Understanding Pacing

By: Lindsey Pogson 

 

Welcome to Week 3 of our Cardio Lab series! If you haven’t read Ryan’s defense of the Basics class or Alison’s breakdown of work/rest intervals, I highly recommend you do so now.

If you’ve taken one of our Cardio Lab classes (or any other HIIT or Crossfit class), you’ve probably experienced redlining at least once: that feeling of being completely out of breath and desperate for air, dizzy, heart beating out of your chest, ready to puke. We’ve all been there, and I’ll actually go out and say it’s something everyone needs to experience at least once (or twice) in our lives to really understand what we’re capable of.

But if we’re redlining during every workout, we’re in real trouble. While it’s tempting to push ourselves to the brink in every class, it’s a surefire path to injury and burnout. We want you to make fitness a lifestyle, not something you do all-out for a month and then take three months off to recover. And frankly, you don’t NEED to redline to get a good workout! So with that in mind, what might be a better option?

You’ve probably heard me yelling “Pace yourselves” over and over again in my classes, particularly in the GRIT class. Pacing is the key to finding the balance between taking it too easy and pushing so hard you’re puking. Let’s get into WHY I’m constantly preaching pacing, and HOW I want you to do it.

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Part 1: Steady wins the Race

You’ve heard it a million times before, and this time is no different: slow and steady wins the race. While I largely agree with this, you really don’t need to be slow to stay ahead, just consistent!

The most common mistake we see in Cardio Lab classes are people that go out way too hard at the start. And I’ll admit that I’ve been guilty of this – I told my Saturday class that the last time I’d attempted the 20 —> 1 Burpee workout, I started way too fast and redlined halfway through. You can avoid this with a simple strategy: take your first 5 minutes so easy that it feels a little ridiculous. Yes, you might be moving a bit slower than the rest of the class, but you’ll be giving yourself room to grow into a faster pace. Think of those first 5 minutes as your true warm-up.

And after those 5 minutes?

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Part 2: Develop a Class Strategy (Know When to Push It)

Once your warm-up period has come to an end, it’s time to pick up the pace – little by little. In running circles, we talk about achieving “negative splits” – a racing strategy that basically comes down to completing the second half of the race faster than the first half. That sounds crazy, but with practice will become second nature.

To achieve this, you’ll need a plan. You’ve already started out on the right foot by taking your first 5 minutes as an extended warm-up. From there, we start to ramp up the pace, while still staying a bit below your true capacity. One way to achieve this is through numbers, particularly when you’re on the row and ski ergs. If you know your best 500m pace is 2:00, you’ll want the first half of your workout to only include splits that are slower than that all-time-best pace – more like 2:10 – 2:05 splits.

Since we aren’t using the row and ski during the entirety of (most) Cardio Lab classes, you’ll need a different strategy when on the bike or the floor. My favorite is actually the simplest to use – pay attention to your breath.

If you’re maintaining a nice easy pace (somewhere in the aerobic zone powered by your oxygen intake that Alison talked about last week), you should be able to maintain a conversation with me while you’re working (you never thought I was striking up a conversation while you’re on the bike just as a test, did you?). This is where your first 5, even 10 minutes should be. From there, we’re going to slowly start building up – next you’ll only be able to get one sentence out at a time. Then maybe just a few words. Save the point at which you can’t talk at all for your final “kick,” or the point right at the end of the workout where you sprint for it and give it your all.

So yes, your start will feel easy, but you’ll probably progress through the workout faster OVERALL than you normally do, and will still finish it feeling accomplished (and spent).

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Part 3: Build your Aerobic Capacity

The ultimate goal of all this pacing talk is to get you to spend as much time working your aerobic (oxygen powered) and anaerobic (muscle glucose powered) systems for as long as possible, WITHOUT hitting your anaerobic threshold, AKA the place where you redline.

You’re likely already spending a lot of time working on your anaerobic fitness – strength training and most HIIT workouts are largely of this type. So that leaves your aerobic fitness, or what we’ll call your aerobic capacity. We need to increase your ability to do work while just using oxygen (and your stored bodyfat) as power. To do this, we need to slow down and go longer.

I once had a running coach who gave me the following challenge when we first started out: cover 3 miles without ever letting your heart rate (HR) go above 140 beats per minute (bpm), and tell me how long it takes. I laughed – I was regularly running 10+ miles, my resting heart rate was around 50bpm, and my observed max was around 200bpm! I figured this would be super easy, I’d run it like any other short run and be done with it. Totally wrong. Within the first mile my HR started creeping up closer to 150. I’d have to slow down to a walk and recover. The entire exercise went like this. I don’t remember my final time, but I’ve never forgotten that lesson.

To get that heart rate number down, we use “long, slow distance” work, and you can apply the same principle to building your aerobic capacity for classes. If you do the math, my target HR max in that exercise was 70%. And going forward, all of my long runs were done with the same intention of always staying around 70-75% of my max. This isn’t all that different from how we program for strength training, huh?

So you have some options. Go into a GRIT class knowing that you’re only working at 70-75% that day. You’ll be able to talk though the entire class – even the end, because you’ll restrain yourself from pushing quite as hard as you can to really reap those aerobic building benefits! If the thought of not going all-out in class is painful, you can easily build that aerobic capacity using any style of cardio you like. Walking and running are always available. I adore the elliptical for aerobic work when I’m feeling a little too beat up from high impact work. And if you wanted to get more specific to the Cardio Lab, hop on the rower and take on some 5-10k rows! Remember to keep an eye on your heart rate, or bring a friend to talk to!

 

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Part 4: Build your GRIT

In this last piece, we’re going to focus on something other than your physical abilities – it’s all about the mind.

When you walk into the Cardio Lab and see a 2500m row time trial on the board (plus lots of other stuff), you know some pain is in store. Yes, you need to a certain level of fitness to get through it; we’ve already covered that part. But having the right mindset for that kind of workout is also imperative. You need to build your mental toughness, your grit, to power through and come out the other side.

You’re building and using up your mental toughness all the time, whether you realize it or not. At work, when you’re given an important project and a strict deadline. At home, when your new baby won’t let you sleep but you manage to get through every day anyway. At school, when it’s finals week and you’re just surviving, taking it one test at a time. These situations require grit, and lots of it. You find a way to manage. Now I want you to think about using these grueling workouts as a way to build that mental muscle.

Pay attention to what we covered above regarding pacing, but when you get to those last few minutes, when you’re trying to find that final kick, dig in. Focus on what you’re doing in that instant and nothing else. Tell yourself that you can do this. Push harder than you thought you could – it’s just for a few moments. It’s going to be hard, your muscles are going to hurt, but it’s temporary, and you’ll be better for it. See what you’re truly able to do. And when it’s over, realize that you are capable of more than you know in just about every facet of your life. That GRIT carries over.

UF Eats

By Casey Williams

We’re bringing you a new blog for Wednesdays- UF Eats! We sat around as a staff and thought ‘what do we do everyday that could help our members’ and we came up with one thing- WE EAT! And we love eating. So the goal of this blog is to let you in on any secrets we may be keeping- what we eat, why we eat it, when we eat it, how we prepare it, what we like about…the list is endless.

In an effort to lead from the front, I’ll kick this series off. Interestingly enough, I was sick recently and my mom made me stew. It’s kick ass because my mom grew up on a farm and cooks like it. I’m lucky to say the least- I grew up with home cooked meals everyday of my life- and who doesn’t love their mother’s cooking?

My diet at the moment is not particular or restrictive in too many ways. I’m eating a heavier balance of proteins and fats with some carbs thrown in as I crave them, but at a much lower percentage than I have eaten in the past.

I’m also fasting about 15 hours per day, with a 9 hour feeding window. I wake up around 730am, have a big glass of water with lemon, then have a cup of coffee. Around 11am I head to the gym and have two more cups of coffee (with 2 tablespoons of unsalted, grass fed butter whipped up in it) for my commute. This is the point that breaks my fast.

Then lunch! So my mom’s stew consisted of chuck roast, carrots, and potatoes. All slow cooked and delicious.

Another meal around 4pm. And potentially a snack when I get home from the gym. Once I have my last meal, I start my clock and don’t eat for the next 14+ hours, with the goal usually being 15-16 hours.

I’ll check back in a month and let you know what else is on the menu and how the intermittent fasting is going!

By Alison Yee

Last week, the first blog in our Cardio Lab series, Ryan talked about the importance of getting back to basics in order to become more efficient and prevent injuries. Teaching the why and the how-to, in short, educating & empowering our clients has always been one of our top priorities here at UF. So step one: Learn (or re-learn) the basics in our Cardio Lab: Basics class. Step two: Learn the ins & outs of the most common type of programming we do in our Cardio Lab classes: High Intensity Interval Training or HIIT.

In my Cardio Lab classes, I always joke that rest is hard to come by. It’s true—I’ve been known to crush the cardio out of you, offering little respite as far as water breaks or downtime. But when we program rest, we expect you to take it and here’s why.

Let’s start with the basics— what exactly are work/rest ratios?

Simply put, it’s a fancy way of explaining interval training. Work/rest ratios are the foundation or framework of all interval training. They describe the amount of work, exercise or effort performed compared to the amount of rest (or sometimes lower intensity work) prescribed. For example, a 1:2 work/rest ratio would be double the amount of rest compared to the work. In a Cardio Lab class it would look something like this: a thirty-second echo bike sprint followed by sixty-seconds of rest.

Intervals are incredibly effective because they can zero in on certain energy systems (we will get to those in a second). Knowing how (and why!) to use which intervals when is a key component to good programming.

So now that we know a little bit about what work/rest ratios are, let’s nerd out on some science behind it. In a very basic sense, we know that we use food to fuel our bodies. But how do our bodies turn that fuel into energy for our workouts? We have three main energy systems for this: Phosphagen, Glycolytic and Oxidative.

Phosphagen System:
-Fastest way to get energy
-High power bursts; only lasts for 0-10 seconds

Remember back when it was nice outside (and the Pittsburgh weather wasn’t doing some weird mixture between snow/rain/slush/false springtime/hurricane winds) and we would do what I lovingly call “window sprints”? You recruit this energy system to perform one of those bad boys.

Glycolytic System:
-Second fastest
-High power energy; only lasts for 30- 60 seconds

A good example of this system would be short-ish intervals on any of the machines in the Cardio Lab or even one of our famous “door sprints”, y’all love those right?

Oxidative System:
-Slowest way to get energy
-Low power energy; lasts for long periods

This one is easy—take one of my classes on a Friday morning and you’ll soon find out what it means to recruit this energy system. It’s basically, any long AMRAP in one of our Grit classes. Run marathons? Then your oxidative system is strong too, my friend.

While all three energy systems have their time and place, it’s important to train all three of them in a variety of ways to optimize your health and fitness. That’s why our Cardio Lab classes are always different and although it may not seem like it at the time, each class has a very specifically designed purpose. You may think the coaches here are just out to punish you, but I promise you that there’s a reason behind it all. (Ok, you got me, sooooometimes I may simply program something because it’ll be “fun”. But we all a need a little fun in our lives sometimes, ya know?)

Understanding the different energy systems is not the only piece of the puzzle we need in order to understand interval training. It’s also important to have a base knowledge of the different types of muscle fibers. We have two main types: fast twitch and slow twitch.

Fast Twitch:
-Recruited for short durations
-High intensity bursts
-Fatigue quickly

Do you feel like an Olympic God(dess) when you’re doing Tabata Intervals but feel like your muscles are made of lead during anything more than a couple minutes? Chances are you probably have a high level of fast twitch muscle fibers.

Slow Twitch:
-Recruited for longer durations
-Low levels of force/Low intensity
-Do not fatigue quickly

Do you feel like you could run/row/ski/bike forever as long as it’s a moderate pace? Do you cringe a little inside when a coach yells FASTER? If so, you probably have a higher ratio of slow twitch muscle fibers. Endurance athletes often have more of these muscle fibers than their sprinting counterparts.

There’s even a third type of muscle fiber, a branch off of the fast twitch muscle fibers even though technically it’s more of a hybrid of both slow & fast twitch fibers. It’s called Type IIa fiber and it is kinda the do-it-all muscle fiber– part aerobic and part anaerobic.

Genetically speaking, everybody is born with a different percentage of each type of muscle fiber. Not happy with the muscle fiber hand you were dealt? Don’t despair! There are ways to work around your genes. Though your DNA may have set you up with the ability to excel at one thing and not the other, it doesn’t mean you have no choice in the matter. Proper training (like knowing how & when to train the energy system specific to your needs) can alter your muscle fiber make up, help your muscles conform and function more efficiently..

Ok ok, this information is all well and good but what does it all mean for you personally at Union Fitness? Well, nothing and everything! It’s means everything because knowledge is power, folks. And the more you know, the better you’ll become. There also may be times when you have to travel for work or can’t make it to the gym in time for class or even need to throw together an in-home workout for yourself. Understanding interval training gives you the knowledge to be your own coach on those days when you can’t make it here. But, on the other hand, all this knowledge can mean absolutely nothing because, let’s face it, sometimes it’s nice just to come into class to sweat out the demons and not have to think about anything at all. And it’s ok to have those days (or have all the days be like that!) because we are here for you to do all the heavy thinking as long as you all just continue to show up and do all the heavy Cardio Lab-ing.

By: Alexa Ferri

It has been a long six weeks of the Triphasic program. It had two weeks of eccentrics, two weeks of pause, and two weeks of concentric work accompanied by chains. I am happy for two reasons: 1) I learned that I suck at eccentric squats and need more of them and 2) I feel good, my body feels strong, and this new style of training took me out of my comfort zone…and to me that is the most important piece. Triphasic programming is interesting because you get a new modality of training (important for those who get bored with training easily), you become cognizant of your weaknesses, and you learn what you like and what you do not (which means you probably need more of it).

Currently, I am on the last week of this entire program and starting to write the next one. The big focus for the next program is to grow my shoulders, back, glutes, and abs (always more abs). So I am programming some additional shoulder, glute, back, and ab work 2-3 times per week. Oh boy! Ryan and I are taking on a competition to see who can grow their quads the most by July. So, basically I want to grow- and this takes time. I can only focus on the small wins each cycle and compare to the last. Looking at the big picture can get paralyzing. So to keep me focused, I really focus on enjoying the trivial successes, just as much as the big ones.

Here is a Bench Day from this week:

Bench w/ chains @85-90% 4×2
Bent over BB row 4×8
1a. SA FB Bench 4×10
1b. Zottman curls 4×10
1c. Lying leg raise 4×15
2a. Face pulls 4×20
2b. Cable tricep pushdowns 4×10 – 3 drop sets
2c. Cable crunches 4×15
3a. Chain flyes 4×10
3b. Ring rows 4×10-neutral, 10-horizontal
3c. TRX ab medley 4x5per

Video link:

By Ryan McUmber

Learning the basics is always important for any movement or activity that we pursue. It builds the foundation that helps us become more efficient while also preventing injury. As fun as it is to learn the finesse of certain exercises to show off to all your friends, the finesse will fall apart quickly if you don’t have the base to hold it. People might get tired of hearing one of us yell “knees out” on a squat but this simple cue holds the key to larger squats. Now, don’t think that you can hear the basic cues once and think that you are set for life. The core cues can easily be forgotten when focusing on speed or how many reps we can get during a workout. Like in the Strength Lab, we can focus on a similar mindset in the Cardio Lab- luckily we have a wonderful class called CardioLab: Basics. The Basics class is important for keeping efficiency in the movement, preventing injury, and possibly learning new cues that you have never heard.

Efficiency: achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort. Being efficient is important if you want to finish quicker during those rounds for time workouts or get that one extra rep when you are performing as many reps as possible. This will make sure every calorie you expend is driving towards being better. When you are completely efficient your overall fitness will shoot up. Think about this scenario: You have two people who are working out. Person A is moving inefficiently through the workout and person B has been taking the new sweet CardioLab: Basics class, so person B is moving with precision. Person A after a short period of time gets tired and must rest while Person B has more in the tank to keep going. Person B will be able to work out much longer since no energy is wasted hence allowing them to push themselves for a longer period of time. Person A realizes that they need to take Basics and after only a couple of classes is hanging with Person B with ease.

Basics not only allows you to perform better but I would argue that the most important reason is to learn how to avoid injury. Injury is no fun. Along with the pain that it can cause, your progress will be put on hold, and you won’t get to see the wonderful staff of Union fitness. The basics class covers how to protect yourself while using the movements that we perform during class. Taking the Basics class will also allow you to apply what you learn to all movements in and out of the gym. A hinge is the perfect example of this. Mastering a key movement such as hinging will allow you to stay safe during more than half the movements that are done in ALL of our classes as well as in everyday life. It can be applied to the ski erg, good mornings, deadlifting, picking up a box at home, and even picking up your child!

So what does this class look like? Lindsey constructs this mastermind of a class into sections. The warm-up usually includes drills that are essential for all movements along with bracing drills. Bracing drills teach you how to stabilize that mid-section of your body. This allows strength throughout the body when performing exercises to create efficiency and safety. After the warm-up, we go over the concept of that day’s class. Whether it is the Rower, Bike, or Ski Erg. Eventually we’ll touch on the idea of pacing-how to approach a long workout vs a full out sprint. Don’t worry!- We also cover floor exercises that are so common in our CardioLab classes. Although you may consider most of the floor work, such as med ball slams, a walk in the park it can be beneficial to go a little more in depth into these exercises. Med ball slams are a great exercise to cover what is called the “triple extension.” There are multiple books and viewpoints on the importance of triple extension – think “full body movement”- but if you are curious what this is and how to do it properly, I think it’s time to sign up for the class. Of course this is CardioLab and what would be it be if you didn’t feel like your lungs were burning and legs like Jell-O? So you can still prepare yourself for a finisher right before you walk out the door.

The Basics class can only make you better. This class is not only for beginners but for anyone that wants to improve their overall movement. Check out our new class to see if you can fine tune the exercises you already know or maybe learn something completely new.

Since my last training log, I am SUPER excited to write that I’ve started lifting some weights again. To say it’s helped improve my mood and overall outlook on life is an understatement. I feel like myself again.

I’m not following any strict training program by any means. In fact, I really just go in (a little earlier than usual, and I’ve met so many members that are new to me, it’s been awesome) and do what sounds and feels good on that day. I have generally been splitting my workouts up between upper and lower body, doing around two exercises per muscle group in each workout. I try to have a day where I’m including more “athletic” movements, aka I’m jumping around a little more. It’s been fun, and I’m already seeing some positive body composition changes. Here are two workouts I’ve done recently that I’ve really enjoyed:



One of the activities that I mostly gave up when I was feeling particularly sick was yoga. Getting to class in the morning just wasn’t a possibility, so I let it go and just tried to attend one of our classes on the weekend. I’m trying to change that now, because I truly never feel better than when I’m practicing yoga regularly. I couldn’t start last week due to some medical testing, but this week already started out on the right foot with a really intense power flow at my local yoga studio.

With the addition of more yoga, and with continuing my fairly time-intensive cardio routine (turns out getting on the elliptical with a book and my favorite focus playlist is super cathartic), that means I’ll need to reevaluate my little lifting routine. Here’s a loose plan for how I’ll be balancing it all:



None of the cardio requires much exertion, so I pretty much use it as “active recovery,” aka it’s replacing all the walking I was doing before I got a driver’s license and a car. I’ll give this schedule a week or two, see if I’m recovering okay, then readjust if needed. It’s simple, but the focus right now is on feeling good. With all I have going on, I think this will do it.

Now that we’ve covered all of the major pieces of equipment we use in the Cardio Lab, it’s time to move on to one of the most versatile tools we have access to: medicine balls!

You can find them in both the Cardio Lab and in the Strength Lab and we encourage you to use them creatively! Our Medballs range from 8 – 20lbs, and are a really simple way to start adding weight to the bodyweight exercises you already do. Make your air squats, lunges, Russian twists, and toe touches that little bit harder by adding some weight. Just pick it up and go!

In this article, I really want to focus on the top two fundamental movements we use in our Cardio Lab classes: the Medball Slam and the Wall Ball. Both of these movements utilize your full body, helping you gain strength and, if the reps are high enough, work on your cardio simultaneously.

Let’s start with my favorite, the Medball Slam. The slam is simple, is great for building explosive strength and core stability, and most importantly, can be done even when you’re dead tired from everything else you’ve been doing in class! To get the most out of it, follow these steps:

1. Start with the ball in your hands and chest level, feet around hip’s width distance apart or maybe a bit wider. This is your athletic stance, knees slightly bent, core engaged.
2. Then, get as big as possible! The ball goes up overhead, with your arms fully extended and biceps by the ears. You’re also going to extend your hips, knees, and ankles, so you’re almost up on your toes. GET BIG.
3. Next comes the actual slam portion of the movement, and I want you to keep that word SLAM in mind. Don’t just drop the ball, throw it as hard you possibly can at the ground. Imagine that ball did something terrible to you and you want to destroy it. That’s how hard you’re going to throw that ball down.
4. Aim for just in front of and between your feet. Our Medballs are (relatively) light and have a good bounce, so try to catch it on the way back up, get big again, and keep going.

These basic steps will apply to every Medball Slam variation we throw at you, so you’ll be ready for anything from Side Slams to Jumping Lunge Slams.

Now let’s move on to the second-most programmed Medball movement we use, and the one I hate doing the most: the Wall Ball. This exercise requires strength and explosiveness from both your upper and lower body, as well as some coordination. Here’s how to do it:

1. Find your athletic stance, Medball in hand at chest height, about 2 feet away from a tall wall.
2. While keeping the ball at chest height, perform an air squat.
3. As you come to the top of your squat, think about GETTING BIG again. You’re going to rise all the way, extending your hips, knees, and ankles (letting your heels come off the floor) and use that momentum to launch the ball up against the wall.
4. Keep your arms raised and catch the ball as it drops, trying to drop right into your next squat as you catch it.
5. It helps to pick a spot on the wall as your target, and hit it each and every time.
6. Common cues: keep your eye on the ball and keep the ball high! If you let your arms and the ball drop every time you squat, you’ll need to use a lot more energy tossing it up again.

Just these two movements can be used to make a brutal, full body workout. Throw some Medball burpees in (do a burpee while holding a Medball) and I can pretty much guarantee you’ll be laying in a pool of your own sweat by the end.

Share your favorite Medball movements with us! We could always use some new inspiration for torture Cardio Lab classes!

Last week a member came up to me with the “exciting” news that he’s only a couple days away from celebrating his 100^th consecutive day in the gym.  In so many words, I told him he was foolish and just asking for burnout, stalled progress or worse, injury. I know we often sound like broken records with our insistent preaching of the importance of rest and recovery but it’s a concept that most of us still can’t grasp. I think I had an epiphany, though, when I realized it’s not that our members are willfully ignoring our advice but more so unable to tune into their bodies enough to acknowledge when it needs rest. Driven by the “do more” societal pressures, it’s only natural to think this philosophy needs to be adopted in the gym as well.  And hey, I get it.  I suffer from the “do more”-ness all the freaking time. So, inspired once again to try to always practice what I preach, Alexa and I decided upon an impromptu deload week in our training block.  But deload weeks don’t have to be boring! We spiced up the rest week with some cardio classics: static intervals and a sprinkle of abs.   Here’s what we did:

Day 1:  30 minutes elliptical/15 minutes treadmill

Day 2:  30 minutes treadmill on incline

Day 3:  10 sets:

100 m row sprints</span

1 minute abs (Russian Twists, Leg Slides, Plank, MB Transfers & Erg Pikes)

Day 4:  20 sec treadmill sprint/ :40 rest  x 10 sets

So how can you begin to tune into your body to acknowledge when it needs rest? Here’s a handy dandy checklist that can help you decide if you might need some additional rest days:

• Are you sleeping more/less than what’s typical? Are you having a hard time falling/staying asleep?
• Do you get a feeling of dread before/at the gym?
• Are you “extra” sore compared to your norm?
• Are you just going through the motions without finding any joy in what you’re doing?
• Do you have nagging injuries?
• Do you have a sense of overall lethargy?
• Are your workouts or weights feeling heavier or slower than normal?

To be honest, the only one I could check off this list was that I was dreading my workouts.  (Well, and sleep—never enough sleep!)  But that was enough for me to know that I needed to scale back for a bit.  After all, I have my whole life to train and just one body so I’d like to take care of it. We have a fun week of concentric training with chains planned and now I have a freshly rested body with which to attack them! Rest now, gains later.

Read Time: 5 minutes, 15 seconds

“The process of building habits is actually the process of becoming yourself.”
-James Clear

As I’m editing this, we are entering the fourth week of UF’s 2019 Strength Project. All of our participants were encouraged to take us up on some one-on-one coaching sessions, and I think the vast majority did!

In these sessions, we of course talk about gym goals, like getting from one pull-up to ten, squatting X amount of weight, achieving a respectable handstand hold, etc. But I’d argue that the more important thing we discuss are our goals for OUTSIDE the gym.

Often, people who start fitness challenges are already pretty fond of being in the gym. For our Strength Project members, completing 28 classes in 8 weeks is only a little bit of a stretch. The bigger challenge comes outside the gym: what’s happening in the other 23 hours of the day. That means sleep, hydration, nutrition, stress management, time management. This is where we get tripped up, so for that reason I asked every Strength Project participant that did their coaching session with me to come up with one small lifestyle change to focus on for the first half of this challenge.

We came up with some challenges that spanned all of the above categories.

The most common: shutting all technology (mostly cell phones) down at least 30 minutes before bed. So many of us struggle with getting enough sleep and can’t figure out why. Working on nighttime routines that support healthy sleep is the first step!

The most entertaining: Diane hates vegetables, but she wants to eat better. So her challenge – try (or re-try) one new vegetable each week. So far, we’ve done tomatoes (she tolerated these), snap peas (not so bad!), green beans (this was a hard no, “I felt like I ate a handful of grass. Like I was grazing in a pasture…”), and bell peppers (raw was ok, cooked was out). She’s been a trooper though this whole thing. I’m now crowd-sourcing ideas for her final vegetable tastings, so if you have any ideas please send them my way!

The most widely relevant: a few members are struggling to break nutrition-related habits that they know are holding them back- like a few too many tortilla chips or letting that one glass of wine turning into two or three after a long day.

We all have habits like these that we’d love to break, but often it feels like despite wanting to let that habit go, we just don’t have the willpower to override those cravings. Full disclosure: I’m a total nerd when it comes to building and breaking habits. If you ever see me on the elliptical with a book, it’s probably a book about habits. Last week, it was James Clear’s Atomic Habits, and I cannot recommend it enough.

Like in Charles Duhigg’s quintessential book The Power of Habit, he breaks down the habit cycle into distinct parts: Cue -> Craving -> Response -> Reward. Understanding and controlling each part of this process is the key to building new, positive habits, and the key to breaking old, negative ones.

Let’s look at the habit of drinking some wine each night. I tasked a member with examining the cues that led her to pour that first glass of wine when she got home (her ultimate goal is to cease all weeknight drinking). The biggest one was fairly straightforward – her wine was always displayed in a way that could be seen from the spaces in her home where she liked to relax. So she’d sit down to watch TV after a stressful workday and there, right in front of her, sat the trusty bottle of wine. The wine-drinking habit has already been built, so denying that craving (drink wine and relax) that comes right after the cue (seeing the bottle of wine) would take a monumental amount of willpower that is probably already pretty low at the end of the day.

So what’s a girl to do?

The backbone of the book are the Four Laws of Behavior Change, each law corresponding to a part of the habit cycle:

In this particular case, we’re trying to break an unwanted habit, and we’re starting with the cue right from the get go. So we’re going to follow the steps above and try to make that cue invisible by moving the bottle of wine to a less convenient and less accessible spot. Creating a little extra friction between sitting down to relax and pouring that glass of wine may not seem like enough, but you might be surprised by the effectiveness.

I’ve of course tested this on myself. In January I chose to give up all caffeine in an effort to fix some health problems. If you know me at all, you know I love coffee. More than love. I depend on coffee to keep me going, and I also happen to think it’s the most delicious beverage known to man. In short, my coffee consumption was incredibly high.

I wanted to completely quit caffeine and replace those drinks with herbal teas, so the first thing I did after my last coffee on New Years Eve was hide the coffee maker and all the coffee (make it invisible/make it difficult). I turned my little coffee prep station into a tea and smoothie prep station instead (make it visible). I bought a nice tea kettle to make the whole process a little easier (make it easy). I bought a bunch of delicious, healthy sounding teas that I was actually excited to drink each day (make it attractive/make it satisfying). And with all that, I actually stuck to it! I went the entire 3 weeks without a sip of coffee. Am I back to it now? Hell yes, the doctor said it was fine! But I’m confident that I could give it up again if I need to because I know how to adjust that habit.
We’re now getting ready to do our midway check-ins for the Strength Project, so we’ll see how everyone fared with habit change. I’m excited to have some more tools to share with them and all of you reading this. Hopefully the simple breakdown above gives you a path to make some of the changes you’ve been thinking about this year.

By Lindsey Pogson

Training log:

BENCH!

This week I chose to bench with my feet up. This variation gives my back a little relief as well as works on my pecs more than regular bench. I always choose to go with the football bar when benching with my feet up because it allows me to use more of my lats to stabilize the bar.

My upper body training days have had two main goals: to increase my endurance and to put on some muscle mass. Unfortunately, I have been slacking on my eating which has hindered the latter. I just need to make eating more a priority. Eating enough food allows your body to recover fully which in return allows you to push harder the next time you are in the gym.

If you are looking to put on some muscle mass while increasing your endurance, I highly recommend doing some sort of superset. A personal favorite of mine is bench super setted with inverted rows. Here is an example of something I have used the past month:

Main movement
Week 1: 6 sets
Bench x8
Inverted rows x12
Week 2: 6 sets
Bench x6
Inverted x10
Week 3: 6 sets
Bench x4
Inverted x6 paused at the top

This week I chose to test my endurance. After 1-2 months of endurance style weight training I go back to making strength a priority- meaning no more super sets. This is what I did Tuesday:

Warm-up

• Banded triceps extension 3×10
• Lat stretch 2x :30 sec
• Push-ups 3×8
• FB push-press 3×8
• Football bar bench
• The bar x10
• 105 x6
• 145 x8
• 195 x8
• 215 x8
• 225 x8
• 235 x8 this is technically a PR. Hell yeah!
• Dips – 3 min of as many as I can
• Chest supported row – 5×12
• Dips – 3 min of as many as I can
• Chest supported row – 5×12
• Football bar JM press – 4×15

Not only did I recover much faster than I usually do, I hit a PR!