drugs, m'kay

Many people get upset when you point out that their favourite bodybuilder or athlete is probably taking drugs to help their performance or appearance. This is not cutting them down, it's letting people know what is naturally attainable.

It's not cutting a fitness model down to point out that at 12% bodyfat she's not likely to have big breasts, so if she does they're probably silicone implants; large breasts are not realistically attainable with a low body fat. Nor is it cutting a crossfit athlete, bodybuilder, etc down to point out that if she's gained a lot of muscle very quickly and has a high lean mass then there's a fair chance she's taking Vitamin T supplements. To those with experience of drug use and drug users, the signs of it are as obvious as breast implants. 

It's not evil to take performance- or appearance-enhancing drugs. As Stevie P points out, we have a double standard about medical assistance with appearance. Want "thigh gap"? Localised lyposuction is yours. Want a bigger penis or breasts? Surgery, no problem. Want a smaller belly? Hell, they'll cut your stomach in half for you! Want bigger arms? FUCK YOU, GET OUT OF MY OFFICE, says the doc. 

It's important to have a realistic of idea of the rate of change and end result attainable with hard work and good food. That way, people can make an informed choice about whether to have surgery, use drugs and so on. 

A large number of professional athletes are using performance-enhancing drugs. If a top performance were attainable without drugs, then drugs would be useless and nobody would take them. "Oh but genetics -" What, all of them are simply genetically talented? None of them take drugs? Who's taking the drugs, then, just the people losing the competitions? Someone needs to have a word with their dealer, then. "No, all of them take drugs except my favourite athlete who is just special." Uh-huh. 

It's not pooing on someone's hard work to suggest they're taking drugs. It didn't matter how much EPO Lance Armstrong stuck in himself, he still had to go out and bust his arse on the bike every day for years. Between gym and the track, he trained around six hours a day six hours a week. Give me 36 hours a week of your time and you'd certainly get remarkable results. Add drugs and you'll be famous. 

Some magnificent physiques and performances exist among professional bodybuilders and athletes. Few are attainable naturally. It's important to understand that there do exist physical limits, to surpass these you need Better Living Through Chemistry. However, this is irrelevant to most of us, since very very few of us come anywhere near our physical limits, basically only professional athletes do, the rest of us have day jobs, families, and so on, we just don't have time to discover our natural limits. 

Awesome physiques and great athletes, not many natural, though. Again, for most of us is not our genetics but our time. Most of us are not professional athletes, so drug use cannot be recommended, for this and many other reasons. The curlbro popping Clenbuterol for his gunz and abz is like someone faking their resume to get a dishwashing job, they're missing the point. 

Edit 2012.07.15 - Jason Blaha lays it down. Let's not bullshit ourselves: the top athletes all take drugs. If you want to be a top athlete, at some point you'll have to make that decision. Me? I wouldn't do it, and I hope my son and anyone I train wouldn't, either. But that's what it is. 

High rep squats

"20 rep squats are primarily a manhood exercise. You struggle through the reps, rack the bar with relief and a sense of achievement, and then it dawns on you: I have to do 5lbs more next week! And that one set out of your whole routine sits in the back of your mind for the next week, taunting you." - Mark Rippetoe, Seattle February 2013

High repetition squats are excellent for building strength and - in combination with stupid amounts of decent food - size in the legs. The horrible thing about high-rep squats is that if you can do 12, you literally always can do another rep - the only question is do you really want to? Once some of my clients competed on squatting 60kg for as many reps as possible. 

Navneet managed 53, and afterwards said, "After 40 reps, you can tell that squats use your whole body." 

I told this to Agatha who'd done 30, and she replied, "It took him 40 reps to realise that?!"

One of my clients Tess is going to do the Tour De France, "oh but only the mountains," thus requiring quads of doom, and so has been on a 20 rep squats and milk programme, with good effect. During a heavy set she'll clench her teeth so tightly that she chips them, so she wears a mouthguard to protect herself from her sheer badarsedness. This week she had a cold, but came along anyway. Below are her thoughts with each rep.

1. "Jesus I feel like shit, how am I going to breathe through a giant mouthguard and blocked nose?"
2. "I'm not sure if my stance is too narrow or too wide...maybe I just feel strange because I have a giant weight on my back...? This feels so much heavier than an extra 2.5 " -sad face on inside"
3. "My arms will surely break off before I get to 20"
4. "Ok, ignore the arms...Feeling.... Okay..."
5. "1/4 through...1/4 through... That's just 3 more of what you've already done"
6. "Don't look up...don't look down...don't snap your teeth!"
7. "Careful of those wrists and hands flapping back"
8. "Bottom of mirror...breathe...don't look down...breathe"
9. "Breathe dammit you're almost half way!"
10. "How many have I done? is it 9? I think it's 9....almost halfway..."
11. "Wait...is this 9...? Did I just do 9 or 10?...where am I...?"
12. "Like Kyle always says "If you can do 12....""
13. "yep...There's that one more after 12...I got this..."
14. "Come on come on come on come on up up up"
15. "1/4 to go...1/4 to go...that's so much more than halfway done..."
16. "Fak yah mudafacka"
17. "Shit...3 more after this one...not 2...Don't snap teeth!"
18. "So close...and yet...so far... get the fuck up!"
19. "One more bitchaaaayz"
20. "Must...lift...to...rack..."

Inspired by her efforts and a continuing quest for legs more like saplings than twigs, I've started on 20 rep squats myself. My own impressions:

1. "Hmm, stance too narrow, feels funny."
2. "That's better."
3. "Ho hum."
4. "Who's that over there? Not bad for a blonde."
5. "WTF? Why are your bringing a bosu over here?"
6. "A bit heavy."
7. "Yes, heavy."
8. "Maybe I need a mouthguard, too."
9. "Okay this is getting boring now."
10. "Hey! That came up easy, I could do 25."
11. "Aaaaaruuugh!" First grunt.
12. "Unk." Second grunt.
13. "25? I don't think so." 
14. "Gug." Third grunt.
15. "FAAAARK." Profanity.
16. "Gasp, gasp."
17. "Hey, milk burp."
18. "Home stretch."
19. "Unh."
20. "Phew. God." Rack.

Tess wouldn't do this on her own because it's insane. I make sure to have a colleague or friend around during my work set, otherwise I would skive off around rep 12. Rip calls it "manhood", but since there is nothing inherent in a penis which grants mental strength, I would call it "resolve". Resolve is an important part of working out, since without it we'll give up and achieve nothing much. 

My job is to help people do difficult things they thought they couldn't do. High rep squats are sometimes a part of this. They're very effective but they're fucking horrible. 

You can write it, but can they do it?

This is an important principle often forgotten by trainers and coaches, particularly online gurus. Here is one example, but there are many.

"load your body weight equivalent on a barbell and perform 100 repetitions. That is, if your scale weight is 205 pounds, load the bar with 205 pounds and go for 100. Most likely, you will not be able to get 100 repetitions in your first bout, so stop to rack the weight to garner a modest break. That's okay. Just don't rest too long - rest no longer than 2:00. Following that maximum of 2:00 between bouts, continue your journey to the 100-rep goal. It may require five to six bouts to get there, but find a way to achieve 100 total repetitions."

Really? You're unlikely to do 100 reps with your bodyweight in one go? At first I thought the guy might be in some super-hardcore gym where a young woman does 20 rep squats with 100kg and the guys in the background don't even look up from talking shit with each-other. But then I saw the other suggested workouts which were either pointlessly easy or reasonable. This told me the authour wasn't really thinking about what he was writing. This trainer had forgotten, you can write it, but can they do it? 

It's also forgotten by trainees, sitting there with their neat spreadsheets with everything planned out to the last set and rep to take them from a 40kg to a 240kg squat in six months and three days.

Online gurus have an excuse: they don't train anyone, so their wild ideas never risk being dissolved by the harsh acid of reality. Gym newbies have an excuse: they're newbies. But even experienced trainers, coaches and trainees will do this from time to time. Just last night I was fiddling about with a spreadsheet and adjusting variables and then in six months my squat will be... really? I'm going to go six months without any interruption to my training? I won't get sick, injured, won't have to take time off to look after my son while my wife visits someone interstate, won't get busy with work or just plain lazy? 

Be realistic. Let's aim for something which is challenging, but won't destroy us. A plan which is ambitious but not crazily so. 

Listen to instruction

The other day I found a scrawny young guy doing a round-backed deadlift with 80kg. I was busy with a client so left him to it, but when he went to 95kg I had to step in. I corrected it, and it was alright. 

"Stay at 80kg," I said, "do a couple of sets of 5, do that a couple of times a week, then next week add 5kg, and so on." 

He loaded the bar up to 95kg. "No really, stay at 80kg."

"I just want to -"

"Stay at 80. That's enough for now, more and you may hurt yourself."

"Could you watch while I -"

"No. If you are ignoring my instruction, there's no sense my giving you more."

He was quite offended by this, and indignant. Possibly his anxiety to add more weight had to do with the fact that the 64yo woman I was training at the time was doing 80kg. If he'd asked I could have told him, that took her 12 months, you are doing it today, don't feel bad - but he was too emotionally bruised to even ask. The male ego is a delicate thing. 

A couple of days later another scrawny young guy doing the same disc-popping deadlifts. I corrected him, he expressed wonder that it no longer hurt his back. We tried some things out and he pulled 140kg, which for him was a 30kg lifetime personal best. 

I started saying something else and he interrupted. "I better get on with the rest of my workout."

If someone got me to do an exercise pain-free for the first time in my life, and in ten minutes helped me get 30kg personal best, I'd stick around to listen to what else they had to say. 

My examples here have been young guys. It's true that adolescent males are the least likely to listen to instruction, since when a man says the words "I don't know" his penis shrinks one-sixteenth of an inch. (Women are all former men who said "I don't know a lot. True story.) But it's other people, too. I once had a woman in her 40s tell me she didn't need a gym programme. "I've been coming seven years, I'm advanced." However, she could not do a pushup, perhaps she had advanced beyond them? 

I don't know everything. In February I went to the Starting Strength Seminar in Seattle, I didn't spend $3,000 and travel halfway across the planet just to walk in and tell Rippetoe he was wrong. But I can definitely coach you to your first pushup and stop you herniating discs in your back from an 80kg deadlift. You might even get genuinely strong. 

Not everyone likes to listen to instruction. If you don't, that's alright, but you probably should not join a gym - just lift alone in your garage. Fail in private where we don't have to watch you. In the gym, listen to instruction. 

Quality and quantity

A client recently joked, "Us old cripples are the strongest clients you've got." And she's right. This is something I noticed about a year into my personal training career: the more injuries the person has, the better their progress.

How does that happen? Well, when someone had injuries, I carefully considered their workout routine, choosing movements carefully to strengthen crucial weaknesses, work around serious issues, I resisted any demands from them for variety for its own sake, kept things focused, and made sure they had really good movements. Quality. 

With the healthy ones I just slapped weight on the bar and if they got bored I threw in whatever would make them happy. But where possible I put more weight on the bar or made them do huge numbers of reps. Quantity. 

After that first year it occurred to me, if it works for the gimpy ones, why not everyone? Thus my approach of coaching movement. Quality first, quantity second.

Now, this does not mean that we need a movement to be brilliant before we put another iron slice on on the salami. Lifting weights is not ballet. Don't overthink the movement. But it does mean take the time to make the movement good, then load it up. Remember the self-evident truth in training: consistent effort over time gets results. A good movement becomes a strong movement, this is the worth of good form. 

Gyms are schools of movement. Most people come into them movement-illiterate. This is why any effective trainer or coach will have a system of some kind. When I started, with the gimpy ones I had a system, with the healthy ones I didn't, this is why the more injuries they had the better their progress. Certainly we can argue about which is the better system, just as we do for other kinds of education. Nonetheless there must be a system of some kind. First you do this, then when you can do this well, you do that - and so on. 

Most people training on their own in the gym have no system. Two-thirds of new gym members don't take up the appointments they get with a gym instructor, and two-thirds of those who do take them don't do the workouts they're given, so at most one in nine people in the gym have any routine at all; fewer still progress the effort on these exercises over time. I see less than a dozen people of hundreds a day with a workout journal. 

For example, if I get a young guy to do barbell squats, commonly he'll be physically able to squat 70kg or so for a single. I start him on 40kg for sets of 5, and tell him, "next week, add 2.5kg, and so on. In six months you'll squat 100kg for work sets easily." Physically he can go faster than that, but I try to allow for nobody being there to watch his form, for shit food and missed workouts. He nods and smiles, and next week I see him struggling with 60kg, the following week he's quarter-squatting 80kg, after that I never see him squatting again. Two years later he's doing curls with a gym newbie and telling him, "I used to squat 140, but it hurt my knees." System vs ego, system loses. 

Rather few of us really have any pressing need to achieve this lift or that run really quickly. If you're joining a rugby team in three months and weigh 50kg, if you're hoping to conceive a child next year and weigh 150kg, then okay there is a hurry. But most of us are working out for general health, so there's no hurry. Progress is progress. 

Squat, push, pull, hip hinge, loaded carry. Take the time to master these movements. Build the quality and the quantity will come. There's a time for quality, and a time for quantity. Mostly it's quality. Sometimes you need to smash it, but not often. Progress, but there's no hurry. 

Of course, if you have too much quantity then you'll get some injuries and your progress will improve. Hurts a bit, though. Up to you. 

Why women should lift heavy weights

So they can get stronger. Same as everyone else.

Every fitness blog and magazine does articles on this, on how to trick women into lifting heavy, giving lengthy explanations of why they won't bulk up (though if they did, I ask "would that be a bad thing?") talking about the benefits to their booty, and a lot of other patronising bullshit. This article even gives 77 PTs' responses about the "question". All of these are amusing, but also wrong. That's because women, or older people, or those with several previous injuries or health conditions, these people are used to being treated differently, as members of some special class for whom the rules are different.

They're not. Lift heavy shit, get stronger. This applies to everyone, no matter their gender, sexuality, race, religion, age, favourite football team, or health condition. Treat them differently according to some group they're a member of and they will act differently. Treat them the same and they'll act the same.

As PTs, we deal with individuals. Not members of some arbitrary group, individuals. We must never forget the first word in our job title. This stuff is patronising. Nia Shanks expresses it well, she's not lifting "like a man", she's lifting effectively. 

Lift heavy shit, get stronger. Exactly which movements we use, exactly which weight, how quickly we progress you, well that's where we look at you as an individual.

"Do you want effective training?"

"Yes."

"Then you are going to lift heavy shit."

The person may question the effectiveness of this. Runners are especially bad. That's okay, if I as a trainer do not have a reason for every exercise, every set and every rep you do, then I'm an incompetent idiot. Since I'm not, I'll have good explanations for everything you do, and everything you do will involve lifting heavy shit. 

In my experience, gym members have few objections to this idea, it's other trainers who get upset about it. Typically these are trainers who don't know how to coach a squat.

Lift heavy shit, get stronger. All these articles and discussions make gender an issue. Don't make gender an issue and it won't be an issue. 

No tricks, no patronising bullshit. Lift heavy shit, get stronger. 

Progressing with debt reps

If you can't or won't do the target reps, you owe yourself those reps, plus the same again. This helps you progress.

In a progressive resistance training routine, the idea is... to progress the resistance. This is an ancient and arcane truth, hidden from the general public by a global conspiracy, and only revealed to you now by special dispensation from the secret lizard people controlling the world. In every workout, or at least every month or so, you should try to do more weight than you did before. If you can't do more weight, do more reps. If you can't do more reps, do more sets. Any of those would be progress, and you'd be stronger.

The problem is that at some point it gets bloody hard. Keep adding weight or reps, and eventually they won't come up easily, you'll be grinding them out. At this point most people wuss out, and progress stops. This is why the curlbro benching 60kg on his own and 85kg with his buddies rowing it up today will still be benching 60kg a year from now, it's why the woman pressing the 5kg dumbbell will still be pressing it a year from now, and it's why almost nobody squats and deadlifts properly.

Obviously technique is an issue - if you're doing the lift badly you won't progress for long - as are nutrition and rest. But often it's simply willpower. Do you really push yourself, or do you wuss out when it gets hard? Almost everyone wusses out eventually, whether it be with squatting the empty bar or squatting 200kg two years later.

One way around this is debt reps. Let's say you're doing a routine where the simple rule is that if you can do 5, 5 and 5 reps with a particular weight, you add weight to the bar next time, let's say 2.5kg. With any such routine, the problem arises: what if you're unable to do 5,5,5? The first thing is to figure out if you were unable to do it, or unwilling to do it. Debt reps accomplish this.

Debt Reps mean that if you don't do the target reps, you owe reps, plus the same again - a 100% interest rate, nasty I know. You get these out however you can, however long it takes. There isn't interest on the interest or you could be there forever. But you WILL get out those extra reps!

For example if your target was 5,5,5 and you managed 5,4,3, then you were short by 3 reps, so you owe 6. A reasonable way to get them out would be 5,4,3....3,3. But doing singles or doubles would be fine, too. Just get those damn reps out. Chances are you'll find that 5,5,5 comes up without trouble next time.

The Debt Reps approach really comes into its own with things like high rep squats, like the classic 20 rep squat routine.  The horrible thing is that if you can squat the weight 12 times, you literally always can do another rep, the only question is do you want to? People fail physically on the 3rd or even 7th rep, almost nobody physically fails the 18th rep, they just give up. Debt Reps are a good cure for this, since when the person hits rep 12 or so and then realises that if they stop now they'll owe 16 reps, this is a strong incentive to only stop if they really really have to.

If you're lifting weights, try progressing the resistance sometimes. If that gets hard, that's alright. Always do more, when it gets really hard try debt reps. It won't kill you unless your friend is too busy checking out the hot guy or girl in lycra to notice you're pinned by the bench press bar. Choose a training partner with bad eyesight.