Don’t Make This More Difficult Than It Needs To Be (12/13/2023)

I was having a conversation with a jiu jitsu partner last week because they discovered I coach and own a gym.

This training partner was asking me so many questions that it once again reinforced, as an industry, we have made fitness and nutrition far more complicated than it needs to be.

Their questions included:

“What do you think about protein?”

“What do you think about HIIT training?”

“Why do you work with kettlebells?”

“How many days a week do you train to be strong, every day of the week?”

“I hurt my knee and had surgery a year ago and they have me doing box jumps. What do you think about box jumps?”

Today’s newsletter is as short as I could make it.

Here’s a list of 10 things to consider if you’re training for life, or for sport, or as a weekend warrior.

1. Protein – when deciding what to eat, build your meals around protein. This doesn’t matter if you’re a meat-eater, pescatarian or vegan, make protein your priority. You will feel fuller for longer and repair the broken down tissue used during training.

2. Hydrate – you’re likely not drinking enough. A general recommendation is to drink half your body weight in ounces daily. Too overwhelming? Drink an extra 8 ounces a couple of days this week than you did last week and build from there. An easy time to drink extra water is within 30 minutes of waking up. When you pee it should look slightly yellow to clear, not dark yellow.

3. Sleep – everyone needs sleep and it’s the most important supplement available. Some people need 5-6 hours and others need 8-9 hours a night. If you’re not sleeping well, you’re not recovering or performing your best. Poor sleep leads to poor habits. Sleep is a foundational habit stacking component.

4. Strength Training – 2-4 times a week for most adults is sufficient. You’re going to feel stuck if you’re inconsistently exercising 1-2 times a week. You’ll patiently push progress in your favor with consistent exercise 2-4 times a week, 30-60 minutes per session based on your goals and timeline.

5. Understand RPE – Rate of Perceived Exertion, is a self-measurement tool we use frequently, especially in our Bars & Bells program. If your RPE target is 7, think of that as 7 out of 10 effort leaving 3 technically sound reps in reserve. Maybe you can imagine how many times we see people not push themselves to the appropriate RPE because it’s “hard.” They think they’re at a 7 but they’re actually at a 5 or 50% effort/strain. Those same people wonder why they’re not making progress. There’s the other side who constantly push until there are zero reps in the tank and they also wonder why they’re not making progress. The goal training today at a targeted RPE is that you can come back and repeat it in a day or two.

6. Less is More – the more we develop our programming the more we cut back on the amount of exercises per programmed session. Some programs have as few as two strength exercises for the entire session and other programs will have as many as seven exercises going through as many movement patterns as possible. If you’re doing more than 8-10 movements per session, consider how all of those exercises are helping you progress to your goal and if you’re developing any mastery.

7. Warm Up – the older we get, the more we need to warm up as this becomes a more important part of our training session. In our 20s we could roll into the gym and train. Once you hit your 30s, 40s, and 50s you must take more time warming up your body. Work your joints through various ranges of motion, get your heart rate up, sweat a little and feel prepared for what’s in your program. 

8. Breathing – start every training session with a breathing drill to transition your nervous systems from sympathetic (fight and flight) to parasympathetic (rest and digest). Full nasal inhale with a full mouth exhale. This will help your body relax going into targeted soft tissue work, your warm up and allow you to focus on pulling air into critical parts of your body. The better we are able to breathe, expand / compress and utilize oxygen, the better we will perform.

9. Don’t rush kettlebell skills – a great coach has learning systems for kettlebell skills in place to help you make progress safely. The kettlebell ballistics are a lot like a golf swing. The swing, clean and snatch take tens of thousands of reps and years of practice before they start to feel like they “click.” If you’re looking at the person next to you snatching a kettlebell explosively with ease and you can’t swing a kettlebell with  two arms with the same technique every rep, you need to continue practicing swinging a kettlebell with two arms. On this same concept, some people with only ever roll to their elbow in the Get Up, while others will progress to full Get Ups with impressive weight. Everyone is build differently with bodies that have health histories and “experiences.”

10. Walk out of the gym feeling better than you arrived – do you really need a reason behind this one? The gym is a resource to help make you better, not beat you down. Be able to go home and play with your kids or dogs at the end of every day.