Strong in Cumbria

28/09/2021

25/08/2021

Beginner, novice, intermediate and advanced refers to the stimulus you need to adapt. You may have been going to the gym for many years but if your training is crap, you can't perform movements correctly, and you aren't making progress, you are still a beginner.

If you had 1 year of experience in the gym and you couldn't squat anywhere near PL depth, hip hinge correctly or perform compounds with any sort of efficacy and efficiency then I would still actually consider you a beginner. In my opinion, you would be a novice once we can get you to the point you are able to perform the main movements by yourself (self-efficacy) and we are able to progress you from there.

But even those who are already strong in the big three may still incorporate some novice progression schemes in their programming.
For example, if you start a new movement such as OHP or farmers walks for the first time. You are a novice in those movements despite being late intermediate - advanced in the big 3 SBD. Granted because you already have a base of muscle and strength you may find the novice progression scheme doesn't work for as long as you would like.

At the end of the day, if you have a coach they should be tracking how you respond to difference stimulus, the training choices and programming schemes should be chosen based on how YOU respond, not based on trying to tick some ideal box on how you SHOULD be responding to training.
After a while they should have plenty of training data on you to make your training individualised to You!

If you need help with that then feel free to get in touch!

11/08/2021

There are many universal cues that coaches use to help a lifter achieve better technique or position. But not all cues are meant for everyone and sometimes can be counterproductive. Which cues work best for you?

Reposted from -shealy

03/08/2021

Some of my trainees after reading 4x8 on squats... you know who you are 😉

Also me after reading 4x8 on squats 😅

30/07/2021

yes ofcourse, sometimes life just happens, work shifts and life stress can influence how your feeling on the day, your technique may be off, but that's another post for another day. (Hint: RPE may help)

Feel free to let me know what you think!

28/07/2021

Cancer, mortality, and squats

Do physical strength and muscle mass influence outcomes from a cancer diagnosis?

The answer is “Yes,” although there are still complexities requiring additional research.

Dr. Austin Baraki () penned an article examining this topic. He dives into a research paper written in 2018 and summarizes several key findings.

Here is a taste:

•••

🦉 Among patients with cancer, sarcopenia (low levels of skeletal muscle mass) is prevalent at all stages of disease. It is a strong independent predictor of both cancer-related and all-cause mortality. It independently increases the risk of treatment complications and is associated with cancer-related fatigue, pain, and lowered quality of life.

🦉 In a study of a nationally representative sample of 2,773 adults, scoring in the top quarter of the study group for knee extensor (quadriceps) strength was associated with an approximately 50% risk reduction for cancer-specific mortality after controlling for variables that could influence the results of the analysis. These data suggested that approximately 20% of deaths due to cancer were attributable to not being in the top quarter for knee extension strength.

🦉 In contrast, simply engaging in muscle-strengthening activities was not associated with significant reduction in cancer-specific mortality. In other words, it appears that it is not enough to simply exercise, but rather that in order to enjoy maximal risk reduction, one must actually get strong.

•••

The article is an excellent read and it is linked in our bio.

Share it with someone that might benefit too.
Reposted from

20/06/2021

I have received an influx of messages recently ranging between 0 and 1 DMs (one being from my own personal account) asking, “if you don’t care too much about back rounding, knee cave and other technical flaws, then why coach it?”
First of all that’s not actually true, it’s just the purpose of why I don’t care is mischaracterised allow me to explain.

Why are we even training? Is it to build muscle? Get stronger? Get better at a specific sport like powerlifting? no matter what your goal is, you need to think, is the technique I am using on the exercises I have chosen benefiting the main goal the most? What I mean by this is simple. If you’re squatting to build your legs, but your squat back angle is the same as your deadlift back angle (taco/good morning squat) and you’re cueing yourself to “HIP DRIVE, HIPS HIPS” and you find that your lower back is more pumped up than your legs, then the way you are lifting is not giving you the training effect you want. In this instance you will need to adjust your technique to allow your quads
to do more work and have a more vertical back angle. (How vertical depends on the individual’s anatomy).

Other examples include: Feeling your biceps more than your lats in the Lat pulldown; feeling your shoulders more than your triceps in a triceps pushdown and if you feel your quads more than your hamstrings in the deadlift then theirs a good chance your sumo deadlifting and that’s… that’s just not cool and will have negative life outcomes such as loss of friends and reputation atrophy.

The reason I coach technique is for that very reason, I want them to get better. If someone is rounding in excess during deadlifts, I rarely use words such as “you’ll get injured” or “that’s
dangerous” as I don’t believe fearmongering and teaching people, they should be hyper vigilant about certain exercises does anyone any good. But if I don’t think a specific way of lifting is suitable for the trainee’s goal then I think it's fair to help.

14/06/2021

We commonly get suggested to have a Deload or a “week off” (which isn’t a Deload) once training gets hard and we find that performance drops a little bit. While this suggestion is not unfounded and not too unreasonable. I often see a lack of psychological consideration of the trainees mindset. Allow me to elaborate.

I rarely plan a deload out many weeks in advance, the reason for this is because if someone is very motivated to train hard, I will not let that motivation go to waste at home. So, I will always avoid rules such as “you should Deload every 6 weeks” it's a complete arbitrary rule and in the situation, I just described, it will do more harm than good and if the motivated lifter does Deload it may not have the desired effect we are looking for.

Instead, a Deload should be a reactive change in programming that occurs by working with the athlete to establish when they need one as every individual is different and factors such as motivation, adherence and life stress cannot be perfectly accounted for when a Deload is prescribed ahead of time (commonly 4 weeks ahead of time). So instead, we should work with the lifter and the use of a Deload should be reactive to when they need one.

However, keep in mind a Deload is not just a week off, they will go to the gym, but just do a lot less. The term a “lot less” is vague, rightfully so. As there are many strategies that can be used during a Deload week, what you use depends on context and aims of their training. But a week off, while not technically a Deload, it can be especially helpful if adherence and motivation is falling low, it may help the lifter come back to the gym with a resurgence of energy. Don't fear time away from the gym and don't base the timing of a deload on completely arbitrary rules.

04/06/2021

A deadlift I found in a video appropriately titled "Worst deadlift form ever recorded". Form like this is actually more common than you would believe. Especially if you visit many gyms. People guilty of this form tend to always film from the front so it would be hard to catch on camera.

Would this form be allowed in strongman?

I'm all for advocating not nit picking small degrees of flexion, especially under maximal loads... but c'mon. What does this actually train?

For training remind yourself what's the purpose of the movement you are training and is the form your displaying gonna assist with that? In this video we see more work being done by using the femurs as a ramp opposed to using the quads to push the bar off the ground, back muscles to stabilise the back and using the hips to lock the deadlift out.

In a beginners mind it's all about weight, and I can't blame anyone for falling in love with adding weight to the bar, but this type of lifting is not sustainable and it must be understood that the ancient chinese method of lifting correctly will make you stronger. It will address any neglected muscles (all of them in this case) and ensure you are on the path of Perfect Practice which will lead to side effects such as aesthetically pleasing lifts, more attention from the desired s*x and you will accidentally win Mr Olympia due to all that unwanted muscle you will get from lifting heavy 🤦‍♂️

Anyways in summary this form is perfect and you should all strive to be this athletically gifted 💪🏋️‍♂️. Train hard, lift heavy and practice perfectly.

03/06/2021

Squat Deeper.

Squatting lower will ensure you are putting your legs through a full range of motion and getting the intended benefits (hypertrophic and athletically) of the movement, Here I’ll note a few things for you to work on.

Make sure you’re pushing your knees far forward; this tends to be a problem for people who are moving from low bar to High bar for the first time. Due to less forward lean being needed in high bar we must ensure we push the knees forward to allow room for our hips to hit depth. This issue also may be a symptom of tight ankles and you simply aren’t able to push your knees further forward, in this case I would suggest a squat shoe to help right now and add some calf stretches to aid in long term development.

Don’t fear forward lean. This one is often in cahoots with the previous issue. This especially applies to low bar, long femur lifters. When lifting for the first time we see lifters over emphasise the importance of staying vertical by fighting to keep that chest up and afraid to have any amount of bend at the waist. This will lead to the lifter performing what we see all too often, a quarter squat. The remedy is simple, bend over more. Film from the side and ensure the legs are still moving forward and the bar is over midfoot. If you can maintain midfoot pressure, can see your knees go slightly past the toes (just a general rule) and have the bar over midfoot then all will be okay no matter if the squat has a lot of lean or little of it.

Learn to do it bodyweight. If you can’t even do a bodyweight squat, then there is a small process we need to go through to get you comfortable doing it. Step 1 is gradual exposure; I want you to try squatting as low as you can while holding onto something in front of you. Step 2 is slowly removing that obstacle, step 3 is to try is the deep squat stretch, a picture paints a thousand words so please look at the image on the next slide. Courtesy of Rachel Lakowsky of Athletico.com. Once we have developed some body awareness, we will start adding resistance with goblet then barbel squats.

More on this soon!