IOL Strength and Conditioning

Bodyweight exercises have taken center stage as I attempt to train up a faltering structure; most of the corrective exercise experts remind us not to try to add strength to dysfunction, and they point to bodyweight work as a key in determining our fail points.

Yet, many of us can’t think of anything past the pushups and situps we learned wrong back in the third grade. Sure, a YouTube search will dredge up a few hundred clips, but are you sure you want to learn from the authority who calls himself iamdrunk?

There’s a guy, Steve Cotter, who’s well known in both the martial arts and the kettlebell worlds. He’s an outstanding kettlebell instructor, and a generous teacher; if you get a chance to join in a Cotter workshop, you’ll end the day having learned your money’s worth, and more. Just watching the guy is a jaw-dropper.

Meanwhile, for us at home, we have a chance to expand our exercise selection with his bodyweight conditioning dvd series. I expect you’ll plant your face in the floor a few times as he inspires you to try more than you’re able to pull off. I even had to drop back and relearn the basic pushup; somewhere along the time between grammar school and middle age, I picked up an elbow-flaring habit that Steve clearly and repeatedly advised against.

In his teaching, he demonstrates easy, beginning options to the movements, building on each one until only one in a thousand will be able to follow along. On top of these useful progressions of common exercises, we also lay our eyes on unusual ideas such as the side-to-side squat as demonstrated below.

His Encyclopedia of Bodyweight Conditioning is a three-dvd set that covers 56 upper body exercises, 62 lower body exercises and 42 core torso options. There are plenty of $40 and $50 dvds out there running a whopping 45 minutes; clocking in at almost four hours, Steve’s Encyclopedia is a gold mine as well as bargain.

Seriously, don’t you think you could learn something from this guy? Scroll forward to the 30-second mark for a mind-blower:

Byron calls Steve a mutant. You can be sure he means that most respectfully.

Have you no time for a full workout? Do you want real lifting efficiency? Are you a fan of “Old School” lifting? If you answered “yes” to any one or all of those three questions…The Clean and Press is for you.

You don’t often see the clean and press being performed in many gyms and there are a few good reasons for this. First and foremost, the movement is hard. When it is done in sufficient sets and reps with even moderate weight, it can provide a whole body workout that will tax the most of the body. It doesn’t take much examination to see that the legs, lower and upper back, biceps, triceps and deltoids, as well as the cardiovascular system will be worked quite well by the movement, especially if you are doing the movement “full cycle.” (This means that you clean and press for each repetition.) The movement requires (and develops) strength and balance. You can’t sit comfortably in a seat and do the movement.

Second, it is not a glamorous movement. Rather, it is basic and primitive. Pull the weight to your shoulders and shove it overhead. Repeat. You can’t be casual while you clean and press. You can’t hold a conversation, talk on your cell phone, nor can you check the gym’s “eye candy.” You have to devote your full attention to struggling to overcome gravity. Simple, basic and demanding equals “not popular.”

Third and finally, the movement is perceived as dangerous. The lower back is at risk when you bend over to clean. The clean subjects your attachments to “unnatural” forces. Your shoulders and lower back are dangerously loaded while the weight is overhead. Why would anyone want to do such a dangerous movement?

Why?

Because you will be in danger of developing coordinated bodily effort and a strong, muscular physique if you devote honest effort to the clean and press. That’s why.

I recommend that you do the movement “full cycle” as mentioned above. However, that may be too taxing for a beginner so feel free to clean every second or third press if you wish. Once you’ve built up some conditioning, you can do the movement full cycle. You should start with moderate weight, especially if you haven’t done the movement before. You can use a barbell or dumbbells - though the beginner will be better served by the barbell initially. A barbell is a little easier to control than are dumbbells - which require that you divide your concentration and control each ‘bell. If using dumbbells, a good starting weight is the same weight that you use for standing lateral or front raises. (Yup, you heard me…start that lightly!)

It’s not necessary (nor even desirable) to completely lock out the elbows and shoulders each rep, since by doing so you transfer the loading from the muscles to the bones and joints. Just ensure that you completely lock out a few reps of each set, to guarantee full range of motion and to make a “complete” lift.

Give the clean and press and honest try…the movement will surprise and reward you.

Recently, I purchased a shrug bar. I’ve worked with it a number of months now and I consider it one of the more intelligent purchases I’ve made. Simply put, it allows me to squat and deadlift in greater safety and comfort than does a conventional bar. There are a couple of reasons why this is so. First, during the lift, your hands and arms are in a more natural position, just like when they are hanging relaxed by your side. Second, as you lift, the weight is free to move to the centerline of the body, rather than remaining in front of the body…lessening the stress on the lower back and making the lift more mechanically efficient. Also, since the weight is lower, there is less stress to the lower back, because the distance to the fulcrum or the movement arm is shorter. Third, the lift is safer to perform with the weight held in the hands. It is much easier to “dump” a bad lift, when the weight is near the hips and hand held, than it is when supported across the upper back. With the low center of gravity, balance is easier for me, also. The grip work is a nice bonus that goes almost unnoticed…until the latter reps of the set!

With the use of this bar, I’ve been able to incorporate into my workout what is a fairly intensive compound movement, without the disadvantages of the conventional squat and deadlift. It’s a “win, win” situation for me. Purists will decry that this is neither a “true” squat or deadlift…but there is a simple answer to those objections:

I don’t care.

The above movements are a good fit for me. I often find myself constructing “quickie” workouts using these two movements and find that they work nearly the entire body in a most pleasing fashion. Give these two movements a try and enjoy your training.

One negative aspect of home training: equipment limitations. The fact is, there are a few exercises that are hard to do. We makeshift all the time, but at my great pal Mindy Mylrea’s FitFest a couple weeks ago, I came across a simple tool that provides a lot of options for bodyweight exercises: a pair of mobile but stable dipping bars called the Lebert Equalizer.

Here’s a quick video of Mark Lebert, the designer, running through a variety of exercise possibilities; here’s the same guy doing some playful and extremely difficult over and unders.

Another trip over to YouTube will get you running woman (what looks to be an pretty intense gut effort), leg up vertical rows, and an example of circuit training using the Lebert bars.

You’ll find a listing of some of the exercises you can do with the Equalizers here, and this pdf combines the exercise suggestions and photos into a simple, printable format.

At $99 ($117 including freight) for a pair of bars that you can do a whole slew of exercises with, that price is not too bad. Some of you can make a set of your own certainly, but when you get done, will they work that well and be significantly cheaper? I’m not so sure about that part.

We’ve got a bit of an anniversary to celebrate this week: Our blog rolled over its one-year calendar. It’s clearly been a lot of fun and has provided an outstanding and wide-ranging collection of material; still, without a specific purpose in mind at the outset, it’s hard to say we met any goals here. Next year we simply promise more of the same un-planned randomness to educate and entertain.

Snooping around the thousands of pages of the forum looking for the highlights to point out in a blog post a couple weeks ago reminded me of the kazillion other pages in this 3,000-page website you’re unlikely to have accidentally stumbled upon. A quick glance at our server logs gives a picture of our wiki health and fitness database, and I thought you might like a look at what pages are drawing the most reader attention, see what you’re missing.

Exercises and Workout Routines

1. Exercise Descriptions
2. Bodypart Exercise Suggestions
3. Workout Routines
4. Overhead Squat Instruction
5. Bench Press Instruction
6. Byron’s 5×5 Workout Guide
   
7. Bentover Barbell Row
8. Abdominals

Training Styles and Home Gyms

1. Powerlifting
2. Cardiovascular Fitness
3. Homemade Gym Equipment Ideas
4. Home Gym Set-up
5. Kettlebells
6. Sandbag Training

Health and Wellness

1. Dealing with Back Pain
2. Male and Female Hormones
3. Menopause
4. Cholesterol

Food and Diet

1. Intermittent Fasting
2. Protein Shake Recipes
3. Weight Gain

I was surprised to discover the weight loss page wasn’t even in the top 20. Who *are* you guys?

Two things stuck out this week. One an experience; one was a food investigations video clip from the BBC. Both had to do with bodyweight right here at summer’s opening weekend, wouldn’t you know it?

Let’s start with the experience: I took my first hill hike wearing a 12-pound weight vest a few days ago. That’s not much weight, a nudge under 10% of bodyweight, but the difference in effort output was significant. There are no flats on this initial one-mile trial; I was surprised to discover both the downhill and the uphill were noticeably harder.

More effort required was to be expected, of course, but what was notable was that both knees and ankles hurt during a walk that I’ve become fairly accustomed to doing without even dying at the top.

The second vest work was flat and measured, on a track at the local college, two miles in 38 minutes. The extra 12 pounds adds a couple minutes per mile, maybe a bit more, but more than time, that weight added mental effort. Pretty much every trip by the gate incurred thoughts of bagging it; carrying extra weight is hard work, and a major strain on the back.

It struck me how much of a toll on the body carrying an extra 10-15 pounds of bodyfat can be. Do your back, hips, knees and ankles hurt all the time? Are you exhausted after a day’s activity? These weight vests are too pricey to pick one up to test the theory, so you’ll have to just drop 10 pounds to see what it does for you.

One incident happened during the college workout that was kinda funny. The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s outpost sits around the back turn of the track. On my third trip ‘round, heading right toward the modulars, a deputy drove up and parked, but instead of heading in to the station, she stopped and eyed me pretty closely. Aware I might have looked like a suicide bomber wearing that vest,  I started pumping my arms pretty good to show her I was really taking the workout seriously, really training hard. Eventually she went inside, leaving me to re-consider my idea of a daily weight vest hike to the post office to get the mail. Probably make a few people a little nervous.

Here’s an introduction to weight vest training; Xvest, Smartvest and WeightVest are the three manufacturers our forum members have sampled so far.

An alternative to weight vest work is sled dragging. It’s similar, but different in how the weight is carried, and how mobile you’ll feel. Sleds are also about as expensive as vests, although you can rig your own dragging implement, or you can even make yourself a sled. Byron made me a snazzy one, and offered to write up the instructions, so I’ll get after him about doing that next week.

When we start talking weight—fat weight, not vest weight—many of you probably share my thoughts about metabolism. We’re getting older, our metabolism is dropping and that’s why we can’t lose fat the same way we used to. Could be, but maybe it’s something else indeed.

In this BBC video clip, researchers compared the metabolism of two women to determine if a fast metabolism helped one of the women stay slim, and a sluggish metabolism caused the other to retain fat. As it turned out, surprisingly, the heavier woman burned more calories at rest than the thinner one. It takes more work to maintain a heavier body.

Next they snuck a look at exactly how many calories each woman ate during a test day. You know what they found? Yep, you guessed it. Even though both women—two friends who spent a lot of time together, eating most likely—thought the thinner woman ate more than the heavier, in fact she ate about half that of her weight-challenged friend.

That reminded me of a real eye-opener during a weight-loss IDEA seminar by Len Kravitz. One of his examples was a comparison of beef cuts, and the steak I favored—a boneless ribeye—was about 1,100 calories for a steak that looked kinda normal size. That was the last time I ate a whole steak; a third is about it these days.

From the BBC website, here’s where you’ll find the rest of The Truth about Food video clips.

This weight thing, it could just be a case of decreasing activity. We get a little older, maybe we start sitting things out just a touch more often. Over the course of a week or a month, that can mean the difference between a pound removed or a pound saved.

I think I’ll go take a walk and think about this.

It’s been about five months since I purchased the PowerTec Leverage Squat machine. It’s been used more or less steadily since then. This far into the game, it has proven to be a good purchase. Click here for part one, if you missed it.

My training with this machine has been conservative - I haven’t pushed the weight or the reps significantly. This is probably one reason why I haven’t experienced any injuries. When initially using the machine, it would cause my lower back to become sore and to spasm, especially when squatting with feet flat on the floor. It was a couple of months before I “conditioned” and became accustomed to the quirks of the machine’s movement planes. Also, I’m sure that I was just simply out of condition period, having not done any type of leg work that significantly loaded the core muscles or the lower back.

During this time period, I’m sure that I also stretched some muscles and attachements that have allowed me to squat to a greater depth while maintaining a flat footed positioning on the floor, versus using the angled footplate exclusively. I also am getting better at maintaining the proper “tracking” of my knees and thighs in relation to my feet, meaning that my quads and abductors have strengthened. This is all good and very pleasing to me.

The “negatives” of using this machine are few but important. It is easy to “cheat’ the movement and to push up and back against the pads and rigidity of the leverage arm to use greater weight. This isn’t something that you would be able to do during a free weight squat. Since you’re using a pinned, pivoting leverage arm…no balance is involved. This is a double-edged sword for me, since the lack of balance actually allows me to successfully perform the movement…yet it does nothing to train me to eventually squat with a barbell. Give me a moment to compose myself and I’ll get over it.

There. I’m over it.

Recently, I stumbled across a reasonably priced shrug bar during one of my many forays into the local “Play It Again Sports” sports resale shop. I had always been curious about the utility of these bars and now I had the chance to try one out at a price that was better suited to my frugal propensities. What I discovered was that this bar allowed me to squat in a manner most pleasing to me without losing my balance or leaning excessively forward, like I do when a bar is on my back. It allows me to descend to a depth that is roughly equivalent to the depth and positioning for the conventional straight bar deadlift. While this isn’t as deep as the position I can achieve on the PowerTec, the fact that it is done free standing compensates for the minor difference in depth. The increased comfort of the more naturally positioned parallel grip is a plus, as well as the incidental grip work. The safety aspect of having the weight at arm’s length hasn’t been lost on me…it is a simple matter to “dump” a bad lift and much safer than dumping a conventional squat (even if done in a power cage.) My lower back doesn’t complain as much as it does during conventional straight bar deadlifts and this also is a plus.

Now, here’s the thorny question: Am I able to squat with the shrug bar more effectively because of the bar’s design or am I able to squat more effectively because of the prior strengthening from the PowerTec Leverage Squat machine? The answer to that one is tersely simple…

I don’t care.

The best online personal training program will

• have personal trainers with decades of weight training experience in both commercial and home gyms
• be structured to consider your personal goals and your unique life circumstances
• create a workout routine perfectly designed to suit your training experience and equipment availability

When you put those elements together, you’ll find trainees living their dreams, and that is what makes a successful online personal training program.Sounds pretty sweet, doesn’t it? That’s what we thought after discussions with IOL’s Bill Keyes, Byron Chandler, Dan Martin, Bill Peel and Chris McClinch, and with high-fives and grins all around, we set out to create the best quality personal training available online.

Today we introduce our new Online Personal Training program.

The IOL forum is terrific; the education and camaraderie can’t be beat. But let’s face it, sometimes we need a little personal attention. There isn’t enough time in the day to search through the ins and outs of a new weight training program, the latest nutrition news… and goodness knows, most of us, left to our own devices, skip a few sets or secretly slide in some pizza.

Don’t you get tired of thinking sometimes? Wouldn’t you like someone to just tell you what to do?

As I see it, there are three main benefits to an online personal trainer, assuming it’s a quality trainer like one of these IOL guys.

• Training Motivation

• Accountability to Your Personal Coach

• Confidence in Your Training Program

Once your personal goals and circumstances are considered and a good workout routine prepared, those are the three things that will make a personal training program work. And that’s what we offer.

A couple of the guys are hard at work preparing small group training, 4-10 weeks of attention from a coach, just you and a few of your closest online friends. Sessions will be priced individually, depending on the workload and timeframe, and will go online this spring.

Bill Keyes. Byron Chandler. Dan Martin. Bill Peel. Chris McClinch.

Ya can’t beat that lineup, can ya?

Read the details of our new online personal training program here.

We’ve looked at spinning as a training tool, at the various spin bike manufacturers and done a review of the basics of indoor cycle training. Now let’s take things up a notch as we consider the following advanced cycling techniques.

Many of these training suggestions are well-known to outdoor cyclists. I’d like to remind them — you, perhaps — that winter indoor cycle training is optimum for serious cyclists. You can concentrate on cadence, smoothing out your pedal stroke. Spinning permits total concentration on technique so you hit your spring training a better cyclist than you ended the previous season, and it can ease you through winter-month cycling withdrawal.

Advanced-beginning spinners: Practice constant pedal pressure. Use a smooth, round stroke — pedal in circles. This sounds funny, but at second look makes sense. Most beginning cyclists pedal up and down rather than around. Another way to think of this is to visualize a horizontal line at the top and bottom of the pedal stroke. This will make your strokes round instead of vertical, with a top and bottom, and will recruit more leg muscle.

Pay attention to your hips, whether in the saddle or out: Keep your hips solid, stable. Your legs should be doing the work, not your torso. The effort in the torso is reserved for balance.

Reminder: Keep your shoulders loose; keep your weight off your wrists.

Terms to consider

Pace: Pedal revolutions per minute — Increase pace to improve leg speed, pedal stroke and efficiency.

Cadence: Personal pace, based on body mechanics and cycling skills.

You can calculate your cadence by counting the downstrokes of one leg for six seconds and adding a zero to get your pedal rpms. Advanced indoor cyclists may want to invest in a pace monitor, such as a Cateye Astrale 8, although I personally suggest mastering heart rate training first if you haven’t already done that. Using RPMs in training adds another point of interest and another training tool for workout variety.

• Read more…

Spinning : Part 3 of 4 (Click for part 1 — Click for part 2 — Click for part 4)

Top complaint from new cyclers: saddle soreness. As we first learn to spin, we sit deep on the saddle, causing either numbness, pain or annoyance — saddle soreness, if you will. When the bike instructors at World Gym Scotts Valley first began their bike orientation, they all complained and bought biking shorts ($50+ for one pair, in case anyone’s considering this; opt for the patience).

When we started the classes, all the participants were griping, but by then the instructors were telling them to relax, the soreness would soon go away. It takes about two weeks of 3-4 classes a week to learn the techniques of riding, which mainly include increasing the resistance on the flywheel to move the pressure from the saddle onto the legs, and then increasing leg strength to handle the workload. The annoyance goes away, if the rider doesn’t disappear first.

Other suggestions for success on an indoor spin bike:

• Go to a local health club and take a couple of spin bike classes. The instructor will show you how to fit the bike, describing the seat and handlebar adjustments that you can then do at home, and will teach the biking techniques that will make a difference in your ride.
• Skootch back on the seat, then do it again when you notice you’ve slipped forward
• If you’re bouncing around on the seat, tighten the crank just a touch until you feel a hint of resistance.
• When upright, sit high; when laid out across the bars, elongate your spine.
• Practice: Learn to use the combination of resistance and speed to smooth out your cadence and manipulate your heart rate.
• Use the abductor muscles to hold your knees in. No wide-open sloppy knees for this crew, please.
• Don’t put your weight on the handlebars; don’t lean — use the handles for balance only. It’ll hurt your wrists, for one thing, but it also takes some of the load off the legs, not our purpose, is it? Try it: lean on the bars and note the legs at work. Then sit upright, leaning forward at the hips slightly. Feel it in the legs!
• Keep shoulders loose; it takes attention to do it. This will relieve potential neck ache as it keeps the stress on the legs.
• As you come out of the saddle for high-resistance hill work, keep your tail end back. It’s not a rest; you don’t want to be standing upright on the pedals.
• Grind out the hills: hips back, body folded forward, with attention on hamstrings. Push back, not down, and pull up with the hams.
• Do training segments in full-song increments, ie sprints, hill grinds, steady pace work. It’s key to finishing tough efforts for beginning cyclists.
• On hard grinds, let yourself sway from side to side as if on a curving country road.
• If your knees ache, check the height of the bike seat; if the bike seat slips too low, your knees don’t get fully extended during the pedal stroke.
• If the seat’s too high, you’ll feel yourself moving slightly from side to side.

Finally, if you don’t have a heart rate monitor and are riding an indoor spin bike for cardio health, get a clue! There’s no limit to the skills and ability you’ll gain using a HR monitor, with your bike shoes clipped in to your pedals and riding with monitored precision.

Without a heart rate monitor or music, I wouldn’t work as hard. My tools in order of importance:

1) Heart rate monitor (We address heart rate training here.)
2) Music — MP3 player
3) Bike shoes — cleats fastened to the bike pedals

In part four we’ll close with some advanced spin cycle skills.

Spin Bike Tutorial: Spinning an Indoor Cycle, Part 2 of 4

I’m completely amazed my declaration of the spin bike as the world’s top cardio training tool held up so long. I didn’t expect to get away with that for more than a few hours. Byron would surely have jumped up to yell “cross training” had he not been so busy at work, but I’m truly surprised not to have heard from a crew of Concept 2 athletes.

Well, as long as I still have the floor, let’s continue with our spin bike discussion.

Comparing the spin bike to an average stationery bike such as that which most have ridden at some time or another is next to impossible, they’re so different. Spin bikes have a weighted flywheel in the front mimicking the feel of an outdoor bike that’s actually propelled by the pedals. When you tighten the resistance and come out of the saddle, you absolutely feel like you’re cycling up a steep hill. I’ve logged a trillion hours on both a LifeCycle and a V-Bike, and can tell you, for this reason alone, it would take a major, long-term emergency to get me back on a LifeCycle.

Spin-style bikes are made of stronger steel, built for the rider to come out of the saddle and grind on the pedals, which isn’t often done on a regular stationary bike, and in many cases would break the pedal cranks right off the bike.

The word “Spin” is a company trademark that we now use to describe indoor studio cycling, much the same as we refer to Kleenex when we mean facial tissue of any kind. The original Spin bikes were designed by a racing cyclist named Johnny G, a guy who rigged this sort of funky unit in his garage for his winter training. A dozen or so years ago he designed an instructor-lead group exercise class format, which he then co-joined with Schwinn to build and sell. Johnny’s first generation Spinner was so superior to a normal stationary bike that it took fire. Serious cyclists lined up for his classes, mostly in the Los Angeles area at the time, and the Spin craze took off.

StarTrak then built the best second-generation bike called the V-Bike, which I have and like a lot, $1,000 new, but can be purchased reconditioned for around half that now that they’ve developed a couple of souped-up models.

If you’re interested in more background, here’s a brief history of spin cycle training.

One thing to look for when shopping for an indoor cycle is the seat adjustments, height and fore and aft, but also handle adjustments, again both height and fore and aft. Often the cheaper bikes only have height, but the fore and aft adjustment is an important one to compensate for torso, arm and leg length.

If I was to buy a new spin bike today, it would be a Greg LeMond RevMaster, runs about $1,100. Late addition:  That was true when this post was originally written, but no longer holds today if I could possibly pull together the extra bucks. Sean Harrington’s new bike, the RealRyder, with it’s side-to-side motion, has now claimed the top spot. Wow, very nice!

Reconditioned spin cycles are a viable way to go, because the parts are either unbreakable, or are regular bike parts that when replaced make the bike ride like new — all the parts that can go south have been replaced and the bike is lubed and painted. Voila! That’s the way I’d go for a reasonably priced indoor cycle.

Many cycling subtleties are not fully notable without bike shoes. Test indoor cycling to see if it’s suitable for you, and if it is, spring for bike pedals and shoes. The difference between pedaling with regular shoes and in cleats fastened to the pedals is huge — snapping onto the pedals enables both pushing and pulling during each pedal stroke, which is both more effort as well as a whole lot more fun.

If you share a cycle with someone who doesn’t have or want bike shoes, you can buy dual-sided pedals that have the toe basket on one side and cleat mounts on the other, although you’ll probably have to order these from a bike shop because outdoor riders will rarely use a dual pedal.

You can, of course, burn more calories sprinting on the track or running hills (let’s not discuss the stress on ankles, knees and hips), but you will won’t have the training tool that comes with closing your eyes and concentrating, and it will take a live coach to get you where a heart rate monitor and cyclometer will take you independently.

In part three we’ll discuss my top 20 spin training tips. In the meantime, if you get a chance to slide onto an indoor spinner, here’s what you can expect on the ride.

Introduction to spin training: Part 1 of 4

Today I declare the world’s top cardio training tool: the indoor spin-style bike. After more than a quarter of a century spent sampling nearly every type of cardio training introduced, some wacky fitness machines to all styles of group aerobic training to running indoors and out, car pushing and sled pulling… the bottom line remains for me the weighted flywheel indoor cycle.

Of course I know you want to be outdoors, and for sure moving your body over the earth is more challenging than training on a stationary machine of any type. But the benefits of training stationary over pedaling outdoors include the ability to use the cycle fully; you’re not limited by the terrain, traffic or weather. You can close your eyes and concentrate on your pedal cadence and on the workload without crashing into the ditch; training techniques used on a spin cycle are not possible when other concentration is necessary.

Balance, for instance.

I’m not arguing against getting outside, nor implying that moving the tires against the earth’s surface or fighting the wind isn’t harder work. I’m instead presenting a case for an indoor cycle training program where the hill doesn’t end until you decide it ends. Other tricks include spinning with one leg to balance leg strength and coordination, using music to set cadence (double time, triple time… half time), or using resistance to focus on a target heart rate. These things simply can’t be done on the street.

• Read more…

This simple device is a T-Handle. Dan John calls this bad boy a Hungarian Core Blaster, a name that obviously has a lot more panache than “t-handle.” Legend has it this device was the secret of the Hungarian hammer throwers’ success years ago. I like that name, but it is so flashy I think it may give people unrealistic expectations. They may be let down when they see the simple device to the left. It just can’t compete with the dozens of core gadgets on late night infomercials for flash and glitz, and to date lacks bikini clad miracle makeover endorsements.

But for results, I’ll stack the T-handle against anything you can make in five minutes for ten bucks. Nobody is let down by the effects of the swing, the exercise for which this tool is ideally suited.

If you are considering buying kettlebells, by all means make a t-handle and swing away. The swing is one of the most basic kettlebell movements. With a t-handle, you can decide what weight kettlebell will suit you.

Even if you aren’t interested in kettlebells, just about anyone can benefit from some swings. You can do swings Tabata style - eight sets of eight with ten seconds rest between sets - for a four minute, minimum cost, minimum footprint interval workout. You can do light swings as part of your warmup.
Directions for making a T-handle (for those of you who use directions) can be found in the IOL Wiki.

In Will You Keep it Up? we saw how easy it is to test our home gym sticktoitiveness with a single kettlebell. Okay, let’s say you’re game. Now all you need is an example of a simple kettlebell workout.

Swings.

Wow, that’s pretty simple, alright.

Will it get boring? Maybe. Especially at first when your head tells you to do more, as the swing workout’s got your heart ramming through your chest and your lungs can’t gain any traction.

There’s not much to a swing workout if you’re putting in the time physically, but your head’s still wrapped around your work project — a common enough symptom with first-time home gym trainees. Kettlebell swings can be very taxing, each single rep at a time; the movement also lends itself to mindlessness, and it may take purposeful attention to excel rep by rep.

That’s what makes it such a good testing ground for a beginning home gym workout program. After all, we’re trying to find out if you’ll last at home training before you invest the money and space in a home gym.

• Read more…

The biggest downside of switching from a commercial gym to a home gym? You can’t borrow your bud’s to give it a test run.

How are you going to discover if this home gym stuff is for you? Will you use it or hate it? If you’re not sure you’ll use your home gym equipment, you’ll be afraid to let your gym membership go, afraid to commit the money for workout equipment you won’t use. Heck, you won’t even want to clean out the garage.

Well. For sure you don’t want to clean the garage. What’s that got to do with anything?

Bill’s three-part series on setting up a home gym opened with his minimalist option, but I’d like to back that off further, all the way back to one single item: a kettlebell.

• Read more…

Which work better, adjustable dumbbells or Power Blocks? How about one of the alternative hand weight systems, such as the Ironmaster adjustable dumbbells, Hoist locking dumbbells or the Nautilus/Bowflex quick-lock weights? These are questions that come up quickly when building a home gym; let’s review the possibilities, get some pros and cons so you can make the right decision for your new home gym.

Big alert upfront: Try before you buy.
More than just a grab-and-feel, you need to get underneath these things to discover which set will suit your hands, or if you’ll even feel comfortable with a pair of selectorized dumbbells overhead. Do your hands fit in the pocket and can you get them out quickly when you need to? The locking sections, are they tight enough to suit you, or is there a bit too much rattle? Can you snatch them overhead without banging up your knuckles, and when they hit the floor — carefully with but aggression — do they feel solid enough to handle the impact? These are questions that can only be answered by a full test, whether that’s in a local fitness store or driving upstate to an internet buddy’s garage gym for a trial.

The big draw: saving space in your home gym. A four-foot square yields a set of dumbbells that covers the range from five pounds to up to 125.

The secondary draw: easy switching between sets. Adding ten pounds to your next set involves a quick switch of the weight selector lock, as opposed to changing the weights on all four sides of the handles that make up a pair of dumbbells.

The major downside: the balance is different than that of regular dumbbells, and one design may suit you while another may not. If you don’t live in a big city, it can be tough to test the options.

• Read more…

You’ve spent your hard-earned shekels and you now have at least the basics mentioned in The Minimalist Approach or you’ve taken it a step further, as in The Lavish Approach. What next?

For those of you that want “just a little more,” I’ll continue to list equipment and purchase considerations. I may even throw in a homemade equipment idea or two that are constantly being born of my chea…er, FRUGAL nature. However, I’m warning you now…this could get long….

CALF MACHINE
Unless you like the mental picture of pencils sticking out of sweat socks…you’ll want some way of working your calves. Most people will opt for some type of calf machine and there are two main types: the standing model and the seated calf raise machine. Of the two, I prefer the standing machine, here’s why: You only work the entire calf muscle group (meaning the gastronemius and the soleus) when the leg is straight or very nearly so. When seated, the gastroc is basically inactivated, while the soleus does the lion’s share of the work. So, if you want to be efficient and work everything at once, the standing calf raise is the way to go. Since I’m a firm believer in multi-purpose machines, (and did I mention FRUGAL?) I’d opt for a combination machine that allowed me to do standing calf raises AND also a squatting movement. Additionally, any standing calf machine can be used for Hise shoulder shrugs and will be much more comfortable than the same movement performed with a barbell.

Calves may also be worked in a movement called the donkey calf raise…which usually requires the cooperation of a partner to sit on your hips. By utilizing a dip belt or a hip squat belt, one may successfully do the movement alone.

CHEAP CONSIDERATION
You may simply choose to use your power rack for standing calf raises. Take the loaded bar from the saddles and walk to the opposite side of the rack where your calf block is waiting. Lean back slightly until the bar contacts the uprights and step onto your calf block. Do the calf raise movement while allowing the bar to slide up and down the uprights…and yes, you’ll scratch the paint.

• Read more…

For some folk, the Minimalist Approach just won’t work…they need (or more likely want) more. This article will address these folks, as well as provide some equipment hints and considerations that I’ve gleaned from 30 plus years experience. Let’s assume that you have the necessary space available and that money really doesn’t limit you.

Unless you are blessed with sufficient coin of the realm to purchase everything you want at once, you may have to view the equipping of a home gym as a long term project. Consider this: Rather than join a commercial gym, save the money you would annually pay and purchase (or build, if so inclined) one good piece of equipment every year. In a few short years, you’ll have a well-equipped home gym that didn’t require an enormous one-time payment.

The one most essential piece of home gym equipment is the power rack. First and foremost, it is a safety device, allowing you to bench press and squat heavily, without requiring a spotter. There are many types available…here’s what I consider important when considering which power rack to buy:

• Read more…

Consider this a companion piece to Laree’s blog entry about transitioning to a home gym. In fact, Laree very gently nudged me into writing this. So without further ado, let’s establish some ground rules. The recommendations that will follow are the result of years of experience, both good and bad, regarding setting up the home gym. It is written from the standpoint of one who is interested in strength, some bodybuilding and most importantly - minimal investment of hard-earned dollars. What follows won’t appeal to all but should at least be considered as a good blueprint to follow in setting up one’s home gym.

PART ONE - THE MINIMALIST APPROACH

THE SPACE
Your training area needs to be level and free from obstructions. You will require a clear floor space of about 8×8 feet minimum. However, if you can free up the additional space, an area that measures about 12×12 feet is nearly ideal. The flooring should be protected, either by heavy carpet, floor mats or a wood lifting platform. Let’s examine each one of these in turn and I’ll try to influence you with my preferences.

Heavy carpet is the least desirable, in my opinion. Unless solidly anchored, it has a tendency to slip around and that is dangerous. Obviously, if the space you’re considering is already carpeted, you don’t have much choice. Also, carpeting just doesn’t give you a solid footing, which is critical to lifts such as the clean and press, squat or deadlift. A couple of carpet squares will protect your flooring somewhat, but is less desirable than the next option.

If you live near a feed store, farm supply or tack shop, you may wish to consider the purchase of either stall mats (used in animal stalls) or truck bed liner. Both of these items are available at a reasonable cost and the purchase of a couple of stall mats or a section of truck bed liner shouldn’t set you back too much…consider it money well spent to protect your flooring and deaden noise somewhat. Two sections measuring two feet square will be all that is necessary.

• Read more…

The freeway from our house to The Weight Room is no longer a nightmare; it’s clogged 24/7. A trip to the gym can cost me three hours, and since I like to train in some fashion five or six days a week, well, you add ‘em up: 15 hours.

Time to re-think things. But switching from a commercial gym to home training is a head trip, messing up the thinking part.

I spent the better part of this year uncovering the following five mind benders.

1) While we owned the gym, training at home didn’t even occur to me, but once we no longer owned the gym, it was fear of failure that kept me from making a move toward a part-time home gym. Would I be able to recapture my successful gym flow if I couldn’t get my head in the home-gym game after I let the daily head-to-the-gym-habit lapse? I just didn’t know. And I was afraid to find out. Lesson # 1: Don’t let fear of failure hold you back.

2) Once committed, here’s what hit next, hit hardest and took the most purposeful effort to overcome: After 25 years as a gym member and owner, I felt self-conscious training at home, alone in the basement, almost like I was a kid playing house. That may sound as goofy as all getout, but the truth is, I was almost embarrassed. No one else was involved in this, just me and my mental weirdness. Lesson 2? Recognize and get over it.

• Read more…

The wrist roller is a great forearm exercise. The usual apparatus is pretty simple - a short fat pipe with a cord attached to the middle. You attach a weight to the end of the cord, hold the pipe out at arm’s length, and lift the weight by twisting the pipe and rolling up the cord. When the weight reaches the pipe, you unroll it.

Simple, but limited; your forearms will soon be strong enough to handle weights you can’t hold out at arms length. There are commercial machines that let you duplicate the exercise, but you don’t have to have one if you’re up for a little rigging.

One easy way to overcome this limitation is to just rest the pipe on something. (You’ll probably need to make the wrist roller out of longer pipe.) Two handy resting spots you can find in many gyms: the pins of the power rack, or the top of the parallel dip bars. If you do the exercise resting this way, you’ll probably just want twist both hands back and forth together, so the weight just bobs up and down a few inches.

I have used a 3′ pipe resting across the top of dip bars many times and it’s a fine setup, but this one is even a little better:

This is pretty much self explanatory. It is made from a $2 nylon dog leash. A short loop of chain and a snap link are clipped where the dog’s collar would normally go.

The attachment to the bar took just a little work. I carefully cut the stitching of the hand loop with a razor, so I’d have just flat strap to work with. The nylon strap would slip on the sleeve without some treatment. I just rubbed some silicone adhesive into the fabric, which dries to a slightly tacky surface. (If you have ever used a plumber’s strap wrench, that is what I was going for.)

The knot is a clove hitch. For those of you who were booted from the boy scouts before you learned the clove hitch, here’s a picture:

That’s it, give it a go, for less than $5 and less than 15 minutes, you can’t go wrong!