Tip of the week Tip: Women, stop training your abs like men

Train your abs like a woman and not like a man

Before all the women point their fingers at the screen and condemn me for my supposed sexism, I would like to qualify this statement.

If you are a powerlifter, then you should indeed train your abs like a man. If you are a female athlete who uses weights to improve her performance on the field, then train your abs like a man. The same applies if you're a woman who doesn't care about social conventions and just wants to get as strong as possible.

However, most women want as small a waist as possible and do everything possible to achieve that coveted 7 to 10 waist to hip ratio that is so revered in Western society. For this reason, they are obsessed with toning their midsection. This becomes particularly problematic when they begin to spend a disproportionate amount of time training their midsection. They often perform hundreds or thousands of repetitions of crunches or side bends.

Don't train so heavy

Furthermore, in the pursuit of their wasp waist, many of these women start using more and more resistance, while forgetting that the abdominal muscles and other muscles of the midsection are like all other muscles and grow in response to volume and resistance.

Many women, and a lot of men too, have the strange notion that extra reps or extra resistance will somehow slim their waistline and shrink excess fat to reveal a beautiful six-pack of protruding rectus abdominus. Why these people think that the muscles of the midsection should somehow behave differently than other skeletal muscles of the body is a mystery.

Similarly, many of these ultimately beefy-looking people will hang enormous weights at their sides - as if they were carrying buckets of steel rivets to the 33rd floor of a skyscraper their crew is working on - and perform side bends in misguided efforts to expose their lateral abs.

If you train your abs or core with excessive volume or resistance, you will develop a manly waistline - it will get bigger in every direction. Of course, you may eventually develop a six-pack (underneath all that fat you're trying to shrink), but any of those muscles will be the size of a beer can in a very prominent six-pack, which probably has nothing to do with that slightly raised band of visible abs you're trying to achieve.

Do this instead

Minimal to moderate resistance. Reps in the 15 to 20 range, not the 500 to 1000 range, for 10 minutes instead of 60.

The rest of your body? That's the stuff you should train like a man.

Tip: What natural trainers can learn from Arnold

No, natural trainers shouldn't train like Schwarzenegger, but they should take a leaf out of Arnold's book.

By Christian Thibaudeau

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-what-natural-lifters-can-learn-from-arnold/

The magic of training frequency

Arnold was known for training his training partners to the ground. He is one of the rare exceptions to have an extremely resilient nervous system and muscle fiber type that allowed him to be really strong and still have amazing set-to-set endurance. He also had an unparalleled pain tolerance.

Arnold was one of the rare exceptions who could go to muscle failure on 2 or 3 sets of an exercise and then continue to train and make the fifth set the best set of the session. He could also tolerate training for several hours, performing up to 60 work sets.

I don't recommend Arnold's high-volume approach, but the high-frequency approach is golden - especially for natural exercisers. Arnold routinely trained each muscle three times a week, which may very well be the optimal frequency for maximizing growth and muscle maintenance while dieting.

The benefits of high frequency training

1. a steroid-free exerciser must use their training to stimulate protein synthesis. The more workouts you do (that provide sufficient stimulus to stimulate this process), the more you will grow. The trick is to stimulate protein synthesis/anabolism in a muscle as often as possible without doing too much work, which would lead to excessive muscle damage (from which steroid-free exercisers cannot recover as quickly), excessive depletion of muscle glycogen stores (glycogen is highly anti-catabolic) and an increase in cortisol levels (which suppresses protein synthesis).
2. training a muscle more frequently also makes you better at recruiting that muscle. Muscle fiber recruitment is a motor skill, and like any other motor skill, the frequency of training is most important - and more important than the quality. If you are better at recruiting a muscle and its fibers, all your sets will stimulate a lot more growth.

However, you should realize that for a steroid-free bodybuilder, volume and frequency are inversely proportional to each other. You should not use high volume and high frequency at the same time. Even advanced exercisers who choose a high frequency are well advised to reduce their volume.

What you should do

Use either a full body approach 4 days a week or an upper body/lower body split 6 days a week. With such a high frequency, you only need one exercise per muscle group and three sets per exercise: a moderate intensity set to prepare, a demanding set with conservative effort and then a heavy set.

Use different training methods or set/repetition schemes (and exercises) for the 3 to 4 different training sessions.

Tip: Don't blindly follow a trainer's program

Be the boss, think for yourself and stop being the doormat

By Dani Shugart

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-dont-blindly-follow-any-program-or-coach/

Don't think for a second that every training session has to be done as planned and if you're working with a trainer, remember that trainers aren't omniscient either. They can't know what's going on in your body. They can't feel your pain and they don't know your energy levels. All they can use as a guide is the way you move and what you tell them.

Speak up or modify yourself. This advice applies whether you're following a WOD, an online program, a highly detailed plan from your competition coach, or even training directly with a personal trainer.

If something doesn't feel right and you still go all out to follow your coach's instructions or feel 'hardcore', then you risk injury. Overdo it too often and you'll end up with a chronically weakened immune system, which isn't exactly super hardcore. Nothing will set you back further than having to train around this crap - especially if you get sick for weeks at a time.

The problem of wanting to please everyone

This type of person wants to make their coach proud. They worry about being perceived as too lazy, so they try to push themselves harder, do more reps, get faster, have perfect technique and move heavier and heavier weights - even when their energy stores are completely depleted and they sense something is wrong. These people strive to remain stoic and dedicated when their bodies are beginning to fall apart.

If you recognize yourself in this description, take a step back and examine your motives. Find out what is really the most important thing. Is it making sure you're a badass in the present moment? Or is it to make incremental progress on a path that will keep you doing iron sports your whole life?

Don't fall for the former. And if you have a certain type of personality, then you need to exercise restraint. Remind yourself not to push yourself to your limits at every opportunity that comes your way.

Be the boss

If you're working with a hard bone of a coach who pushes you to shake everything, realize that YOU are the boss. You know when you are giving it your all.

You do this for his satisfaction. You are not an Olympic athlete. And your job probably doesn't depend on it either. So take some pressure off your shoulders. Training should make your life better, not worse.

If you pay someone to train you, then you can easily fire that person. And that trainer will respect you more if you tactfully remind him or her of this from time to time. Don't be his doormat or his trophy. Your coach works for you. So have those tough conversations without being passive aggressive and ask for what you need.

There are a lot of excellent coaches who want you to improvise in your workouts when necessary. Find one of these. This is the kind of trainer who trusts you to put in the effort - regardless of the training session. If you're already a dedicated and experienced exerciser, you probably won't need a militaristic coach cracking the whip. And really, no one needs a patronizing coach.

Tip: Don't train like a competitive figure class athlete

Here's why mimicking your favorite athlete breaks many female exercisers, plus a better approach.

By Christian Thibaudeau

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-dont-train-like-a-figure-competitor/ Time for a reality check

We tend to imitate those who look and are the way we would like to be. Some women see a fitness athlete and assume that she knows the secret to getting in shape.

In reality, the majority of these women look the way they do not because of the way they work out, but because their desire to look good is more important to them than enjoying their lives.

They are good at following diets that are closer to starving than nourishing and they also often resort to drugs (for fat loss and muscle gain), risking their long-term health.

I know many who do 90-120 minutes of cardio first thing in the morning - and that's in addition to the 90-120 minutes of exercise later in the day. And while I admire that dedication, few women can pull that off in their daily lives.

Are CrossFit women better?

I coach a lot of CrossFit competitors and enthusiasts, and the average CrossFit woman looks significantly leaner and in better shape than the average wannabe fitness athlete.

Look at CrossFit women and female track and field athletes and you'll see women who on an average day are in better shape than would-be gym class athletes are - and that's without insane dietary restrictions. In fact, these women are often in better shape than real fitness athletes who are not preparing for a competition. And do you only want to look good for three months of the year?

I'm not suggesting that all women should take up CrossFit. Yes, it's better than the average fitness class athlete's workout, but it comes with its own set of problems.

My wife is a good example. She loves CrossFit and since she started doing it, she doesn't want to do any other workout. The problem is that she hasn't been able to work out for more than 3 weeks at a time for the past 3 years. Injuries keep forcing her to take breaks. This is not good for consistent progress.

The solution? Train for performance

Use an approach inspired by CrossFit. This could look like this:

• Use high density workouts (short rest intervals, like complexes or circuits)
• Concentrate mainly on heavy multi-joint exercises: Squats, front squats, deadlifts, shoulder presses and the like. Don't be afraid to increase the weights as long as you can maintain good exercise form.
• Learn the Olympic weightlifting exercises
• Work on being able to perform unassisted dips and pull-ups.
• Practice loaded carries like farmer's walks.
• Pull or push a weight sled
• Use full body workouts or an upper body/lower body split and forget about more complex training splits.

Tip: How to improve your mobility and stability during squats

One exercise will help you with both. The result? Heavier and better squats.

By Jesse Irizarry

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-how-to-improve-squat-mobility-stability/

Start from the lowest position

Coaches often talk about muscle tension and posture at the highest point of the movement, when you're already standing upright. Yet despite their best efforts, athletes who perform well at the highest point of the movement look terrible when they go all the way down or move from the bottom to the top.

While mobility and stability exercises are traditionally used to address this problem, improving a movement requires practicing that movement while pushing yourself to your limits. Bottom-up squats teach you to hold the tight position at the lowest point of the movement while forcing mobility and stability changes.

If you can learn to generate as much tension and stability at the lowest position as you do at the highest point of the movement while increasing your strength at the beginning of the movement, you will be able to move more weight during conventional squats.

Bottom Up Squats

• Set the safety rack in a position that is below the one that allows your mobility and stability. The goal is to test your limits, but poor execution will never produce the desired results.
• Get under the bar, making sure you feel pressure on your entire foot and press into the floor to generate tension in your hips and glutes.
• Breathe deeply into your abdomen, exhale forcefully, tighten your abdominal muscles and then breathe again into your tight core.
• Move upwards with perfect form while driving the movement with your hips.
• Take your time in the lowest position and make sure to exhale and inhale in the tensed position before each repetition.

Tip: How to sprint without injuring yourself

Sprinting is like jogging for people who want to look good naked. Here we show you how to get started without hurting yourself.

By Lee Boyce

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-how-to-sprint-without-getting-injured/

Sprint with caution

The bigger and heavier you are, the more power you can potentially develop against resistance. Intense exercises like sprints require extremely aggressive concentric and eccentric contractions, which is especially true if you're not used to going all out on the cinder track.

Sprinting can lead to strains and even tears in muscles, regardless of technique. Here's one way to prevent this.

How to sprint safely

• Always leave something in the tank. You're sprinting to improve your fitness and to reap the athletic and health benefits, not to compete. A trained sprinter knows that there is a big difference between sprinting at 90% effort and maximum effort. Staying at 90% will keep you significantly more relaxed and promote smoother movements.
• Stick to longer sprint distances. 30 and 40 meter distances will tempt you to tense up more and just go for a mad sprint regardless. Sprinting at 85 to 90% of your maximum speed is still sprinting. Give yourself a little more time and do a few 100 to 150 meter sprints. Not only will this help you take bigger strides, but it will also give you more time under tension and really push your fitness.
• For a good sprint training session, perform appropriate agility drills, stretches and warm-up sprint drills. After a few preparatory 30 to 40 meter sprints (with as much rest as necessary in between), perform 2 x 80m, 2 x 100m and 4 x 120m sprints. Take your time walking back to your start line between sprints and pause for another 30 to 60 seconds before starting the next sprint.
• Use a 'falling' start rather than exploding from complete rest (https://youtu.be/5PY-V0jFipo). Gradually changing the angles of the joints will make it easier for you to get into a suitable position and less likely to 'shock' the muscles during the first few strides. If you want to be on the safe side, start the sprint after 5 to 10 steps of jogging.

Can't I just use the treadmill?

It's not ideal. Sprinting on a treadmill has a speed limit in the range of 15 to 18 km/h, which is simply not sprinting. Elite athletes can reach almost 40 km/h in a 100 meter sprint. Even if you are probably not an elite athlete, it is still realistic to assume that you can exceed the maximum speed of a treadmill.

In addition, instead of active hip extension, the band pulls your leg through the movement. It's best to learn good sprinting form and get out there.

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-ladies-stop-training-abs-like-a-man/

From TC Luoma