Why it's a bad idea to take advil

Any athlete that works out will tell you that they are occasionally sore or have dealt with some kind of injury. Many athletes will in turn look for a quick fix to those ailments. That remedy tends to be ibuprofen, or any other NSAID(Non-Steroidal-Anti-Inflammatory-Drug).

I mean, lets be real, who wants to do mobility work every night, use compression methods, take time off, get adequate sleep, take fish oil, get a massage, stretch, eat a low inflammatory diet(Paleo), make sure they are drinking enough water, or take ice baths to heal themselves? Hmmm, sounds like a lot of work compared to popping a pill, and I’ll agree to that. But, taking ibuprofen doesn’t come without a cost.

David Nieman  sought out to research the stress response in runners. He followed their blood work and found that these runners were actually supplying their own stress, in accordance to running. This stress came in the form of ibuprofen. He found that the runners who had taken ibuprofen before and during the race had much higher inflammation and other markers of high immune system response than the non-ibuprofen takers. So, taking the ibuprofen did absolutely nothing for lowering the inflammatory process.

In the group of runners who took the ibuprofen, Nieman also found that they showed mild kidney impairment and low level endotoxemia. What is endotoxemia you may ask? It is a condition in which bacteria leaks from your colon into your own bloodstream. Yikes!

In the same article linked above, other researchers found that NSAIDs(ibuprofen, etc.) actually slowed the healing process of injured tissues. These unhealed body tissues happened to be muscles, tendons, ligaments and even bones. The very building blocks of ones self. After training, your body recognizes these broken down muscles and seeks to repair them. When ibuprofen inhibits this ability to find and heal tissues, you are left with tissues that can’t adapt. Which means weaker tissues overall. It is crucial to let your body recover from training stress, so that you can come back stronger and ready to take on future athletic endeavors.

Take care of yourself, it will allow you to train harder in the gym and put you closer to accomplishing your goals.
http://www.norcalsc.com

Build Your Legs

Use circuit training to whip your lower half into shape
by John Romaniello

Most guys neglect their legs in favor of more chest and arm workouts. If you want to run down the beach on more than a pair of toothpicks this summer, we’ve got a routine that will bring your legs up fast.

HOW TO DO IT

CIRCUIT A:
Immediately after your second set of the barbell squat (exercise 1), perform the jump squat for 60 seconds.


1) Barbell squat, 2 sets of 5 reps (rest 60 sec. in between)
2) Jump squat, as many as possible in 60 seconds (rest 60 sec.)
3) Barbell squat, 1 set of 5 reps (no rest)
4) Jump squat, as many as possible in 45 seconds

Rest 90 seconds and repeat the circuit once more.

*For the jump squat, simply squat down until your thighs are parallel to the floor and jump as high as you can.CIRCUIT B:
Immediately after your third set of the barbell calf raise (exercise 1), perform explosive body-weight calf raises.


1) Barbell calf raise, 3 sets of 6 reps (rest 30 sec. between each)
2) Explosive body-weight calf raise, as many as possible in 90 sec. (rest 60 sec.)
3) Barbell calf raise, 1 set of 6 reps (no rest)
4) Explosive body-weight calf raise, as many as possible in 30 sec. (rest 30 sec.)
5) Barbell calf raise, 1 set of 6 reps

*For the barbell calf raise, rock back on your heels and then use the momentum to come up on your toes.

HOW IT WORKS
By alternating a heavy exercise with an explosive one, you create an effect called post-activation potentiation. The heavy lift recruits a lot of muscle fibers, and the explosive one done immediately after allows for even better muscle activation on the next heavy set. In just a few sets and a few minutes, you can stimulate as many muscle fibers as you normally do in much longer leg workouts. In addition, the combo of strength and power you’ll build will help improve sprinting speed and jump height.

www.mensfitness.com

Strength training without Equipment

Is it really possible to engage in strength training without equipment of any sort? In short, yes. You have to be a little bit creative, and there are certain exercises you just aren’t going to be able to do – but it’s more than possible to cover the basics and build a good base of strength simply using your body and the floor you stand on.




Here’s a couple of tips to maximise your training sans weights.


Tip #1: Use the Environment

Strength training without equipment is made much easier when you make good use of whatever is around you.

Raised ledges, door frames and (sturdy!) tree branches will all assist in your training. Can you do incline pushups with your feet on a chair or window-sill? Is that tree branch strong enough to hang from and lift yourself up?

If you answered yes to both, you’re off to a good start. Getting creative with your environment and finding a setup that works will be important if you’re going to give yourself a complete strength workout.


Tip #2: Make easy lifts harder

So say all you have is a room with a floor and four walls (perhaps you’re on holiday …or in jail). Maybe you’ve been training with weights for a while now, and sets of bodyweight pushups or squats just aren’t going to tax your body nearly enough to build strength or even maintain what you already have.

How on earth are you going to get a heavy leg or upper-body pressing workout? I can think of at least two exercise variations, involving only bodyweight, which even many advanced weight lifters will struggle to do for more than 8 reps per set. Got your attention now, huh? Read on to find out more.


Strength training without equipment: The Exercises

The Pistol

The pistol is essentially a squat with one leg. However unlike the easier “1-legged squat”, the pistol requires that you hold your non-working leg out in front of you. This means that you have no excuse not to go all the way down to the bottom of the lift.

Even if you can squat 315 for reps, you’re going to find pistols tricky.

Firstly, they require a high level of core strength and balance. Secondly they allow you to go all the way down without compromising your lower back like you might if it was supporting a heavy barbell.

Most people can’t do one, and other than professional strength athletes, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who can do more than 10 on their first attempt.

If somehow you do find pistols easy, or you’ve been training them for a while, you can amp the intensity by turning them into one-legged jump squats. Go all the way down and explode upwards, then land on both feet.

If you’re really daring, you can pistol-jump from one leg to the other for reps. This is insanely good for developing functional, specific strength for sports such as rugby or football.



Pull Ups

Strength training without equipment is massively enhanced if you have access to a sturdy rafter, tree branch or door frame (or even a pullup bar, if you’re willing to pretend it’s not “equipment”). If you can find something suitable, then you simply must be doing pull-ups.

They are the king of exercises for developing raw upper body strength. If it’s not possible to get a full grip (i.e. on the branch or door frame), then it’s an ideal opportunity to develop finger strength in the process.

Finger-tip pull ups are pretty straight forward – you hold as much of the ledge, or branch or whatever it is, with the tips of your fingers, and pull yourself up from there. This particular pull up variation has a lot of sport-specific carryover for climbers.

In fact if you are a climber, or just like the idea of taking your finger strength to new heights, you can do fingertip pull-ups with 3 or fewer fingers. Bear in mind that the index and middle finger are the strongest. I’ve personally seen a climber do pull-ups using only the ring finger of each hand, which was impressive to say the least.



Close grip Incline press-ups

No article on strength training without equipment would be complete without the trusty press-up.

For most people who aren’t completely new to strength training, the standard press-up is going to be simply too easy - it will take far more than 6 reps for you to come anywhere close to failure, and that’s unlikely to occur in a rep-range where strength is built effectively.

By making a couple of variations to the exercise it’s possible to make it hard enough such that completing 6-10 reps gives you a fair strength workout.

Given away by the title, those two variations are:

bringing your hand width in so they are shoulder-width apart, and keeping your elbows close in to your body at all times throughout the movement



Placing your feet on a ledge or raised object 10-20 inches above the floor, and performing the movement with your core and legs tightened so your body is at an incline angle to the ground


This turns the basic press-up into something similar to an incline close grip bench press. If you do this with strict form you’ll find it a lot more taxing on your shoulders and triceps, possibly enough for you to give yourself a decent pressing strength workout.



Muscle-Up Pushups

This variation makes the pushup even more difficult. If you’re not a gymnast, the muscle-up pushup might be the toughest exercise in your strength training without equipment.

The “muscle up” is a movement performed by Olympic gymnasts on the rings, and the muscle-up pushup is an exercise they use to develop the necessary strength. Here’s the technique. (Warning: This exercise may be humbling for anyone who rates themselves as a decent bencher!).

Lie on the ground in the pushup position with hands placed shoulder-width apart. Keep elbows tucked in, touching body. Turn palms 90 degrees outwards so that you are lying with your forearms and the “karate chop” side of your palm in contact with the floor.

To do the muscle-up pushup correctly, you must push yourself up from this position without leaning forward onto the flats of your palms. Your hands must stay in “karate chop” contact with the floor right until the top of the lift.

If you do this right, you’ll find yourself pushing “through your forearms” which remain in contact with the floor for the first half of the lift.

It doesn’t sound like much, but wait till you try it. The angle of the muscle-up pushup makes it so much harder than regular pushups. After 3 sets, you’ll notice that you’ve given your shoulders and triceps a fairly intense workout.


Strength training without equipment - it can be done!

So there you have it – 4 excellent compound exercises to work your shoulders, triceps, back and legs. All you need is your body, and perhaps a door frame for pull ups. Strength training without equipment couldn’t be easier!

www.real-weight-lifting.com

How Important Is Conditioning?

Conditioning is extremely important. Like Vince Lombardi said, “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.” It can literally be the difference between winning and losing.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that you should train for conditioning in the weight room.

If you’re an athlete how much conditioning you need depends on your sport and your weaknesses. Football players and mixed martial artists need to work on conditioning more than golfers and baseball players. That much should be obvious.

If you’re a non athlete then I place nearly equal importance on both strength and conditioning. I believe in being as strong as you look but also possessing a decent level of athleticism and overall conditioning. My goal with anyone I train is never to turn them into a big, powerful blob that can hardly get up a flight of stairs. I would rather see a guy squat 405 instead of 500 but also be able to jump rope like Ali, run hills like Walter Payton and hop right into a pick up game without any problems.
Assess the Need for Conditioning

Before you start any type of conditioning program you need to determine exactly how conditioned you need to be. Mixed martial artists come to mind as those needing a very high level of conditioning. Because of that many people approach the training of combat athletes all wrong by turning every workout into a conditioning fest. That shouldn’t be.

I am in full agreement with guys like Martin Rooney and believe that combat athletes need low volume strength and power training in the weight room. Jon Chaimberg has GSP do similar type workouts.

Steve Baccari, a strength coach who works with many UFC fighters says, “In my opinion, easy strength training is the only productive way a competitive fighter can strength train. But most people think if you don’t break a sweat it must not work. This used to bother me a lot, but not anymore, because I think it is one reason why my fighters win so much.”

To determine how much conditioning a combat athlete needs, be he a high school wrestler or a UFC fighter, you need to see what his weakness is first. Is he gassing out early? Sometimes simple strength training can be enough to fix that because as he gets stronger everything he does requires less effort.

Also, you need to find out how much conditioning the athlete is already doing at practice each day. If it’s a high school wrestler chances are pretty good that his coach has an old school “train to death” mentality and is giving them more than enough conditioning. In that case all this athlete should ever do in the weight room is explosive power and strength work, again with 1-5 sets of 1-5 reps. If he needs to stay in a certain weight class the volume may need to be even lower. If muscle gain is a priority a few back off sets of 6-8 or even ten reps could be used. And that’s really the only training he needs. If he’s already on the mat for several hours per week and running quite a bit on top of that, all more conditioning is going to do is break him down and increase the chances of injury.

UFC fighters will usually be a different story because at their level of much of their sport specific preparation will be skill training without as much conditioning thrown in. Not always, but a lot of the time. In this case one or two low volume strength training workouts along with another one or two conditioning workouts per week will be warranted. This depends on the athlete and there are obviously infinite combinations that could be used here.
Always Separate Strength Work & Conditioning Work

Before we go any further I need to stress the importance of separating strength and conditioning. Many athletes need both. That doesn’t mean you train them at the same time, however. When you do that you end up with a weak, overtrained athlete.

All athletes need strength training. Again, this usually means 1-5 sets of 1-5 reps with adequate rest periods. All too often, nowadays, you see coaches take a good strength training workout and ruin it by throwing conditioning drills in between two or three basic strength exercises. That’s a huge mistake. The two qualities need to be kept separate.

For years I have always followed the advice of Charlie Francis and had my athletes do high intensity work (strength and speed) on one day followed by low intensity work (conditioning/active recovery) the next.

That means that if you choose to run hills or push the Prowler the day after a heavy strength session you shouldn’t run at 100% intensity. Technically, running on this day should be at about 75% instead of 100%. But that’s getting a bit too technical for most non athletes. Just keep in mind that you don’t want to go all out on this day because you will run the risk of frying your CNS.

In my opinion and experience, separating the two qualities is the most effective way to train both strength and conditioning. That’s not about to change any time soon.

If your time is limited to just three training sessions per week in total, the other option is to follow up your strength workout with ten (and even twenty, in some cases) minutes of conditioning. This is not the best option as a truly productive strength training workout should have you leaving the gym more amped up and feeling better than when you walked in. Conditioning can negate that. But when it’s your only option you sack up and do what you gotta do.Take note, however, that the most explosive, powerful athletes in the world (such as Olympic lifters and throwers) do no conditioning whatsoever. That is because any level of conditioning will have at least some small negative effect on your power development.

Another important thing to remember is that lactic acid production needs to be avoided like the plague by all power athletes. Keep that in mind when choosing conditioning drills, sets, reps, duration, etc.

Now, just because, in this time limited option, you will be training strength and conditioning on the same day… YOU DO NOT COMBINE THE TWO. They must be kept separate or results will suffer. That means no 400 meter runs or sets of burpees in between heavy push presses or squats.

Strength first… and then conditioning.

For the ten minute conditioning finisher you could jump rope, push the prowler, drag a sled, hit a heavy bag, or use battling ropes. These exercises will have a very minimal effect on your recovery ability and are very joint friendly (except for maybe the heavy bag).

Other options include swinging or snatching a kettlebell, barbell complexes, sledgehammer swings, or doing bodyweight exercises such as burpees, deck squats, etc. These are all great choices but you must remember that they are all forms of strength training that can and probably will place greater demands on your recovery ability.If you’re a non athlete that’s fine.

Athletes, on the other hand, and serious strength training enthusiasts who want to reach their highest level of strength and performance need to consider their finishers more wisely as they don’t want maximal strength and power development to be compromised.

www.jasonferruggia.com

Artur Saxon on Conditioning

Arthur Saxon was a big influence on me, as obvious by the Renegade logo at the top of this site. I’m obsessed with old time strongmen and old school methods of training. One of the things I like about the early days of Physical Culture is that everyone did everything.

Meaning that bodybuilders lifted heavy weights and competed in contests where they had to do more than pose. Lifters possessed impressive physiques and usually didn’t gain unnecessary fat to simply improve their leverages on an exercise and lift more weight.

Olympic lifts were not practiced only by Olympic lifters but were a part of everyone’s repertoire. And bodyweight training was a staple in the golden era of Physical Culture. Handstands , front levers and various gymnastics exercises that I incorporate into nearly all of my training programs were routinely used by everyone training for strength in those days.

One component of fitness that a lot of strength obsessed individuals forget about is conditioning. In order to be truly fit or to be a dominant athlete you need both strength AND conditioning. Strength without conditioning does very little for you unless you are a competitive lifter. And even then you need a certain level of conditioning, which is why you always hear Louie Simmons stressing the importance of it.

At first glance you might assume that strongman competitors have no conditioning to speak of but after you see some of the events they compete in it you realize that this is far from the truth.

This is why I am always stressing the importance of cutting down your rest periods where appropriate during your workouts and adding in a few weekly sessions of sprints, tempo runs, prowler pushes, or other high intensity conditioning methods. It’s healthy, it keeps you lean and makes you an overall better athlete….which is still important even if you don’t compete in anything. Because honestly, just being a big, fat strong guy who gets winded going up stairs isn’t really in anymore.
Here’s what Arthur Saxon had to say about the issue one hundred plus years ago:

“The usual idea about strength–I mean the idea of the averager eader of health magazines–is generally a wrong one. Although a weightlifter (and weightlifters are supposed to be very narrow-minded in their views on this subject), I hope that I, personally, am broad-minded enough to recognize that a man does not prove himself an all-round strong man just because he is able to lift a heavy weight, especially when the weight is lifted once only. The following is my diagnosis of real strength:

Genuine strength should include not only momentary strength, as proved by the ability to lift a heavy weight once, but also the far more valuable kind of strength known as strength for endurance.

This means the ability, if you are a cyclist, to jump on your machine and ride 100 miles at any time without undue fatigue; if a wrestler, to wrestle a hard bout for half an hour with a good man without a rest, yet without becoming exhausted and reaching the limit of your strength.

Apart from sports, enduring strength means that the business man shall stand, without a break-down, business cares and worries, that he shall be capable, when necessary, of working morning, afternoon and night with unflagging energy, holding tightly in his grasp the reins of business, retaining all the while a clear mind and untiring energy, both of body and brain.The man who can miss a night’s rest or miss a meal or two without showing any ill effect or without losing any physical power, is better entitled to be considered a strong man than the man who is only apparently strong, being possessed of momentary strength, which is, after all, a muscle test pure and simple.”

www.jasonferuggia.com

The Famous Tempo Intervals

The Tempo Interval Method

At first, I mostly just had the guys start doing tempo runs, just as Francis popularized. This generally consisted of a 12-15 second run at about 70-75% speed and about 60s rest in between reps. I mostly used the Woodway Force for these as you can measure speed/distance/load easily on it and the weather in Seattle has been terrible the last few months so we needed to stay indoors.

I quickly found these intervals to be a good form of active recovery and HRV measures would be noticeably improved on days following tempo runs compared to rest days where nothing at all was done. A lot of this simply has to do with activation of the body’s aerobic and adaptive mechanisms combined with a minimum of residual fatigue from the loading.

This is really what active recovery does in general, it activates the body’s adaptive biological systems and “jump starts” them if you will, while keeping fatigue to a minimum. The result is improved recovery and when performed at low to moderate volumes, tempo runs are an effective form of this.

Aerobic Fitness

Next, I began having fighters performing tempo intervals in higher volumes to see how they would impact aerobic fitness and I also began having them use the intervals with more specific MMA type drills like bag and pad work, shadowboxing, etc. I incorporated the tempo method 1-3 times a week with most fighters and typically had them do them on off days or at the end of other training sessions.

When I used higher volumes, somewhere between 20-30 minutes of the intervals per session, began to see noticeable improvements in aerobic fitness as well as increased work capacity. Aerobic fitness increases were measured with both direct and indirect measurements and I would venture that they likely stimulate some increased vascularization along with possibly some mitochondrial increases as well. For this purpose, I also think it’s better to keep moving during the “rest” interval rather than doing nothing, the pace is just slowed dramatically.

Recommendations

It’s still a bit early in my use of this form of interval to give definitive recommendations as for their most effective use in combat sports, but if you’re looking for a good form of active recovery and to build some work capacity – I’ll be doing an article soon on what work capacity is exactly – then try using tempo intervals at a low to moderate volume on your off days. Something like 15-20 minutes generally seems to be about right and for this purpose, I think more generalized training like running can be used.

If you’re working on improving aeobic fitness, try increasing the volume to 20-30 minutes and get in at least two sessions per week. In this case, it’s generally better that at least one of these is done using some combat specific drill like bag and pad work. It’s not very easy to do this type of interval using grappling drills unfortunately.

Also, for this purpose I suggest keeping moving during the rest interval. A good example would be to hit the bag or some pads at about a 70% intensity for 12-15 seconds and then shadow boxing or jumping rope for 60s or so. You can then simply repeat this for however long you want.

One of the keys to doing tempo intervals is using the right training intensity. You shouldn’t feel exhausted or worn out when you’re done with this type of work. You should feel like you worked, but not anything like after a heavy sparring or grappling session. This type of training should be around a 5 or 6 on a 1-10 scale of overall intensity.

Give them a shot and feel free to post your comments to let me know how they work.

Joel Jamieson

The Sauna Recovery

Using The Sauna the Right Way

To get the most out of the sauna method, you have to be pretty specific in how you go about using it. Just hopping in for a few minutes and then getting out probably won’t do a whole lot for you and is mostly a waste of time.

You also want to make sure that you’re using a dry sauna for this method, not a steam room, wet sauna, or infrared sauna and the hotter you can get it, the better – preferably over 200 degrees. I’ve got an old Finnish sauna made by Helo (the one featured in the picture above) in my condo and it’s absolutely ideal. If you find one of those you’re in luck, but if not any good dry sauna that gets very hot will work.

Next, you also need a shower close by to really do the method correctly. Fortunately, most saunas tend to be in locker rooms or near a shower anyway so it shouldn’t be an issue. Assuming you have a dry sauna that gets very hot and a nearby shower, you’ve got everything you need to use the sauna to promote recovery so you can keep training or get back to it.

I most often recommend and prefer to use methods such as the sauna either towards the end of an intense training cycle when I want to promote recovery and regeneration as I take the athlete out of the loading phase, or whenever I see an athlete is moving too far towards overtraining. I personally don’t believe in using these types of methods all the time as I believe that you need to overload an athlete/individual to force adaptation and if you are constantly trying to promote recovery all the time, there is a point where you will be losing this benefits of the loading.

It’s also very important to note that if you overuse a recovery method and try to do it all the time, it will lose its effectiveness. I like to rotate recovery methods and use different ones depending on the athlete and the situation. You can use the sauna for a week or two at a time and then use something else the next time you need to promote recovery. Don’t overdo it or just like anything else, your body will become accusomted to it and it won’t have the same effect.

The Ultimate Sauna Recovery Method

To perform the method correctly and get the most out of it, make sure to follow these specific guidelines as close as possible:
1.Pre-heat the sauna to the highest temperature possible, at least 200 degrees is preferable
2.Begin by getting in the sauna and stay in until you first break a sweat and then get out
3.Rinse off for 5-10 seconds in luke warm water and then get out of the shower, pat yourself off, wrap a towel around yourself and then sit down for 2-3 minutes
4.Get back in the sauna and stay in for 5-10 minutes. The original method calls for staying in until 150 drops of sweat have dripped off your face, but I’ve found for most people this is 5-10 minutes
5.Take another shower, this time make it as cold as possible and stay in it for 30 seconds. It’s most important to let the water cover your head comletely the whole time
6.Get out of the shower, pat yourself dry, wrap a towel around yourself, and sit down and relax until you stop sweating completely and your skin is dry. This typically takes anywhere from 3-10 minutes
7.Return to the sauna, this time stay in for 10-15 minutes and then get out
Repeat step 5-6
8.Get back in the sauna for another 10-15 minutes and then get out
9.Take another shower, this time make it fairly warm and stay in for 1-2 minutes
10.Dry yourself completely off, lay down and relax for 5-10 minutes

Joel Jamieson.