Take some time to think about yourself

*****

Go back four or five years and I was on the traditional carb-heavy active person’s diet (porridge each morning, pasta salads and bakes for lunch, pasta and rice-laden meals at dinner).  I was living in my trainers, had lots of stress from day to day, plenty of cardio through walking and cycling, no weights, no supplements.  I couldn’t even overhead press an empty dumbbell handle weighing a hefty 1kg.  As for my body weight, I had weighed 50kg for about 10 years, despite being 5’6”, with it never going either up or down.

Sound familiar?

Since then I’ve been through a journey of discovery.

I’ve converted to an almost carb-free existence for a while to learn to be a fat-burner, I went strictly paleo for long enough that I can now get away with the odd non-Paleo diversion from time to time but know that I’m looking after my body the rest of the time.

I care for myself better, both mentally and physically.  I have learned to control my stress levels better and know how to recognise my stress characteristics and manage them.  I can feel different muscles in my body working with an awareness I never had before and, as a result I can use self-massage techniques to keep my body feeling as free and relaxed as possible.

Elsewhere in my life I’ve converted to living in Vibram KSOs whenever I can get away with them.  I still cycle and walk a huge amount but I balance it now with a programme of lifting weights.  I’m push-pressing a 20kg kettlebell for reps, squatting safely over my national qualifying weight (with the BDFPA) and happily hip thrust 140kg for reps.

As for my body composition, I’ve gained an enormous amount of muscle and struggle to keep my weight near 56kg because my love of food, when put alongside the hours I spend sitting still in my desk job mean that it tends to drift up a kilo or two at times, despite the fact that I’m carrying less body fat than I was when I weighed 50kg.  I definitely can’t fit my quads, hamstrings or glutes into any of the jeans I used to wear (which is actually a bit frustrating, but never mind).

*****

It’s a lot of changes in a surprisingly short space of time and that’s just what I’ve achieved without removing the full time desk job from my life.  I expect that a lot of others who read this blog have come through similar journeys of self-discovery and change in the recent past.

Have you adopted some changes to diet, training or lifestyle and seen similar massive changes and benefits to your overall being?

No related posts.

Gloves can have their uses

Back then I was partly struggling with the coldness of our gym.  The bar was so cold that it was unpleasant to touch and my fingers would cramp with cold and stop being able to grip the bar if I didn’t wear some gloves.  This is the reason my original confession came back to me now as the gym has been slowly getting colder again.  I was also trying to avoid getting callouses since they were interfering with my violin playing and pulling threads in clothes.

Two years later

We’ve moved on two years and things have changed.  I no longer wear gloves in the gym.

I don’t know exactly when it happened, except that it must have happened in the summer months sometime (because nothing would induce me to suddenly start holding a freezing cold bar with bare hands in the middle of winter).  I suspect it happened sometime when I was doing a lot of pull-ups.  My gloves were becoming old and stretched so that I couldn’t keep a good grip on the pull-up bar – the solution was to take them off for that part of my workout.

With time I must have slowly got fed up with taking my gloves on and off and these days I just never put them on.

The value of gloves

When I was first wearing gloves they were incredibly helpful.  My grip wasn’t particularly good and I struggled to hold onto the bar.  Somehow the gloves (especially when they were still close-fitting) helped me with my grip.  It was only once they became too stretched that they were no longer any good for the grip.

If I could go back and repeat my first few lifting days I don’t think I would change anything.  I’m still convinced that the gloves were actually a huge assistance in getting me to a certain point in my lifting skills.  If I had waited until my grip had caught up with the rest of me, I would have been waiting a long time at certain exercises where, over time my grip has caught up and in the meantime my skills in those exercises has increased massively.  Especially things like squatting where the grip is only a small part of the exercise but you do need to be secure enough in the grip department to not be worrying about holding the bar as you rack and de-rack.

The callouses issue

One of my reasons for wearing gloves originally was to avoid callouses.  Initially it worked, but as the gloves got old and the padding wore off I found that I got callouses with the gloves anyway and the wrinkling of the gloves could actually make it worse.

I’ve found that with some care I can look after callouses so that they don’t cause problems for me.  I try to soften them up and I use a PedEgg to remove the sharp corners that appear on the edges from time to time.  With a little dedication and not picking at them too much I can keep them under control.

Don’t be ashamed

I may not wear gloves any more but I would still support anyone who chooses to wear them.  Don’t be ashamed if you want to wear gloves to lift.  Perhaps make sure that you are always aware of why you wear them and, from time to time, have a go at lifting without them to see what it is like.  However, just because someone is slamming the use of gloves on an article or forum, don’t let it bother you.  If you have a reason for wearing them, especially if you are in your first few years of lifting, then go ahead and use them.

Related posts:

1. Wearing gloves: a confession

With everything listed here I have just one wish – that I’d discovered them about 20 years earlier.

Supplements

I’ve tried quite a few different combinations over the last few years and have settled on the following as the essentials for me at the moment:

Pill popping Ammi

• Fish oil – If I leave this out for a while I find my hair getting less glossy and my joints get a bit creaky.  I even have a favourite brand – the strongest one on the UK market.
• Glucosamine condroitin – I can’t actually tell the difference with this one if I stop taking it, but the research supports the fact that, long-term I should be taking it.
• Vitamin D – I live in the UK and I do a desk job that keeps me indoor all day when the weak sun we have here is out and about.  Since I started taking this I’ve felt happier, healthier and when I’ve had colds they’ve been the kind that make my nose run without the fuggy head to go with it. (Except colds brought on by sudden removal of extreme stress which are still bad, but they aren’t really colds.)
• Magnesium – This has made an amazing change to my life.  I will never again go without a sack of Epsom Salts in the bathroom.
  

  Magnesium Epsom Salts

• Digestive supplements – When I am more stressed I take digestive enzymes, probiotics and hydrochloric acid tablets with my meals to aid with digestion.  I’ve found it reduces the digestion problems I otherwise get at times of stress and also seems to result in better nutrient extraction (I certainly seem to show less nutrient deficiency than I used to).

Mooncup

The mooncup is a brand of vaginal cup for collecting menstrual flow.  It’s made of silicone and sits inside the vagina unobtrusively collecting menstrual flow.

Mooncup

Thanks to this I haven’t bought tampons or other sanitary products for years now and the mooncup has more than paid for itself in the money I’ve saved and the peace of mind.  It is clean, quick and easy.

If I think my period might start while on holiday, I can just slip this into my washbag or rucksack.  I no longer have to worry that I might have a forgetful morning during my period week and fail to take sufficient sanitary products to get me through the work day – if I need to I can just empty it into the toilet and start again.

Every woman, without exception, should have one of these.  In fact, they should give one away to every girl as she reaches puberty.  It would solve so many financial and environmental problems.

Vibram FiveFingers

If I had the choice I’d live in these all the time.  As it is I tend to wear them for work if I’m not in my home office or with a client and am therefore with people who don’t know me so well.  In fact, in 14 months I’ve worn them so much, both indoors and on long-distance treks, that I’ve worn through the rubber soles in a few places, the sole is almost worn through elsewhere, the fabric has a hole on the top along one of the seams and I’m just counting the days until the next shipment of Vibrams arrives in the UK at the start of January (with plenty in my size again – currently there are none available in the UK in my size unless I’m prepared to trek to the other end of the country since I need to do a re-fit to a new size and want to look at the new designs and sole thicknesses).

My dying Vibrams

The rubber has completely worn through in places and it's so thin across the ball of the foot now that the ripple grip has all gone

Free weights

It might seem excessive to have your own free weights and, to be fair, we have two of us using them, which makes it more worthwhile.  Despite all of that I would strongly recommend people get their own free weights if they have a corner of a room where they can be fitted.

Just a few of our free weights plates (the rack would be full if they weren't scattered round the garage)

Free weights have done more for my body composition, health and well-being than anything else you’ll find in a gym and they aren’t that expensive to set yourself up with a basic collection.  We treated ourselves to a cheap squat rack from Decathlon, which was probably the most expensive bit (we’ve since had to upgrade to a proper Powerrack because Chris is now shifting weights that are at the upper-limit of the old rack’s range and it was getting dangerous having to walk backwards for big distances with a heavy bar on your back to squat and have no lower bar as a safety).

The old squat rack now rusting in the garden

Other than the rack, we got ourselves a bar for barbell work (again, cheap from Decathlon – it didn’t need to be Olympic style), a few dumbbell kits which came with 10kg of 2kg and 1kg plates already included, and then stocked up on some more iron plates (a few 20kg, 10kg, 5kg and 0.5kg plates).  On average the plates (again, Decathlon is the friend of UK lifters) cost £1 per 1kg so yes, there is a capital outlay, but neither of us has paid gym fees for at least 3 years now which, at about £45 per month (and not always having all the equipment you want available when you want it) means we’ve made a saving in the long run.

Having your own weights in-house also has some definite benefits although there are also problems.

Bar pad

This deserves a mention all of its own.  I don’t remember what exercise we originally got this for, but it was before we had discovered the hip thrust and I know it definitely wasn’t bought to “protect the back of the neck during squatting” which is what every shop assistant was describing it as when I was phoning round to find a replacement.

Bar pad - essential for hip thrusts

I quickly realised that some padding was needed to protect the pelvic and hip bones in the hip thrust since I had no muscular padding in those areas.  I had a moment of genius and started using the bar pad.  Imagine my disappointment a year later when Bret Contreras wrote in an article about the bar pad being an essential piece of equipment for hip thrusts when I thought I was the only person who had had this great idea.

My first bar pad lasted for a couple of years, seeing me from my early days of only being able to shift 35kg in glute bridges through to shifting 130kg in my hip thrusts about 3 months ago. Eventually the padding completely split along its length and I had to find a new pad.  I hip thrust twice a week, and the new pad has only been exposed to weights of 135kg and 140kg – it split at the ends about 3 weeks ago.  Fortunately I bought cheap ones (could explain why it is splitting already) and bought two.  When it gets too far split I’ll unwrap the new one since the pain on my pelvic bone and hips of hip thrusting without a bar pad is unbearable.

*****

So these are the things I would never want to be without now.  Do you use these too?  Is there anything else you have on your essentials list?

Related posts:

1. Celebrating female strength
2. Weight training women
3. Blog-watch: interaction of diet and exercise with the menstrual cycle – part one

The most noticeable thing they have in common when you first look at the interviews is the photos.  Without exception, they are all stunning with fantastic physiques.  It’s a brilliant advert for the physique benefits of lifting heavy weights.

So take a break from the heavy weights and enjoy these interviews.

Women can be strong (image courtesy of Greg Westfall)

• Sue Metcalf is a Strongwoman competitor from Queensland.  Strongwoman competing in Australia doesn’t have a huge amount of competition but she’s had some great results in the US as well and I think she’s going to be someone to keep an eye on over the next few years.
• Molly Galbraith is a figure competitor who also competes occasionally at Powerlifting.  She was interviewed as part of the Beautiful Badass profile series that Nia Shanks ran (more of these further down) and there was even a part two.
• Adriane Blewitt recently made a name for herself as the first woman to certify on the IronMind’s Women’s Captain of Crush certification for the Number 2 gripper.  Diesel Crew did an interview with her in which she explains how she got into the weird and wonderful world of grip strength.
• Jean Fry is a professional powerlifter who answered some questions about getting into powerlifting, her best lifts, cardio, strength training myths and misconceptions and various other things.  Oh, and there are some awesome photos of her on the article too.
• Courtney Prather is a Fitness Model and Bikini Competitor.  You might not think this necessarily fits into a category of “strong” women but to have some good muscles to show off you are going to have to lift some reasonable weights.  Find out what Courtney does in this interview.
• Gillian Mounsey is a strength athlete who has been through a long journey of self-discovery over the years.  I strongly recommend reading the interview that Krista Scott-Dixon did and also reading some of the other links that are included in the introduction.
• Jenni LevÄvaara is from Finland and is a Fitness competitor.  In this interview she talks about the fact that she started from a muscle-free modelling background before deciding she wanted to do Fitness and being told she therefore needed to start lifting weights.  I found it interesting because I know so little about Fitness competing.
• Jen Sinkler is the senior fitness editor or Fitness Life who does some series tough training.  She is also another one of Nia Shanks’s Beautiful Badass profiles.  In fact, as the series is still in its early days I recommend that you keep a close eye on Nia’s blog because there will definitely be more.

So there’s a few interviews to inspire and entertain.  I hope you enjoy them all.

Related posts:

1. Blog-watch: should women run?
2. Blog-watch: should women train like men?
3. Strength training and adiposity in premenopausal women: Strong, Healthy, and Empowered study

There have been some particularly interesting cycling articles recently and I like to think (perhaps very misguidedly) that being an active bunch of readers, some of you also cycle.  I’ve decided to do two articles about cycling – hopefully a number of you will find them of interest.

Cycle touring in France at a time when I was cycling all year round

Cycle training in winter

I had a fascinating experience this year with my cycling.  Last winter was an unpleasant winter in the UK.  We had a dump of snow in November – something we rarely get in the UK.  The ice and snow came and went for several months.

It was not the best weather for road cycling outdoors, we hadn’t got the spin bike in the garage gym yet and had lent the turbo trainer to Chris’s brother.  Since we had achieved our 100 mile ride target and I didn’t have any new cycling targets or challenges on the horizon I had no reason to train through the winter and became a fair-weather cyclist.  One of those “soft” cyclists I had previously looked down on and laughed at after training through a winter season when they all started to reappear on the roads in the late spring.

Trying to train cycling through the winter is tough.

So I didn’t do any cycling over the winter, instead I spent the winter training hard in the gym with lots of work on squats, hip thrusts and other lower body exercises as well as a balanced amount of upper body work.  I didn’t touch the bike from mid-October 2010 through until the end of June 2011 when I did a single 10 mile ride before our Alps trip and then August when I started cycling properly again.

A surprise for the summer

After a 9–10 month lay-off I was expecting to have lost plenty of speed.  I had been doing my rides at 15–15.5mph at the end of last year but was amazed to find myself coming back at the same speed and, after a couple of rides to get my legs back into an efficient movement pattern again, I was kicking out speeds of 16-16.8mph!  Imagine my delight at this transformation.

Since I hadn’t touched a bike the only explanation for this lay in the many months of strength training.  Especially in the work I’d been doing on my glutes but also the improvement in my quads and hamstrings.

When I pushed my heels down and set into a hill I found I could attack the hill with a bigger gear, the burn hit later and I was better able to push through it for longer – previously it was my uphills that had severely impacted my speed.  On the flat I could spin at a higher speed with less trouble than before.  I could hold a tuck position for longer when battling a headwind and didn’t suffer the same lower back pain because I could hold my core steadier.

So this is my n=1 support for the research which has looked at the positive correlation between strength training and cycling performance.

Do cyclists do strength training?

Tell an amateur cyclist who does plenty of racing, club rides and time-trial races that strength training in the gym will improve their cycling performance and they will most likely ignore you.  The common belief among the non-professional yet serious cycling crowd is that the only way to improve your cycling is to spend more hours on the bike, but that can put a lot of stress on the body.

However, if you look at the training by some of the professional teams, especially during the off-season, you will find that they often do strength training as part of their wider training regime.

Further reading

You can read more about some of the studies by following the links below:

• A very detailed analysis of several research papers looking at strength training for cyclists by Jamie Scott, that Paleo Guy.
• Review by Chris Beardsley of a research study looking at maximal strength training improving cycling economy in competitive cyclists.
• Review by Chris Beardsley of a research study looking at strength training improving 5-min all-out performance following 185 min of cycling.

 *****

After all of that, I’m convinced that this winter I will be battening down the hatches, training with the big weights indoors.  Although this year I might do some spin training in the relative warmth of the garage gym at home to keep my technique in shape!  I hope I’ve convinced a few of you too.

Related posts:

1. Blog-watch: more cycling links
2. Blog-watch: female strength and conditioning blogs
3. Blog-watch: Bret’s female strength levels

Today I’ve got a collection of links on one of my favourite subjects – women who are busy being strong

Women can be strong (image courtesy of Greg Westfall)

• Women lifting big weights is not new.  They’ve been doing it in public for decades.  70s Big try to do something women-related most Mondays and they recently pulled together some images and information about lifters from the 1981 Women’s National Powerlifting Championships.  Given that I would hope to drop fat to have a competition weight of 56kg the numbers for Gayla Crain terrify me.  I have a very, very long way to go.
• Bret Contreras, the God of Glutes, is beloved by women across the globe for his revelations about training the glutes.  Glutes are not just an incredibly important muscle for functional purposes, especially for athletes, but an important part of building an attractive female figure.  Of course, they also become a preventative for fitting into the more cheaply available high street clothes, but you can’t win everything.  Bret put together a post with videos of thirteen different women doing their workouts.  I’m particularly interested in the deficit reverse lunges.  I’d not come across these before and I’m intrigued by the idea of combining a step up with a reverse lunge.  I may try these, along with elevated hip thrusts, in an effort to retain my glute strength and activation while I’m on holiday.
• Briefly staying with glutes, here’s an article on Reverse Magazine with some terrifying photos comparing an atrophied set of glutes with some nicely developed glutes.  Do you still not believe me that glutes are one of the keys to a feminine figure?
• I think I may have linked to Pretty Powerlifting before.  Sara and Vanessa have set up their own female powerlifting team, based in New York, and they are doing their best to bring attention to the sport of women’s powerlifting.  It’s well worth checking out their site and following their progress.  I’m looking forward to when their gear is released.
• Al Kavadlo recently did a post focussing on pull ups for women, including advice on how to get to your first full pull up.  It’s a nice piece and well worth reading if you want to get to the point of being able to knock out a few pull ups.  I still admit that there is nothing more satisfying as a woman than doing a few pull ups when there are men about.  For some reason, lots of men believe they are the sole domain of men which is absolutely not true.  If you’ve not mastered the pull up yet, I recommend it for the feel good factor and for showing off purposes.  And Al?  I see your challenge of a one-arm chin up by a woman and I’m sure I’ve heard of someone achieving it, but similarly have no record anywhere of it being true.  I might take you up on the challenge one day.  Ladies – if you’ve got a one-arm chin up in the bag, get it filmed and send me the film or a link to it.  I will gladly feature it!
• I’ve been following Rachel Guy since Bret brought her to public attention.  Rachel is a Brit who lives in Sydney working as a strength coach and physical therapist.  She knows what she’s doing and practises what she preaches – there are some impressive videos up on the internet from her, including some big hip thrusts.  Lift-Run-Bang.com did an interview with Rachel quite recently so you can find out a bit more about what she’s doing and what makes her tick.
• Back in 1996 a study was released which looked at estimated and actual strength performance among college men and women.  The focus of the study was the difference between perception and actual performance.  Across the board, people had a tendency to underestimate their performance, however there was a disturbing statistic which came out of the study.  They included 91 women and 74 men in the study.  Of the women, 44% indicated they should have strength and exhibit it.  46% felt they should neither have strength nor show it.  The remaining 10% felt they should have strength but shouldn’t exhibit it.  In comparison, 46% of the men felt they should have strength and exhibit it (similar to the women), 49% felt they should have strength but not exhibit it and only 5% felt they should neither have strength nor exhibit it.  I am very concerned by the huge proportion of women who feel they shouldn’t exhibit strength and, in fact, shouldn’t even possess it.  I would be interested to do this study again and see if these perceptions have changed in the last 15 years.

Hopefully you’re all feeling inspired now so get out there and show the world that women can and should be strong.  Spread the word and build beautiful bodies!

Related posts:

1. Blog-watch: female strength and conditioning blogs
2. Blog-watch: Bret’s female strength levels
3. Blog-watch: strength and conditioning blogs (non-female specific)

Alli McKee

NJAMW:  My principal goals are strength, rather than figure, but I’m still after an attractive set of glutes – as are many other women.  Do you have any advice on the exercises and set/rep schemes that you recommend for getting that really feminine posterior chain with a firm set of glute muscles?

AM:  First of all, I never skip my posterior prep work in my warm up.  For the last several years, I have been including a Hip Circuit in my warm up which consists of:

• Lying on my back and performing: 10 double leg hip bridges and 10 single leg hip bridges (left and right side).
• Flip over to all fours and perform:10 Fire Hydrants (left and right side), 10 forward leg / hip circles (left and right side), 10 reverse leg / hip circles (left and right side) and 10 super dogs (left and right side).  This ensures proper mobility and muscle activation.
• Tip: When performing the hip bridges, aim for full hip extension and drive your heels through the floor. When performing the hip movements on your hands and knees – avoid too much movement in the lumbar spine.

Many in the performance and physique industry are aware of the foundational exercises that are excellent for developing a great set of glutes.  Exercises such as squats, deadlifts, sumo deadlifts, lunges and step ups to name a few.  Two things to remember obviously for best results, implement proper form and intensity.  Another exercise specific to glutes that was in my latest program were cable donkey kickbacks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4blF321Gkgo

There are also a few exercises that have gained rapid recognition for contributing to a great set of glutes and have proven to be unbelievable glute activators.  These include bridging motions and are known as hip thrusts, barbell glute bridges, and single leg hip thrusts.  I love these and think they should be performed by every female who wants a nice butt. For more information, you can head over to my friend Bret Contreras’ website – he calls himself the Glute Guy, mentions these exercises quite often and has a reputation for sculpting women’s butts.  You can find Bret’s website at www.BretContreras.com.

As for sets and reps, I tend to keep reps lower (3 to 9) on the bigger exercises.  We went a little higher in reps with smaller movements such as the donkey kickback, but again, depending on the person, goals and needs – the programming volume is individual. 

NJAMW:  Thanks, there are some great ideas and reminders there for all of us.  Since we’re onto videos, I saw a brilliant video of you doing high explosive box jumps.  It’s an exercise which looks both fun and rewarding but can be incredibly daunting for anyone who hasn’t done them before.  What benefits do high box jumps provide, who do you recommend them to and how would you build them into a training programme?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWyOQNGR7rc

AM:  Haha, thanks. Those are fun to train.  Nick and I actually incorporated them in two different training occasions.  One, in contrast training (a strength exercise immediately followed by a power exercise of similar movement) which was often done in my “off” season.  We also incorporated the box jumps at the beginning of a lower body training session in sets of 5 for power.  Nick and I aimed to keep my training athletic in style because it was important to me to maintain my athleticism.  Looking like a Figure Competitor was great, but never at the expense of losing my athletic abilities, so we never stopped training it.

Under Carter, I did not perform box jumps.  We did however achieve explosive movement through other exercises.

Ultimately, training for a physique show is quite demanding on the body.  An equally important component to achieving the lean, symmetrical shape is staying injury free.  If you’re going to perform explosive work, sprints, and plyos, you ought to consider “playing it safe – land softly, distribute stress efficiently, manage your fatigue, and periodize properly.” says Bret Contreras.  I agree.

What I DO like about the box jumps is that they offer a lower impact rather than a regular jump. Hence, a softer and more cushioned landing (hopefully).  If recommending them, they are beneficial for building concentric power in a very specific manner, and it is easy on the joints.  I would suggest starting with a height / level that doesn’t seem as “daunting / challenging” – build your confidence in the movement and of course, landing technique.

NJAMW:  I think I need to start trying to persuade Chris to obtain or build a nice big (and stable) plyo box so that I can get started on those now.

Time now for the all-important final question.  I’ve been really excited by your recent change of direction from Figure to Strength and Conditioning.  When you first agreed to do this interview you hadn’t yet announced (or perhaps even decided on) this change of direction and I was planning to ask you the classic “what’s next” question…  On your blog post announcing the change you explained some of the reasons behind that decision.  I particularly understood the need to take some time to enjoy a social life and the fact that your goals were starting to dictate your training to a format you weren’t enjoying as much.  Would you mind sharing a bit more behind this change of direction and, importantly tell us more about what will be coming up for you now with this new set of goals and challenges.

AM:  Thank you! I’m really excited about his change of direction too.  I feel like things are really starting to harmonize and I’m becoming better aligned with where my heart is.  It’s always been in training, but it’s dialing in.

As for what’s next, I am in the midst of completing my C.S.C.S.  I am ultimately interested in completing a level of education for a sports nutrition certification, but that will be down the road.  I have also had a strike of passion to write a book – but the exact topic, organization and strategy to complete it has yet to be determined.  (Another 5 year goal.)

At this time, I am taking action to create the things I want.  I am also paying attention to the people who come into my life and the opportunities that arise.  I am so grateful to have a passion that speaks so loudly to me.  I am open to where the chips fall but listening to my intuition for navigation.  I welcome challenges and things that are a little frightening because I think that is where courage, personal and professional growth to occur.

So at this time, I am making the decision to study the field of performance.  I would like to work with athletes of all ages and abilities, whether it be cultivating the talent or fine tuning it.  I would still like to have a foot in the fitness world too, not just limiting myself to the athletic scene.  I hope to be a face for strong women, both in character as well as in the gym or on the field.  Timing also plays a role in how things play out so for now, I am networking, studying and living what I preach. I too look forward to seeing how things unfold.

NJAMW:  Some fantastic goals and ambitions there.  I’ll be keeping an eye out to see how it goes and I’m sure many of my readers will too.  Thank you so much for taking the time to answer these questions and best of luck with your future challenges!

AM:  Thank YOU for taking the time to put such thoughtful questions together and highlighting my passion!!

 *****

Well that’s all folks!  I hope you’ve all gained as much from that interview series as I did.

Related posts:

1. Interview with Alli McKee (part 3)
2. Interview with Alli McKee (part 1)
3. Interview with Alli McKee (part 2)

Alli McKee - you don't get a back like that without training hard!

NJAMW:  Lots of your training programs are up on your website already so I’m not going to ask you to repeat yourself (everyone – go and read the blog!).  Instead I’ve got a few specific questions. 

To meet your Figure goals you were often training six days – a few years ago this included two sessions on most days – one cardio and one strength – while your more recent training seemed to be four strength days and two cardio days.  Which approach have you found to be more effective and why?

AM:  It’s a bit hard for me to recall the specifics of each prep.  I do remember however, when I was training with Nick, we actually did less cardio than the average competitor.  We hit the conditioning hard after my strength training sessions, but that was interval based and often ranged between 4 minutes and 12 minutes depending on the intensity objectives of the day.  If I can recall correctly, in previous shows, Nick and I would train strength four days per week plus an additional day for “vanity” muscles (biceps, triceps, extra shoulder work, calves and abs.)  We relied on a sound diet and hard training to get the job done.

Under Carter’s care, I also had four strength training days, plus two days for ab / arm / EEW (Carter prefers the term Energy Expenditure Work rather than cardio).  With him however, I was doing morning EEW often.  For the final 60 days of my prep, six days a week I was doing morning EEW coupled with an afternoon lift. 

I think both strategies worked favorably.  It was certainly a time demand to do all the additional EEW, but my body remained healthy and I wound up achieving my leanest measurements for the Arnold Competition while under Carter’s prep.  Every prep is different I think it is a synergistic effect of where you are mentally / emotionally, plus of course the program design and the dietary strategies and compliance.

Alli McKee at the Arnold Classic 2011

NJAMW:  EEW is a great term for it!  I completely agree that how successful you are in trying to get lean is affected by your mental and emotional state.  For cardio training, when trying to meet a figure goal, do you recommend high intensity interval training, steady state cardio, or a blend of both (if so, what sort of amounts of each)?

AM:  I am a fan of both. I favor running, so a morning run is enjoyable to me.  I personally, would recommend about 30-40 minutes of an easy to moderate cardio effort in the mornings.  I think the high-intensity interval training (post strength training) is a very favorable approach to fat loss considering the metabolic effects you can accomplish.

In addition to my personal enjoyment for each style, I like them both for attaining results and the variety of intensity and activity.  If you were to ask me to chose one method however, I would vote for the interval conditioning coupled with a strategized strength program and a sound diet.

All of that considered, I encourage finding ways to vary movement, intensity and make recovery efforts a priority.  We can’t manage extremely high intensity training day-in and day-out. That’s tough on the nervous system and our body.  Try to mix things up by cycling movements (ie: Airdyne bike versus sled work versus running) and intensities (work to rest ratios, the level of intensity and overall time of energy expenditure work).

NJAMW:  I’ve previously always been a fan of high intensity intervals but I do find they grind me down if I’m leaning out for more than a four or five week block.  Mixing it up sounds like excellent advice.  Speaking of high intensity work, back in 2009 you were raving about using sprints as part of your conditioning.  It’s something I’ve been thinking of trying but haven’t yet got round to.  Do you still use sprinting as part of your conditioning? Why do you think it works so well and how does someone like me get started?

AM:  Personally, I think sprints work so well because it’s essentially a style of interval training which incorporates tremendous power output and demands intensity of the sprinter.  Sprints are also all encompassing.  Picture, propelling your body forward with maximal force, pumping your arms, driving your knees and putting explosive force into the ground.  So all in one movement, you’re including your delts, lats, abs, erectors, glutes, hamstrings, hip flexors, quads, and calves all at once.

Beginners should make sure they have proper mobility and strength to sprint correctly before they attempt maximal sprinting at all.  Beginners should also ease into things gradually to avoid excessive soreness and the likelihood of injury.  Starting out at 60% speed and ramping up to 100% over the course of time.

Most importantly, it may be conservative, but I normally wouldn’t recommend a sprint beyond 20- 40 yards, primarily, for injury prevention.

With regard to work to rest ratios, you can manipulate different ratios for sprints to work different energy systems.  For a beginner however, I would encourage them to rest until they felt 80 percent recovered before beginning the next sprint.  Then time yourself — see how long it takes you to complete the sprint and then see how long it takes you to recover.  Start learning your body and system.

NJAMW:  I really do need to give it a go.  I know a lot of coaches also recommend starting out with sprinting uphill to ensure good form.  Moving onto strength training now, I know you believe in doing heavy lifting and in a recent post you referred to the need to do higher rep work for the next competition you were aiming for.  Do you usually still continue some low rep heavy work through your Figure training to maintain high strength levels or do you find that the restrictive diet means that you can’t manage low rep strength work as well?

Alli proves she knows how to squat

AM:  I love to lift heavy.  To me, feeling strong, feels amazing (and I think it looks badass).  I’ve lifted heavy in all of my Figure preps leading up to the Arnold.  With Nick, we did a weekly undulation for the bulk of our training weeks cycling a high rep scheme, a medium rep range and a low rep range.

In my last prep, Carter had specific strategies as well, but we kept most of my lifting between 3 and 12 reps depending on the exercise itself, the placement of the exercise in the program, the muscle group worked and actual training phase / agenda.  I found that my strength went up in all movements with his prep despite a restricted diet. It was awesome!

*****

I’m going to call a halt there and make everyone wait before this interview gets wrapped up.  However, since parts three and four are both training related I’ll post up the final part tomorrow.  In the final installment I’ll be moving on to some specific exercises, so if you want to know where to get started for high box jumps or sprinting or if you want to know what Alli is going to do next you’ll have to wait just a little bit longer.

Related posts:

1. Interview with Alli McKee (part 4)
2. Interview with Alli McKee (part 1)
3. Interview with Alli McKee (part 2)

Who was Hepburn?

Hepburn was one of the ultimate oldtime strongmen.  He was the first man to bench press 500lb without the aid of drugs and remained strong into his fifties and sixties.  His kind of strength was designed to last.

The focus of his training style was strength with power and he was clearly well aware of the ease with which powerlifters could overtrain.  His routines reflect this with natural periodisation built into them and the key rule that you should never feel like you are working yourself to the point of failure or exhaustion.

If you want to learn more about him, including some of the fantastic things today’s great lifters and trainers say about him then the best resource I can point you to is a post by Chris Beardsley which is a mini-library of all-things-Hepburn.

Hepburn routines

There two key Hepburn routines, very catchily named Hepburn A and Hepburn B.  Chris is using both of them while I’m just using Hepburn A at the moment (although my dumbbell press workout is rapidly starting to look like a Hepburn B routine).  The identifying factor for both of the routines is that they take a “slow and steady” approach, adding a rep or two each session until you are doing a higher set/rep scheme than you started with and then dropping back to your original set/rep scheme with a new, heavier weight.

I’m finding that progress on Hepburn A seems slower than it used to be, when I was putting up the weight 1kg or 2kg every session and keeping the set and rep scheme the same.  However I had a nasty tendency to mentally burn out a few times each year, frying my central nervous system and having to drop the weight again by a big amount before slowly building it back up.  Hopefully Hepburn is giving me steadier and more sustainable progress.

Rather than spending time describing the Hepburn routines in huge detail I’m going to refer you to an excellent article by Mike Mahler.  Not only does it provide several of Hepburn’s rules for progressive and successful strength and power development, but it also describes in excellent detail the two types of routine.

Putting Hepburn A into practice

So for those who would prefer something tangible to hang their hat on, I thought I’d describe exactly what Hepburn A looks like for me at the moment.  I’ve got two workouts – the first uses the Romanian deadlift (RDL) and the second uses a low-bar back squat.  At the moment I do every set on two minutes.

At the start of the year I commenced with a first pair of workouts as follows:

1. RDL:  Power routine: 75kg 8×2; Pump routine: 55kg 3×6

2. Back squat:  Power routine: 70kg 8×2; Pump routine: 50kg 3×6

On my third and fourth workouts it looked like this:

3. RDL:  Power routine: 75kg 1×3,7×2; Pump routine: 55kg 1×7,2×6

4. Back squat:  Power routine: 70kg 1×3,7×2; Pump routine: 50kg 1×7,2×6

My seventeenth and eighteenth workouts, at the end of the cycle, looked like this:

17. RDL:  Power routine: 75kg 8×3; Pump routine: 55kg 3×9

18. Back squat:  Power routine: 70kg 8×3; Pump routine: 50kg 3×9

I then went back to the beginning of the cycle, doing workouts that looked like the first two workouts but with my RDL weights being 80kg and 60kg and my back squat weights being 73kg and 54kg.

I'll be improving my squat strength with Hepburn

Analysing how that fits with the real Hepburn routine

On re-reading the literature to write this post I need to make three observations.

1. I clearly didn’t put the back squat up 10lb, instead it went up 6.6lb.  My reasons were partly that I was ill when I put the weight up and partly that, even on my final workout with 70kg it hadn’t exactly felt easy.
2. I don’t stop the pump routine at 3×8, instead going up to 2×9, 1×8 or 3×9.  This is purely a function of brain-power, since I would like the power and pump routines in sync with each other.
3. I was grinding the back squat reps on 73kg the day my period started (just over a week ago).  While the period is undoubtedly a factor, I also suspected it was due to taking insufficient rest.  I don’t see that it can really be that the weight is too heavy, unless 70kg was fractionally too heavy.  Increasing the rest by 30 seconds last Friday seemed to improve the situation (but now my workout is unsustainably long).

Despite these slight problems I’m convinced that these routines are the way to go.  By focussing them on my big leg exercises and those that hit the posterior chain I am gaining strength where I really value it and size where I need it for my figure (my glutes).  Most importantly I have got through three months without burning out (although I’m definitely ready for my week away next week) and I am no longer mentally terrified, uncertain I’ll manage my new weight, every time I enter the gym.

I really recommend you check out the links I’ve included above and, if strength and power is what you are after, give the routines a go.  What do you think?  Have you already tried them and if so, did they work for you?

Related posts:

1. Celebrating female strength
2. The power of self-belief: why you should ditch mental stress
3. Blog-watch: Bret’s female strength levels

The aim is to live longer than my great-grandmother who made it to 103 (and four months), but I don’t want to be sat in a chair or even lying in a bed being pumped full of medicine and getting bored as I age.  I see living a long time as an opportunity to do and experience lots of different things, go to different places, try new activities, gain new hobbies and meet new people.  There is a whole world of opportunities out there and I’d like to be able experience plenty of them.

I'd like to experience plenty of things, not just the Lake District

The thing with this goal is that it means I need to look after myself and find ways to remain active.  As a result I’m always on the lookout for new research or ideas which may help me achieve my goal.

Chris and I have been talking about longevity a lot recently.  We don’t have children so, while we have no dependents, we will also have nobody to depend upon when we get old.  Though the honest truth is that we are both so active at the moment that we can’t imagine anything worse than being in a situation where we are physically unable to be active and look after ourselves anyway. 

In addition I would, in an ideal world, quite like to not end up looking aged and decrepit either.  While I wouldn’t like to think of myself as vain, I do take pleasure from people telling me that I haven’t changed since I was at school.  With only a year left before I hit my thirties there is something reassuring to know that I still look like I did over ten years ago.  I also get a lot of pleasure from my current appearance and knowing that I can look good with minimal effort – I’d like to hold onto those looks for as long as possible. 

Here are a few recent bits and bobs which have floated past me that may be of interest to anyone else who would like to remain active, mobile youthful and healthy as they get older.

• Most people seem to assume that the main driver behind living into old age and remaining physically fit is diet and related things (like not smoking and so on).  However, Chris and I started to get bothered that this may not be the whole story when Chris read Biomarkers.  This was saying that the body ages significantly when you are immobile.  Even those who are usually very fit and active can start to see an impact on physical aging markers by spending just one or two days laid up in bed.  This was enough to get Chris and I to ensure that there was at least one mildly active thing in every day, whether it was my 15 minutes swim, a heavy lifting workout or a brisk stroll down to the centre of the village and back (30 minute round trip).
• Our thoughts from Biomarkers have since been strongly supported and fleshed out by Blue Zones.  This is a study of populations where there is a particularly high prevalence of nonagenarians and centenarians which looks for similarities.  As you will see from Chris’s review of the book there didn’t seem to be any consistency in diet but some of the really obvious similarities between all the groups were high levels of social activity (whether through an emphasis on family or on time spent with friends) and physical activity – particularly resistance-type hard physical exercise.  Perhaps it really is all about what you do and not what you eat.  The opposite message to weight loss where 90% of the story is about what you eat.
• I feel that I’ve probably started to fix on something here.  The message that if we stay active, ensuring some sort of daily movement as well as some regular resistance or weight-related work (you don’t have to go into the gym and move metal about – you could just happen to lug lots of rocks about outdoors while re-doing your garden or move some furniture around indoors) we should improve our chances of healthy longevity.  Of course, so far I’ve just linked to some reviews of books on this subject.  However, Mark Sisson also seems to have been mulling over the subject of longevity and activity in old age.  He took a bit of time to look at a couple of research studies that also support the idea that physical activity is key in remaining healthy in later years.
• Chris on Zen to Fitness has also found some studies which took him in the same sort of direction.  These were focussed more on general health rather than specifically looking at longevity and quality of life in old age, but the following quote jumped out at me and caused me to include it in this blog-watch:

individuals who sat the most were roughly 50% more likely to die during the follow-up period than individuals who sat the least, even after controlling for age, smoking, and physical activity levels.

• If I told you that I started writing this post a couple of weeks ago you probably wouldn’t believe me.  That’s because one of the greatest longevity fitness and nutrition gurus died this week, aged 96.  His name was Jack LaLanne and he was a legend, doing incredible feats of strength into his eighties and still looking relatively youthful into his nineties.  No old-man hunch to be found there.  Eric Moss has done an excellent write up about Jack Lalanne and some of the greatest feats he did.  Take a read and consider if you currently think you could do what he did at age 80.
• Eric Moss wasn’t the only one to remember Jack LaLanne.  Bodybuilding.com have posted up a wonderful tribute to him as well as a separate article listing what they consider to be his 15 greatest feats and tips.
• To complete the Jack LaLanne collection there is also a very brief news article about his death on the Outside Blog.  There’s nothing new on this article but I’ve included it here simply because I love one of the LaLanne quotes included in the article: “you’ve got to work at living. Ninety-nine and nine-tenths of Americans work at dying.”
• Something else that might be worth considering if you want to live for a long time is your supplementation.  Chris Shugart recently wrote an article for Testosterone Nation about wasabi.  Not necessarily the stuff that you get with your sushi, but certainly what it ought to be.  It seems that the genuine article can decrease the incidence of many forms of cancer and since cancer seems to be one of the greater killers in our Western world it would be wise to try to protect yourself from it.  Unfortunately I really can’t stand wasabi, horseradish or anything else of that ilk, so I’ll stick with the cancer-protecting broccoli instead.
• Here’s something a bit different.  It’s not a technical article but instead a list (with a bit of foreword postscript) from David Gentle of bodybuilders who lived into old age.  Some of them I wouldn’t consider to have made it to a particularly old age, having only made it to their early 80s (I’m aiming for something that is almost my current age added to that) but there is a good long set of them who have made it into mid 90s and even to their centenary (and beyond) too.  It’s definitely good for a browe.
• Finally, it is worth considering whether you can reverse the signs of old age to a certain extent once they’ve happened.  I feel strongly that it should be possible by slowly applying the rules of general base activity and resistance training, among other things.  You might not be able to get rid of the grey hair and the wrinkles may not completely disappear (although some dietary changes and adequate fluids should put some elasticity back into the skin) but you should certainly be able to get rid of the “old lady stoop” or the tentative shuffle-walk as a starting point.  I was interested to see that Chris’s course notes for his personal training qualification addressed the issue of considerations when training older people.

So with this longevity blog-watch I feel that I am finally getting somewhere near the holy grail of how to crack the longevity nut.  Of course, I won’t know whether it has worked properly for another 50+ years, but I definitely feel that a plan of action to keep mentally active, maintain some sort of social community involvement and do something physical everyday is achievable.

Do you think it will work?

Related posts:

1. Blog-watch: longevity
2. Blog-watch: aging and longevity
3. Blog-watch: Dec 2010 pregnancy updates