Fitness Friday - Fitness News You Can Use

We start this week's Fitness Friday with a sports story that exemplifies fitness. Yesterday, in Switzerland, 43-year-old Jens Voigt broke the Hour Record, becoming the oldest man to hold the record. He rode 51.115 km in the 60 minutes of pain, topping the previous record by more than a kilometer. AND he did this as the last race in his long career, having announced his retirement earlier this season. Hats off to one of the great cyclists of his generation.

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Okay then, back to the usual format. This week we have a research study suggesting cardio BEFORE weights offers a better hormonal response, a primer of squat patterning from Tony Gentilcore, some fire-breathing finishers from Eric and Ryan Johnson, and some excellent kneeling exercises from Brett Contreras (the later two articles come from T-Nation).

First up, from Breaking Muscle:

Cardio Before Strength Elicits Better Hormonal Response

Doug Dupont
Contributor - Health and Fitness News, Reviews

 

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Conclusion

The most common wisdom in the gym is to perform strength training before cardio. However, evidence is mounting that cardio first is a superior approach. While we need more research to be certain, we now have good reason to try out new methods. 

References:
Claudio Rosa, et. al. (2014). Order effects of combined strength and endurance training on testosterone, cortisol, growth hormone and IGFBP-3 in concurrent-trained men. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. DOI: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000000610

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From Tony Gentilcore (scroll down past the stories of his European Adventure):

Squat Patterning 101: How to Clean Up Your Squat. Like a Boss

Just so we’re clear: I think the squat is a basic movement pattern that everyone should be able to perform. I’m not insinuating that everyone should be able to walk into a gym on day #1 and drop it like it’s hot into a clean, deep squat and/or be able to load it to a significant degree.

Not everyone can (or should) squat deep. I’ve written on the topic several times, and for those interested you can go HERE and HERE.

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The next 2 articles are from T-Nation:

4 Fire-Breathing Finishers 

by Eric Johnson, Ryan Johnson | 09/16/14


Here's what you need to know...

• Developing the ability to control your breathing will allow you to deliver more oxygen-rich blood to your muscles, efficiently lower your heart rate and blood pressure, maintain optimal conditions at the biochemical level, and most importantly, kick some butt.
• These combinations were designed to optimize breathing in a stressed state. Each of them will teach your body how to respond in the absence of oxygen so that you can keep your composure, perform at your highest levels, and come out victorious.

Walking back to your corner, your lungs feel like they're on fire. Your heart rate is racing towards unknown territories. You only have sixty precious seconds to lower your heart rate, catch your breath, and resume the battle.

You look across the ring at your opponent. He resembles a lion patiently waiting to attack his prey – cool, calm, and collected. In this moment, he's gained the advantage over you.

The question is, why aren't you cool, calm, and collected? Why didn't you develop the ability to control your breathing, to switch your nervous system from a state of fight or flight to a parasympathetic one? This would have allowed you to deliver more oxygen-rich blood to your muscles, efficiently lower your heart rate and blood pressure, maintain optimal conditions at the biochemical level, and most importantly, kick some ass.

Before the next time, you should practice these four fire-breathing finishers that were designed to leave you gasping for air. These combinations were designed to optimize breathing in a stressed state. Each of them will teach your body how to respond in the absence of oxygen so that you can keep your composure, perform at your highest levels, and come out victorious.

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There are some excellent exercises in the post from Brett Contreras, especially like the half-kneeling overhead press (did it yesterday with the trap-bar after reading the article). If you try these, do NOT load up the bar with weights you might be more familiar with - start light and get a feel for the exercise first.

A lot of the half-kneeling presses are excellent if you have access to a landmine anchor in your gym, or a solid corner to plant the end of the bar.

13 Exercises That'll Floor You 

by Bret Contreras | 9.18.2014

Here's what you need to know...

• Don't roll your eyes. These aren't wimpy rehab exercises. There are several difficult kneeling exercises that will challenge even the most advanced lifter.
• The half-kneeling cable anti-rotation press is one of the most underestimated core exercises in existence.
• Louie Simmons uses heavy loads on the kneeling squat to target the glutes of certain powerlifters.
• The Nordic ham curl is an incredible hamstring exercise. Highly advanced lifters can do these without the use of their hands to reverse the direction at the bottom of the movement.
• The half-kneeling overhead press is an amazing shoulder exercise that transfers well to the military press, spares the spine, and allows for sound levels of balance and stability.

Get ready for some challenging new exercises that'll leave you floored... literally. Here are 13 different movements performed from a kneeling position that are worth including in your program from time to time.

 

Fitness Friday - Fitness News and Information You Can Use

For this week's edition of Fitness Friday, I am clearing out some older links. We have an article on why steady state cardio sucks, by Rachel Cosgrove, one on burning fat with high intensity intervals using weights, and two different pieces on suspension rings (for pistols and for push ups).

Enjoy!

The first one is from T-Nation this previous week.

The Death of Steady State Cardio

by Rachel Cosgrove   
04/07/14



Here's what you need to know...

•  Ironically, spending 20 hours a week in the "fat burning zone" leads to very little fat loss and a lot of muscle loss. The result? Looking like a flabby runner.
•  Steady state cardio should be reserved for endurance athletes, not for those seeking fat loss and awesome body composition. Physique competitors don't even need traditional long-duration cardio.
•  Metabolic interval training can be made even better with advanced work-to-recovery ratios and a few select tools.

Back in 2008, I wrote a controversial article for T Nation: The Final Nail in the Cardio Coffin. In it, I talked about how my body composition suffered when training for an Ironman Triathlon. Despite twenty hours per week of endurance training, time spent mostly in the so-called "fat burning zone", I barely lost any fat and definitely lost muscle, even with a controlled diet plan and a couple of weight training sessions per week.

This solidified my belief that steady-state aerobics is absolutely, completely, utterly ineffective for fat loss. Long, steady-state endurance is not the answer for a defined, lean physique, and it's a waste of time if your goal is long term fat loss. Endurance work is only the answer if your goal is to compete in an endurance event, not if you want to actually look your best. If you want to lose fat but not look like a soft endurance athlete, metabolic interval training is the way to go.

That was five years ago. Have I changed my mind? And what have I learned since then as a coach, gym owner, and yes, as a woman who still competes in endurance events? Let's discuss.

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Progressing the Pistol Using the Rings: Why I Was Wrong (Video)

Dave Ayres


Time for a rebuttal. Previously, I made a video that was condescending about the ring pistol. I've changed my mind, and here's why. I've worked out that in the bottom of air squat, or progressions using the air squat, your shin is as vertical as possible. However, in the pistol squat, your shin is at an angle.

We need to educate our ankle to go through that range of movement. If we don't we'll never get the full movement. I didn't like the ring pistol progression previously because it involved a cheat of pulling yourself up with the rings. But I've come to realise that's not necessarily a bad thing, as we're mostly concerned with the ankle. The rings help to get us there.

However, remember that you don't need to go to rock bottom with these. We don't with all the other types of squat we do, so why would we with the pistol?

If this ring pistol progression is a real struggle, take it back a step. Put your heel on a plate, and build up the required ankle mobility from there. This particular drill has really helped me, I hope it does the same for you.

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Another one from T-Nation, by Dan John, back in January.

Maximal Fat Loss, Minimal Equipment

by Dan John   
01/28/14


Here's what you need to know...

• The better you get at an exercise, the less effective it becomes as a fat-burner.
• Combining ground-based exercise like push-ups or planks with kettlebell swings can make for a fast and effective fat-burning workout.
• For a complete program, mix planks or push-ups with sprints of various distances.

There's a funny thing you start to notice about exercise and fat loss: the better you get at the movement, the less effective the exercise becomes for burning fat. We can see this odd phenomenon in every discipline, from performance to group aerobics – people slowly getting chubbier and chubbier as they continue to train.
It comes down to efficiency, or lack of it. You see, fat loss exercise has to be inefficient.
There's a simple way to rediscover the joys and sorrows of inefficiency and it's literally at your feet – it's the ground. If you get on the ground and then get off the ground, you'll stimulate a lot of fat loss. It's really quite surprising. As such, I present the following fat-loss combos, each designed around kissing the good Earth.

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This is a guest post from Jason Ferruggia's blog, from back in February I believe. If you enjoy the rings as much as I do, this is some cool stuff.

5 Ring Pushup Progressions

Guest Post By Rob King

 

Back in Feb 2012 I ventured from my home town of Newfoundland, a cold rock in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, to venture to another cold place and home of Renegade Gym, New Jersey.

I wasn’t going “down south” as we call it here when we want to escape the cold wet weather of Newfoundland, I was going on an mission to meet a guy that his impacted my life and training, that is Jason Ferruggia.

My girlfriend and I had booked up 2 spots in Jay’s Renegade Workshop and I couldn’t miss the opportunity to see Renegade Gym and to learn from one of the best in our industry. To be one of the best you have to LEARN from the best.

As I tell my students, always be a student and never stop learning.

Over those two days we got to have a lot of fun learning a ton about foam rolling, strength training, squatting, deadlifting, val slides, HIT cardio and more.

One of the coolest things I learned that weekend were using the rings for certain exercises. We had rings at my gym HWTC but I really didn’t know much about them.

That weekend we learned and practiced a wide variety of exercises from basic to advanced.

One of my favorites was the simple ring push up.

Once I got back to HWTC I started adding more rings and ring exercises into my workouts and my clients workouts.

One thing about my gym is that we do classes of anywhere from 12-25 people in a class mixing different body types and strength levels.

My goal in every class is to challenge EVERYONE which is not easy, but can be done.

So now for every exercise I have a set of progressions & regressions.

Here are 5 Ring Push Up Progressions I use with my students.