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I care about you. I want you to improve. However, you’re not special.

How do you know if you’re a good coach or trainer? It is extremely difficult to tell if a strength coach or trainer is effective and efficient. There are so many variables that go into our clients and athletes, so how do we know if what we’re doing is working or not? A good coach should set objective weekly goals, as well as subjective and objective daily goals. These goals should include technique and skill, your client’s/athlete’s ability to lead and problem solve, and the culture you all bring into the weight room each day. Each goal, whether it be daily or weekly, should be getting you progressively closer to your goal. Anyone can walk into a weight room and bang out a quick lift. It’s not the sets and reps that make the individual successful, it’s knowing WHY you’re doing what you’re doing each day that lights the fire to fuel success.

Being able to take a qualitative analysis of each individual is imperative to success. If you have a room full of athletes doing the same exact lift each day, what measurements are you using to track growth outside of them being able to lift more weight? What measurable outcomes are we setting in place each time someone walks into our weight room? These measurable outcomes are what shows us if our programming and coaching are effective. If there’s anything I’ve learned over my time in exercise science, it’s to stop overcomplicating things and start doing the basics really well.

When looking at how to approach your basic skills and techniques, there is one thing that stands true throughout time: the Whole-Part-Whole approach. Show the skill in its entirety, break it down part by part so your athlete can truly feel the movement, then put the movements all together to create the whole again. Your athlete cannot fix what they cannot feel. Again, coaching is not just about the sets, reps, and yelling. Be a technical guru at your craft, get your athletes moving properly, and get them to understand the importance of each movement. No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care. Show this by teaching them why what you’re working on with them is important to their success!

Talking about success, what’s the difference between success and winning? Many young or naïve coaches will tell you there is no difference. The goal is to win the game/match/race/etc, right? Wrong. Even if you have a winning record, are you really doing your job as a coach if your athletes walk away from the sport without the skills you could have taught them that carry over into life? Are you just helping teach the game or are you helping to turn them into leaders? As a coach, you have the ability to help shape and grow your clients and athletes into individuals that will go out into the world and positively impact others. Your job isn’t to do anything to keep your athlete. You job is to help your athletes grow and achieve life long success. Our job is not transactional, it is transitional. This is where you tell your athletes “I care about you. I want you to improve. But you are not special.”

Let those three sentences sink in and digest for a second. This is what I mean by transitional. We aren’t here to hold your hand and make you believe that you are the best thing to happen to your sport. Our job is to push the athlete, help them grow, help them become something greater than they believed they could. We can’t do this job if we’re constantly putting them on a pedestal, it just doesn’t work that way. Challenge your athletes. Help your athlete see that their sport isn’t about getting THEM better, but improving everyone around them. It’s not about the individual, it’s about the whole. Find a way to get your athletes to compete at their highest level because they care about improving the player next to them, not just themselves. This competitive culture helps to break the barrier with transitioning skill from the weight room into real game or real life scenarios.

Be technical. Create a culture for success, not just winning. Be transitional, not transactional. Be a great coach today.

Easy At-Home Workout

Home for the holidays without access to a gym? No problem! Check out this easy-to-do, minimal equipment workout.

Squats 4×12
PullUps 4×2 (Substitute pullovers 4×12 if no access to pullup bar/rings)

SL RDL 4x8ea
SA Rows 4x12ea
PushUps 4×8

SL Glute Bridge 3x20ea
Hollow Rock Bicycle 3×20
Reverse Lunge to Tuck 3x6ea (Substitute jump lunges or reverse lunges depending on fitness level)

Consume BCAAs peri-workout. Consume whey protein post workout followed by high protein, high carb meal.

Consult your physician before beginning any exercise program or nutrition program. Use at your own risk. PR Training Systems is not liable in any capacity with regards to using this workout.

The Food Fight Part II: Protein

For in-depth description, read below.

Macronutrients and flexible dieting have become a hot topic in body composition for performance, increasing muscular size, and fat loss. So what exactly are macronutrients or “macros”? Macronutrients are our primary sources of energy, or calories, required to complete activities of daily living along with any other activity that we decide to participate in. There are three macronutrients: Carbohydrates, Proteins, and Fats. Throughout the next few articles, we will break down what each of the macronutrients are, why they’re important, and how to use them to best fit your goals. First on the chopping block: Protein.

What Is Protein?
Protein is a long, nitrogen containing molecular compound comprised of amino acids. Protein is the structural component of a cell. It is responsible for the structural component of cells as well as cellular growth, repair, and maintenance of tissue. There are 20 amino acids, 9 of which are essential at birth and 8 going into adulthood. This means that of the 20 amino acids, our body can naturally create 12 amino acids, but 8 must come from our daily nutrition. Amino acids promote protein synthesis, which is the process of cells creating new proteins.

How Much Protein Do We Need?
How much protein you need depends on your specific goal as well as weight.
Maintaining Current Body Composition: ~0.4-0.5g/kg of body weight
Increase Muscular Size without much change to daily activity: ~0.6-0.7g/kg
Active Individuals: ~0.9-1.2g/kg
Endurance Athletes: ~1.2-1.4g/kg
Strength and Power Athletes: ~1.6-1.7g/kg
MAX Muscular Growth: ~2g/kg

What Kind of Protein Works Best?
Any time you can get your protein from a natural source, such as meat and vegetables, the better! Your body breaks down the food into amino acids and initiates protein synthesis. However, most people have a tough time consuming that much food and sometimes the source of protein might not get to processed as quickly as we’d like (i.e. post-workout). This is where protein supplementation can help!

So you walk into your local supplement shop and the walls are lined with a bunch of different protein. What kind should you get? Soy? Casein? Whey? The choices seem endless and the guy at the register only seems interested is selling you something instead of educating you. Here’s your breakdown of each:

Whey: This type of protein contains all 9 essential amino acids (EAA) and contains ~25% more EAA than other types. It is particularly high in the EAA leucine, isoleucine, and valine which is awesome as these don’t need to be metabolized by our liver before our body can use them! Be careful, though, as there are different types of whey.
–Whey Hydrolase: This particular whey is already broken down into amino acids
–Whey Isolate: This whey is a pure form of whey protein minus the lactose (milk sugar)
–Whey Concentrate: This is the most common form of whey. It used to be high in lactose, but has been fortified to contain less in recent years.

Casein: This protein is high in the EAA Glutamine, but is lower in concentrate of the other EAA(BCAAs). Casein’s primary downfall is that it causes gastrointestinal(GI) issues in many consumers. The benefit of casein is that it is slow to digest. Because of the slower digestion of casein, many athletes will consume it before bed in order to sustain protein synthesis during the nighttime fasting.

Soy Protein: This protein is very rich in EAA/BCAA’s. Soy protein contains no lactose as it is a plant protein; however, it tends to be lower in the EAA methionine. The more recent versions of soy protein is fortified with methionine, though! Since soy protein is derived from plants, it makes it a great option for vegans looking to increase their protein intake. However, soy protein contains plant hormones(isoflavone) which, in some research, can increase the estrogenic effect in the body.

Why Is Protein Important?
When sufficient protein is present(in form of amino acids), we inhibit AMP Kinase(AMPK). During exercise, ATP is released for energy. This increases AMPK levels which activates AMPK protein. AMPK inhibits a pathway called mTOR and protein synthesis. When AA are present(as well as carbs, but we’ll talk about that next time), we inhibit AMPK and hit the gas pedal on gains through the mTOR pathways. EAA/BCAA = Gain Train!!!

When Should I Consume Protein?
Simply stated: You should shoot to consume your protein allotment in evenly spaced meals containing 20-30g/meal.
If you’re training, it can be a little different and should go as follows:
Pre-Workout: 30-50g of easily digestible protein
Peri-Workout(during your training): 10-20g of BCAAs
Post-Workout: 30-50g. You have about a 2 hour window to get this is. Ideally, get part from a shake while you cook yourself a meal containing the other part.

Evenly split your remaining allotment of protein into meals of 20-30g/meal.

Beelen M, Koopman R, Gijsen AP, Vandereyt H, Kies AK, Kuipers H, et al. Protein coingestion stimulates muscle protein synthesis during resistance-type exercise. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab 2008;295:E70-E77.

Dennis MD, Baum JI, Kimball SR, Jefferson LS. Mechanisms involved in the coordinate regulation of mTORC1 by insulin and amino acids. J Biol Chem 2011;286:8287-96.

Moore DR, Robinson MJ, Fry JL, Tang JE, Glover EI, Wilkinson SB, et al. Ingested protein dose response of muscle and albumin protein synthesis after resistance exercise in young men. Am J Clin Nutr 2009;89:161-8.

Tipton KD, Ferrando AA, Phillips SM, Doyle D, Jr., Wolfe RR. Postexercise net protein synthesis in human muscle from orally administered amino acids. Am J Physiol 1999;276:E628-E634.

The Food Fight Part 1: Understanding Metabolism

Nutritional demands of the body is one of the most commonly misunderstood processes when trying to change body composition. Everyone throws around this magical word: Metabolism (or Metabolic Functioning). Who can tell me what metabolism is? No one? Some seem to think it’s this magical little thing that floats around in our body and is either “fast” and chews up fat and swells up our muscles, or is “slow” and balloons our body and makes us gain weight.

The thing about the human body is that it only does what we tell it to do. Imagine that food is a text message from your boss at a fancy chemical factory. You receive the text that you’re to mix up these chemicals to create something, so you do it. Well, if you put the wrong chemicals in, your boss gets upset because you’ve created one thing even though you meant to create something totally different. This is kind of how metabolism works in terms of flexible dieting and tracking macronutrients.

Metabolism is an all-encompassing term for the chemical reactions that collectively occur in the body. It is the all energy producing and using processes that occur within the body due to food. It is the process that allows our body to “adapt or die”. Different food sends different “text messages” to our body to use this energy for different purposes through three metabolic pathways to create adenosine triphosphate(ATP), or ENERGY!

Metabolic Pathway #1: ATP-PCr System
-Anaerobic Metabolism
-Maintain energy(ATP) levels early in exercise
-Limited capacity/only lasts a few seconds

Metabolic Pathway #2: Glycolytic System
-Anaerobic Metabolism
-Process of turning the carbohydrate glucose(sugar) into pyruvate to create ATP(ENERGY!)

Metabolic Pathway #3: Oxidative System
-Aerobic Metabolism
-Primary energy system used at rest or during long-duration, low intensity activity
-Can use carbohydrates, but primarily fat

The food we put into our body allows for metabolic functioning to supply us with enough energy to go about our day, to create an energy surplus or energy deficit. This determines if we have enough energy to help build/maintain muscle and exhale fat(yes, exhale. However, this is a topic for another time), or if our body needs the energy to just survive day-to-day tasks.

What text messages are you sending your body? Are you building and adapting or are you in a constant state of just survival?

Total Body Workout-Booty Focused

Body split workouts are a thing of the past. We know that total body workouts are the most efficient type of training to reach your goals. Your body can handle more stress per muscle group along with recovering faster than the old-school body split style workouts we used to do.

Below is the video of your total body-booty focused workout.

Exercise 1: Hip Thrusts 4×6 with a 5s isometric hold at the top of rep 6
**Tips**
Find a bench, box, or set up a step like in the video that is about the same height as your heel to knee. This height allows for optimal range of motion (ROM) through the whole movement.
Keep your shoulder blades on the step throughout the whole set.
Always keep your chin tucked and look toward your pelvis.
Focus on squeezing the glutes as high as possible while maintaining a posterior pelvic tilt. Keeping your chin tucked, looking down toward your pelvis, and keeping your bellybutton suctioned back to your spine are all cues that can help you perform this movement properly.

Exercise 2A: Barbell Incline Press 4×8
**Tips**
The higher the incline, the more shoulder work you get involved. I do flat bench on my opposing day to this lift, which hits my pectoral muscles more. I focus on my shoulders during this exercise, which is why I’m at a 45deg incline versus a 30deg incline. Adjust the bench to meet your goals.
Focus on keeping your shoulder blades tucked tightly together and flat on the bench. This helps keep the head of our humerus bone depressed so we don’t have a pinching sensation on our bicep tendon.

Exercise 2B(to be done as a superset with exercise 2A): Bent Over Barbell Rows 4×12
**Tips**
Shoot your hips to the back wall of the room while keeping your ribcage down and belly tight. This tightness protects our back and helps to keep you from bouncing during the exercise.
Think of this exercise as a two-part pull. The first pull comes from retraction of the shoulders. This is where you pinch your shoulder blades together. The second pull comes from bending the elbows to pull the bar toward your bellybutton.

Exercise 3A: Neutral Grip Pull-Ups 3×4
**Tips**
Pull-Ups are tough! If you can’t complete all sets and reps, try adding a band. A band helps you learn proper core engagement of the exercise while providing assistance compared to a pull-up machine.
This, too, is a two-part pull. The first pull is done while trying to depress the scapulae, or pulling the shoulders away from the ears. The second pull is done while bending the elbows to pull your collarbones toward the bar.

Exercise 3B: Dumbbell Pullovers 4×15
**Tips**
Pinch your shoulder blades together and try to keep the shoulder blades flat on the bench. Keep the ribcage down throughout the whole movement while trying to posteriorly tilting the pelvis.
Extend the weight until your upper arm is by your ears, then focus on tightening your core while returning the weight vertical.

Consult your physician before beginning any exercise program or nutrition program. Use at your own risk. PR Training Systems is not liable in any capacity with regards to using this workout.

Walking Before Running

Sport is constantly pushing acceleration work. We teach kids to move as fast as the can. So why are we teaching walking before crawling? Starting is only half of the race.

Kids aren’t learning to safely stop and we’re seeing kids as young as 12 with ACL injuries. This drill is to work on two things. 1. An athlete is successful when he or she can respond quickly to an external stimulus. The girls are facing away and listening to my sound(actively and blindly searching for the stimulus) in order to beat their teammate to the mat. 2. Their job is to get to the line first, but to stop before the mat as closely as possible. I had the girls go multiple times and switched the foot they had to stop with. This allows for the girls to learn Time to Contact. We’re using all of these tools to help prevent injury and make our athletes safe and proficient athletes, while the athletes are just playing a game and competing against each other. Find ways to make the exercises competitive/fun and the athletes will work harder for you!

Stress to the Rescue

Too often I get an inbox stating something like this, “I run 5 miles every day, I eat healthy, I workout 5x/week, but I’m not seeing any results!” My answer to this problem? Stress.

We hear all the time how terrible stress is for our body. Doctors love telling us that cortisol is terrible. Cortisol is the “Stress Hormone”. Excess of cortisol can lead to weight gain, lower immune functioning, impaired memory, etc. So if stress is so bad for you, then why are so many successful strength coaches and athletes preaching about the importance of stress? Some strength coaches even call themselves Stress Managers.

Stress is the body’s response to any and all change. Think of the body as a chameleon. A chameleon walks onto tree. Danger becomes present, so the chameleon changes color to blend with the brown. The chameleon becomes stressed so it’s body adapts in order to stay safe. Just like the chameleon, our body has a protective mechanism that keeps us safe. When we become stressed, our body wants to fight to get back to being balanced, or to homeostasis.

The runner that runs 5 miles every day and sees no change is not changing due to their body adapting to the stress of running. The runner’s body will not change unless it is forced to, so if they’re running the same distance every day using the same routes then the body is not put under stress to change.

This is where that bad, nasty cortisol comes in. We’ve found a way to take cortisol and use it to our advantage. While exercising, our body goes into a sympathetic state, or the fight-or-flight state. Cortisol activates our adrenal glands allowing our bodies to work harder than normal. Hans Seyle wrote a book called “The Stress of Life”. In this book, he discusses the general adaptation syndrome(GAS) and supercompensation. The runner who runs 5 miles every day is stressing the body more than someone who is laying on the couch each day; however, the runner’s body has adapted to the stress. The stress of running 5 miles is no longer a big enough stress to force the body out of homeostasis in order to adapt.

GAS is broken down into three stages by Seyle: Alarm Reaction, Resistance, and Exhaustion. We’ve already discussed the alarm reaction stage as it is the fight-or-flight stage, the workout or training session. Next comes resistance.

In this stage we return our body to the parasympathetic state. Returning to a parasympathetic state is important as it allows the body to return to homeostasis. This is when our body heals and replenishes so we have enough energy to make it through our day. If the body does not fully reach a parasympathetic state, our body can go into the next stage.

This stage is the Exhaustion stage. Overtraining occurs in the exhaustion stage. Have you ever noticed that during an extremely stressful period in your life, you tend to get sick? Students might get sick around finals. If you have a big project for work that keeps you worrying and up late at night you might get sick. This is due to exhaustion. Your body is in a continuous sympathetic state. Your body never has time to heal, so your immune system depletes and you get sick.

The trick is to finding that sweet spot where you stress your body enough to initiate change, yet you allow enough rest and recovery time for it to heal so you do not become exhausted. This can become tricky and each person is different. You and I might each have different levels of stress that our body can handle. Listen to your body…but make sure you’re not babying it.

Continue to push your body past its limits, but love your body enough to allow it to rest.

 

But WHY?

One of my favorite leadership books is “Start With WHY” by Simon Sinek. Your “why” is the most important part of any decision you make.

​The basis behind Sinek’s “Start With WHY” is what he calls The Golden Circle. The Golden Circle is comprised of what, how, and why. The “What” is the outermost part of the circle and “Why” is the innermost part of the circle.

​Many people know WHAT they do. Most people know HOW they do it. Yet, few people know WHY they do what they do. Different parts of our brain are associated with the what, how, and why. The HOW and WHY portions are processed in the same part of our brain that is associated with distinguishing trust and loyalty.

​We can processes WHAT people do quite easily. When we truly understand WHY people do what they do, we can begin to be driven by their beliefs and possibly adopt them as our own.

Stop Starving Yourself

Flexible Eating


​​​​What is flexible eating? Many people refer to this as flexible “dieting” or IIFYM; however, I dislike the term dieting as it has a negative stigma attached to the word. If It Fits Your Macros (IIFYM) is a great idea as long as people understand that you must still keep your daily nutrition relatively nutrient dense. You will not maintain an ideal body composition eating kitkats and ice cream all day even if they do fit your macros. You will become “skinny fat”.

​Sticking to a plan is the most difficult part of any nutrition plan. Flexible eating is the solution to sticking to a plan and maintaining it with realistic expectations. Flexible eating helps to avoid binging and allows for slow weight loss. Having as small caloric deficit that still elicits weight loss is the best plan to follow when looking to maintain your weight loss.

Refeed


Maintaining a caloric deficit day in and day out will lead to a decrease in leptin. What is leptin you ask? Leptin is the “satiety hormone”, the hormone that keeps you feeling full. As leptin levels decrease, you will begin to have intense cravings and your metabolism begins to slow.

​Refeed days can replenish leptin levels and help to avoid catabolism. Refeed days include an increase in calories anywhere from 10-50%. The higher the increase in calories, the shorter the time the refeed should last. The increase in calories comes greatly from an increase in carbohydrates.

​Refeed days heavy in carbohydrates replenishes muscle glycogen. The increase in glycogen causes muscles to swell and look fuller. The leaner you are, the more often you will need to refeed in order to avoid potential dreaded catabolism.

​Refeed days should ideally be done the day before your heaviest lift day and the day after your weekly weight-in day. The increase in muscle glycogen will increase mental focus and strength. Due to the hormone aldosterone, weight gain may occur one to two days post-refeed. I suggest weighing in before your refeed due to the delayed weight gain.

Training


Helms, Argon, and Fitschen’s article, Evidence-based recommendations for natural bodybuilding contest preparation: nutrition and supplementation, had interesting research findings on training. According to their article, the following training protocols created the best…excuse my bro talk… “gainz”:
-Heavier weight for fewer reps with more sets elicit better muscle size increase compared to the old approach of very high reps with 3-5 set (see RP-21 Training System)
​-The hypertrophy effect is greatest when low repetition, high intensity sets are followed by one set of high repetition, low intensity
​-Endurance training decreases strength and/or hypertrophy when added to strength training
​-Full-body exercises (i.e. kettle bell swings or barbell cleans) and cycling may reduce decreases in strength and hypertrophy compared to running when cardio is needed to reduce body fat

Helms E, Aragon A, and Fitschen P. Evidence-based recommendations for natural bodybuilding contest preparation: nutrition and supplementation. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 111: 20, 2014
​Brown E. Lift Like a Monster, Look Like a Hero: The RP-21 Training System. https://www.t-nation.com/workouts/lift-like-a-monster-look-like-a-hero