Real Fitness Advice for a Post-Covid 2022

 It's been awhile since this blog has been updated, so please excuse me if I'm a bit rusty after having to deal with Covid, post-Covid, vaccinations, and on an on. However, since it appears that almost every conversation I have starts with a fitness reference or question I'll skip the niceties of "How have you been?" and get right to it.  Here are a few of the lessons I learned (or am still learning) during the pandemic. 

1. Be prepared for the worst. I was fortunate enough to have my own gym when the pandemic started, so I never missed a workout because of quarantines, variants, etc.  My recommendation is that you always have at least one piece of gear that you can go to as a Plan B if your gym closes or you get quarantined. Kettlebells would be my specific suggestion: one 24kg (53 lb) for men and one 16 kg (35 lb) for women.  That's it.  

2. The fundamentals haven't changed. Training all of your energy systems is still the winning formula. For all of you draped over your Peleton, consider that not a single part of your body is touching the ground during your session. This is what is called an "open" movement since it is non-load bearing.  There are few situations in life that are non-load bearing or that require you to assume the posture required to use the Peleton.  Most real-life activities require you to have your feet on the ground and to bear a load, so to be "fit" has to include being able to do so efficiently. Lifting something heavy also improves your bone density and strengthens your core, two things that are going to come in handy as you age. 

3. Goals are still the best way to challenge yourself. I set a goal for myself back in 2018 that was pretty ambitious. It was so ambitious that it took me nearly three years to reach it, but I finally did. Nobody saw me do it and it's likely nobody would have cared even if they did.  But it was important to me, personally, and kept me going for 240 workouts during 2021.  

Note that I didn't mention anything about New Year's resolutions or any of that stuff. I'll get to that next time. I'm just warming up today. 

It's a Routine, not a "Lifestyle"

It's hard to believe that it's been over three months since the last time I posted to this blog.  A lot has happened in those three months:  holidays, business travel, out-of-town visitors, volleyball practices and tournaments, birthday parties and all the other challenges that most families face on a routine basis.  "Routine" is a good word, actually, because most of our lives are dictated by routines. On school days we get up, make breakfast, pack lunches, ferry kids to school, pick them up, and so on. Then we have the routines of work: meetings, conference calls, reports. Sometimes "work" is what you can manage to do in between the "routine" activities. What really happens is that we allow life's routines dictate our "lifestyle", which eventually devolves into an over-emphasis on routines that serve others and not ourselves.  Marketers know this all to well, so they have introduced this concept of "lifestyle" that allows you to think you are participating in active wellness programming when, in fact, it's just making you worse. A "fitness lifestyle" is never a replacement for a "wellness routine".    "Healthy lifestyle", "fitness lifestyle", and even "Crossfit lifestyle", "running lifestyle", "triathlon lifestyle" are used to try to recruit you into a particular set of activities that more often than not target your wallet and not wellness goals .   "Lifestyle" is a word developed by marketers to sell stuff.  Period.    Since I live in Florida I see a lot of "lifestyle" propaganda everywhere. It's generally some overweight guy on a beach bike, a woman power walking with some 1lb pastel dumbbells, or folks in golf togs.  The "fitness lifestyle" is great if you're retired and only worrying about wasting time until the 4pm early bird special starts, but face it, it's marketing bullshit. Even the "fitness lifestyle brands" are marketing engines. CrossFit? It's just a way for certain companies to sell gear and the licensing that is required to put on the potential injury festival that is the Crossfit WOD. You can come right here to my home gym in Orlando, wear whatever you feel comfortable in, and create an equal amount of physiological reserve without all the marketing hype. Know why? Because it's about "routine", not some "lifestyle" thing.

In the month of January I traveled during two separate weeks, both times to the National Capital Region - once to DC and once to Maryland.  During the 31 days of January I completed 22 training sessions: 11 strength-centric sessions (deadlift, squat, bench press, overhead press), 7 anaerobic sessions (all kettlebell complexes), and 4 "other" sessions (2 enhanced bodyweight, 1 sandbag and 1 run).  If that seems like a lot, it's because for most people it probably would seem to be, but for me it was actually three less sessions than I had planned for.  Why? Because I have a routine.  I plan for a specific session on a particular day and a particular time and I stick to it. No, "stick" is a bad word: I "obsess" over it. . How can you do the same? Traveling? Get up early. Have a work obligation all afternoon? Well, you better do it at 10am.  "Well, ummm, Steve, we can't just leave the office and train at 10am." Why not? Why is it any better at 12pm or 5pm than 10am? See, you have to make this a routine.

I have a friend who loves his Peleton and another who rides a very expensive road bike on the weekends.  Beyond the fact that these activities are only training one energy system, they are perfect examples of "lifestyles".  Peleton has - admittedly - done a great job marketing an overpriced product and making it a "lifestyle brand".  The high end bike maker has done a great job selling the "quality" of the bike, not how it will make you more fit: if you're going to ride you have have a great bike, right? Then you need a jersey, shorts, helmet, water bottles, etc. etc. To be part of the "cycling lifestyle" you need a bunch of gear.  Ever notice how many of those weekend riders are still fat? Yeah, a lot of them are. It's because they are investing money in a lifestyle and not time into regular training sessions.

This same  is true is true for Bowflex, P90X, TRX, Zumba, Orange Theory Whatever, and the list goes on.  All of them purport to make you fit, but what is similar about all of them? They all require an investment and a commitment to a "lifestyle" once you make it there is more investment thrust upon you. I have a 32kg kettlebell in my gym that is a bitch to lift and that I cuss at every time I have to lift it. But you know what? That thing doesn't try to sell me a shirt or a training manual or anything else. I schedule my time with it and then I train. The most important part is scheduling the time, not the implement. I can also wear a plastic garbage bag, pajama pants, and work boots to train and nobody cares. It's about the routine, not the "lifestyle". 

If you are on the road and don't have your "lifestyle" gear (Peleton, etc) how to you schedule a training session? The answer is that you likely don't. You just eat poorly and say you'll make it up when you get home and back to your "lifestyle" brand.  What you really need to do is figure out a routine that uses implements that you can rely on every day, not just when your "lifestyle" allows it.

When I advise a new online training client I purposefully make the first 4-6 weeks pretty easy from a physical perspective. I do this to emphasize the importance of creating a routine and not the effort of each session. There have been two clients who have canceled me because they couldn't stick to the most basic three-day-a-week routine.  I wish them the best of luck in trying to achieve their goals without it.  I won't work. The ROI of a routine is infinitely higher than the money invested in a "lifestyle". 

I am happy to help you create a routine that works for you.  I"m easily found at 3Sigmawellness@gmail.com, Twitter: @3Sigmawellness or Instagrram: 3Sigmawellness.

Density is the Mother of Invention

For the past year or so I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out my training philosophy.  You know, some fitness professionals have "strength" or "hypertrophy" as the main component of their training philosophy.  A powerlifting coach will be all about intensity and volume, generally choosing one or the other as their "philosophy".  A coach with more of a physique focus will focus more on "reps" and "sets" with short rest periods a their "philosophy". And we all know personal trainers whose philosophy appears to be "activity".  You know those guys (and gals) who have their clients doing all kinds of movements in the name of "variation" but who have no sense of "progression". Just this week in San Diego I saw a female trainer in a commercial gym running a client through a sequence of one-arm overhead kettlebell lunges, planks, and burpees. I have no idea what the heck she was trying to achieve, but the client looked just as confused as I must have. "Confusion" seemed to be her philosophy.

After much contemplation and experimentation, I have arrived at my personal training philosophy: "Density". Training density is the amount of work divided by time. Well, Mr. 3Sigma, how do you figure out how much work and how much rest?  The answer is that it's really up to you.  Consider this example.  As many of you have seen in my LinkedIn articles I moved to some specific kettlebell training goals during 2018.  One was KB man makers (video here).  I started at 24kg and the goal was to do 20 in 30 minutes. I eventually got to 20 pretty fast, but I had no sense of pacing. 30 in 30 minutes was next and that took a few months. Once again, I went out like a Ferrari and came in like a dump truck, doing the first five reps in less than three minutes and then doing the last five in almost six minutes.   When I eventually got 30 it took me almost exactly 30 minutes. 40 reps was next and I busted my ass and nearly passed out several times, but I got stuck on 38 and then started to regress.

Last Friday I got 40 reps in just under 30 minutes. How did I do it? I took the number of reps I wanted and divided it into 30 minutes. It meant that I had to do each rep in 45 seconds.  So I marked off every 45 second interval for 30 minutes and did a rep on that time.  It worked. I still almost passed out, but I did so knowing that I had both improved by 50% as well as maximizing my training density. 

This is my philosophy. Take a simple combination of movements and work to improve the number of repetitions in a fixed period of time.  This gives you three sets of variables to work with: movement combination, load, and time.  For a Type A trainee it will be hard to accept that a full effort at 15 minutes is equal to an hour of jacking around looking in the mirror and checking e-mail, but it is.  As an executive athlete you have limited time but also need to feed your competitive appetite.

Here's all you need to know about the 3Sigma "system"

1. Pick a series of movement complexes of between three and five movement (e.g. man makers)
2. Choose a load that you can handle for 15, 20, or 30 minutes. Starting light is assumed.
3. Use reps for time or time for reps.  
4. Set a baseline and then improve incrementally in each session.

Hit your goal? Add time or weight. This 4-step process can be applied to barbells, kettlebells, dumbbells, sandbags, or any implement that requires you to move a load. What does that mean?  It means that if you drop the implement it would make a noise when it hits the ground. That's it.  Resistance banks don't make a noise when they hit the ground. Machines don't hit the ground at all.  Barbells, kettlebells, big ass tires, sandbags, boulders, and dumbbells will all make a noise when they hit the ground. That's what you need to use.

That's it. I will be posting up complexes and goals in future blog articles.

Efficiency is the Mother of Achievement...and Sometimes Just a "Mother".

Efficiency is the hallmark of effective organizations. Being able to quickly deliver services in less time is admired by consumers and Wall Street alike. Amazon has capitalized on this concept to completely change the retail market. As the leaders of organizations we have all been faced with the challenge of creating more efficient processes, and sometimes not by choice. 

In those circumstances when you have been asked to "do more with less" how have you responded?  Probably with some sort of value chain analysis, determining which activities are core competencies and which can be eliminated or offloaded on someone who can do it more efficiently. 

So why, then, do you insist on going to the gym or to your "personal trainer" and engage in activities that are so inefficient? "Training efficiency" is just as critical to your wellness as operational efficiency is to your enterprise. 

Simply put, "training efficiency" is the amount of work done in a fixed period of time aimed at a specific training objective. Note that the word "objective" ends the previous sentence. "Training" is not "exercising". Exercising is a physical activity that is meant to create a sense of accomplishment or well-being in the present.  Running at lunch on the same route in the same amount of time as two days ago? Exercise. Swimming the same number of laps every day? Exercising. Doing the same dumbbell curls with the same weight every damn workout?  Exercising, not training. 

Training is physical activity in which the current session builds upon the previous session in pursuit of the accomplishment of a goal. This can be how much, how many or how fast, but the key is that it is more than the last time. If it's not, then you're just exercising. 

Now match this concept of training up with time and you begin to see how training efficiency works. Let's take a common training modality: a deadlift. If in 30 minutes I lift more total weight in 30 minutes than the last time my training efficiency has improved. If I perform more movements with the same weight my efficiency has also improved. Ironically, both are also indicators of increased strength, so improving training efficiency will, by definition, increase strength.

So how do you improve training efficiency?  Do more with less. Choose fewer movements and train them by load and time.  Here's an example:

Single kettlebell swings at 16kg (35lbs) within a 15 minute period. This week you do 100 and next week you do 110. You have gotten stronger and more efficient. You can either increase the weight or the time and start again to become more efficient at that load or for that time period.  And the more you achieve the tougher you will become.  Is it easy? No, it's hard, but nothing worth having comes
easilty.

Follow me on Twitter @3Sigmawellness or Instagram at 3Sigmawellness for more of these nuggets and contact me directly at 3Sigmawellness@gmail.com for personalized programming.

Stay well, my friends

"Active Aging" is Weak. Age Aggressively.

When my parents were alive they lived in Ocala, FL, in a gated, 55+ community, of which there were many to choose from in the area. On the way down FL 200 toward their neighborhood there were many billboards in soft focus with older people in bad workout gear with towels around their necks.  Some were holding the pastel colored-dumbbells from the discount rack at Dick's, some were on bicycles, and some were just walking.  Other billboards had photos of seniors playing golf and tennis with pristine outfits and perfect smiles. The message of these billboards is pretty straightforward: come to our community and you'll get fit by simply being more active. This is complete bullshit.  If you show up over 55 and unfit, you will never get fit simply by engaging in those activities.  Staying fit as you age means aggressive action, not activity. If you want to play golf and tennis, that's fine, but be a beast on the court and the course, not just a participant who can't wait to get to the 19th puka and knock back some cold ones.

Here are the facts. A man will lose one-third of his skeletal muscle mass between ages 50 and 80 unless he takes action to prevent it.  Let me translate: you need to lift some damn weights or you will eventually look like a pear. Why? Because you don't lose one-third of your body weight during that time, you simply lose the muscle. You gain adipose fat in it's place, which is often referred to as the "middle aged spread' or the "Dad bod".  Some people think that's funny or cute, which is why there are so many fat-assed men on TV and in commercials. But I think it's ridiculous to simply accept something happen "actively" when you can prevent it "aggressively".

Resistance training will help you retain more of your lean muscle. This will allow you to store more energy in skeletal muscle and less as adipose fat. It will also increase your metabolism.  Just as important as the physiological impacts are the psychological impacts.  You're self-confidence will soar and you will have a better overall level of vitality.

Get aggressive in your training as you age and don't accept the "reality" of a body and mind that will regress. Age like a badass, not a wimp.

"Weaponized" Rest

My friend and colleague Chris Cleary has this saying that the military buys "weapons", not "things", so you should always couch things in terms of "weapons". I feel much the same way about the concept of rest in a wellness portfolio.  Most of you executive types made it up the ladder because you worked long hours and sacrificed. I get that, because I did it, too. . But in doing so you likely completely abandoned the concept of rest.  There is a cliche' that use that goes "I'll rest when I'm dead".  Really? The truth is that if you work so hard that you don't get enough rest you're not working. You're either doing what you really like and it no longer feels like work, you've become obsessed with something, or you're avoiding life outside of work. In any of those three situations, rest can improve your situation by not only making you think more clearly, but also by giving you some perspective on things.

But I'll bet you that if you saw a different context you might do more of it, and do it strategically. If rest on the front page of the Harvard Business Review, or Fortune, or the WSJ, you might actually think about it. But because we perceive rest as non-productive time we also perceive it as inefficient. So why do it? The answer is because it works.

My answer to this conundrum is to completely redefine "rest" as "weaponized super-compensation". Sounds like something I could get published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, for sure, and maybe even a mention in Time or something. But it's just plain "rest".

Rest is one of those daily wellness investments that anyone can make. Just like drinking water and minding your posture. The majority of your recovery from training happens while you are sleeping, including muscle repair and cell re-hydration.  You are actually tallest each day when you first get out of bed because your vertebral disks are fully hydrated.

Where rest really is most effective is with the concept of super-compensation. When you train your body says "Boy, I need to get ready for the next time that happens" and by resting you allow your body to make those preparations and become stronger.  If you don't rest, your body will begin to say "Enough is enough" and your immune system will suffer, you will be fatigued, and you will lose enthusiasm for training, which will spiral quickly. Rest makes you more resilient, and the older you get the more difficult it is to achieve that resilience. Build rest into your programming and you'll immediately see improvement, especially in your resistance training.

"Weaponized rest" is not necessarily doing nothing, but it can be.  I would suggest three things:

1. Myofascial Release. The artist formerly known as "foam rolling". My pal Scott Herman has a very good intro video HERE
2. Melatonin.  This really helps with moving you off your worries and into some REM sleep. Visit GNC for Melatonin HERE
3. Overfeed Protein.  This is especially true at night. A cup of yogurt or cottage cheese right before bed will make improve the update of amino acids and speed your recovery. I personally like the Fage 0%. The best-tasting fat-free protein on the planet.

Thanks for your support and your comments. Get your rest - it's a weapon.

Stay well, my friends.

New Year's Guarantees: Cold Weather, Crowded Gyms, and Opinion-based Facts

I have to say that this is my least favorite time of year. I generally hate winter, which is why I live in Florida.

But what  I really hate more than cold weather is a crowded gym with "resolutioneers" all over the place spewing gobs and gobs of "opinion-based facts". So what, exactly, do I mean by "opinion-based facts"?  Well, let's see, here is a list of the top five opinion-based facts I have heard so far this year and my response to them. Sound like fun?

1. "A low-(carb/fat) diet is the best way to lose weight"
2. "Don't do cardio"
3. "Do more cardio"
4. "Too much protein will give you kidney failure"
5. "Walking (or swimming) is the best exercise"

Sort of an eclectic list, but I do find myself in YMCAs (aka, the nation's largest adult day care provider) all over the country on a regular basis, so I am doomed to hear this type of thing over and over again from people who have this type of misinformation baked into their brains. So let's take these one at a time.

1.  "A low-(carb/fat) diet is the best way to lose weight". Sorry people, this is just WRONG.  A pound of fat is approximately 3,500 calories. To lose weight you need to expend 3,500 calories more than you consume.  It does't matter if it's fat or carbs as long as you fill the gap with additional protein. That's it.  And the majority of these calories are burned by your body in its normal operation, not from exercise. Increase the amount of energy your body uses normally and you will lose weight more efficiently. The easiest way to do that? Build muscle, because muscle will increase the amount of calories you burn at rest.  Now you can tell that fat guy with the towel wrapped around him who has been talking about his "diet" and is still fat to shut up...or go back to the steam room.
2. "Don't do cardio". With this one, you first have to clear up the definitional problem. "Cardio" is not "running on the treadmill". "Cardio" is anything that raises your heart rate for a sustained period. Raising your heart rate can both increase your progress toward burning calories (see #1 above) and   also increase the size of your heart muscle and make it work more efficiently.  Anyone who says "Don't to cardio" is an idiot who probably keeps his lock on a public locker all night with his dirty jockstrap inside.
3. "Do more cardio".  A very common refrain from all the wanna be "bodybuilders" with  huge arms and small legs who wander in off the street with the tight, gray hoodie and load up 300 pounds on the bench to mark their territory.  Building lean muscle will allow your body to operate at a higher resting metabolic rate and burn more calories WITHOUT more cardio. Tell the hoodie guy that there's free anabolic steroids in the parking lot and you will be rid of him for the rest of your workout.
4. "Too much protein will give you kidney failure".  In peer-reviewed exercise science journals you will find that this is simply not true. But that old guy who squats in the Smith machine with a belt and knee sleeves will tell you that he had to have a kidney transplant because of too much protein. HE'S LYING.  Your body simply gets rid of excess protein. End of story. You need protein to repair muscle damage and promote lean muscle growth, so eat the protein. EAT IT.
5. "Walking/Swimming is the the BEST exercise".  Have you ever seen that guy who walks all the time in your neighborhood but still has a gut and has absolutely no muscle tone?  Listen, a man will lose 30% of his muscle mass between the ages of 50 and 80 unless he works to retain it by lifting something heavy and overfeeding on protein.  "Well, it's easier on the joints, Steve". OK, if you fail to load your joints you will lose muscle density and become more susceptible to osteoporosis. There is no "best exercise". Exercise should be a variety of activities that progressively challenge your strength, your mobility, and your aerobic fitness.  Tell the guy who is in the same lane in the pool every morning doing the "best exercise" that he might as well stay home with his "bad knee" unless he adds some resistance training to his routine.

I hope you found this entertaining. This is still January, so I'm sure I'll have lots more of these before the end of the year.  In the meantime, drop me a line at 3Sigmawellness@gmail.com or on Twitter @3Sigmawellness.

 Be well my friends.