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USSF with Jordan Stanton S17Ep4 - The Competition Series Aug 04, 2021

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Jordan Stanton, the President of the United States Strengthlifting Federation (USSF) joins Matt & Scott to discuss the differences between USSF & other federations.

3 things stand out with USSF: weigh-outs vs weigh-ins, press not bench press, and no judging commands.

Immediately following your third deadlift attempt, you are escorted by someone of the same-sex to a private room where they take your weight. You are not allowed to use the bathroom until after the weight is recorded. This prevents huge weight drops (Jordan discuss dropping nearly 50 pounds for one of his meets), both making the meets safer and shorter.

USSF primarily involves the press, not the bench press. The USSF now has instituted bench press competitions with rules that do not require commands, but the press is the USSF's bread and butter.

Lastly, and also a huge deal, is that the USSF does not have the judges give commands. Clear rules are posted and the lifters are expected to understand the rules, but the judges judge the lifts. This prevents the judges from affecting the performance of a lift with bad commands.

Some of the other details are that the attempts are in kilograms and go up in 1 kilogram increments and you get 3 attempts per lift. You can take a second attempt at the same weight, but you cannot decrease the weight once you've set the weight.

The USSF, also, has many online competitions. This allows greater competition, cheaper entry, and also prevents some travel and gathering concerns with COVID.

So, if you're looking for a meet to organize your training, sign up for a USSF meet, whether it be in person or online.

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Sports Specific Training S17Ep3 - The Competition Series Aug 02, 2021

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We understand that some people don't train strength just for general health or quality of life, but to improve their performance in a sport or physical activity. How do you both train strength and improve sports performance?

Right now, hyper-specific training is in fashion. For example, throwing an extra heavy shot or doing half squats with a narrow stance because it mimicks the football player's stance.

This type of training neither offers productive training nor productive practice.

Training prepares the athletes physically for the sport. This can be structural or metabolic (basically, strength or conditioning).

Practice improves the performance of skills (eg throwing or kicking a ball). While physical stress comes from both of them, strength acquisition comes from strength training. Strength training improves the athletes' ability to produce force, which they can then apply on the field of play.

A common confounding factor with sports is that while we know that strength and conditioning is important for sports performance, world-class athletes are genetic freaks and will remain world-class despite sub-par programming. Despite this, people too often look to the best athletes for their routines, when we really should look at average and below average athletes and see what works for them. How do you take, for example, the typical high school football player who might start squatting 135 on day 1 and get them to squat 405?

People have a limited time and limited ability to recover from stress. The bulk of an athletes strength training should focus on multi-joint exercises that train the most muscle mass over the longest effective range of motion with the most weight. This of course means that athletes should squat, deadlift, bench press, and press.

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Meet Day S17Ep2 - The Competition Series Aug 02, 2021

Show notes

Despite the fact that meets are fun and help give more purpose to our training, they can be a long, stressful day, and we recommend having a coach or handler who can worry about the administrative and logistical things (when are you up, get you food and drinks, etc.).

There are many common pitfalls that people tend to do their first meet.

Don't stay amped the whole day. Relax when it's time to relax. Don't get amped up until you're going for the final attempts, and, really, you shouldn't get really amped until that final deadlift attempt.

Don't stress about form. You might have that 1 cue in your mind you need to think of, but don't second guess or overthink it. Have a cue in mind and lift the darn weight.

Don't warm up too much or too early.

Eat and drink. If you're nervous, you're likely to undereat, which can harm your performance. Have salt, carbs, and water. Don't eat things you're not used to eating.

Speaking of not eating things you're not used to eating, don't do anything new or for the first time. If you'd like to try something (deadlift slippers, singlet, a food or drink), test it out during at least one normal workout.

Ensure you prepare correctly: have enough of everything. Have extra socks, extra food, extra shoes, etc.

And, remember, it's about setting PRs. Go out there and have some fun.

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Prepping for Your First Meet S17Ep1 - The Competition Series Aug 02, 2021

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You signed up for your first meet: what do you do now? Scott & Matt discuss what to do now.

A huge part of preparing for a meet is realizing the purpose of the meet. The purpose of the meet is to set PRs, give your training a purpose, have some fun, meet some people, and leave feeling encouraged about lifting. Nobody cares who wins.

You should change as little as possible leading up to the meet if it's your first meet. If you're a novice, just keep doing LP. Maybe you can practice some singles and do a super short 2 week "peak," but that's not necessary.

This applies to powerlifting meets and strengthlifting meets. Go set PRs. It doesn't really matter if the league doesn't enforce squat depth: squat to full depth.

So, sign up for a meet, have some fun, set some PRs, and continue your lifting path.

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Travel Hacks for Lifters #374 Jul 26, 2021

Show notes

Training while traveling presents challenges, whether your a frequent business traveler or someone who only travels to visit family or for vacation. Either way, we have to decide to train or not to train and then how to adjust training before, during, and after to best meet our goals. If you are someone who rarely travels and NEVER misses a workout and you finally go on a vacation, it's not important to your long term progress to miss a week or even two. Again, though, there aren't a huge number of people in this category. For more people, it will be important to both maintain the habit of training or at least exercise and the training can help destress or at least make you feel better if on a vacation. If you're a frequent business traveler, training while traveling is a must: you cannot progress if you don't train on the road, so you'll have to develop a strategy and habits to train on the road, to include what to pack, gyms to look for, and how you train on the road). Now, let's discuss some travel hacks for lifters Matt likes to train first thing upon arrival and before departure, as it helps make travels days feel more productive and he knows he accomplished training on those days. These aren't days to hit PRs, but to get some work done. A pro-trip here is if you train at a big gym they often have showers, so you can train and still shower before getting on a plane. This also helps as training the first couple days after travel tends to not feel great, so you will have trained on the last day of travel and not feel behind on your training. Niki recommends to search for "powerlifting" when you're looking for a gym, as this probably will help you find gyms that will have the equipment you'd like to have. Both Matt & Niki acknowledge, however, that even big globo gyms tend to have at least 1 squat rack. Some hacks for travel:

have liquid chalk in a travel size so it can go on your carryon bag
if you check a bag, use a hard shell case to help protect your gear (and potentially any whiskey you take home
pack your A7 shirts, as you'll experience some terrible benches
Niki likes to have a small draw string bag that goes in her suitcase with her gym equipment
Matt uses his backpack, which is also his carryon
consider packing cubes for clothes
eBags are great backpacks
if you travel frequently, have pre-packed toiletry bags
know where you can get higher protein options in the airport, or pack some
drink water frequently

Lastly, how should you train while you travel? This depends on your goals and preferences, but in general, we can offer some ideas and tips:

not a great time for PRs - get some work done & maintain the habit
know thyself: will you want more frequent, super short workouts or fewer, longer workouts
have flexibility with equipment and difficulty
explore the space: try out new equipment and exercises you can't at your home gym or local gym
front load stress prior to travel (go for PRs before the trip)
communicate with your coach ahead of time so he or she can plan accordingly
plan the training around your commitments and, for vacations, tell your family (don't go to the gym when your wife wants to go to a museum)

So, there's lots to consider and ways to train during travel better or worse. How do you train while you travel? GET STARTED with one-on-one online coaching FOR FREE! Get your FIRST MONTH FREE on all strength and nutrition coaching plans. No discount code needed and includes a 10-day, no obligation trial. https://bit.ly/2MKeOoh Special offers from BLOC and our partners: https://barbell-logic.com/offers/ Connect with the hosts

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Reexamining the Exercise Selection Criteria with Noah Hayden Pt2 #373 Jul 19, 2021

Show notes

Noah Hayden continues his discussion with Niki & Matt, now laying out & discussing his proposed exercise selection criteria and programming criteria. Below are his proposed exercise selection criteria.

train the most muscle mass
in normal, predictable movement patterns
requiring normal coordination when possible
over the longest effective range of motion
to lift the most weight
that is structurally sustainable
with exercises that have a wide therapeutic window

What are we looking at when we discuss the longest effective range of motion? We're looking at the movement of the joint: how much the bones move around the joint. A good proxy for this, however, is the distance the barbell moves. We also need to think that it's not really a huge deal if someone is using a safety squat bar instead of a low bar back squat. The low bar squat is our default, but if they can't low bar squat we adjust and do the best we can. How do we take these exercises and create a program? Below are the programming criteria Noah proposed.

train all major muscle groups
with the least number of exercises as is practical
that do not interfere with other adaptations
any movement done to failure must be as low skill as possible
in the minimum effective dose required to continue making progress

This goes back to the discussion of goals in part 1, but if you're training for a sport, you can't train strength optimally as you have to prioritize the sport (you have a time budget and a recovery budget). Strength needs to help your sport performance, not take away from it. These criteria also help with choosing when we add accessories. Initially, the deadlift is enough stress for the muscles of the upper back. But at some point it isn't, so we need to add chin ups or barbell rows or pull ups or lat pull downs. Check out the Barbell Health Series, where Noah first pitched the beginnings of some of these ideas, and his article, where he discusses these in more detail. GET STARTED with one-on-one online coaching FOR FREE! Get your FIRST MONTH FREE on all strength and nutrition coaching plans. No discount code needed and includes a 10-day, no obligation trial. https://bit.ly/2MKeOoh Special offers from BLOC and our partners: https://barbell-logic.com/offers/ Connect with the hosts

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Reexamining the Exercise Selection Criteria with Noah Hayden Pt1 #372 Jul 12, 2021

Show notes

Noah Hayden joins Matt & Niki to reexamine the exercise selection criteria. Noah first pitched these ideas in episode 3 of the Barbell Health Series & then Noah Hayden refined them in an article for Barbell Logic. As coaches, we likely love lifting, and this passion helped motivate us to pursue a career in helping others lift and experience the benefits of strength. Many of our clients, however, do not share the same passion, and while getting stronger will benefit them--and strength will likely get them closer to their goals--we cannot ignore their goals and prioritize strength about our clients' goals. Strength, in fact, is not the most important thing in life (nor the only thing). When it comes to programming, examining why we program a certain lift rather than another, we have to think about the why and then we can develop the how. A bit part of the why are the client's goals. We need to think about how we improve quality of life for the client? How do we help them meet their goals? We're Barbell Logic and we're strength coaches, so we understand the importance of strength and advocate that simple, hard, effective training should be a part of any fitness routine. If, however, we put 100 more pounds on a client's deadlift as their waistline increases when they wanted to get leaner, we failed to help the client meet their goals. In his article, Noah outlines what he considers the fitness attributes. While there are different lists, people tend to argue over whether two attributes should be combined or divided or whether there should be more that might fall under another. Below is his proposed list.

strength
endurance
power
mobility/flexibility
agility/coordination
precision/body awareness
body composition
lack of debilitating pain
mental fortitude

In the next episode, Noah, Matt, & Niki decide on how examining the client's goals, understanding the why, and understanding the fitness attributes helps leads to Noah's proposed Exercise Selection Criteria and Programming Criteria. GET STARTED with one-on-one online coaching FOR FREE! Get your FIRST MONTH FREE on all strength and nutrition coaching plans. No discount code needed and includes a 10-day, no obligation trial. https://bit.ly/2MKeOoh Special offers from BLOC and our partners: https://barbell-logic.com/offers/ Connect with the hosts

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Time:The Most Valuable Resource-The Productivity Series S16E8 Jul 08, 2021

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Time is your most valuable resource, and you don't know how much of it you have on this earth. Because of this, protecting time, being efficient, and knowing when to trade money for time is important. Its importance heightens if you find yourself in a situation where you make enough money that you can make more money on your work than completing a menial task, such as mowing the lawn or cleaning the house. You might actually make more money paying someone else to do this.

This isn't the case for everyone, and there are times in people's lives where they simply have to lower expenses and be thrifty.

If you find yourself in a situation where the more you work the more money you make, then you need to think about finding time blocks where you don't work and being efficient with your work.

If you find yourself with a fixed amount of time at work (eg a 40 or 60 hour work week) then you need to figure out how to leverage the time you have outside of work for both enjoyment and to complete the other tasks in your life.

Regardless of your situation, it helps to consider the money-time tradeoff and how some investments of money can lead to more money in the future (and, of course, how some investments of time can lead to money in the future). Thinking this way can help clarify what you should do yourself or hire out and help block off time for leisure and family and enjoyment.

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Early to Bed, Early to Rise... Why You Should Wake Up Early-The Productivity Series S16E7 Jul 07, 2021

Show notes

Chris & Matt Reynolds like to wake up early and GET AFTER IT. If you don't, that's okay, but you might try before you write this off and it's super important to have a consistent sleep schedule regardless of when you go to bed and wake up.

You can't make up for lack of sleep on the weekend, and your body will learn and adjust to a regular sleep schedule and be better off for it, as opposed to inconsistency.

If you want to try this, give it a try for 3 weeks. If after 3 weeks you hate waking up early and going to bed early, that's okay: you're probably an evening person. You might then want to work on being more consistent with your sleep and how you still make time for leisure and family.

One benefit that early sleep and wake provides is that many people have social activities in the evening. If you're an evening worker, you'll have to compete with these and find ways to work around these. It also can give a natural break to work and family life, and you can complete your work for the day (barring a true emergency) and then give your full attention to your family when they arrive.

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Focus! The Missing Key to Success-The Productivity Series S16E6 Jul 07, 2021

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Let's talk about focus. This is something people don't do well these days. Focus has atrophied due to smartphones, social media, the internet, TV, etc. Focus, however, is critical to productivity, success, happiness, and getting done deep work.

Something that can help both improve focus but show you how hard it is to focus and how easily you get distracted is meditation. The practice of bringing your focus back to your breath or a mantra helps build the muscle of focus and helps you see your thoughts.

Also, you can't multitask. You may move from one task to another relatively smoothly or quickly, but you can't actually do two things at once.

Knowing what distracts you and blocking those things out helps. For many, distractions may be broken down into visual or auditory. Know which one distracts you and plan accordingly (noise-cancelling headphones, for example, if you're distracted easily by noises).

More focus means more productivity, and if you value time with family and other activities, you can be more efficient with work and urgent tasks and then spend more time doing those things that are important and give you value.

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