trainer jorge NYC: 2012

http://billhartman.net/blog/ifast-assessment-case-study-why-cant-i-lock-out-my-deadlift/ http://articles.elitefts.com/training-articles/the-seven-components-of-getting-stronger-while-training-by-yourself/ http://jasonferruggia.com/39-ways-to-not-be-like-everyone-else/ http://bretcontreras.com/2012/06/topic-of-the-week-what-types-of-cues-should-trainers-and-coaches-provide/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter http://www.julialadewski.com/2012/06/still-think-you-cant-train-hard-after.html?m=1 http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/06/where-does-trust-come-from.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/opinion/lets-add-a-little-dirt-to-our-diet.html?_r=1 http://www.biomechfit.com/2012/02/09/3-squatting-myths-that-refuse-to-die http://www.toyourhealth.com/mpacms/tyh/article.php?id=1586 http://inoveryourhead.net/homework-v/

Friday, July 20, 2012

10 good reads 7/20

http://www.tonygentilcore.com/blog/get-rid-of-the-toxicity-in-your-life/ http://www.ericcressey.com/strength-and-conditioning-stuff-you-should-read-62012 http://www.mobilitywod.com/2012/06/jill-miller-diaphragm-evolution-part-3-eccentric-loading.html http://prettystrongpowerlifting.com/2012/06/21/the-pull-up/ http://www.dieselsc.com/how-to-bench-how-to-use-leg-drive/ http://www.dieselsc.com/powerlifting-basics/ http://www.niashanks.com/2012/06/beautiful-badass-pillars-part-1/ http://www.mikereinold.com/2012/06/what-top-experts-are-doing-differently-this-year.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mikereinold+%28MikeReinold.com%29 http://www.charlespoliquin.com/Blog/tabid/130/EntryId/1339/Tip-376-Recover-Faster-By-Manipulating-Time-Under-Tension.aspx http://billhartman.net/blog/ifast-assessment-case-study-why-cant-i-lock-out-my-deadlift/

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

10 good reads 7/17

http://www.charlespoliquin.com/Blog/tabid/130/EntryId/1275/Tip-369-Lose-Fat-and-Improve-Conditioning-With-A-Greater-Volume.aspx http://m.mensfitness.com/training/build-muscle/gain-big-with-time-under-tension-training http://www.lifemojo.com/lifestyle/exercise-tips-for-golfers-75096785 http://www.kevinneeld.com/2012/what-it-means-to-be-a-boyle-guy http://greatist.com/fitness/strength-training-plan-workout/ http://www.negharfonooni.com/2012/06/everything-and-nothing-in-moderation.html?m=1 http://davethomasperformance.com/2012/06/19/9-deadlift-corrections-to-a-safer-and-stronger-lift/ http://www.ihrsa.org/home/2012/6/20/study-finds-a-correlation-between-going-to-the-gym-and-a-hig.html http://m.mensfitness.com/training/pro-tips/the-fit-5-progressing-in-the-gym http://ryanlee.com/10-years-61-lesons/

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Good reads 7/11

http://www.charlespoliquin.com/Blog/tabid/130/EntryId/1303/Tip-373-Get-Faster-and-Stronger-by-Strength-Training-Best-Method-for-a-Quicker-First-Step.aspx http://joeysgymclass.com/?m=201110 Jonathan Goodman (@Jon_PTDC) 6/19/12 10:23 AM The Myth of HIIT by Anthony Mychal on thePTDC @anthony_mychal theptdc.com/2012/06/the-my… Men's Fitness (@MensFitness) 6/19/12 10:31 AM The Fit 5: Progressing in the Gym with @TrinkFitness ow.ly/bG64h Kevin Dineen (@CoachKev) 6/19/12 3:04 PM The Four Agreements for Personal Trainers - an interpretation and brief adaptation! fb.me/272v7F1Lf http://www.ericcressey.com/improving-ankle-mobility-knee-pain http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/06/a-lesson-from-a-great-architect.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Good Reads 7/5/2012

http://www.ericcressey.com/how-to-improve-quickness-understanding-shin-angles

http://www.julialadewski.com/2012/06/five-set-and-rep-variations-youve.html?m=1

http://www.mobilitywod.com/2012/06/jill-miller-fixes-your-t-spine-and-crappy-breathing-mechanics.html

http://www.niashanks.com/2012/05/minimum-training-maximum-results-sample-workout/

http://ninamatsumoto.wordpress.com/2010/12/18/athletic-body-diversity-reference-for-artists/#jp-carousel-1853

http://articles.elitefts.com/features/interviews/questions-and-answers-an-interview-with-vladimir-issurin/

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/06/outsmart.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Monday, July 2, 2012

Good Reads 7/2

http://www.dieselsc.com/is-there-an-i-in-team/ http://billhartman.net/blog/perfecting-weightlifting-technique-at-ifast-with-rufus/ http://www.niashanks.com/2012/06/8-reasons-women-should-strength-train/ http://news.menshealth.com/learn-to-love-running/2012/04/03/?cm_mmc=Twitter-_-MensHealth-_-Content-MHNews-_-LoveRunning http://www.charlespoliquin.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Article/679/Weight_Training_for_Kids_Pt1.aspx http://gamestrengthinsider.com/advanced-weight-lifting-tips Vladimir Issurin tinyurl.com/7varyoa fb.me/1ZhYCdATY

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Good reads 7/1

http://www.myosynthesis.com/the-limits-in-your-head http://www.romanfitnesssystems.com/blog/all-about-fat/ http://www.ericcressey.com/5-reasons-tight-hamstrings-strain http://wilfleming.com/index.php/2012/06/power-clean/ http://www.ericcressey.com/5-lose-fat-gain-muscle-get-strong-move-better-7 http://articles.elitefts.com/training-articles/blast-from-the-past-the-education-of-a-powerlifter/ http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/2_ways_to_lose_fat_only_1_way_to_get_ripped#.T9yXrnu9lo0.twitter

Thursday, June 28, 2012

good reads 6/28

http://www.theptdc.com/2012/06/personal-training-not-black-or-white/

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120604093108.htm

Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 6/13/12
ericcressey.com/strength-and-c…

http://articles.elitefts.com/training-articles/efs-classic-the-eight-keys-a-complete-guide-to-maximal-strength-development/

http://deansomerset.com/2012/06/14/stuff-you-should-check-out/

http://www.ericcressey.com/5-lose-fat-gain-muscle-get-strong-move-better-7

http://zacheven-esh.com/lift-strong-2012/

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Good stuff June 26th 2012

http://www.ericcressey.com/5-lose-fat-gain-muscle-get-strong-move-better-6

http://www.defrancostraining.com/ask-joe-test/41-strength-training/261-ask-joe-6812.html

http://www.inspiredfitstrong.com/2012/interviews/interview-with-the-beautiful-badass-nia-shanks/

http://deansomerset.com/2012/06/08/the-most-important-low-back-muscle/

http://jasonferruggia.com/your-lack-of-progress/

http://www.theptdc.com/2012/06/personal-training-not-black-or-white/

Friday, February 24, 2012

Sexy Challenge

Earlier in the month, or maybe late last month? either way, Brett Contreras put up a fun little challenge for us to test ourselves with. Hundreds of people have attempted this challenge and here is my attempt at it.

The rules are fairly straight forward. There are five lifts- front squat, romanian deadlift, hip thrust, pull-up, incline bench press. The weight on the bar is equal to your bodies weight. Front squats have to have your hip crease breaking the top of the patella. For the Romanian Deadlift the the bar must go lower than your knees and you must stand up straight to finish the rep. For the hip thrust you must use a regular sized bench or higher, weights cannot touch the floor. For pull-ups, you must start from a dead hang and no kipping. For the bench no bouncing of the chest, ALL THE WAY UP AND ALL THE WAY DOWN. sorry for yellling but partial rep syndrome is a pet peeve of mine. For scoring, each good rep counts as 1 point, add up all your points and that is your total score.

Brett had some reward system in place. I do not recall what he put down, but you can check it for yourselves at brettcontreras.com you can also read a bunch of articles he's written and get smarter, dude is smart!

on to the videos

Sunday, February 19, 2012

strength! lightning fast

this past weekend i went up to south windsor connecticut to lift at lightning fitness under strength coach and strongman competitor matt mills.

here's what went down!

as usual, coming from a commercial fancy gym i catch an instant semi when i walk in and see all the equipment. the toys were there and i wanted to play!

first on the list was the yolk walk! last time i did this was at defranco's gym back in august, i walked for roughly 50 feet 530 lbs belted. this time 545, 50 feet there and back no belt. i'd call that improvement, just saying.

next up was a 50 feet there and back medley of farmers carry, prowler push. 225 on each farmers handle and the prolwer had 4 plates on it.

upon finishing this i took notice of the leaders board (good idea and i will steal it) and wanted my name up there.

took over the under 200 lb deadlift and under 200lb 3 minute 24 k snatch.

what did i learn? the usual and as dr. davidson, professor at springfield college said earlier that day, you could have the best program and best form, but the right atmosphere is the missing ingredient. being the strongest guy in your gym just means you may need to find a new gym. i learned that strength is essential! if i wasnt as strong as i am, that unbelted yok would have crushed me! instead it improved my posture. i learned, from dr. davidson, that you always need a rabbit to chase. always be happy with your accomplishments, but never stisfied with them. grow and grow always.

if you live in the east coast or find yourself around here i strongly suggest you go to matt mills place. he's a smart guy (ma in kinesiology from uconn i think) strong as hell (holds log clean press records), and most importantly a good person.

lightning-fitness.com hit that site up and get your lift on.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

update 2/15

front squatted 325, ugly as sin but its a pr. thought, is an ugly lift acceptable if its a pr?

decline bench: closest thing to powerlifting bench i think. 345 for a single. crazy hard grind. last week i missed 355 happy with this. using 75 lb's for chin ups (supine grip) for sets of 3.

side note, show and go is the bomb! if you dont program for yourself get on this!

Monday, February 13, 2012

Good Stuff to read

does stretching make you flexible- by Steve Pulcinella
http://articles.elitefts.com/articles/rehabilitation/does-stretching-make-you-flexible/

6 Tips from 6 Coachesby Ben Bruno
http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/6_tips_from_6_coaches

The "Pro Athlete Trainer Myth"- by flo fitness
http://flofitnessllc.blogspot.com/2012/02/pro-athlete-trainer-myth.html

Reaching Your Potential in the Big 3by Lee Boyce and Todd Bumgardner
http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/reaching_your_potential_in_the_big_3

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Too much?

As a powerliftter I may be about to commit sacrilige but, strength might be overated. People sometimes impose their own bias on to others as "the way". My job as a trainer is to have my clients achieve their goals, whatever they may be. If my clients program looks like mine, then that client better have my exact goals, exercise history, injury history, mobility issues etc.

The clearest example i can think of are bodybuilding style trainers. Does their 60 something year old sweet as pie grandma client need to be doing an "arm day" or a 9th set of the third chest exercise of that day? I think a lot of this comes from ego, thinking that what we do is the best. That thinking needs to change to (maybe) what i'm doing is the best for me. Usually its more like this is the only thing i know how to do and say its the best because I do not know any better.

What about powerlifters? most trainers can agree that squatting and deadlifting are essential movements we as humans should be doing. My question is how much is too much? Just like grandma does not need flat bench; incline; decline; chest flye days, She definitely doesn't need maximal effort method front squatting. Even though increasing maximal strength will make lighter work absolutely easier, it will improve her bone mineral density, we can easily say its too much.

Grandma was an easy case, but what about young athletes? I made a friend of mine start dunking by increasing his 5rm back squat, but how much is too much? A stronger squat will improve knee stability, maybe even verticals (as my single person case study showed). Where is the line in the sand?

I overanalyze everything so I wanted to make this simpler for myself. What do I, did I do to improve performance in my sport? I practiced and drilled. I could not stop my opponent from taking my leg, so I worked on sprawling and defending the takedown. I wasn't getting to my opponents knees? thousands of shots at my drill partner or the air.

would a heavier barbell reverse lunge help me? maybe. it would/could make my step into the opponent more explosive. I had a potentially stronger split stance step, now I took this newfound explosive and did thousands more shots at an opponent or air with a stronger first step.

What I am trying to say is that if a MINIMAL amount of strength is not in the picture then strength training will improve your sport performance. If a minimal amount of strength is in place then getting stronger will give you the ability to do better when you practice, which will in turn make you better at your sport.

Train to be better at practice/ don't train to the point where it has an adverse effect on practice.
practice to be become better at your sport
compete
find a weakness
strengthen that weakness
practice as an even fitter person to be even better at your sport
repeat cycle

just my thoughts

-Jorge Unigarro

Friday, February 10, 2012

Alright stop! hammer time

avoiding plateaus is not an easy task. No matter how well versed we are in exercise science or how expensive our gym or trainer fees are, we run into plateaus from time to time. Designing programs is a balancing act.

Do it like crossfit and change movements seemingly without thought? Ok, you avoid the worry of getting accustomed to the stimulis BUT you may remain too cognitive in the learning phase, and never really a move well enough to add some appreciable weight.

Do it the opposite way and you get PLENTY of practice in the movement but the stimulis is diminished. The positive is the movement gets perfected, with this you can add more weight than if you changed every exercise every workout. The negative is you get too accustomed to the movement, and diminishing the stimulis which will minimize the adaptation from it.

Exercise selection is nothing more than a variable in program design, to be tweaked, maintained, or let go of for whatever reason we choose. Programming Design is like a science experiment, if i do X what will happen? the only difference is we have a pretty good idea of what will happen. In this science experiment a variable that is sometimes forgetting (usually because it makes the exercise more difficult) is pausing in the eccentric/concentric phase.

I want to think about four distinct phases of a lift, and lets the bench press as the example (since its an easy one) the concentric (the press), eccentric (lowering) phase in between concentric and eccentric (lockout) and the phase between eccentric and concentric (the bottom range of it.

In the bench press (for example) what are the benefits of a pause at the bottom? As we lower the bar we build up energy in our muscles, think a rubber band being pulled back before you flick it a little sibling or cousins head. This energy is recycled to help you in concentric phase, and overused by deuchebags bouncing the weight uncontrollably off their chest. 1 benefit is it minimizes you looking like deuchebag. Another benefit is with resting at the bottom, the potential energy goes away after a few seconds the potentially recycled energy is gone and you are forced to call on MORE MUSCLE fibers to lift the weight off your chest.

Eliminating or diminishing the stretch reflex has some awesome side effect as well. It minimizes our chance of using weights that we have no business dealing but only do so because your ass is a foot off the bench and you're leaving bruises on your chest from the bounce.

This pause isn't a magic bullet and there are some negatives to it as well. Using this energy is natural to our bodies, its on our walk, run, jump etc. another negative is maybe we shouldn't always use a full range of motion and staying at a range of motion that isn't good for you, longer. does some damage. For Example, if at the bottom of the bench our shoulders can't be set right staying there under load will quickly hurt you. An easier example to see is with the squat, if full rom is ass to grass, but you are so tight that slightly above parrallel lumbar flexion occurs then going lower with load and holding that position is a recipe for disaster.

This is yet another balancing act of pro versus con is it worth the negatives for positives? this pause is nothing more than yet another variable which is a part of the tempo of the lift.

Change variables often enough that enough that you do not remain stagnant, but so often that you can't make too many gains from building on that movement.

Monday, January 9, 2012

315 high box squat for 24 straight reps

A few years ago this article was posted on t-nation.com http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/death_squat

I felt like attempting this and here is the video if the video doesn't play here is the link

http://youtu.be/B5HEv-Vm6AU

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Pareto principle

5/3/1, Show and Go, Westside barbell, countless other programs share a similar trait emphasis on the first exercise or grouping of exercises. This emphasis isn't by coincidence and it isn't applicable solely to exercise.

The Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule; the law of the vital few; and the principle of factor sparcity, states that roughly 80% of effects come from 20% of causes. This rule of thumb comes from Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto after observing that 80% of the land in Italy in 1906 was owned by 20% of the people.

So what's the big deal? People are selfish assholes, always have been and always will be, right? I mean this fight is being fought right now by thoe occupy wall streeters. Besides, why should you care about what Italy was like in 1906?

Well, Pareto also observed that 20% of the peapods he had planted contained 80% of the peas he yielded. A similar study was done in 1992 by the United Nations which showed 82.7% of the worlds income belong to the richest 20%. Again, why does this matter?

Our job as trainers is to manipulate variables to produce a specific adaptation. That is how we get our clients to reach their goals. However, there is a flipside: Our job regarding program design also includes managing stress. To tie this in with Pareto's work, Drs. Vladimir Zatsiorsky and William Kramer found (I'm paraphrasing since I lent my book to a friend) up to 85% of our adaptations come from our first two working sets. Now how a working set is defined is a question I'm not ready to answer at this time - (I'm not smart enough.) But here is what I think a working set is, down to 90% of the day's max weight at the target reps.

Now lets circle back to us as trainers managing stress. I'm not going to lie - hiring a trainer can be expensive, so odds are most people with trainers work hard for the money, so hard for it honey. The lifestyle of many trainees is stressful - hell, life is stressful - so why would we want to add excessive stress to an already stressed person?

If we know that up to 85% of adaptations come from our first two working sets why are some trainers killing their clients on their 8th exercise set # 25 for the day? That's overkill especially if after the first few sets of the day you're only working on the last 15%. Probably uneducated trainers, or client is not being pushed hard enough in the first few sets. If there is such a minimal return on the energy invested, why risk potential injury - especially since the client is probably fatigued - by working as hard for the 15% as you would for the 85%? As Dan John would say, THE GOAL IS TO KEEP THE GOAL THE GOAL.

How do we do that: keep the goal the goal? First step would be to figure out a goal. From there figure out what it is I need to do to achieve that goal, and especially consider what can I get from the workout to get to that goal. What exercises do I need to be doing; what variables need to be manipulated to best achieve that goal. From there focus on improving those lifts through the chosen variables. Lets call this the Main Effort Lift(s) of the day.Tthis/these lifts (if supersetted) will be responsible for up to 85% of my adaptations. Kill this part of workout.

From there it's a battle against diminishing returns. The rest of the workout should focus on improving the main lift and correcting whatever the main lift messes up on your body ie. Horizontal push main effort days should be met with a lot of pulling motions so we don't get all upper crossed as well as some extra shoulder and tricep work (if the goal is to improve the bench). Then some specific corrective work: using the same example of benching: some rotator cuff work , core work, maybe some conditioning or vanity work if there is time.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Friday, August 24, 2012

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Wednesday, July 25, 2012