The Ten-Minute Squat Test

Kelly Starrett, a Doctor of Physical Therapy and CrossFit coach, is one of the most influential men in the field of mobility. He is the author of Becoming a Supple Leopard: The Ultimate Guide to Resolving Pain, Preventing Injury, and Optimizing Athletic Performance, Ready to Run, and Deskbound: Standing Up to a Sitting World, as well as the founder and operator of MobilityWOD, an online database full of educational videos for improving and maintaining the ability to move throughout the natural ranges of human motion. These are all very important works of literature that can help anybody from the elite athletes to the weekend warriors help prevent injury and optimize physical performance.

Starrett’s kinesiology expertise can teach somebody the ideal ways to improve something as simple as hamstring stretching, to the pose methods of barefoot running, to proper execution of complex Olympic lifts like the clean and jerk, with specific instructions explaining how every joint from head to toe should be situated and moved to employ optimal power and minimal risk of injury. I invest a lot of personal interest in the teachings of the Supple Leopard himself. I own all three of his books and have taken the time to view a large handful of his MobilityWOD videos on YouTube. I could go on and on for hours about the lessons I’ve learned about the mechanics of human movement and the common reasons why most people can no longer achieve certain movement patterns that they were born fully capable of achieving.

Although I wish I could teach the world every bit of information I’ve acquired throughout my years of research, I know that most people either don’t care enough or don’t have the attention span to read an article so lengthy. So instead I want to explain one movement. One single movement that is so crucial to us as humans, yet nearly everybody lacks the ability to execute to some degree.

During an interview on The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, Starrett was asked what he thought was the single most important orthopedic test that every person should be able to pass. His answer: the Ten-Minute Squat. He stated that every human being is born with and should maintain the functional capacity to drop down into a perfect squat and stay there for at least 10 minutes, followed by an effortless ability to stand right back up. Toes should be pointed forward (or no less than 10 degrees flared out), feet should be shoulder width apart with 80% weight on the heels, and your back completely flat. Given my background as a powerlifter who placed minimal focus on flexibility in the beginning of my training, I don’t have 100% of the mobility that I should have as a human being, but I definitely come closer to my goal everyday with consistent practice. Here’s what I look like today sitting in my Paleo Chair:

Ten minutes is a long time. It’s even longer when you’re deep in a squat, your ass is burning, and you’re checking the time every thirty seconds. Pro Tip: do a little people-watching out the window from the fourth floor of your buddy’s apartment.

Go ahead and give the squat test a try. Did you fail? Were you able to execute perfect form from the start? What parts of your body started burning the most? Your shins, your knees, your low back, the front of your hip? Unless your glutes were the primary muscles in pain, you have some work to do. So pay close attention to these details, because these hotspots are telling a story about your physique – muscles that have fallen behind and atrophied while the rest of your body developed over the years, the joints that simply won’t bend or hinge or twist as far as they should, the fascia or ligaments or other musculoskeletal tissue that have become adaptively shortened or chronically lengthened (which is just as bad) due to poor movement patterns and poor posture. This squat test just gave you insight into the future. These hotspots, or your utter inability to even fall into a squat from the get-go, will one day manifest into something much more serious.

Unless you can travel with good movement patterns and ease into one of the most primitive positions that even a toddler has no problems executing, you will always be at risk for totally preventable injuries. Injuries don’t just occur as freak accidents during a pickup game of basketball amongst 40-year old men. 80-90% of you will suffer from low back pain at some point in your lifetime. Read that number again. 80-90%! And that is just low back pain. Want to know the easiest way to remain in that 10-20% range? Learn to squat.

TJ Williamson

B.S. Kinesiology | NSCA-Certified Personal Trainer

How I lost 22 lbs in 7 days – Water Cut

I’m 7 days out from my first powerlifting competition. I weigh 179 lbs and intend to compete in the 165 lb weight class. Only 14 lbs to lose in 7 days. No big deal, right? Well, it’s actually very feasible. Every UFC fighter, wrestler, powerlifter, etc. drops anywhere from 10-30 lbs in under a week before their weigh ins, then stack on that lost weight before the big show. How? By applying science and meticulous measurements to everything they consume during that week. Most attention is focused on water consumption, as the largest quantity of the weight being shed is in the form of water. Sodium is the key element that influences water retention, so salt intake must also be highly monitored. Thirdly, carbohydrates cause the body to retain water in the muscle and fat cells, so a low-carb diet is a must.

In order for me to lose my 14 lbs, I have my plan all laid out. Beginning on Friday (7 days away), I will consume a large amount of water and salt, and initially I will gain some weight, but my body’s auto-regulatory response will tell itself that it is okay to get rid of “excess” water since it is receiving such a surplus. As the week goes on, I will drink less and less water each day. I will be ridding myself of more water than I am taking in, thus creating a hydration deficit.

WARNING: Do not assume this process is a safe and effective form of weight loss. Being in a dehydrated state for a longer period of time than my 2-3 day window is very dangerous and your body will begin to witness organ failure and, more or less, slow death. I have had multiple experiences with dehydrating myself in the interest of experimental scientific testing and have learned how my body handles extreme diets and training. If, for any reason, you need to follow in my footsteps to lose water weight for your own competitive pursuits, please contact me first so I can walk you through the procedure. To help you understand the gravity of this process, I will give you a day-to-day commentary on how I felt throughout the week…

 

Friday: 7 days out – 179 lbs

Water: 2-3 gallons

Sodium: High

Carbs: < 50g

I drank roughly 2.5 gallons of water by the end of the day. 2 full jars of pickles (juice and all), lots of bacon, ham, table salt added to everything. I feel like the water is a meal in itself and I have to force the food in along with it. I’m ready to go back down to 1 gallon.

 

Saturday: 6 days out – 184 lbs

Water: 1-2 gallons

Sodium: Low

Carbs: < 50g

(“Before” picture taken this day) I feel so bloated! Now I have 19-20 lbs to lose. I go to the bathroom… all the time. I’m not even confident enough to go out for the weekend because I’ll spend every 15 minutes in the bathroom. By noon, I already crave the taste of salt. This is going to be a long week.

 

Sunday: 5 days out – 181 lbs

Water: 1 gallon maximum

Sodium: Zero

Carbs: < 50g

Went to the gym for a light workout wearing 3 layers. Got a good sweat going on. Afterward, I sat in the sauna, fully clothed, for 8 minutes. Nothing too drastic. I finished my water at 7:30 pm and for the first time, I had to tell myself “no” when I got thirsty later on. Slight decline in my mood after that.

 

Monday: 4 days out – 178 lbs

Water: ¾ gallon

Sodium: Zero

Carbs: < 50g

Didn’t sleep very well last night. Rolled around for 2 hours, partially because I had to pee every 30 minutes and partially because I was thirsty and couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Today was interesting… and highly productive. I started to introduce coffee into my routine for the diuretic effects (counting it as part of my ¾ gallon), and I cracked out for about 4 hours straight, cleaning my house until it was spotless. I threw on some sweats beforehand and killed 2 birds with one stone. I can tell I’m slightly dehydrated because I find it harder to take a full breath and the corners of my eyelids feel dry, like I’ve been sitting in a smokey bar all night. If I didn’t already eat a high fat and low carb diet, today would be about the time that I started feeling the ketogenic effects of burning fat and craving sugars. Luckily, I’m used to it… but man I could really go for a big bowl of assorted fruit or a box of donuts right now. I miss the taste of salt too, but lemon juice is sodium free and serves as a good replacement. My abs are getting more and more defined as the day goes on. First day of Spring semester starts tomorrow. Environmental stress is about to hit me like a freight train.

 

Tuesday: 3 days out – 177 lbs

Water: ½ gallon

Sodium: Zero

Carbs: < 50g

Some more experienced guys told me I should expect to drop 3-5 lbs/day from here on out. I’ve given up on the idea that I can get a good night’s sleep anymore. I knew I had to be up at 6:00am, so I laid in bed at 9:00… tossed and turned in an irritable state until I checked the time and saw that it was midnight. Even melatonin pills aren’t working. This dehydration thing is starting to become a test of my psychological strength opposed to my physical.

 

Happy last first day of college, TJ! Please don’t attack somebody.

 

Mouth – dry. Throat – dry. Nasal cavity – dry. Tender loving heart and glowing personality – ice cold and decaying. I don’t want to socialize. I don’t want to introduce myself to the class. I struggled to maintain a smile at the physical therapy clinic where I work. But even with a fake smile, my brain failed to function adequately enough to remember each patient’s series of exercises, or even some of their names for that matter. Scale of 1-10, I’d give cognitive function a 6, generously. If I could describe the color of my urine, my closest description would be “neon laser yellow with zero transparency.” Fast forward to 6:00 pm and I’m sitting in a 200-degree sauna for basically as long as I can hold out, toweling off and sipping what’s left of my water between sessions. I’m not the most approachable and civil being right now, so my headphones are in at all times. My times in the sauna end up being 15, 10, 5, 10 minutes before I got weak and dizzy and reached a resting heart rate of 110 bpm. Toying with heat stroke will most likely go on the list of the dumber things I’ve accomplished in my life.

Right before bed, my roommate passed by and commented that I looked “flat and tiny.”

 

Wednesday: 2 days out – 174.5 lbs

Water: ¼ gallon

Sodium: Zero

Carbs: Zero

Caffeine: 200-300 mg x 1

Time to up my diuretics. Popped 280 mg of caffeine pills and was jittery and sweaty all day. My face was rosy red, my eyes burned like I just swam in a highly chlorinated pool, and I was nauseous. All day. Hit my final preparatory workout at the gym wearing 3 thick layers to trap heat, then sat for one 10-minute round in the sauna. When I got home that evening I had a few glasses of red wine in order to dry me out even further. Fun fact: dehydration causes hangovers; being dehydrated before you start drinking causes WORSE hangovers…

 

Thursday: 1 day out – 173 lbs

Water: ¼ gallon

Sodium: Zero

Carbs: Zero

Caffeine: 200-300 mg x 2

Woke up late for work because I had no energy nor could I sleep well. Took 280 mg of caffeine pills again. Sweaty, shaky, shortness of breath, unable to thermoregulate, ready to faint at any moment. Drank half of my day’s water before 10:00 am. I had to ask a friend to proofread emails that I had typed out to professors because at this point, my visual perception and day dreams have clashed together into a strange, schizophrenic, hallucinative state of mind. I’m so hungry that I’m not hungry. I have no idea what happened in class already. Currently asking around for a friend to drive me to my competition tomorrow because if I drive, I’ll most likely swerve off the road to avoid hitting a unicorn or something impossible. The sauna was cranked up to 220 degrees and after 5 minutes, I think I officially decided that I wouldn’t enjoy an eternity in Hades.

 

Friday: Weigh-in day – 169 lbs (8AM)

Water: Zero

Sodium: Zero

Carbs: Zero

I look and feel like Christian Bale in The Machinist.

I dreamt of running water last night. At least when I did dream. I managed to sleep from 12:30-2:00 then 5:30-8:00. Woke up, packed my bags, and went back to the sauna. 4 lbs to go. This time as I sat there sweating, I was also trying to spit in a cup as much as possible – emphasis on “trying” because my mouth and throat were about as dry as they get when attempting the cinnamon challenge. I just stared at beads of sweat rolling down my body, knowing I can’t replace them until later tonight. I fixed myself the perfect recovery drink when I got home. ¾ gallon orange gatorade, ¼ gallon water, 25 grams of creatine, 50 grams of dextrose/maltodextrin (simple sugar) powder, blended up blueberries, and 2 packets of Emergen-C. All of my lasting motivation was focused on this jug of holiness. I didn’t get to eat anything dry today either. Can’t have any extra weight in my GI tract. I’m so ready for this to be over.

12:00 PM – 164.4 lbs. Finally! Now all I have to do is avoid eating or drinking anything for 7 more hours… My stomach feels like a vacuum. My body was so hot and unable to thermoregulate that I drove the entire hour and a half to Joplin with the windows cracked – it was 32 degrees at the time. I got to my hotel, made two agonizing and exhausting trips carrying my bags up 10 steps at most, then laid motionless in my bed until it was time to head to the weigh ins.

 

Official weight – 162.8 lbs. Now comes the rapid weight gain before competition starts in the morning.

 

10 minutes after weighing in, I’ve already chugged a 32 ounce gatorade and half a gallon of my special drink. 20 minutes after that, I’m hunched over the toilet suffering from terrible stomach pain as my kidneys struggled to kick back online. I had no choice but to shove my finger down the back of my throat and start over with pure water to flush my system and get the gears cranking again. Once I started feeling better, I joined my friends Ken and Morgan for dinner and searched the menu for a high carb, low fat meal – high carb to replace all of my muscle glycogen and low fat because fats slow down your rate of digestion. So I ordered a calzone and a heavy beer. Why would I order a beer when I’m in a dehydrated state? Well for starters, you can’t eat pizza or calzones without also drinking a beer. That’s just unAmerican. But more importantly, heavy beer is full of carbs and contains over 30 minerals and trace elements, including all 13 minerals necessary to sustain human life – calcium, chloride, chromium, copper, iodine, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, sodium, and zinc. So yes, I had a beer. One beer, not ten.

After leaving the pizza restaurant, we went directly to IHOP for never-ending pancakes. I didn’t stop eating when I was full. I stopped eating when my jaw got tired of chewing. Throughout my two big meals, I tried to drink another ½ gallon of water and even brought my special drink with me into the restaurants – this resulted in many double-takes and chuckles from the other people at the restaurant. No ragrets. I was on a mission, and you gotta do what you gotta do.

When I woke up in the morning, I went straight to the lobby of the hotel for the continental breakfast and continued to stuff as many carbohydrates into my body as I possibly could. Eggs, raisin toast, cheerios, oatmeal, yogurt for digestive assistance, fruit juice, and of course the lovely waffle maker. This was my last major meal before the beginning of competition. I was still about 5-10 lbs underweight by the time I was underneath the squat bar, but throughout the day I kept snacking on granola bars, pedialyte, and rice cakes. By the time the final event, deadlifts, came around, I was finally feeling 100% and thankfully I managed to set a personal record. Oh yeah… and I took 1st place!

Upon leaving the competition at the end of the day, I weighed myself one last time and discovered that I had gained 24 lbs in the past 24 hours – 2 more than my peak from 7 days ago. I finally felt human again and I had clarity of mind.

Looking back, this 7-day adventure was probably the most stressful, painful, and vigorous series of events I’ve ever experienced. I would never recommend that anybody follow in my footsteps, but I’m an extremist and I like to push my body to its limits to better understand who I am, and to learn just how far I can bend before I break. So to conclude, just remember that this was a short term dehydration. If you read this article looking for a way to lose weight in a healthy manner, the answers are not here. In fact, losing body fat is 10x easier than the pain and stress you will go through by drying your body out. So again I will say, PLEASE do not try to drop water weight just to look skinnier – it won’t last. Instead, contact me for workout tips and/or a meal plan and lose weight the right way.

-TJ Williamson, NSCA-CPT

New Year Workout 1: Leg Builder & Waist Trimmer

Alright resolutioners, what kind of trainer would I be if I let you go out and figure out how to lose weight on your own or take advice from some meat head who learned everything he knows from the “well it worked for me” theory? Luckily for you, I also set myself on a plan to burn a little fat and increase my endurance for the next month or two, so I’ll try to keep my promise to post more workouts and keep you occupied. With that being said, I challenge you to try this workout! I wrote it specifically to trim some holiday belly fat and to make my tree trunk legs grow even bigger. Don’t worry, you don’t have to be at my fitness level in order to finish it. The main point of this workout is to finish it as quickly as possible. This way, you have a certain time to beat next time around (after your legs quit feeling like Jell-O and you regain feeling in your rock-hard lower back again). Here’s how it goes:

Start with a good warm up – whatever it takes to loosen up your legs, hips, and midsection.

Bike – 3 minutes

Deep Body Squats – 3 sets of 10

Stretch anything still tight and shake it out

Here comes the fun part… Start the timer.

You’re going to back squat 135 lbs for 100 reps… (I broke my reps up into 25, 20, 20, 35)

If you’re a beginner or that sounds too heavy, stick with body weight. Rule #1: every time you run out of breath and have to pause for more than 5 seconds at the top, rack the weight – you earned yourself a “quitter’s set.” Every time you have to set the weight down for resting, you must do a set of 5 box jumps (My box height was 30’) and 10 hanging knee raises. Catch your breath and get back under the bar. The clock is still ticking. Once you’ve reached 100 reps, complete one more quitter set then stop the time. How long did you take? Write down your time. Can you beat it next time? Can you beat my time – 10 min 56 seconds?

The hard part is over, but the workout is not. Go ahead and take a 5 minute break and walk around. Grab a drink. It’s time for the bonus round. You’re about to lunge 200 meters… That’s 100 lunges per leg. I split it up into 4 sets of 25 lunges each leg. Take your time and practice good form.

Did you finish? How many lunges did you do before giving up? Write it down. Can you beat that number next time?

One last movement for all the overachievers. Rapid Flutter Kicks. Lay on your back, arms at your side, crunch up slightly and raise your legs so that the only thing on the ground is your butt. Point your toes and kick them as quickly as you can like you’re swimming. Faster! Your hip flexors will be screaming, your abs will tighten up, and your quads will be giving up on you, but this is your last workout so go all out. Complete your reps in this fashion, with minimal rest periods in between – 50 (each leg), 40, 30, 20, 10. Done! No more. Congratulations. Be sure to write down all your numbers so you have a goal to surpass next time. Now cool down, keep moving around for the next half hour, stretch out extremely well, then go ice. 2016 is your year. Stay motivated and stay educated. Call, text, or email me if you need any help along the way.

More workouts to come…

TJ Williamson, NSCA-CPT

TJ’s Big 6: Essential Guidelines to a Healthy Body

The realm of exercise science, just like any other field of science, is constantly growing as we find new evidence and introduce new ideas on how to quickly and efficiently become greater athletes. Athletic trainers all over the world are being praised for their abilities to design these new creative workouts, with all these fancy pieces of useless equipment and movements that make absolutely no sense to me. Sometimes when you study something too hard and narrow your scope too far, you lose sight of the big picture. Let’s face it – we’re not all looking to get drafted into the NFL or compete in the Crossfit games. Those people are freaks of nature and their bodies can handle bigger workloads than yours. So let’s stop following in their footsteps and stick to the basics. Here is my list of rules that every Average Joe needs to follow to become a well-rounded athlete looking to improve his/her physical health while avoiding injury.

1. Stick to the Big Lifts

You can curl a dumbbell repeatedly for an entire hour, and I promise you the guy standing next to you doing weighted pull-ups will see much more growth in his biceps than you. How? Muscles don’t grow just from isolating and exhausting them. In order to grow, you have to force your brain to release Growth Hormone and IGF-1 into the bloodstream so that it can attach to a target muscle and start rebuilding. The key to getting these anabolic hormones to release is to cause the greatest amount of stress on your body as you can with one movement. The bigger the muscle group you work, the greater the oxygen demand, which in turn causes the greatest surplus in hormone release. This is why the Big Lifts are so essential. They include: squats, deadlifts, lunges, chest and shoulder presses, dips, and pull-ups. Stop doing wrist curls and calf raises. Replace them with a big lift that recruits their involvement and you’ll see much better results.

2. Play

You dedicate all of your time training to improving your strength or cardiovascular endurance. But that’s all you’re doing – training. You need to put your skills to the test every once in a while. Call up some friends to play a sport, sign up for a competition, take a dance class, or just wrestle with your dog in the backyard. Don’t let your body feel like some machine with limited range of motion and figure out where your weak points are located.

3. Change Your Routine Occasionally

In order to make progress, you have to cause your body to adapt to the motions you follow every week. If every single workout was new and confusing to the body, it wouldn’t know how to prepare itself for the coming week. But if you follow the same routine every week for months on end, your body will become so adapted to what you’re doing that it won’t make any changes anymore. So try doing as I do – use the same lifts, but invert your volume vs. intensity ratio every week or two weeks. I like to alternate between heavy strength training weeks where I follow a 5×5 powerlifting routine, then switching to a lighter hypertrophy-based week using less weight but with a high rep count, between 15-20 per set. In another article, I will address this matter further. Strength and hypertrophy training yield different results even at the cellular level. It’s good to keep a balance, which brings me to my next rule…

4. Balance, Stabilization, and Isometrics

Training big muscle groups is the big idea behind a smart training regimen, but if your form is not 100% perfect and symmetrical, it’s easy to develop imbalances and weak points just asking to be exacerbated into a major injury. The best way to keep your body calisthenically sound and ready for anything you throw at it, is to take a day every week to focus on your isometric holds. This includes anything that causes no movement of the joints, but an activation of the muscle to keep your body still. Planks, Supermans, reps with a 5-10 second pause, or using an unstable surface. Just don’t be that guy trying to impress the degenerates by squatting 315 pounds while standing on a Bosu ball. These workouts should be relatively light, calm, and concentrated. Take the time to focus on your form and correct any issues you might see or feel. My best recommendation is to practice some yoga. It’s the best way to activate those fast-twitch muscle fibers while also stretching and calming the mind in a peaceful setting.

5. Rejuvenate

Get plenty of sleep, get a deep tissue massage, get adjusted by a chiropractor, take a warm magnesium salt bath, sleep in on Sunday morning, ease your mind with whatever form of stress relief works best for you. There’s no point in beating yourself up with exhausting total body workouts and coming in the next day if you’re too sore to move. Make sure you give yourself enough time to recover. Otherwise, you’re just beating a dead horse.

6. Eat Right

Following an exercise routine without a healthy diet is like going on a road trip without first getting an oil change that is long overdue and filling the gas tank. You need to fuel yourself with what your body needs to function properly. You are what you eat. If you don’t supply yourself with adequate nutrients, your body won’t perform at its maximum potential and your immune system will follow suit. Your meal plan should be a reflection of your physical goals. Bulking up, leaning out, gaining strength, and training for a triathlon all require their own specifically tailored nutrition regimens. Make sure you are following the one that matches your goals.

Follow these rules and I promise you, you’ll get the results you want.

-TJ Williamson, NSCA-CPT

A Message to All Heavy Lifters: Beware of Exertion Headaches

Nobody knows head pain quite like Prince Oberyn Martell…

In the world of fitness, athletes are prone to all sorts of injuries – broken bones, strained muscles, torn ligaments, herniated disks, you name it. But what most heavy weightlifters don’t consider is the injury that can result from the overexertion on the cardiovascular and arterial system. Allow me to educate you on a little injury I’ve experienced twice in my lifetime and why it is quite possibly the worst injury an athlete can go through.

In August of 2014, I was doing a deadlift workout and decided it was time to hit a new 3-rep max. I warmed up properly, built up to the desired weight, and went after it. I pushed myself hard, but maybe a little too hard. After finishing my 3rd rep, I dropped the weight to the floor, took a big inhale, and nearly fainted on the spot. I got extremely light-headed and instantly it felt like a bomb had gone off inside my head. It was the single worst migraine I had ever experienced in my life. For the entire fall semester, I was practically crippled and unable to workout because, in the days following that horrendous event, it took no more than the very first set at the beginning of my workout for the headaches to come back. They were equally as strong and equally as painful. Day after day, I would drive to the gym, warm up, get a migraine, and give up and go back home. I was stubborn and too addicted to being active to realize that what I was suffering from required a full 2 months of rest and recovery to properly heal. Eventually that’s exactly what I had to do, and it wasn’t fun. It wasn’t until just a week ago (almost exactly a year later) that I experienced the same injury and researched well enough to discover what was causing this problem – they call them EXERTION HEADACHES.

When an athlete experiences an exertion headache, what actually happens is the blood vessels within the head dilate so far beyond their threshold, that they apply external pressure to the meninges (nerves) surrounding them, causing intense head trauma. Once the blood pressure and heart rate lowers, the artery relaxes and slowly relieves pressure against the meninges, but the aftermath leaves an inflamed and extremely sensitive nerve that, once touched even lightly, will cause the same intense pain as the day that threshold was met.

So what factors lead to my demise? A combination of vasodilation, hypertension, dehydration, heavy lifting, valsalva maneuver, and poor neck position. I use preworkout supplements. It’s a staple in every lifter’s diet after their first trial run. Most preworkout formulas have supplements in them that induce vasodilation – citrulline malate, nitrates, niacin, arginine, etc. A dilated artery along with high blood pressure (heat, increased heart rate, thick dehydrated blood) causes a large amount of volumetric pressure to the walls of the artery. When forcing the movement of heavy weight and holding your breath or exhaling slowly during the concentric movement, this causes a lot of barometric pressure to build up in your thoracic cavity, thus further increasing your blood pressure and cardiovascular stress. Finally, a poor neck position – anything other than neutral – will also cause pressure and poor circulation of the carotid artery leading up to the brain. All of these factors combined are a recipe for cranial disaster.

Being a victim of these headaches myself, I can assure you there is no greater pain than the crippling migraines that hinder your abilities to practice your favorite act of the day. At 21 years old, an athlete should feel invincible. You are in peak physical condition and healthy as an ox. The only thing strong enough to take you down is yourself. Remember that. Don’t push too hard, stay extra hydrated, stay cool, and if you feel too much pressure in your head building up, STOP IMMEDIATELY!

Rule #1: Don’t Get Hurt

– TJ Williamson, NSCA-CPT

My experience with Squat Everyday – Ken

Over the past six months the Internet has being going wild over Cory Gregory’s new Squat Everyday program and the sequel including his Bench Most Dayz program. In order to weigh in on what seemed to be a ludacris program, I said “why not” and went for it. My squat max starting out was consistently 445 to competition depth with a belt, no wraps or sleeves.

The basic layout of the program is simple enough. Pick a squat variation everyday (7 days per week), and work up to as heavy as you can go in that variation for 3 sets of 1. Sounds like overtraining waiting to happen, right?

Wrong. The way the variations are stacked, you’re not actually going to your heaviest weight everyday. For example, one day I would do a powerlifting style squat with a belt and knee sleeves for a heavy 1, which would be my absolute max weight. Other days I would do front squats or pause squats, sometimes as long as 10 seconds. On 10 sec pause squats, I couldn’t hit much more than 315 for 1 rep.

The program prescribed finishing the squat session in 30 minutes or less, which pushed my endurance. If you’ve ever trained for powerlifting like I did, your max squat sessions take up to 2 hours sometimes.

For the next 30-45 minutes of the workout, I worked other parts of my body in a maintenance style circuit fashion. For example, on my back day, I would follow something like this:
Squat variation: 10, 10, 5, 5, 3, 3, 1, 1, 1
Deficit Deadlift: Same

Circuit
Pull-ups x 20
T bar row x 15
1 arm row x 15
Weighted crunches x 30
3 rounds

Seems simple, but extremely exhausting. On days 6 and 7, I would perform only squats or squats and deadlifts.

After the first 3 days, I had two things to say. First, this f*$&@*! sucks. Second, I think my knees are going to explode if I drop down into a squat one more time. By the end of the week, my legs were feeling awfully tight and sore.

At the start of week 2 is when I saw some real changes. All of the sudden my legs weren’t getting sore any more. My mobility was improving, and I was taking heavy squats at lower depths than I ever had. Even my bench press and number of pull ups were going up.

By the 4th week my legs and butt were noticeably growing, to where my jeans were getting very tight on my thighs and hips, but loose on my waist. And I was so used to squatting everyday, I wasn’t really sure how to go back to working out without it.

So I didn’t. At the end of the month I combined Cory’s Squat Everyday Plan with his Bench Most Dayz plan, and tweaked my workouts to fit everything in. Now this program was tough! I wouldn’t recommend trying this unless you’re pretty advanced, and even then, not for very long. It’s extremely taxing on the CNS and your body in general. In order to fit everything into my busy schedule, my workout week was split into 7 squat days, where 2 of those days included heavy benching, and 2 of those days included light benching. In combination, every bench day, I also performed a series of pulling motions.

So here is an example:
Day 1:
In a Tri set
Squat Variation to a heavy 1 rep
Flat bench – work up to 3 rep max
Pull ups – 5 reps every set
This went for about 8 rounds
Accessory work for shoulders

Day 2:
In a Tri set
Squat
Incline bench theb flat bench for volume
Barbell rows or cable rows to match each set
Accessory leg work

I would have 2 more days like this, then the remaining 3 days of the week were strictly squatting and accessory motions.

This program was unbelievable. Not only did I drop down from 194 to 186 during this month, my competition squat topped out at 475 with belt and knee sleeves. My bench press, which has always been my weak point (long arms, short body), shot up 40lbs. I went from being able to hit 285 (on a signal or 1 second pause) to 325 using the same method. And I can hit 225 for ~20 reps, when only a year ago I could hit it for around ~11. I believe many of these adaptations are a direct result of motor learning by performing the movement often, and the anabolic effect of directly loading the axial spine during every workout.

Despite the great gains, by the end of the 2nd month I was exhausted and depleted. Most of you know I opt for a low carb, high fat diet approach centered around eliminating grains and inflammatory foods from my diet. Performing a program like this doesn’t match well with no carbs, so it didn’t take long to get burnt out.

For now, I’m backing off to squatting and deadlifting 3x per week, benching once (maybe twice), and moving more toward hypertrophy now that I have my strength where I want it.

Time for an insane cheat meal for my girlfriend and I’s 4 year dating anniversary!

Happy Lifting,

Ken

The Real Breakfast of Champions – TJ Williamson

………SHHH………

………Not yet………

………Almost………

[Takes final sip of coffee]

“Now you may speak to me.”

My morning routine is pretty… routine. I wake up, figure out what year it is, then make a beeline for the coffee pot. I’m not the type of guy that can wake up and finish a workout before the roosters start crowing. I’m a night-hawk. I stay up way too late, sleep in as late as my schedule will allow, then wake up feeling groggy and brain-dead. The one true thing that will forever motivate me to get myself out of bed, though, is the thought of eating breakfast. Let’s discuss the healthiest options to start your morning off right.

Eggs. I don’t remember the last time I ate a breakfast that didn’t involve eggs. Eggs are nature’s multivitamin. Eggs are life. My go-to breakfast that I eat nine times out of ten is an omelet, containing any and all vegetables I can find in my fridge. I always oil up my frying pan with either coconut oil or butter from grass-fed cows. These fats are the only healthy cooking options you should be using. They don’t get oxidized and converted into unhealthy, pro-inflammatory, disease-inducing derivatives after being heated to a certain degree, like all other oils do. Yes, I am claiming that even extra virgin olive oil, one of the most commonly known cooking oils, is no longer healthy once you heat it up in a pan. Stick with coconut oil and butter, i.e. saturated fats. The same concept can be applied to egg yolks. Try your best not to let them get hardened from the heat of the frying pan. To avoid this, I throw raw eggs in my protein shake later in the day and just cook my morning omelets with pure egg whites. Egg yolks get a bad rap because they are high in cholesterol, but fun fact: there is no correlation between eating a lot of cholesterol and having high levels of bad cholesterol in your arteries. They’re good! Eat them.

Normally, I’ll sauteé some celery, garlic, onion, jalapeno, mushrooms, and spinach. Yeah it’s a lot, but they’re all low carb, full of flavor and packed with phytonutrients. The other day I gave my omelet a Mediterranean influence by filling it with manzanilla olives, black olives, artichoke hearts, cherry tomatoes, and caramelized onion. Play around with different combinations of any vegetables you can find. The possibilities are endless! Omelets are the easiest way to reassure you don’t let anything go bad in your refrigerator.

So I’ve got my omelet – there’s my protein and vitamins. I still need more fats for a steady stream of energy throughout my morning. Normally I’ll use a spoonful of coconut oil in my coffee as a creamer. It tastes great and leaves my lips and teeth feeling smooth. If I don’t go with the coconut oil, my other option is an avocado – either as a side or included in the omelet. Avocados are full of healthy fats and nutrients that help to torch body fat. Finally, there are some days I decide to include some carbs with breakfast. If you are one of those crazy people who works out before breakfast, you’ll definitely want to include carbs in your meal to replenish muscle glycogen. My top 3 picks are berries and cottage cheese, steel rolled Irish oats with apple and cinnamon, or a sweet potato – try dicing it and sautéing with cinnamon and cayenne pepper.

So I’ve filled my plate, now to fill my cup. I’ve usually had 1-2 cups of coffee or green tea by the time I’ve put my food on the table. That’s when I pour myself a glass of unsweetened almond milk. Ever heard the phrase, “Don’t drink your calories?” Unsweetened almond milk has virtually no calories aside from a small amount of healthy almond fat. The best flavor I’ve tried is the Almond + Coconut Blend by Silk. Grab a carton next time you’re at the store and try to tell me you honestly didn’t enjoy it. Whatever you go with, just don’t drink any sugary fruit juices. They’re full of lies and deceit. They’ll spike your blood sugar and have you feeling ready for a nap in a matter of hours.

Well there you have it. Those are my top picks for a healthy breakfast that’ll keep you feeling full, energized, and in a fat-burning state all morning. Please feel free to contact me with any questions, comments, or special requests. Stay hungry and happy lifting!

– TJ Williamson, NSCA-CPT

Jogging Sucks – TJ Williamson

Is Treadmill Jogging Good for You?

So I walked into the Verizon Wireless store today wearing a tank top, and one of the employees asked me how I managed to get so toned. He asked, “How many miles do you run every day?” I initiated my response by laughing at him. I couldn’t recall the last time I even considered jogging. I probably spent the next 10-15 minutes explaining to this guy why it is never my exercise of choice by lecturing him on the relationship between target heart rates and their corresponding energy systems – (stick with me, I’ll explain). I realized that this wasn’t the first time somebody has asked me about the relevance of jogging on a treadmill, so I’d like to take a second to enlighten the general population on what I explained to this man.
JOGGING IS OVERRATED. Unless you enjoy running outdoors – feeling the wind in your hair, the sun on your skin, and taking a scenic route to calm your mind and find your inner chi, or nirvana, or whatever other hippie relaxation methods you think you’re shooting for – chances are you spend your time on a belted machine inside a stuffy gym, where the only thing keeping your mind distracted from thoughts of quitting and that terrible burn in your chest is a TV conveniently placed 3 feet in front of your face playing close-captioned soap opera reruns, or ESPN if the gym owner is the least bit considerate. If I’m going to invest 1-2 hours/day, 6-7 days/week trying to improve my body both athletically and aesthetically, I’m not going to do it by wasting my time on a treadmill… at least not at a jogging pace. It’s hard on my knees, I’m bored after the first mile or two, and my leg muscles usually only tighten up in one specific location and it’s all I can think about the entire time I’m running. Sure, there are marathon runners out there that love running long distances, but even in their case, research has shown that there is no translation in performance improvements between treadmill jogging and running outside on real terrain. In other words, the only thing jogging on a treadmill will help you improve is… your ability to jog on a treadmill. Congratulations, you’re about as athletic as a hamster on a wheel.
        Let’s discuss what jogging does to your body. With each stride, you take a shock equivalent to up to five times your bodyweight reverberating up your legs and into your spine. This puts a lot of stress on your joints and causes painful inflammation that can easily be avoided by practicing more efficient fat-burning routines. Running for 20 minutes or more will also start to increase your cortisol (stress hormone) levels, causing your body to break down and burn off some of that muscle you worked so hard to build. This is partially why many guys that think they know what they’re doing will bulk themselves up, then when it comes time to cut weight, they jog all of their muscle away and look exactly how they did when they got started. Looks like meat-head needs to pick up a book explaining the differences between aerobic and anaerobic respiration. Allow me to save you the time and give you the simplified explanation now.
In a nutshell, your body uses fats when it is working at a low intensity level; you use glycogen (aka carbs, or blood sugars) at moderate to mildly high intensities, and phosphocreatine is called upon for those moments when your intensity levels are through the roof and you go all Animal Planet jacked up on caffeine and beta alanine (and perhaps maybe some shadier substances that no one knows you’re using except you and that one creepy guy whom you only acknowledge when the two of you are in an empty locker room together and you’re low on supply…) Ok, maybe you don’t have to work THAT hard to utilize the last one, but you get the relationship between the three. With that being said, if you want to burn body fat, my recommendation is this:
Move around at a slow pace for a long period of time – for example, WALK on a treadmill/stairmaster or ride a bike while maintaining a heart rate at or below 110-120 bpm, or you can
Train at a high level of intensity for short periods of time – i.e. High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), like running sprints or Tabata training.
        The former option will cause your body to choose dietary fat and body fat as its primary energy source. An easy indication that you’re moving at the right pace is your ability to speak or sing without sounding sluggish and out of breath. Choosing the latter will burn off glycogen and stimulate muscle in the process, but the real payoff comes later, as high-intensity exercises will boost your metabolism and increases fat oxidation throughout the rest of your day. This is what’s known as the “afterburn effect” or EPOC. Burning fat while sitting around doing nothing? Yes, please!
        So to recap, if your goal is to train for a 5k, half-marathon, or a marathon and the weather outside is frightful, by all means jog on a treadmill in lieu of the better option. But if you are amongst the other 95% of the population who works out because you want to look better with no clothes on, stop wasting your time and destroying your joints by jogging on those awful muscle-loss machines. Move slowly or move quickly. Leave that gray area in the middle for resistance training.

TJ Williamson – Leg Day Log

Leg Day for Back Pain

So today I tried out a new leg and lower back workout I designed, putting a strong focus on strengthening my lumbar spine and pelvic region. I suffer from lower back pain from time to time, and I’ve discovered that strengthening my weak points (lower back) and stretching where I’m constantly tight (hip flexors) helps to correct my cocked posture and relieve the aching pains of a forward-tilted pelvic cage. With that being said, the entire time I was working out, I was repeatedly telling myself to keep my core tight and to keep my back as flat as a board.
Warm up:
3-minute mile on bike. Moderate resistance.
Trap Bar Deadlift, SuperSet 10 swiss ball sit ups:
335 lbs 3 x 5
385 lbs 3 x 3
405 lbs 3 x 1
Back Squat, SuperSet standing hip abductions – 10 each leg:
225 lbs 3 x 8
Front Squat:
135 lbs 3 x 8
High-Rep Circuit: (No more than 20-30 seconds of rest while changing stations)
225 lbs Leg Press x 20
Hip abductor machine x 20
Hip adductor machine x 20
95 lbs Good Mornings x 20
30-60 second water break, repeat for 2 more rounds
By the time I reached the end, I was out of breath, drenched in sweat, and my quads and lower back were on fire. My hip flexors had also tightened up quite a bit so the last thing I did before walking out the door was stretch them out for a good 10-second hold on each side, twice. Tomorrow when I warm up for
my upper body workout, I’ll try to start off by hitting the cable row machine for a 2-minute 500 meters. That should help get some nutrient-rich blood pumping back into my legs and relieve some of the soreness while simultaneously prepping my upper body for the workload it’s about to receive.

– TJ

Squatting while Battling a Broken Foot

Working on shaking some of the sand out this morning. 5am came a little too early. I poured some C4 down my throat, pushed snooze, finally got up and headed out the door by 530. As some of you know, I had an unhappy incident with an unloaded 75lb axle crushing my large metatarsal and fracturing my big toe on my right foot.

Despite the lovely shoe I’ve been forced to wear the past couple of weeks, it still hasn’t quite healed up yet, but I was able to go pretty heavy on the squat this morning for the first time in a while. However, the only quad dominant movement I can do is the squat, lunges are impossible right now because the plantar flexion needed. So here’s what I hit today:

Warm-up 5 min on elliptical to get the blood moving

Deep air squats x 30
Glute bridges x 30
Swiss ball sit-ups x 30
3 rounds circuit style

Back squat
45lbs x 15
135lbs x 15
225lbs x 10
315lbs x 5
365lbs x 3
405 x 1 x 3sets

Between each set I did 10 sit-ups and 5 lateral lunges on each leg to keep my
abs activated and to hit my adductors and abductors. Didn’t throw on the belt until 405, hit it pretty easy every set. Then came the drops…

405 x 1
315 x 6
275 x 20
225 x 10
135 (front squatted) x 5
135 (back squatted) x 10
Air squat x 10

By the last air squat, I was nearly falling over. Hopefully this toe heals up soon so I can hit my lower body with something besides squats and deadlifts.

Have a happy Monday and Happy Lifting!

KDS