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Saturday 26 May 2018

Training is a treadmill


By Pete Ryan


I believe that exercise has a good analogy with the person on the treadmill. If you slowly walk forward, you stay about the same, if you stop, you are going backwards. To move forward you have to run! It takes some effort to actually stay still, let alone move forward.



I believe training is the same (once you reach adulthood). As a trainee if you plod along, doing the same old pace, you will achieve the same old results.  You have seen the people in the gym who look the same after months or years doing the same things.  They often have ridged, set routines and do not focus on goals or plan their training. Let’s look at some ways you can plan your yearly training cycles.  First off a lot will depend on what you do and your goals, some people may need to lose weight, some may need to add muscle, others may use exercise to improve a sporting or leisure activity? So, your first chore has to be to decide why you want to exercise, what is the end goal?
After you have the final goal, the next is to break up your training into mesa cycles throughout the year.  If you want to look buff, you might want to break the year into 3 or 4 mesa cycles.  This will include a strength cycle, a hypertrophy cycle, a conditioning cycle and a peaking cycle (usually the peaking cycle will be just before summer, so you look your best topless on the beach).  If you are someone into a sport, you split it into off-season exercise, pre-season exercise and during the season exercise. These will probably be strength focused off-season, adding in conditioning as the season approaches and then minimal workouts to hold strength during the season (depending on the sport). Strength athletes like powerlifters or weightlifters will focus on specificity, so they will have more non-specific exercise during the off-season, then focus on their actual sport more and more as the contest approaches, then a peaking cycle leading into the contest.  This does not mean not doing the lifts off-season, but it does allow for doing variations, conditioning and other exercises to be included.



Now we have an idea of what we want to do, we now need to find ways to really push forward. A lot depends on your goals, but if you are looking at 100 pound weight loss, set intermediate goals. Celebrate every pound lost, buy yourself something nice when you lose 5 pounds.  Learn to enjoy the process, the goal is always anti-climatic, but enjoying the process continues as long as you are doing it! If you want to lift 100 pounds, but you are only lifting 50 pounds, lifting 51 pounds may not seem like much, but it is that step closer to the 100 pounds you want to get, so celebrate that. A PR (personal record) of 1 pound is as valid as a 50 pound PR, enjoy the moment. To go back to the treadmill analogy, every little PR, whether it is an extra rep, an extra pound or doing something with a few seconds less rest is just upping that pace on the treadmill a little, you started jogging instead of walking.  The only sprinters in this analogy are people new to training (or possibly people who begin taking anabolic steroids).  Those are the 2 times a person would be sprinting in this allegory, the rest of us will be walking, jogging or stopped. Throughout life we will go through times of each, will have times we move forward, times we ‘go through the motions’ and times of injury or distraction where we regress. Our goal must be to maximise the times we move forward and minimise the times we regress. You can do this by finding things you really enjoy doing, that way you will be keen to actually do the work, secondly set short term goals, so you will actually move forward slowly and not stagnate.



The final point to remember is that this is a process, so there may be goals along the way, but there is never a finish line, every goal is just a stepping stone to the next challenge, never be satisfied and never stop striving!

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Sunday 20 May 2018

Ever forward


By Pete Ryan


You often hear the quote “I want to maintain”, or “I just don’t want to lose any strength/size”.  This might be a reasonable sounding goal and it can often be the outcome in the older trainee, but I do not believe it should be a goal. I will give my reasoning below.


The human body is a dynamic organism. It is not like a car or a bike. If you store it carefully, it will not maintain its abilities. What happens is a body is in two states.  The body is either anabolic or catabolic, so it is either growing and rebuilding, or it is consuming itself and destroying unnecessary parts of itself.  This is an on-going process that occurs all the time. Being catabolic can be health promoting by removing old or damaged cells, but it can also have a negative impact by removing hard fought for muscle, bone density, tendon durability or fascia strength. Meanwhile we have anabolic effects which involves adding tissue, this can be muscle and lean tissue, but adding fat is also an anabolic event. So, our goal is to create methods that heighten the positive effects of both the catabolic and anabolic processes in the body. We want to remove old and damaged cells, while also promoting the creation of new lean tissue with minimal increases in fat storage.


The best way to achieve these goals is through progressive resistance exercise. This can be bodyweight, or using equipment. Note the name of this type of exercise. PROGRESSIVE resistance exercise. That is the goal, but why is it important to progress, and what do we mean by progression?
Let us look at progression, or to be more precise, let’s look at non-progression. Let’s say you reach a point where you believe 10 reps of 100 pounds in an exercise is ‘strong enough’. So, you always do 10 reps or 100 pounds.  If you never go over that your body will adapt to it, you will become more efficient at the movement and you will end up with the very minimum you need to do that 10 reps of 100 pounds. Any issue, ANY problem that increases stress or stops you training will drop you below that level. As you age, it will become progressively harder to get those 10 reps. If you reached 10 reps of 100 pounds with ease at 30 years old, by 50 you will be struggling to get it, by 65 years old you probably won’t have it any more…and you will blame old age. It will not be aging that took that lift away from you, it will be the lack of progression.


Now let us look at what we mean by progression.  When we talk about progression most people think of ‘intensity’ the actually weight lifted, but that is an oversimplification of progression.  Yes if you lifted 90 pounds and later lifted 100 pounds then you have progressed, but there are other options. The amount of reps done during an exercise, a harder variation of an exercise, taking less time between sets, even trying new forms of exercise that stimulate the body in novel ways and develop new skills, all of these are forms of progression.

Most people realise that you cannot keep adding weight to an exercise (or repetitions).  There is a limit, most people will never lift 1,000 pounds or do 1,000 pull-ups in day, but you can progress by cycling exercises so throughout your life you continue to progress and move forward.
Let’s return to the person who believes 10 reps of 100 pounds is ‘strong enough’.  My argument is they should be aiming at higher numbers (let’s say 125-150 pounds for 12-15 reps), but not do it every week. They should do a mesa cycle working up to that peak and then move on to other exercises, then return again regularly and aim at equalling or ideally bettering that goal. So suppose you have four mesa cycles in a year (3 months each). Mesa cycle 1 would be get to 12-15 reps of 125-150 pounds doing the exercise, mesa cycle 2 could be doing a variation of the same exercise or working the same muscle groups using other exercises, mesa cycle 3 could be working up to 3-5 reps with 175-200 pounds of that exercise, mesa cycle 4 could be another variation that works the same muscle groups.  You can also do variations other than increasing weight or reps, think about the rest time between sets, what you do before this exercise.  So, you could cut your rest time between sets from 1 minute to 30 seconds, or if you are doing a curl, do a chin up before you do the curl.  All these things will change the results and create new demands on your body.  You have more than a lifetime of tweaks to play with. No one will ever have time to try every variable or even every type of exercise available. So, progression is possible throughout life and expect to set goals and repeatedly conquer them throughout your life, go forward, ever forward.

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Saturday 19 May 2018

Knowledge doesn’t matter


By Pete Ryan 

People can spend years accumulating every detail of a practice and yet this does not lead to success. How can the army of armchair experts on the internet know so much, and yet accomplish so little?
To answer this question we need to learn the difference between knowing and doing, also how to translate knowledge from the theoretical into the practical. Let’s take a simple example. Suppose you know you waste all your time scrolling the internet, you have things to do, but you will ‘get it done’ when you get around to it. Alternately, maybe you start something, but get distracted and so no job is ever finished. If this sounds like you, then maybe you have read about ‘block time’? That is putting aside a chunk of time so you do one task within that time frame. It may look something like this: 


You may know this, you may also know that structuring your day this way may help you get everything done that needs to be done, but if you do not apply this knowledge, then knowing it is useless baggage! What you need to do is not just gather knowledge, the plan has to be to increase what you know, AND find ways to put those insights into practice.



I use a similar idea to making any change. I do not try to completely overhaul your lifestyle, simply start by making one change. In this case, if incorporating a complete block time system would be too overwhelming, why not pick one or 2 times and block them out, between 10-12 you will workout and between 1-5 you will do work. Leave the rest clear, but stick to those two times. Set an alarm or use a similar way to remind you that those times are blocked out. From there you make changes, you can change those times if one or the other is not enough, or you could add in a new block of some other vital activity.


I have given you just one example, you can equally include this to anything, let me give you an example with myself. I have had an ongoing back issue.  I trapped myself in an ‘injury cycle’, so I would train up to a certain strength level, get an injury, recover and repeat, so my maximum strength stagnated.  I knew… KNEW I had to include some core stability movements, to increase ‘core stiffness’ during lifts (if you allow me use of Dr Stuart McGill’s term of ‘stiffness’ for maintaining correct posture during heavy lifting).  These exercises, like bird dog, planks, side planks are boring and time consuming, and what I really enjoy are deadlifts, squats etc, not dull movements like planks. So, I would do enough so the symptoms would go away and then I would begin a new training cycle, starting light, but at a similar weight disaster would strike again, the cycle went on for way too long. The thing is I knew better, any client coming to me would receive very different treatment, but somehow I thought I was special, or with me it would be different...but it isn’t and I am not special.  I need what you would need in this situation. A few months of backing off, relearning how to engage my core and then bringing those new skills to the table. I know that, but even knowing that isn’t enough, you have little incentive to train if the goal is sets of 10 second bird dog holds, but you have to get into a delayed gratification mindset. Do I have the right to expect a heavy lift if I haven’t earned it doing those exercises?



That is one example, but now think of your own goals and your own actions that are limiting or even stopping those goals. Now think of what would remedy that issue? I bet you have the solution. I suspect you already have the answer to that dilemma, but for one reason or another you are avoiding taking that action. The first step will be to decide why, once the why is discerned that we can move on to solving the dilemma. You have several courses of action:



  1. You know the problem and see the solution to implementing it.
  2. The problem is not currently soluble, so a new solution must be discovered.
  3. The solution is too large to implement, so break the solution into smaller steps and work towards the solution.


Those are the big 3 answers to virtually all your current issues. If you use that as a guide you will reach results. Let’s quickly look at these 3 option. The first is self evident, you have a solution and you can implement it.  The second is the most difficult as it means you need to find a new way to fix the problem. The third answer means that you need to break the problem into bite sized pieces. So, say your goal is exercising 4 days a week, start the first month simply doing once a week consistently, once there add days slowly until you are achieving your goal.
Most issues you ever encounter will involve a solution you already have the answer to so just knowing that you need to apply your current knowledge means that half the battle is already won. Just consider the solution.  Whether the problem is you do not eat enough fresh vegetables, you do not sleep enough, or you have weak legs, you know the answer, just put in the time to implement some changes and the results will come.


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Sunday 13 May 2018

Too many programmes?


By Pete Ryan


The world is full of ideas, whether these are diets, exercise, business or lifestyle, you can read a new idea everyday for a year and still hardly of scratched the surface. The secret to discovering the ideal programme for you is to hold it up to consensus. Does this idea share the basic principles of the majority of other programmes out there?
If we look at training, the idea is obvious. Firstly the system should progress, it should do every major facet of the body, it should have an ‘outcome based result’ (that is as you do the routine you are actually moving towards your goal), it should not cause injury or pain, it should allow you to recover between sessions, and it should be enjoyable.
For diets we need to look at commonalities between what most experts say.  The first thing is it needs to contain enough calories to survive, but tailored to whether you are trying to add muscle (higher calories), or lose fat (lower calories), secondly you need to minimise junk food, thirdly increasing the amount of vegetables you eat is common amongst many diets.
If you look at the above examples you can see that many, many system can fit within this framework. If you want to lose fat, you need to eat less calories than you burn, minimise junk food and be eating a variety of vegetables.  To add lean mass, you need a surplus of calories, while still minimising junk food and eating a lot of vegetables. For exercise a routine the results will depend upon your goals, so it should actually improve you athletic prowess, your strength, your muscle size...or whatever your goal is, while avoiding injury, also allowing you to recover and have some fun doing it.
Within the boundaries above you can do whatever you like.  If you have been online then you have seen exercise routines and diets that do not follow these rules. I am not suggesting that these never work, it is just that the vast majority of experts in the field do not agree with those ideas as being the ideal for the majority of people. What I am suggesting is that you follow the advice that will work best for most people, while keeping you as healthy as possible.



My advice for diet is to eat as much whole food as you can, eat a wide variety of plant foods, minimise junk foods and eat enough calories to achieve your goals.  There are special points, like I suggest a B12 and vitamin D supplement, but apart from a few minor tweaks, I do not care if you choose potato, sweet potato, yam or rice; tofu, seitan or beans; nor do I care if you want spinach, kale, pak choi or another green vegetable.  All that matters is overall calorie intake and not eating too much junk and that you are enjoying your food.

For exercise I do not care if you do HIT training, DC training, German Volume, Matrix training, supersets or Bulgarian style exercise.  The important factors are that you are doing the whole body, you should have a system that progresses as you exercise (gets harder over time by adding reps, sets, weight lifted, or lowering rest times between sets or other ways to increase the difficulty), you should be moving towards your goal, you should not be suffering injuries, you should be recovering between sessions and enjoying the process. If that is happening then your routine is sound.

Let’s look at some good and bad examples of diet and exercise



For a bad diet I would like to suggest the “All meat diet”.  This is a relatively new dietary idea, you eat no vegetables and only survive on meat, so far the exponents of this diet have shown several negative symptoms; low testosterone, high blood sugar levels, high LDL cholesterol, but the people adhering to this diet swear that it is a magic formula for health despite having such bad blood markers. For a good diet let us look at a mainly whole food vegan diet. This gives you ample nutrients, increases health and vitality, lower inflammation and aids in the overall goals of health.
For bad training let us look at ‘bros’ who do biceps and chest every session. Over time this will cause imbalances in the body, lead to shoulder issues and the lack of leg and hip exercise will lead to the person developing ‘Chicken leg syndrome’, not ideal if their goal is an overall aesthetic look. For a good routine we could look at a full body routine done several times a week. This will hit the whole body every time you work out, you could have a focus each session, so day 1 lower body focussed (followed by all the upper body work), day 2 upper body pull focus (followed by legs and upper body push movements), and day 3 you could have an upper body push focus (followed by legs and upper body pull movements). You could use a double progression system to slowly ramp up the intensity, and 3 days a week allows you plenty of time to recover.


One thing to avoid is to hop programmes too often (with either the diet or the exercise).  Give something 8-12 weeks to really see how it is working and stick to it longer if you are enjoying it.
Above are a few suggestions, if you need more advice or help sorting out how to approach your training or diet then download the book “Introduction to vegan health and fitness” and use some of the resources below to work your way through the option available to you.

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