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The Evolution of Training Expectations - Beast Over Burden - #537 Mar 26, 2024

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We talk about the evolution of training expectations as you move from novice to intermediate to advanced lifter. How you you manage your mindset, so you can train for life? The Evolution of Training Expectations: Managing Your Mindset

PRs measure progress, encourage buy-in and consistency, and help make training fun for novice, intermediate, and early-advanced lifters.

This slows or ends. You want to keep training for the rest of your life, though.

The driving force for keeping you training cannot be PRs. You cannot expect to drive up weight on the bar consistently. Failing programmed reps is not actually failure, in the scheme of your goals to train consistently and grow and maintain strength, vitality, and health over time.

If you are overly wedded to today's workout - if there is a hyper focus on today - you are, really, falling into an exercise (not training) mindset.

Now, it's true that training involves following a plan. But our bodies do not always cooperate - even the best coach in the world cannot perfectly predict your performance that day.

Things need to change.

The Evolution of Training Expectations: Accumulate Hard Sets

Accumulate heavy but doable sets over time. This is the way to build strength and muscle over time.

As you progress, great flexibility will likely need to be built into your program. You will not be able to grind away RPE 9.5-10 sets.

You need to enjoy training. Picking a specific exercise to drive up, as opposed to everything, may make sense.

Focusing on consistency (even if it's one lift a day) can help.

Play with different supplemental lifts and different rep schemes. Take the PRs when they are there, and enjoy them.

You may think about maximizing recovery. It will take longer and longer to get PRs (and one day they will stop).

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Tips for Training While Traveling - Beast Over Burden - #535 Mar 19, 2024

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Tips for Training While Traveling: Whys

Why train while traveling?

While, in part, it depends on how often you travel, your goals, the length of travel, and how consistent you are outside of travel. For those who are extremely consistent and rarely travel, it might make sense to take the week off.

If you travel for business, you need to train.

You will feel better if you train. The workout might not feel good, especially to start, but you will feel better afterwards. You might even feel better during the workout (e.g. initial warm ups feel terrible, then the heavier warm ups and work sets move well and feel good).

It also helps provide structure to your days, which on vacation can often lack structure. Additionally, it gives you some short amount of you time, and, importantly, healthy you time.

Tips for Training While Traveling: Hows

Incorporate your gym seeking into your travel planning. Checkout the hotel gym and nearby gyms. You can often find a serviceable gym that has a guest policy. You might need to call the gym to check the visitor policy.

Pack and prioritize some equipment. Belts and other bulky items are not needed. Having a pair of shoes that you can both lift and do cardio with makes sense. You might pack some small things like liquid chalk, straps, or knee sleeves.

Plan your workout ahead of time. Intend to do at least something hard - get into that "worth it" zone.

Depending on the number of times you will train and decide whether you will do full body and a split. Fewer times means full body makes more sense.

Besides that, Niki and Andrew have some general tips and approaches they take:

Mentally let go of the weight on the bar
AMRAPs
supersets (antagonistic or similar)
burn out sets
drop sets
hard exercises that don't require tons of weight (e.g. bulgarian split squats)
bend these joints: knees, shoulders, elbows, hips

Try out these tips for training while traveling.

A couple links for helping you train while traveling can be found here & here.

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Menopause...Really We Need to Talk About It - Beast Over Burden - #533 Mar 12, 2024

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We really need to talk about menopause. What to expect, how you make changes to lifting, nutrition, expectations, and more. Menopause: Causes & Expectations

Menopause is about a 10-year period of life for women where estrogen decreases, causing other changes to a woman's biology.

Some changes include the end of the menstrual cycle, decrease in energy levels and trouble sleeping, increased difficulty trying to retain muscle mass, hot flashes, and sex drive changes.

Let's face it, it does not sound all that fun.

But it happens, so it makes sense to understand it, prepare for it, and undergo it in a way that matches our goals and values.

Menopause: Approaching & Undergoing It Intentionally

Really, what you do in the weight room and kitchen do not change. You need to eat protein and lift heavy weights. That does not change.

Managing expectations is important. Adaptations cannot occur as quickly. You will not be able to handle as big of a dose of stress, and you will take longer to recover.

This is why Niki recommends, for those who are in a position to do so, to put on the muscle mass while it's easier to do so before menopause.

Building the habit now and understanding how to enjoy training, over years and decades, is important. This may not be the most fun time to train, but it is important to continue to train.

We really need to talk about menopause.

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Better Your Bench - Beast Over Burden - #531 Mar 05, 2024

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Learn how to better your bench with proper technique and good equipment. Improper gear and form means less weight on the bar. Bench more. Learn the way. Better Your Bench with Good Equipment

For anyone who has tried to bench heavy in a commercial gym, they typically find that the experience is frustrating. Weights are harder than expected and may even come with missed reps.

Bad equipment is often to blame.

Whether it is slippery bars with nearly no knurl to those bench-rack combinations that have the bar far too low or too high to slick benches that prevent you from digging into the bench and freezing your scapulae, these gear problems abound in commercial gyms.

You can, typically, make a bad situation worse. You can better your bench.

Wearing a bar grip shirt helps your shoulder blades stick better to the bench. You may want to bench in a squat rack, which typically has smaller jumps between holes, then in those bench-rack combos. Having a spotter so you don't have to shrug the bar 4 inches off the j-hooks can help.

You may need to put plates underneath your feet so you can get a better arch.

At home, getting a monolift is a good investment, especially if you tend to experience shoulder pain.

Also, you may need to lower expectations. This can be a good situation for autoregulation.

Better Your Bench with Correct Technique

Technique matters too.

You want to have the maximum amount of stability for the longest duration possible.

You should not be wiggling after the bar is unracked. Don't do it!

Build tension as you set up. Your legs should drive up the bench into your shoulders into an arch. You should use the weight of the bar to help pin your shoulders down into the bench. You should squeeze the bar hard.

Another consideration is breathing. If you can do it efficiently, complete 2-3 reps on one breath. If not, focus on maintaining scapula position between breaths.

Better your bench with proper equipment and good technique.

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Who's Your Daddy? Programming Difficulties for New Dads - Beast Over Burden - #529 Feb 27, 2024

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Programming Difficulties for New Dads

Having a newborn changes your life, and training has to change as well.

For a dad, the change is different than for a mom. For the mom, she undergoes physical changes for 9-10 months leading up to the birth, so her training has to change prior to birth.

For fathers, however, their changing (mostly) does not change before the birth. At birth it changes drastically.

This is an especially busy time for fathers, and part of it is the lack of predictability. When will the baby sleep (when will mom sleep). You might think you were going to train and then mom falls asleep and you're watching the kid.

Flexibility is required in your training for these programming difficulties for new dads.

Programming Solutions for New Dads

If you have a coach, it's important to talk to your coach prior to the birth about what is likely realistic (this will change). Lower your expectations for how long training will be. You might also have to cut training sessions short.

Both Andrew and Niki have seen many clients train with their babies in the gym. This is fine.

Something like a one life a day program is probably what is called for. It helps if you have a home gym or at least some equipment at home.

If you don't have a home gym, you need to make your gym as convenient as possible. Something that is on the way to work and open early so you can workout early is likely ideal.

Working out before bed affects sleep.

Overcoming programming difficulties for new dads also tends to involve more autoregulation and lifter control. The client might decrease the weight and volume a bit if they're exhausted. If they're feeling good, they might go for extra reps or an extra set.

Aim for at least 3 workouts a week. Think about getting in a training session over a series of workouts, as opposed to one longer workout.

Mindset Shift for New Dads

How you define training and training sessions and how you identify that will have to change. 4 sessions of 90 minutes a week is probably over. Uninterrupted training sessions and full body training sessions are probably on hold for a bit.

Productive, useful training, however, does not have to look like that. Planning, preparing, and completing something each week is massively better than taking weeks or months off.

Here are some thoughts on overcoming programming difficulties for new dads.

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Don't Abandon Your Body - Beast Over Burden - #527 Feb 20, 2024

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Niki and Andrew interview Melissa MacGregor, wife of BLOC coach Mac and BLOC client, and her coach Joel Rasmussen. Melissa suffered a stroke but, with patience, perseverance, and strength training, was able to return to physical activities she never thought she could do again. Healing Through Strength Training: Perseverance & Experimentation

Melissa saw her husband benefit from strength training and decided to give it a try herself. Joel, her coach, tried many creative ways to help her focus on what she could do.

They experimented and pushed into the pain. Pain was feedback that, in her case, was positive because it was a sensation.

Joel also had to get creative for new ways to feel her body during lifting, as she did not have the normal sensations and proprioception that others have.

Over time, with patience and hard work, she has regained not only the ability to complete certain lifts "normally," but has also been able to return to activities such as biking and skiing, that she never thought she would be able to do again.

Listen to this heartwarming and motivating story of patience, perseverance, grit, and healing through strength training.

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It's Hard to Be Professional - Beast Over Burden - #525 Feb 13, 2024

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We explore professionalism and why it's hard to be professional. Professionalism is difficult, but deliver values and sets you apart. Professionalism: Competence, Integrity, Benevolence

Andrew has delivered, through podcast and in-person talks, a deep dive on how competence, integrity, and benevolence make up a professionalism value equation.

Matt also has also delved into this here.

This framework or model to conceptualizing your coaching or business really helps you think more intelligently about where to improve.

Professionalism Sets You Apart

When you have built yourself some expertise and are above the level of amateur, you should respect yourself, expect a high value of yourself and ask a relatively high price of your customer (the price should be less than the perceived value).

Then, you need to deliver a high level of service consistently across the competence, benevolence, and integrity.

Plenty of people are delivering online coaching. Personal trainers and coaches abound. Professionalism sets you apart.

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Solutions Sans Suffering: Joyful Self-Improvement - Beast Over Burden - #523 Feb 06, 2024

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What does joyful self-improvement look like (and is it possible)? Today, we explore solutions sans suffering. Joyful Self-Improvement: Struggling & Floundering

People really struggle to make important changes in their lives (that they at least ostensibly want) such as to lose weight or gain more muscle.

Reasons abound for the difficulty.

People hear and see conflicting, extreme solutions or short-term, impossible solutions (e.g. 6 weeks to six-pack).

Furthermore, every person is different. People have different goals, preferences, body types, and reactions to training stimulus (e.g. you cannot become faster than Usain Bolt simply by trying really hard, though you will certainly fail if you do not try).

Joyful self-improvement also confronts the reality that change takes a long time. It took you a long time to reach the point where you have decided it's time to make a difference. The positive changes you desire will also take a long time.

Joyful Self-Improvement: Solutions Sans Suffering

Whatever solutions you (or a coach) decides on, they have to be sustainable. Can you really go the rest of your life only eating meat (or some other extreme diet).

Note that many of the people who follow a strict diet have quick feedback regarding when they eat a certain food (such as celiac disease).

Niki and Andrew recommend getting to a baseline before making changes. When you make changes, don't through the kitchen sink at your problems, but try one (or a couple) small changes. Consistently eating a couple hundred calories less than you have can make a BIG impact.

For joyful self-improvement, lean into what you like and embrace the long path to change.

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The Motive is Muscle - Beast Over Burden - #521 Jan 30, 2024

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What is the goal of long-term strength training or barbell training? Muscle is the motive. It's your health & capability 401k. Niki & Andrew explore their changing mindset and training. The Motive is Muscle - Shifting the Goal

The measurement that is most correlated with force production (strength) is the cross sectional area of muscle mass.

Basically, more muscle means you're stronger. Strength equates to more capability.

At some point, though, if you only value force production, whether it be because of gyms closing or an injury or getting older, your PRs are behind you.

What is the goal?

You could say it's to keep your PRs as high as possible, but for many, that's is pretty unmotivating.

Muscle is the motive.

Aim to accumulate hard sets each workout, each week, and increase stress over time.

As you get older, it gets harder to add muscle mass (but not impossible - it's never to late to start training!).

Aim to build muscle and keep training.

Muscle is the Motive - Shifting the Mindset

This changing goal requires a changed mental approach. We have stressed PRs for year - and we still celebrate PRs.

Especially when someone begins to train, PRs help motivate as well as measure progress.

Gaining muscle mass and focusing on hypertrophy is harder to change. It takes awhile to measure progress, and it's even harder than with strength training to remember the goal of each training session because there is not necessarily a scheduled PR attempt lurking days, weeks, or months off.

Really, because at some point - whether it be a permanent shift or temporary period of life - you have to train knowing PRs aren't coming.

Hopefully, at this point, you've built up the habit. Try to ensure you enjoy training (understanding you won't enjoy every rep, set, or workout). And, worse case, take your medicine, because it's good for you.

Muscle is the motive. Gaining muscle mass is the goal. Go get it.

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Fluff Updates and Sleep Strategies - Beast Over Burden - #519 Jan 23, 2024

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Andrew & Niki talk sleep strategies & fluff updates: how snapping back after the holidays improves sleep, health markers, appearance, how you feel, and more. Sleep Strategies & Fluff Updates

It's January, post-Holiday period, and time to snap back. Andrew & Niki share their fluff updates and tips and tricks for improving sleep.

Niki has had a 19-day period thus far, which has included weighing and measuring, no alcohol, and reduced sugar. She is not trying to lose tons of weight, as she wants to support training. She wants to look good for an upcoming television appearance and feel good.

From this period, she has seen improvements to sleep (especially deep sleep each night) and improve resting heart rate.

Andrew has similarly snapped back with 3 (no 4) drinks.

The biggest thing he has noted has been improved sleep, especially deep sleep.

Sleep Strategies & Deep Sleep

Andrew has even had some drinks and still seen improved sleep.

Andrew and Niki have both seen magnesium supplementation before sleep helping sleep.

Andrew stumbled on the benefits of sodium before bed after eating popcorn and noticing he did not get up to go to the bathroom. Stan Efferding has actually recommended this (not eating popcorn but just the sodium) as well.

Andrew has also began to read before bed, not on his phone, and this has helped with his pre-sleep routine.

Let us know if you have any questions on sleep strategies!

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