The Overlooked Importance of Rest and Recovery

    There is such a heavy emphasis when it comes to some people's strength training programs on performing endless grueling workouts that take a serious toll on the body.  They measure success by the number of times they, or their client throws up.  This mindset leads to over-training, burnout, and a reduction in overall training gains.  While I am not saying throwing up is a bad thing, as hellish workouts can really cause you to gain some serious mental toughness, performed over and over will lead to the negative list of problems stated above. It is the exact opposite mindset that must be taken to ensure that gains are made and kept.
    There are multiple times when recovery must be taken into consideration. First and foremost, recovery from a previous workout.  The pace, volume, and intensity of the workout all impact your considerations here.  For example, if you used a lot of high intensity (Heavy weights), your central nervous system will need a few days for recovery, thus you must plan the following workouts accordingly.
    A second time where recovery must be planned is within the entire training week.  Make sure you have at least one day a week where you do absolutely nothing.  When I design programs, I actually start the plan off by planning the rest days and building from there.  These planned rest days will enable you to recover and regain your energy for the next bouts of exercise.
    The third recovery time that is planned is after a few weeks of training.  Every 3-6 weeks preform a deload from training.  The goal of your deload should be to reduce the volume and intensity of your workouts, focusing on letting your body heal and to become prepared for your next 3-6 week block.
    The fourth recovery time you must make as an athlete is after your competitive season.  Sports are grueling and taxing on the body thus time must be taken post-season to allow for recovery.  A solid time of 2-4 weeks without weight training while undertaking various forms of recreation such as hiking, rock climbing, biking, etc. will provide sufficient time for physical and mental recovery. During this time, there should be a focus on beginning to correct imbalances that were a result of the sport season. After this, the athlete's training should build on the imbalance corrections that were beginning to be made before.
   Finally your sleep is of utmost importance to your recovery and training.  Making 8 hours of sleep a night a priority will go a long way to helping you achieve the benefits from your hard work in the gym.  The hormone responses to sleep aid in repairing and building muscle tissue.
   Also let us not forget the need for adequate nutrition in your recovery process. Perhaps it should be the dominating subject in this post because without the proper nutrients, your body will not have fuel to recover, leaving all the above weapons alone to fight a losing battle.
   As to note, physical stress is not the only element impacting your recovery needs.  Social, psychological, and environmental factors can place a great deal of stress on the body, sometimes greater than the physical stress.  While the impacts of these are outside the scope of this blog post, it is still of great importance to make considerations for them in your planning.

Recover for success,

Kyle Bohannon, CSCS
Owner/Head Training
kyle@trainstrive.com
www.trainstrive.com

Bodyweight Training, a lost Art for Athletic Success?

    Over the years simplicity has been lost in the training world. Much as mentioned in the Eugene Sandow article from last month, you'll head to most 'globo' gyms and see people utilizing a never ending world of machines. You'll see one youth athlete working the leg extension machine, lifting the entire stack, and strutting around afterwards as if they have accomplished some magical feat of strength which is worthy of your gaze.  Then afterwards, they might just head over to the smith machine to pump out a few quarter rep squats, very productive. However, come game day, where is that athlete? They are no other place than on their back pinned by their opponent. Is this athlete getting quality work in during their workouts? Is this athlete challenging their body day in and day out to become THE BEST THEY CAN BE? The answer, ABSOLUTELY NOT? 

    Does that athlete sound too much like you? Let me ask you, how often do you include bodyweight training in your workouts? Once a month? Once every few months? Never?  If you answered yes to any of those three you are missing out on exercises and workouts that can elevate your performance and give you newfound strength and muscle that will help you become a feared athlete in your sport.

    You should be aiming to include bodyweight training into your program at the very least once a week (If you're an advanced lifter, which you probably aren't), but preferably every workout.  A high frequency of bodyweight training can set you apart from your competition. I personally make it a priority to include at least one bodyweight exercise per workout in my programs and often times have workouts completely dominated by bodyweight exercises and complexes. Hitting up a 20 minute circuit of push ups, pull ups, lunges, handstand walks, and broad jumps will do more for your performance and injury prevention than any long, tedious, and draining bodybuilding magazine inspired workout.

    To better understand the benefits, take wrestling for example.  In wrestling you must be able to control and dominate your opponent physically who is of near equal weight to you. You must also have an elite proficiency at maneuvering your own body to get into the positions you need to be in to lock down holds and pins. Give me a wrestler who dominates and uses bodyweight drills as a big part of his training program any day over one who follows a 'bodybuilding' program.

    So what exercises should you perform?  Since the list of bodyweight exercises is seemingly infinite, below is a listing of my top 5 favorite exercises divided up into upper and lower body.

Upper Body: Push Up Variations, Pull Up Variations, Recline Rows, Handstand Walks/Wheel Barrels, and Handstand Push Ups

Lower Body: Squats, Lunges, Cassock Squat, Duck Walks, and Single Leg Squats

    Also, don't forget the benefits of using bodyweight exercises to train explosive power. Drills like box jumps, broad jumps, plyo push ups, and stair bounds, etc. will go a long way in making you a more powerful athlete. Again the variety of exercises is only limited to your imagination.

    

    Here is a challenge for you. Go 2-4 weeks straight of performing nothing but bodyweight exercises as your mode of exercise.  After this, let me know how you feel...I guarantee you'll have amazing results.

Here is a sample workout:

Complete Max Rounds in 5 Minutes

1A Stair Bounds x5

1B Push Ups x10

1C Duck Walks x30 yards

1D Pull Ups x5

Alternatively you can use more variety and implement a workout like this:

5 rounds for time

1A Power Exercise x5

1B Upper Body Push or Walk Variation x 5-10 or distance

1C Lower Body Exercise x 10

1D Upper Body Pull Exercise x 5-10

There are many ways to skin a cat. After reading this, you should have a pretty good idea how to implement bodyweight training into your program.

Kyle Bohannon, CSCS

Owner/Head Trainer

Strive Training

kyle@trainstrive.com

www.trainstrive.com

513-571-2950

Eugene Sandow, A Man Well Ahead of his Time

In an age where training philosophies change by the day by the hottest trend, it is astounding how much we can over think things.  I for one am guilty of sometimes over analyzing every little detail when developing a program when the most basics of parameters can and do achieve amazing results.  In today's fitness world, we are pummeled with every "Guru's" super duper muscle blasting fat scorching program that they say will bring results, when in reality all they are trying to do is make a quick buck and a name for themselves. With so many crazy recommendations out there, we lose slight of the simplicity that is proven to bring results.     However, Eugene Sandow got it right...all the way back in the late 1800's.  Sandow, a bodybuilder, embodied simplicity by today's standards.  Check out this little tidbit from Sandow:     "The Training I, of course, specially commend is dumb-bell training and bar-bell exercises, and, for beginners especially, very light weights. (For the generality of people, my experiences would limit the weight to four or not more than five pounds.)  But walking, rowing, skating, swimming and when where the heart is all right, climbing and running are very good exercises; football if not roughly played being also excellent.    Nothing, in my opinion, however, is better than the use of the dumbbell for developing the whole system, particularly if it is used intelligently and with the knowledge of the locations and functions of the muscles. With this knowledge it will surprise most would-be athletes how much can be done with the dumbbell and what arrangement for the best complexity of muscles can be brought into play. It has been well said that the muscular system of command is not made up alone of chest and biceps; yet to expand the one in the large the other is almost all that is thought of by the untrained learner."    Now while Sandow was more famous for his physique rather than feats of strength, his words here are insightful nonetheless. It is amazing how over 100 years ago, an effective way to exercise had already been discovered, yet, in the time since, we have strayed so far away from it.   Keep it Simple, Kyle Bohannon, CSCS Owner/Head Trainer kyle@trainstrive.com www.trainstrive.com