Weekly Podcast Recommendation

Andrew Huberman and Andy Galpin are at it again. This time covering all things nutrition and supplementation. They cover a lot of common topics we hear come up at the gym. Buckle up for a deep dive.

Huberman Lab Guest Series: Dr Andy Galpin - Optimal Nutrition & Supplementation for Fitness

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

My Great Invention

In 2012 I always had some kind of tightness around my shoulder blades and upper back. Laying on the ground I couldn’t quite get to the right spot. In order get the right angle, and dig in exactly where I wanted, I usually leaned up again the wall. The ball was pinned between my back and the wall. As you can imagine, I would drop the ball frequently.

One day, I had an idea. The mobility sock. I took one of the long socks I used to wear playing hockey. It would cover my whole shin and go up to my knee. I put a small, slightly squishy, baseball in there and the mobility sock was created. I was now able to hang on to the sock while leaning up against the wall and never drop the ball. This made it easier to manipulate the ball and hit all the right spots.

It was genius. Well, I thought it was at least. So much so that I felt like I needed to make this product and I needed someone to sell it because peopled needed it. Unfortunately for me, no one knew what mobility was back in 2012. Foam rolling wasn’t en vouge. You couldn’t walk into Walmart or TJ Max and find a section entirely dedicated to foam rollers, massage balls, stretching bands and the like. The massage gun was still years away from being invented!

In other words, the mobility sock was far ahead of its time. Had I known its time was coming, maybe I would have pursued product development a little harder. But it was hard and I was young, so I didn’t. I used the mobility sock for a couple years and got a lot of relief out of it. Since then, we’ve learned a lot better ways to mobilize soft tissues, and the mobility sock has been retired.

I’m telling you this story today because this weekend’s Mobility Class is all about the shoulders and thoracic spine, or upper back. If you work on a computer, text with your phone or ever get behind the wheel of a car, you need this class. Get involved HERE.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Recovery Game

Did you know that none of the strength and fitness gains you make happen while you’re at the gym?

Lifting weights and conditioning is actually a stressful on your body. You build strength and adapt when you’re away from the gym.

We stress the body in the gym, and in the couple of days after that, our body has physiological responses to the stress, and then it makes change, and adapts once it’s recovered.

Strength and conditioning is basically a game of recovery. Can you recover and come back stronger or are you just adding more and more stress to the system?

Using this logic, if the gym is stress, it’s in your best interest to do all the things that help your body recharge and recovery between bouts in the gym. Providing it enough calories with nutritious foods, getting adequate sleep, staying hydrated, mobilizing and getting enough movement in through non-exercise physical activity.

All the magic doesn’t happen in the gym, but while you’re recovering from the gym too.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

10 Workouts Under 10 Minutes

Coach Taylor just released his 10 Workouts Under 10 minutes in ebook.

This free resource is perfect for sneaking in an extra workout, or taking with you on the road when you won’t have access to a full gym.

The ebook is complete with full descriptions of workouts, a make your own warm up and even has video links to all the moves if you need a refresher.

You can download your own copy HERE.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Impossible

When was the last time you did something you didn’t think was possible?

Spending time in the gym gives us opportunities to do something we never thought we could.

Maybe it’s lifting a heavy weight, learning a new skill or carrying your paddle board off the roof rack and to the water all by your self. Maybe it’s a pain-free push up, getting off the floor smoothly and unassisted or the first time you deadlift the heaviest kettlebell in the gym.

Whatever it is, you’re capable of so much more than you ever thought. All it takes is a some consistent training and you too can shatter your former beliefs and do the impossible. Get to work.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Gym Lingo: EMOM

Every Minute On the Minute.

This style of workout requires focus on the clock. When doing an EMOM, you start your exercises on the top of the minute, and after completing the prescribed work, rest all the remaining time in the minute before starting the process over.

EMOM 10: 5 push ups

This means you’ll complete 5 push ups at the top of each minute, rest all the remaining time and start again at the top of the next minute. The way this is written, you would do this for 10 rounds, or 10 minutes. This is a nice way to challenges technique, build volume and sprinkle in some cardio while lifting.

Another variation of and EMOM can be with multiple exercises, with each movement getting their own minute.

EMOM 21:

Minute 1: 50 second machine

Minute 2: 10 kb swings

Minute 3: 50ft sled march

In this scenario, you would complete 7 rounds of the 3 movements equalling 21 minutes total. This style of workout builds work capacity and gets more difficult as minutes on the clock tick by. It’s a great way to be time efficient and cram a lot of work in while keeping yourself on a strict pace.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

My Big Mobility Fail

In the summer of 2013 I was starting to learn about mobility and taking it very seriously.  I was spending far more time on the floor rolling and stretching than actually training. I had a full schedule of clients too, and I would be sure to sneak some mobility work in any chance I could.

Back then I was relentlessly attacking my adductor muscles. These are commonly know as the groin muscles. Many hockey players experience tight adductors due to the position of your feet when skating. A well-known stretch is call a straddle stretch, and you can do it while laying on the floor and your legs in a V position on the wall.

My straddle game was pathetic, and like I preach to you all, I knew I needed to spend more time in that position to unlock all the stiffness. I decided for 15 minutes between clients I was going to lay on the floor, get my legs up on the wall and push through the pain to see if I could get them to unlock. I had the great idea to throw a band around one foot, across my lower back and around the other foot to help pull my legs wider.

After a few minutes I was relived to find I could move my heels closer to the floor. After several more minutes I thought I was crushing it. I was winning mobility! There was this worsening pull on the inside of my left knee, but I figured it was all part of the process. I got up, coached the rest of the evening and didn’t think much of it.

That night I had a men’s league hockey game. My hips felt nice out on the ice and there wasn’t any of the usual back pain I had while skating. In the final minute of the last period I had the puck around center ice and when I crossed the blue line I cut hard to the right to get past a defender. When I pushed off my left foot my knee collapsed inward , leaving on my back and in a lot of pain.

It was obvious something was wrong. I found out a couple days later I strained the MCL ligament in my knee. It wasn’t serious enough to need surgery of anything like that, but I spent a few weeks hobbling around and a couple of months being cautious of it.

While I had the right idea with mobilizing my hips, I made some critical mistakes. I was too passive, and not in control of that range of motion. I wasn’t turning on, or squeezing, other muscle groups to help keep the stretch in the right spot and the pulling in the knee was my signal to move into a different position but I ignored it. The length of time I was holding was quite aggressive and all of that combined with playing hockey was the perfect storm for something bad to happen.

Luckily for you, you don’t need to make all the mobility mistakes I did. And you can learn all about how to properly mobilize your hip this weekend. On Sunday at 8:30, we’re going to take you on a deep dive into all things hips. You’re not going to want to miss this one. Get involved HERE.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

What's Conditioning?

I saw a post on Instagram recently and it really stuck with me. It was from strength and conditioning coach Joel Jamieson. Here’s what it said:

Conditioning is another word for the amount of strength you can use over time in the world outside of the gym. Life isn’t a 1 rep max. It’s why everyone needs both strength and conditioning.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Training or Working Out?

Someone cried out during a session at the gym, “doesn’t this ever get easier?”

Their sentiment was, just when they figure something out, they get a new program, with new exercise variations, new rep ranges, new lingo to decode and a whole new routine to get into the rhythm of. Just when everything settles in and gets comfortable, you start over.

My reply was, “that’s the difference between training and working out.”

When I was in high school, my first strength coach didn’t allow us to say we were working out. We were training. He was very serious about it. He told us that athletes train, and working out is what most other people do when they go to the gym, going through the motions. Riding the elliptical while watching the news was one of his favorite examples.

We were training because we had a specific intent. We wanted to get better at our sports. We wanted to become better athletes.

These days I frequently use ‘work out’ to describe a training session, although the delineation between the two has stuck with me, and it might be helpful for you to think the same.

The way that client was feeling is a common, especially when people are coming up on 6 months or a year of training at GAIN. They get hit with a hard workout on a new program and have this thought, “wait, isn’t this supposed to get easier the longer I do it?”

That’s the big trick. It never gets easier. Since we’re training, we continually push you, challenge you and reach beyond your current limits. We’re training to improve and in order to do that, we need to challenge and stress the body. If it were to get easier, it would just mean you got better at doing the same exact thing, not more difficult things.

This can be frustrating, because it can feel like you’re spinning your wheels in the mud. Once you realize that never goes away, the smoother this journey is.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Kurt Vonnegut Raves About Goblet Squats

ChatGPT is taking over the internet. Surely you’ve heard of it by now. If haven’t, it’s an artificial intelligence bot you can chat with and have complete any number of tasks. On Friday I was showing Taylor how impressive and freaky it can be. I had ChatGPT write a blog post about goblet squats using a few bullet points I provided, along with any other relevant information it knew or could find.

After it spit out a essay, I had it rewrite it in the style of author Kurt Vonnegut. Enjoy.

"The Art of Lower Body Strength with Goblet Squats"

My dear friends, allow me to extol the virtues of strength training. A crucial aspect of fitness, it helps build lean muscle mass, increase bone density, and enhance overall athletic performance. And in this grand adventure, there's one exercise that stands out like a beacon of hope in the darkness - goblet squats.

Goblet squats, you see, are an excellent exercise for anyone looking to improve their lower body strength and conditioning. By holding a weight close to the chest while performing a squat, you engage the muscles of hips, legs, and core, making it a comprehensive exercise that targets multiple areas of the body at once.

But there's more! Goblet squats can also help improve hip range of motion. The deep squat stretches the hips and allows for a greater range of motion, which is particularly helpful for those of us who spend a lot of time sitting and are looking to counteract the effects of a sedentary lifestyle.

And then there's the matter of strong ankles. The deep squat requires the ankles to support the body weight, strengthening the muscles and tendons of the ankle and reducing the risk of injury. This is important for athletes and individuals who participate in sports, as strong ankles are crucial for balance and stability.

Goblet squats can also promote resilient knees. By engaging the muscles of the legs and hips, the exercise reduces the load on the knees, making them stronger and more capable of handling stress. This is particularly important for individuals who are recovering from knee injuries or are looking to prevent future injuries.

Finally, let us not forget the robust core. By holding the weight close to the chest, you are forced to engage your core muscles to maintain balance and stability throughout the movement. This not only strengthens the core, but also improves posture, which can reduce the risk of injury and enhance overall athletic performance.

In conclusion, my friends, goblet squats are a highly effective exercise for anyone looking to improve their lower body strength and conditioning. Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned fitness enthusiast, incorporating goblet squats into your routine is a great way to enhance your overall fitness and reach your strength training goals. So, my dear friends, give it a try. Who knows, you may just find yourself pleasantly surprised at the results.

How to Wake Up Early

I went to my first professional seminar in 2011. It was the Perform Better Summit in Providence Rhode Island. I was in college and couldn’t afford it so I snuck in. I had to go. They brought all the big names in the industry in for a 3 day seminar covering all aspects of the fitness industry from what is fascia, business, training athletes and how to write more effective training programs. A lot of what I learned that weekend, and the people whom I heard speak, drastically influenced my career.

Nothing stuck with me as much as Mike Boyle’s talk. He’s been in the game (created it?) for over 40 years and his talk had nothing to with with the ins and outs of training young athletes like I expected. Instead he gave a piece of advice I still think about all the time.

I’ve always been an early riser. Always the first one up at the sleepover as a kid and was never able to sleep in till 10am like other teenagers. That summer I had started a new 5:00am boot camp at the gym I was working at. This turned out to be early even for me. I had a hard time waking up for it, and would yawn the whole way there sucking down a cup of coffee trying to bring the energy.

At the time I had an alarm clock habit that many people employ. The old double alarm with a snooze trick. I would set my first alarm for 4:00am, snooze it for 10 minutes and after snoozing the 4:15 am alarm I would finally get up at 4:30am.

Boyle’s advice was, when the alarm clock goes off, your feet hit the floor.

Fortunately I don’t have to wake up with an alarm clock very often any more. I’ve trained myself out of it over the years. I love my early morning alone time. I’m productive, I mobilize, I move or train and it’s without a doubt my favorite part of the day.

On those days that I wake up, and don’t feel like getting out of bed though because it’s cold and I’m comfortable, I remind myself of that quote and get my feet on the floor.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Gym Lingo: Tempo

Tempo is a prescription for speed. Typically coaches will use this to designate a slow portion of the lift or a deliberate pause, though we can also use it to work on acceleration and moving fast.

Tempo builds skill. It requires you to get to know the movement, and understand it more throughly. It makes movement flaws more apparent and demands better breathing mechanics.

It makes things you’re good at more challenging.

It’s a great way to get stronger without adding more load. Can you squat 135? What about squatting 135 with a 4 second lowering, and a 2 second pause before exploding back up to the top? This will make the same weight feel much heavier, eliciting strength adaptations.

Tempo can challenge bodyweight movements too. It can build strength in the push up and ring row, provide variety and for something like a pull up, create a more challenging movement without adding more reps.

If you want to play around with tempo today, try doing a 1 minute squat. Lower for as along as you can, and come up as slowly as possible. Let me know how it goes!

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Mobility Class Drop-In Now Available

Single class passes for our 5-Week Mobility Course are now for sale on the Member’s App (under “Plans”) and by following this link for members, and this one for non-members

Both members and non members can purchase the pass and use the Member’s App to reserve their spot for any mobility session over the 5 weeks.

You’ll be able to purchase the pass and register for the class up to 1 hour before the start time.

Each week will have it’s own theme, and we’re kicking things off this Sunday with a class all about mobilizing your feet and ankles.

Get involved!

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Walk to your VO2 Max

VO2 max is a measurement of the maximum amount of oxygen you can use during intense exercise. It’s an indicator of high performance for athletes. Last spring, I headed to exercise physiology lab at UNH to get my VO2 max tested.

I was on a treadmill, with all sorts of stuff stuck to me. A mask with a tube was on my face to measure the composition of the air I was exhaling, I had a heart rate monitor, blood drawn from my finger every few minutes and had (at least) 6 grad students standing around the treadmill watching me run. It was a very challenging test, especially in the stuffy laboratory.

For most people, going into a lab to find out your VO2 max is completely unnecessary. Last week I was reminded of a much simpler way to get your VO2 max while listening to Dr. Andy Galpin on the Huberman Lab Podcast.

The Rockport Walk test is a way for you to calculate an estimated VO2 max needing nothing but a place to walk and fingers to check your pulse at the end.

Here’s how to do it:

Warm up first! Walking an additional 5-10 minutes before starting your mile is crucial.

Start your mile. Walk quickly but avoid running. Push it faster than your regular walking pace.

At the end of the mile, make note of your time and immediately measure your heart rate. You could use a heart rate monitor (I would only recommend a chest strap, not a wrist HR monitor). Or you could use you fingers, find your pulse and count for a minute.

After completing the test plug your numbers into this formula to get the results.

VO2 max = 132.853 - (0.0769 x your weight in pounds) - (0.3877 x your age) + (6.315 if you are male or 0 if you are female) - (3.2649 x your walking time in seconds) - (0.1565 x your heart rate at the end of the test)

An important aside that I heard during this conversation was that a VO2 max of 18 ml/kg/min is the bare minimum elderly people needed to live alone. We often think of VO2 max as an indicator of high performance, which it is. However, we can’t forget that these basic performance markers aren’t only important for high-level athletics, but they also have a greater meaning in our everyday lives.

Get to walking!

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Praise for the Split Squat

I’ve got nothing but good things to say about the split squat.

It’s versatile exercise, builds stability and strength, gives you a bit of a stretch, it’s easy to load (or unload) and most everyone can do at least some variation of it.

It looks a lot like the shapes we make while playing sports and closely resembles the shapes required to get up and down from the floor unassisted. In other words, it scales easily and everyone from high level athletes to elderly people training for independence can get something from it.

Along with squats and deadlifts, make sure split squats, and the many variations, are a staple in your training program.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Nine Physiological Adaptations to Exercise

Last week I shared a podcast episode of Andy Galpin on the Huberman Lab Podcast. In the conversation Dr. Galpin lays out the nine physiological adaptations to exercise.

• Skill/technique - moving better, better positions, precise timing sequence, more efficient movement.

• Speed - moving at higher velocity or rate of acceleration.

• Power - speed x force.

• Force - aka strength, maximum force produced once.

• Muscle hypertrophy - how much muscle mass do you have?

• Muscular endurance - how many repetitions in a row can you do? Localized muscled fatigue.

• Anaerobic capacity - how much work you can do at maximum heart rate. 30-120 seconds all out work. Global failure.

• Maximum aerobic capacity - 8-15 min, reach maximum heart rate and vo2 max heart rate.

• Long duration - sustain sub maximal work for long period of time with no breaks or reduction.

What’s interesting about this list is that two big reasons people workout aren’t even mentioned. It’s because they’re only a byproduct of training for some of the adaptations mentioned above. Those are improving overall health and weight loss.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Building Strength is Easy, What's Hard is...

Building strength is easy. Staying strong is even easier.

It’s hard to stick with your training and be consistent.

It’s hard to showing up when you don’t feel like it.

It’s hard to get right back to it after a vacation.

It’s hard to prioritize when new things come up.

Having a gym like GAIN is a refuge to your fitness habit.

You always do something appropriate for you. We modify as needed based on how you’re feeling, and it’s one of the only places you’ll go that everyone has a single goal that unites them; improve themselves through physical fitness.

What to do is easy. Continuing to do it is the real challenge.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

What's Mobility Class?

What’s Mobility Class?

Our 5-Week Mobility Course starts on Sunday February 12 at 8:30am.

In this class, you’ll use a variety of techniques to help you feel better, move better, create more awareness around how you move and breathe, and gain a better understand of your body. It’ll help you get more out of your training, feel better throughout the day and help your body unwind after a hard week.

Mobility work is about feeling less stiff, improving range of motion, and having better stability and control through that range of motion. It’s not just stretching. Rather, stretching and different techniques of stretching fall under the umbrella of mobility work.

You’ll use a variety of techniques like:

Soft tissue massage with a ball or foam roller.

Static and dynamic stretching techniques.

Using bands to help mobilize into a better positions.

Positional breathing drills to improve range of motion.

Controlled movements to load and own any new positions.

These classes will be full of information to help you stick with a mobility routine, or find a couple of new drills to add into your training. Members and Nonmembers can sign up for all 5 weeks HERE..

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Why (and How) I Trained 47 times in My Son’s First 50 Days of Life

My son Nolan was born 50 days ago. I’ve managed work out 48 times in those 7 weeks and 1 day.

I’m not training for a specific event. There’s no race on the calendar.

What I’m training for is being better. When I work out, I have better days. When I move more, I feel better and think more clearly. My whole day is enriched when I prioritize time for myself.

Now that we’ve established why someone would workout so much with a new born and a toddler, let’s look at how I did it.

Two key factors set me up for success. Listening to what my body needed. Knowing it would be running off a less-than-optimal sleep schedule. And making sure my discipline was firing on full steam to get going when I didn’t feel like it. Which was way more frequently than you think.

I had 15 total rest days. Thirty percent! Keep that in mind. I trained in the morning before anyone (and I mean anyone) is awake for 36 of the days. On 12 days, predominantly in the past two weeks, I trained early in the morning, and again for 45-60 minutes in the afternoon at the gym.

For the first few weeks I only ran (easily), did push ups and air squats, or walked with a 20-pound weight vest. I needed it to be simple and quick to the point. The 4th week I added in some more bodyweight movements like pull ups and dips, and started back with light barbells and kettlebells on week 5. I continued ramping up the intensity (effort, load, volume) and the last 5 days have been hard training, back to normal.

Training for the specific purpose of feeling better is underrated. If you told me my body wouldn’t change, my strength would only decline and I’d only get slower for the rest of my life, I’d still get out in the cold garage and train every morning because it makes everything better.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Discipline Over Motivation

Each year as January winds downs people start abandoning their New Year’s resolutions.

If you’re one of the few who has continued to stick it out with yours, congratulations, keep it up!

Here is a simple concept that will help you keep going when motivation is starting to dwindle. Which, of course it will run out eventually.

You don’t need motivation. It’s finicky and unreliable.

Instead focus on building discipline. Discipline is what gets you do to stuff when you don’t want to. It checks the box when motivation is no where to be found.

There’s this funny thing about discipline too. It eventually creates motivation for you. After you get some reps in, of getting yourself to do the thing that is good for you but you’re not motivated to do, you’ll feel better and become motivated once again.

Don’t want for more motivation, it isn’t coming. Create your own through discipline.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain