Heart Rate Monitors, Chest Strap vs Wrist.... Continued

Last week I did a running workout with Taylor. I forgot my heart rate monitor at home, so we wouldn’t be able to compare data like we normally would since my heart rate would be recorded by the built in wrist-based monitor built into my watch.

This begs the question, is your wrist heart rate monitor as good as a chest strap?

My wrist monitor seems to be good at measuring my resting HR and my overnight HR while sleeping. I’ve done workouts comparing both at the same time, and the lag alone on the wrist can skew the data and paint an inaccurate picture of what happened. If you want to use your heart rate to measure recovery times or get as certain amount of zone 2 work, the chest strap's accuracy is incomparable.

After last week’s interval workout, I sync up my watch to check out the data anyway, and I’m surprised to see it looks like I wore my heart rate strap. You can clearly see a steady, subtle build in our 1.75 mile warm up run, then 3 distinctive spikes for our 3 intervals. The numbers are right around where I would expect them to be for a chest strap.

While I’m still not going to trust the wrist strap, I was happy to see such a similar reporting based off my perceived exertion. Of course, the only way that I could in fact correlate the data, is because I usually wear the chest strap.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

My warm up and 3 sets of running (and biking) intervals recorded from wrist based HR monitor.

Taylor’s intervals recorded with chest strap.

Beginner Checklist

These are my top strength training movements for beginners.

These basic movements are easy to learn, provide a coach with lots of intel on movement patterns and play a foundational role in the development of a long-term strength and conditioning program.

1. Box Squat

The box squat teaches people how to use their hips, control the descent and maintain a rigid torso position. The box exaggerates the squat, and makes it easy to spot (and feel) funky movement patterns.

2. Push up/Elevated Push Up

This pressing movement allows for plenty of reps to create stable shoulders and groove sound shoulder mechanics. Elevating the hands allows for most everyone to get some horizontal pressing in.

3. Ring Row

The same as a push up, except this is a pulling movement opposed to a pressing movement. Simple, feels good and easy to correct sagging hips or poor shoulder mechanics.

4. Split Squat

This stationary lunge gets your knee behind your butt, a vital movement for healthy hips, and builds single leg strength, stability and balance.

5. Kettlebell Deadlift

The deadlift teaches control of the spine and emphasizes utilizing the hips rather than the back.

6. Anti-Rotation Press

This sneaky hard movement teaches you to resist unwanted motion and maintain a stable trunk.

When in doubt, choose one of these movement, or a variant from it. It’s an excellent way to create a well-rounded workout and hit most the movement patterns.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Interval Warm Ups

Getting properly warmed up for intervals will get you much more out of the session. If you were to dive right into the first interval, not only would it be an unrealistic pace for you to hold (because you’ll feel good but fatigue quickly), but there will be a lot of heart rate spikes and dips since the bout of exercise started immediately instead of gradually.

When we’re at rest, the majority of our blood is centered around our organs, helping the body rest and digest. When we start exercising, say riding a bike, our muscles need more oxygenated blood. So it is taken away from the organs and delivered to the muscles.

Without a gradual warm up, we open the flood gates to send blood out. Your heart rate spikes, and you feel like you’re working hard, but your body is just trying to keep up delivering oxygen to the working muscles. You intervals will play out the same way. Erratic paces, heart rate spikes, feeling like you’re breathing heavy but you aren’t working that hard are all signs of too short a warm up.

In an ideal world, a longer, more gradual warm up is better. In the gym, tight on time, at least 5-8 minutes of extra moving should do the trick.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Positive Influence

The gym will impact other areas of your life. Showing up to the gym consistently is huge. Just showing up isn’t all you have to do if you want to make real lifestyle changes though.

You see, most of your progress happens away from the gym. And most of your time is spent away from the gym. Ideally, your time in the gym has a positive influence your behavior when you’re away from the gym. This is the key to making long-lasting, healthy changes to your life.

Doing the little things over and over like:

Choosing nutritionally dense food.

Skipping the alcohol.

Drinking more water.

Walking and moving more.

Sitting less. Stretching more.

Managing your stress.

Having a community to belong to.

You can't write any of those things down on a strength and conditioning program, but they're all equally as important as adding weight to the bar or lowering your 500m pace on the rower.

Hopefully a good workout inspires you to make better food choices, gives you a dose of like-minded people, and reminds you to sit on the floor and use that foam roller tonight instead of slouching on the couch.

The gym is important, but so are the things that happen away from it. Show up consistently and let your practice of showing up for yourself bleed into other parts of your life.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Feet and Eyes

Where are you feet? Where are your eyes?

No matter the movement, its quality would benefit from considering these two things. Are your feet turned out? Collapsed inward with no tension? Are you looking around, at your feet, or keeping your chin down and eyes straight ahead to best align your trunk for maximum horsepower?

Even during the bench press, leg drive is an important factor to make or break a heavy attempt.

Whether it's jumping rope, box jumps, deadlifts, kettlebell swings, squats, lunges or rowing, take a moment to notice what your feet and eyes are doing. A small adjustment can make a big difference in movement quality and performance.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Ring Rows

Ring rows are a silent champion of the weight room.

This simple, versatile movement, can easily be written off as a beginner exercise, however, there’s so much going on here, it deserves to be a staple in most peoples’ program.

We get horizontal pulling, a plank-like challenge for the torso, grip strength and endurance and it’s easy to see and feel if you’re doing it well.

Keep these things in mind when ring rowing, or performing any other rowing variations at the gym.

• Squeeze! Squeeze the handle with your whole hand. Don't let it hang in your fingers.

• Don't shrug. Keep those shoulders away from your ears!

• Use your upper back, not just your arms. Try to feel your shoulder blades moving as your arm works.

• Keep your hips square - don’t snag, arch or twist your torso.

Ring rows are a total body strength movement. If they feel easy for you, take a couple of big steps forward and find a few challenge. Get to work!

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Podcast Recomendation

I was excited to see that Eric Cressey was on the Tim Ferriss Podcast recently.

Eric is strength and conditioning coach who primarily trains professional baseball players. He owns two gyms and is currently the Yankee’s strength and conditioning coach.

The podcast starts at a place you wouldn’t expect, but you can tell immediately Cressey knows his stuff.

Enjoy.

LISTEN HERE

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Hip Hinge

In strength and conditioning, there's a fundamental movement pattern that often gets overlooked but has potential for unlocking your strength and performance. It’s the hip hinge. While it sounds simple, mastering this movement can have a profound impact on your overall strength, power, and understanding of movement.

The hinge involves flexing your hips, while maintaining a rigid spine. Moving this way loads the muscles of your hips, or what’s called the posterior chain, your hamstrings and glutes. Learning how to use and load those muscles will prevent you from lifting with your back, or putting the pressure in the wrong spot.

When hinging, much like squatting, paying attention to your feet is a game-changer. Finding some tension off the floor, and placing your weight on your mid-foot will guide your hips and knees to exactly where they need to go.

In the gym, more weight is usually viewed as harder, but hinging, like many other movements, actually can require some load to get the best feel for it. If you’re having trouble feeling the hip hinge, grab a 10 pound plate and give it a big hug. This can create the right feedback to engage the hips and create total body tension.

Step-by-step:

1. Get organized; screw your feet into the floor, stand tall and squeeze your butt.

2. Imagine you’re carrying your groceries inside. Your hands are full and the door is about to close, you bump it with your butt to push it back open and carry - that’s how you initiate a hip hinge.

3. As your hips move back, let your chest start moving toward the floor. Keep your chin down and eyes ahead.

4. As you reach the turnaround point you should begin to feel a stretch in your hamstrings, this is a good sign.

5. To stand up, simply press your feet into the floor and allow yourself to come up with a little bit more speed that the descent. Be patient and don’t lead with your chest or head.

The hinge can be one of the more difficult fundamental movement patterns to learn but once you have it, you can unlock new found strength, power and athleticism.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Stroller Jogging

Last week, I took off on my first stroller jog of the summer and got crushed! Running with the stroller is no joke, if you’ve got a stroller run in your future, or if you’re a stroller running regular, here are some point of performance to keep in mind.

• It’s much harder. Pushing that heavy thing down the road is hard. Don’t underestimate it. Our neighborhood is full of subtle ups and downs, and with the stroller they are much more noticeable.

• One hand only! In order to keep that fluid and smooth stride, you’re got to have some arm action. I place one hand in the middle of the stroller handle and pump my other arm, trading frequently. Avoid running with both hands on the handle if you can.

• Side by Side. If I’m really trying to open up my legs and get moving, I run adjacent to the stroller. If I don’t, there isn’t enough room for my legs to open up.

• Walk it! The goal of my stroller run last week was some easy volume. I threw my chest strap on to monitor my heart rate. I wanted to keep it under 150 beats per minute. This meant, I walked much more frequently than I would have had I not been pushing the stroller. Those slight climbs added up. Instead of feeling frustrated, I plan on that happening when stroller jogging.

Stroller running ins’t ideal. A little awareness of your position and how you're moving can make a big difference. Get out there!

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Built-In Accountability

Taylor and I have a sneaky, built-in accountability system, and it’s in place for you and you might not even know it. It’s a key benefit of working out in a strength and conditioning gym, there’s ample opportunities for accountability.

Each time I workout, I log the results in TrueCoach. I record what I did, how long or how heavy, and maybe a couple words about how I felt afterwards. No one has access to see my TrueCoach expect for Taylor. And every couple of days, I know he’s going to pull it up and take a peek at what I’ve been doing.

This helps in in two ways. First, it actually makes me remember to log and track my workouts. If he wasn’t coming in to check on them, I might fall behind and probably would have stopped by now. Second, it helps me workout! If I told him I’m going for a run later, there’s a way to check and see if I actually did what I was going to do. Sometimes, not all the time, that gives me the push that I need to get moving.

Us coaches go through everyone’s account each day. We see what you fill in, if you left any notes or uploaded a picture. Whether you realize it or not, filling that thing out and hitting the complete workout button builds accountability for you. The more you put into it, the more you’ll get from it.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

That Time I Got Pinned

After I got my license, I started driving myself to the gym everyday after school.

Great Bay Athletic Club was never overcrowded at 3pm like it would be in a couple hours. Besides me, there were afternoon regulars. A couple of old-school bodybuilders with thick training logs and the trademark thin and low tank top, a pair of older kids from my high school and my lifting buddies. I had just gotten into working out. I wanted to be a better hockey player but mostly, I wanted to look good.

In the strength world, it’s a right of passage to do something with 135 pounds. The barbell itself weighs 45 pounds, and before bumper plates we common, the only large diameter plates were metal 45 pound plates.

On this afternoon I was the only person there, none of the weekday usuals were around. I went on to do my typical warm up. Shot some free throws on the basketball court, worked on striking the speed bag, and a mainstay in warm ups at the time, arm circles with 2.5 pound plates.

This meant I was going to bench press. It's what all the stronger guys in the gym did before they benched, and that was pretty much what most people here did, bench press.  I got my program from Flex magazine. A true bodybuilding split-style. Chest, shoulder, triceps twice a week, back and biceps twice a week and two lower body days. One dedicated to hamstrings and glutes, the other was quads and calves.

The program, my first introduction to progressive overload, decreased reps each week, intended to make you use heavier weights. Towards the end of the program, I was down to 4 reps for my main exercise of the day.

I continued the customary warm up, 10 reps with the bar, small 10 pound plates on each side, 10 reps there. I remember looking around, surprised none of my friends had shown up or at least the bodybuilder who always wore zebra print pants. I swapped out the 10’s for the stout 25’s. The reps there felt good enough that I put the 35 pound plates on the bar, now equalling 115 pounds. 

The reps were good, and I rested a while. Eager to become strong I loaded up the bar with status, 135 pounds. I walked around in my Nike Shocks, obligatory homemade tank top and basketball shorts. I was going to get it, for the first time. 

If you’ve been lifting for a while, you know if you can get the weight as soon as it leaves the rack. I hadn’t had nearly enough reps to know there was no chance I could get this barbell of my chest. I lowered it under control, using what I thought was good technique. 

When the bar touched down, I stopped thinking about lowering the weight and pushed with all my might. The bar started lifting, gaining a bit of speed, then dropped onto my chest. My right leg kicked out when it landed. I was pinned. No one was around. Embarrassed, I wiggled, grunted and heaved, trying anything to get out.  I couldn’t budge the bar.

Finally, some guy walked down the hallway from the locker room on the the gym floor. Immediately he noticed me on the bench. Several minutes into my predicament, I was just laying there, hoping for rescue. He ran over, lifted the bar off my chest and asked if I was okay. Instead of lecturing me, which I’m sure would have resulted in me abandoning the whole gym thing due to embarrassment, he said it happens, don’t worry about it, and went on his way to the cardio theater.

That wasn’t the last time I would get pinned, but it would be the last time I did it without a spotter. I kept working my bench press too, eventually, building to the point where 135 pounds was an acceptable warm up weight.

I’ve been reflecting a lot on how I got started working out, and how I was able to instill this important habit into myself at a young age. Looking back, I’m thankful that guy was nice, and didn’t scare me away from the gym. To whomever you were, thanks for the help.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

How Long Can You Go?

Here’s a simple breathing drill I sometimes use in the morning to get ready for the day.

It starts out hard, but get better with each breath.

Inhale for 6 seconds, exhale for 6 seconds. I first heard of this protocol in James Nestor’s book, Breath.

Try it today. Notice how starts, and how easy it becomes after a few big deep breaths in with sound mechanics.

Can you make it 5 minutes?

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Tomorrow Night!

Join me, the GAIN coaches and the GAIN community on Friday evening at 4:30pm for at Liar’s Bench Beer Co. They (obviously) serve beer and have some food available as well.

We’re looking forward to a fun evening of hanging out with you all!

Please note the 5:30pm class has been cancelled on Friday.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Irradiation

I first heard the term muscle irradiation in college when reading Russian kettlebell master Pavel Tsatsouline’s book, Enter the Kettlebell. This book was much more than a kettlebell tutorial, but through Pavel’s writing, I actually learned how to be strong. Like how to use your feet when pressing a kettlebell overhead, RKC Planks and what muscle irradiation is.

Sherrington’s Law of Irradiation states:

“A muscle working hard recruits the neighboring muscles, and if they are already part of the action, it amplifies their strength.The neural impulses emitted by the contracting muscle reach other muscles and ‘turn them on’ as an electric current starts a motor.”

In less words, turning muscles on can help turn other muscles aid in the work.

It’s really fascinating. By doing nothing differently, creating more tension throughout your body can have you lifting more weights. This can take novice lifters some time to learn.

Want to see muscle irradiation in action?

Stand up and squeeze your glutes. Now, while squeezing your glutes, make your hands into tight fists and squeeze them as well. You’ll notice the glute contraction gets increased from squeezing your hands.

The simplest way to get the most of out muscle irradiation is to squeeze whatever you’re holding more. Squeeze the barbell, the dumbbell or kettlebell more than normal and you’ll notice the muscles through your forearm and into your shoulder turn on to help move and stabilize. Imagine trying to melt the handle with your fist.

If you’re only holding a weight on one side, try squeezing the opposite hand into a tight fist and feel the stability kick in.

Muscle irradiation, and understanding how to create more tension and stability will upgrade your workouts and your movement quality.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Strength & Conditioning Basics

Strength

Adaptation intended to improve force production. Between 2-8 reps per set, rest 90 sec- 3 min between sets. Aim for the last two reps of your set to be challenging to get the most strength gains.

Power

A strength display with speed! Power is about generating as much speed in as little time. Power training comes in many contexts, medicine balls, olympic lifts, jumping and we can even focus on it with a barbell or kettlebell. We aim for 2-5 reps and multiple sets at the same intensity, i.e., don't slow down.

Hypertrophy

Muscle building sets. Higher rep ranges between 8-12 reps. We like these sets for joint and tendon health and getting the blood pumping. Less rest is required here compared to strength sets.

Muscular Endurance

Even higher rep ranges, 12+. Does what it sounds like, improves the ability for your muscles to keep doing the same thing. We'll expose you to high rep ranges like this within the context of conditioning with little to no rest.

Accessory

Not necessarily something we need to strive for load/rep progression. Often times it is an exercise to help a main strength lift, like doing some DB floor presses after benching. Of course, this means accessory work is ALSO hypertrophy and/or muscular endurance, and/or even strength.

There is no clean line between these different rep ranges - the training effect blurs between them.

Skill

A component of all the above. Movement and awareness of your body is a skill. Specific technique of each exercise is a skill. Showing up to the gym and training consistently is a skill. Strength and conditioning gyms are skill factories.

Mobility

You have the requisite range of motion to do something, which is how we define flexibility, and you also have the stability to display control there. Consistent exposure to valuable positions is the best way to improve mobility.

Conditioning

Creating adaptations using specific metabolic pathways intended to improve endurance and stamina at both moderate to low intensities and very high intensities.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Kicking Off a GAIN Summer

This weekend marks the unofficial start of summer, I have two key dates for you.

On Monday the 29th, Memorial Day, the gym is open from 8:30am-11:00am for anyone who wants to give “Murph” a shot. You can reserve your spot under “Events” in the PushPress App. No running skills, push up skills or pull uo skill required.

With a much anticipated return, on Friday June 2nd, we’re kicking off summer with a GAIN gathering at Liar’s Bench Beer Co. at 4:30pm

Get involved!

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Curl It

Originally posted 5/24/21

Curls for healthy elbows, not just big biceps.

I can quantify my development as a coach by how many things I change my mind on. The field is constantly evolving, and there are so many things that work, it's easy to get stuck in your ways and forget to question your own assumptions.

One of those assumptions I've recently flipped on was that curls were a waste of time.

I figured our time in the gym is precious and therefore, we shouldn't spend any time on single-joint isolation movements when we could instead use that time to do functional, multi-joint compound movements.

But for the past 18 months, we've been adding in more and more curls to our programming repertoire.

Why?

We realized we were missing some big gains in terms of building tissue tolerance, perfusing tendons and ligaments, and doing more targeted muscle building.

In other words, some occasional curls will help keep your elbows and forearms healthy, which is our main reason for giving them some love. Secondly, there's a nice side effect of getting more jacked.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Time Scale and Mediocre Workouts

Don’t forget, mediocre workouts over a long enough time frame has massive benefits. Especially when compared to zero workouts over the same time frame.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Macro Talk, Pt. 4, No Bars

I’ve been macro tracking for 6 weeks now. I never thought I would continue for this long, but it has become easy to do, and has been fun to play around with my nutrition. Two weeks ago I realized I was relying heavily on bars to hit my daily macronutrients. While there’s nothing particularly wrong about eating bars, it felt a bit excessive and I wondered, could I hit the same macros without a bars? How would I adjust? Here’s exactly what I did to eliminate one of these daily bars.

The first bar I was having each day was a Perfect Bar. They’re soft, peanut buttery and filling. An excellent companion to a mid morning coffee, sandwiched between first and second breakfast. First breakfast is at 7am, homemade egg muffins (think Starbucks egg bites) and second breakfast is oatmeal at the gym between 10-11am.

To eliminate this bar, I increased the size of my first breakfast and second breakfast. I upped the amount of oats by 15 grams and added a banana. I changed the recipe for my egg muffins to include more eggs and cottage cheese in order to make up the missing 20 grams of protein from the bar.

A couple weeks later this simple change is still going strong. The bigger issue I was having, and the reason for this bar in the first place, was that I was hungry after finishing my breakfast. Making my meals slightly bigger is having an impact on fueling for the rest of the day. It’s a simply change, without tracking and seeing the actual numbers, I wouldn’t have been able to make this adjustment.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain

Weight Vest

Some of you have mentioned wanting to try Murph with the weight vest on this year. This adds an additional layer of difficulty to this already brutal challenge. For the few excited for a new challenge, here are some things to consider.

Have you done Murph without a weight vest yet?

Can you do a set of 10 pull ups, any day of the week?

Can you rip out 100 push ups, no problem?

Have you run at least a handful of times in the past three months? Any of those times with a weight vest?

If you can check off those boxes and are ready for a tough challenge, give it a shot!

Justin Miner

@justinminergain