What’s the most harrowing moment of your day?

For many of my clients, it’s that sobering moment when they step on the scale (or when the skinfold calipers are drawn) and their efforts are quantified.  The culmination of a week’s worth (or whatever the timeframe may be) of grit, determination, and effort is encapsulated in the relative change of the number on the scale; it’s more than a mere measure of mass, it beomes a determination of their worth.

Alas - the numbers are the same.  The horror!

What do you do when you’re trying your best and you don’t seem to be losing any fat?

Focus on your actions, not on the outcomes.

You can’t control how fast you lose weight; your body is too adaptable to be fooled, at least for long (anyone who’s lost tons of weight on a starvation diet only to regain it all and more can vouch for me on this one).  Some people are so metabolically damaged that fat loss may occur at a snail’s pace, even if you’re doing all the right things, so keep at it.  If you’re using a sound method to accomplish your goals (i.e., scientific, has a proven track record, etc.), then assuming you’re following that method correctly, you’ll achieve them.  

It doesn’t serve your purposes to have an unhealthy fixation with a number on the scale.  Instead, key in on executing everything properly: eat, often, eat the right things, exercise, lift heavy things, get away from time to time, etc.  Concern yourself with things you can affect (your daily behaviors), rather than concern yourself with things out of your control (your body’s rate of lipolysis).

Bonus list: What might cause you to weigh more on a given day despite fat loss?

1. Water retention
2. Fully-stocked muscle glycogen (see#1)
3. Menses (for women)
4. Creatine ingestion
5. Having a full GI tract (some people like eating before they get weighed in, apparently).

Any other possibilities?  Post to comments.

Muscle imbalance - if I hear that again today, I’ll probably armbar someone.

If you’re like most people, you favor one side of your body. This is nearly unavoidable as you perform many tasks daily that are unilateral (i.e., performed with one limb, such as writing), and movement patterns tend to reinforce themselves (for example, you “always” jump off of your right foot).

While in daily living so many things are clamoring for our attention that it’s hard to be mindful of these patterns. Within the context of a workout, however, we can focus on bringing the less dominant side up to speed with a little bit of focus.

Here are some methods that help to promote the development of your weaker side:

1) Train unilaterally.
One of the easiest methods to improve strength imbalances is to use equipment that loads both sides individually, such as dumbbells or Hammer Strength machines. Load both sides equally, and go only until the weaker side fatigues.

Yes, doing it this way will load the strong side sub-maximally. No, this isn’t ideal for the stronger side. But remember, it’s the weaker side we look to address with this method (scroll down to the last paragraph in this blog post for a typical Eugene rant about “stronger vs. weaker side”).

Q: Why shouldn’t you lift more for the weaker side than the stronger side? For example, do biceps curls with a 25 lb dumbbell on the left and a 20 lb dumbbell on the right? Or do 100% more volume on the weaker side (2 sets vs. 4 sets, etc)?

A: Because it is weaker. You shouldn’t be able to lift more weight with your weaker side - it’s weaker, remember? As for the volume issue, too much exercise for the weaker side will harm rather than help your efforts. Too much breakdown of muscle fibers, too much protein degradation; all in all, the muscle will be unable to recover sufficiently in time for the next training bout. Remember that consistent, progressive workouts are the key to progress.
2) Improve bilateral awareness.
Working bilaterally means that you use an implement that you wield with both sides of the body. The most common of these implements, of course, is a barbell, but exercise machines are bilateral as well.

When working bilaterally, the intent should be to “lead” with the weaker side. For example, if performing a leg curl, the trainee should place more focus on using the weaker leg to move the pad. As both legs tire, the stronger leg will progressively add more and more assistance until both are fully fatigued.

3) Train only the weak(er) side.
This application occurs mostly in physical therapy and deals with the rehab of an injured joint, but this may also be a consideration for an exercise program as well. A classic example of this is a person who has rotator cuff trouble only on one side. In this case, use a dumbbell or other implement (cable machine, etc.) and perform the necessary movements on the weaker side.

Of course, you could argue in our hypothetical rotator cuff case that this person should work both sets of rotator cuff muscles - and you’d be right.

Before you get the wrong idea, I want to underscore an important concept: Within the context of sports performance, it’s not always necessary nor desirable to promote symmetrical strength between both sides of the body. A primary example: tennis players. Do you think Maria Sharapova is concerned whether or not the muscles in her left forearm are just as strong as the muscles in her right one? More importantly, do you think it makes a lick of difference if they aren’t?

The concept of “functional training” is not necessarily about “fixing the broken machine”, but about “maximizing said machine’s function.”

Questions? Post to comments.

How well do you know the food you’re putting into your body?

Both Ross Enamait and Scott at Modern Forager posted a neat-o food quiz from Consumer Reports comparing calories and fat of various foods.  As is always the case with these types of things, the answers are probably the opposite of what you’d expect. 

(click on the file to resize it to readable size)

Of course, quizzes like these are just for fun, but they reiterate an important point: Most people have no concept of food, aside from “That’s beef”, or “That’s a durian.”  They have no idea how many calories they consume, what the composition of the food is, or the food’s impact on their body.

Most people probably don’t even realize that an avocado, a tablespoon of peanut butter, and a pound and a half of broccoli each represent 200 calories worth of food.

Nutrition doesn’t have to be complicated.  But you do have to learn how to speak its vocabulary.  And if that requires that you take note of what you’re eating in a food journal or even go to such lengths as to measure your food portions, then so be it. 

There’s a minor controversy sweeping the Crossfit site lately involving the Crossfit community’s treatment of two of their featured practioners, Eva and Allison.

I hate Internet bickering as much as the next guy, so let me sum up the whole bru-ha-ha in a nutshell: Eva is held up as the standard bearer of Crossfit (I believe her unofficial title is “Goddess of Crossfit”), while Allison is considered (by most of the Crossfit community) as an also-ran.

For your reference, here are pics (first of Eva, second is Allison):

Say what you will about either of them. I’m sure neither of them care what you think - and that’s the point of this post.

Before I go any further, a definition is in order:

Social proof, also known as informational social influence, is a psychological phenomenon that occurs in ambiguous social situations when people are unable to determine the appropriate mode of behavior. Making the assumption that surrounding people possess more knowledge about the situation, they will deem the behavior of others as appropriate or better informed.

In other words, to paraphrase a client of mine, “People are Sheeple.” Their opinions are easily swayed by the majority. And you can bet that the reason Eva is held as standard bearer for Crossfit and considered “beautiful” is due in great part to the effect of social proof - the Crossfit community admire her strength and athleticism (it’s hard not to be impressed by an Olympic athlete) and to them, her body can be considered physical expression of those qualities. So what may seem brawny or even “mannish” to the general public is redefined by the Crossfit elite (and by extension, the rest of the Crossfit community) as “beautiful” - social proof at work.

The punchline: In order for you to reach your fitness goals, chances are that you’ll have to ignore a tremendous amount of naysaying and (unwitting) sabotage by your friends, family, and associates - because they’ll be acting on the basis of social proof. After all, to get where you’ve decided you need to be (i.e., out of the ordinary), you’ll likely have to do things that seem “extreme”, or out of the ordinary (be strict about what you eat 95% of the time, lift heavy things, or whatever).

Do you have what it takes to go against the grain and achieve your goals?

Does the exercise order in a workout matter? Yes.

You have more energy at the beginning of a workout than at the end, so you will tend to do best on exercises that come sooner in the routine.

Case in point: A trainee who always starts his routine with bench press and always ends with leg extensions will almost inevitably develop greater strength and size in his pectorals, delts, and triceps than in his quads. Questions of motivation aside (i.e., the trainee obviously is more interested in how his chest looks than his quads), from a physical standpoint, the trainee has more to give at the beginning of his workout (when he has more strength, energy, and mental fortitude) than at the end (when all he wants to do is chug his protein shake and go home).

I can think of three methodologies for determining the order of exercises in a workout/routine:

1. Functional emphasis: Most training programs fall under this category. With a functional emphasis, exercises are arranged in such a manner as to maximize the outcome you’re looking for. Some examples:

a. A Brazilian Jiu-jitsu fighter wishes to improve his general conditioning outside of mat time. His strength coach arranges the fighter’s routine in a circuit fashion, alternating between lower and upper body (both to allow for local recovery but minimize systemic recovery and to take advantage of cardiovascular effect of quickly shifting blood from upper to lower body and vice versa - “Peripheral Heart Action”).

b. A competitive swimmer finds that he lacks shoulder stability (shoulder feels “wobbly” in the butterfly). We arrange his program so that:

1. Upper body work is “interrupted” by lower body work every couple of working sets so as not to overtax his already weak shoulders,
2. upper body muscles that he needs for maximal performance are worked earlier in the session (i.e., lats), when the shoulders are at their full strength, and
3. he performs shoulder stability work (rotator cuff exercise, etc.) at the end of the training sessions (when he will no longer need to use his shoulders for upper body exercise).

c. A football coach training his running backs decides to arrange their training so that they perform the most demanding exercises first, followed by less demanding work (power exercises like the clean first, then deadlifting, then shoulder pressing, then mobility work).

In general, you should work larger muscle groups first in a workout, followed by smaller ones (since you don’t want fatigue in smaller muscle groups to inhibit progress in exercise for larger groups).

2. Anatomical emphasis: Why would you ever not arrange a program according to training priority? One reason would be if you have a pre-existing condition (e.g., injury) that requires an additional warm-up or some other intervention.

A classic example (well, classic to sports training geeks like me) is a runner who has cartilage degeneration in her knee (chondromalacia patella, for instance). If I want this person to perform a lower body push, such as a squat or leg press, it would be a good idea to first perform some sort of knee flexion (such as leg curl, or a dynamic warm-up involving knee flexion). Why?

Without the added lubrication that the knee flexion affords, performing a lower body pushing exercise will be excruciating, since the runner has no cartilage behind their knee cap, meaning their kneecap is rubbing against the surface of their femur - bone-on-bone. By having them perform knee flexion first, they stimulate the joint capsule to release synovial fluid, which acts like WD-40 for joints, making lower body pressing tolerable.

This scenario (warm-up injured joint, then provide exercise for it) is the most common example of an anatomically-based approach to program design, but other examples include:

a. An athlete has trouble locking out a maximal bench press (i.e., fails more than three tries in a row at the same weight). He knows this is due to relative weakness in his triceps, so he rearranges his routine to focus on triceps strength.

b. A bodybuilder notices his calf development lags behind the rest of his physique, so he performs calf exercises first in his routine.

3. Random: This, sadly, is how most people train. Some variation workout to workout is okay (things happen), but a systematic approach where you apply specific workloads with specific exercises in a specific order is the best approach for achieving and tracking real results.

There’s a reason it’s called a workout program and not a workout “random.”

*end tongue in cheek rant for the day.