Every once in a while a new artist arrives on the scene to deliver a paradigm shift to the way people evaluate music.

I present Mr. Ghetto.

(insert pic of babe doing deadlift)

It doesn’t matter whether your reason for lifting is to excel at a sport, improve your health, or look good at the beach, the ‘core’ of each workout routine should remain the same.

I emphasize ‘core’ deliberately because I think it represents a misguided trend in fitness. What do you think will develop stronger abdominal muscles – squats or crunches? If the answer isn’t immediately clear to you its because you haven’t done squats or haven’t done them with even decent form. You can do crunches all day, every day, but the limited resistance will just serve as a cardio alternative.

Lifting/pushing/pulling heavy weights in compound lifts engages far more muscles then you may realize. And your body responds synergistically. If you want developed biceps, dont worry about an extra set of curls, but make sure you remember to deadlift. The irony of muscle-specific training, as with the examples of abs and biceps, is that not only will your performance in the basic compound lifts suffer, but you wont even get the gains you made your focus.

The best solution is to combine both – compound lifts and accessory movements. Clearly if I had to choose one, my thesis is that compound lifts are the foundation of any good program. Notwithstanding, it dosn’t hurt to add ‘show’ exercises to work out specific areas of interest. But my experience in the gym has proven time and again that by sacrificing the real ‘core’ of my workout – deadlifts, squats, and bench press – not only do I lose a real metric of my strength, but I lose just about everything else I had built up too.

In other news, I just saved a ton of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico.

Different Goals

“You can’t serve two masters”

Still not sure if that’s from the Bible or Trains, Plains, and Plantains but the wisdom rings true in everyday life. When it comes to working out, not only should you set concrete, realistic goals, but those goals should not be in conflict or you will fail in multiple directions. If your aim is to bulk up then hour-long cardio sessions are counterproductive. If your goal is strength, then taking short breaks between sets is not in your best interest. If you want to run fast then at some point extra weight is just going to impede your progress. The examples are numerous.

First then, with respect to goal setting, its important to have targets which are aspirational yet achievable. The amount of muscle you can put on is largely dictated by your skeletal frame. This includes your height, but more important the circumfrence of your bones. Here is a calculator I’ve found is reasonably accurate, but take it with a grain of salt (http://www.weightrainer.net/maximum_bodypred.html). Any bigger and you can suspect fat. Fortunately, even if you have a small frame, a smaller amount of muscle actually appears more impressive; look at it as if you’re lucky you dont have to spend so much on food. People also have a limited endurance potential, here measured as slow twitch muscle fiber. Converting fast twitch muscle fiber to slow twitch is an arduous process, and comes at the sacrifice of expplosive strength. Obviously then, brief sets at heavy weights yield different results than extended exercise with light resistance.

That’s not to say you cant find a balance, or that you shouldn’t be happy with the balance you have achieved. But in a culture that rewards extremes, dont expect to be able to run a marathon on the same day you audition for the WWE.

100-pound curls

Recently I convinced myself I didn’t have enough time to work out. I also convinced myself I didnt have time to write last weeks workout entry. Which is pretty pathetic if you know my schedule. Nonetheless, I began doing less and less. A switch from weights to calisthenics soon became a few sets of push-ups before bed. And that’s pretty remarakble considering not only how much time I used to spend in the gym, but how quickly I relented. Now it’s time to get back on track.

First, there is enough time in the day to workout. A workout dosn’t have to last a long time, and very often it shouldn’t. Nobody can sprint, all out, for more than 10 minutes or so. I find that four or five 100m sprints are all i can take. And everyone can make time for that.

Second, focus on what will get you results. Notwithstanding a busy schedule, our tendency is not only to cheat the length of a workout but also to cheat on our exercise selection. ‘Don’t have time to really workout’ ends up meaning ‘replacing the bench press with bicep curls’, even though they take just as much time. Compound lifts and all-out cardio intervals are the solution. Ironically, the exercises that are most effective often take the least amount of time.

Finally, if all else fails, pull-ups. And if you cant find something to hang from (you always can), hand-stand/elevated push-ups.