How well would you adhere to a programme of picking this up twice a week?

It’s a really interesting study and quite readable, so I do recommend you go and have a read of it yourself, but I’ve included some of the more interesting points below.

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Adherence to a strength training intervention in adult women

Arikawa A Y, O’Dougherty M, Schmitz K.  J Phys Act Health 2011; 8(1):111-118. (Free copy of the study here.)

The study

This study was considering data already collected about 164 premenopausal sedentary women for the “Strong, Healthy, and Empowered” (SHE) study, reported in 2007 (Strength training and adiposity in premenopausal women: strong, healthy, and empowered study.  Schmitz KH, Hannan PJ, Stovitz SD, Bryan CJ, Warren M, Jensen MD.  Am J Clin Nutrition 2007; 86(3):566-72).  This earlier study required the women to participate in two years of strength training.  In order to assess how much the strength training made a difference it was necessary to keep note of whether the women actually did the training.

The authors of the study we’re looking at today used this subsidiary data from the 2007 study to look at whether there was any link between adherence and certain demographic variables.  The demographic variables being considered were: age, self-reported race or ethnicity, education, marital status, number and ages of children living at home and their work status.

The training programmes

For the first year participants were doing two training sessions each week, lasting 60-90 minutes each, and then recording them in a file kept at the YWCA fitness centres.

The sessions were structured with a cardio warm-up and “core” exercises followed by nine common strength training exercises and finishing with a warm-down set of stretches.  On the strength exercises participants did three sets of eight to ten reps for each exercise, always lifting the heaviest weight possible.

In year two participants were allowed, if they wanted, to drop down to two sets of each exercise.  This is estimated as having reduced the length of the workout to 45 minutes.

Strategies to support adherence

It is worth looking at the strategies employed to try and help these women adhere to the training programme.  After all, the team running the original study needed the women to do the training or they could not assess the impact.  To assist with this a number of support strategies were employed, reported as follows:

• Supervised intervention – For 16 weeks they participants did two sessions a week of supervised training with a qualified fitness professional in groups of two to six participants.
• Personal booster sessions – Access to one training session with the qualified fitness professional each month and also two group booster sessions every 12 weeks to introduce new exercises, ensure form was still correct and provide social support to the participants.
• Phone and email reminders – participants were contacted by phone or email once a week if they did not report their completed strength training sessions (their logs were checked weekly).
• Social support gatherings – twice yearly events for participants to share successes and challenges.  If I’ve learned nothing else from writing this blog, I’ve learned that women starting out on a strength training programme need a huge amount of social support, whether directly like this or through the internet.
• Incentives – free gifts like t-shirts or water bottles.
• Study website – this contained contact information for staff, methods to contact each other, success stories, ideas to help overcome challenges etc.
• Letters/email to significant others – study participants gave names of people they were close to who could encourage them.  These people were sent letters and emails explaining what they were doing and suggesting behaviours and activities that might support the participants.
• Child care – this was provided to any participant who had children age five or younger.
• Gym membership – the participants were given a two-year membership to the Minneapolis YWCA fitness centres.

This seems like a well-considered set of strategies.  However it doesn’t hit the mark with one of the biggest factors readers of this site tell me are reasons they struggle to adhere to their training programmes – a lack of time.  For this study the sessions were long enough to not be able to squeeze them into a lunch break or some other convenient window, which would have compounded any time issue too.

Provision of things like child care will have helped a little with the lack of time issue but for anyone with children over five (who would still need child care) or those with busy work lives, it would be easy enough to let time become the front-runner excuse not to train.  Even if the real problem is a lack of motivation, time can often be labelled, either rightly or wrongly, as the actual culprit for not training.

Results – supervised year one

The results can be found in full published together in a single table here.

On looking at them the most interesting part for me is that there was such good adherence while the participants were having their training sessions with a personal trainer.  Most of the adherence is above 90%, no matter how they classified the participants.

The only group where this was not the case were unmarried women with children aged 6-12 – an age group that still requires childcare and where we might assume (correctly or incorrectly) that support at home to provide this child care is less than it might be in a marital home.  These women only managed 76.7% adherence to the programme in these first few months.

Results – unsupervised year one

Even more startling is how quickly this overall adherence dropped off.  In the rest of year one, once the formal supervised training had finished, adherence dropped to 50-70% for nearly all groups, although there are some noticeable splits within that.  Most clearly when looking at race – white women maintained a 70.3% adherence while women of any other colouring only showed 48.6% adherence.  There is more discussion on this particular split later but I don’t really know what to make of it – is it cultural?

In the unsupervised part of that first year it is also helpful to look at the marital and age of children split again.  While the unmarried women with children aged 6-12 were still poor in adherence, they were safely within the main pack showing 50.9% adherence.  This suggests to me that there was much more influence from external factors on whether these women were able to adhere than pure willpower and desire to train.  They saw much less drop-off in adherence than all the other groups who dropped from an adherence above 90%.

The group who stand out this time were the unmarried women with children aged 13 or older, dropping from 96.7% to 36.3% adherence.  While this would usually imply to me something skewing the data, this pattern continues into year two and no other cut of the data reflects this skew, despite the fact that these same women must have been included in other groups (eg. college or non-college educated women).

Results – year two (unsupervised)

By year two the adherence across the board is mostly in the mid-30-50% range.  I was actually surprised by how high this adherence was in year two since it is often the second year when the love-affair with the new training routines and formats tends to finally wear off completely.

The question of race and ethnicity

Throughout this study there were results that surprised me and results that seem very easily explained.

The most extreme difference within a single comparison comes from the split between white and coloured women.  For some reason, white women, who represented 58.5% of the participants, show much greater adherence and without knowing how the other demographic characteristics split between these two groups (eg. did more coloured women have children) it is impossible to say why.

The authors gave some consideration to what might be causing this difference.  In particular whether

“the gym environment itself could be a deterrent for some participants and would particularly contribute to this division between white and coloured women.  The authors state that the “YWCA locations were in the city of Minneapolis, which had a 32% minority population […]. The YWCA mission is painted on the entrance walls of the facilities: “The YWCA of Minneapolis works to fulfill our mission of eliminating racism and empowering women.” The gym staff and membership, while majority White, reflected the diversity of the area. According to their geographic location, mission statement, staff and membership and course offerings (including hip hop, salsa and African dance, among other courses), the fitness centers did not appear to be unwelcoming to culturally diverse women. […] data gathered in focus group discussions and interviews with a subsample of intervention participants offer some perspective. Several women mentioned having joined the study in order to obtain a free gym membership. Six women of color and 5 White women explained their choice of a gym location and/or time of work out by noting disliking a crowded gym. Three women of color emphasized the gym provided a positive family experience. One said of her children: “They are all girls and I want them to know that working out is a good thing for them and they should find time as they get older.” Another found the gym “open, friendly”. Another woman of color said she had “respect” for the YWCA community, and in part frequented the gym to join that community. Two women of color had difficulties with the day care. While specific responses differed, it seems that most women did not have problems with gym-based exercise per se, but only with specific conditions: many preferred quiet, non crowded spaces.

There were, however, 6 women (2 women of color and 6 White women) who voiced discomfort with or dislike of the environment. Four specifically said they had been “intimidated” by the gym: for one woman of color it was the machines, for two (1 woman of color and 1 White woman) it was the many men working out in the weights area. The women of color noted this sense of discomfort ended once they became familiar with using the machines. A White woman said she would prefer a woman only gym: “it feels very intimidating for a woman, especially someone who’s you know who’s overweight to try and go and use the machines, when these guys are putting on all these weights, it’s just a macho thing… If they weren’t there it would feel so much more welcoming.” Another White woman, who suggested women only time periods, suggested: “women only [gym hours] and it would be like women trying to get into shape, so it wasn’t like all Barbie dolls…I would go because I would know it would be a welcoming environment”. Two White women voiced their general dislike for being in gyms without elaboration. These responses suggested that at least some women did not want to be in a social atmosphere under observation or in a male-dominated space, or perhaps indoors at all for physical activity. Most focus group responses did not indicate reservations about gym-based exercise. Instead, they emphasized their confidence in their ability to complete strength training correctly, but noted time constraints and issues of convenience.”

Given that many of these comments are coming from white women it seems unlikely that the gym conditions were the reason for this division in adherence.

The issue with parenthood and training

The authors also took time to consider the drop in adherence by women with older children too.  One of the women participating commented, “although her older children no longer required a babysitter, they needed rides to their scheduled activities.”  Another participant had commented that it was easier to adhere when her children were younger and didn’t have their own schedules.

Despite this, I do disagree with a comment from the authors that parenthood in general impacts training.  After all, those women without children didn’t always adhere as well as those women with children up to 5 years old who had access to child care.  The problem is not with being a parent per se but with what resources you have as a parent to handle the multiple commitments that this creates.

Conclusions

So what have we learned here?  Overall we have learned that there is a definite drop off over time in adherence to a training programme by overweight women.  There also seems to be a particular difficulty in training when women have children to care for – especially as those children gain a social life of their own but don’t yet have the means to get about alone.

The comments about the gym environment are especially helpful as they appear to support suspicions that I already had about gym environments putting women off training.  I have a private gym of sorts in my garage but even after years of training I still hate going into a public gym.

Some suggestions to improve this could include more women-only sessions being available in commercial gyms.  It might also be improved if gyms offered family-friendly environments where women can bring partners and children with them to workout in some way with them.  This would offer much more personal support for the women working out and also resolve some child care issues for them.  However, as a general rule in the UK nobody under age 16 is allowed into a commercial gym that has weights and until they resolve that families will not be able to workout together.

If we have friends we want to encourage to start, and then stick to, a training programme there are perhaps a few things we can do to help them.  We could offer to train with them until they have got used to the commercial gym environment and feel confident in going alone.  And even when they do feel confident, perhaps we could still go with them from time to time.  Perhaps we can offer to help with child care to allow them time to train.  These certainly appear to be the biggest barriers to adherence coming out of this particular analysis of the data.

What do you think?  Is there something I’ve missed here?  Are you a mother who has some tips you can share in the comments on how other mothers can successfully combine workouts and parenthood?  If so, I’d love to hear from you.

Related posts:

1. Strength training and adiposity in premenopausal women: Strong, Healthy, and Empowered study
2. Influence of moderately intense strength training on flexibility in sedentary young women
3. Why do women start weight training?

This was a useful study I stumbled across.  I was actually looking for another bench press study, but when I saw this study my interest was piqued.  Was this a study I could use as helpful evidence to those women who think that strength training will just get them bulky and therefore turn to yoga believing that greater flexibility equals better health?  Could this be a useful study for those of us who train to convince our non-training friends that strength training is not necessarily a bad thing?  Read on and find out.

*****

Influence of moderately intense strength training on flexibility in sedentary young women

Santos E, Rhea M R, Simão R, Dias I, de Salles B F, Novaes J, Leite T, Blair J C, Bunker D J.  Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 2010; 24(11):3144-3149. (Free copy of the study here.)

The study

This study appears to have been trying to consolidate and delve more deeply into a collection of previous studies that had been done looking into the subject of flexibility improvements as a result of strength training.  The authors wanted to focus specifically on women in their mid-twenties whereas previous studies had either looked at other age groups or, in one case, had looked at a population of both men and women.  In the discussion section of this paper the authors are particularly dismissive of this final study pointing out that not only was there a skew to male participants (65% men and 35% women) but the resistance training group from the study was even more skewed (69% men and 31% women).  The authors believe that the influence of strength training on flexibility varies between men and women.

Unlike last week’s study, there are limited subtle comments and side-discussion from the authors of this study, however this doesn’t detract from the helpfulness of the study itself.

The participants

Whereas last week’s study used participants who had been participating in resistance training activities for a minimum of 3-5 days per week for the 6 month period immediately prior to enrolment in the study, this week’s study was looking for young women who had engaged in no physical activity for the 6 months leading up to the study and, in fact, engaged in no regular physical activity other than the study’s strength training programme while the study was taking place.  So we move from one extreme to the other – these women are truly sedentary.

Looking at the women selected they all appear to be in their mid-twenties.  The test group contained 24 women were divided into three groups of eight and the reported age of each of these groups was 26.8 ± 1.6 years, 24 ± 2.3 years and 25.4 ± 2.4 years.

Before they started the experiment the training groups were put through a week of exercise familiarisation.  This seems like an excellent idea as it would have helped prevent the possibility of injury during early training sessions and the initial testing.  However, this needs to be remembered when comparing the opening figures between the control group (who were remaining sedentary) and the training groups.

The experiment

The women were divided into three groups.  One was a control group and remained sedentary all the time, except when being tested (and presumably for some exercise familiarisation so that they knew how to do the machine bench press for the test).  The other two groups were both training groups.

Flexibility and one rep max (1RM) machine bench press were both measured at the start and end of the training period.  It’s worth noting that at the start flexibility was measured 48 to 72 hours after the initial 1RM test while at the other end of the experiment the flexibility was measured first, 48 hours after the final training session, and the 1RM was tested 48 hours after the flexibility measurements were taken.

Quite why they decided to swap these round is not certain and the authors say nothing about this.  The results are still comparable between the groups as the testing protocol was the same between groups though.

In between the opening and closing testing the training groups did 24 training sessions, three times a week over eight weeks.  The training groups did identical workouts except for a different arrangement of the exercises.  One group is described as an agonist/antagonist group and the other as an alternated strength training group.

Agonist/antagonist training group

To understand what is going on here it is necessary to understand what agonist and antagonist mean.  According to wikipedia, an agonist muscle causes movements to occur through the process of contraction.  The antagonist muscle works in conjunction with the agonist muscle, to bring the limb back to its original position.  A really good example is the upper arm where the bicep is the agonist when bending the fist up to your forehead while the triceps is then the antagonist, working to bring the arm back to its straight position.

This training group were given the following superset exercises:

• Machine seated row and machine bench press
• Machine triceps extension and machine seated arm curl
• Abdominals and trunk extension machine
• Leg extension and seated leg curl

They completed three sets of each pair, performing 10-12 reps on all except the abdominal exercise which was done for 15-20 reps.  The participants took 2 minutes rest between the supersets.

Helpfully they made the workouts progressive, increasing the weight once the participant could complete 12 reps with the weight they were working with.

If you consider the exercises being done by this group the supersets were all made up of pairs of agonist and their matching antagonist muscles, for example the triceps and arm curl which was the example I gave at the start of this section.  This is a popular way to train the upper body for a more advanced trainee but for new trainees who have not previously done these exercises it must have been utterly exhausting.

Alternated strength training group

This group did everything exactly the same as the agonist/antagonist group although if my reading of the training protocol is correct then there was only one set done of each pair and the exercises were done in a different superset order.  This time they were paired as follows:

• Machine seated row and leg extension
• Machine bench press and seated leg curl
• Machine seated arm curl and abdominals
• Machine triceps extension and trunk extension machine

This is a classic superset of arms with legs, abs or trunk each time – far less exhausting for the beginner trainee as each body part gets a longer rest between sets while the other body part is working.

Results

I have not reproduced the measurements for the six flexibility tests they carried out on the three groups pre and post experiment.  The noticeable point is that the control group saw no flexibility improvement while the two training groups both saw improvements in their flexibility.  Across the board the alternated strength training group saw greater improvement in their flexibility but by an amount that is fairly immaterial when compared to the overall increase seen by both group.  It is therefore fair to agree with the authors when they note that strength training can rapidly improve flexibility in women in their mid-twenties who were previously completely sedentary.

More interesting to me was the results on the machine bench press 1RM.  It is important to note that this is machine bench press – free-weights bench press would require far more from the stabilising muscles and would therefore take longer to reach such high numbers.  However, the difference between the agonist/antagonist group and the alternated strength training group is he and says a lot for what may be an appropriate way to train a new beginner.

The question becomes, on reading these results, whether you would want to just gain flexibility or become a bit stronger at the same time for no more effort.  If the latter is attractive to you (and why would it not be?) then alternate strength training seems to be an appropriate way to go with any previously untrained beginner.

Why the difference in results?

Disappointingly the authors don’t seem to try and address why they think the difference in results came about between the two training groups.  I have a couple of theories and have decided to share them below, although I would welcome other people’s thoughts.

Firstly, it is well known that certain leg exercises can give an instant boost to growth hormones.  It is possible that interspersing the leg exercises throughout the workout gives a better hormonal response to the upper body exercises.  However, the upper body exercises are always done first which potentially detracts from this theory.  Perhaps an interesting test would be to replicate this experiment but to have both training groups perform the alternated strength training routine with one group doing the supersets the opposite way round, performing the leg exercise then the upper body exercise, and see if the results differ between these two groups.  Would this make any difference?  Would it make a difference to the results if the 1RM test being done was a squat rather than a bench press?

Secondly, and more plausible, is the idea that these are beginners.  They have, presumably, never done these exercises before, or if they have it was some time ago.  As a result those little supporting muscles are not yet very strong.  It is likely that the agonist/antagonist workout taxes the muscles much more.  While it doesn’t stress the muscles any more, it will stress small supporting muscles that are needed for both exercises in the pair.  If they are tired from the first exercise it may not be possible to get the maximum training affect from the second exercise.  In comparison the alternated strength training group are giving those smaller muscles longer rest between sets when they want to tax them.

*****

This wasn’t necessarily the most useful study to improve my own training but I’m hoping that what I’ve learned here will help me convince a few more of my non-training friends that real strength training is not as detrimental to their overall “health” as they may believe.  Especially when this could give them some of the flexibility they go to yoga for with a few added enhancements.  It’s also given me some good ideas of the sort of workout I might prescribe to a new beginner, although perhaps with a bit more free-weights work and a bit less machine use!  Do you think you can similarly draw on this study in your own training or in convincing friends to take it up?

Related posts:

1. Adherence to a strength training intervention in adult women
2. Strength training and adiposity in premenopausal women: Strong, Healthy, and Empowered study
3. Weight training women

*****

Caffeine enhances upper body strength in resistance-trained women

Goldstein E, Jacobs P L, Whitehurst M, Penhollow T and Antonio J.  Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 2010; 7:18-23. (Free copy of the study here.)

The study

The aim of this study was to establish whether the ingestion of caffeine improved upper body strength performance in women.  It’s refreshing because it has a focus specifically on women, tailoring the study parameters to fit round expectations of the test participants.  I was also excited by the fact that it used resistance-trained women.  Far too often studies looking at strength performance use untrained individuals and the results are then extrapolated to all people, however anyone who has been doing strength training for a while will be aware that in those first couple of years of training the novice trainee can do almost anything and gain strength as a result.

This was research on resistance trained women - much more relevant!

The participants

Taking a quick look at the women they used for this study there were a few criteria that had to be met:

• Age 18-45.
• Participate in resistance training activities for a minimum of 3-5 days per week for the 6 month period immediately prior to enrolment in the study.
• An ability to bench press 70% of their (individual) bodyweight.

The authors ended up with a group of 15 women who met all of these criteria

Throughout the discussion section of the paper there are comments that could be easily overlooked but which, in my opinion, are more revealing about women (in general) than the study itself.  The first of these is relevant here as the authors note that they struggled to recruit resistance-trained women with an ability to bench press 70% of individual body weight.  They go on to comment: “many recreationally trained women, who frequently participate in resistance training, underestimate the conditioning that is essential for a female to bench press a relatively high percentage of body weight.”

Some thoughts about women and resistance training

This statement from the authors is fascinating.

Firstly I would agree that it is, on the surface, difficult to find women who carry out regular resistance training of the sort I write about on this blog (eg. meaningful weights) and this says a lot about the state of women’s fitness training.  Despite the recent upsurge in women training with real weights, those of use who lift decent amounts of iron are still in a definite minority and even an endangered species (by the official guidelines).

Secondly, 70% of bodyweight is not a huge weight for those who train powerlifting moves on a regular basis but neither is it easy.  Based on my own experience which was, admittedly, hindered by upper body mobility and stability issues from my desk job and hobbies, 70% took dedicated training but wasn’t too difficult – I think I probably got there in just under 6 months once I started introducing bench press as a specific exercise.  70%-80% took far more effort than the first 70% and above 80% has taken specific training working on my bench press weaknesses.

Thirdly, it is clear that the authors knew and understood their test subjects since they went for a weight that is challenging for anyone who isn’t dedicated to resistance training and it also highlights the clear difference between men and women in this area, since mean seem to routinely get to this sort of weight with far less difficulty as far as I can tell and therefore a more sensible cut off for them might have been closer to 100% of individual body weight.  See a graph I put together for one of my earliest articles – there’s a 74% difference between percentage of bodyweight benched by a light men’s class and a light women’s class at competition level.

Finally, given the points above and the statement that many women who frequently participated in resistance training underestimated their ability to bench press 70% of individual bodyweight, I wonder if there is a potential lack of understanding about what resistance training really is and/or a lack of progression in most women’s training programmes – perhaps going to the gym 3 times a week to do the same programme with the same weight and therefore not getting any stronger once they pass a certain point.  As I said earlier, 6 months of progressive training got me to 70% without too much difficulty and the women in this research had to have been training 3-5 times a week for the previous 6 months.  Is there a need for more and better education about effective training programmes in the public domain?

Preparation for testing and supplementation

The 15 women attended three sessions at the testing laboratory.  The first was a familiarisation session where they were “instructed on proper technique and mechanics of the bench press exercise, according to the standard methods defined by Baechle and Earle and the National Strength and Conditioning Association.”  They also did various tests to determine whether they met the criteria of being able to bench press 70% of their individual bodyweight.

At sessions two and three, the test sessions, the participants were asked to continue their usual exercise and diet lifestyle in the seven days leading up to each test day, recording their complete diet on two week days and a weekend day.  This meant that diets could be compared between test subjects to ensure they were consistent.

In the 24 hours before the test the participants were asked to refrain from vigorous activity and avoid any caffeinated food and drink and had to report to the test after a 12 hour period without food.  Essentially this is eliminating any caffeine from the system and ensuring that the test subjects all arrive in a similar fasted state.

One exercise trial was performed with caffeine and one without, although neither the participants nor the testers knew which was which as the caffeine was administered 60 minutes before testing as 6mg/kg dissolved in 16.9 ounces of flavoured Propel Fitness Water and the placebo on the non-caffeine week was 16.9 ounces of this same flavoured Propel Fitness Water without the caffeine dissolved in it.

The experiment tests

Interestingly the researchers decided to carry out two tests.  First they tested one rep max (1RM) by doing a controlled warm-up from 12-15 reps with 50% of 1RM through to singles with 90% of 1RM and then continuing singles until failure.  This is a classic way to test 1RM.

Despite the strenuous nature of doing a 1RM test, the participants then had a five minute rest before testing muscular endurance by doing as many reps as possible at 60% of their 1RM.

Heart rate, blood pressure and RPE (rating of perceived exertion – a scale used by most fitness professionals) were all tested at rest (presumably not long after ingesting the supplement), 60 minutes after ingesting the supplement (immediately before the 1RM testing) and 5 seconds after completing the muscular endurance test.

Results

I have reproduced the main results reported in the paper below:

When I saw the results I struggled to see how the authors had concluded that there was a difference, but then I considered in more detail what might be statistically significant in the context of a 1RM.  Most of us know that adding 1kg to your 1RM is something to be proud of.  Especially on bench press where the numbers you are dealing with are small and 1kg is therefore a notable percentage of the lift.  In consequence the authors have concluded: “acute caffeine supplementation appears to be effective for enhancing strength performance in resistance-trained women”.  It seems a reasonable conclusion although with the results they got I think there are probably other things that can be done before

Possible issue with the experiment

Unfortunately any sort of 1RM and muscular endurance testing will, inevitably, produce a slight training effect (though only slight when not training to failure).  In addition, these women were asked to continue training as usual between tests.  As a result there is a good possibility that their bench press naturally improved by a slight amount between the tests.  Whether it could improve enough to affect the result is uncertain and we have no idea which test came first – if they mixed it up (doing placebo with only half the group at the first test and then swapping these sub-groups) then this potential training effect should be removed.  Using women who are already established at resistance training and able to bench press 70% of their bodyweight could also minimise the risk of this having any impact.

Diet results

Do you remember that I mentioned earlier that the participants had to record their diet for 3 days during the week leading up to each test?  These results show that protein and carbohydrate intake in the weeks preceding both the placebo and caffeinated tests are similar with the only variant being to fat intake levels.  It reveals interesting information about the diet of 15 average women who participate in resistance training when no focus is being put on their diets.

Using the caffeine test results as an example, the mean (± standard deviation) intake each day was 2,083 ± 1,095 kcal, being made up of 102 ± 39 g protein, 256 ± 186 g carbohydrate and 117 ±181 g fat (this increases to 145 ± 274 g in the placebo week).  The mean body mass was 63.6 ± 8.3 kg (140lb), so it seems that most of the women were deficient in protein when compared to the standard recommendation for those doing resistance training of 1-1.5g protein per pound of lean bodyweight – unless, on average, 30% of their bodyweight was fat.

Is this an indication that, in general, most women who don’t analyse what they eat could do with replacing some of the carbs in their diet with additional protein? This is certainly a suspicion I’ve been developing over the last few years when I’ve been eating out for lunches and dinners with work.  The amount of protein on offer always seems limited yet the people I’m with seem to think it is an enormous amount of meat or fish.

More meat required with the veg (Image: paleo pine nut stuffed chicken thighs)

Some caffeine discoveries

The participants reflect a group with wide range of normal daily caffeine intake, from zero to 416 mg per day.  Most of the participants didn’t show any major responses to the 6 mg/kg of caffeine, compared to a separate study published in 2007 and referred to in this study.  When the women in that earlier test were given 9 mg/kg and reported feelings of “profuse sweating, body tremors, dizziness and vomiting.”  However, three of the women habitually consumed 0-41 mg of caffeine per day and reported some interesting side-effects.

Among their side-effects were “intense emotional responses, including an expressed inability to verbally communicate, focus, and/or remain still, as well as the feeling of wanting to cry.”  This last point I find particularly interesting as it suggests a hormonal reaction to the caffeine in the women who never or rarely ingested any caffeine.  Despite feeling like this, two of these three women still performed better in the muscular endurance phase of testing when under the influence of the caffeine.  That’s the part of the test where, in general, there was no statistically significant improvement in the group as a whole after taking caffeine.

Thoughts and conclusions

So there is plenty to digest in this piece of research.  Not only is there the conclusion reached by the researchers that slight caffeine supplementation may enhance strength performance for those of us who do resistance training, but there are also a few other things to learn.

I’ve hypothesised above that there is potentially a lack of education in the public domain about effective progressive resistance training.  I also think that the results imply that some women are still protein deficient in their diets.  To hypothesise about why this may be would be taking this too far as there are all sorts of possible causes.  If these women are following an unweighed and unmeasured diet then just a few suggestions might include a lack of availability of protein or it’s perceived prohibitive cost, perseverance of the myth that high protein diets cause kidney failure, or that these women are bulking their diets out with wheat produce so that they are too full to eat adequate protein.

Finally, is the impact of the caffeine on those women who rarely consume any caffeine.  I found the record of the emotional side-effects particularly interesting as this is the first time I’ve seen mention of these effects despite having suffered them myself from time to time when I’ve over-done the black tea and coffee.  Yet the participants noticing these side effects still saw a benefit from the caffeine to their muscular endurance despite apparently feeling weepy while on the bench.

Once I get back into my bench press I might start taking in a mug or two of coffee an hour before my workout, although until then I will continue with a couple of mugs of weak black tea each morning so that the extra caffeine isn’t a shock to the system.

Related posts:

1. Weight training women
2. Blog-watch: should women run?
3. Pod-watch: Super Human Radio for women!

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

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)

The research

I’m not going to replicate everything that Scott has written and steal his thunder.  Instead it would be valuable to read his article before carrying on with this the rest of this post.

Scott Abel’s article The Self-Destructive Nature of Willpower: The Willpower Rebellion

The highlight of the article is some research of willpower done by Roy Baumeister.  Subjects fasted for at least three hours and were then separated into three groups.  Groups one and two were both given plates of chocolate chip cookies and radishes with group one being told they may only eat the radishes and group two allowed to eat anything on the plates.  Group three were the control and were not given any food at all.  After an extended period of time the groups were given some “simple” geometric puzzles to solve (which were not actually solvable).  Group one, who had exercised willpower to not eat the cookies when hungry, gave up on the geometric puzzles before those in groups two and three.

Could you manage a mental challenge after looking at this and resisting it for a few hours

The conclusion drawn by the researchers is that group one had exhausted their mental energy, reducing the capacity for other mental tasks.  Scott notes that this experiment has been replicated with other tasks and provides the same results each time.  Despite the tasks being unrelated, there appears to be a limited pool of mental energy available for use as willpower.

Willpower or motivation?

I’ve not previously distinguished between willpower and motivation but Scott’s piece has made me reconsider my standpoint on this.  It might explain why I sometimes have “epic failures” in relation to my diet and workouts while at other times I seem to be fine.

Training – fully motivated

Going into the gym, no matter how exhausted I am, is something I am usually good at.  I would put this in the motivated category.  I am motivated to beat previous repetition or weight records and I always have my core motivation – a desire to build bone density so that I can be active in old age. 

I rarely have to overcome a desire to miss my workout and willpower doesn’t feature.  I just get on with it.  Training has become a habit.

I’m also better at listening to my body when it comes to workouts.  If I feel out of sorts, usually with some an illness coming on, I notice the signs.  I’ll still do my workout, but I’ll adapt it a bit to work within the bounds of motivation.

Still motivated to train, no matter how tired I am

Dieting – mind over matter?

My diet is a whole different story.  I love food, the flavours, textures and scents with different foods. 

I find a calorie restricted diet tough with this love of food.  800 calories a day requires careful planning to ensure that it has sufficient protein to leave me feeling satiated and the best blend of vitamins and minerals possible.  With a busy lifestyle I end up developing just one or two days of meal plans and sticking to them.  I lose the variety I enjoy and boredom sets in.  A weekly cheat or re-feed day can help and weekly measurement sessions can also assist, provided I can see a reasonable amount of progress, but willpower is vital.

Willpower exhaustion in action

Scott’s concern is that Figure Competitors and extreme dieters are setting themselves up for a long period or lifetime of mental problems.  It may be an inability to maintain a realistic or healthy diet once they stop dieting but it could affect other areas of life, including relationships, training and careers.

Last summer I had a simple example of the condition that Scott is drawing attention to.  I was trying to keep my diet clean but felt like I was fighting an uphill battle.  I’d been “keeping an eye” on my caloric intake for a few months and had kept strictly paleo before a couple of weeks eating what I liked while I was on holiday (Alpine huts are not paleo-friendly).  On my return I tried to go back to strict paleo and calorie restriction again.  Unfortunately I’d pushed the boundaries too far and I cracked.  I wrote about my experience afterwards.

A couple of weeks after the return from holiday I reached my mental limit.  I was feeling listless in every area of my life, including work and home life, and it finally impacted on my workouts.  I had to abandon my training workouts and replace them with something completely different for a month.

In hindsight I don’t think it was anything to do with the workouts.  I think it was a complete exhaustion of my mental control.

Learning lessons

Reading Scott’s article and considering my own experiences over the last few years, I have a few personal learning points:

• Establish significant dietary changes in small steps – build up carb restriction and paleo changes slowly, don’t change everything at once and create daily situations of denial.  Instead create new habits for life.
• Don’t keep a form of severe calorie-restriction going long-term.  Have a fixed period for hard dieting and then be less restrictive on the types of foods permitted afterwards, using a food plan like Alli McKee.
• If undertaking a fixed fat-loss period be aware of loss of mental energy elsewhere and, if it starts to impact noticeably in other area take a few days off the diet.

Those lessons are very specific to me.  I’d be interested to hear if others have noticed similar exhaustion of willpower and what lessons you would take away from this.  Do you even agree that there is a limit to how much willpower and mental reserve you have?

Related posts:

1. Blog-watch: weight loss mind-games
2. Iron Lady: interview with Laura Trimble (part 1)
3. Blog-watch: the impact of stress

6. Natalia Muntean

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylcy354a_9w

• Key exercises:  Wide stance deep squat, Horse stance, Skier squat, box jumps, lateral lunge, split squat, frog jumps – she is showing these as bodyweight exercises although she does suggest that you may choose to add some weight to some of them.
• Set/rep schemes:  7 exercises, 1 set, 20 reps.

7. Belinda Benn

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRvOcQxX3M4

• Key exercises:  Barbell squat to parallel, barbell lunge (without bringing the feet together between reps), leg press, extended leg calf press – there aren’t too many exercises here and good form seems important to her, but it’s a shame that the weights are so light.
• Set/rep schemes:  She’s not clear on the number of sets but recommends 15 reps on each leg for the barbell lunge, so it’s looking like a low set, high rep approach.

8. Diana Chaloux

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RbDfB2az5I

• Key exercises:  Lunges (without bringing the feet together between reps but with static holds at the bottom of the movement),step ups, high leg step ups (I’m not sure what else to call the step ups onto the bench), Romanian deadlifts (to the floor), box squats (but I’m not sure I like her form on these), lateral step ups with squat, box jumps (or what Aubrie Richeson and Lacey Lynn called plyometric bench hops, but to a much lower platform), leg press, extended leg calf press, leg extensions (I presume that’s what this is called), some sort of calf extension (we really are getting into the realms of things I don’t recognise now, given that I have never worked out in a commercial gym and avoid the machines in hotel gyms when I have to use them).
• Set/rep schemes:  There is no mention of the set and rep schemes but she seems to be doing millions of reps with everything so I’m guessing low sets (possibly even single sets, given the number of exercises she needs to fit into her workout) and very high reps.

Drawing some conclusions

So, what conclusions can we draw together from all of this?

• Everyone seems to be agreed that to get some bulk of muscle volume in the glute and hamstring area you need high rep work.
• I don’t know if some of the models were using lighter weights because these were example videos of the workout, but there appear to be mixed views on whether we should be going with heavy weight or not.
• That said, the ones who actually talk about the weight they recommend (eg. Liza Hughes or Matt Skeffington) certainly seem to be tending towards “the heaviest you can manage without form breaking down”.  In my own experience, it helps to build some base strength with lower rep work first so that the “heaviest you can manage” is still a significant weight.
• Deep squats and lunges seem to feature throughout with Romanian deadlifts, step ups, variations on box jumps and leg presses also featuring reasonably frequently.
• Matt Skeffington is the only one with a really strong emphasis on unilateral work, but most programmes have an element of unilateral work in them due to the inclusion of exercises like lunges and step ups.
• I was surprised to see that glute bridges and hip thrusts didn’t really get much air-time at all.  Given the fantastic results I’ve seen with them (they give a lot more bang for their buck than a lot of other exercises) is this just because they are less well-known, or are there form/strength issues behind not wanting to include them in these sort of higher rep programmes?  Though I do note that even Bret Contreras, the Glute God himself, only recently had a play with higher rep work on hip thrusts.  I’ve certainly found high rep hip thrusts a challenge, but then, I’m doing them with 90kg.

Hopefully this has given you some ideas of things you could do to achieve a bit of glute hypertrophy (if that’s what you are after).  Do you think there are any other key features which stand out in all these videos which I’ve missed and could make or break a successful glute/leg “toning” workout?

Of course, there is an alternative to the whole thing.  You could just get yourself a Flex Mini and then you don’t have to do all those pesky exercises at all!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbQfTWV5Xx8

Related posts:

1. Video-watch: Bums, tums and thighs (part 1)
2. Blog-watch: introducing the Turkish Get-up
3. Blog-watch: Turkish Get-ups revisited

My experience with sports bras

My focus on the blog has always been about documenting my personal experience.  Sometimes I’ll do some research to understand what has caused my personal experiences or I will research a new topic which may be important to me but I mostly wanted to share my experiences.  My hope is that if I share conclusions I reach after months of getting things wrong, I can save someone else a few months of wasted time. 

Following my latest holiday I wanted to write a bit about sports bras.  It’s going to get a bit personal but hopefully some of you will find it of use.

Sports bras are a personal thing (image courtesy of BigGirlBlue)

Getting to know your chest

I have a tiny chest.  It’s been big enough to warrant some bra wearing and if I try to run anywhere I feel a bit uncomfortable without any support, but it is very small. 

It used to measure in at a 34A or a 36A.  At some points in my menstrual cycle I will fill the cups of my shaped bra while other points in the cycle are accompanied with half empty bra cups.  My chest size is equally difficult.  When my lats are larger (either through dedicated training or post-workout pump) or I’m carrying a little upper body fat my bras stay put, but if I have a couple of weeks off lat-specific training or lose the upper body fat then my strapless bras slide down my chest during the day giving me a bizarre double-chested look.

Do you really need a sports bra?

I really wanted to write this post to get a few of you thinking about whether you really need a sports bra all the time.

Sports bras are one of those things that automatically get included in women’s kit, whether it’s a crop top doubling as a compression bra or an encapsulation bra under a loose t-shirt.  I have a couple of crop tops but most often wore an encapsulation bra in the gym or on walking holidays.

About six months ago I had a realisation.  I was putting on a sports bra to do workouts in a gym but was actually getting minor injuries as a side effect of the sports bra straps when I was doing hip thrusts (the box I pivot my upper body on isn’t that well padded) and back squats.  My workouts involved minimal fast movement so why did I need the support?

The benefits of going bra-less

It was quite a revelation to stop wearing a bra for my workouts. 

When Chris was coaching me on upper body work he could more easily touch various muscles to check they were activating correctly and help me build mind-muscle connections.  I stopped getting raw patches in my centre back where the pivot point for my hip thrusts met the hooks and eyes at the back of my bra.  I no longer got bruises where the thick straps of my bra met the back squat bar.  Oddly, my upper body work improved slightly too since I felt freer on movements like the overhead press.

I wasn’t jumping up and down or running on the spot so why did I need any support?  In fact, I could probably be slightly larger in the chest area and still get away without wearing a bra for the strength workouts I do, simply because of the types of movements involved.

More bra-less adventures

About a month ago I took the next big leap.  I did my first walking holiday without a bra.  I don’t have much vertical movement in my gait so can walk quite actively without needing support.  There was only one particularly steep and quick descent where I felt a bit tender by the time we reached the bottom. 

The benefits were clear.  I had no more sweat rash round the chest strap area and for the first time I had no raw skin and bruising where my rucksack straps coincides with my bra strap and clavicle (collar bone), a problem which has bothered me for years and makes the later days of a walking trip torture.

Is it the right choice for you?

I would consider myself lucky.  I’ve got a small enough chest that I can be bra-less for some activities.  If you do need the support though, you shouldn’t go without. 

If you do need a bra, think carefully about what activities you do and make sure the bra is appropriate for the job (for example, I really needed thinner straps to prevent the clavicle bruising when walking).

Here’s some websites I’ve found which may help anyone trying to find and fit a new sports bra:

• How to choose a sports bra – Runner’s World give a good overview of the why’s and what’s of bra buying.
• How to choose a sports bra (REI) – different bra types and how to measure yourself (although their measurement guide results in a negative cup size for me…).
• Measuring chart – from LessBounce.com, this is a simple measurement chart to find the right size.  This one has me coming in at a 34A.
• Size finder tool – Runner’s World provides a simple “black box” bra size-finder tool.  It claims I need a 30A or possibly a 28B.  I’m starting to think there’s no great way to measure up for a bra other than trying plenty and overcoming shyness for a professional fitting.

I’d love to hear from other people about whether they’ve tried going bra-less or, if you need one, do you have advice for others on how to get fitted and select the right bra design?

No related posts.

Be warned that I have split this out over two weeks so that you aren’t stuck watching videos for too long each week.  I’ll pull together my key points and conclusions from them at the end of next Thursday’s post.

1. Matt Skeffington

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrF27lPsGAo

This video is the “bad” example from an excellent post by Matt Skeffington in which he sets out what exercises we ought to be doing for a better set of glutes.  He has illustrated the entire post with videos so I recommend you check it out and part two is more of the same content.

• Key exercises:  Dumbbell sumo deadlift, split squat, dumbbell one-leg stiff-legged deadlift, single leg hip thrusts – emphasis on unilateral (single leg) work.
• Set/rep schemes:  low sets, high reps (typically 2-4 sets of 8-12 reps)

2. Aubrie Richeson and Lacey Lynn

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX2kpHEUXk8

• Key exercises:  Bodyweight side lunge and jump squat combination, pendulum lunge and press, plyometric bench hop, single leg jump squats (I’m just loving the fact that she barely does a partial squat for this), kneeling cable kickback, Parillo lifts (also known a weighted glute bridges in a Smith machine, perhaps?) – emphasis on explosive moves (eg. the jumps) though not necessarily getting the best glute development out of their workout by making it a bit too much of a bodyweight/weighted cardio circuit and reducing the chance of building additional strength (and muscle size) in the glutes.
• Set/rep schemes:  they don’t say but it looks like high reps are the order of the day.

3. Liza Hughes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cReZhhF-rLc

• Key exercises:  Wide-stance squats to parallel, deep reverse lunge with barbell, Romanian deadlift (though it would be good if she went a bit deeper), lying leg curls – it’s a shame about the Smith machine for the first two exercises, however I like the combination of high rep and heavy(ish – I’m not convinced I’d really call it heavy) weight and there are some good compound exercises here.
• Set/rep schemes:  Liza refers to high reps, but only on the lying leg curls does she explain that she aims for 12-14 reps with the weight as heavy as possible before form deteriorates.

4. Project Swole

An article on Project Swole about the top five best glute exercises.

• Key exercises:  Squats, walking lunges, deadlifts, step ups and stiff legged deadlifts or Romanian deadlifts – all classic exercises for glute development, with a mix of unilateral and bilateral exercises and also mostly compound movements.  They are also all exercises which can be worked on with some heavy weights.
• Set/rep schemes:  No comment is made about this.

5. Article on Exercise Goals

This article defies analysis!

• Key exercises:  Lots of big compound classic exercises to choose from.
• Set/rep schemes:  Low set, high rep (typically 3 sets of 10-15 reps).

That’s it for this week.  More videos next week and a summary of what conclusions I think we can draw from all of this.

Related posts:

1. Video-watch: Bums, tums and thighs (part 2)
2. Blog-watch: pull ups
3. Core workouts (Part 1)