Before and after the before-and-after
Randomization: Forging Mediocre Fitness
Deadlift Cueing and Fixes
Stop Leaking Speed! You Need Functional Strength Training
CrossFit Regional Workouts Analysis – Part 1, Part 2 & Part 3

CT Fletcher discussing powerlifting competitions, but what he has to say applies to any other contest/event/competition as well. Listen up.

Look How Quickly the U.S. Got Fat (1985-2010 Animated Map)
Why We Crave Comfort Foods
Strengthen Your Mental Game

41 Reasons to Train Today
via Chris McCombs

1. Because not training is saying “Fuck you” to your body and your life
2. You’ll be that much closer to turning into your childhood hero
3. Because Jack Lalanne would be proud ( RIP Jack )
4. Because you do not want to be one of those people who don’t train, do you? That’s no way to live.
5. Because it’s just plain the safest way possible for you to get rid of all that pent-up aggression you have. Trust me, just take it out on the iron, it’s best for everyone involved.
6. Because you wouldn’t skip out on brushing your teeth today would you? ewwwww… same thing
7. Because you need to keep the commitment to yourself. Breaking this commitment is detrimental to your self-esteem as well as your future
8. If you don’t, you’re gonna get weaker, fatter and uglier.
9. If you don’t, somewhere deep inside you’ll hate yourself for it
10. It’s the best, natural anti-depressant the world has to offer

11. Cuz you’re one sexy mother fucker when you train and you know it
12. You’re carving out a better existence for yourself
13. Cuz you’re not gonna puss out are ya?
14. Because you’ll be more productive and effective with the rest of your time today. Training saves time. The excuse “I don’t have time to train” is just a lie people tell themselves because they don’t wanna train and aren’t committed to it
15. You’ll feel better
16. It trumps Xanax for relieving stress and anxiety
17. It makes you crave healthy foods… so you’ll probably eat good today too
18. It’s a great escape from your problems. Yeah, I know, you have a shitload of them right now. It’s ok, just get your ass in the gym and train. Once you start hitting it those problems will cease to exist
19. Training sets you up for success in all areas of your life

20. It beats any kind of therapy on the planet hands down
21. Because it’s the only workout you need to do today. Just one.
22. Because thinking about it is so much harder than just fucking doing it
23. Cuz you’re just gonna go in and do a few light sets today, that’s it, it’ll be a breeze. I’ve been using that lie to get my ass in the gym for years and it works… within 10 minutes I’m training my ass off, every single time.
24. Training makes you more confident.
25. You’ll like yourself more
26. You’ll sleep better
27. You’ll have more energy
28. You’ll be able to better protect yourself and those you love should some unexpected shit go down.
29. You’ll age better. Seen old people who train? Cool huh? … Seen old people who don’t?

30. You’ll have more sex, better sex and most likely with better looking people
31. You get the opportunity to be walking, talking inspiration
32. You’re ALWAYS glad you trained
33. It’s fun. Sometimes.
34. Cuz it’s much more fun than the treadmill. The treadmill sucks
35. Because it’s squat day, that’s why
36. Because you know when you stop training, it all goes to shit
37. Because life is 100x better when you train ( I’ve tried to get through without it, and trust me, it sucks )
38. Because right now there’s some paralyzed mother fucker confined to a hospital bed just wishing he could train. You owe it to that dude to give it all you fucking got today.
39. Because you owe it to YOURSELF to train today

40. Because you can
41. Cuz it’s gotta be done

Intro to Foam Rolling, Lower Back Pain, & the Quads
Getting More out of Foam Rolling: Breaking down the 3 S’s
Teaching the Puppies to do Double Unders
Ten Reasons Everybody Should Strength Train
When a WOD comes up that you’re pretty damn good at…

If you stay stronger longer in life, you have a smaller chance of dying early. That’s ominous. And, not to imply that one test proves this statement, but a study published in Clinical Nutrition showed that muscle mass in persons aged 80 years or older is related to survival. After adjusting for random variables, the study found that those with more mid-arm muscle mass had much less chance of early death.

As you age, strength needs to comes first. “If a person can’t get out of a chair, what does their VO2 max (conditioning level) matter?” Obviously, strength isn’t the only metric to consider with regard to your health, but it needs to be in the discussion. This is especially important for woman and seniors, who may typically view weightlifting as something for the the “meatheads”.

This chart below is from that same study and it shows the survival rate curves for muscle mass. For those with low muscle mass, less then 50% of the test group were alive after 4 years, but for those with high muscle mass, over 75% were still alive. That’s a big difference. Again, strength isn’t the cause for a longer life, but it’s definitely a factor that helps the process.

TL;DR – STRONG ISN’T JUST THE “NEW SKINNY”; STRONG IS THE NEW “NOT BEING DEAD.”

How to Deadlift More – by Andy Bolton, World Record Holder
Eating to Recover: How and What to Eat Post Workout
5 Factors for Success
7 things I do differently in 2013
The Dangers of a Metcon Addict

Muscle in the Spotlight: Psoas

I’ve been reading a lot about this muscle lately because Coach Brown discovered that mine are as weak as your sister’s and it’s preventing me from squatting 5 plates. That is unacceptable. Since my psoas is weak, I tend to overarch my lower back to create stabilization for my spine – which is good for my spine’s sake, but not good for the sake of my lifts.

Location: Originates on the front of the lumbar spine and attaches to the top of the leg bone, right near the crease in your hip.

Function: It bends your knee up towards your chest (also controlling your body weight as you descend into a squat). The psoas helps to stabilize the spine while flexing the hip, as well as some external rotation of the hip. The psoas also helps to counter the extension forced placed on the lumbar spine when the iliacus muscle flexes the hip (the iliacus originates in the pelvis and attaches to the top of the leg bone).

Excessive lordosis (arch in lower back) can be caused by a tight psoas muscle

Why It’s Important:
Our jobs require us to sit a lot (hip flexion). Sitting shortens some muscles, making them tight, while lengthening over muscles, making them weak. When the psoas is tight, it can increase the pressure placed on your spine by pulling your spine forward and putting your back in an arched position (too much lumbar curve), especially if you have weak abdominals. A lot of people with injured backs and hips have tight, knotted psoas muscles. By mobilizing and relaxing the muscle, they’ll feel better because the stress is reduced on the back and hip.

So, if you sit for a living or sleep curled up on your side, then head to the gym afterwards and try to take your joints through extreme ranges of movement, you could be doing one of two things to yourself. 1. Your hips are tight and you’re not able to do the movements properly, so you end up ingraining bad movement patterns and setting a ceiling for your training progress. 2. Because your psoas is tight, you compensate your inability to fully open your hips by over-arching your back (excessive lordosis) and risking injury.

Fixes:
Step 1:
Mobilize your psoas with a lacrosse ball and a heavy kettlebell.

Step 2:
Practice proper stacking of your hips & ribs with this positional drill. We can’t stretch the psoas directly, but we can bias it with specific movements.

How to Avoid a Tight Psoas
-Don’t sit as much (if possible).
-If you’re sitting make sure you have a good low back support to help you maintain good posture.
-Try to take stretching breaks throughout your day.
-Do not, do not, do not just get in your car after a workout and drive off. Sitting immediately after working out just causes more tightness, especially of the psoas. After your workout, mobilize for a couple minutes before you leave.

Beast Reality: A Powerlifter in a White-Collar “World”
Sleep: What the Research Actually Says
Carbs at Night
3 Mental Tips to Improve your CrossFit Performance
Changing Your Overhead Press
Get Your Dip Game Tight!

White Collar Meathead, Part 1
by Waylon Humphrey

NOTE: I can already tell my problem with this series of posts is going to be keeping them on topic and short enough to keep your attention. Everyone knows that when you open up an article, you scroll through it first. If it’s long as shit, you read the bold captions and look at the pictures, then tell your bros at the gym about this article that you “read”.

I’ve now officially completed my first week of working with Shelby Starnes and things are off to a good start. I’ve got a lot of challenges/thoughts I’d like to share with you guys but for this first post I just want to stick with why I chose to work with a nutritionist.

Over the past few years as I’ve transitioned from being a former fatty to being more health conscious, I tried to educate myself as much as possible with articles, books, and blogs of people who were on the same journey. I applied concepts on myself and threw out what I didn’t like/didn’t work and kept what worked best for me. Doing so I was able to go from 285 at my heaviest (5’11″) to maintaining 210-225lbs ~15-20%BF. I can stay in that range pretty easily just by eating healthy foods the first 3/4 of the day and still managing to drink beers and eat ice cream several nights a week, which I thought was a pretty good trade off.

But I would be liar if I said that I didn’t have the desire to be lean (around 8-10%bf) for at least once in my life. Even if I just take a few pictures and get back to ~15% then at least I prove the existence of my abzzz for future generations of Humphrey’s to look back on.

Act like you’ve never wanted to look like Jason Statham.

In the past, when I’ve been successful with something, it always started with me committing 100% to meeting that goal. This meant that my priorities had to be in line with that goal. For example, if I cared more about having fun drinking beers and going out for pizza with my friends than I did about losing fat, then I wasn’t committed to that goal. I decided to work with Shelby one night, oddly enough, as I was thinking about maybe one day having kids. I realized that sticking with a diet and training schedule would be much harder while trying to keep up with kids, than it would be right now with two dogs.

I’ve read all of Shelby’s books on nutrition and have a friend that has worked with him before as well, so I knew what I was getting into. Then I started asking myself… I have an idea of the basic strategies he’s going to use on me from his books, and I have successfully coached people on losing weight myself, why not just do it on my own? (cricket chirping…)

The best answer I could come up with was Accountability. I had (some) knowledge and was committed to the goal but the missing link was having someone to hold me accountable. To me, the best type of person was going to be someone who knew much more about the subject than I do and someone whom I greatly respect. Someone that would cause me to be embarrassed if I had to send them an email and tell them that for my last meal one night I had 9 beers and a foot long Bratwurst. I know that Shelby has a lot of clients and I don’t want to waste his time by half-assing the plan he spent his valuable time coming up with.

So, for me, the driving factor was having someone to hold me accountable for my actions.

May 5th I started his plan. My beginning stats are 223lbs and 15-18% body fat.

The Beginning

Check back next Tuesday for my first update picture, which will show how far I’ve come in the first two weeks, and detail the biggest challenges I’ve faced so far.

Feel free to hit me up on Facebook if you guys have any questions along the way.

This Trendy “Strong is the New Skinny” Thing (and what it could mean for the next generation of girls)
You (Still) Don’t Know Squat
Where Are You First Rib??
The 7 Biggest CrossFit Mistakes (And How to Fix Them)
Weightlifting Shoes and Why You Need Them
Snack Attack

Reddit recently hosted an AMA with Dr. Mike Roussell, who is a well-respected nutritionist with a bachelor degree in biochemistry from Hobart College and a doctorate in nutrition from Pennsylvania State University. He has consulted with pharmaceutical and food companies, medical schools, and top rated fitness facilities, so he has a unique ability to translate scientific findings into relevant nutrition strategies. We thought we might highlight some of his tips from his discussion.

Q: Forgive the very beginner question: Where would you start with 40lbs to lose and 35% body fat (female)? I have fat-loss-information overload, confusion, and, consequently, paralysis.
A: Start slow and get good at a core set of habits. The core set of habits I work with clients on I call the 6 Pillars of Nutrition. 1. Eat four to six times a day. 2. Limit your consumption of sugars and processed foods. 3. Eat fruits and vegetables throughout the day. 4. Drink more water and cut out calorie-containing beverages (beer, soda, etc.). 5. Focus on consuming lean proteins throughout the day. 6. Save starch containing foods until after a workout or for breakfast. Pick 2 to focus on. Track your ability to do each habit everyday for 2-3 weeks before adding another habit. I have a $0.99 kindle book on this. It is a quick read and a good primer.

Q: If I was completely “new” to nutrition and you could only recommend one change, what would it be?
A: Don’t eat anything with refined or added sugar. Cutting sugar out of your diet is the one diet change that you would probably feel the most. Keep in mind this is added sugar. Blueberries contain fructose but naturally so the fructose in blueberries is not considered ‘added sugar.’ I think the exact difference between fructose added to a cookie and fructose in blueberries is up for debate. If you eliminated all the sugar in your diet, you’d end up with a ketogenic diet. That is fine as those diets are effective, but generally more extreme than most people need. I agree with you that we should lower our overall sugar intake as much as possible while taking care not to eliminate important nutrients found in whole foods that contain sugar.

Technically anything with “refined or added sugar” would include: * anhydrous dextrose * brown sugar * confectioner’s powdered sugar * corn syrup * corn syrup solids * dextrose * fructose * high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) * honey * invert sugar * lactose * malt syrup * maltose * maple syrup * molasses * nectars (e.g., peach nectar, pear nectar) * pancake syrup * raw sugar * sucrose * sugar * white granulated sugar

Q: 300 lb, 6’0, BF around 30% (I’m guessing). Wanting to lower BF is goal #1. Whats my best nutrition approach? Currently just cutting on 2k cals while lifting 5x a week, and seeing results, should I bother trying anything else?
A: I would guess (based on the numbers you shared) that you have some level of insulin resistance so I would keep your carbs at or below 30% of your total calories

Q: What advice do you have for maintaining energy and training intensity while in a calorie deficit? Specifically, I’m a rower, (6’2″, 200lb, ~15%bf) trying to cut to 185lb. I had success with low-carb paleo when I wasn’t training, but it leaves me with no energy for daily hour-plus sessions.
A: If you don’t have the energy when you are low carb, it might mean that you haven’t ‘fat adapted’. If this is the case then you need to decrease your carbs and increase your fat to get your body using fat as the primary fuel source. The other piece might be that your calories just went to low too fast when you went low-carb paleo.

Q: What are your “must have” supplements for aspiring meatheads? Conversely what do you strongly suggest we avoid?
A: Basics are multivitamin, vit D, fish oil, creatine, protein supplement
Next level would be: zinc, magnesium, L-carnitine/L-tartrate, BCAAs, Citrillune malate. Avoid – tribulus terrestris

Q: What is your view on pre, intra, and post workout nutrition for optimal fat loss and muscle hypertrophy? How does macronutrient timing differ between the two goals?
A: It depends on the duration of the workout, time of day (with respects to other meals), and total calories intake for the day. For example: If you are doing a 20 minute interval session and your goal is fat loss then 5-10g of BCAA pre would be all you would need. But if your goal is hypertrophy and you are training 90 minutes this would warrant aminos pre, carbs and a small amount of aminos during, and carbs and protein afterwards.

If I were to generalize it would be this:
-Fat Loss: BCAA/Protein Pre and Post. Water intra unless training exceeds 60 minutes then add aminos intra
-Hypertrophy: BCAA/Protein + Carbs pre and then again post. Water intra unless training exceeds 60 minutes then BCAA/Protein + Carbs.

Depending on the workout duration a lot of the pre/intra workout nutrients are going to be absorbed and use post workout.

Saturated Fat and Coronary Heart Disease, Part II: The Paleo Principle
How To Tape Your Hands
Proper Force Transfer in Weight Training: Grounding, Contacting, and Tightening

It’s an off-day, but there’s no reason why you can’t take five minutes to mobilize so you’re ready to roll on Monday.

WOD
Make up a workout you missed.

-or-

Coach’s choice.

Stop Doing Corrective Exercises
Progress… Twice As Hard For Half As Much
A Case for the 11th Fitness Domain: Self-Confidence
Favorite Nutrition Resources

Getting the Most Out of Low-Carb Meals
6 Truths About Squats
Is This Real?? —> 12 Things Women Think at the Gym
Staying Motivated
OHS Checklist
How You’re Sabotaging Your Posture and Your Time in the Gym

You just busted out a PR on your press the other day and the WOD today is clean and jerks. Even after a good warm-up and mobilization session, that overhead position is feeling less than awesome, even with the PVC pipe. What’s the deal?

Look how internally rotated and “forward” his shoulders are.

Try something out: Lay on the ground. Try to get your shoulder blades situated underneath you with your low back on the floor. And by situated, I mean flat underneath you so that you are essentially lying on them. “Down and in”, “pinch your shoulder blades together”. Can you do this without flaring your ribs or arching your back? Are your shoulders even touching the ground or do you have “forward shoulder” positioning? Now step two.

Left shoulder is “good” against the ground. Right shoulder is elevated and “forward”. Which one are you?

Shoulder is against the ground in a “good” shoulder position (but ribs are a little flared).

Try and raise your arm to 90 degrees. Where did your shoulder go? Could you drive a semi underneath? If so, that’s BAD. You should be able to get your shoulder on the floor, essentially in the back of the joint.

Here’s what’s going on. Most of us spend most of our time in crappy positions; sitting with poor posture, standing with poor posture, sitting at a computer, watching TV, etc… all with this “forward shoulder” positioning.

What does that have to do with your overhead position?

Not too much space for those tendons.

When you hang out in this crappy position all the time, coupled with training like a beast at the box (pushups, dips, burpees, etc.), not only does the anterior musculature around your shoulder get tight and matted down, but you can mess up your shoulder alignment. Look at the picture above. Even though your shoulder should have a large range of motion, the humeral head does not have a lot of room to move around underneath the acromion. When you have this forward head/shoulder posture, the humeral head tends to sit forward in the glenoid. This allows for even less space for the musculature to pass through.

How do we get your shoulder to sit back into the glenoid where it is supposed to be?

Lie on the ground and get into a good horizontal active shoulder position. Hollow your abs. Hold a heavy kettlebell above your head, locking out your elbow with your opposite hand. Allow the weight of the kettlebell to push the shoulder back into ground. Make sure your elbow stays locked out. You should feel a stretch behind your shoulder. Hold for two minutes. Try externally rotating your shoulder by rotating your bicep towards your head. Now retest your overhead position. Better? To undo years of crappy position, you’re going to have to work on this consistently – just as you would a muscle-up or anything else.

Per the Postural Restoration Institute, nearly everyone has rotation in their spine to the right related to the strength of the diaphragm. Here is a simple repositioning exercise you can do to reduce the rotation in your spine and improve your shoulders. I suggest you do it before you start your day as well as near the end of the day. You probably can’t do this exercise too often.

Lie on your back with your feet flat on a wall and your knees and hips bent at a 90 degree angle. Place a foam roller between your knees. Inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth performing a pelvic tilt so that your tailbone is flat on the floor. Keep your back imprinted into the surface you are lying on.

As you maintain the pelvic tilt, shift your left hip down and your right hip up so that your right knee is slightly above the left.

Slowly take your bent right leg on and off the wall so that your right thigh comes toward your chest. You should feel the muscle behind your left thigh engage.

Now, with your abs on, breathe with your diaphgram to move air into upper portion of your lungs. Then, while breathing, test/retest your shoulder range of motion, by externally rotating your shoulder (turning your thumb up) and raising your locked arm up and overhead.

Not the best picture for the homework described, but it’s going to have to work.

Perform this 15-20 times on each shoulder. As you continue to release the anterior shoulder musculature and mobilize the shoulder to the back of the joint, you should notice an improvement in how far you can go.

Remember, there is no magical cure for crappy positioning.

Testosterone Levels Tied to Vitamin D Levels
How And Why I Train No Matter What
Wrist Mobility Is Key to a Good Rack
8 Reasons Why You Keep Hitting A (Life) Plateau
How to Take a 16 Minute Nap
Mastering the Chin-Up: 7 Variations to Beat Gym Boredom

The Secret to Great Abs
Admit it: half the reason we watch the CrossFit Games on ESPN is because the athletes are nearly naked and oozing sex appeal. Everybody’s got ripped abs and sick arms, or whatever it is you’re into. Guess what? Getting abs isnt’ as tough as you’d think.

The big myth about getting a sleek, jelly-free belly is that you have to do endless stomach exercises. Hence the never-ending procession of rollers, riders, crunchers and other fitness gimmicks that never give you the washboard you want.

You cannot roll, twist, or squeeze your way to a sexy stomach, no matter what the infomercials tell you.

Here’s why: you already have abs! They might not be as developed as Rich Froning’s, but you already have abs. The problem is that fat is covering them up. Get rid of the fat, and your abs will show up just fine. Believe me, they are there.

Doing stomach exercises is important for further developing those muscles and building core strength, but the best thing you can do as far as your torso is concerned – not only for improving confidence, your looks, and your comfort with your body, but your health – is to shed fat. Midsection fat is the most harmful kind of fat to your health and is a critical indicator of stress.

Flex your stomach – even if you’re a couch potato, there’s a little muscle there. Now, if you are flexing and you can still grab abdominal fat in your hand, that’s exactly how much is surrounding your precious internal organs – and that’s a dangerous thing. Fat on your backside? Not so much.

So by all means, crunch away – but your middle will actually get bigger if you don’t simultaneously shrink the fat. Spot toning without overall fat reduction is the wrong approach to getting flat abs, but it’s what most people do. And notice, nothing changes much.

A healthy middle means reduced chances of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and sleep problems. What’s the best way to start seeing abs? Cut out all refined carbs, sugar and alcohol for two weeks. I guarantee you’ll see a major reduction in bloat and midsection fat. Although excess calories are what adds the poundage, sugar is the culprit that goes right to the gut. It’s incredibly difficult to have a spare tire if you are primarily getting your calories from protein and produce.