My Top Five.....

....things under $20 you can carry in your gym bag, besides sweaty socks and weightlifting gloves.

1. The Tiger Tail. Foam rollers are great, but might not be something you want to carry around in your gym bag. The Stick can be equally as effective, if not more, when it comes to self myofacial release work, but the Stick costs $28. Another version of the Stick, but at a lower cost, is the Tiger Tail. It's particularly great for working out those nasty trigger points in your calves or peroneals that should not be overlooked.
2. Lynx Grips. I get it. If you're a chick you don't want callouses. If you're a guy, I don't get it. But rather than wearing those silly looking gloves, how about using the Lynx Grips. In addition to preventing callouses, they will provide a bit more cushion to the grip and will fatten the grip up a bit. Working with a fatter grip can lead to increased performance when it comes to exercises such as chin pull ups or deadlifts and can help protect your shoulders.
3. A Superband. Adding some band training into your training program can add some variety to your training. It can add difficulty to an exercise such as a band resisted push up. Or it can deload an exercise and make it a bit easier. One of my personal favorites in this case is band assisted chin or pull ups. Gravitron machine no more.
4. Ab Wheel. All the fancy ab training equipment in a gym that costs thousands of dollars and I've been into some that don't even have this simple piece. Is it something I would suggest throwing in everyone's gym bag? Probably not. But it's something I feel people could or should work up to. I love ab wheel roll outs as an exercise. They work the abs in the the function they're supposed to work, anti-extension and spinal stabilization.
   
5. Blender Bottle. Not a bottle to hold water in, but a bottle to mix your post-workout shake in. First thing that should be done after a workout is to down that post-workout shake, not check Facebook. The sooner post-workout the better. Protein synthesis goes up. Insulin levels go up. Cortisol levels go down. Recovery is enhanced. All good things. All good things not enough people are doing.

Exercise of the Week: Val Slide Body Saw

All core training starts with the plank and is built off the plank. As your core stability gets better and the plank becomes easier, it might be time to move onto another exercise or move to a harder version of the plank. To make the plank harder you can do a couple things. You can reduce your base of support by narrowing your feet or going to single leg or single arm versions. You can elevate your feet to make it a bit harder. Or you can do some movement or perturbations as you focus on maintaining that stable spine. That's what you'll see in this video of the Valslide Body Saw. The client in the video is performing a front to back slide with her feet resting on the Valslides. Notice the neutral spine throughout the duration of the exercise.




You can go for time or you can do a certain number of reps. Or to increase the difficulty of the this exercise you can just take it through a larger range of motion.

Get your Valslides here.

Still Behind the Times

The fields of strength and conditioning and health and fitness have come a long way in the last 10-15 years. With more research made available and more trainers and coaches bettering themselves through continuing education these fields have been as strong as they have ever been. It has been great thing. When I pick up a copy of Men's Health or Men's Fitness, they're no longer aimed at just bodybuilders or guys looking to put on freakish amounts of muscle. They're now aimed at the average guy who wants to drop a couple pounds, get stronger and be able to move around without worrying about when his back is going to blow out.

So I feel good about how far these fields have come and then I walk into a commercial gym and it feels like I've been transported by a time machine to a gym in 1980 minus the abundance of leg warmers and bad mustaches. Not as many people as I thought are taking this new information and research and actually using it. Or worse, may be they're just ignoring it.

The idea that interval training is superior to slow steady, state cardio for fat loss has been pounded into the ground for the last 5-1o years. But what's the majority of people doing? Slow steady state cardio work. So the fat loss battle continues with these people.

The biggest buzz word thrown around in the last decade or so is "core" when it comes to training. Everyone wants to do core training. Well, the role of the core is stabilization, yet how much of that do you see being done in gyms? Crunches will trash your spine and are a waste of time. So why the hell are the majority of people still doing them? Their core area still looks bad and probably functions worse.

Or even something as simple as using the foam roller. The benefits of self myofacial release have been proven and thrown at us for years also. I could count on two fingers how many people are actually using the foam roller to address trigger points or adhesions that have built up. Others are using the rollers to do some circus style training. Or worse, the gym doesn't even have one. So they're still walking around trying to figure out why they're still hurting and why their stretching program isn't working.

And let's not even discuss the thigh machines. You know the ones that belong in a gynecologist's office?

It's time to get with the times people. I'll bet you you're still not watching your 14 inch, black and white TV with rabbit years since better TVs have become available, right? Well, better training ideas and concepts have become available. Start using them.

Exercise of the Week: TRX Russian Twist

Sample Workout

The following is a workout performed by one of my clients this morning. This is a client in her 40's who plays tennis a couple of times a week. She has a history of neck pain and limited thoracic mobility. Those two pretty much go hand in hand in a lot of cases. We try to address those issues through the self myofacial work and the warm up portion early on in the session. With her power work, I "ll alternate between rotational med ball throws and overhead slam variations. Her strength work covers major movement patterns (upper body push and pull, quad dominant and hamstring dominant) early on in the strength portion then moves onto accessory movements with the focus on being on shoulder mobility, scapular stability and core stability. All in all it took about 55 minutes to get through.

Foam Roller/Tennis Ball Self Myofacial Release - thoracic spine, lats, posterior shoulder, glutes

Warm Up -

Sleeper Stretch 1x30sec

Upper Trap Stretch 1x30sec

Seated Hip External Rotator Stretch 1x30sec

Side Lying Thoracic Extension/Rotation 1x8

Cradle Walk 1x6

Walking RDL 1x6

Overhead Walking Lunge w/Rotation 1x6

Squat to Stand w/Overhead Reach 1x8

Split Stance Broomstick Pec Mobilization 1x8

Med Ball Work

Half Kneeling Med Ball Diagonal Slams 2x10

Workout

1A) Rear Foot Elevated Split Squat w/TRX, 3x10-12

2A) Push Ups w/Feet Elevated on Swiss Ball, 3x10-12

1B) Val Slide Leg Curl, 3x10-12

2B) TRX Inverted Row, 3x10-12

1A) Walking Lunge w/DB Waiter Carry, 3x10

1B) Prone Y Raise, 3x10-12

1C) Half Kneeling Cable Lift, 3x8-10

There's a Difference: Working Out vs. Training

Working Out vs. Training

Are you just working out or are you training? May be you do not know the difference between the two. Working out is just getting some exercise in, whether it's cardio work or strength work. The usual goal of someone working out is usually just to create some fatigue. To make it feel like you did something. Or may be you're one of those searching for soreness. The funny thing is, it's not that hard to create fatigue or soreness. I could have you do box jumps for a half hour straight and I'm sure you would want to throw up at the end and could barely walk the next day. And fatigue and soreness are really not measurable, significant goals. Working out is going from one workout to the next without any real, significant goals in mind. Basically there is no direction. It gets you nowhere.

Training is comprised of workouts. You have a particular goal in mind. It could be to drop 10lbs or knock a few points off your bodyfat percentage. It could be the ability to do a chin or pull up. Whatever it is, each training session or workout is structured towards getting you to that goal. Each session builds off the previous and takes the next one into account. It's not just about creating fatigue or soreness. As I mentioned before anyone can do that without any real logical thinking. Training is logical. There is direction. There are specifics. There is an end result in mind.

One more thing to think about when debating the difference between training and working out. What do athletes do? They train. Unless your name is Brett Favre of course. In that case you just do what ever you want to do.

There's a Difference: Weight Loss vs. Fat Loss

Weight Loss vs. Fat Loss

Weight loss is pretty easy to measure. Hop on the scale before. Hop on the scale later on. If the number on the scales has gone down, weight loss has occurred. Whether it's fat you have lost or muscle mass you have lost, some type of weight loss has occurred. It's just the sum of total body mass, whether it's muscle mass or bodyfat. Weight loss doesn't' correspond to a loss in subcutaneous fat. You know that stuff that hangs around your waistline? Take the typical person who undergoes a low calorie diet and a plan of steady state aerobics. They in fact may lose weight, but they may have also undergone a loss in fat free mass (muscle) resulting in a higher bodyfat percentage. The old "skinny fat" syndrome. I can attest to that. The years when I was training for the marathon, my weight went down, but my percentage of bodyfat went up. I was also weaker and always hurt, but that's a different story. Weight loss is also usually going to be accompanied by a loss in metabolism as bodyweight drops, especially if muscle mass is not maintained.

Fat loss is a measure of just one characteristic, bodyfat. Fat loss can not be measured by just hopping on a scale. Fat loss is measured through body composition testing, whether it's calipers, underwater weighing or scanning. Or another not so scientific way is how your clothes fit. Maybe you weigh the same, but your clothes are feeling a bit looser. That's a pretty good indicator of a loss in bodyfat. Whereas a drop in overall weight may result in a drop in metabolism, a drop in bodyfat may result in an increased metabolism if there is an increase in muscle mass.

Don't make the mistake that bathroom scale is going to tell you everything in the pursuit of a leaner and healthier look.