home workouts - The Fit Ethos

This Exercise May Save Your Life

She struggled to stand up from her chair. Once on my exam table, it took all of her strength to roll from her side to her stomach. She needed help to return back to her side, then back to a sitting position. During our initial chat, she informed me that she fell a few nights ago next to her bed and couldn’t pull herself back up. She had to wait on the floor until morning when her son in law heard her calling for help.

Her diagnosis? Nothing in particular. I was initially called a few weeks prior to help with her low back pain, which we had resolved, and now I was asked to help with balance and strengthening.

An endless number of pathologies and problems can plague our elder years, but none more commonly degrades day to day living of the elderly as fragility and weakness.

Sarcopenia and Fall Risk

Sarcopenia is age-related loss of muscle mass (sarco: muscle, penia: little) that can start in our 40s. By the time we are 80, we can potentially have lost 50% of our muscle mass. It’s a much bigger problem than we think.

Age-related frailty cause elderly individuals to be less steady, unbalanced, and unconfident in their ability to go out and navigate the world. It can cause people to fall more often. Secondary issues to sarcopenia often can include osteoporosis, metabolic syndrome, sleep disruptions, and greater chances of all-cause mortality.

Add on a sedentary lifestyle that often leads to sarcopenia, and you may end up with sarcopenic obesity, characterized by high body fat percentages combined with low levels of muscle mass. The result is an individual who has an even harder time moving because of the extra weight on their frame.

All of this creates the perfect storm of difficulty standing up from a chair (or the floor, god forbid if they fall), difficulty navigating stairs, recovering from a stumble, and an increased risk of falling. Sarcopenia is a known major contributor to falling, and falling can cause serious medical complications.

So what do we do? If sarcopenia is the culprit and root cause of many of these problems, we must aim to slow or reverse this process.

The Squat/Sit to Stand

If there is one exercise I can prescribe for the above patient vignette, it is the squat or sit to stand. It is the exercise that addresses as many problems as possible with a single movement.

The gut reaction may be to overhaul this individual’s entire lifestyle, but we know that drastic changes are not sustainable unless they are on board. Most people will not be agreeable to a full lifestyle change.

Tests that involve the sit to stand have been shown to effectively measure global muscle strength of the legs, hips, and trunk. It is almost the perfect exercise.

The sit to stand is excellent because it is simple and easily scalable. If it gets too easy, you either hold a weight in your hands or progress to staggered stance, single leg, or free standing squat variations.

Sit to Stand Technique

To perform the sit to stand, sit in a chair where your knees are bent to at least 90 degrees. Scoot towards the front of the chair and bring your heels back behind the knees. Lean forward, and stand upwards by pushing your feet straight into the floor. Preferably, your hands should be held in front of you for balance or crossed in front of your chest.

*Scoot forward, heels back, lean forward. Stand straight up.*

The most common mistake with the sit to stand is sitting too far back and having the heels too far forward. This will cause you to swing your torso forward, using momentum to stand. The sit to stand should purely be a vertical movement, not a forward movement.

*Sitting back too far in the chair will cause you to use momentum or fall back into the chair.*

If the basic sit to stand is too difficult, sit on top of a pillow or use a taller chair to decrease the range of motion. Once you are able to perform at least 3 sets of 10 repetitions, decrease the height of the chair.

Progressing the Sit to Stand

There are numerous ways to progress the sit to stand. My preferred way is to have the individual hold a weight close to their chest like a goblet squat.

*Holding a weight to your chest is an excellent way to progress the sit to stand.*

Another way is to stagger the stance, effectively turning the exercise into a 1.5 legged sit to stand.

*Put one foot forward, turning the sit to stand into a 1.5 legged exercise.*

The natural progression from here is a single legged sit to stand.

*Lift one foot off the floor and stand.*

From here, you can progress to the free standing squat

The Squat Technique

Stand with a shoulder-width stance. Apply a slight external rotation force through the feet (as if you are trying to rotate your feet outwards but don’t let your feet actually move). This will engage the glute (buttock) musculature. Initiate the movement by pushing your hips slightly back, bend through the knees, and squat down over your feet. You will likely be leaning forward to some degree. If you have long legs, you will probably be leaning forward to a greater degree. This is fine.

Maintaining the external rotation force through your legs, push yourself back up into the starting position. Note that if you have uninjured knees, it is perfectly safe to allow your knees to travel past your toes.

Battle Frailty

Ideally, the sit to stand or squat will be a part of a larger, more comprehensive strength program. However, we already know that large changes to a lifestyle unfamiliar with exercise are unsustainable.

Most of my patients don’t want dozens of exercises to choose from. They want to be shown a few things they can do to maintain their strength and balance. The sit to stand or squat is almost always one of them.

Following the inclusion of this exercise, every single one of my patients and clients score better in strength and functional testing. They also report being able to walk faster, having better balance, navigating stairs easier, and being more confident in their day to day movements.

It is no coincidence that people from certain areas of the world live longer. Individuals from Okinawa, Japan, historically have always sat on the floor. As a result, they need to perform a full range squat numerous times a day. These people regularly live past 90 and 100, all the while staying active and mobile.

Studies have shown that strength training alone decreases all-cause mortality. One specific study showed that grip strength is a reliable predictor of longevity. The problem of elderly frailty is huge, and strength training is the main weapon that we must utilize to combat it.

As the population grows older each year, this problem is only going to get worse. We can start by just doing one exercise.

Do Warm Up Sets Count Toward Total Sets?

This question will inevitably cross a beginner’s mind at some point. If a program says to do 5 sets of 5 on the incline bench press, do the warm up sets count towards those 5 sets?

Simple. No. You only start counting the 5 sets once you get up to your working weight. You can take as many warmup sets as you need, although I will recommend that you don’t get excessive about it.

A sample progression will look like this. Let’s say someone is performing their sets at 225 lbs on the incline bench press.

3 New Ways to Progressive Overload

Progressive overload is the foundational basis of strength training. It means that you need to gradually increase the intensity of your training over time. Essentially, make sure that you’re doing more now than you did in the past.

The most common strategy to achieve progressive overload is to increase the weight that you are lifting by a few pounds. The problem is that most advice ends there. If it was that simple, the world will be filled with 1000 pound squatters and 500 pound bench pressers.

Simply adding weight to the bar is a finite strategy. Since we tend to grow muscle and increase strength at a relatively slow rate, just adding weight to the bar will cause us to progress too quickly and hit a plateau.

We must expand our strategies to achieve progressive overload. Here are 3 ways to progressively overload your training that does not involve adding weight.

1. Increase training volume

Training volume is essentially the total amount of work you are doing. While there are multiple ways to determine training volume, it is often calculated by looking at the total number of sets and reps you are performing.

For example, if you are doing 5 sets of 5 reps of a particular exercise (5×5), your total volume will be 25 reps.

If you wanted to calculate the total work of a particular exercise, you will determine how many times you are lifting a particular weight. This is often unnecessary but provides insight about the intensities that are being achieved with certain exercises.

For example, if you lift 200 pounds on the squat for 5×5, you will calculate 5x5x200. This is 5000 pounds of total work.

Increasing your total training volume or work performed is one of the best ways to achieve progressive overload. Simply adding a rep to each set will drastically increase training volume.

In our first example, if you did one extra rep per set, your training volume will be 5×6=30 total reps.

In the second example, your total work will be 200x5x6=6000 pounds of total work.

To implement this strategy, aim to increase your reps per set by one rep for a few weeks. Depending on the set/rep scheme, you may need to climb up to 8 or 10 reps per set. Once you can do the prescribed number of reps for all sets, then you will add some weight to the bar and begin the progression all over again.

Remember that adding weight isn’t the only way to become stronger. Doing more total work is more important. The added benefit is this will force you to slow down your progress to prevent hitting plateaus.

2. Increase training density

Training density is how much time it takes to perform a certain amount of work.

Imagine your typical leg workout session. How long does it take to perform? 45 minutes? 60 minutes? Now imagine if you deliberately took 3 hours to perform the same exact workout. No extra sets or exercises. How easy would that be? This is very LOW training density. Same workout, just performed over a very long period of time.

Now take the same exact workout and imagine trying to do it 10 minutes faster than before. You will be hustling and probably straining hard to get through all of the work. This is an example of HIGH training density.

If you are able to perform the same amount of work in less time, something about your fitness has to have improved.

Of course, this is another finite strategy to implement before it becomes impractical and possibly dangerous, but the point is to perform your training at a challenging pace.

3. Increase tension and improve technique

One of the critical principles of strength training is something called time under tension. It is essentially the total amount of time that a muscle is activated and creating tension. Muscle growth and strength is a direct consequence of time under tension. In general, longer bouts of time under tension tend to yield greater gains in muscle and strength (although this is a great generalization).

One overlooked part of time under tension is the amount of tension being produced. Lifting a heavier weight will naturally cause a muscle to create more tension. However, we can deliberately create more tension during an exercise by consciously tightening the working and stabilizing muscles.

Imagine performing a biceps curl with 20 pound dumbbells. Imagine casually curling them up and trying to expend as little energy on the movement as possible.

Now imagine curling the same 20 pound dumbbell but now brace your abs, squeeze your glutes, and stand tall. Pull your shoulders back. Grip the weights as hard as you can. Slow down the movement and try and actively flex the muscles harder as you lift the weights. In essence, try and make 20 pounds feel as difficult as possible.

This is a technique often employed by bodybuilders to maximize the amount of tension they are creating during any given exercise. Usually when we do this, we need to use impeccable technique to properly control the weights.

When we are intensionally increasing the amount of tension and improving technique, we naturally work harder during the exercise. This is another variation of progressive overload.

Expanding your toolkit

Never rely on just a single parameter to force progressive overload. The three strategies discussed here are simple to implement during every workout.

The pursuit of strength is a long journey. Slow but consistent progress is always favorable to rapid and unsustainable progress. Just focus on doing a little more each time you go into the gym.

Less Is More: Applying Minimalism to Fitness

I love minimalism. Less is more. Have less stuff. Embrace simplicity. So how do minimalists approach fitness?

Some people don’t want to think too hard about things. They want to get as much out of as little as possible, and I admire that. Work smarter, not harder. In fitness, there are some things that will yield greater results than others.

Let’s apply some lessons from minimalism to fitness. Here are 3 strategies to approach fitness as a minimalist.

Audit every exercise in your workout

Your body has a limited amount of resources to perform and recover from a workout. This is the basis of training economy. It bodes well to spend your time and energy intelligently.

The first thing you need to do is to establish some goals of your training. What are you trying to achieve with your program? Once you establish your goal, make sure that everything you do while you’re in the gym serves that goal and get rid of everything that doesn’t.

For example, if you are trying to increase your max squat, everything you do during a squat, lower body, or leg workout should somehow support your goal. Ask yourself if each of the exercises you do serves the goal of increasing your squat.

Will jumping and doing power exercises improve your squat? Yes. This stays.

Will squatting improve your squat? Yes, of course. This stays.

Will having a stronger posterior chain (low back, glutes, hamstrings) improve your squat? Yes. RDLs, back raises, good mornings, hip thrusts, glute ham raises, etc all stay.

Will having stronger quads improve the squat? Yes. Bulgarian split squats, lunges, step ups, etc all stay.

Will doing 20 sets of calf raises improve your squat? Probably not. Get rid of it. Plus, isolation work for the calf only improves aesthetics and not performance (unless it’s for rehab purposes).

Will doing those awkward glute kick backs in a leotard with 2 pound ankle weights while climbing up a stair master improve your squat? Nope. Get rid of it. But make sure you do it for the ‘Gram.

When you start auditing your training methods in this way, it’s easy to cut out a ton of useless fluff. Only the important things will remain.

Use the minimum effective dose

Louie Simmons always said it best. You don’t train minimally. You don’t train maximally. You train optimally.

May he lift in peace.

You should not be using absolute maximal intensities every training session. This will lead to burnout, overtraining, injuries, and just isn’t strategic and optimal.

The minimum effective dose is the least amount of exercise that is required to elicit a training effect. Any amount of stimulus under this will not elicit an adaptation or training effect. Any amount of stimulus past this may or may not elicit a greater training effect. There will be a point of diminishing returns for increasing your given intensity past the minimum effective dose.

All of this to say: don’t progress too quickly. If you’re squatting 225 for sets today, do 230 or 235 next time. Don’t make unnecessarily large jumps. Get as much out of 225, 230, and 235 as you can. You’ll be regretting that you didn’t when you inevitably hit a wall in a few weeks.

Many coaches will advocate for a slow but steady progression over the long term. This will not only help to minimize plateaus but ensure that you are getting the most out of any given combination of weight, sets, and reps.

Eliminate supplements and focus on eating real food

I’ve said this many times and I’ll say it again: Supplements don’t do jack s*** if you don’t have your basic nutrition dialed in.

Trying to make up for a bad diet with supplements is like using duct tape to save a sinking ship (Unless it’s that flex tape stuff. That stuff is magic).

Supplements should be accounting for less than 5% of your total progress coming from your diet. The other 95% comes from an educated approach to nutrition. Real food will always be superior to supplements, so put forth your effort into the items that are going to yield the majority of results and stop worrying about the rest. The supplement industry is honestly way too big for what it actually offers.

Let me repeat a sentence to make sure I made my point. Real food will ALWAYS be superior to supplements!

If you are adamant about having some supplements to either supplement your nutrition or to have a pre-training ritual, look into creatine, vitamin D, EPA/DHA, and good quality protein. The only supplement companies I really buy from these days are Thorne and Boba Tea Protein. Both companies are incredible.

Go forth and approach your fitness like a minimalist

Minimalism is all about cutting out the unnecessary fluff from your life. When you apply the three of these strategies, you are eliminating unnecessary exercises, volume, and supplements from your fitness journey. When you have less to distract you, you will be able to put forth your energy and effort into the things that truly yield the greatest results.

So here’s my permission for you to do less to get more.

The Best Workout Split Used By Most Athletes

Workout splits are essentially how you divide and organize a strength training program. What are you going to do each time you go to the gym? How often are you training each muscle group? What’s the best workout split?

There is a lot to consider.

There are an endless number of workout splits from bodybuilding-style splits that emphasize a specific muscle group per day to those that emphasize movements such as push, pull, squat, and hinge. Trainers and coaches will swear by one while slandering others.

Each split has its merits and advantages but there is anything you take from this post, it’s to just stick with one for long enough to make progress instead of hopping from one program to the next every week.

But let’s get to the one favored by athletes.

The Serratus Anterior: The Forgotten Muscle of the Shoulder

The shoulder is a complicated region of the body. It contains the most mobile joint in the body (the glenohumeral joint, or the ball and socket we all associate with the shoulder) that must also be strong and stable or else risk injury during heavy movements and exercise.

The fitness and sports industry has come up with many ways to strengthen, rehab, and prehab the shoulder, and for good reason. There are many muscles to address and if injured, shoulder rehab can potentially become a lengthy and complex process.

The Best Cardio Exercise For Weight Loss

If you’re looking for exercises to lose weight, you’ve probably heard from somewhere that you need to do cardio. Go out and run, jog on a treadmill, hop on an elliptical, or ride a stationary bike for an hour. Do that everyday for weight loss.

Nope.

That sounds like hell to me. Boring, time consuming, and probably ineffective hell.

Here’s the first thing you need to know about cardiovascular exercise for fat loss: medium does not exist.

Exercising for weight loss/fat loss needs to be intense.

Medium intensity, long duration exercise like jogging is not conducive for fat loss, athletic performance, or calorie burn. The science is clear. Jogging only results in disappointment.

Your First Day In The Weight Room

The weight room is my happy place. I like to think that it will welcome anyone who has any inkling of interest in lifting.

But… I often forget that for the uninitiated, it can be a bit scary and intimidating. You can feel very vulnerable… You’re doing big movements on display in front of everyone!

This can feel even worse if you feel like you’re unsure of what you’re doing.

So let’s go over some basics to get you through your first day in the weight room.

The One Thing To Transform Your Training Program Design

There is literally just one question you need to ask yourself when deciding how to design a fitness or strength program:

What is the ultimate goal of the program?

I know, I know. This is probably the most cliche and overused advice in the book but cliches exist for a reason. Let me illustrate this point with a story…

The 1 Shoulder Exercise I Refuse to Do or Prescribe

One of the great things about strength training and lifting is the amount of variation that you can find in exercise, programming, philosophy, and culture. Things almost never get stale and people fall in love with this world all of the time. However, in all of that variation, a mediocre idea or two will inevitably sneak in. Or thousands, as seen daily on Instagram.

Such is the case with this one shoulder exercise. It is considered a bodybuilding staple and has torn the lifting community apart since physical therapists and strength coaches alike have discussed (or fought about) the potential harm and misgivings of the movement.

Tag: home workouts