Tag Archives: weight lifting

Your Butt (And Why It’s Not Special)

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Maybe when you were growing up, your mom told you that you were special and unique, and that there’s “no one else like you”. That might be true, but the same can’t be said for your butt.

Stay with me here.

Every once in a while I skim through the health/fitness board on Pinterest just to see what’s out there (it’s usually not good). Yesterday was no different. I came across a post that was tagged as being a “workout for your butt type”. I wish I were kidding.

A workout for your butt type? Really? Let’s look at this from a strictly anatomical standpoint. We all have butts. Some are flat, some are round, some are perky, and some are a bit.. um.. jiggly. No matter what “type” of butt you have, or what shape you think it is, the fact remains the same that your butt is made up of the following: your posterior pelvis covered by glute and hip musculature, all underneath layers of adipose tissue (fat) and finally your skin. There are no butt “types”, there are simply different shapes based on your proportions of each of those tissue types, and your genetics of course.  Wide set pelvis? Wider hips, and thus, wider butt. Strong, built gluteal muscles? More than likely you have a full, rounded butt. Small, weak glutes with a substantial layer of body fat? Well, that’ll run the spectrum from flat to round (with or without jiggle).

My point is, your butt is not unique. You do not have a butt-type. You do not need specific “toning” exercises that will fit your type and make your special butt look better than the girl next door. You know what will make your butt look better than the next girl (or guy)? Squats, hip thrusters, barbell glute bridges, barbell lunges, deadlifts, etc. etc. The list goes on and on, but the basic premise is this: strengthening and building your glutes using the basic compound exercises is what is going to change the look of your butt. You know what’s going to happen in the process of strengthening your glutes? You’ll lose some of that body fat that’s covering your backside (if that’s your goal). Heck, maybe you want that thing bigger than the moon. Or Nicki Minaj’s derriere.

big butts

The article that the pin linked to was just as ridiculous as you think it sounds. I’m not kidding when I say that they suggest sumo squats for “saggy” butts, prone leg circles for “double butt” (really? That’s a type? I just thought that meant your undies were too tight), curtsy lunges for “big” butts, some sort of strange jump squats for “flat” butts, and so on.

After I face palmed myself into next Tuesday, I couldn’t believe what I was reading. What made it worse though, was knowing that many women will believe articles like this when they read them. “Ooh, I’ve got a big butt! I MUST do these curtsy lunges, the internet says it will help with my big-butted problem!”  My first issue with this are the ridiculous butt types. Can’t we come up with a better adjective than big? Say, I don’t know, luxurious? And who was it that decided that a big butt is a problem that needs to be fixed? Heck, my girl Tara just facebook-bragged a couple of days ago about splitting her jeans because she has built up her glutes so much. (Go girl!!) My other issue with this is the shear hilarity of one specific body weight move helping to fix your “problematic” butt type.

Here’s what women need to understand: fitness does not need to be complicated at all. Yes, we all have different body types, limb lengths, body fat percentages, and so on, but on a basic level we’re all the same. We all have a bone structure that is the basis of the human form. We all have a very similar musculoskeletal system that moves our bones on a system of levers and pulleys, helping us to perform every day tasks. Yes, we all have very unique genetics, but those genetics don’t mean that you need to be doing plie squats or curtsy lunges while your best friend needs to be climbing stairs. Your genetics may determine how fast you build muscle mass or where on your body you hold most of your body fat, but it won’t determine which body weight exercises will be the magical cure to getting you the shape you so desperately want.

The truth is, all of this genetic detail matters very little in the overall fitness world. Use the tried and true exercises that have been around for ages (squat, deadlift, bench, row, and all of their variations). Add in some other accessory exercises to support the compound lifts. Whether your butt is flat, round, or somewhere in between, a barbell hip thrust will do you wonders. Your butt is not special, not when it comes to training. As long as you have all of the anatomical building blocks, you can build a better backside, if that’s what you really want to do. Your “type” does not determine which exercises will work. Science does. 

giraffe butt

Rules of the Weight Room

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The weight room is a pretty incredible place, a place that is filled with strength, determination, and PRs.

But it’s also often full of douchey people.

LiftingRules5

Unfortunately, this is a fact of life. But maybe all of those douchey people don’t realize what they’re doing, maybe they don’t know any better. Maybe they just need a set of rules like we all had posted on the wall in our 3rd grade classrooms.

So here is my list, my seven rules of the weight room. And these rules are not meant to be broken. Even if you can bench press your girlfriend and her two best friends in pyramid formation.

1. Wash your clothing. Especially dry fit.  Workout clothes stink. Dry fit clothes stink even more. Even if you think you didn’t get sweaty, that dry-fit shirt you’re wearing absorbed some of the sweat that you think magically never appeared. And even if you think your own home-grown scent isn’t that bad, multiply it by 10 and that’s what other people smell. Add in the constant movement that causes your scent to waft, and often close quarters of a weight room, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for body-odor-smog. Air pollution at it’s most offensive.

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2. No Selfies. Ever. STOP STANDING IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR AND TAKING SELFIES WITH YOUR PHONE. Stop. Just stop. For the love of God, stop.

3. Stick to one rack at a time. I know you really think that you need to be super-setting your quarter squats with your bench press, bro, but if you work out in a gym that only has 3 power racks, and you’re taking up 2 of them for 45 minutes, that’s not really fair now is it? Unless you’re one of only a couple people lifting, don’t act like you’re entitled to hog everything just because your biceps are big. And if you absolutely must be using both racks, don’t give me a death stare when I ask to work in for sets on one of them.

LiftingRules14. Clean Up Your Mess.  After you’re done getting your pump on, don’t leave a loaded barbell for the next person to clean off. No, it’s not because I can’t lift the plates myself, it’s because I don’t like cleaning up after sweaty, smelly strangers. And on a related note, please, please, please: if you do see me clearing plates off a barbell, don’t rush over, push me out of the way, and do it for me. You think you’re being a gentleman, I think you’re being sexist. I can move the plates by myself, thank you very much. 

LiftingRules3

5. No Gabbing With Your Bestie On The Phone. The weight room certainly doesn’t have to be silent, and conversations between gym goers happen frequently. But when I’m trying to bust out a set of dead lifts and you’ve just parked your ass on a bench, holding a set of 3 lb dumbbells that you aren’t even using because you’re too busy on your phone, you’re distracting me and taking me out of my groove. I don’t need to hear about how drunk you got last night or what time you’re going to go tanning lately. I don’t care. Please shut up.

6. If you sweat, wipe it up. There is nothing more gross than mysterious sweat droplets that have been left on a bench to fester. There is no shame in sweating, so if you are the perpetrator, leaving it behind and pretending you “didn’t do it” is just plain disgusting. You wouldn’t leave other bodily fluids laying around would you? Sweat is no different. And if you would leave other bodily fluids laying around, maybe you have no business being out in public anyway.

7. Don’t spread out like you’re in your living room. I’ve seen people come into the weight room, drop their sweatshirt on one bench, their keys and water bottle on another, and then set up in the squat rack.  For others who come in after you, seeing gear on a bench gives the impression that someone is using it. Be considerate, and keep your belongings with you, or leave them in the locker room.  Douche.

LiftingRules2

You tell ‘em, Pauly. 

What is your biggest weight room rule? What is your biggest gym pet peeve?

Top 3 Reasons You Should Be Front Squatting

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OMG

I’m back!

I’ve been on a slight hiatus…

from life.

Seriously, I was attacked by some virus monster and have been totally out of commission since last Thursday, when I first felt the slightest scratch in my throat. That scratch turned into a full blown monster Thursday night, leaving me feeling like death until, well, about 12 hours ago.

.

Now I’m on the upswing!

I haven’t stepped foot in the gym for 8 days now, which is really unfortunate because my lift last Wednesday was a total Beast. I finally hit 145 on my squats again for the first time since September, and it felt…dare I say it… fairly easy?!  I hadn’t felt that good on back squats in months, and I attribute it partially to resting more lately, but also adding in some serious reps on my front squats. As much as I used to hate them, the front squat can be an enormously helpful tool for improving your other compound lifts, most notably the back squat.

front squat

If you’re familiar with CrossFit, you’re definitely familiar with the front squat. 

I avoided them for a long time, mostly because if you’re not used to them, it’s awfully uncomfortable to have a heavy barbell situated on your clavicles/deltoids. And it gets even less comfortable as more and more weight is added to the bar. Although once I stopped being a huge baby and just sucked it up, I found that each time I did them, having the barbell in the front loaded position got much more comfortable. The body does adapt to repeated stresses, ya know.

So anyway, why are we talking about this? Because it’s an important lift, that’s why. And also because I don’t think I’m alone in avoiding them. So why might the front squat be a valuable lift to add into your training?

1. You will probably improve your back squat. If you’re like many people, you may lean forward a bit too much on your back squat. This is likely due to 2 things: tight hip flexors, as well an anterior abdominal wall that is weak as sh*t. If your core is not strong enough to hold you upright during your back squat, it’s going to hinder your form and limit your potential. Front squatting works your core like crazytown, which will increase your abdominal strength for future back squat sessions. Since I have started incorporating front squats into my program, my back squats have felt infinitely easier. Did I ever think of myself as having a “weak” core? HELL NO. I can plank for days. But apparently, that doesn’t count when you’ve got a barbell loaded with your bodyweight across your back.

2. You will improve your core strength. Ahem. Notice I said “will”, and not “can” or “maybe”. As noted above, the front squat is a beast when it comes to strengthening the core and anterior abdominal wall. I won’t get into spinal compression here, or the dangers of spinal flexion exercises like crunches. But just know that anti-flexion and anti-rotation exercises for the core are the bees knees. The front squat just happens to be king of all of those exercises, and then some. As I said above, I can plank for days. But the first time that I front squatted with an appreciable amount of weight? My abs were SORE. I’m talking serious DOMS. And I don’t think my abs have been sore since I first learned how to snowboard, which was years ago.

3. You can’t cheat. Cheating on the back squat is easy, and many people do it. Leaning too far forward is one of the main ways that people cheat, aside from going through about 30 degrees of knee flexion and calling it a day.  With the front squat, you can’t lean forward, or you’ll lose the bar. Really. And no one wants to be that guy.  While yes, you can cheat and only go through a tiny range of motion if you really want to,  I’ve actually found that my range of motion (and the ease of getting to proper depth) on my front squats is better than my back squats. Likely because of my core issues noted above.

Before we go I just want to make sure that everyone knows I am in no way bashing the back squat. It’s one of my absolute favorite lifts, and while is an extremely important lift, especially when training for absolute strength (and why else would you train), the front squat is an excellent accessory lift. It can be a little bit humbling, as you’ll never be able to lift as much with a front squat as you can with a back squat, but as far as I’m concerned, many of those who frequent the weight room could use a little humbling now and again.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the front squat, here is a video of Molly Galbraith (who is basically my weight room hero) crushing them for 210 x 3. Watch and learn, folks.

Of course, if you’ve never done this lift before, start with a weight that you know you can handle, and be sure to use proper form in order to avoid injury.

Do you use front squatting in your lifts? Or do you avoid them like the plague like I used to? Do you find that front squats improve your back squats? What’s a lift or exercise that you used to avoid but now you love it?

Saving Time In The Weight Room

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People often ask me how long my workouts are, and then they’re almost always surprised when I tell them that most of my gym sessions are right around 45 minutes. Sure, every once in a while I’ll go longer than that, but these days it’s pretty rare.

And I’m the strongest right now that I’ve ever been.

Yet I know of plenty of people (mostly women), who spend upwards of two hours in the gym every time they go, but they still aren’t seeing results. First of all, who has time for that? And second of all, who wants to be spending that much of their day in the gym? Not me, that’s for sure.

elliptical-fail

And lastly… when your workout lasts that long, you’re actually doing more harm to your muscles than good. Sounds counterproductive to me!

Sometimes, I cut it down even shorter if I have to. There are some times when I still want to get a decent lift in, but don’t even have time to fit in the hour it normally takes me to warm up, lift, and foam roll. Recently I had a few days like this in a row, but do you think that stopped me from hitting the weight room? HECK NO.

I came up with the following plan that worked out well, so I wanted to share it with all of you. We’ll call it the 3×5 and it went a little something like this:

Pick 3 exercises that will hit large muscle groups (in other words, no bicep curls allowed). I chose trap bar deadlifts, weighted Landmine squat and press; and standing overhead shoulder press. Weights should be relatively heavy, but manageable enough that you can move through your workout at a fairly swift pace, and hit slightly higher reps than normal. (These should not be max lifts).  To put it into perspective, I my trap-bar deadlift is generally 135-145 lb. For this, I was lifting at 115 lb to reach 10 reps at a fairly quick pace.  With these lifts, I effectively hit my posterior chain (hamstrings, glutes, calves), quads, shoulders, and a little bit of chest. Not bad for a threesome right?

The actual work done was in the form of a kind of circuit, completing 10 reps each of the DL and squat/press, and 8 reps of the shoulder press.  As little rest as possible was taken between exercises, and about 2-3 minutes of rest was taken after each set of all 3 lifts. I went through this “circuit” 5 times (hence the 3×5).

So how much time did this save me? It only took me 25-30 minutes to complete (including a good warmup, of course). Boom. Done.

The best part is that I got in a decent full body lift, while still allowing myself to get in and out of the gym quickly. This isn’t something I would recommend doing every day, because having a full, well rounded lifting program is important. But let’s face it, we don’t all have time for a full lifting program all the time. Every once in a while we need a quick, but effective workout, and fortunately that doesn’t mean you’re limited to the treadmill or other torturous forms of cardio. As an added bonus, you can get some great cardio conditioning in by doing a quick-sequenced workout like this one with little rest in between exercises. Strength and conditioning in one efficient session? Count me in.

weights

To incorporate something like this into your own routine or program, you can certainly use different exercises than I did. To make it the most efficient full body workout that I could, I chose 1 lower body lift, one combo (involving both upper and lower body), and one upper body. I would recommend a split similar to this, but feel free to get a little creative.

Just remember, you want to be doing exercises where you’ll get the most bang for your buck. I’ll repeat: NO Bicep Curls! Now get after it. And stop using your lack of time as an excuse. You’re better than that.

How do you save time in the gym when you need to? Is a lack of time a common excuse for you? Do you tend to scrap a lift all together if you don’t think you have time for your full plan? 

Motivation Monday: What’s Your Intention

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I see you. You walk into the gym and hop on your stationary bike to warm up.  You stare at the clock on the display until it reads 10:00. There. Warm-up done. You meander into the weight room, set up your equipment, grab your dumbbells, or hop on a machine. You go through the motions, lift-release, contract-relax, like a pre-programmed weight-lifting robot. Or maybe you don’t even go into the weight room because it makes you anxious, nervous, or you think it’s just for guys.  So you go ahead with the same workout you’ve been doing, for months,  years maybe.  Maybe you’re making progress, maybe you’re not.

STOP IT.

I don’t know…I thought maybe an angry lion would scare you straight.

I see you, and I know what causes this. You’re bored. You’re unmotivated. You’re uninspired. Maybe you’re feeling a little lazy (it happens to the best of us). Maybe you’ve hit a plateau in your training and you just can’t push past a certain weight on your squat. Maybe you just need something new to reenergize your workouts, to get your muscles firing in a little bit of a different pattern. Maybe you just need to figure out where your inspiration lies or why the heck you’re doing this in the first place.

I think we all lose ourselves in the gym at some point in our workout/training careers.  Whether you’re a beginner or are someone who is more comfortable in the weight room than anywhere else, at some point you’ll probably hit a wall.  As most of you know, I spent very little time in the weight room over the past two weeks because I hit that wall. I was unmotivated, tired, and just needed a little bit of time to recover both my muscles and my mindset.
A Lazy Lion[Source]

Angry lion loses motivation —-> Lazy lion napping in a tree

How can you get out of this rut? Think about two things:

1) What are you doing this for? 

2) Are you actually working toward your goals? 

First things first, you have to figure out why you’re in the gym in the first place.  Are you trying to lose weight? Be healthier for your children? Look hot in your new jeans (and/or out of your new jeans)? Whatever your reason, be honest with yourself. Most of us do workout for aesthetic reasons just as much as for health reasons, and it’s ok to admit it. I spend a lot of time in the weight room because I want to be healthy and strong, but a lot of my motivation also comes from wanting my shoulders to look like this:

Hello, deltoids!

Secondly, you have to evaluate whether your fitness routine is actually getting you closer to those goals that you have set. (Here’s a hint: If you’ve been doing the same routine for the past 3 years and haven’t seen any progress, it’s probably not working.) So you want to have jacked shoulders and glutes that you could bounce a quarter off of? Riding the elliptical probably isn’t helping you any. You want to be able to run a 5k in under 30 minutes? Those bicep curls probably aren’t doing the trick.

Here’s an example: I set a goal a while ago that I wanted to be able to do 5 unassisted chin-ups. At the time I could only do 2-3. Guess how many I can do now? 5. I can also do 5 parallel grip pull-ups and can consistently perform 1 unassisted pull-up. I didn’t reach that goal just because I’m lucky, I reached that goal because I changed my upper body work over the summer to maximize strength increases in the muscles that would help me to my pull-up goals. Had I just kept up with the same type of upper body work that I had been doing for the entire year prior, most likely I would still be stuck at 3 chin-ups, 3 months later.

The most important part of training is working towards your goals, but first you need to be honest with yourself and crystal clear about what those goals are. If you’ve been stuck in a rut or have hit a plateau with your fitness routine, maybe it’s time to step back and reevaluate where you’re headed and why.  Not sure whether you’re doing this or not? Try this:

Sit down with a pen and paper. (That’s right, we’re going old school).

On one side of the paper, write down your fitness goals. On the other side, write down something you’re doing in your routine that has helped you to make progress toward reaching that goal. If you can’t come up with something for each goal, it’s time to change things up a little bit. If you stare at that paper, and realize that everything you’re doing is not getting you anywhere in terms of your fitness potential, figure out what changes need to be made, and then, here’s the kicker: make those changes. Easy enough, right? Now get to it.

if you want something youve never had

Is your fitness routine actively helping you reach your goals? Have you ever hit a training plateau or a rut and how did you get out of it? When was the last time you switched things up in your fitness routine?