7 Tips for Great Glutes 55/84

Ok I'll admit, this one is geared more towards the ladies like my biceps post was geared a little more towards the guys. But still pay attention guys, glutes were voted the #1 muscle women like to see developed on a man. Keep that in mind.

Our pop culture right now is all about the glutes, big butts are definitely "in" and that seems like every ladies goal right now. I bet just about every time you hit the gym some "butt lifting" exercise has found its way into your program. Well I don't think I would be doing my job if I didn't throw my hat into the mix and give you guys some tips I give my clients who want to get that booty poppin'.

- Squeeze your glutes

This one should be obvious but it isn't always. Whenever you do leg exercises make sure you squeeze you butt hard each rep. This will increase the mind-muscle connection and help your muscles grow. You can even just squeeze your butt randomly to help too. Just stand up and squeeze your cheeks together as hard as you can.

-Do some activation drills

Ok let's get this out there; your glutes are not "turned off". Unless you have some neurological disorder then you glutes or always on. But, we can change the amount that they are turned on (as well as any muscle) with activation exercises. I, and other professionals, prefer the terms "up-regulate" and  "down-regulate" in stead of "turn off" and "turn on". That much more accurate.

Anyway, I start any full body or lower body session with one glute exercise and one core exercise to up-regulate them. This can be banded monster walks, squats with a band, glute bridges, or single leg squats. Just a light exercise to get things going

- Lean forward

Want to increase the amount your glutes are working? Try leaning forward. Make sure it's a hinge forward and not flexing your spine, but give it a try, you'll feel it right away. This is great for lunges, monster walks, step ups, and other single leg exercises.

- Work from all angles

You can't just move up and down to get nice glutes, you have to go forward, backward, and to the side too (this is one reason we see a lot of under-developed glutes in CrossFit, but it's getting better)

Try adding side lunges, monster walks, extended ROM side-lying leg lifts, and diagonal walking lunges to get some lateral work in.

- Do single leg exercises

Because you butt muscles also stabilize your pelvis, standing on one leg let's you get even more work done. Single leg RDL's, step ups, lunges, split squats, single leg glute bridges, and single leg squats should all find their way into your program. Don't forget to lean forward!

- Do glute bridges

I've seen some people who are against these but I love them. Bret Contreras aka "The Glute Guy" has talked about getting his athlete some impressive glute development with hardly any squats and deadlifts, focusing on bridge and hip thrust variations.

Do them with on the floor or on a bench, with a barbell, with a band, with a band on your knees, or one leg at a time.

- Sometimes go full ROM, sometimes don't

During a squat, the highest glute activation is at the very bottom below parallel and at the lock out at the top. That's why I find it ironic that so many Instagram "trainers" do all of their squats and eliminate those two areas. I recommend full range of motion like this 95% of the time because it's just good practice  as a human, but that means about 5% of the time it's ago to switch it up. When you don't do full ROM, you keep tension on the muscle longer and as we talked about earlier, more time under tension can lead to more muscle.

Give these a try and get me some feedback. I use all of these with my clients daily and I've gotten some impressive results in the past. Hope full this can help all your #bootygoals come true

The Top 4 Benefits of Cryotherapy 54/84

My first cryotherpay session was actually years ago in Indianapolis, Indiana at Cryotherapy Indy with my friend Skyler. I was a pretty competitive CrossFit athlete at the time and was working hard towards my goal of snatching 300 pounds. We had used it that day as a means of recovery to get a good satch session in later. When we were done I felt great, the swelling in my hip had gone completely and my legs felt fresher than they had in a long time. Although I didn't hit my snatch goal that day, it did open my eyes to the benefits Cryo can provide.

I just did my second session ever a couple hours ago at Fox Valley Cryotherapy in Appleton, Wisconsin which is conveniently located almost literally right next door to Xperience Fitness where I work. For the past few months I have been dealing with a string of small but annoying volleyball related injuries from my knee, to my shoulder, to my back, my foot, and recently my hamstring. It seems like as soon  as one gets better something new just shows up. I've been going over different recovery options in my head and Cryo seems to be one that I always forget about. I decided to give it a consistent try and see how my body fares after a few go's. I'll get back to you guys with the results in a couple of weeks.

Cryoherapy is basically the process of getting in a chamber (called a Cryosauna) and using liquid nitrogen to cool the body's skin temperature down to 30 to 50 degrees F while cooling the chamber down to -100 to -274 degrees F. Basically it makes the chamber really damn cold and you get cold because of it. I know those temperatures sound extreme but I've found it to be much, much more enjoyable than an icebath, which is did often through high school and college. Although and ice bath temperature is much lower, it feels 100x colder than Cryo does.

This whole thing sounds totally crazy right? There has to be some pretty gnarly benefits to subject yourself to it on the regular. Well it turns out there are, and it can be some pretty good stuff. Here are some potential benefits that my readers can relate to.

- Decreased inflammation and healing time

Because Cryo is so cold, your bodies thermorecpetors freak and and start shuttling all of your blood to your internal organs to keep them warm. This removes any blood or fluid that has been building up  in muscles or joints (inflammation). Once there, the blood cells get loaded up with oxygen and nutrients that your body loves. When you start to warm back up, your body reopens your blood vessels and allows that new blood to come in, bringing the oxygen and nutrients with it. This will decrease the amount of time it can take to recover from injury and your joints can feel a ton better.

- Temporary metabolism increase

In my college anatomy class, we learned that shivering actually burns more calories per minute than any other activity, which makes a lot of sense here. When you do Cryo your skin and core temperature get super low. This means that your body is going to need to use a bunch of energy to heat itself back up over a decently long period of time. This has been reported to results in the burning of around 500-800 calories per session with an even longer after burn to reheat.

NOTE: Please don't be dumb and rely on cryotherpay to lose fat. Although it can have a small effect, there are still no shortcuts and you have to put the work in.

Decreased chronic pain

Cryo has been shown to have benefits for people with chronic pain and fibromyalgia for up to a few hours per treatment. This could lead to a longer benefit over long term use but there has been no research to support this yet. This is a result of the same reasons from point 1.

Like I said, I'll get back to you guys in  a few weeks once a get more sessions under my belt but I have high hopes for how this is going to help. I would definitely recommend this to you guys assuming you're not on the relatively long list of contraindications which you should check out first.

8 Tips For Bigger and Better Arms 53/84

Let's be honest here, if you lift weights, you care what your arms look like. I don't care if you're a guy or a girl, trying to lose fat or gain muscle, everyone wants nice arms. To many, this can be too big of a focus and you end up looking super silly with big arms but no upper back or lats. But if you're like most people and want to get a respectable set of pipes then check out these tips to help you out.

- Still focus on compound movements

Big compound movements like rows, pullups, dips and presses are still going to activate that most muscle fibers and cause the most overall stimulus. These should generally take place towards the beginning of your workout so that you can use tons of energy on them. 4-6 sets of 5-10 reps is great for compound movements

- Use a supinated grip

If bigger biceps is the goal, try using a palms up grip for most of your pulling exercises. It's important to incorporate lots of different grips but supinated works the biceps the most. It will give you the best stimulus for compound movements.

- Use a close grip

Now for triceps, try doing most of your pressing with a close grip. This includes bench, incline bench, and overhead pressing. This will give you slightly more triceps involvement resulting in more growth. If you're using dumbbells, keep your elbows in close to your body to simulate a barbell close grip.

- Focus on TUT

Time Under Tension (TUT) is now being considered one of the most important factors in muscle growth. TUT refers to how long the muscle is actually doing work. Ways to increase TUT include higher rep sets, shorter rest periods, and (most importantly) increase the concentric and eccentric time of each rep. Try 2 seconds on the concentric (up) and 2 seconds on the eccentric (down) for each rep. Add a big squeeze and pause for even more growth.

- Utilize the Mind-Muscle Connection

The Mind-Muscle Connection refers to focusing your attention on the muscles you're intending to work. If you're doing a bicep curl, look at your bicep the whole set and focus on squeezing that muscle as hard as you can. This has just recently been proven by research (even though people have unofficially known for years) to increase muscle hypertrophy when compared to not utilizing it.

- Vary your reps

As mentioned, as long as TUT is high, various rep ranges can all cause muscle growth and you should use many of them. I like to do one heavy day (5-8 reps) and one high rep day (10-20 reps) for each group to get a nice mix of both.

- Don't train to failure

If you're on drugs then by all means do that, but if you're natural like 99% of us then training to failure has no real benefits. Outside of certain times (see yesterday's post) all it's going to do is make it harder to recover from you session. Always try to leave 1-2 reps in the tank on each set. This will allow you to recovery better, build more muscle, and save your joints from some pain.

- Don't focus just on getting a pump, except sometimes do

Some people focus too much on the pump, others don't focus enough. It has a time and place and should be used strategically. Getting a huge pump at the beginning of your workout is just going to make all of your other lifts suck, so save it till the end. At the end of your workout, refer again to yesterday's post for some different techniques

Give these a try and let me know how your progress goes! Training smarter can make all the difference in the world. If you feel like you're lost and need a little extra help then I'd love to get on a free 30 minute consultation call with you to start to put a plan together. To do that, simply click on the link below and reserve a time. All I'll need is some basic info and we can really get you moving towards your goals!

Click here to reserve a time!  calendly.com/gsherceg

Advanced Hypertrophy Techniques 52/84

When a person first starts to try and gain muscle, they can start to put on some size relatively fast. Being new to lifting, your body starts to freak out and adapt super quickly to the stimulus that you're giving it. Anyone who has every tried to get big before has probably experienced this and it's pretty great. You start to see differences really quick and it feels awesome. But, obviously, these quick gains aren't going to last forever and eventually it can even become pretty hard to add even half of what you have already. Honestly, at this point you should heavily consider doing a maintenance phase and then starting over again. It's also probably time to switch up your program and let your body start to get a different stimulus. When you do this, there are a few advanced techniques you can use to break through some of these barriers and start adding muscle again.

Note: These are called advanced for a reason. You have no business trying these unless you have already been lifting hard for a couple years. Yes, you will see other people doing them but that doesn't mean that they are right.

Here are a few things you can try if you feel like you're ready.

Drop Sets

I would hope most people have heard of drop sets by now. They are very popular in the bodybuilding world because they make you look hardcore and they can hurt pretty bad. To do a drop set; pick a weight that you can do for 8-10 reps and do as many as you can under good technique, drop the weight by about 10% and do as many as you can again, then drop one more time and rep to failure. This technique will give you a huge pump and can spark some new growth.

High Rep Sets

Tom Platz is famous for having the best legs in bodybuilding. He is also famous for squatting 225 for 2 minutes straight. High rep sets can be another growth igniter if you use them right. Don't get stuck in the old myth that high reps are only for muscular endurance or toning. The super high time under tension can do some serious damage and create new growth and researchers have seen hypertrophy in sets as high as 100 reps.

Finishers/ Burn Out Sets

This is ending your lift with one all out set to failure on whatever exercise you're doing. Like most of these, you'll want to save this for the end of your workout and give it everything you've got. You can even force or cheat a few more reps out to get every last bit of energy used up.

Technical drop sets

A good example of this would be using a bicep curl and a row. Let's say you're finishing your pulling day with some EZ Bar curls. On your last set you rep to failure then immediately drop down and start doing rows with the same bar. You're basically going from a weaker exercise to a stronger exercise to squeeze whatever you can out of your biceps. You're last and shoulders will take some of the work but your biceps will continue to get fried.

Eccentrics/ Negatives

This one is my favorite and is the one that you don't need to be super advanced to use. I often program slow eccentrics in workouts for my clients who want to get bigger and/or stronger because it can be amazing for both. The eccentric, or lowering portion of the movement, is where almost all of the tissue damage occurs. And when the tissue gets damaged, it must rebuild itself and usually comes back bigger and stronger. For most people who want to get big, I recommend a 2 second eccentric on just about every exercise they do. Sometimes, based on what phase were in, that number can go up to 5 or even 10 seconds if I'm feeling particularly snarky.

I just want to reiterate, outside of the eccentrics you should have a lot of experience with lifting already before you even consider trying these. Most people have no business training to failure on any exercise and even if you do try these you should only do them for a short time. They are meant to spark growth and break plateaus, not become a regular part of your training.

How Your Morning Can Guarantee Success 51/84

I'm currently in the middle of listening to the audio version of a great book that I know is going to make a huge difference in my life. Obviously, because I have no yet finished the book, let alone take any action from it, there are going to have to be a few follow-up posts in the future. The book is called "The Miracle Morning" written by Hal Elrod and it's basically about how he used a daily morning routine to bring him back from 1. literally dying and 2. losing everything he had when the economy crashed in 2008. He goes on to detail the things he did each morning and how he used personal development to bring himself back from near-suicide to being even more successful then he was before the recession.

I was first introduced the Hal 3 years ago when he did an audio interview for Success Magazine. In that interview, he not only talked about how he came back from rock bottom, but also how he relearned how to walk, and overcame massive brain damage from an insane car accident. He said that the most important thing that helped him regain his life was his positive outlook, and he proceeded to say one of my all time favorite quotes ever. Although I was already somewhat practicing this, it was amazing to hear someone say what a huge impact on their life. I'm going to paraphrase because it's been years since I've heard the actual quote (and I can't find it anywhere) but it goes something like 'why would you waste your time and energy trying to change things that are impossible to change.' I love this and it really makes sense to me. Yes, you should be trying to change things in your life that you don't like, but there are some things that are out of your control and you should not waste your time, energy, or emotion trying to change them. Instead, accept the fact that you can't and spend you time changing the things you can.

Having a genuinely positive outlook on life can have an amazing effect on your mental and physical health as well as your relationships. I know this can be hard for some people, as often times people are pretty negative, but there are some strategies you can use to help change you mindset (I'm going to keep talking about this a lot) and make you more positive.

One of the biggest ways you can influence your day is by how you start your morning. This is what "The Miracle Morning" details so I'll give you quick synopsis of what you can try, but I encourage you to check out the book for yourself. Hal recommends things like; prayer/meditation in silence, writing in a journal, exercise, reading, using a dream board, and saying affirmations each morning to set yourself up for success for the rest if the day. All you need to do is spend as little 1 and as much as 20 minutes on each one of these each morning to completely change your day and your life. He mentions many times how this gets people excited to wake up each morning and even people who say they're not morning people start to get up even earlier so that they have more time to spend on their morning routines. I know a lot of this can sound kind of far out and other-worldly but it ties in to a lot of concepts that I have come across from other areas of personal development that I have done over the years and it can definitely be worth a try.

Although this book is meant to be more about being successful, you can adjust all of these things to help you reach your physical goals as well. I'll show you how each one of those pieces of the routine can help get you to your goal.

Silent Meditation: This has been used for centuries to help with physical and mental stress. Not only does it help calm your mind but it reduces mental stress and even blood markers of stress like cortisol. Lower cortisol levels help you workout more, recover better, and prevent you from storing so much body fat.

Journaling: Writing in a journal each morning can help you track progress throughout years of your life and help you express things you may have trouble with any other way. Obviously, keeping a journal of your workouts is a must, but a personal journal can tell you a lot about how you're feeling that day and what to focus on the rest of the day.

Exercise: Getting blood flow in the morning can have tremendous health benefits that last all day. It doesn't need to be long. A couple minutes of jumping jacks or yoga is plenty to get blood pumping.

Dream Board: A dream board is a physical board that has pictures of what you dream of in life. It could be a nice car, a house on the beach, or the body that you've always wanted. Use this board with mental imagery to see yourself being in the body you want and living the life you want.

Affirmations: This is repeatedly saying things out loud that you want to think about yourself, because how you feel about yourself is almost always how you're actually going to end up. Pick something that relates to you goals like "I am lean and healthy" or "I am strong and athletic" and repeat it out loud a number of times. You need to make yourself believe these things are possible if you ever want them to be.

I know some or all of these things can make people uncomfortable but you're never going to change if you keep doing the same things you have been. I plan of starting this tomorrow morning when I wake and I'm going to get back to you guys on how it goes. Until then, I would pick up the book for yourself and start working on your own Miracle Morning.

Why I Quit CrossFit 50/84

50 days in! Holy crap I can't believe I've managed to do this for this long. A lot of great stuff has happened since this started and I'm super excited to see where it will do from here! Anyway, for those of you reading who have known me for years know that I spend about 3 years training, competing, and coaching CrossFit. I did it basically every day without fail and got to the point where I was actually pretty competitive. But now it's been about a year since I've done a WOD and I wanted to write a post about why I made the switch,

I want to start off by saying that I still love CrossFit and even though I don't do it anymore I still have the utmost respect for it. I still closely follow what's going on and some of my best friends still compete, and we talk every day. Also, I use very CrossFitty workouts for most of my weight loss clients and it still works great for them. Although I've adjusted a few things that I feel are normally missing, I run those sessions very similarly to a CrossFit class.

I competed in and coached CrossFit from the time a finished undergrad and volleyball in 2013 until just after the 2016 CrossFit Open. During that time I gained about 30 pounds of solid muscle, added 100+ pounds to my deadlift and snachted 300 pounds, something that only a handful of people in the world will ever do, as well as a ton of other things someone my size has no business doing. I loved CrossFit and my life was all about it. I coached through my 2 years of grad school at The Arsenal (Muncie CrossFit) which is where I learned a ton about about exercise, coaching, mobility, SMR, and how to break the "rules" that exercise science tells us that are necessary for people. Once I moved up to Appleton, Wisconsin, I began helping out and coaching occasionally at CrossFit Appleton. I continued competing for a few months up there until I backed off to compete in a Weightlifting competition. After I won my weigh class for that, I hopped right back in to compete in the 2016 Open. I only trained for about 4 weeks or so but got back to a pretty competitive level. This is about the same time I start working as a trainer again too.

After the Open is over, every year I would take a little while to back off and work on some nagging injuries or imbalances that accumulate during the intensity of training competitively. It just so happened that this year I was working at Xperience Fitness where I had the option to work on powerlifting and bodybuilding outside of a CrossFit gym. This gave me access to different equipment that I didn't really train with for a couple years including dumbbells, machines, and the ability to do curls without judgement. As I began to back off on my programming to recover a bit, I also realized that working out at work was not only convenient but good for business as well. As a personal trainer there, it helped me get to know more members and make more connections that led to more clients. More clients is always better.

This also gave me a chance to reflect and figure out what my real goals were. Honestly, I knew for a long time that my height and size was going to limit me from every getting to where I wanted to go in CrossFit. CrossFit is definitely not a tall man's game and obviously I couldn't get shorter. I also was not willing to lose the weight that I would have needed to to be at a high level in bodyweight and gymnastics movements. I knew that I had to look and think about what I really wanted to work on.

After bouncing between programs and goals and not really knowing what I wanted, I got an opportunity that I hadn't really thought about in years; I started playing volleyball again. Finally! I had something to train for. I focused my program on the goals or getting strong, getting bigger, and being able to play again (basically getting my vertical up again). This worked out well with the program I wrote which already involved a lot of speed work anyway.

During this time I also learned a lot and realized a lot of things that were missing from typical CrossFit programming. There were multiple movement patterns, muscle groups and equipment that could help prevent injury and increase gains for people who are still doing it. The biggest things that I found missing where; horizontal pulling and pushing exercises, anything with a supinated grip, enough single arm/leg exercises, knee flexion, dumbbells, and any rotation or side-to-side movements. Lacking these things can have a pretty big impact on the health and longevity of competitors and adding in just a couple exercises for each can make a huge difference. Missing these elements leads to a lot off underdeveloped lats, pecs, biceps, and glutes (yeah I said it), hamstrings, and obliques. I think going into the details of all of these things would be an entire post in itself which I might need to do. For now, just know that CrossFit coaches really need to expand the movements they are using if they really want to do the most for their members as they can. What I do like recently is the use of the term "functional bodybuilding" (which I have been using for years) and seeing that grow into something that is more popular in the sports. From what I've seen, it address a lot of the issues I mentioned above.

So all in all, the biggest reason I took a step back is because it just didn't fit with my goals anymore. I knew that my success in CrossFit was most likely limited and I needed to figure out what I really wanted to do. Although I still love it and use it with my weight loss clients, CrossFit just no longer fit with the goals that I wanted. But even so, coaching for all of those years led me to where I am today and I would not be the trainer I am without it.

Running a Successful Cutting Phase Part 2 49/84

Hopefully you enjoyed yesterday's post on how to adjust your nutrition when you're trying to cut some weight. I want to reiterate  that that will be much more important to success than changing your workouts and what you do for your workout probably won't make as much if a difference as you thought. Although there are a few things you can do to help speed the process up a bit.

One of the most important things to think about when cutting is that we really need to focus on maintaining muscle mass. Although people often say "lose weight" what they really should mean is "lose fat". The goals shouldn't just be the number on the scale but to have your body fat percentage go down. If you don't do this right and end up losing muscle, you will weigh less but you'll still look soft and just be a smaller version of your previous self. In reality, THIS should be the main focus on your resistance training workouts. Still being strong, still lifting heavy even though you're eating less. Yes, you can and often should, include include fat loss circuits or conditioning but maintaining muscle should be priority #1. Here's a few tips to help with that

- Try full body workouts. Using your whole body each workout can help burn more calories and allows you to utilize killer exercises like Burpees and thrusters. Try 3-4 full body workouts per week
- Still use compound movements. They burn the most calories because they use the most muscles. They will also do the best job of maintaining muscle mass.

- Lift heavy and often. Just because you're cutting that doesn't mean you can get weak. Again, the main goal is muscle mass and you should try to keep as much strength as possible too.

- Shorten rest periods. This is an easy way to increase the intensity of your workout. Stick to 30-45 seconds for smaller movements and go as high as 60 seconds for bigger lifts.

- Turn your accessory work into a circuit. You can take the last point one step further and eliminate some rest periods all together. Take your last 4 accessory exercises and do then back to back with no rest the break about 45 seconds between rounds. This will also help you get out of the gym faster.

- Higher reps don't mean "toning" but can help increase intensity. You don't need to do high reps but they do a decent job of getting your heart rate up. Then again, so does lifting really heavy.

- Avoid long, slow cardio. People still seem to believe that this is super important in weight loss. Going for that long run may be doing more harm than good for your fat loss efforts.  Replace it with something higher intensity and save yourself some time.

- Do HIIT or SIT to save time. See above point. Although, when equalized for total calories, High Intensity Interval Training, Sprint Interval Training, and traditional cardio all burn about the same amount of fat, HIIT and SIT take significantly less for a similar result. They also help maintain more muscle.

- Go for a walk. This is an often underrated form of exercises. Although it somewhat contradicts my HIIT recommendation, walking can burn easy calories while still maintaining muscle better than traditional cardio.

- Get 10,000 steps every day. This should be a minimum for everyone. Daily activity is the most important exercise factor in weight loss. Sure, you could get a great 45 minute workout in but it won't make a difference if your sitting on your butt the other 23 hours and 15 minutes.

So one more time, you don't need to make massive changes in workout from a bulking phase or maintenance phase to a cutting phase but there are a few things you can do. If you take the above points and combine then with the nutrition information from yesterday the  you'll be better off saving your muscle and making sure of those pounds lost are fat!