Welcome to the GAIN Blog
The blog is updated Monday-Friday. Tune in for posts and discussion about health, fitness, nutrition, training experiments and reflection. We share articles, videos and more. We post the link to our Instagram story every day, make sure to follow along there to never miss a post.
Defining Confidence
At Gain we help people feel strong, confident and independent.
The most important word there is confidence. Without that, the other words don't mean nearly as much.
We define having confidence as knowing you're capable of your best effort regardless of the circumstances.
Strength and conditioning teaches you to trust your body. You learn its limits by touching the edge with good training.
Controlled exposure of adversity, problem solving and uncertainty in the gym creates the opportunity for you to give your best away from the gym.
Life might not look like deadlifts, AirBike sprints and lunges, but knowing you're capable of those things will allow you give your best effort on any task you desire.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Infinite Game
There is no winning fitness.
There will be no moment of arrival.
There won't be a point you can stop.
You just need to keep playing.
Chess, hockey and football are all finite games. They have rules. A start and an end. Clear winners and losers.
In fitness, business and life, however, there are no rules. There is no clear finish line.
You can keep playing though. And that's how you win; staying in the game.
But what about the races I train for? What about my goal to lose 10 pounds? What about my Whole 30?
"Finite games can be played within an infinite game, but an infinite game cannot be played within a finite game. Infinite players regard their wins and losses in whatever finite games they play as but moments in continuing play."
- James P. Carse, Finite and Infinite Games
You've got to play the long game. It's the only way to be successful and keep playing. Maybe it looks different over time, or you have different goals [finite games] that motivate you and get you in the door. But the game is always there. There's no destination.
I hope this perspective doesn't overwhelm you. Instead, I hope it brings you relief. There is no rush. No need to hurry to the finish line. To end on a cliche, it's the journey not the destination. Keep yourself in play.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Muscle Contractions
Imagine yourself in the gym squatting. Not just that, you have to lower the weight down for 3 seconds, pause for 3 sec on the bottom, try to explode out of the hole, and then pause at the top for 1 sec.
We call that a 33X1 tempo. Each character corresponds to a specific task our muscles are performing. Tempos use muscle contractions to elicit a better training effect.
There are 3 types of muscles contractions, and we use them all when we're navigating life and training.
Concentric
When the muscles shorten under load. Standing up from a squat or pushing from the bottom of a push up. For a dumbbell row, the concentric contraction happens as you bring the DB towards your torso, since the muscles are shortening to get it there.
Eccentric
When the muscles are lengthening under load. Lowering portion of squat, bringing a barbell down to your chest on a bench press, and lowering a pull up are all eccentric contractions. We're typically stronger during the eccentric phase than concentric. If you've ever gotten pinned by a bench press after lowering the bar down, but just didn't have any juice to get it up, that's why.
Isometric
During an isometric contraction the force produced by the muscles is equal to the load, so nothing moves. Iso holds work on strength in a specific range of motion and stability.
Back to our 33X1 squat example.
The first number is the eccentric portion. Three sec to lower. This allows us to build in more time under load. Since you're stronger with eccentric contractions, we can drag them out to promote muscle growth and strength adaptations.
The next 3 sec is an isometric hold. After lowering the weight, you'll pause, maintaining that contraction for 3 sec. This gives you a chance to work on range of motion by maintaining proper position on the bottom and will further challenge your strength.
The X part is our concentric contraction. During this muscle shortening phase, we want to try to move as explosively as possible. This will ensure we are recruiting many muscle fibers, and therefore will reinforce strength gains.
The final number is simply an isometric hold at the top portion of the lift. It's rare this number is more than a 1.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
What's a Snatch
There's a sport called weightlifting. The athletes perform two lifts. One of them is called a snatch.
The snatch is highly complex though the goal is simple, get the barbell from the floor to overhead in one motion.
At Gain, we distill from best practices. Through solving the problem of how to get the most weight overhead from the ground, these athletes have taught us valuable lessons on how to train power, strength and coordination.
Due to its complexity and learning curve, most people don't need to snatch a barbell. It falls into the risk vs reward category for me as a coach. Only the dedicated should take on the challenge. However, many people can easily learn a snatch variation with a dumbbell (or kettlebell) and the benefits are practically the same.
Dumbbell snatches provide us with:
Learning to drive our hips forward by pushing our feet down (aka how to jump)
Proper landing mechanics
Pulling
Transferring force from lower body to upper body
Stabilizing
It demands coordination, timing and concentration.
It will develop explosiveness, strength, skill and transferability to other athletic movements and scenarios.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Work Capacity
When I was shoveling last night I couldn't believe my back didn't hurt like it would have several years ago. Not from shoveling, but from running and deadlifting and shoveling on the same day. I hadn't even realized I made the pairing till I was almost done. It felt good that it didn't matter. My body could handle it.
A simple definition of strength and conditioning is a training program intended to improve your work capacity.
Work capacity is how much effort you can expend over a certain time period. Basically, much can you do?
Work capacity is broad. It scales. We can think of it over an 8 minute density workout in the gym (an AMRAP), or over 60 minutes while shoveling, or even over an entire week. Work capacity not only reflects how much you can do, but how well you can recover.
To use the shoveling example, shoveling is short bursts of exertion (scoop, lift, carry) followed by an aerobic recovery (walking back to prepare for the next scoop). A strength and conditioning workout at Gain is designed to improve your work capacity. Rather, it's a well-desired side effect of programming for improved strength, better movement quality and more endurance.
A typical pairing we use is lift something kind of challenging, do a bodyweight movement, do a core movement or some mobility. Repeat 3-8 times. That improves your ability to show strength (through quality of posture/movement) over time. We can even look at it within different contexts. The time it took to do the pairing, 10 minutes, and within the context of the whole session, 60 minutes. Therefore not only does the specific thing that each of those exercises and pairings are intended for improve, but also your ability to keep expending effort over that duration.
Work capacity is a very basic, and measurable way to generalize how we train. Doing more work in less time has endless carryover to life. Dare I say it's even functional.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Praise for the EMOM
The first time I ever heard of the concept Every Minute On the Minute I was jumping rope. We did a certain number of jumps each time big hand hit the 12 on the wall clock.
Little did I know back in 2009 that the EMOM would become an effective and efficient training tool I still use to this day.
Through my experiences with a variety of training modalities, I've used an EMOM in countless contexts.
Greasing the groove and building density while learning kettlebells, dynamic effort speed work for powerlifting, interval workouts for ultra marathons, honing technique and building volume for Olympic weightlifting or even for building muscle and strength. It can be time efficient and skill driven. Which as a coach, I appreciate.
When creating an EMOM, I first want to identity the goal stimulus. This can be anything. Technique practice, speed work, volume and conditioning are the usual cases for us at Gain, and maybe even sometimes we're tackling all those at once.
Once that's taken care of, we can pick the exercise. Total body, compound lifts are best. Squats, swings, deadlifts, overhead press variations or the Olympic lifts work well.
From there, I determine how many total reps would be appropriate for the desired outcome.
Let's say, for example, you've been goblet squatting 5 sets of 8 repetitions for the past several weeks.
For your next workout you EMOM 10, 5 goblet squats.
We're automatically increasing the volume (how many total reps), the density (total reps within a time period), we get fixed practice of squats (I.e., you don't have to concentrate on anything else) and you get a side dish of conditioning because after 4-5 rounds, not only will your legs be burning, your heart will be pounding too.
The following week we can easily increase the volume by adding a couple minutes to the EMOM.
It's a sneaky way to build serious fitness.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Start Small.... No Smaller
Most professions have that thing people always ask them or tell them. Being in the fitness industry means everyone justifies what they’re eating to me and tells me about how they’re going to start getting after it.
When a prospective client at the gym tells me they want to train 5 times per week, I’m skeptical of their dedication.
Do they know how hard it is to show up every single day?
Can they deal with the soreness, the mundane routine, and and doing it on all the days they don’t want to, or can’t make it?
Usually people need to set the bar lower. They need to back off their overzealous ideas of exercise and create an easier routine first. They need to accumulate the discipline required to train 5 days a week by showing up for 2 days a week for 3 months before jumping straight to 5.
When it comes down to it, you need the discipline to keep doing the same thing over and over and over. When you're able to let the system to run its course, strength and conditioning works. If you're on and off the training bus though, it can seem like nothing ever works.
I'm here to tell you it does work, you just need to stick with it. Set yourself up for success by setting the bar lower than you think it should be.
Want to eat healthier? Start with breakfast
Want to run more? Start with 1 run.
Want to lift and spin? Do one of each a week.
Need to stretch more? Start with 1 stretch 1 minute a day.
Want to journal? Write 1 sentence.
Don't let the perfect plan stand in your way. Start small. Then go even smaller and prove to yourself you've got it before adding more.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Upgrade Your Kettlebell Swing
Use these 3 tips to make sure you’re getting the most of your kettlebell swing.
1. Exhale at the top
Breathe in when the kettlebell falls, and use a sharp exhale at the top while squeezing the handle, your butt and your belly.
2. Break the handle
Speaking of squeezing the handle. At the top, squeeze hard and twist your pinkies down. You'll feel it from your wrists to your shoulders, arm pits and upper back. As you breathe in on the way down, you can briefly relax you grip before the next rep. Be sure to be tight when the kb falls between your legs though.
3. Spread the floor
But not too much. Screw your feet into the ground to create tension and stability. When the kettlebell falls, push your knees apart from one another ever so slightly. Don't go so much you're on the outside of your feet though. Keep your toes on the ground and push through your mid foot as you snap the kettlebell to the top.
The All Day Workout
My friends and I once had a month long pull up contest to see who could accumulate the most reps in the month.
It quickly got competitive.
It was clear that doing pull ups throughout an hour long gym session wasn’t going to get you the win.
We all got doorway pull up bars and started doing reps whenever we could get a chance.
After a couple weeks of doing frequent, sub maximum effort sets, I noticed a couple things.
We could get a ton of training in without it feeling like a workout. And, we could still get a regular workout in if we wanted since we didn't need to use our training time for only pull ups.
Not only that, but once a week or so when I would test my max reps in a row, it always got better.
Since then, I've become a big fan of "all day" workouts.
Things like pull ups, bodyweight squats, push ups, and pretty much anything with a kettlebell are perfect for this. Legendary strength coach, Pavel, calls this greasing the groove. Many sets of sub maximal reps to avoid failure and hone in the skill of the movement.
While it doesn't feel like a big stimulus while you're doing it, it's easy to accumulate big reps and get a huge adaptation.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
How Nighttime Dishes Led to Morning Workouts
I thought I had my mornings dialed in.
I’ve always like getting up early. I like the quiet. The alone time. Knowing I'm up before anyone else. I used to come downstairs, let the dog out, start making coffee, let the dog in and the start on the pile of dishes from the previous night.
I liked doing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen first thing in the morning. It was a way to kick off productivity for the day.
I started getting cramped for time during my afternoon workouts though. I needed to use my early morning time better to get a training session in.
Getting up was easy. I already did that. I hated the idea of training so early though. I have so much stuff to do first thing in the morning I thought!
That's when I started doing the dishes at night.
Instead of letting dishes pile up, leading to a less predictable morning, I now clean, do the dishes and prep the coffee for the next day.
Now when I get up, there's nothing to do besides go train.
I still have to be disciplined to drag myself out into the cold, dark garage. But a simple habit shift made it possible.
This is something James Clear calls habit stacking. Completing a habit (nighttime dishes) that kickstarts another (morning workout). Other examples are putting your workout clothes out the night before or prepping a healthy lunch in hopes to guide a better decision for dinner.
Habit stacking allows you to create basic rules to help guide you make better choices. If you start creating your own habit stack, make sure you have a cue that reminds you complete the habit. For me, right after we finish eating, I go and do the dishes and get ready for the morning.
Can you think of any routines you have that are guided by habit stacking?
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Gain Nutrition Principles #2
A couple weeks back I posted my basic nutrition principles, and how we use them at my house to guide our eating decisions.
I've been reading Daniel Lieberman's new book about our ancestors, Exercised. This inspired me to flip back to a book called Deep Nutrition by Catherine Shanahan. Shanahan presents us with her Four Pillars of Nutrition through examining the similarities between different cultures who have a tendency to live for a long time.
One of the Pilars is to cook and eat meat off the bone. And we've been trying to do that lately, opting for a whole chicken opposed to just chicken breast, or boneless/skinless thighs.
By cooking on the bone, we're getting all sorts of collagen, bone marrow and other nutrients that are absent on the boneless cuts.
While I don't magically feel different, this logic just makes sense to me. Let's eat the whole thing instead of these select, prepackaged cuts. Not only are there health benefits, but it just plain tastes better. Not to mention is much more cost effective.
We'll be continuing to try and eat more bone-in cuts going forward.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Discipline > Motivation
As January winds down, people are starting to abandon their ambitions set at the first of the year.
Many lose their motivation and stop chasing their goals.
That's not a bad thing. In fact, you don't even need motivation.
It's too finicky and unreliable. Never there when you need it most.
What you need instead is discipline. You need to do stuff when you don't feel like doing it. Motivation won't get you there, but discipline will.
The funny thing is that after you get some reps of discipline in. Once you do some stuff that's good for you that you just don't feel like doing, you feel better and become motivated.
Don't wait for more motivation to appear. Create your own through discipline.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Running Form - Exercised
I stumbled into running. I wanted to know how to run efficiently like the people I was watching in the 2016 Olympics. My background in strength & conditioning and Olympic weightlifting allowed me to take on a skills based approach and slowly build up my abilities, efficiency and endurance.
Running form is a tricky subject. There is a dichotomy I tiptoe as a coach. I want people to get outside, run and have a good time. I also want them to do it safely, and for the long haul. In order to do that, your form needs to be good or it can catch up to you.
Luckily for us, Lieberman does an excellent job of breaking down the evolution of running, and dives into what good running form is and how to avoid injuries in Exercised. Lieberman studied modern barefoot runners to gather an understanding of how humans ran for millions of years before the invention of running sneakers in the 1970s.
Lieberman recalls when he was in Kenya studying runners that he was fascinated how they all look the same. A stark contrast from watching Americans train, who might all have different strides. He recommends 4 key points that differentiate good form and bad.
1. Avoid overstriding. Reaching too far causes a stiff landing.
2. Cadence. Experienced runners keep between 170-180 steps a minute. Regardless of speed.
3. Learn forward. I say fall from the waist during my running sessions at the gym (link in bio)
4. Land with your foot horizontal. Land on the ball of the foot, or slightly behind (mid foot in Gain lingo) and kiss the heel.
Along with form, Lieberman says to keep these things in mind. Start slow. Many running injuries are from novices increasing mileage too soon. It takes longer for bones, ligaments and tendons to adapt when compared to your muscles and aerobic system. Another thing to consider is strength. Not only do muscles propel you forward, but they absorb force and stabilize.
At the end of this section Lieberman gives us all the usual warnings about not starting too fast and giving your feet, ankles and lower legs time to adapt. He also reminds us, we can look at our ancestors for their technique, we need to remember, they also didn't train like us modern humans.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Controlling Variables
Let's breakdown my workout from this morning to take a look at the variables we can manipulate to create a desired training effect.
The first thing to do is define what I want to accomplish.
Today that was pull up strength. It was a chilly morning in the garage, so I wanted to do something that involved some moving and breathing to keep warm.
Complete 5 rounds / rest 30 sec
500m BikeErg
10 KB Swings
Max Pull ups
In order to get the desired effect, pull up strength and to get a little sweaty. I needed to define parameters to guide my effort and intensity. I could go all out on the bike, but by the time I finished the swings and jumped on the pull up bar, I'd be toast.
I established the first rule to hit the bike in around a minute. This guides my effort in the early rounds when I'm feeling fresh and creates a boundary to see if my intensity is dropping towards the end.
Why were the swings in there?
I have a 70 pound kettlebell and I can swing it 50 times in a row without issue. Because of my skill level and strength, it can be difficult to do challenging swings with it unless I do a high amount of them. I used the swing immediately after the bike because it makes the swings harder. I have to concentrate more, drive harder and focus more on how I'm breathing. It tests my skill.
To build strength, you need to do challenging sets that flirt with your limit. There are countless ways to do this, but today I wanted to try to force a few reps when I was a little gassed, hence the bike and swings.
Jumping up on the bar doing the maximum reps I could do was more challenging because of the cardiorespiratory demand. The variable I manipulated was making the pull ups about strength by way of getting my heart and lungs fatigued first by biking and swinging.
The pull ups felt like I was wearing a weight vest, even though I wasn't. Those movements created a total body, time efficient workout that helped me work on cardiovascular fitness, strength and skill at the same time. Strength and conditioning is the art of manipulating variables to create a desired adaptation.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
(precovid photo)
Barbell Rules
We love barbells at Gain. While they're not the only tool in the toolbox, they're a tried and true method for building strength, muscle and athleticism. On top of that, they bring a skill component to the table. In order to do a barbell movement, you've got to be engaged and willing to deal with the learning curve.
When dealing with a barbell in a gym, keep these rules in mind:
- Don't drop an empty bar. Dropping barbells with bumper plates is fun. Don't do it to an empty bar though, it could disrupt how the collars spin.
- 3 Step Rule. When taking a bar out of the rack for a squat, you're allowed 3 steps. Two steps back (one per foot). The third step if for adjusting width and making sure you're even. No need to walk back 10 feet. It creates too many opportunities to get out of position, and if you're gassed at the end of a set, you'll want that rack close by.
- Speaking of opportunities to get out of position. Practice taking an empty bar out of the rack like it weights 500 pounds. This will only benefit you when it gets hard. Don't be sloppy just because it's light.
- Always do an empty set. If you're taking a barbell out of the rack, always do a set with the empty bar. It's a no brainer to take the opportunity for more practice and a little more warming up.
- Smash and slide. When racking a bar, always hit the backstops of the j-cups and then slide the bar on to the shelves. Don't try to gently place it in, that's when you'll miss.
- Numbers face in. When using old-style metal places, put the numbers facing in. This makes it easier to grab the plate when you take it off the bar, which is how I was taught in my high school weight training class. Mostly though, it looks better, which is important too. Keep in mind, bumper plates have made this mostly irrelevant.
- Respect the bar. As Henry Rollins famously wrote, "The Iron never lies to you...The Iron will always kick you the real deal. The Iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing perspective giver...Two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds."
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
The Lindy Effect
The Lindy Effect
Yesterday, a couple people sent me articles explaining President Biden wouldn't be able to bring his Peloton into the White House for security reasons. If you've been a reader for a while, you know I like picking on Peloton and Mirror because they're trying to do the impossible, replace the community, accountability and coaching that belonging to a gym provides. All cliches are rooted in truth, and the one about home exercise equipment becoming a clothes rack rings true for many. Therefore, I view it as a bad way to get fit, a good supplement to another routine, sure, but not an end all be all.
One friend's text said, "you can't hack a dumbbell."
That reminded me of something I first read about in Antifragile by Nassim Taleb. The Lindy Effect.
The Lindy Effect is a theory that states:
More Past Exposure = More Future Exposure
Said another way, the longer something has been around, the more likely it'll stick around. A book that's been in publication for 50 years, stands a better shot at sticking around for another 50 compared to a book that's just been printed. The longer it has stuck around, the longer its life expectancy.
This is true for fitness equipment and routines too. Kettlebells, barbells, dumbbells and yoga have been around forever. They've stood the test of time, which according to this theory, means they're unlikely to go anywhere. Step aerobics, P90X, 6-minute abs, Peloton, the Mirror haven't even scratched the life expectancy surface of good old fashioned weight training.
We can keep trying to make fitness novel and fun, but it would be more effective to look back and see what's stood the test of time, and what has years and years of results to show for itself. I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it; strength and conditioning is a key to a long and healthy life. The sooner we realize that and get to work, the better.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
