Pivot!

Originally posted 4/19/21

Having a plan in the gym is necessary.

However, the ability to deviate from that plan based on new information is imperative to long-term gym gains.

Things change day to day and week to week. Sticking to the plan no matter what is a sure fire way to burn out, or worse, get hurt.

Advanced gym-goers know that you've got to modify things based on how you're feeling.

That's why I was so excited when I saw Hannah’s workout from a couple weeks ago.

She was planning on deadlift day, but after warming up, a funky hamstring made her rethink those deadlifts with a barbell. She pivoted to using a kettlebell.

She was able to deadlift the kettlebell without bugging that hamstring and still got a workout in.

As her coach (and husband) I was so proud to see that she didn't push through the pain because that's what was planned, or equally as bad, skipped it all together.

Not sure what you can do? There's always something.

You might need to pivot the plan. Relentlessly aim to stick with the plan, unless you can't. And in that case, be okay with adjusting and calling audibles.

Remember: win the game by continuing to play.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Protein, Sleep, Steps

If you want to gather some information about your lifestyle, I would try recommend things; total protein grams consumed, hours of sleep and daily steps.

By knowing how many grams of protein you get we can set a realistic target. Focusing on protein can help better food choices fall into place.

Sleep gives a clear picture of how much rest and recovery you’re getting. Until you track it, it’s impossible to know. Getting more productive rest can boost your workout performance and leave you feeling recharged every morning.

Steps show how much NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) you’re getting and if you’re moving enough during the day. There’s nothing magic about ten thousand. Seriously. Instead, figure out where you’re at and focus on getting a couple thousand more consistently.

If you need some data for a clear lifestyle goal, start there.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Be 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 is:

Consistency and moderation over intensity.

While intensity does have its place. We often 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

Macro Talk

It’s been 9 days of tracking my macros.

Macros is short for macronutrients. They are the carbohydrates, fats and proteins that make up the calories in food.

Before 9 days ago, I would have sworn to you that I eat 3 meals a day. Once I measured it though, I can tell you I eat more than 3 meals a day.  It’s more like 5 or 6, if I hit proper calories.

Why would I want to weight and measure all the food I’m eating?

To get a clear idea of how much I’m eating and where those calories are coming from. Our own judgments about how much we’re eating probably aren’t accurate. I recently claimed to Taylor that I eat 4000 calories a day. He didn’t believe. I tracked for a random day to prove him wrong only to find that I had consumed only 2800.

You’ll estimates will be inaccurate until you look at the numbers.

How I started tracking and what I’m doing with the information.

For the first 3 days I just ate whatever I was going to. Except that I weighed it using a food scale. We’ve had ours for projects like this since 2015. I log the foods into MyFitnessPal. The next day I would repeat.

Despite thinking I was a consistent eater, my patterned seemed to be to under eat one day and then over eat the next. Missing a meal, or two would have a drastic effect on my overall intake and now I’m noticing how it can disrupt my planned training session in the afternoon.

I’m going to continue on for now and keep trying to have less fluctuations with my calorie consumption. This is a good yearly practice to get into. I did it for about 15 days last year in March and I gained some insights I’m still using. Specifically, I started drinking a daily protein shake and eating more oatmeal, both things I’m still doing.

If you’re looking to gain insights on how you’re eating, and need a clear health or performance focused goal, tracking your macros and calories may be beneficial.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Overload

I love podcasts. I love learning, being distracted and entertained. I’m always listening to something.

A couple times a year though, I take a break.

I realize I’m taking in too much information that I’m not actually doing anything with.

My brain gets overloaded and it’s overwhelming. There’s always something new out, something to keep up with.

So I took a 10 day break. No podcasts while driving, riding the c2 bike, raking the lawn or cleaning the basement.

It’s been nice.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Dichotomy

originally posted 4/13/21

I've been on a hot streak with my training. I just took my first two consecutive days off in months. I was upset when I told Hannah the news and she said, “Do you hear yourself right now?”

There are two perspectives I hold here. They are both true and they have a direct relationship with your ability to keep showing up and sticking with the habit of training.

The first being that I messed up. Something went awry that I should have anticipated and accounted for. If I were more disciplined, better with time management, or listened to my body, maybe I could have trained one of those days.

On the other hand, I know my body needs rest and recovery. It needs time off, a chance to recharge. Training is stressful and it’s thankful for the break. It was nice to get a little extra sleep on Sunday morning.

Both perspectives are true.

The internal battle of making the right choice keeps me in the game. That real goal should be to keep playing, to show back up when you don’t want to, or when your streak is over. Holding both perspectives at once helps me do that.

You can skip a workout because you're sore and be upset that you did, but also be thankful for the extra rest. It shouldn't be one or the other.

This isn't just about no days off, or about resting to take care of your body. It's about both. We need both perspectives to be productive and it's a dance on a fine line. Too much discipline and pushing, you'll burn out. Not enough time management and too much rest, you'll never hit your goals.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Most Important Human Skill?

I heard a coach talking about the importance of walking on a podcast. They had a perspective that really stuck with me.

They were making the case that walking is the ultimate human skill, what are we with out it?

In his book Exercised, Daniel Lieberman examines how natural selection gave us “ingenious features” that allow us walk efficiently and not topple over.  Specifically the shape of our pelvis, the curvature of our spine, our big heel bones, the arches in our feet, forward pointing big toes, along with stable ankles, and the way our hip and knee angle works. We never have to consider those things, but it what makes it possible for us to walk so smoothly.

Back to the podcast. The coach, in reference when comparing walking to the importance of strength and endurance training, said, “well, you still need to walk to the squat rack, walk to the bench press, walking to the swimming pool.”

Warm weather and long days are here. Embrace walking and get outside for some added daily movement.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Squat Skills and Running

Mastering a squat is one the best things you can do to improve your running ability. Consider learning to squat as a new skill that will have immediate transferability over to you on the road, trail or track. Besides, if you only run, you need to build in opportunities to take your hips, knees and ankles through full range of motion. Running alone won’t complete that task, but squatting will.

When running in a good position your trunk is braced and you’re stabilizing your spine, you get movement from certain areas and ideally not compensating through others, just like squatting.

You need to be able to do that over the entire duration of your run. Mile after mile no matter the distance or intensity. When you can no longer maintain the proper positions, you risk injury or develop compensatory patterns, that may lead to injury in the future. If that isn’t good enough reason for you, you will also lose power and speed. Resulting in slower times and harder runs.

Here’s where the ability to properly squat comes in. Doing box squats or goblet squats or even bodyweight squats will allow you to spot any mechanical breakdowns that may happen in your running technique. If you always turn your feet out on the last few reps of goblet squats, you can bet that you turn your feet out when running. Missing hip extension? We can see that at the top of your squat too.

As mentioned earlier, while running, you need proper spinal bracing. If you arch your back as you lower yourself to squat, you may be run in an over extended position. That also shows that you don’t know how to properly keep yourself in a strong, braced core position. Proper squatting, with guidance from a knowledgeable coach, requires you to brace your core to move your extremities, just like running.

We can spot potential breakdowns but we can also practice good positions. Let’s say your workout consists of 4 sets of 8 goblet box squats, you get 32 chances to practice proper alignment and form, that will have carryover to your run.

After you build up the basic movement knowledge to properly squat, whichever variation is best for you, we can challenge it in several different ways. This makes you aware of positions and helps maintain technique over a certain intensity or duration. It’s skill practice to make you a better runner.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Get Some Shut Eye

In the book Built to Move, Kelly and Juliet Starrett outline these 10 tips to get the best rest and recovery. You might know some of these, but hopefully you can learn a thing or two to help you get a refreshing night’s rest.

Go to sleep and wake up at the same time, even weekends.

We keep babies on toddlers on strict sleep schedules, why don’t we do that as adults?

Move more throughout the day.

More movement throughout the day is going to help you hit the hay. TL;DR: walk more.

Careful with caffeine

Caffeine takes time for our system to process. Even if you’re a high caffeine metabolizer like me (I got my DNA tested), it can still affect your sleep, wait for it…. Even if you fall asleep without issue - it’s likely disrupting the restfulness and quality of your sleep. Try out a couple different cut off times and see what works best for you.

No phones in the bed.

IN 2015 right after GAIN opened I bought an analog alarm clock. I was waking up and immediately checking my email. Not exactly an easy morning wake up. These days I still leave my phone on the kitchen counter after 8pm.

Cut the alcohol

Anyone who has worn a Garmin or a WHOOP strap for a consistent period of time will tell you that alcohol negatively impacts their sleep. Not to mention they likely hate hangovers and hate how much junk they eat while drinking…. It’s something too many people rally behind for not a lot of good reasons. Audit your consumption.

Cool down

A cool room is the best place to sleep. Try turning the thermostat down a bit before bed and see if it helps you unwind.

Night time wind down

I’m a sucker for a morning routine, but I haven’t created my perfect bed time routine yet. Having a systematic habit in place might be the key to getting in bed at consistent times throughout the week. I do my soft tissue work before I go to bed to promote a parasympathetic response and trigger my body to rest and digest. The Starretts recommend setting an alarm 60 minutes before bed to remind you to start your routine.

Dark and quiet

Blackout shades are amazing. Especially if you’re early to bed people like us in the coming summer months.

Overestimate the time you need in bed.

This one is hard to wrap your head around. They’re saying if you want 8 hours, you better plan to be in bed for 9 hours. It’ll take you a while to fall asleep, and if you wake up for the bathroom, or toss and turn, all those minutes don’t count toward you sleep total.

Mimic you bedtime when you travel.

Self explanatory. Stay consistent.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Strong Enough?

We ask this question a lot. To clients, while writing programs and as a discussion amongst us coaches.

We are a strength and conditioning gym after all. We're all here to get stronger, right? A some point, does the risk of more strength outweigh the reward?

If your deadlift is strong, can you showcase that perfect form after doing a heavy sled march? What about after 2000m on the AirBike? How are your goblet squats after running 400 meters?

Displaying your strength while you're huffing and puffing and your heart is pounding is impressive. It's the next step we can take when you're "strong enough." The best news about this: this builds strength too.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

The Rest of the Day

One hour is not enough. You have to optimize your in gym performance while you’re away from the gym.

Are you fueling your body for what you want to do?

Drinking enough water? Taking some electrolytes?

Are you recovering? How many hours of sleep do you get?

Feeling stressed out? How are you dealing with that stress?

Getting enough daily movement through walking? Have a mobility practice?

All these things factor in to how you body feels and performs. And they’re all things that happen away from the gym, the other 23 hours. If you want to upgrade your gym performance, the best place to start is what you’re doing when you’re not even at the gym.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

How I Finally Hit a Snatch PR

If you’re following along on Instagram you know I hit a big snatch personal record last week. The snatch is 50 percent of the Olympic sport weightlifting. It’s highly technical and an incredible display of athleticism, power, timing and coordination. It’s hard to learn, difficult to practice and takes many years to gain an understanding of the complex movement.

There are a few factors that helped me hit this big 25 pound PR that took at least 6 years for me to break. Hopefully you can learn a thing or two about training from them.

1. No heavy attempts for a while.

   In the spring or summer 2021 I hit a 185 snatch. That was the most recent time I had snatched that weight, which had been my top lift since 2017. In the fall of 2021, I followed a once or twice per week snatch plan for a couple months. I drilled the technical skills, got a lot of reps in, and limited the percentages to keep every single rep as proficient as I could. I planned on this leading into a big PR attempt in January but instead I got sick, felt unmotivated and shifted my training for other things, like the Hyrox.

2. Lots of light snatches.

   Even though it had been a while since I was snatching was a staple in my program, I would often use lighter weight power snatches in conditioning based workouts at 95 or 135 pounds, usually under fatigue, which despite my previous views on it, can be an excellent way to grease the groove and become more efficient.

3. Big squatting.

   For the past two years I’ve been trying to build my squatting strength. It’s a challenging movement for me and it’s expensive for my body. Even though I haven’t hit a PR since December 2021, my base level strength is at an all time high. When I would miss olympic lifts in the past, it was because I would get stuck standing up the weight. This year, that’s been no problem.

4. DB Snatches.

   I’ve been snatching dumbbells a lot this year. I can think of at least 4 workouts where I’ve snatched the 100 pound dumbbell. Each time it got a little easier, and that last time, I was running hills and snatching, and I thought, I better test my snatch soon, this is feeling better than ever and I wonder if it’s going to carry over to the barbell. That was in October.

5. Physical therapy.

   I’ve been working diligently to fix some imbalances and getting help figuring out precisely what my body needed got me on track and helped me make sure I wasn’t slacking on my daily mobility.

6. Body weight.

   I’ve put on some muscle mass over the past two years and I weigh about 220 pounds right now compared to 195 pounds back when I set the original PR. As the saying goes, mass moves mass.

7. No pressure.

   Since there wasn’t a big lead up to this I had no expectations. I had a PR attempt on my mind for months, and I wasn’t even thinking about it last Friday. I started to warm up and thought, today’s the day.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Addition Not Subtraction

Gyms are so good at helping people make changes in their life because it’s a new thing to add in.

You need to commute to the gym, be there for an hour and commute back to home or work or wherever. You can’t fake it. You have to carve out that time and actually show up for it to work.

Health and fitness often focuses on elimination. Take diets for example. Cut this thing out, stop doing this, no more of this type of food. The restriction makes compliance difficult. Compare that to when you need to add something to your diet instead. Take these vitamins, eat this many vegetables or drink this amount of water seems to click with people better.

If you’re having trouble getting to the gym, remember, once you add this habit in, other good habits are going to fall in place. You’ll subtract bad habits through the addition of your new habit.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

SOLEC

It’s rare someone comes in and doesn’t say that need to work on balance. Balance is a tricky thing to train, because you need to challenge your balance in order to train it. I learned this acronym last week, and it’s something you should know, and it’s a great balance test you can try today.

SOLEC stands for Standing on One Leg Eyes Closed.

That’s the test. Stand on one leg with your eyes closed, see how long you can last.

Your eyes play a big role in balancing and when you take that away it’s much more difficult.

Try the test with your eyes open and compared to your eyes closed score.

There are a lot of different ranges for a good target time here. At least a few seconds eyes closed is the bare minimum and getting 15 seconds with eyes closed is the gold standard.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Brain Dump

A few years ago Monday morning was hitting me hard. It was a hard shock back into the gym after the weekend. I read somewhere about doing a brain dump to prevent yourself from feeling overwhelmed, and I use this strategy every week now.

I break out my notebook and scribble down anything that’s happening the upcoming week. When I’m coaching, meetings, phone calls and appointments.  I make note of when I’ll try to workout each day and then come up with a rough idea of what the intent of the workouts should or what I need to work on. Sometimes I’ll set some goals for the week too.

After spending 5 minutes doing this, I feel more prepared and more energized to take on the coming week. If you feel jet lagged on Monday morning, give the brain dump a shot.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Built to Move

Kelly and Juliet Starrett’s new book Built to Move comes out next week. Kelly is a physical therapist and in my opinion, one of the best thinkers around how the human body moves and works. I discovered his his model for understanding movement and the shapes the human body makes way back in 2011. I was fresh out of college and he was able to connect the book knowledge I learned in school and show me how it applies to coaching in real life.

Kelly and Juliet are reaching more and more people by talking about what it is to be a human and how you can show up as your best self in life. In this podcast, they discuss the movement vital signs from their new book and how to prioritize your health without adding more things to do. They discuss many lessons from their work with professional athletes, and how they use those experiences to trickle down knowledge to the regular, non professional person.

If you want to live a healthy and capable life, check it out.

Mind Pump: the Essential Habits You Need to Move Freely & Live Fully With Kelly & Juliet Starrett

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Watch Your Head

There's a movement fault that we're always correcting at the gym. Both novice and advanced lifters do it, and I catch myself doing it still, after many years of lifting. If you become aware of this, it will improve your movement quality.

Don't look at your feet.

Too often, during kettlebell swings, deadlifts, ring rows, step ups and even squats. People place their focus on the ground between their feet. Everything is connected, so this can effect other parts of your body downstream. Put your head so eyes are looking out straight ahead. This will upgrade the quality of whatever exercise you're doing.

Don’t look too high up either. Instead, find a spot that is comfortable, and has no effect on the position of your spine. Too much movement in either direction is not good.

Whenever your training be sure to audit on where you're looking, and what your head is doing.

Justin Miner

Basic Squat Checklist

We could all use more practice of the fundamentals. Check out this run down of common teaching points we use at GAIN to upgrade peoples’ squat.

Get Organized!

Screw your feet “into” the ground by turning you heels towards one another. You can also imagine spinning your knee caps away from each other. When you do this, we’re trying to rotate the hips into the best position for range of motion and for force production.

Foot Pressure

After you get your hips organized, you might feel the weight on the outside of your feet. That means you’ve gone too far. Try to maintain a balanced foot - weight right in the middle of your heel and ball of your foot. At the gym, we say find your “mid foot.” This is initially difficult to do, but after a few reps it evens out.

Back THEN down

When learning to squat, it’s helpful to imagine the lowering portion as two pieces. Start by pushing your butt to a wall behind you. Once you start moving, let your sternum fall towards the floor. Once that happens, start bending your knees. This way, you’ve got the right trajectory to squat using your hips and putting less pressure on your lower back and knees. It’ll feel clunky at first, but as you learn the pattern, the two step movement will become fluid.

On the Bottom

Maintain that foot pressure! No knees caving in, instead push them away from each other, like they’re magnets. To get up, start pushing that middle of the foot into the floor like you’re trying to break through it. Careful not to let your heels lift from the floor, if they do, lean forward more. If the opposite thing happens and all your weight is in your heels, you may feel like you’re going to fall over backwards. Keep your toes on the ground too.

Back on the Top

Maintain that knees out pressure as you come up. Once you get to the top, be sure you squeeze your butt to finish the movement, open up the hips and set the next rep up for success.

Breathing

For squats we want to breath in going down, exhale as we’re coming up. We’ve talked before about a slight breath hold for added pressure and stability, but this is a basics primer. For the purpose of bodyweight squats, we want to inhale down, sharp exhale coming up. That’ll keep you in a good, smooth rhythm.

I hope one out of the many cues I just gave makes something click for you. We can always improve our fundamentals.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Counting

A sneaky high level strength and conditioning skill is counting your reps.

There are a lot of things to think of all at once. Screwing your feet to the floor, squeezing your butt, the weird exercise names, keeping your core engaged and on top of all that, you need to remember to breathe. At first glance, counting seems like just another annoying thing to occupy your mind. It isn't. In fact, not only will it make sure you get the proper dosage of reps, it'll actually help you do all those other things, too.

Counting forces you to be engaged. Ticking off each rep, 1…2…3… gives you an opportunity to check in on your form, and make sure you're doing all the aforementioned things like breathing and squeezing your butt. Each time you count, check in with yourself to breathe, or squeeze or get your elbows up, or to make any adjustment or reinforcements you need.

Like I mentioned, counting is high level. But don't just count, use counting as an opportunity to clean up your movement and get more engaged on with what you're doing

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

You'll Never Regret It

I was just playing the with baby on the floor. I did 100 push ups over the course of a few minutes. It was entertaining for me and him. I try to do stuff like that, sneak in more movement, whenever I can.

Even though it’s hard to get started, I always feel better and more accomplished after.

Movement of any kind, be it mobility work, push ups and squats, or a quick yoga flow, always rewards your body.

No matter how hard it is to start, you’ll never regret moving.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain