​Why is it like this?  What happens in such a short time that completely changes our outlooks and habits?  What makes our motivation nose dive in just a few short years.
 
Motivation is one of the most common key words I hear in a consult with somebody.  
 
“I have a gym membership, but just have no motivation, and need somebody to hold me accountable.
 
While I love helping men(and women) create new habits and serve as an example in this setting, the truth is an unpopular one.  For ultimate success, you can not lean on others for motivation.  We have to find it within ourselves.
 
Let’s dive in to what happens between out “glory days” and adulthood and why our motivation tanks.
 
I graduated high school in 2010.  In ways, it feels like yesterday.  Now I’m close to 30.  In the blink of an eye during this period, we go from a kid in the eyes of society to a career man with, in many cases a family.
 
Track back to your young days.  Realistically, your motivation for your fitness routine came from one of the following sources.

1. Ego.  Wanting to be bigger and more jacked than other dudes.(Nothing wrong with healthy competition.)
2. Athletics: Training specifically for a sport.
3. Girls. (Don’t lie, this was part of it.)

Now fast forward to the present.  Your life has shifted to adulthood, and you likely haven’t reexamined what your purpose of taking care of yourself should be.  Ego matters much less when you’re and adult.  Culture places less value on your perceived physical status amongst other men.  The vast majority of us are done being competitive athletes after age 22.  And last, many of us are in committed relationships or even married.  This (hopefully) means, impressing new women is no longer a driving factor for you.  Knowing this, what’s left?
 
As we age, and our lives change, we have to re-evaluate what’s important to us if we are to make long term change.  Think in general, what’s important to you now?  Excelling at your career, making money to provide for other is likely a big one.  Start to view your physical betterment through the lens of how it affects the ones you care about the most.  This happens in countless ways.  Do you want to be able to practice sports with the kids in the yard?  Be able to perform any task around the house for years to come.  Provide the right example for your sons and daughters?  Stay healthy and energetic for your wife?  The examples are endless and ultimately up for you to come up with on your own.
 
If you’ve found yourself in a rut, wanting to get started on a routine but can’t find the motivation or drive to get started or stay consistent, take a few minutes to do this brainstorming.  Write down a few qualities you want to see in yourself in your 40’s and 50’s.  Now, think about how investing time and energy into your health will help you reach this vision.  
 
Your status of the guy who can pound beer and stay out late won’t matter in your future, but how you took care of yourself during this period of life will.
 
Remember that chasing any goal you desire, be it career, fitness, or anything, must start with a certain mindset.  Without this, you absolutely will not be consistent.  Without consistency you’re doomed.  You can not grind for a few weeks to earn a million dollars, and you can’t hit the gym hard for a month to completely transform your body and flip your health.  Find the reasons that will put you in this journey for the long haul!

One of the biggest lies you are told in high school is when teachers says “you wont get away with this in college.”  The truth is, you are currently being held to some of the highest standards of your life.  You must be in your desk for first period by the bell in the 7am hour.  One minute late is not acceptable.  Late work isn’t accepted, and if it is, it is penalized. You are pressed to be heavily involved, be it in sports or other extracurricular activities on top of the full time job of being a student.
 
We are entering a period of time of consistently lowered standards for adults.  The truth is, once you graduate high school, and enter adulthood, you need to take it upon yourself to set your own standards.  And you do it for YOU. Not because someone is forcing you to.  Here’s the tough part; you have to live up to those standards you set for yourself.  Here is a list of my suggestions.
 

• Always be on Lombardi time.  Those of you who lift here know what that means.  If you’re supposed to be somewhere at 10, arrive at 9:50, prepared and ready to go.  Be the guy who if you are even a minute late, people start to worry.  This shows that you are reliable, a forward thinker, and a problem solver.  You think ahead at the possibility of traffic or other delays, and adjust ahead of time.  No amount of skill or education can make up for someone who’s unreliable.
• Always do your best work, regardless of what it is.  Even if you get what you consider at the time, a menial job for money in college, work to be the best at it.  There is always reward in quality work.  This is also habit forming.  Set the stage early about how you approach work, and the pride you take in your own image.
• Always be completely honest and up front about everything.  Nothing beats honesty.  Even when it can be awkward or uncomfortable.  You’ll always be more trusted in everything if you’re seen as someone who keeps it real.
• Continue valuing your physical development and health.  I cant tell you how many guys it seems  let them self physically peak at 18.  You may feel invincible now, but the dad bod creeps up fast when you put health on the back burner.  It may be a hard truth, but those who visibly take care of themselves have a higher chance of being taken seriously.  
• Take advantage of all opportunities. This is one of the biggest regrets older men will bring up, that they missed out on opportunity.  Fear of failure only holds us back. I believe this is because we worry about people seeing us fail.  But never concern yourself about the opinions of those not trying anything. It’s the age old “man in the arena" concept.
• Life is too unfair to have soft fragile hands.  If you’re reading this, then this issue has been cured with rough barbells.  But get your hands dirty and beat up once in a while.
• Always be louder with your actions than your words.  Ninety percent of people do way more talking than they do doing.  Stand out by being the one getting things done.
• Remain humble but stand down to nobody.  If you're confident in your actions as mentioned above, nobody can knock you down a peg.  Don't get over your skiis but don't get shoved in a corner either.  Walk through the door chest first.  
• Be unrelenting in standing by your principals and these standards you have set for yourself.  They aren’t your standards if you are easily persuaded away from them.  Don’t feel like drinking at any particular time?  Say no and move on.  Anyone who doesn’t respect it is a boy, not a man and their opinions are of no mater.  They’ll still be wannabe frat boys at 35 while you’re killing it.  Want to favor your health over a party lifestyle?  Do it and be complete unapologetic about it.

If you leave my weight room after spending multiple days a week for multiple years here, having only gotten better at lifting weights, then I have failed you. On the surface, we are in here building muscle and getting stronger.  But in the background, the weight room is meant to teach us lessons and shape better people.  I wish you the best and hope to see you in here whenever you’re back around!
 
Now go kill it!
 
Mike.
 

​.  An ever-fading thing we own, measured in minutes that is impossible to replace. Yet we’ve evolved to a point where we’re perfectly comfortable wasting another person’s most precious currency.  And then laughing about it.  “lOl, rUnNiNg lATe iS mY cARdIo.”
 
Truly think about it a little deeper.  We all know at least one of the following types of people.  Person A: the one who when they do show up on time, everybody is shocked.  And person B: the one who if they are a minute late, you start to worry about their safety.  Which one do you trust more?  Who are you calling if you need urgent help?  Who are you going into business with?  Do you trust person A at all?  I don’t.. I truly don’t believe you can trust a person with a single thing on earth if they don’t value being on time.  Failure to take the proper steps to consistently be on time is an indication you can’t take care of yourself, let alone be trusted with anything of value to me.
 
Vince Lombardi coined the phrase “Lombardi time” when he told his team that being “on time” was considered late.  If a team meeting was at 8:00, players were expected to be there at 7:50, so they were ready to go at 8:00.  Walking through the door at the absolute last minute indicates you don’t truly care about what you’re showing up for.  You’re doing just that; showing up.
 
Coaches, teachers, doctors, etc. are taught to read body language.  Your arrival is the ultimate body language.  It is part of your image and presentation.  You’ve probably heard the idea before that how one presents themselves tells you what you need to know about a person and what they bring to the table.  We are told to dress the part, make eye contact, smile, and shake hands.  None of that would matter to me if you showed up late or unprepared.
 
Of course, overtime we are all bound to slip up at some point, but we are the sum of our actions, not the result of one individual incident.  Be person B in the previous scenario.  Trust me, it goes a long way.

​A second mistake often comes when athletes do train in the offseason.  Far too often in young populations, the fallacy of “sports specific training” takes priority.  Like anything else, strong play requires a strong base.  The weight room should focus on developing a strong base, and practice should focus on sport skill development.  The two SHOULD NOT intermix.  If a young athlete cannot perform a quality squat with weight, they certainly shouldn’t be squatting on an unstable surface. (I would argue no person should do this anyway.)
 
General Population- With the average gym goer, the biggest flaw I see in training programs is too high of volume and not enough intensity or effort per exercise.  Take a leg day for example.  For effective strength and muscle building when speaking on a large scale, one does not need 10-12 different exercises.  Compound movement will target many muscles in a single exercise.  Too truly elicit a response, one must move either a heavy weight or push the reps to a high level of fatigue. (not necessarily failure.). The common formula we use for training lower body includes:
1.A heavy squat or deadlift (5 reps or less)
2.A heavy lunge or split squat variation (5-8 reps)
3.A heavy hip dominant/hinge exercise (6-10 reps)
This formula effectively allows the entire lower body to be stressed under heavy weight and equally target anterior and posterior muscles along with attacking left and right deficiencies.  Consider the all or none law with muscle contractions.  Lifting heavy may seem contrary to an average gym rat looking to build muscle.  However, in order for the muscle cell to have a response, the stimulus of the muscle neuron must be strong enough, otherwise there is no response.  
This issue, I believe pops up often in the bootcamp world.  The primary goal seems to turn into packing as much volume into a set amount of time with a large number of exercises without taking the time to develop movement quality and push exercises to a high intensity.
 
Females- This is one of the most discussed demographics in training and the misconceptions involved; most notably the topic of lifting heavy.  The previously discussed principal of all or none, of course exists in all humans alike.  Males and females possess the same set of muscles that function the same way.  Where the uncertainly comes from is determining what the goal of an individual is.  While many coaches and trainers cringe at the word “tone” when it is used to describe a goal, it’s important to understand what that means to the client, not the trainer.  When a female trainee says they want to get toned, they likely have a visual body goal in mind.  The toned image is simply the shape of human muscle.  It really is as simple as maximal muscle and minimal fat.
 
CrossFit-  CrossFit does a lot of good.  They do a good job of putting real weights in peoples hands and addressing the importance of multiple facets of physical well being.  What I would critique, from my opinion is the programming of particular exercises and the purpose behind them.  Take just a few examples, snatches, cleans, and box jumps.  While these are all great exercises, the purpose behind them is power development.  Power exercises should focus on an alactic approach(meaning under 10 seconds) and full recovery.  Often I see these exercises are programmed in circuits with higher reps, done while fatigued and breathing heavily.  These lifts are very technical and breakdown of form can occur after so many reps and sets back to back.  The risk-reward ratio eventually doesn’t justify prescribing the exercise in this fashion.

Top 5 reasons to place a heavier emphasis on unilateral lower body training
 
A lot of buzz in training circles lately revolves around the subject of unilateral (or single leg) training.  There have even been debates broken out between which is better and whether you should do bilateral or unilateral training with athletes.  Like most training topics, the answer is that it depends on context and many factors.  We however, on a broad level, believe that the answer is both!
 
On top of simply doing these exercises, the training world has evolved in how these exercises are prescribed.  The common thinking is that main heavy movements consist of the big bilateral exercises(squats and deadlifts,) while single leg exercises are used for higher rep accessory movements.  While this method remains very effective, we can also use single leg exercises as our main heavy movements.
 
Before breaking down our main reasons for implementing this training style, let’s look at just a partial list of unilateral variations we use at our facility.
 

​Goal #1:  Neurological efficiency.  
 
Everyone knows that weight training leads to muscle growth, but another and arguably more important effect is the effect on the central nervous system.  Our body contains many motor units which consist of a neuron and all the muscle fibers to which that neuron innervates.  This is how our brain sends a message to the muscle to contract. Our strength is very much determined by the efficiency of our central nervous system.  The more motor units the brain can fire simultaneously, the stronger one is likely to be.  Along with strength, the efficiency of the nervous system dictates coordination and motor control.  We see many athletes start out with a visible lack of control of the body in athletic movement.  
 
When athletes start weight lifting, particular in pre-pubescent years, the majority of gains made from training are neurological.  These results often occur very quickly.  Very often we will have an athlete on their first day display a very weak squat pattern (knees caved in, bent way over, no depth control, weight shifting on to toes,) and within a few workouts is much improved.

​Goal #2: Develop fundamental movement patterns.
 
Going off the last point, we want to develop the full body, compound movement patterns that make up the majority of weight lifting and athletics.  Each of these start with a baseline pattern which progresses into the more traditional big lifts we all know.  For example, we don’t want to throw a 12 year old into bench pressing until they can perform a good push up.  Here’s a few examples of progressions in movement patterns that we use in most starters.

Goal #3: Learn to develop tension and joint stability.
 
One missing factor that most young athletes have when starting in learning these movement patterns is developing tension.  When descending into a squat or hinge pattern, one must have tension in the abs, lats, and hamstrings.  Without this support, once cannot sustain load in these movements.
 
Goal #4:  Deceleration and landing mechanics.
 
While every athlete wants to get fast, with our beginners, it is imperative to learn how to safely bring the body back to a stable position.  Most injuries in athletics are actually the result of a fast, uncontrolled muscle contraction or change of direction.  Training at high speed without learning how to properly slowdown is like flying on a plane without knowing how to land.
 
Similarly, we want to learn properly landing mechanics for when our feet leave the ground.  Our training programs include lots of jumping volume for power development.  Before we start knocking out 40+ inch box jumps, we must learn how to land on our feet in safe position.  Free falling and landing on the toes with the knees caved in is a recipe for disaster and transfers to poor mechanics in sprint technique.
 
Other goals:
 
#4 Develop work ethic!!
 
#5 UNDERSTAND GYM SAFTEY AND ETIQUETTE.  
​

LESS IMPORTANT GOALS WHEN STARTING WITH YOUNG ATHLETES
 
#1:  Aerobic and Endurance work.
 
Work capacity is of course very important for any human. However, from our experience, this is an area where our young athletes get plenty of work with outside of the gym. We want to use our limited time we have with our clients on their WEAKNESSES, which are more times than not, movement quality, strength, power, and stability.
 
#2:  Stretching and flexibility
 
Seeing poor movement in a young athlete can often be misrepresented and a lack of mobility issue.  Nine times out of ten, the issue is actually HYPERMOBILITY.  See our post on the impact of strength and stability on mobility.
 
https://www.cantonbarbell.com/blog/mobility-vs-flexibility-and-why-strength-not-stretching-may-be-what-you-need
​

It happens far too often. A coach see’s his team looking gassed, or “out of shape” later in the game on Friday night, and proceeds to run the team into the ground the next week at practice.  Unfortunately, this became the old school accepted way to fix the problem, when in reality, it is likely to wear the team down and make the problem worse.  The truth is, if your team isn’t conditioned by week one, it is probably too late to make any drastic changes.  There is however, a way to keep the team fast and efficient, and that is in season weight training.  Programming for in season of course must be done correctly to benefit the athlete and not wear them down.  Let’s look at some effective methods and concepts to maximize your training programs.
 

1. CONCENTRIC ONLY lifts:  Most exercises are composed of two main muscle contractions; the concentric and eccentric phase.  The concentric phase is the shortening of the muscle fiber which would be the lifting of a dumbbell during a bicep curl. The eccentric phase is the lengthening of the muscle fiber which would be the elbow extending and dumbbell lowering portion of a bicep curl.  Most muscle soreness and breakdown actually occurs at the eccentric phase.  By eliminating the eccentric phase of a lift, we can maintain or even gain strength while simultaneously minimizing muscle soreness. Later on, we will go over my top examples of concentric only lifts.

 

1. Compensatory Acceleration Training:  or CAT training, popularized by the late Fred Hatfield involves moving submaximal weight (75-80%) as fast as possible.  For example, if one’s bench press max is 300 pounds, and we put 225(75%) on the bar, the bar should be pressed not with 226 pounds of force, but with as much force as possible, thus moving the bar as fast a possible.  This method allows us to load the body with less load while still producing high amounts of force.  Let’s look at what force is to understand this.      Force= MASS X ACCELERATION (F=MA).                                                                 Force is the product of mass(bar weight) and acceleration(bar speed.)  Although we have reduced the weight on the bar, by increasing the speed of the bar, we have kept the net force production high.

 

1. Limit Compression Volume:  Exercises such as back loaded squats are compressive exercises which mean they cause vertical compressive force on the spinal segments.  While this is not inherently bad, the amount of compressive volume should be drastically reduced during a time when athletes are beating each other up at practice and games all week.  While we still will use a few sets of squat and deadlift, it’s important to find exercises that are spine friendly.  For example, a back extension or Reverse Hyper would be a better choice in season then a heavy barbell loaded RDL.  The same muscle groups are being targeted with much less loading.                                        Another great way to limit spine compression is unilateral or single leg loading.  Compare a barbell back squat to a back loaded lunge or split squat.  With the unilateral versions, we will reach the intensities we want with much less weight on the bar as ones estimated one rep max will be much more on a squat compared to a lunge.

 

1. Focus on the BACK SIDE of the body: This includes the hamstrings, glutes, low back, mid back, upper back, rear delts, and traps.  There are several reasons that we should focus on the posterior chain. One- these muscles are just chronically weak in humans.  Two- these muscles, while not what you see in an Instagram selfie, are where we get speed and performance from.  Three- the start of football season is also the start of the school year where student athletes sit in a desk for near 6 hours per day.  All the posterior chain is relaxed and unused all day and thus must be maintained in training.  Four- Weakness in these muscles are common culprits in common injuries.

 
 
With these concepts in mind, let’s start to create a program that meets these standards.  A good template I like for In season training is 2 days per week, no more than 30 minutes.  Let’s look at an example template and break it down
 
Day One
 

1. Concentric Only Trap Bar Deadlift, reps performed as FAST as possible

2-3 warm up sets, working to 75-80%
Working sets 3x3@75-80%

1. One Arm Dumbbell Rows

3x10 reps /side

1. Single Leg Glute Bridge(3 seconds pause at top)

3x10/side

1. Cool down breathing/foam rolling

 
 
 
 
Day Two
 

1. Concentric Only Bench Press from pins, reps performed as fast as possible

2-3 warm up sets, working to 75-80%
Working sets 3x3@75-80%

1. Lat Pulldown

3x10-15 

1. Seated Banded Leg Curl

3x30-40 reps

1. Cool down Breathing/Foam Rolling

 
 
In this template, we have combined concepts #1 and #2, using concentric only lifts performed as fast as possible.  We have made sure to target muscles of the glutes, hamstrings, lats, and back.  Cool down breathing and foam rolling is a good way to bring our nervous system back to a relaxed state and kick start neuromuscular recovery.  
 
A video is included showing the execution of the three big lifts in a concentric only, fast fashion.
NOTE** safety is always first, when performing concentric only deadlift, dropping the bar is involved. First, make sure you are using bumper(rubber) plates.  Second, and most important, check your surrounding and make sure nobody is standing nearby where you are about to drop a heavy bar.
 
I hope this article is helpful for athletes and would love to get it shared with coaches.  If you enjoyed this, share this with someone you know who coaches athletes!

1.) Accommodating resistance to overload the human strength curve.  Physics tells us that when lever lengths increase, torque power increases.  As one moves through the concentric(the lifting portion) of the movement, we gain mechanical advantage.  Simply put, the movement gets easier as you progress though the lift. Using the bench press example, the lift is easier from half way up to the lockout then it is from the very bottom.  Using chains can help to overload this strength curve.  At the bottom of the lift, most of the chain links are on the floor.  As the bar is lifted, the links come one by one off the ground, and thus the weight is increased throughout the lift.   

2.) Decelerating the bar for dynamic effort work. Dynamic effort work involves using lighter weight while moving the bar as fast as possible.  This method is beneficial for improving explosiveness or de-loading the body while still working at high intensity.  The chains are great in stopping the bar in a controlled manner at the top.  Using just bar and plate resistance, the bar can be out of control at the top when one explodes through the movement.  Using chains in this method gives a great incentive to actually accelerate through the entire movement while stopping the bar at the top sine the weight is much heavier at the end.   
 
3.)Instability and Oscillating Kinetic energy implementation. A common issue amongst trainees is a lack of joint stability.  In order to train heavy under a bar, you need to have control over your entire kinetic chain. Hanging weights from the bar can create an incentive to brace and create tension within the surrounding muscles of a joint to maintain control of the movement.  This works extremely well for core stability in the squat and shoulder/scapular stability in the bench press.
 
4.)Creating more joint friendly exercises by de-loading strenuous joint positions. One of the best things you can do in your training is to ensure the longevity of it and keep yourself injury free.  Chains can play a major role in accomplishing this.  Our joints are in the most stretched and stressed positions in the bottom of the lift.  By using chains, we can make the resistance less in these positions while overloading the lift in more joint friendly positions.  Let’s look at the bench press as an example.  Shoulder issues are very common the in the bench press.  As you lower the bar to your chest, the GH(shoulder joint, undergoes a great deal of external rotation.  Many can experience pain in this bottom position.  If we take 60 pounds of chains on the bar, we can make the bar much lighter at the bottom position, but keep the weight heavy towards the top.
 
 
5.)Strengthening lock out positions.  Some lifters experience weakness in their lockout positions including locking the elbows in the bench or locking the hips and knees in a squat or deadlift.  Because the chains cause the bar to get heavier throughout the lift, the lifter needs to work that much harder to lock the bar out. This is a great way to push past plateaus in training. ​

The idea of personalized training has becoming somewhat overrated.  There are things just simply work and things that don’t.  That doesn’t mean that the concept doesn’t still hold merit.  What we want to avoid is blindly prescribing different random exercises simply because they are different than what the next guy is doing. Personalized training programs are less about specific exercise selection and more about the broad concepts they entail.  Let’s view the pieces and parts of making a program truly “individualized” 
 
Frequency and Duration
Frequency, referring to how many days per week one trains, and duration, referring to how long each training sessions lasts are dependent on several factors, and will affect how the entire program is designed.  The most obvious factor effecting frequency is a person’s schedule throughout the week. Very busy people may only have 2-3 days available for training, while others may have 5-7 days available.  A person with an availability 2-3 days per week would be more likely to have a full body split template where as a person with 5-7 days per week may have more of an isolated split.  
 
Another factor that effects determines ones duration and frequency is a trainees experience and motivation level. If I’m writing a program for a novice lifter who seems luke warm about starting a routine, I’m not going to start them on a 5 day per week program.   This is a good way to set them up to get frustrated and overwhelmed. 
 
Goal based intensity/volume
Once we have a “skeleton” for the program, now we need to determine what goal we are pursuing.  The goal will decide the degree of intensity and volume.  Strength based athletes will have a more intense program with higher weights and less volume, whereas those with physique goals with want to implement higher amount of volume for muscle growth.
Experience level will also determine intensity and volume. Novice lifters will of course start with less of both volume and intensity, and slowly add both as one progresses.  

Specificity vs Variety based on goal.
Specificity of a training program refers to how closely the training mimics what a trainees goal is. Those with physique based goals will have low levels of specificity since the ultimate goal is how they look and not based much on performance.  Those training for some type of event will have higher levels of specificity. Typically, the training more closely mimics the end goal as the contest/event approaches.  An example of an athlete that would need to adhere to specificity closely would be powerlifters, as the standard bench press, squat, and deadlift are what they are required to perform.
 
Training Experience/Capability
Here is where exercise selection starts to come in.  Before we can plug in specific exercises, we need to see how an individual can perform a basic movement pattern.  We’ll view the squat as an example.  Here is an image of our standard progression for the squat.

​At the beginning of a program, we will start an individual at the top of this flow chart.  Some trainees may quickly display that they are able to perform a barbell back squat while others my need to master the goblet squat before progressing to any barbell work.  Therefore, there may be two different trainees at different levels with the same template.  Here is an example.
 
Template
1A) Squat Variation
 
1B) Vertical Pull Variation
 
2A) Horizontal Press Variation
 
2B) Horizontal Pull/row variation
 
 
Person A(Football Player)                                           Person B(General Pop Health Client)
1A) Barbell Back Squat 3x3@90%                            1A) Dumbbell Goblet Squat 3x12    
 
1B) Chin Up  3x4-6                                                       1B) Lat Pulldown 3x10-15
 
2A) Bench Press 3x3 @ 90%                                      2A) Push-Up Variation 3xmax
 
2B) Inverted Ring Rows   3x5-10                               2B) Chest Supported Rows 3x10-15
 
As you can see, these two trainees follow the exact same template, with an exercise selection that fits their capability and goals.  The template can be followed because movement patterns that make up a program are mostly universal. They are fundamental human movement patterns that benefit EVERYONE.