Nik Squats 120Kg x 10 slowed to three quarter speed

Recently I was in the gym when my colleague Nik started his Barbell Back Squat warm-up set of 120Kg (265 pounds) x 10 reps.

Nik was kind enough to let me film his movement, and I've slowed it to three quarter speed in the video below.I wanted to add a brief Blog to the video just to highlight a couple of things that can be observed:

1. Unrestricted movement at the knees - yes they can safely travel in front of the toes as outlined in this previous Blog.
2. A wall ball is placed behind Nik to provide feedback on his depth. Nik uses the ball to help remind him of depth late in the sets when he gets tired - one less thing to think about. The wall ball is soft so it also allows contact without the jarring that we might see if we used a hard plyo box.
3. Speaking of depth - what we see in the video is squatting to a very functional depth - deep enough to really test the glutes, quads, calf mobility and postural strength.
4. Nik's spinal posture is (at least in my opinion) amazing to the depth he is squatting. Not a butt wink to be seen - and this should be our goal when squatting to any depth - a rigid neutral spine is your best protection from injury. Keeping that strong neutral spine is more important than squatting lower with poor posture.

One last thing - no weights belt... No worries!

Brazil creates epic guidelines for healthy eating

In Australia, despite the obesity epidemic our Government can't even agree on simple rules for food labels because powerful food industry groups seem to control the rules. 

The food industry does things like donating large sums of money to political parties to ensure they get a seat at the table when our healthy eating guidelines are drawn up. Did you know the food & beverage industry donates about the same amount of money as the mining industry?

The Fast Food industry was locked out.

Recently I became very interested in eating guidelines out of Brazil - you can view a full summary of the ten guidelines here, but what really spiked my interest was that these guidelines were designed by food, nutrition & health experts whilst the food industry (and commercial interests) were deliberately locked out of the room.

This is big news, and I've never heard of it happening anywhere else in the world. The guidelines contained the usual great advice to eat fresh foods, reduce fats, salt and sugars... 

But what I was really impressed with was a number of eating guidelines we have never seen before from a government body, several of them aimed at the social and emotional aspect of eating. Two great examples included:

#5 - Eat in company whenever possible.
#6 - Develop, practice, share & enjoy your skills in food preparation and cooking.

Do you enjoy preparing food?

It's really interesting to see people being encouraged to enjoy the process of cooking and sharing real food, instead of being told simply what to eat (or what not to eat). 

I think these guidelines might help people eat less fast food on the fly, less rushed eating, less gulping of soda, and more planning of healthy foods. All of these things are likely to reduce consumption of empty calories and promote healthier, happier eating.

Of course, commercial interests (like the fast food lobby) do not want you to stay at home and enjoy preparing fresh whole foods with your loved ones... They want you in the drive-through ordering a burger with large fries & a massive Coca Cola to wash it all down.

Another two eating guidelines from Brazil that I have never seen before:
#9 - Avoid fast food chains.
#10 - Be critical of the commercial advertisement of food products.

Probably two of the best eating guidelines I've ever seen, but sadly we will never see guidelines like this in Australia as long as the food industry gets a seat at the table when guidelines like these are designed. 

If you like my Blog, feel free to visit my Facebook page. I use it purely to distribute meaningful information and I'll never try to sell you anything or spam you with crud.


Image acknowledgements from Flickr Creative Commons: 
https://www.flickr.com/photos/snekse/2501155494 
https://www.flickr.com/photos/esotericsean/2186109381

Squats - Should my knees stay behind my toes?

Once upon a time (during 1961 in fact) there was a study conducted on 128 weight lifters which found that squatting "deep below parallel" (i.e. hips well below knee height) produced "loose knees" because it stretched the ligaments in the knee. As a result many people in the fitness/coaching industry reacted to the study by adopting a shallow squat. 

The idea that our knees should stay behind the line of our toes while squatting was born. This simple coaching cue was broadly adopted in the fitness / coaching arena as it helped prevent clients from deep squatting by keeping the movement fairly shallow. It does not appear that "keep the knees behind the toes" was ever actually stated by Klein as a finding of his study. So why do so many PT's & coaches adopt this approach to squatting? 

Fast forward to 2014, the Klein study is now 53 years old and it's probably a good idea to compare and contrast it against some contemporary research on the subject... So let's have a quick browse across at least the last ten years to see if this "knees behind the toes" thing still holds up.

Now... before I dig into contemporary research, I actually found this brief but very well constructed review of the book written by Klein & Allman - it contains several quotes taken directly from the book and I was surprised to learn that on p. 30 Klein states that: "The depth of the squat position should be controlled, with the thighs just breaking the parallel position (Figure 7)."

This is important to note - Klein himself said that the safe depth of a squat allows the thighs to be "just breaking" parallel to the floor... This would place the hips just below knee height at the bottom of the squat movement. 

Thighs just breaking parallel - perfectly acceptable by Klein.

This is big news because if you were to squat to a depth allowing the thighs to "just break" parallel as suggested by Klein - the hips will be slightly below the knees, and you will not be in a shallow squat position.

This position is illustrated by one of my students in the image to the right. The thighs are just breaking parallel, the hips are just below knee height. Perfectly acceptable based on the Klein study from 1961... and if you look at the knees in this position they appear slightly in front of the line of the toes without any excessive forward lean at the trunk. Looks OK to me.

In terms of contemporary research on the knee angle specifically, the ultimate study into knee position is this 2003 study which specifically tested the "knees behind the toes" approach and did a full bio-mechanical breakdown of how it changes/impacts the squat compared to unrestricted movement at the knees. 

That 2003 study tells us that when the knees move in front of the toes, there is an increase in the forces/loading on the knee joint by about 28%. But the article also goes on to state that by restricting the knees to stay behind the toes "The restricted squat also increased forward lean, which was shown to increase lumbar shear forces". Interestingly, the increase in lumbar loading with the knees behind the toes was around 1000% higher than when the knees were allowed to pass in front of the toes.

So you can reduce the forces on the knee by around 30% if you keep the knee behind the toes, but those forces then shift up onto the lumbar spine and actually we get a much bigger increase in forces (around 10x the loading) at the lumbar spine. Is that safe?

Note the image B (from the 2003 study) shows the client has increased forward lean of the trunk when the knees are kept behind the line of the toes. 

The NSCA has also adopted a fairly open approach to squatting technique. They cite this 2007 article which supports all the findings from the 2003 study, and clearly states that "Research indicates that the optimal squat technique is... unrestricted movement at the knees". So the biggest strength & conditioning association in the USA is happy for your knees to pass over the line of your toes during a squat movement.

Other articles which support the notion of deep squatting and unrestricted movement of the knee joint include this one on the biomechanics of deep squatting, you can also watch this video of a presentation free online which walks you through the squat in good detail (50 minutes) and you can actually download the powerpoints from that presentation here.

The bottom line: During 21 years of industry experience and my review of the literature on this topic, I can't find anything to support the idea that knee movement should be restricted in clients that have healthy / normal joint function. 

If you enjoy my Blog, please follow my Facebook page I use it purely to distribute meaningful information and I'll never try to sell you anything or spam you with crud.
Links to references and further reading:
http://startingstrength.com/articles/squat_klein_suggs.pdf

http://www.uspla.org/sites/default/files/downloads/ncsa_articles/Optimizing_Squat_Technique.1.pdf

http://www.lookgreatnaked.com/articles/the_biomechanics_of_squat_depth.pdf

http://www.nsca.com/uploadedFiles/NSCA/Inactive_Content/Program_Books/PTC_2013_Program_Book/Schoenfeld%20PF.pdf

http://www.nsca.com/Pages/ContentRightNav.aspx?pageid=2147491558&terms=squat*

http://www.luciano.si/images/blog015_raziskava.pdf

http://www.luciano.si/blog/po-ep-po-krivem-obsojen-poln-neresnic-in-prepogosto-zapostavljen.php

Get Ripped - Intermediate Metabolic Training

In a previous Blog entry I gave an example of how you might use 'Metabolic Resistance Training' with a beginner using exercises that might be suitable for the skill level and training age of your client.

Today I'm going to continue this theme, and provide a video showing how you might design a metabolic workout for an intermediate client in the gym so we can really fire up the calorie burning and maximise EPOC. I personally think this type of training is ideal for a time efficient but effective workout. It's probably best used as part of a "split" program - this workout targets primarily the upper back  so an intermediate client might train like this using 3-4 different sessions per week, covering all the major muscle groups over a one week cycle.

In my previous Blog entry I also provided some broad guidelines that you could download for how you might use Metabolic training with clients at different training ages. The workout in my video clip might be suitable for a client who has been training regularly for 6-12 months, and has achieved a reasonable level of overall strength & fitness.

 The video illustrates a possible approach for intermediate clients, but a few important guidelines include:

1. No rest between exercises - at the end of a set, have a timed rest of around 1-2 minutes before repeating.

2. Stick primarily to compound movements, this workout contains 4 x compound upper back movements and one isolation exercise.

3. Intermediate trainers are ready for the introduction of more challenging exercises. Note the full body pull-ups here - you could use a powerband to modify the pull-up if required.

4. You should not feel fully recovered before beginning the next set. This type of training is designed to achieve high levels of fatigue at force you to failure.

I hope you take some ideas away from the video, happy training!

If you enjoy my Blog, please follow my Facebook page I use it purely to distribute meaningful information and I'll never try to sell you anything or spam you with crud.

Acknowledgement to Vubui on Flickr for the pics I have used in this Blog entry. You can see his pics at http://www.flickr.com/photos/vubui/

Get Ripped - Metabolic Resistance Training

'Metabolic Training' is one of the new buzz phrases in fitness. In a previous blog entry I outlined the type of exercise that we can do to maximise calorie burn for fat loss, not only during workouts but also maximising afterburn (EPOC) following a workout. This week I'm getting more specific and providing a sample workout (and video) to show what could be done with a beginner client.


Basically, metabolic resistance training is performing a number of resistance training exercises with little or no rest in between - it's very similar to a "circuit" style workout. It's a very intense way to train, and also very time efficient - workouts tend to be shorter because most of the rest periods are eliminated. We are trying to achieve a very high level of fatigue so we can maximise calorie burn during the workout and metabolic rate (afterburn) following the workout.

Metabolic training is for advanced clients, right? Sure, the principles of metabolic training are ideal for challenging advanced clients and reaching new heights (or depths) of fatigue using higher intensities and less rest. But like most things in the gym we can take the basic principles and modify them for the beginner client. In my experience most clients want to be challenged and they want to feel like they are being progressed to more "advanced" exercise, plus clients generally love the euphoric feeling of completing a really tough workout. The tricky part is handling your clients with enough care and using your professional judgement to get what I call the "Goldilocks" workout - not too hard, not too easy... but just right.

So... Metabolic training is all about resistance training? No. You can achieve excellent metabolic stimulus from doing the right type of cardio, especially from High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). But for today I'm only outlining a metabolic resistance training workout suitable for a beginner.

Metabolic Resistance Training - The Guidelines:

1. Use multiple resistance training exercises - for beginners I recommend 4-5 exercises in the set.
2. Complete your 4-5 exercises in a "circuit" style workout - i.e. no rest in between each exercise. When you have completed one complete set, have a restricted (timed) rest before repeating.
3. Use primarily large muscle groups, compound movements. For beginners, you might modify this by using 2-3 compound movements and 1-2 isolation exercises during the working set.

Check out my basic guidelines for progressing metabolic resistance training workouts here or click on the link below this screenshot.

Click here to view the full downloadable version

So... What does a metabolic resistance training workout for a beginner look like? Click on the video below to view a simple metabolic training set suitable for a beginner. It is intended to target primarily chest and shoulders, it combines four exercises that are suited to the client's level of skill and fitness level.

Training in this way is extremely time efficient, it allows the client to achieve a level of fatigue (i.e. overload) using 12-15 minutes of exercise that would take much longer doing a traditional resistance training program. For the personal trainer, this frees up time for some cardio or perhaps core conditioning but still able to have a short, sharp 30-40 minute session with a client rather than a longer one hour session.

If you enjoy my Blog, please follow my Facebook page I use it purely to distribute meaningful information and I'll never try to sell you anything or spam you with crud.

Calorie Afterburn - What is EPOC?

How many calories do we burn after (rather than during) a workout? The afterburn effect is called EPOC (Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption) and the name alone confuses people - what the hell has oxygen consumption got to do with calorie burning? Well... Those nerdy guys in labs measure calorie expenditure by measuring oxygen consumption. They will hook you up to some breathing apparatus and if you had an elevated metabolism (e.g. after a workout) you would be consuming more oxygen than if you had a lower metabolism (e.g. after 9 hrs sleep).

There is lots of scientific information and research available on this topic, I'll link you to a few things that you might like to check out but generally I'm going to try and cut through the science and summarise it all for you.

Lower intensity exercise gives minimal afterburn: Most research shows that low-moderate intensity exercise has a minimal afterburn effect, and you need to work at around 70% of your maximal effort (as a minimum) to generate a decent afterburn. In fact EPOC doesn't really take hold until you are training at 85%-100% of your maximal effort.
To be clear - low intensity exercise (e.g. walking) is still beneficial, and is worth keeping in your weekly training regime. You can't train at 85%-100% every day, so lower intensity exercise is important to keep you active and has some health benefits.
In terms of calorie burning, one hour of brisk walking might burn around 350 Cal and would have very little afterburn effect. So walking is useful for staying active & burning some calories, but isn't intense enough to fire up a big EPOC response. Even moderate exercise like continuous jogging is found to deliver minimal afterburn.

Resistance exercise works, but... Lifting weights gives a strong afterburn effect if you follow these simple rules:
1. Big muscle groups, compound movements... Bicep curls and other isolation exercises are out!
2. You must work to failure, or at least very close to failure.
3. Minimal rest times between exercises, and between sets. In fact a circuit style workout with no rest between exercises will probably give the greatest afterburn effect.

An investigation into afterburn following resistance training also showed that the majority of afterburn calories were in fact coming from fat burning. The study showed that fat burning was 75%-105% higher than normal resting levels.
I highly recommend dynamic/plyometric exercises to get maximum muscle recruitment and fatigue. For this reason I like kettle bell swings, box jumps, jumping lunge, sprints, stair running, power cleans etc. although for beginners perhaps stick to compound free-weight exercises.

When doing cardio, stick to intervals. Most studies indicate that High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) gives a stronger afterburn effect than traditional running or cycling.
The mistake most people make here is not working hard enough during the intervals. HIIT training should be incredibly hard, it makes you feel sick, you want to give up, it hurts. This is where the PT earns their money because very few clients would have the motivation to do intervals on their own and thus they could never achieve great fitness and/or fat loss results on their own.
HIIT should involve a 30sec-2min gut-busting (near maximal) effort, followed by a low intensity "recovery" period (traditionally this is called 'Fartlek'). Beginners should start with short efforts. It's also important to set the right work:rest ratio for clients, beginners will work at around 1:3 whilst more advanced trainers will work at 1:1 or perhaps even harder. Beginners might start with only two or three intervals, but gradually build up to an advanced volume of around ten intervals. HIIT can be done on a treadmill, bike, rower or at the local park so it's easy to mix it up for variety.

How big is the EPOC effect? Each study is slightly different and reports different results. One recent study conducted on men in a metabolic chamber (so it should be very accurate) shows that participants burned 519 Cal during a high intensity 45 minute cycling workout. Following the workout, on average metabolic rates stayed elevated for 14hrs, giving an afterburn of 190 Cal above normal resting levels.
These numbers are significant, remembering that you have to walk briskly for one hour to burn about 350 Cal. Compare that to the high intensity cycling workout - 519 Cal plus a bonus afterburn of 190 Cal, you get a total benefit of 709 Cal from just 45 mins of exercise - more than double the one hour walk.

Another study focussing on resistance training in women showed that metabolic rate was elevated by 13% above resting levels for three hours following a high intensity workout, and was still 4% above resting levels 16 hours after the workout.
Just think about how an extra 100-200 Cal from afterburn will add up if you train clients like this three times per week over a 3-6 month period.

So... How does it work? For those interested in the science of how this works, I recommend you read this article which gives a nice overview of the mechanisms behind EPOC.
In a nutshell, training at very high intensities causes a massive metabolic and cellular disruption to our body. It freaks out our systems, muscles and cells. In particular the hormonal response from HIIT and intense resistance training sparks a stronger afterburn effect - studies appear to indicate higher release of epinephrine, norepinephrine and growth hormone (all fat burning hormones) which gives fat burning a real kick-along following an intense workout.

If you enjoy my Blog, please follow my Facebook page I use it purely to distribute meaningful information and I'll never try to sell you anything or spam you with crud.

Should my Clients be Eating Carbs?

It's no surprise that people constantly ask questions about carbohydrate based foods, even qualified professionals who have studied nutrition are sometimes unsure about carbs.

This week's blog is going to focus on simple advice on carbs for clients wanting fat loss. Of course, any client of mine will be exercising so we need to make sure we give sensible advice to fuel exercise & not just try and starve our clients by cutting out every food that contains calories.

OK so first a disclaimer: I'm not a nutritionist and Personal Trainers should not be giving detailed dietary plans to clients. Send them to a dietician or nutritionist for that sort of support - I just want to help you give some common sense advice to clients, nothing more & nothing less.

Energy for Exercise: Before we jump into talking about foods, a quick lesson about how muscles primarily burn carbs for energy during exercise... When you eat carbs, it gets taken into the blood as glucose and then stored in the muscles as "muscle glycogen". Muscle glycogen is an essential fuel for exercise, whether the exercise is aerobic or anaerobic.
Your body can convert proteins to glycogen, but because your body relies on protein to rebuild muscle tissue after a workout you might then run short of what you need to rebuild the body. Converting protein to glycogen also stresses the kidneys because they have to work harder to eliminate some nasty by-products from the process.
So... It makes sense to eat at least some carbs (we can argue about how much another day) to keep glycogen stored in the muscles and fuel our workouts.

Good carbs, bad carbs... Evil carbs... I'm going to provide a list of carbs that I would personally recommend all clients avoid, as well as a list of carbs that I would strongly recommend to clients.
Essentially, anything that has been highly processed is on the banned list. I'll explain what this means and give you plenty of examples because I think this causes confusion sometimes - which foods are the processed ones?

Processed carbs will make you fat: Here is a pic of your typical grain. Once it gets mulched up by a big machine it loses most of it's bran & is turned into a fluffy breakfast cereal like 'Puffed Wheat' it has about 2g of fibre in one bowl. In an unprocessed breakfast cereal like 'Wheat Bran' we get over 26g of fibre -12 times more!
So why is Puffed Wheat evil? Well there are many reasons - firstly, fibre in has been proven to reduce the risk of digestive diseases and improve digestive health. Secondly, the unprocessed Wheat Bran actually requires you to chew. Chewing makes the meal take longer, slows down your eating and allows your body to recognise when it feels full sooner rather than just gulp down too much gluggy crap. So, you end up eating less. Thirdly (and probably most importantly) the highly processed Puffed Wheat gets digested & absorbed way faster than the unprocessed bran. It floods your blood with a massive glucose spike, which leads to a big glucose crash and you will be starving hungry within an hour or so. The glucose spike also causes a massive insulin spike & this increases your risk of type 2 diabetes but that's a topic for another blog.

Unprocessed carbs are pure joy for fat loss: In my previous blog I provided a link to a research paper citing 101 scientific studies indicating that eating whole grains helps prevent a whole range of potential diseases & ill health. It's pretty clear that Puffed Wheat doesn't contain a whole grain and this is where it gets difficult for clients to identify healthy carbs - it says "wheat" on the packet right? And the TV advertisement tells me I will be transformed into an Iron Man so I reckon it's gotta be good... Right?

Yeah, right. There are only two ways you can identify a good carb - well actually three because I'll link you to my own list of good carbs and evil carbs that you can use but it's not going to cover every food at the local supermarket so you will have to either:

1. Learn to read food labels and look for (primarily) fibre content. Compare labels and brands to learn which breads or cereals are lower, and which are higher. If it's higher in fibre it usually contains more whole grains - unless of course it's that fibre enriched white bread (avoid!).
2. Simply eyeball the foods. In breakfast cereals or breads, if it is whole grain you will see the grains. One example is Muesli - check out the whole grains in the bag! Of course you still need to read the label because some Muesli's are high in fat, so for calorie control you will want to choose a brand with less fat.

But what if I eat too many unprocessed carbs??? Let me be clear - overeating is bad for fat loss no matter what the food. However, if you eliminate processed carbs & adopt an "unprocessed only" approach, it is difficult to overeat.
This is because of the chewing factor (already mentioned), and also the fact that unprocessed carbs are usually very low on the GI (Wheat Bran is 30) compared to processed versions (Puffed Wheat is 80). Unprocessed foods take much longer (I'm talking hours) to digest so you aren't going to be hungry for quite some time after eating.
Healthy eating guidelines suggest at least three serves per day, so that's what I'm going to recommend. Just remember to choose good carbs, not no carbs.

So, check out my list of evil carbs which should be on the "avoid" list for anyone wanting fat loss, plus a bunch of replacement foods that you could recommend to clients. There are lots of carbs (good and evil) that are not on my list, you will need to make your own mind up about them.

Download the full list here

If you enjoy my Blog, please follow my Facebook page I use it purely to distribute meaningful information and I'll never try to sell you anything or spam you with crud.