More squats

We've started a friendly competition at work to see who can lose the most weight or the highest percentage of body fat (or both) in a specified amount of time. I don't expect to win—primarily because I don't have that much to lose in the first place. Don't get me wrong—I've put on a lot of padding over the long winter, but I know others who are competing have a lot more to lose and thus have a bit of an advantage.

In spite of the wealth of information that now exists about the benefits of weight training, I still see women straying far away from the barbells in favor of running and walking. And that's just wrong.

Too many people—especially women—pay more attention to the number on the scales than they ought to. Weight is only one small factor to consider in the body composition picture. With the proliferation of body composition scales, it's really the bodyfat percentage reading that should mean more.

Just today when I was having a conversation with a co-worker (sorry, Lisa) about her progress, she mentioned that she'd been running every day and that her knees were sore.

I like running; running's great. But the one point I make to every running enthusiast as that I have never ever experienced knee pain or soreness from squatting.

What I would say to any person—male or female—about what they ought to be doing to get in shape for summer and the beach is, simply, squat. No, no, not Smith Machine squats, good, old-fashioned barbell squats.

And as assistance movements, you might also throw in some frontal squats and goblet squats.

Naturally, that's not the only exercise you should be doing, but it ought to be number one. And you should probably throw in some bench press as well and some chin-ups and bent-over row and some deadlifts. You can go easy on the deadlifts, but it's probably the single movement that has changed my body composition the most.

The squat, however, should be the king of exercises, especially for those conscious of body composition who desire a significant change. Squats employ by far the largest muscle groups in the human body. That means a lot of muscle activation and high caloric expenditure. Couple that with the long-term benefits of added muscle, and you've got the perfect formula to transform your body into a fat-burning machine.

For those just getting started, I recommend following the StrongLifts 5x5 routine. The routine consists of completing three workouts per week, performing three compound movements in each workout. Those exercises consist of squats, bench press or overhead press (OHP) and bent-over row or deadlift. Every workout begins with the squat. You alternate between two different workouts substituting OHP for bench press and deadlifts for bent-over row in the second workout.

The benefits of this routine are first that it focuses on heavy compound movements—which activate the most muscle fiber, burn the most calories and can effect the greatest change in LBM—and second that it incorporates the squat in every workout. A third benefit, and perhaps the most important one of all, is that its simplicity. It focuses entirely on very basic, compound movements. You don't have to go to the gym with a complicated chart filled with cornucopia of exercises.

In short, it represents the best possible combination of movements to build muscle and lose fat. And, yes, as long as you eat enough protein, you will build muscle following this routine.

Now, that being said, I don't know if it's the best routine to follow forever. Every serious weight training routine needs some assistance work to go along with the heavy compound stuff. That's why after a few months on the SL 5x5 plan I switched over to Wendler's 5/3/1. SL 5x5 is great foundational program. It establishes the necessary building blocks to support a more advanced approach. But I found that I started plateauing after being on the SL program for a few months. To shake things up, I moved to something new.

If you get to the point in your routine that you feel like you need more, than Wendler's plan is an excellent alternative that focuses on heavy compound movements while incorporating a lot of assistance work.

Now, I know what most women will read this and think it's not for them because these are powerlifting and bodybuilding programs. But that's exactly why they need to follow these programs. Instead of struggling with overly restrictive diets and exercise programs that consist solely of walking and/or running, more people—especially women—should be not only lifting weights, but lifting heavy and following intense routines.

You don't have to give up on running altogether, but it's time we changed our thinking about the best way to approach a weight loss and fitness program.

New Year's Resolutions

Every January people make renewed commitments to resume or start exercising or dieting or both. To those who have made a resolution to lose weight in the new year, here are some helpful tips guaranteed to melt off those unwanted pounds:

1. Get caught smuggling drugs and spend time in a Turkish prison. Okay, so you'll probably be gone for several years, but think of it as a vacation. If you survive, it'll be a much thinner you that emerges into the sunlight.
2. Become a meth head. How many overweight tweakers have you seen? Okay, even if you've seen a few, consider that in relation to the overall percentage of the population who are overweight.
3. Quit your job, leave your house/apartment and live on the streets. It's only temporary, right? You can get back on your feet. After a few months of soup kitchen fare, you'll be invigorated and inspired by the new you.
4. Hike into the Alaskan wilderness by yourself. No, you absolutely cannot take anyone with you because the only source of food should be the land itself. And those Clif Bars you stashed in your backpack. As long as you steer clear of bears and don't eat the funny looking berries, you should come back (assuming you come back) much lighter than when you left.
5. Eat some of that lunch meat that's been hiding in the back of your fridge for the last several months. Just scrape some of that green stuff off and make yourself a nice fat sandwich. And lather it up with some of that mayonnaise that's starting to resemble cottage cheese. After the cramps, vomiting and diarrhea have abated, you'll find you've lost a significant amount of weight. Just remember to hydrate during your dieting session. No sense dying over the desire to lose a few pounds.
6. Take up smoking. This will probably happen anyway if you opt for number 1 or 2, But evidence shows it can help you lose weight. You could always try the patches too, but why not get the full experience?

Or you could just try eating leaner foods and exercising now and then. Who am I kidding? Book that flight to Turkey and make sure you've got some good stuff in the suitcase.

Makeup day

Normally, Tuesday is deadlift day, but because I was a little busy attending my son's fifth grade graduation, I skipped the workout with plans to make it up on Wednesday. Finding myself preoccupied with other matters, I wasn't very motivated to do that makeup workout, but I didn't want to let it slide. So I compromised.

Instead of doing the full workout I abbreviated it a bit and focused primarily on completing the deadlift sets. I was able to do 5 reps at 280 in the last set, which puts me in good shape to be able to do some reps at 295 next week. I expect to be able to do at least 5 reps at that weight.

I realized during the workout that I'd performed the Monday OHP incorrectly. Well, not in terms of form or anything, just that I performed more reps than I was supposed to. The plan is called 5/3/1 for a reason. In each of the first three weeks of a cycle, the intensity increases and the reps decrease. Week one is the 5-rep week, week 2 is three reps in each working set, and in week 3 the working sets are 5-3-1. But I completed five reps in each of the OHP sets on Monday instead of three. Duh. Obviously, I'm no worse for wear. Plenty of time to recover before next Monday's workout.

Likewise, I have to remember that I'm doing three reps in each set of the bench press this evening. Three. Three, three, three. Except in the last set. In the last set, you're supposed to do as many as you can without going to true failure. Yeah, it's kind of a weird concept, but I can't argue with it because it seems to be working. I'm especially happy with the improvement on the OHP.

Yes, the progress is slow, I admit. If I were trying to hit my 5RM each week, I could be lifting 120+ on the OHP right now. But the mistake I've always made in the past is pushing too hard and being too impatient. The Wendler system is working for me, so there's no reason not to keep going with it. Slow and steady = constant improvement = no frustration.

The change I made to yesterday's workout was to ditch the hanging leg raises and good mornings, opting instead for ab crunches on the Powertec Workbench and close-grip chin-ups. I supersetted the three exercises to abbreviate the workout. I shuffled things a bit, but since I completed the main movement for the workout as prescribed, I don't think it's truly a violation of the plan.

Today, it will be business as usual with the bench press, dumbbell press and Kroc rows.

The deadlift workout is, of course, logged on Fitocracy. (I may have linked to an incorrect URL in previous posts. Oops.)

Another farmer's walk Saturday

It has become obvious to me that I need special equipment for the farmer's walk. The hex-head dumbbells work well enough, but regular dumbbells with collars, not so much. I think I'm ready to make the leap and get some farmer's walk handles.

The problem with the dumbbells is that it's just too awkward to walk with plates constantly banging against my thighs. I have to take tiny shuffle steps, which means I'm barely covering any distance at all. I might as well be walking in place.

I started out at 105, and I was hampered more by the dumbbells and plates themselves than I was by the weight I was having to support. I could only manage 30 feet at 105. With different equipment, I'm sure I could go farther. At one point the collar slipped off one dumbbell, sending the plates on one side clattering to the ground. I didn't count that set.

That brings me to another problem with the collared dumbbells. Those collars are not very reliable. Granted, these things were not designed to be abused like this, but it's hard to get them secured well enough to feel confident they're not going to fall apart midway through my set.

I followed up the three sets at 105 with some sets at 95—which weren't much easier, though the weight was easily manageable. I finished up at 65 with the hex-head dumbbells. Yes, they feel like paperweights after lugging the 105s, but because of the way they're built, it's much, much easier to walk with them.

No, I'm not going to run out and buy some bigger hexheads for the sake of farmer's walk. They're just too expensive. And what do I do when I want to increase from 105? Buy more dumbbells? I think not. No, I think the best solution is to invest in the farmer's walk handles.

I finished up today's workout supersetting push-ups, barbell curls and triceps pushdowns. It's all logged on Fitocracy. And I still say Fitocracy does not award enough points for the farmer's walk.

The importance of planning workouts

You see people all the time in the gym with their logbooks, penciling in everything they do. That's great. It's important to log what you're doing. But it's far more important to plan what you're going to do for some very simple reasons that have nothing to do with charting your linear progression or having something to show off to your friends or would-be lovers.

It's really not that difficult to keep track of what you've done. On very few occasions have I carried a log book to the gym with me. I know how much I can bench press; I know how much I can squat. It's not difficult for me to remember that I did 8 reps at 185 in yesterday's bench press workout and that if I wanted to improve on that number, I might go for 9 or 10 in the next workout. Do I log my workouts? You bet. And now that I have multiple automated systems for doing so, it's a lot easier. I've logged my workouts while I was performing them, after each set, but I've also logged workouts the day after I completed them. Is it the most important part of my program? Not by a long shot.

Is it good to track what you've done? Sure. And if you're obsessed with it, you can keep a spreadsheet and turn it into some colorful graphs that show how much stronger you've gotten over the last several months. It's a tool to quantify progress if you feel the need to do it at a high level of detail.

The importance of that, however, doesn't even come close to the planning that should occur before you even set foot in the gym.

It's possible to just wing it every time you go to the gym and do whatever you want. And I'm sure more than a few people got themselves into great shape by ad-libbing their way through workout after workout. But even most of the ad-libbers probably had some kind of mental plan in place, one likely based on previous workouts.

The best way to approach any exercise program is to put a plan in place from the start.

Now, the highly success-oriented fitness gurus will tell you to set goals and determine what it will take to achieve those goals. Do you want to get stronger? How much stronger? Do you want bigger muscles? How much bigger? Do you want to get leaner?  Do you want to lose weight? A fitness consultant will ask you all of these questions and more. Depending on what goals you set, you'll then work on an exercise plan and a diet plan. You'll find yourself micromanaging aspects of your life you've long taken for granted.

While I admit that's a smart approach and will no doubt lead to success—assuming that you follow through with all of the micromanagement—a simpler approach may be all you need.

It's as simple as this: Put your workout plans on paper. I'm not talking about plans for losing weight or any of that. I'm talking about the nuts and bolts plans: the physical work you plan on doing when you walk into the gym or into the yard or onto the street or whatever.

Your plan should cover at least a couple of weeks. It will encompass which days you plan to work out, how much time you plan to spend on the workout, and exactly what exercises you are performing in each and in what order. It's a road map.

And the road map, I argue, is the number one key to a successful fitness regimen.

One reason this is true is because it commits you to doing exactly what you ought to do in each workout. If you start with a vague idea about doing some exercises in the gym or going for a run, chances are, you'll stop just short of a good workout. Without a road map, there's nothing quantifiable you intend to achieve, so any little thing you do feels like enough. Most of the time, it's not.

Putting a plan on paper also provides incentive for following through. Once you write down what you intend to do in the next workout and the workout after that, it becomes a binding contract between you and yourself. It burdens you with a sense of obligation that reaches beyond the vague feeling of, "Oh, I ought to go to the gym today." You can't look at that list or that spreadsheet without thinking that this is what you said you were going to do, so you're obligated to do it.

And you might pencil at the top of the contract the phrase "No excuses."

Drawing up a workout road map can also be a good motivator. Would you design an elaborate Lego construction and not try to build it? Okay, well, maybe you might. But I've always found that the minute I had something in place that told me exactly what I was going to do each day of the week for the next few weeks, it always made it a lot easier for me to do it. There's a psychological element to it. How can you do anything if you really don't know what you're going to do? It's always easier to go to work when I have a clear idea what needs to be done and how I'm going to do it.

Another positive aspect of a good, detailed plan is that it removes some of the guesswork and to some degree automates the whole process. Yes, you still have to put in the physical effort required, but if you plan it the right way, you don't have to sweat the details about how you're going to increase your 1RM on the bench press. Just follow your plan. That 1RM is in some respects just an irrelevant number. As Jim Wendler points out in 5/3/1, too many people are obsessed with the 1RM when gains can be quantified in increased reps at lower weight.  Wendler notes that powerlifters usually record personal records at competitions never having lifted that weight in training. Training always takes place well below the eventual PR and new 1RM.

The point is that if you follow the outline as written, you don't even have to think about that 1RM number. You do the reps at the weights prescribed and the rest takes care of itself. The best part is, the whole process of developing a plan has been automated, depending on which you intend to follow. All over the internet you can find workout planners based on various philosophies. I'm currently using Black Iron Beast for 5/3/1, but if you want to follow something like SL 5x5, you'll find that the plan is the ultimate in simplicity. You might also give Black Iron Beast for Mark Rippetoe's Starting Strength a try.

What your road map looks like will vary depending on general goals. Just get it on paper or on your computer screen and sign the contract with yourself to follow it through.