John Greaves III's Blog, page 11

Gravity is a Constant; Why Did You Change?

Gravity Is A Constant

Gravity is a constant. If you don’t believe me, Google the words “gravitational constant” and admire the plethora of results. So why is the bar so much heavier today than it was last week?

It’s not. Something about you has changed. If you’re a good garage gym rat, you kept notes of how you felt so go back and look at how you felt during that session.  This is not a waste of time.

You Are Not A Constant

Were you more well rested?
More motivated or more aggressive when you addressed the bar?
Is your technique off today?
Have you lost weight? It doesn’t take much to change your leverages in certain lifts.
Do you have some soreness that you didn’t address before training?
Did you fuel yourself properly (food and water)
Did you use pre-workout stimulants then but not today? Have you been using preworkout stimulants for so long that the effect is wearing off?
Did you train to a certain song but today all is quiet in the house except you and the mouse?
If you train off of percentages of your 1 rep max, did you set that max in a belt and sleeves/wraps but today you’re training no – no – no style (no belt, no wraps, no spotters like Ivan Chakarov.)

Gravity Is A Constant, Everything Else is Negotiable

Don’t dismiss how you feel, just understand why you feel differently today than yesterday and adjust as necessary. Today might just be a day to train the mental aspect of fitness and suck it up, attacking the programmed weight like a savage.  Or it might be time to change another variable and either go down or up slightly. Either would make you feel better and make for a better session. Maybe you can’t handle 7×3 at the same weight but you could handle a wave load of six sets where you do roughly the same amount of work but because the load on the bar fluctuates, your body is tricked into thinking it’s an easy.

Or maybe you should just do singles up to a heavy set and call it.

Your house, your rules. Just remember, gravity is a constant but the rest of the world changes all of the time. Adapt or perish.

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Enter the Viking Cave with Erik Røen

Norwegian powerlifter Erik Røen has been on my radar since I first saw him training in his shed bundled up against the cold and deadlifting like a madman. I immediately started calling his gym the Viking Cave. We caught up through a combination of Facebook Messenger, emails and Instagram DMs and I was excited to talk to him to find out more about how he’s following his dream to be among the strongest in the world!

Erik it’s great to talk with you! Tell me, how long have you been training and competing in powerlifting?

It all started with a dream to be a powerlifter and become among the strongest in the world.  Four years ago I became a member of the Norwegian powerlifting federation. In July 2013 I went to my first meet, I weighed 106 kg/233lbs and squatted 165kg/363.8lbs , benched 100kg/220.5lbs and deadlifted 190 kg/418.9lbs, a 455 kg/1003lb total across all three lifts. Today I’m at 134 kg/295.4lbs bodyweight and almost at an 800kg/1763.7lbs total! Things are moving forward.

Let’s talk about what I call your Viking cave. What did you start with in there and why did you choose to train at home instead of joining a powerlifting club?

Where I live is far from a gym so I started with what I had and that was one bar and some plates that I got for Christmas.

Your gym is in a shed isn’t it? I still remember the first time I saw it with the snow outside and I put #vikingcave in the caption when I reposted the video! Why did you locate it in the shed?

The only space available to set up a “gym” at my home was in an old shed/garage.  The temperatures can easily get below -20 C in the weather where I live at almost 700 meters above sea level.

As a top level athlete, you have different training needs than someone who is just in a sport for recreation. How has this affected the type of equipment that you put in your gym?

As time went by I got a few more bars and plates thanks to GYM2000AS who sponsored them to me. I added a platform for my deadlift and a power cage for my squats.

photo taken by: Stian HJalvmetern Jensen
What are your best numbers in the gym and in competition?

My best meet results so far are 292.5kg in squat, bench is 182.5kg and deadlift is 318kg. My best raw deadlift in training is 330 kg. My best equipped deadlift in training is 350 kg.

How many championships have you won?

In 2013 I won my first sub junior national championship. In 2016 I won my first national junior championship in +120 and this year I won it again. Last year I competed at the Nordic Equipped championship and became Nordic Equipped/Classic champion in +120. Last year I also competed at the European Classic Cup Open and got third Place. This year I competed at the European Classic Powerlifting Championship and came in third. On the 20th of June this year I go to Belarus to compete at the World Classic Powerlifting Championship. And it all started with a dream that everyone told me was impossible. I will continue to dream and get stronger!

Have you ever thought about competing in strongman?

I have never done strongman competitions and my main focus is on doing well at IPF powerlifting.

You had a very inspiring video where you did lunges through waist deep snow with a training partner. Do you do that for mental toughness and how often do you do that sort of thing?

My closest neighbor is The Mountain. So to get extra training for my powerlifting I became creative and started carrying my bar and plates up The Mountain. It helped me to use all those muscles I normally don’t use. It helped with my balance and definitely with my cardio! Even if I am 134 kg in body weight I believe in staying healthy and doing some cardio. The heart is also an important muscle! I even tried to carry my bar up Norway’s highest mountain! Ha ha!

I think I saw that and put it in the video that goes with this article.

No, the video you posted is of my backyard ha ha! I will send you the picture of Galdhøpiggen.

I can picture you up on a high mountain in a cave just lifting weights all winter then coming down in summer and smashing records! So does your sister still train with
I even tried to climb Galdhøpiggen, Norway’s highest mountain once!
you?

Yes, my sister got motivated and started to train with me. She started at 14 years old! This year she did her first Norwegian record in squat for sub-junior! She is also motivated to get stronger and compete in the years to come.

What advice would you give to someone looking to start their own gym, especially if they live in a climate where it might be cold most of the year?

To start a gym like mine isn’t something that I recommend. In winter there are no breaks between sets. Even if I wear extra clothes I need to be moving around because my body loses temperature very fast. In winter my training basically maintains the strength I already have. In summer is where I get my gains and temperature allow muscles to grow. I dress warmly but I find that I can’t dress to thick because it’s difficult to do the exercises.

I think I have a solution to your heating problem. It’s a cold weather survival tactic. You need two large sheets of plastic. Hang them both at your door but leave a small space between them. Put a fire source, a barrel with fire in it would work, between the plastic sheets. This will warm your shed up a lot!

I have tried to close my gym up with some plastic in front to stop the wind. The door on that old shed was broken long before i started using it. I have tried a heater but it doesn’t help much because the garage is in bad shape. The cold is back in November and I will let you know if this works.

Is there anything you did when you started training that you would change if you could go back and do it differently?

If I went back in time to change something about my training it would be to get help on technique. It was really terrible and it’s amazing I survived! It’s painful to watch my old videos!

Do you have any sponsors?

In Norway, there are few sponsors in powerlifting. Its not like some other sports where people can make living of doing it.

Where can people follow your training or ask your advice?

If someone wants to follow my journey they can do so at my instagram: erik_roen or my Facebook: erikrøen. (you can also check out Erik’s powerlifting journey in this inspiring documentary on Vimeo. ed.)

Related articles

How to create the perfect home gym
You: Roy Holte vs Norwegian Powerlifting Federation | Powerlifting Watch

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Old and Roll!

The Legend of Old and Roll
Dave Atkins is a guy dipped in the fountain of youth! He seems to get in better shape as he gets older; constantly improving in his passion of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and fearlessly attacking activities with his young son that most forty year olds would never dare.  Find out how this Dadbod gets and stays in shape with his garage gym.
Dave, how did you get started with training at home?

Around the same time I started Jiu-jitsu, about eight years ago, I quit training at a commercial gym due to fees, opening times and to have more time with my family.

What did you have in your first home gym?

A chin and dip bar.

That’s pretty bare bones but it obviously worked! Many of the old time strongmen were also grapplers, like Martin “Farmer” Burns, the Great Gama and Frank Gotch. They didn’t have a lot of equipment so they created a number of the exercises that functional fitness coaches are “discovering” today.  Have you done any research into the training of old school grapplers?

I sure have John. And know what they had all in common? No magic pills or potion just outstanding work ethic, consistency and discipline.

Gave them great results too! Farmer Burns had a 20 inch neck at around 160lbs they said he was impossible to choke out! In fact, he used to make money in carnival side shows by doing a six foot hangman’s drop where he put a noose on his neck and let them pull the lever to drop him six feet! He was familiar with Jiu-jitsu and defeated Japan’s Matsada Sora Kichi in four minutes.

I do try doing some of the exercises of the old time grapplers/strongmen but I just love researching the ‘Net about their training routines and nutrition. For example, Gama, his body weight training he did day in and day out was bloody impressive!

A lot of old school martial artists, prefer body weight only training over lifting weights. How does your training support your grappling and how do you avoid common bodybuilder errors like letting your biceps get too big to be effective at grappling?

I had a serious back injury about two years ago and was told I would be never able to lift and grapple. I was devastated! I very slowly strengthened my body and back through strength training. I’m a massive believer in strength training in sport/martial arts! Not for the purpose of getting big muscles but more for protecting the body against injuries.

Tell me about your back injury. What happened?

My job for many years was a Brickie ( Aussie slang for a bricklayer) which was a very labor intensive job and I worked at the airport as  a baggage handler lifting many bags a day. Had a few issues with my back in my early years but thought nothing of it. Lifting ego weights with terrible form.

I have been there as well my friend. You feel invincible when you’re young!

Fast forward many years later I was training for a Jiu-jitsu comp doing judo and fell awkwardly. I felt pins and needles down my leg, again shrugged it off and thought it’ll be all right. Next day I was in a bit of pain but just had a couple of pain killers and away we go. By the weekend I was shot and in pain, my wife said, “That’s it! I’m taking you to the doctors!”

How did that go?

Went to a back specialist and he looked at results and I explained my work history, past sport and what I currently do with grappling and lifting. He plainly said, “You won’t ever be doing that again!”

He was obviously wrong so what did you do to recover?

Weeks later still in massive pain, not being able to help with family duties, work and training I fell into a pretty dark place something that I’ve never experienced before, not good especially for my young family. So I started asking questions with my training mates who were physios and rehab specialists and I started my own six month plan.

First month

Clean up diet I know for a back pain/injury? That’s strange but I felt better!

Second month

Every morning I did a series of stretches and by the third or fourth week I stretched morning and night with core work and started walking on weekends.

Third month

After talking with a rehab specialist I started introducing kettlebell exercises (swing, snatch, goblet squat etc twice a week along with the stretching and core work.

Are you certified in any of the kettlebell courses or did you just learn by trial and error?

No, just trial and error. But I am a certified personal trainer and part of my studies was kettlebell training. But I’m no expert.

Fourth month

I felt so much better and happier I decided to go to Jiu-jitsu. My wife was furious!

Ha! You’re lucky to be alive!

Ha ha yeah, any of you married men know that’s not good! Ha ha! So went to Jiu-jitsu, took it easy and felt good. I was so happy and started going once a week.

Fifth month

I introduced two strength training days one horizontal push/pull one vertical push/pull. Started just with the bar and just made small improvements each training session. No ego lifting!

You still train that way to this day. Push, pull, squat and core, farmer carries for distance, rope climbs and rolls. I  know that you said that you were ego lifting before your injury but were you doing the same sort of split?

No, I was training your typical bodybuilding program one body part once or twice a week. But as I progressed and started getting serious about Jiu-jitsu that type of training wasn’t practicable due to recovery as Jiu-jitsu is so demanding on the body and time.

Sixth month

Kept all the things I was doing the previous months but added a second Jiu-jitsu session. From then on just listened to my body.

Apparently your body is telling you to shock the Internet!  You’ve managed three sets of three reps in standing  ab wheel rollouts, upper body only rope climbs AFTER Jiu-jitsu and most impressive; skateboarded on your son’s skateboard at age 40 without dying!  Do you have a list of bucket list feats to accomplish or do you just see stuff and wonder if you could do it?

Ha ha! Yep that skateboard! My wife thought I was going to break my neck! Hahaha so did I! Anyway, yeah, I pretty much see things and wonder if I can do them.

I see you do a lot of Jiu-jitsu related exercises in your training like dragon flags, gi pullups and rolls.

Yeah this type of training is unreal, especially for us older athletes. So yeah I roll and crawl before and after every Jiu-jitsu session (5-6 a week) I’ve been doing this for a solid 6 months and really noticed in my mobility, balance, body conditioning and body awareness. When I first started rolling and crawling I was sooooooo sore and said to myself this is no good but stuck to it and I’m glad I did. A mobile body is an ageless body! Hahaha

Rolling and crawling is growing in popularity thanks to the work of people like Dan John and the guys from Original Strength. Do you program your own training or does your Maestre program these for you?

Yeah, I do all my own training programming.

Is it difficult to switch gears and release control over the pace of the class and how long class in general is going to run versus your training sessions at home that you largely control?

Both are so different but so similar if that makes sense. I’ve been doing both for a fair while and don’t find it difficult to switch gears from training sessions at home to Jiu-jitsu classes.

How do you balance the mindset needed to prepare for a solo strength and conditioning session versus a class where you’re going to roll with multiple opponents?

Yeah, good question! When I think about it, I do go into both practices with different mindsets. For example, strength training that’s my time and I have a set routine I want to complete. Whereas in Jiu-jitsu I’m there to learn and also I have a senior role to help and mentor newbies with their Jiu-jitsu which I really enjoy.

>Aside from the farmer carries and rolling do you have to do cardio or is Jiu-jitsu enough to keep you as lean as you are?

Jiu-jitsu is so demanding on the joints and muscles! I do less joint demanding cardio so I jump on my spin cycle and do intervals and also bodyweight circuits. But to keep lean, and thank you for that John, is and I know this is a training site but NUTRITION. Nutrition is the key to performance and body composition.

This is a LEARNING SITE so no topic that improves us is off limits! Tell me about your nutrition. What do you do differently now as a Masters athlete that you didn’t before?

What I have found that works for me is that each meal contain protein, carbs and fats. Especially as I’ve gotten older, each one of these macronutrients plays a very important role in recovery. I keep it simple like my training: eat more to gain size, eat less to lean up.

Australia has some restrictions on supplements that we don’t have in the United States. Do you take vitamins and supplements or are you just a whole foods guy?
I do take protein powder, creatine, glutamine, bcaa, greens and tumeric powder, multi, vitamin C, D, a joint tablet, magnesium and Udo’s Oil.
Do you stick to the same diet and training phases year round or change it to reflect different goals and to keep from being that guy when you go to family functions?

One thing I am is very consistent with my training and nutrition but by no means do I make this a burden when it comes to family functions or having a good time! In the true Aussie way I love having a beer and a barbecue and family time is very precious to me.

I see you training your son in the gym and living room at your house. Do you introduce him to lifting on purpose or did you just allow him to play in the gym with you and let him discover it organically?

Yep! Totally naturally. Kobi is such a little boy! He just loves running, jumping, wrestling, pretending to be a super hero, ha ha! He doesn’t stop.

What advice would you give to someone setting up their home gym for the first time?

Start with the basics, barbells, dumbbells and kettlebells, as the basics always works.

What is on your wish list for new garage gym equipment?

A concept II rower or a airdyne bike or a legpress/hacksquat machine

If money were no object, would you rather have a fully equipped garage gym or go to an unlimited amount of seminars on lifting/nutrition for a year?

Wow! That’s hard but I think lifting/nutrition seminars absolutely love and fascinated in nutrition.

How can someone get in touch with you or follow your training?

You can catch me on Instagram @oldandroll

Do you have anyone you’d like to thank?

Yeah, first and foremost my family, Loz and Kobi, for always supporting my obsession training/lifting/jiujitsu. My coaches, mentors and training partners. And you John for welcoming me into this amazing community of garage/home athletes. Like I’ve said DIFFERENT WORLDS ONE COMMUNITY. Cheers mate!

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The sheStrength App and a Sisterhood of Steel !

Why a sheStrength app?

Why a sheStrength app?Well, it’s an easy sell if you want female focused training in an easy to use app that comes with a supportive online community! Check out the sheStrength Sisterhood of Steel that our good friend Anna Woods is building rep by rep!

Anna, when we first spoke last year , you told me that sheStrength is your unique combination of Beachbody and Crossfit programming in a way that’s designed to empower women. Fast forward to now and  you stepped it up a notch with a sheStrength app! Tell me about what led to creating the app.

So for a good year, I ran test groups and I would email people the workouts that I had designed and I would make quick YouTube clips to send them to explain what to do. Word started getting around because people wanted to be able to lift at home with dumbbells, my mom’s age group didn’t have programs— she’s a physical therapy assistant so she and I worked together to on a lot of functional fitness, and it fit in with my special needs and wheelchair clients— so we kind of created this program that was functional for all abilities and could be modified but was strength focused. That developed into adding mindset training because in my experience the majority of my clients that did not continue with me could not get the mindset part right. They were focused no weight loss only, frustrated when they didn’t lose weight right away, didn’t understand the time and how strength training works, and didn’t have confidence in themselves. Unfortunately, most of the women that I work with come in very not confident in themselves. I used a lot of Brene Brown, her TEDTalks and I created this seven day mindset training that we call sheThinks. It became a lot of work, trying to keep up with emails, I had more response than I thought of people wanting to do it and I just couldn’t keep up. Talking with some of the people in the industry about how mobile is the way everything’s going, you hear about how Amazon has passed Walmart—and so they were why don’t you just take the plunge and make an app?

Tell me about the sheStrength app and how it works.

Basically you get two fifteen week templates: sheMASTERS for women 50 plus who just want to lift safely in their home and sheSTRENGTH BASE, you get a five week template and at the end of those five weeks you get another template that builds on the one before and that continues for fifteen weeks. But to get access to any of those you have to complete the seven day sheTHINKS.

Why did you choose to create your own app rather than just plugging into one of the other popular workout apps like Wodify?

I actually approached all of those and some of them couldn’t accommodate the mindset portion. Also you could only post so many workouts ahead of time and my main focus with this app was leveraging my time. I’m a mom; my main focus was my family. Like I have set coaching hours in my online group, they know when I’m going to be in there coaching and watching their videos, so I run it like a business like I would at a gym. I just had some things that I wanted that none of those places could accommodate. I know one of them said, “Man! You’re really onto something, this would really be something that we should really look into but they couldn’t accommodate it any time soon and I was ready to roll!

Market Response

How long has it been since you launched the sheStrength app?

I looked into it and at the time it was way out of my budget and I wasn’t that sold on the concept yet. My program continued to grow— I’d prayed a lot about it and felt that God kept pushing me towards this app so I approached the app guys again; and they were running some promos because they wanted to get fitness people in there so he offered me the deal for half of what he originally quoted me if I would work with them. So for a good four or five months we worked on getting it perfected and then we launched in mid-May.

sheTHINKS is the seven day entry requirement to join sheSTRENGTH

What’s been the response from users?

I don’t know if I had a predetermined expectation— those that were in the test group had to re purchase the app once I launched it and some of them moved on to other things, but right now I think I have forty.

Okay, that’s pretty good! Because there’s a technology component, it’s not like these are kids. Most of them are as you said, mature adults. So they’re not necessarily going to be like, “Oh great! Let’s use an app!”

Yeah, and I do have on the app where you can print off the sheets of the workout.

It’s funny but what we think of as being old fashioned, using email for example, I’m like that’s not old fashioned! When we were growing up email didn’t exist! But it’s just what people’s perceptions are of what’s easy to use.

And some people, once they watch the videos are like, “I don’t need the videos anymore!” So there’s an option to just pull up the workouts each time and you can print those worksheets off. Because some people don’t want to have to look at their phone and I encourage that because there’s a tracker sheet to track your weights and everything.

Extra Goodies

Does the sheStrength app come with access to private Facebook groups or members only YouTube content?

Everyone who’s a part of it we coach through an online community which is through Facebook right now. They get meal plans, we have a Paleo plan, we have different calorie bracket plans. At least once a month, I bring in guest speakers who speak in my Facebook group and we’ve had holistic nutritionists, dieticians, a paleo dietician, we’ve had a CrossFit Games veteran, Masters athletes, we’ve had a lot of life coaching, integrated leadership, mindset training, counselors, psychologists, kind of trying to cover all different aspects of wellness for women. The only requirement is that they post videos of their lifts, especially when they first start out and I coach them on the movement. Show them where to make some changes, how to adjust, maybe a better modification— so it’s very much like training, just virtually.

I know you’re giving feedback through video coaching but because the physical education level of many adults in America is fairly low, they haven’t educated their muscles, some muscles are asleep and they don’t know how to activate them, a lot of times you have to do a kinesthetic thing so what’s the workaround for the fact that you can’t just touch somebody and say, “Right where I’m touching you should feel this?”

I guess a lot of consistent cueing. I’ll ask people a lot of questions like, “Right now where are you feeling this? If you’re sore today, where are you sore?” It’s more of an interview process. I also have women in their who are skilled in coaching and have weightlifting certs—you know how it is I can give someone a cue a thousand times and someone else says one thing differently and that’s what they needed to hear. So I have other people in there who are helping me with that. The lifts aren’t super advanced to where they’re maxing out; a lot of it is core control, learning how to brace, learning how to breathe, lateral movement.

We do mini challenges in there, like right now we’re running a virtual 5k next week that we’ve all been training for. We’ve done nutritional challenges, mindset challenges but I’ve had a few requests to get in some more of a powerlifting focus. I’m working on next quarter’s template so it might include more of that, we’ll see.

Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself

Is there a way in the sheStrength templates for you to adjust their planned numbers week to week based on performance?

We have an energy scale on there that they keep track of, “How did you feel today? What were your energy levels?” that they can record in there too and self-assess. That’s my main thing. Like you said, most people are really unaware of their bodies and how they feel and move. That’s one of the first things that I talk about. You tell me. How did you feel? How did you move? Because most of the mindset for people is, “I might not feel good today, I’m tired but if I don’t do it, I’ve failed!” And that’s not it at all! That’s the beauty of lifting and adjusting your nutrition, it’s not all or nothing. We can adjust and put today’s workout off until tomorrow, it’s not a major ordeal—

Oh definitely! Especially since you’re at home!

Yeah, but they don’t know how to do that! That’s what I’m learning; they think you’ve failed if you don’t do it as is. And that leads them into believing that they’re not going to get the results and that leads again into the mindset training that I have to really address before I do anything else. And I try to make the environment of our group really conducive to that; so they feel that they can open up if they have questions that may be embarrassing or that they wouldn’t say out loud to somebody.

Like a sisterhood. I get it.

And I have all ages in there so the older women mentor the younger ones.

Remembering Sisterhood of Steel by Christy Marx officially solidifies my nerd status

I’m a nerd honestly; I’m really into comics— there was a comic book series years ago, the Sisterhood of Steel by Christy Marx and what you said just reminded me of that.

Oh nice!

Do you have reciprocal agreements with local coaches to give in person coaching or do you pass on seminar info to your members who might need hands on attention even after the cueing?

I do that a lot. I actually live really close to Glenn Pendlay and so I’ve referred a lot of my gals who have, “graduated” out of my programming to train with him a few times and a couple of them have gotten powerlifting coaches in the area and I have no problem with that; and that’s part of why I get to know people because I’ll just tell them straight up, “I don’t think this program is for you,” for whatever reason. I’m usually pretty honest.

Old to the New

You’ve already made some updates to the app; what are some differences someone might see in the updated version versus what you put out first?

screenshot of the Android version of the sheStrength app

You can get the five day free challenge, for people that want to try it out; I have a five day free trial that they can do five days and get some lunch meal plans, .if you message me and ask me for it or want info on it. What I was running into was that all of these people loaded it and were doing the five day challenge and I had no way of knowing who was using it. I needed to collect info somehow. The guy that builds it put an email responder on it that collects your email and then I send you an email with your login.

Does the free trial give access to everything that paid members get or is it like a demo on PS4, just enough to whet your appetite?

They don’t get access to the online community or anything, but it just gives them a taste of what some of the workouts are like that they might be doing. Because all of them are doable with dumbbells or bands and a mat at home; a lot of my gals have progressed to buying their own barbells and have moved to their garages—

Oh there you go!

Yeah, it’s kind of fun to get pictures of look at my new barbell or we bought a bench at a garage sale or something like that! It’s fun to watch the process of them falling in love with being strong and being able to do it at home.

Say I’m a Woman; How Can I Be Down?

Say someone tries the five day sheStrength challenge and is sold on day two, how do they upgrade to the becoming a paid member?

There’s a tab in the app or you can go on shestrength.com. You click which program you want and it takes you through the PayPal checkout. And then I will send you the follow up information for all of that. I email the login, the waiver, all of the liability stuff, we go through an interview process to make sure there’s no pre-existing conditions I need to know about.

Bright Future

What are the plans for the future of sheStrength as a whole?

I kind of have endless possibilities with this. At some point, I would love to have an adaptive fitness program for caretakers who take care of people with special needs— the programs that I do with my special needs clients— that a mom at home or a caretaker at home could take her client through. I work with several corporate wellness companies here in town and I would really like to offer an option for that. Possibly some retreats, for some reason people want to work out in my barn all of the time. Ha ha!

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Street Parking with Miranda Oldroyd

Miranda Oldroyd retired from CrossFit competition in 2015 but her love for writing programs didn’t go away. She and Julian Alcaraz are not only expecting their first child but they just birthed a vibrant community of fitness junkies who are passionate about training wherever life finds them at the moment. #streetparking has 19, 347 Instagram posts. Their private Facebook group has 540 members and the private Instagram feed has 907 followers. Add another 50 subscribers on YouTube. Even with overlap that’s a lot of people for something that just began in January of 2017! Check out how they’re bringing scalable functional fitness to the masses with Street Parking!

 The Birth of Street Parking

Miranda first of all congratulations on the baby!

Oh thank you!

You love training but honestly having a full time job plus being pregnant is enough for most people! Tell me what it was about this opportunity that made you say it’s worth putting the time into it at this stage of my life?

I was talking about it with a friend and we actually launched Street Parking the day before we found out I was pregnant! Like you said, both of us come from a competitive CrossFit background. My very first CrossFit Games was in 2008 before it was even a thing to do. You just signed up and did it there were no qualifiers or anything like that! I was a personal trainer before I did CrossFit; working as a trainer in bigger gyms, Julian grew up wrestling in high school and then moved to L.A. and he was running boot camps in his backyard before he knew CrossFit. So it was something we were both passionate about before we became competitive athletes you could say. Nowadays, if you’re trying to compete, it’s a full time job. Those guys train like an NFL player would— it’s all day! Which is fun and great I got injured in 2015 so I was feeling— I was 32 at the time— I can’t continue training like an athlete forever because at some point you need to have a real, adult plan.

Well, everyone retires from their sport eventually—

Yeah, but when I started working full time and he started growing his business, he has a small company— They do paleo meals here in the Southern California area, we found that we ended up working out at his house a lot. Or we were traveling for my job. And what we noticed is on our personal Instagram pages, when we would post a workout with just a set of dumbbells in a random hotel gym or something that was in his garage that was just very little equipment that the response that we got from that was way bigger than anything that we could post from being a competitor. So we were like this is what people want to see! So we started posting more stuff like that on our personal pages. I used to own CrossFit 801, it was the first CrossFit gym in Salt Lake City and I had been programming through CrossFit Linchpin for other affiliates, I would write their monthly programming and what I started to see is there are so many programs for people who want to compete in CrossFit or functional fitness but all of it requires that you have a gym full of equipment and a bunch of time on your hands. And that really turns people off because they’re like, “I don’t have enough time”. We wanted to provide that for people so we were like we should start a program where people can actually track it and instead of just random workouts here and there; we’ll actually program a workout of the day. What we wanted to provide is a really affordable option for people which at $19 a month this is.

The Unlimited Plan Option is $19.99 per month unless you’re a service member in which case it’s $15.00. Does that discount cover first responders like police, fire and paramedics?

Yeah it’s police, fire, military. We didn’t realize that it was going to be as big as it is. Our goal was to have 100 members in the first month. It was more like this is a hole that we see; we’re posting workouts anyway so we might as well make it a little bit more official. And we built that community where people are talking to each other and asking each other’s advice and sharing those sorts of things because that’s what makes it fun. Because it can be lonely as you know yourself know.

CrossFit has embraced the garage gym and brought it more mainstream in a way that grip sport, powerlifting and strongman never did. Is that why you chose the name Street Parking?

Yeah, we picked the name Street Parking because if you have a garage full of equipment then where do you park?

Is Street Parking Right for You?

One thing I love about the athletes I see following your programming is the diversity in ages and workout situations. You’ve got people working out in garages, parks, living rooms and of course the street but is there such a thing as a typical Street Parking member?

It’s people who have a passion for fitness; they want to maintain a high level of fitness but they’re just busy. Whether busy means they work out at home or they travel a lot or maybe they— we do have members who still go to a regular gym but maybe they have an hour and they don’t have time to always hit a specific class time or whatever.

 

 

I saw that you had Street Parking members compete in the Open. Granted the Open is an option for anyone who does CrossFit but could an athlete realistically go from intermediate to competitive in the Open with your programming or would you advise them to find a box somewhere to get in person coaching and feedback?

It’s definitely not for someone who’s trying to compete at a high level in anything necessarily. If I had somebody sign up for Street Parking and they were planning on using that solely to compete in CrossFit, I would advise them that they needed to add some other stuff. You’re going to get really fit and you might be able to do well in the Open, that’s a one workout a day thing but at some point you’re going to have to do more than that!

The previous question was more about goals; this one is more about athletic background. Your site says, “Street Parking is great for the busy athlete, the garage gym athlete, for a conventional gym, or to be used as a supplement to a higher volume training regimen!”

We have a lot of followers that have never stepped foot inside of a CrossFit gym and have never had any desire to do a CrossFit style workout. They just in their brain think it’s a good workout; I’m in a hurry and I’ve got to do something so we try not to pigeonhole it too much into that. It’s more of general fitness that you can do at your house.

How It Works

Our message is do the daily workouts if you’re just looking to stay generally fit and look good and have a good time.

Program A

This person may not even have a garage. This person is in their apartment or is stuck in a hotel room a lot of times. The only equipment that’s required to do 90% of the workouts is one to two sets of dumbbells and a jump rope. There are workouts that don’t require dumbbells and the jump rope, bodyweight stuff. Every once in a while there will be a medicine ball and we’ll still program box jumps for those people. If they don’t have something they can jump on, we tell them to jump over something to get a similar stimulus.

Program B

This person has a barbell and plates; they might have a plyo box and something to do pullups on. They also have a kettlebell and a jump rope but they don’t have a rack, they don’t have a bike or a rower. That’s usually the version of the workout that I create first and then I’ll build the Program A version scaled down from that.

Program C

This person has a rack and rings. They have a bike or a rower or maybe both. They have a bar, plates, kettlebells, they have everything like the beautiful pictures that you post on Instagram of these amazing garage gyms. We want to cater to that person too; we don’t want to just program only for the dumbbells because there are people like Julian— he’s training to compete in a month at Regionals and he does 90% of his training at our house but he has to be on the rower sometimes, he has to be on the rings.

We program the following once a week on a Sunday. They’re not meant to all be done on Sunday and they’re not something that we make people feel they need to do at all.

Street Parking Oly

If you want more work on the Olympic lifts.

Street Parking Power

This is always going to be some version of deadlift, press, bench press, back squat. You know powerlifting types of lifts. It’s not super fancy like what I’m sure powerlifters do. We’ll put some accessory work in there sometimes.

Butts and Guts

This is there because people always want their abs and their butts looking good. And this is probably the workout that people do the most; they love it and they think that this is what’s going to change their bodies. I know and you know that they might be better off doing the Power workout but it’s fun so we have it there for people to do it.

Endurance

There’s a version of this for running, rowing or bike.

Can you unpack how that works on a weekly basis?

Let me give you an example. Todays’ workout, the Program B version has running, lunges and weighted situps. The Program C version isn’t more advanced it’s just if you would prefer to use your rower or your bike instead of running that’s the way you’re going to do it and here’s the distances for that. Or if you can’t run, you’re on the third story of your apartment building in New York and to go downstairs and run 200 meters is pointless, then here’s a way you can do the workout without having to run. So one isn’t more advanced than the other it’s just different.

Taking equipment out of the picture do you have options for beginners, intermediates and advanced athletes?

That’s kind of how the daily demo videos come in. Every day we put the variations and stuff, like this is generally how long this workout should take you. If you do something that’s five rounds and it’s supposed to take you fifteen minutes and your first round takes you four minutes then cut the reps or lower your weight. Or these are the ways to do it properly for where your level is. We try to show pull ups for example, I mean especially when you look at women, most women in the general public aren’t doing pullups with no assistance in a workout. So we show this is how you can scale to a jumping pullup or this is how you would use a band. The thing that’s helped us with that is both of us have trained in a gym with beginners for so long that we know a lot of tricks and things to help people feel more comfortable. We do try to give as much information as we can like when you’re choosing your weights, this is how many you should be able to do in a row before you have to break. We prescribe a weight to give people an idea but we give them a guideline always. We say, that might mean that you’re doing this with an empty bar and that’s totally fine.

Say I’ve been doing Program C plus Power once a week so my elbows are starting to hurt and I need to back off and get some active rest. How do you program that in?

What I’ve found with CrossFit specifically compared to a powerlifting program is that it is so different all of the time that you’re not pressing heavy three times a week where you would need to deload as often. With that said we do also do newsletters, Facebook and Instagram Live sessions where we talk to people about when they need to rest and how they will know that and what they should do. What I’ve found from owning a gym and from seeing regular people, not competitors in any one sport; is that most people deload on their own by getting lazy for a week or going on vacation so you almost don’t have to prescribe it.

That’s actually similar to something that Bill Starr wrote. He was a college strength and conditioning coach and he said in an Ironman Magazine article that he just used the regular vacations in the school calendar as his deloads.

And that’s most people. If I was writing programs for CrossFit competitors it would be completely different. They go on cycles where they’re not doing as much conditioning and then they’ll really ramp up the conditioning and not do as much strength and they have their deloads set but for regular people it gets built in because their life builds it in for them. But we do give advice. We program seven days a week but have been talking in our newsletters and in our Live posts that they should be resting at least one to two days a week. And on those rest days it can be complete rest or active rest.

One flaw that I find with online programming for the masses like Daily Burn or BeachBody is some of the very people who gravitate towards it lack a developed athletic IQ. Meaning, they haven’t built the muscle memory to know when they’re doing something wrong but they’re trying to follow a program alone or in the company of other inexperienced athletes. How do you all address that with Street Parking?

Honestly we have close to 900 members now and we’ve had maybe 100 people cancel and I would say the main reason that people cancel is somebody says, “Hey, actually I’m going to get some coaching for a little bit because I know that some of these movements are new for me and then I’m going to come back and that actually doesn’t hurt our feelings at all”.

That’s actually integrity for someone to say I realize that I’m not doing this correctly! I mean, you could screw up a push up! And you can actually hurt yourself doing a pushup!

Obviously with the descriptions and demos we try to do as much coaching as possible without being able to see them which is difficult. You can’t correct anybody; you can give them as much information but we can’t watch every single person do every workout. That would get super expensive and only a few people could afford it. If they post their videos on Facebook and Instagram we absolutely will watch them and we give tips back to them all of the time.

As a solution have you all thought about letting members know when seminars are coming up at various locations so they can get hands on coaching so they don’t have to leave your program?

We haven’t done that but it’s not something that we would be against if we had information about stuff like that.

You said on your blog that for you the steps to creating a workout can be broken down as:

Create a template


I try it. Or ask someone else to try it and tell me how it went.  I take the info about how it went and I learn.  I repeat this process until I can instinctively know how a workout is going to go.

 

Did you adopt this approach because you’ve got newer as well as more experienced athletes or do you just think that this is a best practice, sort of a lead from the front approach to training?

I think it’s more a lead from the front type of approach. We are the audience that we’re trying to capture. Me maybe even more than Julian, because he does have to do extra stuff so he can compete but he does even competing, all of the Street Parking workouts and then he adds stuff on top of it. And it’s funny because realistically, my times and the weight that I’m able to do right now even being pregnant are probably going to be closer to a normal person than his are. So me testing it might be more like a realistic, hey this is how this workout is going to go. We do have the app where people can post their scores and look at everybody else’s. We post our times at least three or four times a week so people can see what we’re doing.

In designing programs you wrote, “Know the goal of your program as a whole and constantly check yourself.” How does this play out in your programming?

We do retest the workouts so they can see if they’re getting fitter by seeing if they were able to do more weight or go faster. We do try to post something about nutrition once a week and we have sent out a nutrition newsletter and we send it to new members when they sign up, giving strategies for eating and how to figure out how much you need based on your lifestyle and body size. Having measurements outside of just the workouts and retesting them are definitely something that we’ll be incorporating eventually but we haven’t gotten there yet.

Street Parking has a private Facebook and a private Instagram profile. I assume that people only get access if they pay to join the group. That may seem exclusionary and it is but there’s an advantage to a pay site because it allows moderators to weed out negative voices. How do you all handle negativity in Street Parking on Facebook or Instagram?

Actually hasn’t happened yet and I think that’s because everyone in our private page are all following members. If we had someone that wasn’t happy or was negative; I don’t need their $19 a month, so I would try to just answer their questions and figure out why they’re being that way and then if they were unhappy with the program and if they were affecting the vibe or whatever we would just probably ask them not to be a member to be honest.

In addition to your Instagram and Facebook groups, you’ve also got a YouTube channel with unlisted videos that only street parking members can view. Is this primarily an option for longer exercise demos that wouldn’t work on Instagram?

Honestly we haven’t done a ton on YouTube. The only things that we’ve done are the two videos that you’ve probably seen that explains Program A, B and C and how to use the Wodify app. We put those in the welcome email when people sign up so they know what’s going on. We would love to do more with YouTube but with the full time jobs we just haven’t had time to film high quality videos. The demos we film on our cellphones with iMovie.

I can actually see it as an option for when you give birth and YouTube might be a good option to preload some videos so people can still see demos when you’re no longer able to film them.

We actually have a plan for that. Already there are things that I can’t demo, little things like the situps and we have one of our good friends, her name is Anna, who is a firefighter, you’ll start to see her in the demo videos because I feel that there needs to be a male and a female presence in the demos. So she’ll start being in the videos with Julian and then there’s stuff that I can do you’ll see me in their doing it as well because I think people like seeing that as well.

What’s the number one thing that your members say about your program that makes you the proudest?

Oh man! Probably that it’s made them excited about working out again! A lot of our members are like I used to be a member of a CrossFit gym and then I had kids or my life got too busy and I miss it! I’ve tried to work out at my house and I could do it but I was still missing the feeling of community like other people were doing the workouts with me and what you guys have created is not just the workouts but also like a community and family feel that I’ve been missing.

That’s beautiful! I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me!

You can find out more about becoming a member of Street Parking by visiting their Facebook page.

 

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The post Street Parking with Miranda Oldroyd appeared first on Garage Gym Life.

Not Just Another Stretching Article: Advice from a Chiro and a Contortionist

Many lifters hate to do dedicated stretching. They pay lip service to mobility work with some casual passes with the foam roller before squats but rarely have a dedicated program intended to keep them injury free and building strength year after year. A chiropractor and a contortionist try to change their minds.

“First of all I see a lot of lifters who just don’t train the phasic muscles. Especially the weekend warriors. They work what I call the glamour muscles and end up in my office with neck, shoulder and back pain,” says Beth Baker, C.C.S.P. a Georgia based chiropractor who has done Graston, ART and myofascial release for over fourteen years. Dr. Baker knows her stuff, I can attest to her skills and so can all of the other patients who voted her Acworth’s best chiropractic clinc

But we’re all accustomed to having our medical professional tell us we’re not taking care of ourselves. So I decided to also consult with Natalie Cornell, a contortionist and gymnastics coach in New Zealand, who’s athletic performance depends on being both strong and bendy. (Come on, you knew I was going to say it at least once didn’t you?) Her answers were simple but eye opening in how much they meshed with Dr. Baker’s medical opinion.

Patience and consistency


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“Much like strength, you will not gain flexibility and mobility overnight,” says Cornell. “Especially in the case of powerlifters as you will have so much muscle resistance when you go to stretch. So be patient with your progress and stretch often,” says Cornell.

Dr. B agrees. “It may seem weird because there’s not 450 lbs involved but there is a method to the madness. All it takes is one improper firing pattern to start the ball rolling toward muscle imbalance. Repeat hundreds of times and you really have issues,” she says.

Cornell advises multiple reps of each stretch at LEAST once a week. “To see any sort of result you need to be stretching often. If you really struggle, go into your stretch for seven seconds, rest for seven seconds and repeat ten times.

Dr. Baker says it’s not enough to stretch but you also need to be systematic about your stretching.  “Aside from a true injury or trauma I would say upper cross and lower cross syndromes are the majority of patients’ issues. Muscle imbalances from working the tonic muscles and poor posture at work and home,” she explains. “I frequently see weekend warriors on Monday morning because they went all out without proper preparation. How can they expect their bodies to perform after sitting in a car and at a desk for 50 plus hours the previous five days?”

Breaking It Down Barney Style

Cornell has a simple set of bullet points to help you remember to maintain balance in your stretching just like you should in your strength work:

Your abdominals, chest and shoulders play a huge part in backbends and all need to be stretched as equally as the other. When backbending you are lengthening the muscles in your abdominals, chest and shoulders while contracting those in your back, so it is important to remember that mobility in the back is also mobility in those areas too. Stretch in the opposite direction too so the muscles in the back can be lengthened. This will help to avoid pain.
Be even. Be safe. The back is incredibly important so make sure your body is always square in your stretches and that you are never favouring a certain side of your back.

Cornell warns that the most common issues she sees in beginners to any mobility program are not stretching for long enough and not holding the stretch for long enough.  Don’t worry, she’s got a bullet point list for that too:

For static stretches you ideally want to be holding them for 2 minutes. This can be extremely hard when first starting out so first start with 12 second hold, and then progress to 30 seconds, 1 minute and finally 2 minutes as your flexibility and mobility increases. But like I said before, 7 seconds in and 7 seconds off will also be beneficial.
If you can’t hold them for long; do multiple repetitions. Try 10 seconds and 10 reps.
But also active stretching is great. It’s amazing for building mobility and flexibility and the same time.

Ideally a stretching session should be between 30 minutes and 2 hours, depending on whether you’re doing a targeted stretching session or a full body session. But with this said, even 5 minutes at the end of your training session is better than not stretching at all.


But What About My Gains?
these are just a few stretches that powerlifters should do each week

One reason lifters don’t want to spend time stretching (besides the fact that it’s boring) is they see too many  hyper flexible people spending time rolling and flossing but never touching weights that would bend a barbell.  First of all, Dr. Baker advises that you should continue to strength train and in fact you might need to increase the amount of strength work you do for certain muscle groups.”It’s all about balance. If all you do is foam rolling and mobility and leave little time to train then yes, reaching your goals may be a challenge. My train of thought is go ahead and lift. With good treatment your body should be ready to work,” Dr. Baker said.

 As for when to stretch, whether pre workout, intra workout or post workout; Cornell says, “This is down to personal preference. Just so long as you are stretching at some point. I personally do a mix of all three. It just depends what I’m doing and how my body feels”.

And for those of us who are afraid that mobility work is somehow going to transform us from a tough guy in a tight singlet, into a a yogi in tights with legs bent backward over their heads, Cornell says it’s not a good idea to judge your mobility routine by hers. “As I do contortion it takes me a lot of work to keep the level of flexibility I have. Each week I try spend a minimum of seven hours a week stretching. Obviously this isn’t necessary for powerlifters. I would suggest one to three hours a week for anybody who isn’t that serious,” she advises.
 The Payoff






Okay, now let’s finish with Dr. Baker for the payoff. What can your average meathead hope to gain from stretching three hours a week?
“I try to encourage my patients that once their injury is resolved the work still remains. If they would be consistent with mobility work and come it for a chiropractic “tuneup” regularly they could stay injury free,” she says.

Hmm. Stay injury free. And guess what every powerlifting expert says is the number one key to success in the sport? Here’s a hint: It rhymes with stay injury free.

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14:23 Strength Club Takes Lifters from Mediocre 2 Monster

Steve Dalton has only been competing for a short time but that’s not stopped him from assembling the 14:23 Strength Club team of garage lifters around him. See how he’s taking himself and his team from mediocre to monster!

Origin story

You’re a competing strongman; how long have you been doing strongman?

I’ve been training about two and a half to three years. I’ve only done one competition; I did a competition last April.

While it would be entertaining to watch you go to Planet Fitness and try to do stone, in reality strongman lends itself really well to training at home.

The reason I have a garage gym at home is my son. I work 40 plus hours a week at a warehouse, my wife does direct sales so she does a lot of work on weekends and evenings; for me to train and go out to a gym is kind of hard with a five year old. My wife and I chose this option to grow our family, we were in the process of adoption and we were like well let’s just start this right now so by the time I can’t go out in the evening to a gym, I’ve already got this here at the house.

Why 14:23 Strength Club

What is it that drives you to set up this 14:23 Strength Club at your home?

You always work better when you’re around other people and have guys pushing you; it is a ministry for me. It’s something God’s put a passion in my heart for and  I meet with my pastor every two weeks, he’s really pushed me like, you’ve got a passion for this— use it! That mindset came from; I moved to Illinois ten years ago and I was already a black belt in Jiu-jitsu when I looked up here and I was looking for places to train, Chicago area is crazy expensive. I’m newly married; I sat down and talked to the pastor of our church at the time. I said, “I wish I could do an MMA ministry at the church” and he said, “Why can’t you?” We started one and it grew tremendously.  So that’s when the whole making your passion your ministry thing came to me. I love doing it and it lends itself to the Gospel. The fact that most of the time men don’t want to show weakness in front of each other but when you’re lifting; you’ve got the okay to fail in front of another man.  Especially strongman because it’s not if you’re going to fail at a lift, it’s when you’re going to fail. And it kind of breaks down the tough guy barriers and gives us a connection.

Many of us picked home gyms because we have families we want to spend time with but we recognize that our health is also important for us and for them. So the home gym helps us balance that. How is your family a part of your training? Do they train with you?

Sometimes my son gets out. The program that I do during the week is basically just a regular lifting program, upper body/lower body and I basically do that after he goes to bed around 7:30 so by 8:00pm I’m in the gym doing my thing. But on Saturdays when we have our Strongman Saturdays he’ll come out there and watch. There’s actually a video on the 14:23 Facebook page of him when he was three years old flipping a thirteen inch tire in the driveway.

So your son gets to watch not only Daddy prioritize working out but also he’s growing up seeing how the men of 14:23 Strength Club interact in a healthy way. That’s beautiful!

Yeah, it’s awesome! I had six guys last Saturday.

How long have you been advertising the Strongman Saturdays?

Technically I guess I started a year ago and then I kind of let it go. I used to do personal training out of my garage and then with the adoption of my son, due to money issues, I had to take a night job and I wasn’t able to do personal training. And I didn’t’ touch a weight for six to nine months. So I guess I started advertising about fourteen months ago and then I had the opportunity to go to days and that screwed up my sleep schedule again so I’ve just now started to adjust. Then I just started throwing it out there to see if there was any interest; see what would happen you know?

How many people can you accommodate at 14:23 Strength Club?

I can probably do up to ten, if it’s a nice day outside, we can do ten plus me.  You can park on the street; as long as you’re not blocking driveways it’s cool. I actually put cones in the street. My neighbors laugh.

Breakdown the equipment you have available and what’s on your wish list.

God has blessed! A local CrossFit gym shut down and I ended up buying what cost me about $400 but was worth over $1,000. I bought an eleven inch strongman log, a circus dumbbell, an old school sand loadable one like you see people make out of propane tanks, two kegs and three stones. What’s on my wish list is more iron plates; some good 45s. Right now I’ve got two good barbells— the 1960s, 70s York Barbells, nice straight, those are beautiful. I came across this super find on Craigslist about five years ago, I don’t know how much weight in iron I’ve got but it’s all York off this old lady her husband bought it when he was like twelve and she sold it to me for like $80. I’ve got bumper plates, the Rogue Y1 Squat rack, it’s a yoke, squat rack and sled all in one; I’ve got farmer’s carry handles, an axle, stones from 90lbs up to 265lbs. After I get all of the sand in the kegs, I’ve got from 100lbs up to 360lbs. Pullups bars hanging from the ceilings and gymnastics rings. I’ve actually just had an adjustable circus dumbbell, like a plate loadable one donated to us by the owner of a nearby gym, CrossFit Loki, Eric Haas.

Is this a detached garage or attached?

It’s attached and it’s heated! I did a few winters out there with just a space heater and then a buddy bought a gas heater big enough for a four car garage and he installed it. I can get it up to 85 degrees if I want!

That’s a big deal in Illinois! Let’s talk about fees. You don’t charge but you ask for donations to help cover the cost of equipment. Do you plan to make this a non-profit or just keep this as a lifter’s club?

I’m going to just keep 14:23 Strength Club as a lifter’s club. I found with the martial arts that once you make it a non-profit, you get into business and the people who have the knowledge of the actual sport aren’t usually the best businessmen. They usually need partners. I’m afraid that if I made it a non-profit, I would be too worried about that other part to not enjoy it as much as I do. And I don’t have to beat anybody; I just bought $400 worth of equipment and the guy is letting me pay as I get the equipment.

I asked that because equipment needs to be maintained. Kegs aren’t designed to be dropped—

Even cast iron plates, eventually they’re going to bust.

But it’s kind of like without some sort of investment people don’t want to come—

Well, also I live in an HOA and that’s the main reason I do it as a donation— I specify that I do not charge because I advertise on a lot of the local Facebook yard sale sites. We’re not allowed to run a business out of our home so I can say, “I’m not running a business out of our home; we just come workout together.”

Do you guys intend to go compete as a team?

I love the team atmosphere. One of our guys is competing on Sunday, April 30 in Altoona, Iowa. He had signed up to compete before he started training with us but up until a few weeks ago he had never touched an implement. The other guys are planning on going. I told them from the very beginning, if there’s a competition meet on Sunday, I will not go to it. That’s church day, my day with my family— three of us have already signed up for a United States Strongman meet in Quad Cities, Davenport, Iowa July 22 that’s a qualifier for Nationals.

You and I talked previously about you visiting the well-known hard core training facility, Jakked Gym every six weeks. Do you guys go as a team? Treat it sort of like a seminar?

That’s what I would like to do, it’s $40 for five visits so if we go once every six weeks, we’ll pretty much be able to go a whole year. The next town over we’ve got CrossFit Loki, and every Sunday they’ve got five national level competitors and two pros. So we’re blessed in this area. One of the guys who trains there is a fabrication engineer who makes stuff in his garage so the equipment they have is ridiculous. They have Power Stairs in their gym!

I found when I started getting more serious about strength sports that it’s such an alien idea to say, let’s all go over to somewhere else to take this seminar. Whereas in martial arts, it’s nothing for one school to invite all of the students from another school to a seminar even if it’s outside of their discipline and have people attend because it’s all about learning and even if you only learn one thing it was worth it! As lifters we need to take the Samurai Path especially if we train at home to get expert eyes on us.

Related Post: What Is Worship?

Yeah! I feel if you’ve got an athlete who wants to train at other gyms but he considers your gym home and he brings all of that knowledge home to you what are you losing out on?

 I think one thing that will cause it to change is once again the influence of CrossFit because they’re learning to have an inclusive attitude towards all disciplines and that bleeds out to everyone else.

Definitely, iron sharpens iron and for iron to sharpen iron, you’ve got to be humble about it. If you put yourself around that you’ve got no choice but to get better and why would you deny yourself that opportunity?

That’s huge because it means that the guys who train with you at 14:23 Strength Club don’t just train with you; they get the opportunity to train with any of the accomplished lifters you have connections with. Like you’re in contact with Clint Darden of EliteFTS—

Well, I haven’t trained with him, he lives in Cyprus but I’ve talked with him quite a bit. He’s a Kentucky boy so next time I’m down there visiting family, I plan to train with the teammates that he used to train with.

How can people get in touch with you whether to train with you or for advice on starting something similar in their area?

Just message me on Instagram or Facebook; I’ll be glad to help.

Last question: Why 14:23?

The gym verse is Proverbs 14:23 In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty.

The post 14:23 Strength Club Takes Lifters from Mediocre 2 Monster appeared first on Garage Gym Life.

4 Tips for More Effective Mobility Work by Rob Bert Brink

4 Tips for More Effective Mobility Work

For your benefit, when you think of mobility, I’d like you to think about maintaining or reclaiming your movement patterns.  Examples could be your ability to perform squatting patterns or overhead press ranges of motion (specifically, how well you move and feel). At it’s best mobility work will help you stay injury free and unlock your best athletic and strength potential.

At it’s worst it can be a waste of time consuming your workout time and robbing you of your strength/performance potential.

When I started strength training (25 years ago) the extent of our “mobility work” was a couple haphazard half-hearted stretches before lifting. If anyone commented on your “mobility” they were referring to the depth of your squats.

Now for better and for worse “mobility work” is all over social media.  Because of this “mobility work” has blossomed from a helpful tip to  another lackluster fitness buzzword.

To help you get the best bang out of your mobility work:

 Personalize your mobility routine to target your needs.
 Keep it short, 10 minutes or less (if possible)!
 Consider doing mobility work between sets or as homework.
 Listen to your body – Your stiffness can be a protective mechanism.

Personalize your mobility routine to target your needs.
doing some SMR between sets of bench or squat is one solution

Just because your favorite Instagram star does a certain mobility routine, doesn’t mean it will meet your body’s needs.  Furthermore your mobility movement prep today may need different things than your movement prep tomorrow.  Your body may “feel” different.  Example(s): you sleep in an awkward position; or go on a long cramped plane flight; or you overdid a previous workout and need to limber up.  Also, you may want to focus on different mobility work for different movements.  Example: you will prep your body differently for deadlifts vs. bench press.

My goal would be for you to experiment with a few different mobility movements &/or styles.  Have a short list and perform a couple as needed pre-workout to get your body ready.  If you are prone to wonky joints or tight muscles, have a go-to or 2 to dial up, when needed.  There are many options.  If you need examples of Mobility Work check out my previous post, Smorgasbord of Mobility Work.

Again the goal is not to do them all-all the time – it’s to give you options to be able to personalize your plan.  If you need help deciding which to do, you could always seek out a qualified professional to give you guidance.

Keep it short!

When your mobility work takes too long it encroaches on your strength time.  If you mobilize without strengthen you will end up chasing your tail. Lakers Head S&C Coach, Tim DiFrancesco tweeted, “Want a quick way to become a fragile athlete? Spend too much time with mobility work and not enough time getting strong under the bar.”(1)

So what’s the magic time period for mobility work?

In their book Amped warm-up Joe Defranco and Jim Smith say the warm-up mobility prior to strength training shouldn’t be longer than 10-15minutes (2).  At the KMS (Kabuki Movement System) Seminar, Chris Duffin & his team presented many mobility strategies.  But Chris explained the goal isn’t to get really good at all the mobility stuff – it’s to do as little as possible of it and get to lifting.  He recommends under 9 minutes (3).  In reference to warm-up/mobility work, I have been lucky to hear Pavel Tsatsouline say a few times, “Do what you need, and no more”.  In his most recent book, Simple & Sinister, in classic Pavel style he encourages us, “Do not be a sissy.  Keep your warm-up short.” (4)

Remember, you want to prepare for action, not turn the mobility work into the workout before your workout.  Always remain safe, still do your lighter weight set(s) before you jump into your “working sets.”  But if you are having difficulty pruning your mobility work down to 10 minutes, perhaps you should reevaluate your training routine.  If you need 15+ minutes to prepare to workout, how did you chose your workout programming?  It could be your body’s way of telling you, you didn’t select the correct mobility work, or strength program for you.  If there are still other things you want to incorporate, read #3.

Related Post: Strong and Bendy

Bud Jeffries combining a 100 pound one arm dumbbell clean and press in ballet stretch
Consider doing mobility work between sets or during downtime throughout the day.

Dr. Quinn Henoch of Juggernaut Training Systems says shorten mobility time & get to your strength training (5).  If you are having trouble getting in all the mobility work you want in pre-workout – do some between sets.  Dr. Quinn Henoch also highlights that the benefits of SMR are short term.  Doing them between sets can keep you feeling good throughout your workout, and would benefit you more than a long drawn out rolling of your whole body (5).

In Original Strength we encourage the performing of “reset” drills between sets.  An example would be, you could get down to the ground and practice “rocking” between sets of squats to reset your squatting posture, gently bring your knee through range of motion, and improve foot & ankle mobility for your deep squats while maintaining healthy curves in your back (6).

If you cannot fit something in pre-workout or conveniently between sets, you could do while watching television in your down time.

Another idea could be to have a “recovery day” that you can play around with all of the mobility drills you enjoy.

To be clear, the recommendation is to figure out what few things you could do to get ready for your strength training.  If you notice adding in a movement between sets in lieu of playing on your phone, helps you out – great!  If you just love how you feel after rolling all up in down on your foam roller… save it for your spare time.

Listen to your body – Your stiffness can be a protective mechanism.

If during your mobility work you are grimacing and holding your breath, you are doing it wrong.  In his book Relax into Strength Pavel talks about creating tension in your face and fists will prevent your improvements with stretching/mobility work (7).  At the Original Strength Seminar Tim Anderson talked about maybe your hamstrings aren’t tight because you need to stretch them.  Maybe they are tight because your body doesn’t trust your ability to stabilize your spine and it is protecting your spine with tight hamstrings (6).

No matter what you try if your body tells you, “It don’t feel right.” Do not do it.

Most importantly – Why should you care?

Because at it’s best mobility work will help you stay injury free and unlock your best athletic and strength potential.

Because at it’s worst it can be a waste of time consuming your workout time and robbing you of your strength/performance potential.

Mobility Work can be a prep to your movements, recovery from your workouts, or part of a rehab program (to get you back from an injury).  No matter which is the case, always ask yourself, “If what you are doing, makes sense?”  Sometimes you’ll immediately know it does not.  Sometimes you’ll have to try it out for awhile to figure if it does.  If it ever doesn’t make sense, stop it.*Short warning

Mobility work can be great, but if you are noticing you are constantly having to spend a lot of time on a particular area often – discovering the root cause of your issue(s) will go much further in your progress.

References:
(2) Defranco, Joe, Smith, Jim. (   ). Amped Warm-UP. pp43.

(3) Duffin, C. (2016, Feb. & march). Kabuki Movement System. Lecture presented at Kabuki Movement System in AZ, Tempe.

(4) Tsatsouline, P. (2013). Simple & Sinister. pp17. StrongFirst, Inc.

(5) Henoch, D. (2016, September 8). Mobility Myths with Dr. Quinn Henoch | Foam Rolling |.
(6) Anderson. T. (2017, January 21). Original Strength.  Press Reset Workshop in TX, Austin.

(7) Tsatsouline, P. (2001). Relax into Stretch. pp26. Dragon Door.
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The post 4 Tips for More Effective Mobility Work by Rob Bert Brink appeared first on Garage Gym Life.

Smorgasbord of Mobility Work by Robert Brink

What’s On The Menu

I’m going to give you a smorgasbord of mobility work. This list isn’t meant to turn into your training session.  I wouldn’t want you to do all or even many of these on a regular basis. My ultimate goal would be for you to experiment with a few different mobility movements &/or styles.  Have a short list and perform a couple as needed.  There are many options.  Find what works for you.

Keys to the Mobility Work Universe

Static Stretching – Passively taking a muscle to the point of tension and holding the stretch pre-workout.  The exception would be if it was a small part of a injury rehab type program.  There has also been a lot written about static stretching pre-workout slightly decreasing strength and not helping reduce pulls/strains.  You could do a few static stretches as a cool down post-workout; or prior to bedtime.  The nice thing about saving for bedtime is can be relaxing and down shift your nervous system.  To get the most out of the relaxing nature of the stretch breathe deeply and relax your face muscles.

Related Post: Yoga for Powerlifters

Dynamic Stretching – stretching that incorporates movement along with muscle tension development (2).  Think runner marching in place pre-run; boxer dancing/punching pre-fight.  Movement would start out slow and increase in tempo.  This can be great for a boot camp or athletic event.  Many of my textbooks will refer to using momentum or springing through the movements when referring to dynamic stretching.  Many other folks will refer to any movement prep as “dynamic”.  Because most of my textbooks refer to the “force production” of the dynamic stretch I have a hard time calling a pre-workout body-weight squat a “dynamic” movement.  Because of this I will call many body weight pre-workout mobility moves, “Movement Patterning”.  Semantics.

SMR (self-myofascial release) – all the definitions in my books sound fancy, so I’ll put it in my own words: you are using some sort of “device” to give yourself a massage.  Devices could be: foam roller, pvc pipe, tennis ball, lacrosse ball, soft ball, golf ball, hard medicine ball, barbell, kettlebell, plus one of the many objects marketed as a specialty SMR objects.  Standard procedure would be to lie on object or pin it between you and a wall (depending on target area) move around until you find a spot that feels like a bruise.  Hold that spot pushing into it as tolerated for 20 to 30 seconds.  Breathe deeply try to “relax”.  You can find multiple spots if needed. Another strategy is to add movement to “the spot” of tension.  SMR can help you out of a tight spot (get it?).  Some say it helps loosen them up prior workout.  Some say it helps speed up recovery.  It can feel great, but it can be a time vampire if you try to “roll-out” every muscle in your body.

Movement Patterning – prepping the body for the movement patterns and skills you will be practicing for the day.  Example before overhead presses, you may practice a few forearm slides or wall slides (if you have the range of motion available to you) to prep the pattern.  Your squats would benefit from “mobilizing your ankle, knee, and hip joints.  You could get on the floor, hands and knees and rock to mimic your squat pattern; depending on your ankle mobility, tucking your toes under can be more difficult.  If you have a kettlebell goblet squats can be a great movement to pattern your squats.

Related Post: Press RESET with Original Strength

Muscle flossing – compressing a muscle or joint by wrapping with a band (voodoo floss bands is a name brand, generics available also).  Typically you leave the band on for certain number of minutes (remove immediately if you feeling tingling); some will go through ranges of motion.  Example would be wrap ankle and then move ankle or wrap knee then perform a few body-weight squats.  Powerlifter Donnie Thompson talks a lot about ankles and recommended wrapping the ankles and then have someone pull on your ankles and your toes a bit.  It felt great . . . but my wife wasn’t a fan of wrapping and pulling my toes.  Seems like a bit much to set up pre-workout 7+ minutes.. but was nice in the evening while watching t.v.  If you are interested in this I’d suggest you check out some of Donnie Thompson or Kelly Starrett.

Banded traction or distraction – using a band to pull against joint to relieve some compression and create more space in the joint. You might be more familiar with this concept from the Teeter Hang up commercials or from videos of athletes using gravity boots.  Many of my Crossfit friends are really into this form of mobility.  I liked the idea, tried it but never got into it.  If you are interested in this form of mobility you can check out many Crossfit websites especially Kelly Starrett’s content.  Joe Defranco also had some of this in one of his books, but not nearly as much as Starrett.

Body tempering – think about a metal foam roller that someone rolls over you!  Powerlifters Donnie Thompson used a 130lb hunk of metal, he called “the X-wife” to roll over his buddy – and he said it felt great!  Then more tried it; and that’s how it was born.  Watching the videos looks like a super rolling pin.  I’d love to try it, but I don’t want to buy one.  I train at home by myself and don’t think I could talk my wife into rolling it over me.  Powerlifters seem to love them.  Chris Duffin sells them on his website: Kabuki Strength.

Before You Go

Again the goal is not to do them all – it’s to give you options.  Remember less is more.

Brandon K. Cole reminds, “For mobility work to have the greatest impact it should be personalized as much as possible. Just like exercise. Deadlifts are a great exercise, but not for everybody all the time.”(3)

*If I missed something you enjoy comment them below.

(1) NASM Essentials of Personal Training (3th ed., glossary 6.32, pp. 505)

(2) ACSM’s Resources for the Personal Trainer (2nd ed.,  pp. 437)

(3) Brandon K. Cole, Level 3 Fascial Stretch Specialist, LifeStretch Instructor, Z-Health Neuro-mobility Coach.  Website:  https://www.athleticstretching.com/

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Living Your Passion with Marshal Suddick

Suddick Strength Training is a brand new garage gym business with custom programs for each client. The owner, Marshall Suddick and his wife are determined to follow this journey of fitness entrepreneurship wherever it leads. Check out what I learned from Marshall about living your passion.

Journey To Suddick Strength Training

Tell me how you personally started working out.

I first started working out I guess when I was in high school. For sports, playing football and stuff like that. I had a heavy bag and a weight bench at home before that but I just kind of messed around on it but it was never anything serious. Just when I’d have friends over we’d say, “Oh let’s see how much we can curl!” or something like that.

Oh yeah, because that’s all you do at that age: bench and curl!

Yup! That was all we knew.

How did you transition from that into starting Suddick Strength Training and actually coaching other people?

I was working out but it didn’t grab me like it has now and so I didn’t continue. And as I got older, I kind of went to the gym. I was kind of intimidated to go to the gym; we have a Gold’s Gym here and there were quite a few big guys there and I was pretty young and it was intimidating. I started going there and getting a little more serious about it and I kind of fell off. Then after I got engaged, I said, “I’ve got to get in shape for my wedding!”

Before the beard, haircut and muscles

I’ve always found that it’s when you go get measured for the tux that gets you!

I was putting on some of my own clothes and I was like I don’t want to go get measured like this! So I wanted to lose weight before I got measured! We had a real nice gym in the apartments that we were in so I started working out there. Then I started working out with a couple of buddies at a 24 Hour Fitness and just fell in love with it! Whenever I wasn’t at work, eating or sleeping— I was reading articles trying to get educated. I never really enjoyed working a 9-5. I couldn’t find the motivation to wake up every morning and be like, “Oh man! I’m really excited to do this!” It wasn’t like I didn’t perform well; I just didn’t enjoy it very much. There was no passion there. This is something I love doing.

What did you start out with as far as equipment and what do you have now? 

I started out with a power rack, a bar, and a couple hundred pounds of weight. Pretty bare bones buy enough to get the idea rolling in my head! Now, I have four bars (2 basic, one powerlifting/oly mens, and one oly womens bar), a power rack, a TRX, one 45 degree back extension, treadmill, slam balls, dumbbells, kettlebells, 150LB slater sandstone, tires ranging from 250-600LB, deadlift/oly platform, T-bar row, dip bars, slosh pipes, Husafell trainer, drag sled, loading pin, belt squat belts, body tempering roller and I’m sure there is more that I’m forgetting.

What’s on your wish list?

I have a short term and a long term list but a few items like a Prowler, a rower/assault bike, a couple different bars (duffalo, SSB, football/swiss bar), pretty much every item Donnie Thompson puts out (fatbells, bowties, fatpad, ex-wife roller, painpill, etc).

Are you certified? 

I will be testing for my NASM certification at the beginning of May.

So tell me, what’s your training philosophy? Are you like Zach Even Esh who says he’s a soul lifter? Meaning, he’ll use whatever it takes. Zach will go cut down a tree and hand you a heavy log from it to carry for a while. On the other end of the spectrum, I’ve read that Brian Shaw is so specific that he weighs the tires he uses to see how much they’ve lost due to tread wear. Where do you fall?

I’m in between the two. Yesterday I was doing some yard work, clearing out some stuff and we had an old fountain. I took off the top piece and the bottom piece was this big double basin. The front was a lot larger diameter than the bubble that’s on there so I said, “Man! This looks just like a Husafell Stone! I was like I’m just going to keep this because I can load it with weight; it’s big and empty. It’s a big concrete piece. But at the same time I want to know how much something weighs so I have a scale I’ll weigh stuff with. I can’t weigh a big tire on there but I’ve weighed my stones. So basically anything that’s going to make you stronger I’m all about it.

What about conditioning? Most meatheads don’t like to do cardio, me included. I’ll hit a heavy bag for rounds but I can’t stand to do the treadmill for ten seconds. What’s the conditioning protocol at Suddick Strength Training?

I can’t stand the treadmill, the bikes and stuff like that. I’m not a huge fan of the rower but it’s kind of growing on me because it’s kind of fun to see how fast I can go on it. For my own conditioning I really like kayaking. We’ve got two kayaks, I’ve got two stand up paddle boards. I’ve got a heavy bag. I don’t really mind sprints and stuff like that. But I do not really enjoy jogging. I’m almost 240 it doesn’t feel good long distance. I really enjoy tires, just flipping them over and over again.

So how long have you been in business?

Actual business about three months. We purchased our house at the beginning of the year.

When you met your wife you weren’t into working out. Was it difficult to get her to see that this is a passion that’s a lasting thing? Especially when you started telling her you were going to have strangers coming over to the house for you to coach them?

You know we’ve been married for going on five years. It’s not like it was overnight. She definitely understands how passionate I am about it. She’s not necessarily as passionate about training as I am which is totally fine. She is a hairstylist and she’s absolutely wonderful at it and she’s passionate about that.

Okay, your wife is a hairstylist what about you? Is the gym your primary source of income or do you have another job?

Yes it is. I have a buddy who runs a pool and spa company; hot tubs and pool installs. It’s a nice side income but this is my main income.

Location, Location

Do you live in a subdivision?

We live in a subdivision. It’s the biggest lot in the subdivision, it’s kind of private so no one can see from the back, we’re not on a corner but our neighbor who is on the corner— his house kind of wraps around in a weird way so we have a lot of privacy.

Okay, I know you said you have privacy but how did you approach your neighbors about putting a business in your home?

My neighbor that lives next door, he’s the only one that’s even able to see the gym so I approached him; he’s a friend, I told him I’ll be courteous about this. I won’t have anybody slamming anything at 6am. I won’t have music blaring real early or real late. And he was fine with it. If we were in a different spot we’d have to be real careful but our closest neighbor from the back can’t see or hear there’s a bunch of trees and we put up a big privacy fence last year so it blocks out some of that noise.

What are your hours of operation?

My earliest morning is a 7am and my last client that usually comes in is about an 8pm. The ones that are first thing in the morning, I’m not scheduling clients that are going to be lifting a whole bunch of weight slamming it down. I try to get them scheduled more throughout the middle of the day when there’s not going to be as many people home. Saturdays are just open. If somebody wants to come over and do some mobility stuff we’ll do that. If somebody wants to work on tire flipping, stones we’ve got the yard set up for that. And I kind of bounce back and forth between people to check on them.

When my wife and I explored the possibility of setting up a non-profit using our garage gym we ran into several hurdles including legal issues regarding accessible bathrooms. Did you have to deal with any of that?

We do not have a homeowner’s association and Nebraska is pretty easy. You have to have a single restroom available. The max occupancy that I can have at a single time with an in home business is four. So our open gyms on Saturdays is not part of the actual business. I’m not charging anybody so it’s just like anybody else just coming over to hang out. We’ll grill out sometimes after everybody lifts.

Something else we had to deal with was the gender issue. Because of my schedule I’m home more than my wife is. She’s had friends periodically who wanted to work out with me. I don’t have a problem with it but there’s got to be a certain amount of discretion because I am a married man, these are married women or sometimes I’ve trained their teenage daughters, and we’re going to be alone in the house. I came up with some solutions like keeping the garage door open at all times regardless of temperature. What are some policy guidelines you set up to protect yourself?

I have a release waiver and it says, “You’re here to train and there’s no hanky panky.” I just basically use my discretion when choosing clients. We kind of have it set up where there’s not a ton of people coming. We have a pretty steady group that comes to train with me using word of mouth advertising so I haven’t had to deal with it a whole lot. One thing I have wanted to do is put up a security camera in the gym so that if anything happened to come up like that I would have footage. The insurance policy that I have, would cover false claims of sexual harassment, if that unfortunately ever came up.

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Speaking of insurance are there any special precautions you have to deal with because of your insurance that you wouldn’t have to if people were just coming over and training with you for free?

Philadelphia Insurance is who I went through and they made it real easy. The business is set up as a personal training business so no one is actually paying for access. I don’t have to worry about equipment because people are paying for my expertise not for access to my gym.

What are the challenges of coaching men versus women?

Guys come in and I think they want to be big or strong or what they think is macho. I think some of the time they will forget form and technique and everything I just told them and just push as hard as they can or jump as high as they can. It all goes over their heads then. They have this motion pattern that they have ingrained— my high school football coach told me to squat this way or something like that. So everybody falls back into those patterns as soon as they’re fatigued. It’s difficult. Women clients that I’ve had, they want to learn, they see themselves progressing. They’ll do a movement like a deadlift, say they pull a max deadlift. I’ll work on their form a little bit, maybe their hand positioning or something like that and it goes up like it’s nothing. I feel like women clients have been easier to coach.

Part of the reward of a coach is seeing someone have a breakthrough and you often see that with women all of the time because they come in with such low expectations.

Do you find that with the popularity of CrossFit and Strongman competitions that when people come to you they want to do that stuff almost before their bodies are ready for it?

Oh yeah! That’s the first thing people want to do. They want to flip tires and they want to pick up the big stones. I don’t think they realize that the tires weigh as much as they weigh. The stones too; they’ll see the pictures I have up of me doing something with the stones and I’ve picked those stones up a lot of times. It’s not necessarily all of the strength to get them it’s learning the stone. You’ve got to figure out where you can put your hands and where you can’t. What’s going to tear up your arms; people want to get in there and I’m like that stone weighs more than you do. If you drop that, it’s going to break you.

Financial Strategy

Okay, so besides the pool gig on the side and your wife’s income what are some additional income streams you’re planning on to sustain your family as your client base grows?

I recently got a sewing machine. One of the things I really want to do is start making wrist straps. I don’t know how it is in other cities but the only place you can get them here is Dick’s Sporting Goods and they’re just like the basic and they fall apart on you after a week. Or you have to order them online. So I want to start making them here and then start selling those. I found some webbing material and I’ve made some samples here. I’m having some people test them out; see how they like them, see how they work. I’m testing the waters with one online client right now to see how it’s going to go because I don’t want to jump into it and not do well with people. Train them and not do it up to the standards that I feel I should. That’s something that I feel that might need a person that’s been in the gym a little bit themselves and not just starting out.

I have a powerlifting coach and he does all of my meet coaching and he said the biggest thing is trying to get people to send video from more than one angle. Don’t send video of just one set. Keep the form as consistent as possible and send me video of more than one sets moving the camera.

If you have somebody there have them move the camera—

Yeah, because it’s so hard to judge something like a deadlift when you send one video and it’s from the front!

Yeah, and people always video from the front! Even a squat, if you’re working with a powerlifting coach and you’re working on hitting depth and making sure you’re getting to depth then you have to have good videos from multiple angles.

He said the other problem is he puts together the training plan and they don’t give him any feedback. Because they think if they didn’t call to tell you that something’s wrong then everything’s fine. But your coach needs  to know whether that was an easy set. Were the numbers right for you? Are you having a good day or a bad day? Because he bases the next week’s numbers on your performance from this week.

I was kind of worried about getting feedback so on the programming sheets I have stuff where the client has to fill it out and send it back. Kind of like an RPE scale. How did that feel, was it heavy, was it light? Some of the conditioning work how he feels about that. This client has a heart rate monitor so we’re going to be checking his heart rate and different things like that.

As far as steady income goes, Christmas and Thanksgiving are times when people normally don’t care so much about health. How do you plan to get over that three month hump?

I do a lot of package deals. You buy however many hours of training and you get a couple of hours free. So even if it’s a time when they’re not going to be coming as often or as consistently we’re building that value in that sale. Like, “Hey you’re going to be coming in January and you’re going to end up spending twice as much. So if you get it now, you won’t end up paying that full rate in January.

Getting Better Each Day

You’re still sort of in this early. Tell me your worst day so far. Have you had any days that were just your worst day ever and what did you do to keep going?

There’s been a whole bunch of them! Because just starting out even though it’s my main source of income, it’s definitely not as much income as I’ve had in the past. So I’m definitely leaning on my wife a great deal to support us and she’s doing an awesome job. But it’s tough seeing a day where you’re not very busy or you have a day where you’re like, “I don’t have any clients!” Just got to keep your head up and keep going.

What did you start out doing and realize that you needed to stop doing in order to build your business?

By far the worst habit I had to break to continue to build my business was getting out of the “if you build it, they will come” mindset.  I was operating as if when I had all the equipment and a space that I would just be flooded with business.  THIS WAS WRONG!  After I built it I realized that I then had to bust ass to get people in the door! Then I had to work even harder to KEEP them coming back!

What are your top three favorite podcasts for fitness or business?

By far my number one has to be The Joe Rogan Experience, even though many wouldn’t consider it to be a fitness/business podcast, the wide variety of guests on the show and the huge number of topics covered have provided plenty of valuable tidbits for SST.  After JRE I would say I listen to the Super Training podcast and the Strength Chat by Kabuki Strength.

What are your favorite business books?

One that really left a lasting impression on me was The Nordstrom Way, if you haven’t read it I recommend picking up a copy!  Nordstrom’s has made the experience of shopping with them something that is revered in the department store market and beyond!  That is what I strive for with all my clients, not just a sound program, but the experience of training in an environment completely tailored for them.

You said you enjoy research, what’s the name of the book on your night stand right now?

Lately I’ve been on a pubmed kick, some of the information is helpful, some seems useless but I just can’t stop researching! I’ve also been slowly plowing my way through “Becoming a Supple Leopard” by Kelly Starrett.

A lot of the more successful strength coaches write even if they write for free because people see your thought process and it gets your business name out there. Have you explored any of the sites that accept freelance work? For example, there’s one called garagegymlife.net that takes submissions.

Ha ha! I may have heard the name a couple of times. I’ve not thought about it before but that could definitely be something I’d be interested in doing.

Well man, we’re going to wrap this up. How can people contact you for online coaching or to follow your training and learn more about you and your business?

Website: suddickstrengthtraining.com

Email: SuddickStrengthTraining@gmail.com

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