Gluteus Maximus, Gluteus Minimus, Hips, Butt, Ass!!!

It sounds like a name for a gladiator in Rome.  Glutes, butt, hips, ass, booty, whatever you want to call them they are probably one of the most important muscle group for any athlete in any sport.  Some sports hips are more important than others.  It is the foundation of the power plant of sport and you should spend plenty of time thinking about the power plant that you are walking around with and what you are doing to improve the output. 

In the past I have written about power and the X factor of power.  In other words is the X factor 3 throws of a shot put or thousands of pedal strokes to complete the Tour de France.  This X factor will help to determine what output you want from your glutes.    The value of the glutes is undeniable in producing power in athletes regardless of the X factor.   So glute strength and power is a component of all sport and human locomotion.  Most sports have evolved around our ability to walk upright, and this is why the gluteus is maximus not only in size, but importance to sports performance.  The size of this muscle is necessary for our mobility for walking upright. 

If I had to choose one muscle group as being the most important to train for sport it would be the hip complex.  When training athletes at Sirens and Titans Fitness, I spend a lot of time working on this power plant.  The ability to produce force and also velocity through the hips and how to transfer that into all planes of movement is where we spend a large percentage of our time with our athletes.  If the hips are the horsepower of the engine, then the core and other stabilizing muscles are the transmission. 

From the warm up to the heavy lifts, to the explosion of hips we are constantly focused upon hips.   The ability to more effectively transfer the force from the ground up through the body is where great gains are made in an athlete.  It is also a large component of a healthy back and knees. 

There is a reason to take a look at your own hips from more than an aesthetic perspective.  If you have great performing hip function you will typically have great looking hips.  So if you are wondering if you should be spending time doing squats, deadlifts, lunges, explosive hip work, think about keeping your power plant firing on all cylinders, and how good your butt will look after, then grab a heavy bar and engage your hips. 

Truth in Fitness

Jacques DeVore, CSCS,  Certified Primal Health Coach

Muscle Fiber Type/Recruitment and the Implications for Strength Training: You Need to Understand the Difference!

In past blog entries I have talked about overload and adaptation.  Most people are familiar with the principle.  You work a muscle or energy system above and beyond the normal workload and it will adapt.  The time for it to adapt is different with individuals and varies widely.  Some individuals adapt much faster than others.  Part of this adaptation is based on the type of muscle fiber you are given at birth.  Some individuals have a higher percentage of Fast Twitch muscle fiber and some have more Slow Twitch fiber.   So be patient, because the type of overload and what you have been given genetically will influence your individual adaptation. 

Overloads can come in different forms.  You can increase resistance or needed force production necessary to move an object.  You can overload the number of repetitions per set.  You can also increase the number of sets.  Overloads can also come with contraction velocity.  Movement velocity can also be where overloads occur.    Understanding these overloads and muscle fiber recruitment is important to determine how to most effectively impact a particular athlete (athletic maturity) and is used in supporting a strategy that addresses the particular needs of a sport.  Muscles will adapt differently based on the type of overload.

These overloads require an understanding of muscle fiber and muscle fiber recruitment to better design a strength and conditioning strategy.

Types of Muscle Fibers:

Slow Twitch Fiber:  A simple definition is muscle fibers that have slow contraction time and a high resistance to fatigue.  They have a smaller structure with higher mitochondria and capillary density.  They have much of the enzymes to support oxidative (endurance) pathways and are used for low force/high aerobic activities.  Most of your daily movement is supported by these types of fibers. This would be a 24 hours of Le Mans car.  Made to go long but will not be the quickest in the quarter mile.

Fast Twitch Fiber:   Quick contraction time, and low resistance to fatigue.  Increase in the speed of release of calcium and breakdown of ATP.  Fast Twitch can be broken down again to Fast Twitch A or IIA and Fast Twitch B or IIB fibers.

Fast twitch A fibers would be seen as a long sprint motor and Type B as a top fuel dragster, one run and done. 

There is a condition known as the size principle.   It is an efficient way your body has evolved in the recruitment of muscle fiber.  If the demand for force production is large then your body will increasingly recruit larger motor units to satisfy the need.  The largest motor units (Fast Twitch Fiber B) are recruited last and have the highest threshold.   Have you ever lifted something thinking it was heavy and then are surprised when the weight is much lighter?  This is a good way of seeing your body recruiting an unnecessary amount of muscle fiber for a perceived needed production of force.  Your brain was prepared for the higher perceived effort and therefore higher force production.  If we did not recruit in an order of force production needed, we would constantly be unable to regulate the amount of force being produced.   It makes a lot of evolutionary sense.

So the order of recruitment is Slow Twitch, followed by Type A fast twitch, and Type B fast twitch when needed.

With this understanding you can start to see how the strategy and tactics of program design is very important when creating a workout to support the muscle fiber needs of a particular sport.

So many athletes wonder if they can change the percentage of fast twitch to slow twitch.  Most of the research shows that this cannot really change.  However, you can match training to more effectively increase the performance of the fibers you are born with.  Through training, the cross sectional area of the muscle fiber will change.  This will help athletes in sports where rapid production of force is of great importance.  Conversely, selective training can add to capillary and mitochondria density.   See my recent blog entry Strength vs Endurance Training: How do you mix oil and water?   

Strength and Power training will result in increased glycolytic enzymes and hypertrophy of IIB Fibers.  It will not add more IIB fibers but they will become larger.  Also you will see better speed of muscle contraction. 

Aerobic training will add hypertrophy to Type 1 and increased capabilities of IIB fibers (Long sprints).  Also, increase in capillary density, aerobic enzymes, and mitochondria.  These adaptations support the need for less force and greater endurance.  

Now how does this translate into training?  At Sirens and Titans we focus on the value or return on and exercise and the risk associated with this return.  Most of our athletes are not competitive weight lifters so some exercises may incrementally increase strength, but are just not worth the risk of the potential injury.  An example of this would be with many overhead lifts and throwing athletes.  There are some exercises we use and some we are more reluctant to use.    If you are not looking at this risk/return you may eventually come up short.

Next focus on effort of the exercise in the particular area you are trying to stress and not just the force being produced.   Your goal should be to get overloads to improve performance in the muscle fibers that will most effectively increase the performance in a particular sport.  This matched with the type of athlete you are training is the optimum strategy.   There is a sweet spot of training where you are getting the greatest effort with the lowest amount of risk and the highest specificity to your sport.  One thing to remember is that there are legitimate correlations in training that may enhance your primary objective.   Pay attention to ways of supporting these positive correlations.  When evaluating sprinters the best sprinters are usually the best vertical jumpers not the best squatters.  However squatting will improve your vertical jump.  So look for correlations that will enhance your primary objective.  Allocate your time accordingly.

We rarely do one rep max lifts with any athlete.  We try to find a weight where the effort increases dramatically at 3-6 reps and motor recruitment is still maximized.   Remember, the last 2 reps are of great importance because the effort becomes the greatest and the overload is maximized. A good example of the importance of effort and the last reps can be demonstrated in a plank.  When you first start a plank the force production is X to hold your body up.  When you first establish the plank the effort is not hard.  However, as you hold the plank longer and longer your effort starts to increase dramatically even though the force produced is the same to hold your body up.   Greater amounts of muscle fiber are being recruited to support the same force production to maintain the integrity of the plank.  The initial hold was supported by a greater percentage of slow twitch fibers, but as fatigue increases a larger number of muscle fibers are recruited to pick up the load and effort increases.   The greatest amount of recruitment is in the last seconds of the hold before you drop.  That is why it is important to challenge yourself in your lifts and pay attention to effort and weight.  

The sweet spot is a lift where effort is highest and risk of injury is low.  So find your sweet spot and focus on effort as well as weight being lifted.

I have spoken in the past about Power times an X factor.  Each sport has a particular requirement for sport and position.  Once this has been established then the requirements for absolute force, power, maximum sustained power, and average power all come into play.  Understanding strength is a great place to start in developing a strategy that matches the needs of your sport.   

Truth in Fitness

Jacques DeVore, CSCS, Certified Primal Health Coach    

Is time valuable to you? Then you better understand this concept if you want faster results in your fitness and body.

Periodization

       Periodization is a concept that can be viewed in a very simple fashion or at a very complex level.  In theory it is the management of work, stress, volume, and intensity versus rest in a systematic fashion.    The objective is to create a strategy for the training that produces the maximum amount of improvement allowing athletes and non-athletes to reap the greatest benefit from training in the least amount of time without suffering an injury.  It also integrates training into the competitive calendar of an athlete during their competitive season.  

       As mentioned before one of the most important parts of a successful training program is the strategy developed around the training to reach a particular goal. The tactics are the day to day training modalities that support this strategy.  If the strategy is weak then the tactics do not have as much of the intended effect and the athlete’s progression is slowed or reversed.   Therefore, periodization should be a large part of the strategy for an athlete.  From my experience you see endurance athletes or cyclic sports paying the most attention to periodization.  I think that is because the volume of training time is typically greater.  Also with cyclic sports, the training and the sport are often times the same.  Think of cycling.  In other sports or non-cyclic sports the strength and conditioning is usually much different than the sport;  think tennis.  However, non-cyclic sports would be well served to look closer at periodization to maximize training results.  At Sirens and Titans Fitness www.sirensandtitansfitness.com  we utilize periodization principles in the training of our athletes in both cyclic and non-cyclic sports as well as with personal training clients.  

       So in principal periodization is a well-planned, systematic, methodical training plan that maximizes the concept of overload and adaptation.  This periodization should address the neuromuscular requirements of a sport, the metabolic requirements, and the cardio respiratory requirements. 

       I have found the most effective method to creating an effective periodization is to work backwards.  The training should be based on an evaluation of the current fitness level and how these relate to the goal of training.  The eastern bloc countries during the 1960s and 70s were structuring 10 year periodizations...  I think the periodization should be long.  Today’s fast food mentality makes this difficult for many and increases the risk for overloads that are too great and subsequently injure or over train the athlete.  It is important that the long term perspective is evaluated even though many would state that 10 years from now is not that important today.  That is a naive perspective that will hurt the progression of the athlete in the long run.   By working backward and understanding the starting point, coupled with a goal, a periodization can be developed.

       Overloads and regeneration must be monitored and managed through the periodization.  This progression and regeneration both in the short run and long run must be monitored and measured.  This also allows the strength coach to better understand total stress on the body, plus how athletes and individuals adapt and respond to training stress.  Training stress is cumulative and must be measured both on a macro basis and a micro basis. 

       There are different periodization methods.  Linear:  Just regular increases in volume or intensity of different energy needs.  Concurrent:  No real focus, but work on all areas of fitness needed.  Conjugated:  Has a more focused approach to particular needs of the athletes and move from need to need, block periodization where you build different fitness needs and block them together over time.  Endurance athletes have a tendency to lean toward block or concurrent.  I like concurrent with less mature athletes as there are typically a number of areas that need attention.  Personally I like the conjugated system.  I try to have a primary objective in each workout so that I am walking away with an overload in a particular area of need.  I determine the objectives by an initial evaluation and then ongoing monitoring of performance in and out of the gym.   The last model, which is not included above, is the worst and the one used most.  Random efforts without any thought to design.  It is seat of the pants periodization.  You may get lucky, but you will never realize your true potential and will hit plateaus for long periods of time and grow frustrated with your lack of progress.

       The periodization is usually broken into micro cycles and macro cycles.  The coach must understand the energy systems utilized by the athlete for a particular sport and the time it takes for the athlete to recover.  Without this understanding training becomes a patchwork of stresses and recovery that does not maximize training time.    The goal should be both physical and psychological.  The psychological aspect is of even greater importance with an athlete. 

So, What is your preferred method?

"Truth in Fitness"

Jacques DeVore, CSCS, Primal Health Coach

Short Term Training Tactics and Specificity in Training

Do you have the correct program design?

In the list of building the perfect athlete I talk about strategy and tactics. Strategy is the longer term road map or plan to get you from where you are now to where you would like to be as an athlete. This includes the establishment of goals, the timing and measurement of the progress. What are your strengths and weakness as an athlete? Are there any external factors effecting your performance and how are they addressed. It answers the why of a workout on any particular day. It is the architectural training plan so that that the outcome satisfies your goal as an athlete.

The tactics are many. What particular exercises? What is the volume and intensity of a particular training methodology? Does the exercise enhance the ability to perform the particular movements required in the sport? The answer to that question revolves around the idea of Specificity of Training. At Sirens and Titans Fitness we believe that winning in sport is derived from the development of power (moving your body through space) in a fashion that suits a particular sport. This is (power x X Factor) The X factor is the amount of times or level of absolute power and also how long can you hold the highest percentage of your absolute power to perform a task. For example: Swinging a baseball bat is a much different X factor than throwing a punch for a boxer. The boxer has to produce a smaller amount of power numerous times in a fight than the hitter of a baseball. The mechanical requirements and metabolic requirements are much different and the training must be adjusted to accommodate the different requirements of the different sports.

This accommodation and differences in the trainings is defined as Specificity of Training. This accommodation ties directly into the concept of correlation and training that I discussed in a previous post. The focus of the training should be on exercises that modify the body’s complex neuromuscular systems to overcoming movements that apply directly to the particular sport.

This requires the analysis of a particular sports movement pattern. Looking at baseball again, the training must evaluate the movement patterns of hitting, throwing, and running bases. What are the bio-mechanical adaptations necessary? What type of movement pattern? What is the type of muscle contractions necessary? What are the metabolic requirements of the baseball? These requirements are just a small list with many more factors to be considered and addressed when training a baseball player.

So you get the idea of specificity. This is not to be confused with simulation. Many strength and conditioning programs are developed to try to simulate the sport and just add a level of resistance to the movements. This can be helpful in certain movements, however if done without foresight the training can actually confuse the neuromuscular patterns that have been developed and therefore result in a diminishment of sport performance especially of a very high level athlete. Simulating the sport with resistance does not take into account all the physics of movement like center of gravity, inertia etc., so be thoughtful and understand the difference between simulation and specificity.

Think about the X factor of your sport and train in a way that addresses the specific needs and requirements of that particular sport. Your tactics should be adjusted so that it addresses the specific requirements of the movements and metabolic requirements of your sport.

Truth in Fitness,

Jacques DeVore, CSCS

What you need to know if the goal is to increase strength and power!

In previous blog entries I have discussed how strength and power are necessary components of any sport.  All sports have a particular requirement or X factor of power needed to perform at an optimum level.  This performance is also influenced by biomechanical issues as well as cardiovascular capabilities. We will only be discussing strength and power training in this entry.

What is strength?  Strength in its simplest form is your ability to generate a force.  If you put your hands against a wall and push as hard as you can you are generating a maximum force.  The greater the force production the slower the velocity of movement will be.  If the wall starts to move when you are pushing against it your force production diminishes as the wall moves.  The faster the movement the less force is being produced.  Therefore maximum strength is dependent on not only your ability to generate a force, but also the direction of the force, velocity, and the time you generate the force within.  When I talk about direction I am referring more too concentric vs eccentric vs isometric movements.  In other words are you performing negatives (eccentric) positive (concentric) or a hold (isometric).

Force Velocity Relationship: All of these different directions influence the force that is being produced.  When velocity is lower force production can be increased and when velocity is high force production diminishes.  There is an optimum level where velocity and force production come together to obtain maximum power. 

A golfer looks at club head speed, tennis player at the speed of the racket.  As the speed increases the ball travels longer or faster.  In golf, the speed of the club is based on the back swing which creates an eccentric load on the muscles engaged and then a concentric muscle action as the club approaches the ball.  The club speed is influenced by a number of different factors.  One of the main factors in the absolute speed of the club is the change from eccentric to concentric when the swing goes from back swing to forward swing. This also applies to tennis when changing from back swing to fore swing.    If the muscles involved in the swing have a high speed contraction with maximum force the club will be accelerating at a greater rate.  If the transition is slower the club will be producing less power because the velocity during the time of transition until hitting the ball is not as rapid.  So one must evaluate what the necessary force and velocity is needed to generate the optimum power. This force comes up from the ground through the feet and into the kinetic chain that will then transfer to the movement for the most desired result.    Now, what can make golf and tennis so difficult is the athlete must be able to regulate the power with a high degree of accuracy in order to adjust for different distances and placement.  It is one thing to give it all you can, but a completely different skill to be able to fine tune the power.  In golf different clubs help in this process.  If not you would only need one club.  Of course executing at a percentage of maximum power multiple times is what will win games.  In cycling the muscle contraction is all concentric.  There is not a negative or isometric hold.  The cyclist can determine power output by shifting the gear to create greater force production.  The cyclist will determine at what velocity satisfies the need for power most efficiently.   The cyclist recognizes that if too many matches are burned early on they will not be able to call upon that power when it may be needed most.  So cycling becomes a game of conservation of energy and not just going hard to impress. 

Rate of Force Development (RFD) is an important concept in sport and where a lot of time is spent when developing training strategy.  If you think about the physics of moving a mass then a greater RFD would produce greater movement of a mass.  In sport that mass is your body in multi-directions.  This translates into better first step, vertical jump, lateral movement and ability to produce power.  Most of this power comes from the hips and your ground force reaction.

So how does understanding this help you with your training?  If you understand the basic concepts of force production, RFD and how it applies to your sport you can better develop a strategy that will produce the greatest improvement in your strength and conditioning. 

For example, at Sirens and Titans we will utilize a Versa pulley to help us develop power in all planes of movement.  The video above demonstrates a power exercise with velocity and force being measured by the Versapulley in a readout.   This plane of movement is common in sport but harder to get proper loading because of the direction of movement and gravity. 

In summary:

So a number of questions have to be answered when developing the strategy for training an athlete.  What is the baseline of RFD and maximum force production?  This will dictate the overload in the training and where the most time should be spent.  Overload can be looked at in the volume of work, intensity of work and how often the work is being completed. 

Where is the greatest inefficiency in addressing maximum force production and RFD? Is the gap in production of power laterally, forward, backward, up?  When we talk about sport specific, what are the speeds of force production necessary to win at the elite level of a particular sport?   Is the velocity needed more after an initial movement or from a velocity of zero?  This concept is as important as understanding the different planes of power needed. 

For example, at Sirens and Titans we will utilize a Versa pulley to help us develop power laterally.  This plane of movement is common in sport but harder to get proper loading because of the direction of movement and gravity. 

So strength and power are a major component of your training, but first you must understand what it really means to your sport before developing your training strategy and tactics. 

Truth in Fitness,

Jacques DeVore, CSCS

www.sirensandtitansfitness.com

Don't Drive on Bald Tires: Patience in Training

When people get excited about getting fitter, faster, stronger, leaner they want to see the improvement fast.  Unfortunately, they underestimate the work that has to be done on the overall foundation of their fitness first and get impatient. 

Mobility, stability, balance, body control, strength, absolute power, cardio, sustainable power, maximum sustainable power.  The first four don't sound as impressive as the latter. Everybody wants to skip the “boring stuff” and get right to the big lifts.  They do not know what a mistake that is.  It is my job as a coach to make sure my clients progress in these basics and build a solid foundation first, so they have the ability to increase the intensity when ready.  You DO NOT want to drive a high performance super-car on bald tires. 

You have to build a strong foundation of mobility, stability, body control, and core strength, , before you can move forward.  The wonderful thing is once you start to shore up these weakness you will make great leaps forward, and decrease the risk for injury.  

Jacques DeVore, CSCS

"Truth in Fitness"

Exercise Variation is Overrated

It is so crazy when clients come in and state that they did same exercise the last time and think that somehow it won’t help them if they do the same exercise over again. 

I think this myth came from the term “muscle confusion” and P90x.  The belief is that you have to confuse your muscles with a variety of exercises to make change.

I tell people that I can take one movement and without ever changing the movement have hundreds of variation. 

Let’s take the hex bar dead-lift, for example, as it is a great overall complex lift. 

1.     I could do the traditional 3 sets of 10.

2.     I could do a long rep count with lighter weight for 3 sets

3.     I could do a short rep count with higher weight for 6 sets.

4.     I could do the same long rep count with very little rest between the sets for 4 sets.

5.     I could do the short rep count with long rests and add more weight

6.     I could do 6 sets of 3 really heavy weight and a ton of rest.

7.     I could do jumping bar lifts for power

8.     I could do a moderate amount of weight for 8 sets, limit the rest to 40 to 60 seconds and                then do another set same weight same reps.  I could do this for 4 sets if I want to add size               and strength. 

The reps and sets all have a design to deliver a particular result.  Some of the sets above will improve strength, some muscle size, power, power endurance, muscle endurance, metabolic load, etc. 

So you can do the same exercises daily and have a completely different workout.  The key to the variation is not the exercise as much as how the muscle is working in the movement pattern.  

Personally I am all about power to weight so I like to lift heavy for my strength on my lower body coupled with power exercises on the Versa-pulley.  My upper-body I like to have some size and strength so I add these into my workout to super-set and save time, alternating from one lower body to upper body pulling or pushing or some dynamic core exercises. 

Truth in Fitness:

Jacques DeVore , CSCS 

Stretch Shortening Cycle

Want to get bigger overloads in your power training?  Then you better understand the stretch shortening cycle. 

I remember when I was in high school trying to drop weight for wrestling. Our heavy weight would sit in the front seat of the car. Another wrestler and I would push the car in neutral for a couple of blocks, work up a sweat, and then jump into the car with the heater on wearing rubber sweats. Sitting here today this sounds crazy, but wrestlers are a little crazy.

When we were getting the car moving I remember leaning back as far as possible and then pushing into the car. What I did not realize at the time is why we would do this. By leaning back I was loading the opposing muscle group (antagonist) so that I would take advantage of the elastic effect of the muscle stretching and then subsequently shortening so that we could get the car moving from a dead stop. The farther I could lean back, the greater the pre-load stretch of the muscle.

This is called the Stretch Shortening Cycle. Your body will produce more power by pre-loading (stretch/shortening) those opposing muscles so that more power can be produced. As you train more the ability to load becomes greater and greater. I call this getting fit enough to get really fit. So be patient and take advantage of this natural choreography of muscles to get better and better at moving your body through space.

Truth in Fitness:
Jacques DeVore CSCS

The Importance of Magnesium

Magnesium.  If your hard intervals or training efforts seem to be lacking you may be low!

Most coaches and fitness enthusiasts are aware of the importance of magnesium in energy production.  However, more recent research is showing that the amount of magnesium required for optimum health and performance has been underestimated.  Research has also shown that it does not take a large deficiency to have a big impact on performance.  Research has demonstrated that magnesium deficiency reduced metabolic efficiency, increased heart rate and oxygen consumption to complete a given workload.

Pure magnesium is the second most abundant mineral in cells after potassium.  Most is found in muscle tissue and bone.  Less than 1% is found in the blood.  This is typically the amount measured.  Magnesium is used in the synthesis of fat, protein, muscular contraction, cardiac activity, bone metabolism and neurological activity. 

Magnesium has an important role for human performance in ATP metabolism both in aerobic and anaerobic energy production.  ATP is called the energy currency of the body.  During strenuous exercise the rate of turnover of ATP is extremely high, and magnesium is a big part of satisfying this need.  There is also a link to magnesium in reducing oxidative stress and the production of testosterone which can help promote strength gains in athletes. 

Recommended Magnesium levels in the US are about 400mgs per day for men and about 300mgs for women.  However research in athletes has led many to believe that this is too low.   Levels in the range of 450 to 500 may produce better performance.  A rule of thumb is 3mg per pound of body weight. 

The impact of a deficiency of magnesium is so great that this should be one of the first checks on a list of dietary needs for optimum performance.  Especially if your sport is a power to weight sport, where you are trying to watch your diet and may trying to reduce your body weight. 

Some dietary sources highest in magnesium are almonds, pumpkin seeds, peanuts, walnuts, and sesame seeds.  If you are an athlete or actively training, make sure you are consuming magnesium rich foods or take a magnesium supplement.  They are cheap and safe. 

Truth in Fitness

Jacques DeVore, CSCS

Sirens and Titans Fitness, LA

Do You Have a Primary Training Objective in Your Workouts? If you want fast gains, you better!

At Sirens and Titans Fitness , we not only look at the long term strategy of the training based on a well-developed evaluation of the athlete. We also spend a lot of time on the tactics of each training session.  The long term or grand strategy evaluates the long term objective of the athlete for the off season training and beyond.  If someone is not an athlete we like to create seasons for them.  This allows them to “peak” at different points in the year and give them psychological breaks from training year round. 

Each individual training session is another rung in the fitness ladder.  In order to make the next step up in fitness each of these sessions must be developed in a thoughtful manner.  At Sirens and Titans we have primary objectives for each training session.  The Primary Objective may be lower body strength, power, stability etc.  The Primary Objective may be active recovery.  The point is that if you do not have a primary objective you may want to look at incorporating this concept into your workout.  The Primary Objective of a workout allows our training staff to focus on one area of training that is the most important part of the grand strategy for that day. This will improve performance and move the athlete forward at the most rapid rate possible.   The Primary Objective must be dynamic.  In other words if the Primary Objective was to obtain an overload in lower body power utilizing plyometric exercises and the athlete was not able to perform at a level that produced the overloads necessary we would change the session and revisit the primary objective after the athlete has had enough recovery time to perform at the appropriate level to attain the output necessary to meet our objective.

Time is the real enemy of an athlete who wants to compete at the highest level.  Establishing Primary Objectives for each workout insures that workouts are not wasted or contributing to overtraining. 

Truth in Fitness

Jacques DeVore, CSCS

www.sirensandtitansfitness.com 

Maximum Overload For Cyclists. What the is book about in a short video and why you should buy the book.

• What wins in almost all endurance events lasting longer than 20 seconds is the ability to sustain the highest percentage of your Absolute Power Output the longest! (APO)
• You do this without thinking when you are searching for the perfect gear (Maximum Sustainable Power) on a climb or the flats. 
• ·Power= Force x Velocity.  You have to understand this concept!!
• ·Strength is your ability to generate a force.  This is different than power.
• Add increased velocity and you have more Power!
• Increasing you strength takes mobility, stability and improved force production.
• Increasing Velocity is a product of training in high speed low resistance exercises.  Plyos, Olympic lifts, walking explosive lunges. These are NOT strength exercises they have velocity and are typically about 30 to 40 percent of your max strength!!
• Step 1 in the book:  Self-Assessment
• Step 2 Work on any mobility, stability, or biomechanical issues. 
• Step 3 Work on the force production or strength in the basic lifts
• Step 4 Work on establishing your Absolute Power Output, (APO)
• Step 5 Start the Maximum Sustained Power workouts.  In the book this is exampled with an explosive walking lunge for one minute.
•  Step 6 Continue to improve all of the above, but continue to add more time to the MSP workouts.   I have cyclists doing the MSP efforts for over 7 mins in duration!  You start with one min and then keep adding more time as long as you can keep up the speed in the movement.
• Your body makes and adaptation ( change) in being able to hold a higher percentage of your APO longer because the MSP workouts are asking the body to hold APO for long durations of time.  The rest between the short mini sets allows you to train close to your APO much longer than traditional training methods for power that do all the reps at once.
• This type of training focuses on what you need to go faster longer.  Power and Maximum Sustainable Power.  This is how you win a bike race!

Are you performing high force activity on legs prior to training for lower body power? If not you should be!

You will find a lot of discussion in my book Maximum Overload for Cyclists by Rodale Press.  https://www.amazon.com/Bicycling-Maximum-Overload-Cyclists-Strength-Based/dp/1623367743/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1493769471&sr=8-1&keywords=jacques+devore about developing power. It discusses the strategy of power and also focuses on the tactics. 

One of the tactics in the book is how your order exercises to maximize a training result. 

There is a training  principle called  Post activation Potentiation Principle or PAP.  As athletes become fitter and fitter it becomes harder to get overloads when training.  PAP helps to increase the ability of an athlete to produce greater amounts of power in exercises subsequently to a high force activity.  Greater amounts of power is of great importance in sport today. 

Most of the research has revolved around jumping.  The act of jumping is a good measurement of absolute power production in an athlete’s lower body.   The research looked at performing hack squats at 90% of the athlete’s one repetition prior to jumping.  Subsequent ability to jump was increased when the intervention was utilized. This also has validity in a number of other power exercises. The optimum time between the heavy lift and the power exercise seemed to be around 12 minutes (Andy V. Kambui, MS, CSCS, Edward Jo, MS, CSCS,and Lee E. Brown, EdD, CSCS,*D, FNSCA ). At Sirens and Titans Fitness we utilize this science in training the body for many different vectors of power production.

Keep this idea in mind the next time you perform your plyometric workouts both for upper body and lower body exercises. The practical application of the science allows a strength coach to experiment with different types of loads and rest dependent on the athlete and the part of the body you are training.  This can also be reversed to improve maximum strength exercise.  When the  order is reversed the power exercise  is executed on the front end to elicit a bigger lift on the strength side.. Just remember too much volume of either will negate the effect if too much fatigue is produced or the athlete is not fit enough. 

Truth in Fitness

Jacques DeVore, CSCS

Character: Why is it important for training success?

Character: Why is it important for training success?  

Honesty:

BE MORE CONCERNED WTH YOUR CHARACTER THAN YOUR REPUTATION, BECAUSE YOUR CHARACTER IS WHAT YOU REALLY ARE, WHILE YOUR REPUTATION IS MERELY WHAT OTHERS THINK YOU ARE.

John Wooden

THE MEASURE OF A MAN’S REAL CHARACTER IS WHAT HE WOULD DO IF HE KNEW HE WOULD NEVER BE FOUND OUT

Thomas Macaulay

Loyalty:

Loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart the absolute principle of self-sacrifice.

Woodrow Wilson/Twenty-Eighth President

Respect/Unselfishness:

A Philosophy of Life by Thomas Jefferson—

In matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current.  Give up money, give up fame, give up science, and give up earth itself and all it contains, rather than do an immoral act.  And never suppose that in any possible situation, or under any circumstances, it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing.  Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask; yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly.

He who permits himself to tell a lie once finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells a lie without attending to it, and truths without the world believing him. 

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO HAVE  CHALLENGES DESIGNED IN A WORKOUT TO BUILD ONE’S CHARACTER AND DELIVER CHANGE?  

In today’s world of gossip and news at the speed of light, character in sport, health, and wellness are closely linked.   I believe that just as animals play fight to learn about how to survive as adults in the wild, sports or physical challenges ( workouts)  for humans is a way to develop character for the future at any age.  Class, honesty, respect, teamwork, and loyalty through sport and training can be developed in an environment that is safe and controlled.   Character is not so much learned as developed.  It is developed through experiences that test an individual.   It is easy not to steal when one has pockets full of money.

Unfortunately many of us seek out only the things we do well or are easy. 

Character is tested and developed at crossroads in sport and in life.  Creating challenges at any age will further remind us of what we are capable of overcoming.  However, the challenges have to be legitimate, not fabricated to make us just feel like a ” winner” The great thing about sport and well-designed training is that it allows one to have numerous occasions to develop character on a regular basis.   Great lessons are learned through these experiences.  Program design in workouts can create reasonable challenges and progressions on a regular basis. 

Unfortunately  today  environments to improve  character have been hollowed out:

We  develop character effectively  through legitimate challenges.      The idea that we should create challenges that are not really challenges does not allow an individual  to experience what failure feels like and how to understand that failure is nothing more than a reward for having the guts to compete in the first place.  We need to reframe the narrative.  The win comes from truly “leaning in” on the challenge.    It is  a disservice to not allow the athlete or individual  to fail.  It is through this failure that one finds their true gifts. 

Regular Failures ( real challenges) are the best thing that can happen to everyone!

Building character does not come by only winning.  It comes by learning how to fail.  Understanding that taking risk may result in failure, but the act of taking risk allows both  young  and old athlete to learn that failure is not the end of the world and that the lessons you take away is where the true value exists.   Time training and the subsequent improvement is where the lessons start.   Coaches tell me all the time that most young athletes today wantonly toplay in the games.  They donot want to do the training necessary to play well. 

I think the idea of character is best described in the following quotes above.   Needless to say character and integrity is the difference between a good athlete and a great athlete and a good person and a great person.  Sometimes things are not fair sometimes we are let down.  How we deal with this is the true value of sport and also found in the  training for sport.

In training athletes at Sirens and Titans Fitness we are demanding of our athletes and clients and it is our job as coaches to help them develop their bodies.  It is also our job to coach them through things that are difficult.  We develop this character through training and the sacrifices, failures and successes that come with training.  We are demanding of the athletes and clients we train. We want them  to be the best they can be physically, but we also want to reward them with the opportunity to build  character that today is oftentimes given little importance.  

 My hope is that through sport and training we give more than just a great body.  

The last quote by Thomas Jefferson is very appropriate today.  When I was in high school after a wrestling meet we could not wait to see our name in the paper, because wrestling was pretty much an anonymous sport.  However, in today’s world of technology the internet allows any public action to be recorded for the whole world to witness.  It can be a wonderful  medium because someday you will be able to show your children and grandchildren what a stud you were.   Just remember that bad actions are also now a permanent record in cyberspace for all to see forever, so character is more important than it ever has been.  

TRUTH IN FITNESS:

JACQUES DEVORE, CSCS

Do You Have a Power Meter on Your Bike? Do you know how the number is generated?

Do You Have a Power Meter on Your Bike?  Do you know how the number is generated?  

I recently asked a large group of cyclists that use a power meter to tell me how the number is calculated on the readout.  No one knew the answer. People know what 500 watts or 1000 watts feels like on the bike, but if you want to see the number improve you should understand how that number is derived or else how can you design a training program that improves this number?

  Power requires force and velocity. Strength is your ability to generate a force and velocity is the speed of work being done.  What are you lacking and how do you improve them?

 You need to figure out where in that equation you have the biggest opportunity for improvement.  If you really want to dig deep check out my book. 

Truth in Fitness,

Jacques Devore

You want to improve your times on the Versaclimber?

You better understand how to measure your Absolute Power Output and your Maximum Sustainable Power on the Versaclimber. Give this workout a try.  It is a tough one!

APO (Absolute Power Output) x Time= MSP (Maximum Sustainable Power) this is the highest percentage of your APO that you can hold in longer efforts.  Is it 50%, 60%, 20%?  Holding a higher percentage of your APOis a big contributing factor to winning in most sporting events that last longer than 10 seconds.   

So let’s look at the Versaclimber.  A 30 second effort would be a good indicator of your APO.   My 30 second effort is right at 190 feet total.  That means the pace is right at 380 feet in the sprint for 30 Seconds.  One of my coaches Donte Hall is a professional high jumper and has clocked 202 in 30 seconds.  He has great power production for short time periods, because his sport depends on this type of Absolute Power Output. 

Now let’s take a look at my 15 minute time from my last workout.  I set a tempo of 200 feet per min which is approximately 50% of my APO of 380.  My 5 min effort pace was 233 in my last workout.  That is 61.4% of my APO.  So this is my starting point.  You need to have this or you will not be able to effectively design your training to meet your goal.   I want to move the needle in the direction I want to go.  In other words if I am training for shorter or longer durations I would adjust.  If shorter is my goal  I would want to focus on fewer efforts with a higher percentage of my APO.  If longer then I would reduce the power output and lengthen the time. 

Where do I want to go?

I am hoping to complete the mile in 25 mins.  This would be a pace of 211.2 for 25 mins.  A mile is 5280 feet.  So I would need to hold MSP at 55% of my APO of 380. 

So I need an improvement in MSP from where I am now byabout 5% based on my current 15 minute time.  I am not going to get much faster in my 30 second efforts so now I need to design workouts that will bump my MSP by 5%. 

So my focus moving forward is to work on my glycolytic energy system.   This is where I can make the biggest gains based on my current APO and Aerobic base.  My short game is pretty good, and I have a good aerobic base for my long game.  I will still include efforts in these energy systems because they support the primary objective, but most of my intervals right now will be shorter than 5 mins but longer than 3.  Spending time here will give me the biggest improvement in my future mile pacing based on my current strengths and weakness on the climber.  This is one of the hardest energy systems to train because the pain is higher for longer and nobody likes that much.  These also make you mentally tough.  I start with 3 min efforts and then progress to 4 and longer as my fitness improves. 

With that in mind here is my next Versaclimber workout.  Try it as it is a tough one. 

Warm Up: 2 min or more of warm up before first effort.

30x30x 3 min workout:

You follow each 3 min effort with 1.5 min of rest until the 3rd or 4th effort which has 2 min of rest or complete recovery.  After every 3 min effort you record your total output.  Do not take more than 1.5 minutes as you do not want to be fully recovered before the next interval.  Try to keep total output within 10 percent of your best output.  If you fade too much then reduce the number of total efforts and extend the time a little between efforts as you are not recovering quick enough. 

The goal is to set a tempo close to the pace I want to maintain in my mile effort.  In my case a 211 feet per min pace.  Then follow with a 30 second effort at a higher pace.  I will do three tempo efforts and 3 pickups for a total of 3 min in each effort.   I try to shoot for 10 to 20 percent higher in the pickups.  That would be a pace of 230 to 240.  Without any break I go back to the tempo pace of 211. This is where it gets tough.  I have to jump right back to the 211 pace after the pickup.  UGH!! This forces me to maintain my goal pace with my body starving for oxygen before having to pick it up again.  The body adapts by delivering more oxygen and also becoming better at utilizing the oxygen that is being delivered.  I do 3 to four of these before I give myself a complete recovery of 2 min or more and then do another 3 or 4 more for a total number of efforts of 6 to 8.    The complete recovery allows me to not diminish my pace too much in the second half of the workout.  If you get too tired you can reduce the total number of efforts.  

Give this a go.  It takes about 30 min total time to do 6 efforts  including the rest.    It will bump your fitness quickly.  Remember figure out what your APO is,  and then what your current MSP looks like.  Then you can start to toy with the workouts to shore up your weaknesses and reach your goal output. 

You can read all about training for Maximum Sustained Power in my upcoming book for cyclists. 

How do you maximize your overloads to get the biggest returns the quickest? You better understand the math.

Training, both tactically and strategically, must be specific to the sport or individuals objective.  This statement is obvious but becomes much more complicated and tricky as the athlete becomes fitter. 

A good example would be in training a 100 meter sprinter.  It makes sense anecdotally that having a really strong grip is not going to make you a great sprinter.  So spending large amounts of time exercising one’s grip would not be the best use of training time for a sprinter.  Now a wrestler would look at his grip as an important part of the sport and a weak grip would be something that would need to be addressed.  The correlation of grip to wrestling has a much higher relationship than the correlation of grip to sprinting.  You need to start thinking about correlations.  Your best 100 meter sprinters are typically your best vertical jumpers, not your best squatters.  However, squatting will help your vertical jump? 

The above example demonstrates the concept of correlation and how it relates to training.   If one had the time and the inclination, correlation coefficients could be measured on different performance measures to rank the value of training exercises relative to a sport.

The Math: The correlation coefficient is a number between -1 and 1.  If there is no relationship between the predicted values and the actual values the correlation coefficient is 0 or lower (the predicted values are no better than random numbers this would be the example of grip strength to sprinting).  As the strength of the relationship between the predicted values and actual values increases so does the correlation coefficient.  A perfect fit gives a coefficient of 1.0.  Thus the higher the correlation coefficient of an exercise to the specific needs of the sport the greater the value of the exercise.   A negative correlation number would be actions or exercises that actually take away from the performance of a specific sport.  These correlations are really determined by the experience of the coach or through trial and error of an athlete and also in some research. 

Strength and conditioning coaches must think through this idea of correlation and determine what aspects of a training strategy have the most impact on the performance of the athlete in a sport.  If this is not being evaluated then precious training time is being wasted on areas that have little impact on the performance of the athlete.  Random does not work if you want to speed gains.  Unfortunately this is often a random process and the athlete suffers. 

At Sirens & Titans we look for “tipping point” fitness gains.  These tipping points are areas of fitness that with small gains can produce huge changes in the performance of the athlete during the game.  The correlation coefficient is very high.   In most cases the tipping points present themselves after evaluating an athlete for functional fitness.  Many tipping point fitness issues can be identified in this evaluation.  Another area that has this type of fitness leverage is found is in movements where power  is being scrubbed or needs to be maintained for longer durations of time.  There are a lot of athletes that have great vertical jumps; however they can only execute a handful of jumps at a high output level.  Training the athlete so they can maintain 90-100% of this output for a longer duration creates champions and changes the performance dramatically in competition.  

In summary, think about the correlation of your training to your performance in sport.  Constantly be evaluating where this concept can help your performance.  In addition, if you want faster results look for areas of weakness that would provide you with that “tipping point” performance progression.  These are both game changers. 

TRUTH IN FITNESS

Genetics and Sport

Genetics and Sport: Exercising is a random method to hopefully catch a lightening in a bottle result.  If you train you can create an environment to maximize your genetic potential. 

Diamonds are created under great stress for long periods of time.  Changing your body requires managing stress correctly to create the diamond result.  The key word is managing.  Type of exercise, nutrition, sleep, regeneration, fasting, light days, heavy days, light weights, heavy weight, cardio, mobility, stability, functional, isolated, HIIT, long cardio, all are just some of the stressors that need to be looked at when developing your own program design.  Your genetics will respond differently to each of these stressors.  Everyone is different.     

Understanding the difference of these stressors and the subsequent change in the body is the difference between training and exercise.  My latest blog entry talks about why designing and managing the type of exercise stress is so important to deliver the result you want.                         

I think the most overused and one of the most dangerous terms in the athletic vernacular is “gifted”.   Of course there are certain body types that are much more appropriate to certain sports and movements than others, however the term gifted is often overused and in many cases discourages individuals from the recognition that hard work and diligent training will overcome most gifts.  Genetic athletic gifts are like a glass.  It is true that some people are born with bigger glasses (DNA/Genome).   However, the size of the glass is only a measurement of potential; training is the act of filling a glass (Epigenetics /Phenome).  Athlete A is born with a glass that is 25% larger than athlete B.  The athlete with the smaller glass fills his to the top and the “gifted “athlete only fills his half way.  The non-gifted athlete will prevail on the field.  My point is that we are all born with different DNA which we have no control over.  There is a whole body of research which has identified different athletic genes.   We all know individuals who are just natural at a given sport.   However it is the expression of the gene (epigenetic) that we have the ability to influence through smart training.  This is one area that we have a great ability to influence.  The picture above is of two identical twins, one was an endurance runner and one a weightlifter.  Identical DNA but the expression of the genes was different based on the different stresses of exercise. 

The best way to understand this is by thinking about identical twins.  Identical twins have the exact same DNA or genome.  In many cases it is almost impossible to tell them apart.  However, if one of the twins pursued long distance running and the other twin was a power lifter the differences in their physiques would be very pronounced.  Why is this difference so pronounced if their genetics are identical?  The expression of the genes is seen in the phenome of the twins.    If both twins have identical genomes what causes the differences in the body types of the marathoner vs. the weight lifter?  See the photo above!  The different forms of training have expressed the identical genes differently in the physiques of the twins.   It seems obvious from this example, but how do you influence your own genes?

The word epigenetic means over the gene.  In other words the expression of the gene over the underlying DNA that you are born with is the epigenetic of the gene.  The study of epigenetics is one of the leading areas of genetic research today.   What the research is finding is that different stresses on your body (training would be one stress) will mark your genes to behave in a particular way.   Much of the research has revolved around mapping the markers that result in negative expressions of the genes that subsequently express themselves through diseases of the body.  Researchers are trying to determine how to remark your genes to block particular diseases.   The same principle of gene expression is also evidenced on the training side.   In fact the scientific community is finding that a lot of the training adaptation of an athlete is more a result of the epigenetic marker than the training itself. 

Now I come back to the”non-gifted” athlete and how the concept of DNA and Epigenetics plays into training.  By the way, I do not think there are any non-gifted athletes.  These are just athletes who have not found a sport that supports their gifts.  I will discuss the subject about the disservice that is done to youth today in the interest of self-esteem and sport in a future entry.  Many youth athletes do not discover their gifts because they never “fail” at a sport. 

Genetics are important for certain types of sports.  Height can be very important in the game of basketball.    However, I believe that epigenetics are the bigger determinant of performance in sport today.  The science is finally catching up and showing that through training an athlete can change the expression of the gene to produce a result that supports performance in a particular sport.  This concept is far reaching to curing disease.  It will also have huge impact on an athlete’s ability to perform through a better understanding of what specific stresses result in a particular gene expression that improves sports performance.  In the past this gene expression has usually happened by default.

A great strength coach has a better understanding of what types of stresses result in different physiological results.  Measuring the athlete’s performance data and understanding what it means coupled with an understanding of the physiology will speed the increases in performance. 

So the moral to the story is that there is hope for individuals who do not believe they have the gifts to perform at the highest level of a particular sport or someone who just wants to lean down.   Of course there are limitations, but it is amazing what can be done with the proper training strategy.   With proper motivation, desire, and the most effective training an individual can produce the most effective genetic expression to match a particular sport!

Is there a secret way to train to accomplish this gene expression?  What are the strategies and tactics necessary to mark your genes and develop the desired result? 

Come in and talk to us to find out more. 

Truth in Fitness:

"Fatigue makes cowards of as all,” but how do you measure it ?"

"Fatigue makes cowards of as all,” but how do you measure it"?
 
The quote is from famed football coach Vince Lombardi, and it is so applicable to training and sport. But if you want to get maximum overloads in your workouts, the real question is how you measure the fatigue more effectively?

When you are performing your deadlifts, you can feel the burn in the muscle. Once you stop the burning stops and your body begins to recover. This is called peripheral fatigue. But is there more going on?

Your body makes changes based on stimulus or stress to a particular energy system. What we know is that when performing deadlifts your body becomes overloaded by a stimulus that is out of the normal range of work. This overload can typically come in the form of higher intensity of the exercise or greater volume, less rest, more reps, etc. We also know that volume decreases as intensity increases. Remember, small incremental overloads undertaken on a regular basis will result in an adaptation that will increase your performance. The modulations of these overloads are of great importance. As the athlete matures and reaches a higher level of fitness it is my responsibility as a coach to determine what overload will be most effective in eliciting the desired response in his or her body. As higher levels of fitness are achieved, determining and obtaining an overload becomes much more complicated.

We know that a greater stimulus will result in fatigue, followed by the body compensating for this fatigue, followed by super compensation, and a resulting improvement in performance. But if the stimulus is always the same this cycle does not result in improved performance.
On the surface this seems simple. Where it gets tricky is that most athletes have a “Type A” approach to training. More is better and much more is even better than that!  If an athlete does not measure fatigue effectively, the slippery slope of overtraining is only a step away.
What is harder to measure well within this cycle of adaptation is how you measure the fatigue. Beyond the muscle soreness there is also another fatigue at play.

Fatigue is generally classified as the direct mechanical fatigue on muscle contraction capability during an exercise. This fatigue is peripheral. In other words, when do you reach the point where you are unable to execute a particular exercise? But there is also a great level of Central Nervous System (CNS) fatigue, which is very important to monitor in training. This type of fatigue is insidious and can lead to a lack of enthusiasm, burnout, sleep issues, etc. It is typically the type of fatigue that creeps up on an athlete over time. You just feel tired and burned out all the time. Performance drops off, and it becomes harder and harder to obtain the type of outputs you were easily accomplishing in the past. Athletes will say they “feel flat”. The problem is that if an athlete accumulates too much of this type of fatigue, it takes some time to recover and can lead to major setbacks in training. Therefore it is very important to monitor this closely.
Exercise scientists are still trying to determine how to better monitor this type of fatigue. BCAA’s (Branch Chain Amino Acids) have been shown to help, but the jury is still out on their long-term effectiveness. Sleep and proper nutrition will always be a part of the process and should be monitored. Different athletes respond to different levels of intensity and volume in exercise differently. Serotonin levels are at play in this overall fatigue. Many endurance athletes are now using pulse oximeters to measure O2 in their blood to see if recovery has taken place. Healthy humans typically carry 97 to 98 percent oxygen in their blood. If you wake up and see 97 or lower, that’s a strong indicator that your body has not recovered.
As a coach, I monitor a core group of exercises for each athlete dependingon the sport. If an athlete begins to drop off 15 percent or more on a regular basis, we pay close attention and reevaluate the training to determine how to taper the workload down and incorporate longer recovery times and rest. Since we cannot look into the body and see the level of fatigue on the central nervous system we have to look for markers outside of the body. As an athlete becomes fitter, these markers become much more important to observe. I am constantly asking my athletes how they feel in an overall sense as well as observing the performance markers we have established.

One of the most important contributions a coach can make to his or her athletes is to tell them to rest. If the coach tells the athlete to rest there is no sense of guilt on the part of the Type A athlete. I also incorporate play into the equation. This reduces the mental stress associated with high levels of training. Weekend warriors generally do not realize the impact of daily stress on their performance.
So the takeaway is that you should give yourself markers of performance and measurements of feel to help you monitor the impact of overall fatigue on your body. Be aware that fatigue is not just your inability to perform an exercise in the moment.

Truth in fitness,
Jacques

Are You Performing Your Intervals Correctly?

 There is a ton of research in the last few years that has lead everyone to believe that intervals are the cure of everything.  They definitely should be a regular part of your training.  The hormonal response and gene expression that comes from intense efforts for short periods of time have proven that they have a roll for all clients.  The problem in fitness is that the industry takes a small amount of science and markets it to create programs that are just shorter, but not necessarily better. 

Many programs claim that only doing intervals is all you need for long duration cardio events.  This is not true although some of what you read would lead you to believe that intervals will solve all the problems of any fitness program. 

Intervals can definitely improve a cardio competitor’s maximum sustained power but the longer duration energy system still needs to be taxed on a regular basis and properly developed.  However, in tandem one could achieve improved results.  

The other problem with many interval training sessions is that they are no longer intervals but just harder than normal cardio for short periods.  This is because of inadequate output levels and poorly timed rest between intervals.  We are in a fitness world where harder is always considered better.  This is so wrong!   As you get fitter you need to increase intensity, but you have to build in greater rest in order to increase intensity.  If done correctly 6 to 10, 30 second intervals completed in a half hour can be brutal.  However, many would look at this as too short of a workout.  This is because they are not measuring the output to make sure there is an overload in the efforts.  5 min of total work time can be one of the hardest workouts of the week. 

Our FUBAR Versaclimber workouts have utilized the science behind intervals very effectively and the Versaclimber as a machine is perfect for these types of overloads. 

When starting interval training spend time on developing baselines so that you know what type of output you are capable of in a maximum effort.  These baselines are dynamic, so as you get fitter they change.  Pay attention to these changes and make adjustments.   If you want the most sophisticated measure you may find lactate testing and VO2 max testing helpful in determining these baselines.  I find that power is the easier and most effective way to measure output.  You spend time identifying power outputs at different levels of intensity.    You have to have a good understanding of your capabilities before you can determine the interval time and intensity.   

This leads me to one of the most important parts of utilizing intervals.  Measurement of output!  Typically this is where the wheels come off the workout.  You must measure the amount of output!   If you do not, then the intensity of an interval late in a workout will diminish in output to such a point that there is little value.  I call this no man’s land.  It is not hard enough for overload, but leads to overtraining and valueless fatigue.  Without measuring output you cannot determine if the time of the interval and rest period is adequate.   Utilize power as your primary measurement tool.  This eliminates most other issues that may be impacting performance.  In our Fubar classes we put output on the board and look at pacing to help the client determine appropriate outputs based on their fitness level. 

How do you measure output of an interval?  Time and distance is the poor athlete’s power meter.  For example you are doing sprint intervals for 20 seconds on the track.  You want to measure the distance you are covering during these intervals. This will tell you whether you are producing more power than the previous interval.  On the Versaclimber we look at time and distance.  If in a 30 sec interval the total feet increases more power needed to be produced if all else is equal.   On a slide board we use number of touches in the time of the interval and record it.  More touches mean more power produced and now you have a way to measure improvement.  It also allows us as coaches to determine if the interval should be shorter/longer, or should there be more rest between the intervals and also how many total intervals to perform.

The quality of the interval is of great importance. Poor output in your interval sessions will just make you fatigued with little performance value.  This can lead to the start of overtraining.  This is typically the problem with poorly coached group cardio workouts.   Intervals are also an excellent window into your fitness.  If you have in the past been performing much greater power outputs than the interval currently being performed then maybe you have not had enough rest since your last workout.  If we observe this lack of output we would skip these intervals and pick them up again after the athlete has had adequate rest to perform at the desired output.  The interval is a great barometer of how rested you are and the speed of your regeneration and health.

If you are going to perform intervals in your training one of the first things you need to think about is determining your baselines and then coming up with a method for recording the output on an ongoing basis.  This will allow you to see what type of training outside of your intervals is adding or subtracting from your performance in an interval and also what type of intervals are adding to your performance outside of the intervals.

TRUTH IN FITNESS:

Jacques DeVore, CSCS

If you want to get lean, you better know about Fat Set Point.

Over the last 7 years I have successfully coached hundreds of women and men on weight loss and how to change body composition and seen hundreds of food journals.  I hear the following comments with regularity. “ I don’t agree with your diet,  the food journal is hard, nothing works for me, I don’t want to get big, if I lift heavy I get huge, why am I not losing weight faster, why can’t I have cheat days, you are trying to do (x) to me.” 

With this in mind I thought it would be good to discuss how we coach our clients on food.

First let’s talk about association, observation, correlation, and causation.  The rooster crows and the sun comes up.  Does that mean the rooster causes the sunrise?  Of course not.  However many people look at changes in their bodies and use the same reasoning.  They use observations and associations and leap to causation.  This is a flaw of our brains.  We try to seek the most readily available answer based on the information.  We all want clean easy answers to complex questions.  However, fitness and weight loss may seem simple, but they are extremely complex and requires some critical thinking to figure out how our bodies respond to different environments. 

Without completely isolating someone in a lab and measuring every gram of food on both a micronutrient and macronutrient basis it is very difficult to determine how your body responds to food.  In our program at Sirens and Titans Fitness we use an online food journal to give us a better understanding of how food impacts an individual’s health, energy, and body comp.   With enough data and monitoring of body comp and energy level one can have a better understanding of the impact of food on a body.  Most people realize that body composition is impacted more from food than exercise, but everyone spends all their time quantifying the exercise and very little time quantifying food intake.   Without any measurement at all it is almost impossible to identify what foods cause you to gain or lose weight. 

Let’s discuss Fat set point and how this ties into weight loss and gain and why weight loss can be so difficult for so many people. I always counsel clients that we have to first find what changes in your eating trigger weight loss or body composition changes and then determine how to make it sustainable.  It is usually easier to know what does not work than what does work. 

What is the Fat Set point theory? 

Let me start by explaining this internal thermostat that regulates how much body fat is stored.   Much of weight loss, and believe it or not, weight gain is impacted by this concept. This thermostat for body size is in your brain. 

Our bodies are very clever at trying to maintain an equilibrium based on external environments.  The easiest to see example of this is body temperature.  When we get too warm we start to sweat to cool our bodies, and when we get cold we begin to shiver to try to increase the body temperature.  Why do some of us do better in heat and some in cold?  Our genetics have an impact on our ability to adjust to changes in our environment.  It does not say that we cannot get better at adjusting, however some of us just feel more comfortable than others in different environments. 

“Fat set point theory” is similar. In the simplest form we all have a particular range of weight that our bodies will hover around.  This range may change over time.  Most of the science points to a range of plus or minus 10% of body weight.  Movement within the range is considered normal, but once we start getting beyond the range the body will start to make changes.  The body will start to shiver or sweat in a weight loss manner.  This is the body’s way of taking you back to homeostasis.  This applies to weight gain as well as loss.  There are a lot of factors that can disrupt this homeostasis.  In today’s crazy world the list is long and can make weight loss very difficult for some.  Disease, diabetes, thyroid issues, adrenal burnout, depression, medication and yoyo dieting, stress etc. can all impact body composition.  Some people gain weight when stressed and some lose weight.  

So this brings me back to why understanding this theory is important.  Most people have great difficulty losing weight and keeping it off.  How are people successful at overcoming this fat set point?

When coaching someone on weight loss, I first have them fill out a food journal and we can see what type of food is currently maintaining their homeostasis.  It is similar to developing a strategy for athletic performance in a sport.  We establish the starting point and then identify strengths and weaknesses.   From a great deal of science of sport, our experience training other athletes, understanding the needs of the particular sport, we identify strengths and weakness of the athlete and then create an overarching strategy that is tactically dynamic so that, dependent on individual responses, it will give the athlete the greatest amount of improvement in the time we have to train with them.  All of these strategies must be dynamic.  We may try squats with one athlete and find that deadlifts are more appropriate with another athlete based on biomechanical individualities. 

Our coaching methodology with eating is not dissimilar.  We understand that everyone is different so we do not recommend a specific diet to anyone.  What we do is establish their start point and initially just try to eliminate as much of the processed food and refined sugars and flours.  Most of this food is nutrient vacant and typically promotes weight gain dependent on activity level and age.  Once we begin to make these changes we try to establish where the tipping point for weight loss occurs.  In some cases these initial changes will result in body comp changes.   Our goal is sustainability so we initially do not focus so much on calories.  We also try to incorporate foods that the client is already comfortable eating.  This helps in making the changes sustainable.   We look at calories to make sure the client is eating enough based on BMR and activity level.   We cannot determine this tipping point and what changes caused this without a food journal.  Weight loss is very elusive for most because they think they know what may cause changes in their weight based on changes in how much they eat.  These changes may have an impact but not be the cause of the weight loss.  In other words if you eat 3000 calories a day and you cut your calories to 1500 calories and all else is equal you have not only cut your calories, but all of your micro and macro nutrients as well.  So the loss of weight may have been a result of the calories but also were impacted by the macronutrients and how a body responds to the food.  The sticking point with calorie restriction is that in a short amount of time your internal thermostat will slow metabolism based on the lower amount of calories.   Through a process of making changes and seeing how an individual responds to these changes we are usually able to see where this weight loss tipping point exists, based more on causation not on just observations or associations. 

The issues with clients typically arise with filling out the food journal.  They think they can just “pay attention to what I eat” and that will tell them everything they need to know.  The clients who are successful at weight loss are the ones who make the commitment to diligently record their food for 6-8 weeks.  After recording food for this time clients have usually figured out how they lose or gain weight based on the amount of food and types of food. 

Once this first step is established we then have to come up with tactics to make it sustainable.  This is typically where people run into problems with most weight loss programs.  They have the initial success and then cannot sustain the diet.   We try to create a way of eating that coupled with exercise, is sustainable and fits into one’s lifestyle and also deals with your internal fat set point more effectively.   It typically means that it is a slower process for some, but we believe it is a much more sustainable approach.  The client really learns how their body metabolizes food and how this translates into health, energy level, and body composition. 

Now back to the Fat Set point.  The irony of weight loss is it gets harder as you lose more weight.  Part of this is every pound of weight lost is a greater percentage of your body weight and your internal thermostat begins to work against you.     We try to get our client’s to focus on body composition.  This aids on two fronts.  One is that you will look better which everyone wants.  Your clothes will fit better, you are healthier with more lean body mass, you are physically stronger and more powerful, and because your body’s thermostat is trying to keep your weight in a certain range it is easier to accommodate your genetics. 

When we lose weight your body will accommodate this loss to a point and then it will start making changes to get you back to your fat set point range or previous homeostasis.  It does this by slowing metabolism, changing your desire for certain foods and in some instances changing the overall set point.  There are also hormonal changes in leptin (the hormone that makes you hungry) and ghrelin (the hormone that makes you feel full). This is why some people get even heavier after a diet. 

So Fat Set Point Theory can be an issue, but one that can be addressed best by not starving yourself, determining foods that cause you to gain weight, adding exercise to maintain a higher metabolism, adding lean body mass, and focusing on body composition instead of weight, and staying consistent.  These tactics can create an environment for sustainable weight loss.   Patience, patience, patience is key when overcoming your bodies desire to maintain homeostasis.  I always remind clients that if they have been this weight for some time, it will take some consistency in your changes for their body to recognize that the changes in eating and exercise will be the new homeostasis. 

In summary: A good strategy for weight loss and improvement in body composition is to journal your food and determine a weight loss tipping point.  Once this is accomplished develop eating habits that can fit into your lifestyle and allow you to maintain this tipping point.  Both of these require tracking food for about 8 weeks.  Some people are able to figure this out quicker than others.  If you do not account for the food your odds for success drop dramatically. 

Combat your Fat Set Point by not restricting calories and semi starvation, focusing on adding lean body mass through exercise, focus on body composition and not weight.  All of these will help you maintain the highest possible metabolic rate which will help you to overcome your current fat set point.

When you are really ready to start training let us know. 

Truth in Fitness

Jacques DeVore, CSCS