meridians. Beach is a DO who specializes in the integrated way the body functions. Put another way, he looks at how everything works together to help us move, be stable and navigate the world.

I flipped through the pages this morning as I opened up the package and the first headline that caught my eye was this:

“Free your feet from the sensory deprivation chambers.”

Beach goes on to explain that by wearing shoes, for fashion opposed to function, has reduced our feet to a “jumble of oversensitive, delicate and disordered tissue.”

He makes the comparison of wearing a mouth guard over your teeth for 40 years. The bones would become misaligned and sensitive to normal function when you took it off.

Just this weekend I saw a friend's one and a half year old running around. I complimented his shoes, saying they looked nice and flat. The mother responded by saying she didn’t think there was enough arch support for him.

The point Beach is making, throughout the whole book, not just this small mention of feet, is that we’re an integrated system. Everything works together to function and move. Everything is there for a reason. Blocking the sensory information we can get from out feet has negative effects up the chain. 

The nerves that irrervate the bottoms of our feet are the same nerves that innervate the deep muscles of our pelvis and lower back. Spending most of our day in shoes that desensitize our feet can have negative impacts on our lower backs.

You don’t need to ditch your shoes all together. That’s not the point I’m making. I am however hoping to shed light on to the fact that we’re integrated. Our bodies don’t work in muscular groups like the bodybuilding training plans I started following when I was 15. We’re much more complex than that. 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

relentless.com

When I was an up and coming strength coach, I followed this guy named Jason Ferruggia.

At the time, he owed a warehouse-style gym, like Gain.

Ferruggia is covered in tattoos, and one always stuck out to me. On his forearm, in big letters he has the word, “relentless.”

I’ve been thinking about that word a lot lately as I’m figuring out how to run a business during a pandemic. It feels a lot like starting over, and when starting out, you’ve got to be relentless in your efforts.

Hannah and I were recently talking about the crazy sum of money Jeff Bezos has. It reminded me of a story I heard about him on Jay Ferruggia’s site back in the day.

Go to relentless.com

Go ahead, I’ll be here when you get back.

Yup. That’s real.

While the name was eventually changed to Amazon, way back in 1994, Bezos registered, and and still hangs on to relentless.com

He was committed to his idea and was willing to be relentless in his pursuit of excellence. This resilience is something we can all admire. Want to do something great? You better be willing to be relentless. 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Eat, Sleep, Move

If I had only 10 seconds to explain to someone how to live a healthier life, I’d go with this:

Only eat foods that your grandparents had access to. Sleep in a cold, dark room for a minimum of 7 hours. Move more frequently throughout the day. 

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Sometimes You've Got to Move FAST

There was a time when I was scared to move fast. 

I had just finished my college hockey career and I had some serious issues going on in my lower back and my right hip. I did what most 20 somethings who think they’re invincible do and ignored the problem until it was unbearable. 

There are two instances I clearly remember that helped me realize I needed a change.

The first was when I was at a friends house and he was showing me his the new dump truck he got for his business. I climbed up into the dump body to take a closer look and when we were done, I found myself hesitating to jump down. When I took the leap and landed on the pavement I tweaked my back. The familiar feelings of a tight stomach and pain radiating down the back of my leg appeared.

The other time I was in an intense ping pong battle. 

My friend and I were equally matched and having a competitive game. When the ball bounced away from the table I took 3 quick steps and bent over to grab the ball before it rolled underneath a table. This time I strained a groin muscle because I moved too quickly towards the floor while reaching.

A hidden benefit of a well rounded strength and conditioning program is that it gets you more comfortable moving at a high velocity. My training was lacking anything like that at the time because all I did was try to lift really heavy things, which in retrospect was just compounding the problem. 

Since then I make sure to include some jumping, medicine ball throwing, reactive training (think bear crawls and vertical bird dogs) and olympic lifting variations.

We try to include these things in our clients’ programs too. Recently, you may have learned how to do a dumbbell snatch. Historically, we’re saved this movement for athletes. Getting to start fresh on our programming at the end of the lockdown however, allowed us to reevaluate what we were doing and this was something we decided was important to start including.

Movements like that teach you how to move fast. In fact, you can’t snatch a dumbbell or slam a medicine ball without moving with speed. These movements translate in real life when you need to express power, which is a display of strength and speed. Think picking up a heavy bag a mulch, catching yourself slipping on ice or take a few hard steps uphill.

Knowing that intention can make all the different in the gym. Most of the time we want to move under control with a nice tempo, but sometimes, we need to open it up and develop a tolerance to moving quickly.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

How'd That Feel?

You can start doing this simple check while you’re working out to improve your awareness and movement skill.

After each rep, ask yourself, “how did that feel?”

Each time you get to the top of a squat, pull a kettlebell off the floor or perform a stroke with the rower, how did that feel? 

Compare it to the previous rep, try to make them all feel similar, to make them all feel fluid.

This will create an awareness around good technique and strengthen the connection between your brain and muscles.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

September Update

this was originally published as our September Newsletter. If you’re a current member and do not receive these emails be sure to let me know.

Happy September! I'm here with an all things Gain update today.

It's been 13 weeks since we reopened our doors on June 1st and started operating in the Post-COVID World. In those 3 months, we've had 1829 individual client sessions. While dramatically less than a typical summer, I'm pleased that we've been able to operate safely and so many of you have been unwilling to sacrifice your health and well-being.

Alex, Taylor and I are getting our reps in, too. We're getting used to our new warm up format, becoming masters with the new programming software and we've become exceptional at disinfecting. Which, by the way, we've gone through at least 10 gallons of.

While the business is different, we feel as though our new format is better able to serve you. We're more organized, peoples' workouts are more efficient and most importantly we're able to give everyone more attention.

If you don't know, we now warm up as a group, with each person in their own individual workout pod. Each member has a whiteboard with their training for the day already planned out and we set up any and all equipment you'll need for the duration of the session. This has helped us keep everyone physically distant and ensures there's no equipment sharing.

Going forward, please remember to wear your mask when you walk in, when you exit, and if you need to travel across the gym for any reason and won't be able to stay physically distant from everyone. Also, don't skip the hand sanitizer when you walk in. There are 3 touch-less dispensers in the office, use them!

These policies are what's keeping us alive, please continue to follow them.

Here are some more updates for you:

SCHEDULE

The schedule will remain the same moving forward.

The gap in-between sessions allows us to re-clean (yup, we clean everything twice) all used equipment and commonly touched surfaces, lets the gym air our and gives us the time to prepare the equipment and whiteboards for the next session.

We're holding off on Saturday's for now. Simply put, we're doing a lot to operate safely and adding an additional day, when we've already added so much to our plates, will spread us out too thin.

They're not gone forever, but they're gone for now.

A couple other notes on the schedule:

Tuesday/Thursday, as it has been historically, is less busy than Mon/Wed/Fri.The spots that usually have the most openings are 10/10:30am, 12:00pm and 7:00pm. The busiest times are early in the morning and 5:30pm.

LABOR DAY

We will be open regular hours on Monday September 7th.

SESSION SIZE

We're expanding our squat rack system so we can safely add more spaces to each session and keep up with physical distancing.

We've felt as though we have the space to add more people, but not the equipment and designated areas to do it safely. Having the additional spaces will free up clogs in the schedule and make it more likely you can make it to those hard to book sessions.

As soon as we get it installed, the class size will increase to 6. If/when we feel comfortable, we will increase this to 7 with a long-term goal of 8 spots session.

AS A REMINDER

Book you session within 6 hours of the start time.

Cancel within 2 hours - but more is be better.

As everyone has gotten into the swing of things, we've seen an increase in no shows and late cancels. I cannot stress enough how unacceptable this is. You are preventing someone else from working out when you late cancel.

Yes, the schedule is more rigid than in the past, but the world is a different place and we all have to make sacrifices because of that. Please, help us, and your fellow Gain Members out by sticking to your sessions and showing up on time.

A note on the waitlist: if a session says "waitlist," it means that no one has signed up for the waitlist. If a spot opens up, you will immediately be notified that you got into the session (via email or text depending on your Mindbody preferences). Since a lot of people are booking weeks out in advance (you can go 4 weeks with MB), chances are good you will get off the waitlist. If it says "call," that means someone is already waitlisted for the class.

Please do not call the office number if you do need to make a last minute change, or miss the sign up window. Text the coach who is on the schedule for the time you want to come. It's also helpful if you text your coach if you're going to be late so we know to get started without you.

All of our cell phones are listed at the bottom of the email. Add them to your contacts list.

Good Bye Mindbody

Starting on October 1st, we're retiring Mindbody.

Active members will receive an email to confirm account details over the new few weeks as we transition to the new system. If you get an email to update any account information please do so as quickly to help us make this transition as seamless as possible.

This new software is more streamlined, easier to use and will be a nice upgrade for us all.

NEW WEBSITE

Our website got a facelift, be sure to check it out - especially if you've been out of the Gain Game for a while, we have a new Once per week membership offering that we've never done before.

VIRTUAL TRAINING

If the pandemic taught us anything it's that virtual training and at-home training is here to stay.

If you're on the fence about coming back to the gym, or need a fresh routine customized for whatever equipment you have access too, be sure to get in touch to see how we can help.

We have bodyweight-only programs, reGAIN, which is a program for former college athletes looking to get their edge back and I've finally started doing endurance coaching for people training for a race or just looking to formalize their training.

TRUECOACH

If you don't know, we retired the old sheets to minimize physical sharing and now track everything digitally. This has been a game changer for us in terms of workout history and having all the right information to make your workouts challenging.

It's also given the people still training at home a resource to upload videos for technique recommendations, and it provides workout history and built in accountability.

For you in person members: we plan out the days in true coach regardless of which days you plan to come in the gym. This means you may get an email saying you skipped a workout even though you didn't come in. If this bothers you, you can turn off the email notifications through your true coach app.

There, that covers it all. This was a long overdue update of everything happening. I want to close out by saying thank you. It's hard running a gym normally, and it's really hard during a pandemic when you're forced to shut down for months on end and people are scared to be around each other. We're fighting through this and will do everything we can to come out on the other side. Thanks for sticking with us and trusting in what we're doing - it literally means everything to us.

Please let me know if you have any questions and I hope to see you in the gym soon!

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

New Site

We’ve been working hard behind the scenes to update the look and feel of our website to make it more streamlined and to show how we’re combating COVID-19 with our new policies and social distancing.

We’re not stopping here, either.

We have some more changes coming your way to make your experience at Gain even better. I can’t wait to show you!

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Uncertainty

Yesterday, after a @gain_endurance client broke her 1 mile PR, I decided to give it a go.

I got warmed up at the gym before heading to the track. As I was jumping rope, I got nervous.

What was going to happen? Would I break my PR? Would I be so slow I’d be embarrassed? What if I’m way off from my attempt last year? All these thoughts flooded my mind and my nervousness grew as I drove to PHS.

This nervousness, this uncertainty in the final outcome is what makes running and training worthwhile for me. Committing to trying your best, when you know it’s going to be hard, regardless of the outcome.

The same nervousness happens before a big lift, or before an ultramarathon. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s good.

Be sure to make yourself face some uncertainty once in a while.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Strategic Not Heroic

We’re all fans of intensity. Going all in. Giving it 110%. Leaving it on the field.

Intensity is great. It can take you places and get stuff done.

One of our core values at Gain is consistency and moderation over intensity.

While intensity does have its place. We often times skip the consistent part and go for intensity. This leads to burn out instead of trust in the process.

We want you to commit to being healthier for the long term. This isn’t a quick fix.

Let’s make consistency just as sexy as intensity.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

More Info, Better Choices

As a young coach, I remember getting my first private client. The night before our first workout I spent hours and hours on excel planning out our first month of training. I had color coordinated blocks. Places for sets and reps and load. I had all the warm ups planned out and big chunks of space for me to fill in notes.

I felt like a pro. I used all my knowledge from college to periodize the most perfect training plan. The progressions were thoughtful and everything had a rhyme and reason.

Then our first session happened.

They showed up late. And had to leave earlier than originally expected. 

My plan was ruined. If we didn’t get to everything on day 1, that meant the rest of the week needed to be modified too.

I was bummed. This was the first time I witnessed well-executed text book planning come face to face with the real world. All the sessions that followed had similar issues. Some days they felt really good and we did more, some days they felt off or tired and we modified the plan to do less. 

I learned an important lesson. You can have the best plan in the world. You can follow all the program design principles and have your macrocycles, mesocycles and microcycles designed for perfect linear progress and as soon as it hits the real world, which is full of uncertainty, it can be useless. 

You’ve got to be able to adapt, modify and change things on the fly as you gather more information. I’ve said it before, your plan can be great, perfect even. But then, once you start a session, you gather more information. You learn how they’re feeling, how the movements look, what their attitude is amongst so many other factors.

When you gather more information, you can make better choices and decisions. You’ve got to be willing to change, no matter how good the original plan was. When I work with someone one on one now, I rarely go into it with a full workout planned. I have a rough idea of what I want to accomplish, but I need to see them warm up, chat with them, get a read on the room to figure out how we’ll attack the day’s workout.

Remember that. Some times your weights will need to be lighter, you’ll need to skip the conditioning or just not feel up for the planned workout. It’s not a bad thing to modify, it’s a smart thing. It’s using all the available information, and ignoring it would be foolish.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Get Started

Imperfect action is better than no action at all.

Waiting for the right moment, the right time, the right place is just delaying what you need to do, start.

It won’t be as seamless, clean or as easy as you imagine, but there’s no way to get going other than to start.

Time to get moving.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain