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.
Nine Physiological Adaptations to Exercise
This list is from 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
Walking Challenge Wrap Up
The walking challenge is over!
If you participated, check your inbox for an email asking whether you made the full 30 day streak.
If you made it 30 out of 30 days you’re eligible to enter a raffle to win a new pair of training shoes.
My prediction is that over 15 if you made the full 30/30. We had 52 sign ups. What do you think?
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Friday Thoughts 21
Happy Friday. Enjoy!
Pelvic Floor Workshop. Saturday February 17. Sign up HERE.
Walking Challenge. Saturday is the final day, you must complete your walk on Saturday to go 30 for 30 days. People on the 30 day streak, keep an eye out for an email.
Gerry. Check out our latest video if you haven’t yet.
I think that’s called discipline.
Breathing and bracing - big lifts vs lifts that don’t require maximal stiffness. So good!
Coaches can use internal cues, something about your body, or external cues, something away from your body. This classic cue blends the best of both worlds and works great. An alternative, is to pretend you have $100 bills in your armpits and you don’t want to drop them!
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Pelvic Floor Workshop at GAIN
I’m excited to announce we’re hosting a pelvic floor workshop at GAIN. I’ve been hounding Lauren to do this for a year, so I’m excited to see it all come together. I am personally excited to attend, because over the past few years especially, we’ve trained a lot of women through and after their pregnancy, and I know the concepts Lauren and Stephanie are going to cover will only help me help them better. Keep reading to learn more about them and whether or not attending is right for you.
Where: GAIN
When: Saturday February 17, 9:00-10:30am
Price: $65
The Instructors:
Lauren LePage, PT and owner of Anchor PT & Performance: having a background in sports performance, I enjoy applying pelvic health concepts for people who enjoy fitness and want to prevent pelvic floor symptoms in the future.
Stephanie Cleary, PT and owner of SC Wellness Technique: she empowers moms to reconnect with their postpartum body and rediscover their strength through integrative pelvic floor physical therapy, and corrective exercise.
Who Should Attend?
all people (men and women), all ages, pregnant/postpartum women, those who have never been pregnant, preparing for pregnancy, as well as coaches/fitness professionals who want apply this knowledge with their clients.
What You’ll Learn:
Learn what the pelvic floor is
Understand how to connect better with your pelvic floor (lengthening and relaxing)
Feel how to perform a kegel correctly
Walk away with their 5 favorite pelvic health exercises you can do at home to help promote pelvic health
Find out if you have diastasis recti (abdominal separation that is common postpartum)
Integrate these pelvic floor concepts to feel more connected in your workouts (jumping, lunging, squatting, etc)
Find out whether or not you may be a good candidate for pelvic floor physical therapy
Gain access their Pelvic Floor Workshop E-book for pelvic health tips and a breakdown of their favorite exercises.
Much more! There will be additional time at the end of the workshop to answer any questions you may have.
SIGN UP HERE
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Melting Ice Cubes and Progress
The following analogy is from Atomic Habits by James Clear.
Imagine an ice cube sitting out on a table. This room where the ice cube is located is temperature controlled. Starting at 20 degrees, we’re going to raise the temperature of the room 1 degree at a time.
After a while, we’re up to 25 degrees. No change on the ice cube, it’s still just sitting there, frozen. Fast forward a little longer, we’re at 29 degrees. Still no change to the ice cube. Once we hit 31 degrees, our ice cube is there, still unchanged and apparently unfazed by the increasing temperature.
Finally, we hit 32 degrees. The ice cube starts to change, it’s melting.
What made the ice cube melt? The 1 degree change from 31 degrees to 32 degrees? Or was the compounding of the temperature change to get there? We saw no progress from 20 degrees all the way to 31 degrees. Just because we couldn’t see the progress, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
You might be going through something similar now. It feels like you’re turning your wheels, not getting any traction. You could be making progress and adapting, it just isn’t visible yet. Remember the ice cube, you could be making change without even noticing it, small actions add up to big changes.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Macro Talk Part I
I tracked my macros yesterday, and will be for the foreseeable future. Macronutrients are carbohydrates, protein and fat (and alcohol) that make up your total caloric intake.
As I’ve mentioned recently, it’s a good yearly practice for me. The 6-8 weeks I spent weighing, measuring and tracking last year helped me eat more protein and be more consistent throughout the year. Tracking macros forces you to see if you’re consistently being inconsistent, the state my nutrition is typically in.
The objective for yesterday, and the rest of the week, is to remember to log everything in the app and get 7 out of 7 days. Last night as I was making dinner, I was popping grapes off Elliot’s plate into my mouth and nibbling on crispy chicken skin, realizing there’s probably a lot of incidental calories like that I’ll need to watch out for.
Besides that, I’m paying attention to protein grams, making sure that it’s high enough.
The hardest part of the first week is remembering to weigh everything, and keeping in mind that gathering my food takes a little longer.
Only after this week will I set some macro/calorie goals. I need to gather more data before making any adjustments and build the habit so I can stick with this long term. I’ll post an update here every week or two.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Walking Challenge, Final Days
Six days left!
Here’s what you need to keep in mind these final days.
Stay strong! Even if you lost your streak some days ago, keep getting those walks in, building the habit will help you move so much more!
If you are still on your streak, keep it up! On Sunday or Monday after the challenge is over, I will email all participants of the Daily Walking Challenge. You will have needed to sign up beforehand to get this email. If you never signed up, but have been playing along, please let me know ASAP.
When you receive that email, if you went 30/30, reply to the email to let me know. There is no sheet to fill out or anything like that, we’re using the honor system. If you say you got all 30 days, I have no reason to not believe you.
I’ll give participants 24 hours to respond, then when we have the final tally of the names we’ll do a drawing to see who wins a new pair of training shoes.
Finish strong!
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Friday Thoughts 20
Happy Friday. Here’s this week’s edition of Friday Thoughts, where I share helpful Instagram posts I saved over the week and sometimes work out new blog ideas. Enjoy.
January by the numbers:
Each month I like looking back at my stats; total workouts, steps, average sleep. This way I can start to use the information to see patterns. Last year, a big takeaway from this was working out too many consecutive days. I would workout for 15-16 days in a row, and not feel any negative effects, but 10 days later there was always a 3 day off stretch. This year, I’m trying to be more strategic and take the rest days BEFORE I need them. Anyway, here’s a look some data I like to see each month.
Workouts: 27 - 4 conditioning workouts, the rest were all weightlifting workouts with a barbell. Squatting and going overhead in all of them.
Steps: While my in gym training has been consistent, walking not so much. I’m surprised to report my step average for January was 7,077. Honestly, higher than I expected.
Average Sleep: 7 hours 37 minutes. Slowly creeping up. I hit 8 hours 5 times! I only got it once in December and November.
Daily Step Challenge:
As of earlier this week there’s about 10 people, that I know of, who are still on their daily walking challenge streak. Keep it up people, 8 days to go!
Athlete or Bodybuilder:
I found it interesting he included rotate here. It’s something that’s becoming more and more important in my own training and in clients’ programs. I think if Dr. Aaron wrote this post a couple of years ago if it would have said anti-rotate, a training concept that seems to be getting more and more outdated as we understand the importance of properly rotating. Regardless, unless your goal is to build as much muscle as humanly possible, train like an athlete.
Pull Up Variation > Banded Pull Up:
I love these, I call them “feet-on-floor barbell pull ups.” It’s a great gap between barbell inverted rows and working towards eccentric reps from a bar.
James Clear, author of Atomic Habits can always make you think.
Thanks for reading!
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Macro Tracking: Pre Tracking Phase
Each year in February or March I start tracking my calories and macronutrients. By tracking, I mean counting my calories, and weighing my food to count total grams of carbohydrates, protein and fat. This year will be no different and I’ll start tracking my macros soon. A critical piece to tracking your food is actually having a ball park idea of what you’ve been eating most days.
That way, when you start figuring out how many grams of carbs/protein/fat you need, you have an idea and aren’t completely guessing or setting up unrealistic expectations.
I call this my pre-tracking phase. I start taking note of what I’m eating, and will weigh out some things here and there. I’m gathering more information for when it’s time to track for real.
This does two things. Now, I have an idea of what 7 ounces of ground beef looks like, or how much 200g of yogurt is because I’ve practiced, and when I do it for real it won’t feel as overwhelming. More importantly, I have a better idea of my total calories and how many grams of protein I’ve been having, so I use that information to set a protein goal and work the rest of the numbers based on that.
I think of all of this as an experiment. It’s a fun challenge to be consistent, tune into yourself and dedicate time to focus on what I’m using to fuel my body. If you think macro counting is in your future, be sure to plan at least a week for a pre-tracking phase and gather important information to set you up for success.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Does It Get Easier or Harder?
It happened again, someone asked if push ups ever become easy.
I had to break the news. Push ups are always hard.
Good training puts you right on the edge. When 3 push ups become easy, we slow the tempo and add a pause, we then start doing 5 and they’re hard again. When you can do 10, we’re on to the rings, the band resisted, plate loaded and increased range of motion.
Progress like that it can make you feel stuck, like you’re doing the same thing over and over again. The level of difficulty is increasing but the end is no where in sight. The endlessness of the gym is scary when you’re new, but once you’ve been training for long enough you realize it’s crucial to keep you there.
Just know that in the gym, it’s helpful to think of the process, that each rep you do is contributing to your improvement. Training will get easier, and it should. But it’ll never feel easy, it’s going to continually be hard, even as you improve. Keep training!
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Do This One Thing to Be Stronger the Next Time You’re In the Gym
If you want to get stronger, like move up to the next kettlebell for your goblet squats, or add pounds to your deadlift, or even if you want to do more push ups in one set, this one thing will help you, rest more.
That’s the big secret tip. Take more time between rounds. You’ll recover more, your muscles will have had a chance to get ready for the next bout, and if they’re fresher, they feel better and can apply more force.
There are times when we don’t want you to rest, where we do want to build up fatigue and stress the system in a different capacity. What we’re referencing today is building strength, and an effective way to do that is to be properly recovered between sets.
If you feel like you could rest 2 minutes, and move up 10 pounds on your bench press, or squats, do it!
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Walking Challenge Check In, Day 18
Twelve days to go! How much more winter weather will we endure?
At this point, it should start to feel automatic. If it hasn’t yet, it’s coming soon. No more forgetting to walk, no struggling to find time, you’ve done the work and built the habit. Keep it up this week and finish strong headed into February!
Keep an eye out for a poll on Instagram. I’ll be putting out a poll today or tomorrow to see how many of you still have the streak going.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Friday Thoughts 19
Happy Friday. Here’s this week’s edition of Friday Thoughts, where I share helpful Instagram posts I saved over the week and sometimes work out new blog ideas. Enjoy.
A couple months ago I followed a program called Easy Strength, where for every workout you do 2 sets of 5 repetitions of a movement (or two or three or four movements) and keep the load at a weight that feels easy. As you accumulate these frequent sessions, you slowly put weight on the bar, essentially upping your max by raising your base and getting a lot of practice. I had a ton of success on it, and this past week two members hit big PRs by following the similar plans. Jeff bench pressed 300, which, not many people have done at GAIN (definitely not me…yet), and Riley squatted 200, which even less have. Both have been on the program since before Thanksgiving. Neither missed a scheduled training session and slowly built the weights up over the weeks.
This post from Meg Squats was timely, leaning during splits squats had come up a couple of times this week, many of you might find this demo valuable. The more upright you are, the more they’re going to target your quads. If you lean forward, thus keeping the shin more vertical, the movement will target your glutes more. This is helpful if you’re trying to rehab or build strength in a certain area, or trying to avoid movements that hurt, i.e., split squats hurt your knee, but if you learn forward to make the more hip dominant, they no longer hurt your knee.
I’ve been wearing a belt more frequently and it has definitely helped my bracing. For me, what it does most, is give me feedback to expand my brace into. I breathe into the belt to create pressure. Far too often I see people crank belts as tight as they possibly can, this has a negative effect, and while it might feel supportive, it’s actually preventing a proper breath and brace.
This was a great video.
See you next week!
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Track it
The old adage, what gets measured gets managed, holds true for health and fitness too.
For a couple months I’ve been tracking my sleep. Well, I have been tracking it since 2019, but recently I’ve been making a point to look at the information each day. I look at what time I went to bed, what my 7 night average sleep duration is and how many hours I got the night before. Ultimately, I’m aiming to get my seven night average consistently over 8 hours.
Taylor has been tracking his steps this month. Everyday he makes some decision about his schedule based on getting those 10 thousand steps in. It can be as simple as I need to walk this morning since I won’t have time this afternoon.
If you’re trying to up your sleep, or steps or protein, give tracking it a try. It’s not an immediate solution, but by tracking it, you’ll learn more about yourself and your habits, and be better equipped to make adjustments and tackle your goals.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Gym Lingo: AMRAP
AMRAP - As Many Rounds and/or Reps As Possible in the time limit.
This is a style of density training - how much work can you complete in the allotted time?
Let’s take the following workout as an example to understand this concept.
AMRAP 6 minutes, max reps of deadlifts @ 135.
You complete 50 reps.
Besides total reps, we can look at total pounds moved, which in this case would be 135 pounds x 50 reps = 6750 pounds moved.
To progress this workout after week 1 you could complete more than 50 reps, add load to the bar, or try to complete 50 reps in less time.
Any of those scenarios would increase this workout’s density, requiring you to do more work.
Here’s another example.
AMRAP 8
50ft sled march
10 mb slams
10 breath high plank hold
This one is a bit more complicated. There are multiple exercises to deal within the 8 minutes. The sled will make your legs burn and get your heart rate up, the slams will spike your heart rate even more, and the plank breaths will be challenging since you’ll be gasping for air.
In this scenario, pacing will have a huge effect on how much work you complete. Start out too fast and finish 3 rounds within 3 minutes, the remaining 5 minutes will be a suffer fest. After completing this workout once, we would track it by how many total rounds + partial rounds you completed. The following week, your fitness would improve just because you know how to pace it better, an important lesson AMRAPs can teach.
AMRAPS are a way to get you to cram as much work, whatever that is, in a time period. By doing this, you’ll learn about pacing and get a great conditioning stimulus.
When doing an AMRAP, find a sustainable pace to complete the task and get to work!
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Sneaky Reps
I have this sneaky, but obvious once you see it, thing in many of the programs I write. It’s an important consideration of mine, especially for someone who’s older.
I’ll pair something seated or standing with something on the floor.
Often times, I’ll notice, or the person will it bring up to me, that they’ll just do all the planks, or glute bridges, or whatever while staying on the floor, and thus not pairing it as written on their program.
While I understand their hesitation, I explain the gym is the perfect place for some exposure and practice reps.
Three rounds can become 3 chances to do a floor to standing transition - a critical life skill!
Get those sneaky reps in when you can. Maybe getting up off the floor is no big deal for you, but can you sneak in some squats throughout the day? Spend more time balancing on one leg? Carry something without putting it down, for no reason at all, other than see if you can.
Listen, don’t take it too far. I’m not saying make all life movements look like gym movements. I’ve tried and it’s not the way. I’m saying there’s plenty of opportunities to get sneaky reps in. For some, it’s as simple as adding some reps to get up and down from the floor. For you, maybe there’s another way to accumulate some sneaky reps in throughout the day.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Daily Walking Challenge Check In
We thought last week with rain and snow were going to be a tough test, how about single digit temperatures to deal with this weekend? I hope you all got out despite the cold and were able to power through to keep your streak going.
The key to having a good time on a walk on a cold winter day is the same as it is for all outdoor winter activities, layering.
The old hiking/running adage, be bold start cold, doesn’t apply to walking around the block though. The idea is that after hiking uphill or running for a while, you’ll warm up and start to sweat. Starting cold allows you to get started and get warmed up without getting too hot or having to stop and take off a layer (you’ll probably still need to, anyway).
But for walking, I find this doesn’t apply. I don’t want to be cold when starting a walk, in fact, I want to be comfortable and warm. My body temperature might rise during a walk, but not like it will on a trail run or venture into the mountains. Nevertheless, here are some strategies I use when venturing out in the cold, whether for a walk in the neighborhood with the family or a cold run up a mountain.
Warm socks, but not too warm. My extra thick, cozy socks are too much and my feet feel sweaty.
Neck/face covering. A gator/balaclava/Buff, whatever you call it, can seal you up and give your face protection from the wind.
Zippers! Be able to unzip for some air when you need it.
Mittens > Gloves when it’s really cold.
Good hoods. I love a hood that I can tighten down so I can still move my head around and see.
How did you layer up for your walks this weekend?
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Friday Thoughts 18
Welcome to this week’s edition of Friday Thoughts, where I share some posts I saved on Instagram or work out some half formed post ideas. Enjoy!
Daily Walking Challenge Day 8! We’ve had it all in the first week, rain, snow, cold and windy winter days. Many of you have reported in that you’re checking the box everyday, keep it up!
Should you exercise if you have a bad night of sleep? In summary, yes but reduce intensity by 25-50%.
Goblet squats are probably the best core exercise for you, even thought it’s hard to “feel” it in your abs. It takes some heavy and challenging sets to learn this lesson.
SEE: daily walking challenge. The most powerful thing the gym can do is influence your choices throughout the day. Take a walk, eat some protein, hang out with your friends and prioritize your sleep.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
General Physical Preparedness
General Physical Preparedness, or GPP, is a way to describe a broad application of strength and conditioning. The focus is on general development of strength, power, speed, skill, movement quality and conditioning. Originating from the sports performance, building GPP is the base building or off-season phase of an athlete’s training plan. Eventually, GPP leads way to more specific training (SPP - sport-specific physical training), increasing intensity, and finally peaking for a specific event or sports season.
For our purposes, your level GPP is a great way to think about your fitness, and to start defining what you want your base to be. Training for a race or triathlon, or building to a certain deadlift number or hitting watts on a bike workout are all clear training goals. Defining what you want your general physical preparedness levels though is different. It’s more broad, and less easily defined.
One way to think about it is your work capacity. Just how much stuff can you get done in a certain time period? Once again, in the gym this is easily defined, but it’s going to take a little more imagination when considering outside the gym.
The right amount of GPP will allow you to complete life’s daily tasks with ease, plus the ability to do whatever else you want.
Let’s take the recent snow storm for example. Having proper GPP levels for you life could mean you can clean of your car, shovel the deck, travel around on the slippery and uncertain terrain and also hit the gym, work all day and be a useful and reliable human.
The point is that everyone’s baseline will be slightly different, but the take away is that you can define it for yourself. What do you want to be able to do? What’s holding you back from doing that? Maybe defining what you consider your base level of general physical preparedness will help you get there.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
GAIN Bowling Night, Tonight at 5pm
Join us tonight at Bowl-O-Rama at 5pm for a GAIN Community Bowling Night.
Lanes and shoes are taken care of, friends and family are welcome. Food and drinks are available for purchase.
We’re bringing the kids if you have little ones as well.
5:30 & 7:00pm classes are cancelled.
See you tonight!
Justin Miner
@justinminergain