Without further ado, Accessories: the backbone of training.

I’m sure spending time scrolling through reels on instagram we’ve all seen a post one time or another badgering on about accessories “STOP SKIPPING YOUR ACCESSORIES”…. No shit. Of course accessories serve a purpose in all training, but maybe helping people understand the purpose, how to do them, and why you should care might improve adherence and quality of them.

WHY ARE ACCESSORIES IMPORTANT?

First, we need to understand some simple terminology. Training is made up of two primary components from a performance standpoint; skill and output.

I’ll tackle output first because it’s short and sweet. Output is someone’s ability to produce force regardless of skill. Something that is super low skill, high output is a sled push. With little to no weight training experience a relatively strong individual could push a heavy sled that weighs hundreds of pounds. To reiterate, output is just the expression of force.

Have you ever seen someone who has never lifted weights attempt a bodyweight squat? Or better yet someone who has never played a ball sport attempt to throw a baseball or shoot a basketball? ATROCIOUS. They haven’t spent time to develop the specific skill to efficiently move through that pattern regardless of strength or athletic ability.

Skill includes many underlying components, but to keep things simple I will only talk about one. Management of center of mass (COM). As we move through space our center of mass changes, and we need to be able to sense where the body is in space to maintain our COM and express force through those positions. It takes practice.

It makes more sense to look at it from an athletics perspective. Just think about how fluidly athletes move in their respective sports. A soccer player can weave in and out of cones seamlessly with a ball at their feet. Take that soccer player and put them in an environment in which they have no experience, let’s say baseball, and they look lost.

The same principles apply to lifting. All movement is a skill; squats, pull-ups, jumps, sprints. You need to have acquired the skill of a barbell squat to be able to express force in the barbell squat even if you’re already strong.

This is true for most movements that have lower grounding. Grounding for simplicity is the combination of sensory feedback and external support. Sensory feedback refers to things that promote understanding where the body is in space, and external support refers to the physical things we are in contact with during a movement.

Ball sports like soccer and basketball are very low grounding. A squat has more grounding than ball sports, but less grounding than a machine hack squat.

Skill and output are important because in training these are the two components we are always battling to develop.

SKILL + OUTPUT = PERFORMANCE

Do we need more skill or more output? There is a continuum. If you are already proficient in a movement you probably need more output if that movement is the one you want to improve. If you don’t have the skill down pat, that would be the primary focus. Find out which it is you need and this is your A1.

A1 for our purposes will refer to the primary effort. As a powerlifter in a strength or build phase, I would be more concerned with output in training and maintaining skills I’ve already developed. In a peaking phase however I would put the emphasis on skill development slightly over output. Again it’s a continuum.

“The man who chases two rabbits, catches neither.”

In the end you only have a singular A1 slot so pick a focus and place it here. For this example I am going to use Kick’s leg day in the program I wrote him (hehe). He wants to improve the skill of squatting itself, so we squattin’ as our A1.

Once you have A1 set you can build accessories in to compliment it (F***ING FINALLY).

A wise man much smarter than I once said:

“Accessories instill the qualities that primary movements take away and warm-ups inform accessory movement selection.”— Some Guy

For those of you who are feeling like you just read a Confucius quote hang on. Thinking of Kick still (who wants to squat). The squat is a pretty compressive movement. It requires internal bracing and stability, so there is not a lot of opportunity for rotation at the thorax or the pelvis in a squat and rightfully so (you’d snap in half under decent load).

The thorax/ribcage and pelvis need to move to function well. We see this in something as simple as walking, one side of pelvis shifts forward and the other shifts back and simultaneously the opposite happens at the ribs (This is an incredibly simplistic description as ribcage pelvis mechanics are VERY nuanced). This is why when we walk or run it’s natural to have the opposite foot and hand forward at the same time.

Kick in all his glory also trains in multiple martial arts. Rotation at these structures from a performance standpoint is an important component to his day to day. To reiterate barbell squatting is NOT conducive to rotation at these structures. Essentially to reverse the compressive forces that practicing relatively heavy squats exposes him to, I program a unilateral (one-sided) hinging and knee dominant movements where he will focus more on output than skill.

Unilateral training doesn’t have to be single leg, although it can be. But again, I want these movements to be output based, we want lots of force production with little skill required to complete the movement because practicing the squat already filled our skill bucket (thanks squats). Single leg movements tend to require lots of skill, they are low grounding when done with free weights which means little sensory input, little external feedback (at least compared to squats).

Instead of something single leg, I chose a hinging movement that can be done in a staggered/B stance. Having his other leg as external support will reduce the need for him to stabilize, meaning he can focus on producing force. Better yet I can put him on a machine with a fixed track, smith machine, shrug machine, or even a barbell landmine where he holds the bar opposite hand to foot. This will allow him to rotate naturally and also produce tons of force due to the added stability of the bar connected to the floor and somewhat fixed track.

I don’t want to put this out to the public (but I’m gonna). Kick is not the best at hinging… Kind of embarrassing. BUT because I’m a good friend my B1 movement of choice is going to allow him to have high output, lots of grounding so he can own the hinge under some good load.

To refresh:

A1- Barbell Squat

• High Skill : Moderate Output

• Bilateral = High Grounding + Low Rotation at ribs and pelvis

• Free Moving = Low Grounding

B1- Staggered Stance Landmine Hinge

• Moderate Skill : High Output

• Staggered Stance = Moderate Grounding + Moderate Rotation at ribs and pelvis

• Semi-Fixed Track = High Grounding

High grounding means we can place less emphasis on skill and more focus on output.

Now we’ve worked on the skill of squatting (knee dominant), we have done some great output in a hinge. I would like to get him into another knee dominant movement that really focuses on output, but still allows us to rotate effectively because we are still looking to instill qualities that the squat might take away.

Our boy Kick is dying out here and needs us to throw him a bone as he grips onto life. He’s tired, he’s beat up, if I give him something that requires a lot of skill or management of center of mass at this point he’s totally fucked and might fall over.

Don’t fuck your friends over, it’s not cool.

Here is where I bring out EXTRA external stability. The landmine was cool for the hinge, but he can still move away from the axis of rotation so we’re gonna use a machine this time. My choice is a smith machine split squat or static lunge. Both feet on the ground is very stable more so than a rear foot elevated/bulgarian (more bias to one leg).

This movement should still torch his quads, but the fixed track will allow him to continue pushing with minimal form breakdown as he struggles to press through, plus when he approaches failure it’s easy to stop the movement and prevent him from killing himself.

A1- Barbell Squat

• High Skill : Low Output

• Bilateral = High Grounding + Low Rotation at ribs and pelvis

• Free Moving = Low Grounding

B1- Staggered Stance Landmine Hinge

• Moderate Skill : Moderate Output

• Staggered Stance = Moderate Grounding + High Rotation at ribs and pelvis

• Semi-Fixed Track = High Grounding

C1-Smith Machine Split Squat

• Low Skill : High Output

• Staggered Stance = Moderate Grounding + Moderate Rotation at ribs and pelvis

• Fixed Track = High Grounding

• Low Suicide Rate

I’m going to call it here for Kick’s programming on this day (he probably can’t handle it anyway). Some people might think this is too little… It might be for some, but I’d argue for most probably not.

Quality of the session depends on the quality of movement not the quantity of movements.

Things to make note of:

1. I write high, moderate or low output to skill for simplicity, but again it is a continuum. Someone who is very proficient in a squat can get some more of output in that movement. In this example with Kick levels of skill and output are relative to him.

2. Point above being said— if the goal is to build muscle it seems that proficiency in a movement doesn’t seem to yield significantly more hypertrophy although you will be able to express more force in said movement.

3. High grounding means we can place less emphasis on skill and more focus on output (this will definitely lead to hypertrophy).

Kick has grit, he will definitely push these near failure even if I told him not to so he will create plenty stimulus to create the right adaptations for his goals. Remember these are HIS goals, but you can use these principles to create the changes that fit yours.

Realistically we might add some hamstring curls, leg extensions, and even maybe a seated calf raise to improve function and strength or add mass, but I wanted to focus on the global movements that have the most bang for their buck.

HOW SHOULD WE PERFORM OUR ACCESSORIES?

This is a loaded question and I will do my best to answer it (I wrote this thing I should’ve omitted it).

Often times in cookie cutter programs accessories are done in 2-4 sets of 8-12 reps which is not inherently a bad thing. The real question you should be asking is what is the goal.

If you are training to get big I would keep it simple and place the things that will be more conducive to the things you want to grow earlier on in the session. You’ll be able to exert more effort on them.

Specificity is king. BUT also, these are accessories so it wouldn’t make sense to train 1RM strength on your accessory if your priority is training maximal strength in that A1 movement. I’m pretty sure I already put the rabbit quote in here.

Generally speaking I’m programming accessories somewhere between 5-30 repetitions for a few reasons:

1. If I want to prioritize strength in an accessory I can still get it with 5 reps and break up volume over more sets.

2. Usually I will aim for higher reps and cue slower eccentrics and pauses to work on actually building muscle tissue. I am a huge fan of using hypertrophy principles for accessories because there is an overlap of strength and size of a muscle. Slower eccentrics also allow for better proprioception which benefits everyone. (If you haven’t read my Hypertrophy Guide, click here. I will update it as new information comes out and my opinion shifts with time and experience)

3. Higher reps equal more practice and time under tension, I find that many individuals need to build some semblance muscular endurance prior to prioritizing strength gains, this doesn’t mean 3 minute sets but it does mean not doing 1-3 rep sets especially if you have a low training age. On the contrary I find that some individuals work better with higher intensities, so working heavier weights in the 5-8 range. Find what works for you.

The caveat to this is if I have a person who is VERY undertrained and does not have the endurance to do a movement I might have them do clusters of a single rep if I think they can get big benefit from said movement.

Accessories should have intention behind them. They require high effort, just like A1. If you neglect them or train them like half assed movements, you are not reaching your full potential.

If you find yourself needing the use of “intensifying methods” (rest pause reps, pre-fatigue, drop sets, etc.) for most of your accessories, take a step back and reevaluate the intensities you are training at. In most cases, for most people training in proximity to failure is plenty, if by chance you have energy after a hard set to perform one of these methods… your set probably wasn’t hard enough.

That being said I do like using rest pause sets for unilateral work knowing that my dominant side is generally slightly stronger. I will perform an exercise on my dominant side to a desired rep range, rest between sides and then get as many as I can on the non-dominant side. If I cannot match the rep count of my dominant side I will use a pause rep set method of taking a pause for a few breaths and finish out the set to the desired rep count. This method allows me to train both my dominant and non-dominant side with an intensity that will promote progress.

Personally I like to use an Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) scale for myself and will train clients up to understand it. Because it is a subjective measure it’s important that we give it some objectivity so that we can all have an understanding. I stole this directly from Killian Hamilton, he will never read this but if he does, shoutout Killian.

Imagine you’re doing an exercise for 5 reps and consider the following:

RPE 7— All the reps are of the same quality and speed

RPE 8— The last 1-2 reps are slower or lower quality than the first 3-4

RPE 9— All of the reps are slow and quality may very, maybe could’ve managed 1 more

RPE 10— Could not have done another rep with smelling salts and me screaming in your ear

In my eyes all accessories should be trained somewhere between a RPE 7 and a RPE 10. Any less and the intensity is not enough to induce change.

WHY SHOULD YOU CARE?

BECAUSE IT MATTERS. If you’re at all interested in being strong or improving a lift, accessories create an environment to continue to consistently lift your primaries for heavy weight. Accessories are not just bringing up weak points or improving the strength of a specific muscle group to improve a main lift. Accessories serve to restore function to be able to do things consistently in tandem with making muscles bigger and stronger.

A powerlifter who neglects training their shoulder from all points (thorax, ribs, scapula, humerus) won’t have a long benching career and probably already has pain. Its not just about strengthening the rotator cuff through rotation.

“Accessories instill the qualities that primary movements take away and warm-ups inform accessory movement selection.”— Some Guy

Putting this here again.

Bodybuilding is weird because they don’t really try to train movements, but rather muscles. An entire session can be done on machines if needed which means they will have the most grounding and is probably the least conducive to rotation at the ribcage and pelvis if all done bilaterally.

Function is still an important piece of training even in bodybuilding. Training in pain is not fun, nor efficient. The body still needs its structures to rotate and move properly to get the most muscle recruitment possible. In short, yes, accessory selection matters in bodybuilding as well from a movement not just muscle standpoint.

Accessory movements are really the backbone of a good training program and they’re often overlooked. Hopefully this is a guide you can refer back to when trying to structure your own training. If you’re just trying to learn be thoughtful, deliberate and intentional. If you’re a trainer or coach it is literally your job, and you have huge opportunities to improve performance or quality of life in many cases. If you have questions or thoughts feel free to reach out.

Feels good to be back.

-Thick

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THE WHY

The constraints model is a training tool that can be used to facilitate training choices based on individual goals and needs. It makes my process of coaching and training easier and streamlines the way that I program for myself and my clients. These principles don’t necessarily focus on individual muscles but instead global movement patterns which of course use muscles to perform.

TRAINING PRINCIPLES

There are several principles that lead to the best possible results, but I am going to focus on the 3 most important in my eyes. Just these 3 principles can yield absolutely incredible results in any individual.

They are as follows:

Specificity

I’m sure athletes have heard the term “sport specific”. All this means is that training should stimulate the systems that are required to complete said task. It is the most important principle of my framework because it dictates how I use the other principles and gives me direction.

Systems can be stimulated in terms of muscles, nervous system or anything that would directly improve the performance of the desired sport.

Specificity lies on a spectrum of being very general or REALLY specific (hang tight this will come into play later).

Overload

I have actually had people unironically ask me if I believe in progressive overload. Short answer, YES. Training disruptive and the body will adapt to stimuli to better resist further disruption. Present it with a greater stimulus, more disruption, more adaptation.

Generally speaking the stimulus should increase overtime (there are many ways to increase stimulus, not only through increasing load). We NEED adaptation to improve, and overloading the system is how we can achieve desired adaptations.

This ranks behind specificity because we need the overload stimulus to be specific to the desired result.

If you want huge biceps and you are overloading your biking mileage, the overload principle probably won’t do you much good.

Fatigue Management

Overload is disrupting systems in the body, but to achieve adaptation we need to recover from the disruption and return to baseline (homeostasis).

There are many ways to look at this from fuel stores to the nervous system to tissue recovery and probably more. While I won’t get into the mechanisms that cause fatigue, understand that it is unavoidable. Failing to manage fatigue can lead to overreaching and overtraining (chronic compared to overreaching).

Some movements are incredibly fatiguing in more ways than one. Think deadlifts, very heavy weights, massive sensory stimulus because the weight is held in your hands, lots of axial loading, lots of musculature used. Deadlifting heavy every day of the week is a great example of incredibly poor fatigue management. We want to avoid applying too much workload which can put an athlete at risk for injury as shown below.

The best way outside of the weightroom to manage fatigue is to eat and sleep plenty. Stay hydrated. The basics— Nutrition will most likely be its own separate post all together.

These 3 principles are the bedrock of understanding how to create training plans the yield results. Paired with effort and intention, anyone can create results for themselves.

THE FRAMEWORK

First lets cover foundational global movement patterns:

• Breathing

• Core for Pelvis (Pelvic Floor/Diaphragm)

• Core for Thorax (Thoracic Diaphragm)

• Locomotion (Walking, Running)

• Triple Extension (Ext of hip, knee and ankle required in sprinting and jumping)

• Throwing

• Knee-Dominant (Squat like movements)

• Hinge-Dominant (Deadlift like movements)

• Vertical Push (Overhead Presses)

• Vertical Pull (Pulldowns)

• Horizontal Push (Chest Presses)

• Horizontal Pull (Rows)

I know there are a lot, and if you have something you would add, please comment and feel free to ask any questions as to why I might’ve left something out!

***I’d like to note that understanding the basic biomechanics of how these movements happen can improve your understanding of these concepts and I can certainly guide you in the right direction for that info.

I say foundational patterns because these umbrellas should cover basically every movement a human is capable of.

Now let’s cover the framework that I use to help decide which specific exercise I will choose to put into a program.

This frame works on a spectrum.

High Grounding ←→ Low Grounding

Think of grounding as the sum of sensory feedback and external support.

• Sensory feedback refers to knowing where the body is in space.

• External support refers to the physical things we are in contact with during a movement.

To give you guys a visual, a sport like gymnastics is incredibly low grounding. Very little sensory feedback as you float through the air with no external support. On the other hand a training for a sport like bodybuilding is really high grounding, lots of sensory feedback with and external support through the use of equipment that we physically hold on to, press against, or wear.

This framework seeks to create a baseline of grounding that everyone can meet and adjust as needed for a goal or demand of sport. The core idea is to meet people where they need to be met in terms of training.

To create the list (we can add or take away from this list) we want to think of ways to make movements as easy as possible to attain. Think of what you want the outcome to be and make the movement as simple as humanly possible. Remember this is a baseline of the MOST grounded we can possible make a movement, it’s a starting point.

Here is a shortlist:

• Constraints

  • Tracks— Think the fixed movement on a machine like a Hack Squat. Tracks create external stability and a fixed path.

• Reference

  • Physical things that allow sensory feedback (Going to use the example of the hack squat again). The pads on the Hack let an individual know where their body is in space, it creates stability.

• Bilateral Stance (Really stable stance shoulder width stance)

• Single Planer Movement

  • The sagittal plane is usually easiest for people to move in, think forward to back movement like a bicep curl.

• Short Lever Length (Torque)

  • Think about how easy it is to pick up a barbell from the floor if you grab it at its center vs by the end. Shorter levers = better management.

• Utilizing External Load (Center of Mass Management)

  • Think of taking a squatting your bodyweight, it might feel awkward until you actually get some weight to hold. The weight can act as a counter balance and actually help someone achieve a position better than they would bodyweight. Load is like a bell curve, the peak is just enough load to be helpful for the movement.

Each of these examples is a baseline, for instance I can use a many constraints or few, lots of reference or little. A more complex example would be planes of movement. We can work in the sagittal plane (flexion:extension), frontal plane (adduction:abduction), the transverse plane (rotation) or multiple at once. The difficulty of movement occurs as listed below with sagittal movement being the simplest and multi-planar movement being the most complex.

Sagittal→ Frontal→ Transverse→ Multi-planar

We can create an even simpler example out of stance (easy to hard, left to right)

Bilateral Stance→Staggered Stance→Single Leg Stance

This essentially means it’s easier to perform a squat, than a split squat and easier to perform a split squat than a single leg squat.

Grounding has been really useful in helping me create a baseline of movement. Understanding what a person’s movement history allows me to gauge what levels of grounding they need to get the most out of training. Moreover, this idea of grounding goes hand in hand with skill or proficiency of movement.

Movement is a skill and we can only produce force or output when we have enough skill to do so. Low grounding movements like acrobatics require a LOT of skill. Even if you have the capacity to create the force to propel yourself through the air, you probably don’t have the skill to be an acrobat.

In the world of lifting most people can produce more force on a leg press than they can squat. The patterns are similar, but the leg press is far more grounded than the squat, you have pads to rest on that provide sensory feedback and counter pressure, handles that do the same, a fixed track of movement, bilateral stance, no effort wasted on managing center of mass. All of the energy in the press of a leg press goes into the press itself due to the high amounts of sensory feedback and external support.

The squat lacks the sensory feedback and external support compared to the leg press, meaning it requires more skill. A good squatter has clearly spent lots of time squatting much like an acrobat has clearly practiced for acrobatics for many years.

You can only produce force through movements you have enough skill to be stable, or where sensory feedback and external support exist to create stability. This leads back to the principle idea of meeting people where they need to be met.

This is important for all athletes. If you can meet an athlete with a level of grounding they can perform efficiently and then progress to a point where they can produce output to train for the demands of sport, you hit the nail of specificity right on the head. This can prevent you from putting yourself or clientele in positions they’re not quite ready for yet, and rather meet them where they need to be met (have I beaten this to death yet?).

Seriously though, If you’ve never done a barbell back squat… don’t try to one rep max a back squat the day you decide to learn, it won’t be strong and you won’t be performing at a level to learn the skill of squatting— This goes for all exercises in the gym. Movement is a skill.

For a sport like bodybuilding where muscles are trained instead of movements per se, high grounding movements can provide an incredible stimulus in terms of muscle growth. To prove a point let me name a few staples; hack squat, leg press, smith machine presses, chest supported rowing….. All are global movements that have great sensory feedback and external support do a great job developing musculature when done correctly.

APPLICATION

What if I just want to get stronger and better at the sports I play recreationally?

The same principles still apply. I find that this framework works with athletes and general population training as well regardless of the individual’s history. It is also a great place to start when working with clients with history of injury because you can scale the amount of internal stability they need to create to meet their needs.

I’ll use myself as an example. I love strength training and recreationally compete in powerlifting, soccer and basketball. Powerlifting is a priority and soccer and basketball are things I do on the side. That being said I’m going to focus on the lifting, and not plyometrics, If I cared more about the sports I would do more plyo, metabolic and sprint work.

Powerlifting as a sport is pretty high grounding compared to the other two sports. Powerlifting also require that I train some form of squat, bench and deadlift in my program.

Soccer and basketball don’t require any movements specifically but in general to be good at each sport I need to be able to move in the transverse plane (rotation), and multiple planes at once. In soccer and basketball I will spend a lot of time creating my own internal stability. I’ve played both sports from a young age so the movements are familiar and I would say that I have the skills to produce force in the lateral movements required so I don’t need to create a ton of grounding in those positions.

On the other hand powerlifting really requires force production so I will need a way to be able to produce LOTS of force. The core lifts are skills but force production is equally as important in PL. Given that I do play sports pretty often, I will use the days I play as my “skill development” for sport. In general you get better at something by practicing the thing directly… playing soccer will make me a better soccer player than lifting will and squatting heavy will improve my heavy squatting.

Below I’ve created a sample lower body day with some explanation as to why I’ve made some choices.

A1: Safety Bar Squat

• Mod Grounding, Mod Skill : Mod Output

• The squat is a required lift to compete in powerlifting so I need to practice it to create the efficiency in the movement so I can express force through it. For my own needs I like the SSB or safety bar squat because I can develop better strength is a more vertical hip path. Because Im training the skill and not maximal strength, I keep these as a moderate output movement, I can express better strength on other movements that require less skill.

B1: Bench Press

• Mod Grounding, Mod Skill : Mod Output

• Bet you didn’t expect to see this here… But I need to bench too and I like having some bench variation 2-4 times a week so I’ll toss this in here.

C1: Machine Squat Variation (Leg Press, Hack Squat, Pendulum Squat)

• Mod Grounding, Low Skill:High Output

• LOTS of output, helping me get bigger and stronger quads, pretty important to squatting and specific to PL, might help if I decided to change gears and focus on speed and plyos for sport.

D1: Heavy Sled Push

• High Grounding, Low Skill:High Output

• I like the locomotive aspect of this, it’s also a very low skill:high output movement where I actually get unilateral benefit and allows the hips to move independently of one another (Very similar to the way they move in sport) A split squat variation could do nicely here if you are proficient enough to where you can get good output and not fall over.

D2: Rotational Core Movement

• Varied Grounding depending on the type, Moderate Skill:Moderate Grounding

• Typically I like a standing version of this where I hold onto a rope or bar and rotate, the dissociation of ribcage and pelvis is important in all ball sports to change direction. In powerlifting we get tons of static core work simply through bracing so I incorporate loaded flexion-extension and rotational movements in all my programs. Loaded variations are key because they’re easily progressible.

D3: Overhead Triceps Variation

• High Grounding, Low Skill:High Output

• Treating this like a hypertrophy movement to aid in my pressing just like the leg press to the squat. Grounding varies on the type of move I pick so generally I’m going to opt for a cable or machine in this specific instance of a free weight movement to get better output. Having it be an overhead movement helps me to maintain overhead shoulder function to be able to do simple sport actions like shoot a basketball.

This is a super simplistic framework for something I might do, there are limitless options and no wrong answers. I might opt for some lateral squat movement to get more frontal plane movement on another day and I’d definitely perform a hinge, not to mention adding in upper body days. This is just one day of a multi day plan.

DISCLAIMER: If you’re new to training. Sport specific doesn’t mean you go and replicate the movements of your sport in the gym with weights… you play your sport to get better at those things. In the gym we work to train properties that translate to the field like strength, power, speed, etc.

I’m sure some of you have seen MLB players swing a bat with a weighted donut on the end of it, but that is to potentiate a swing not to improve the strength of the swing. We do that by training the property of strength through the muscles that are responsible for creating the swing motion.

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I’ll put it this way, if you want to be able to swing the bat fast, and you train to swing a heavier bat somewhat fast all you will have learned is how to swing a heavy bat somewhat fast and completely ruin the mechanics of your swing on the normal bat. If you want to swing the bat fast… get stronger and keep swinging the bat fast.

This is super important so I say again, when you hear specificity, you want to think of specific properties that will translate to the sport. Skills specific to the sport you will develop by playing and practicing the sport.

My hope is the next time you’re in the gym you can effectively evaluate what it is you want to train and that trait you want to gain. Provide yourself the grounding necessary to complete the task efficiently or the grounding you need to develop the skill.

I will continue to add to this small body of work, but understanding these basic concepts can be the baseline to creating effective training plans for whatever your goals are. With the articles to come we will dive deeper and deeper into the weeds until programming feels seamless.

There isn’t really a wrong answer and choosing to do the “wrong” thing might not hurt you, but if can make informed decisions and pick the right things you’ll make progress you’ve never dreamed of.

My intention with this series is to help beginners build an understanding of hypertrophy training and reinforce knowledge for others 100% FREE. I aim for it to be digestible, quick and easy to understand so PLEASE ask questions and I will clarify.

Enjoy!

In the last section of this series I covered some terms and basic principles of training to build SIZE.

In summary we covered the following:

Maintenance Volume (MV), Minimum Effective Volume (MEV), Maximum Recoverable Volume (MRV), Maximum Adaptive Volume (MAV) AND reasons why you should place heavy emphasis on eccentric loading/control, pauses in stretched positions, and exercises that train lengthen positions.

To learn more about these terms and principles AND get some bonus tips you can apply to your training today, check out the first article in this series! Click the article above!

In this article we are going to cover exercise selection, exercise variation, training frequency and choosing set and rep ranges. HERE WE GO!

EXERCISE SELECTION

SO often I see fitness gurus preach and teach OPTIMAL movements, where the line of push or pull is perfectly in line with the pennate of a specific muscle.

Although I do love the idea of nerding out, really getting into the nitty gritty of exercise science, biomechanics and looking for the best option, this need to find the perfect movement takes away from training.

Movements like this DO have their place and can even be beneficial, but context matters.

Don’t be blinded by perfection. In many cases these movements can’t be sufficiently loaded to cause significant stimulus. In other situations they require time consuming set up or specialty equipment. More times than not there is no evidence to show that one variation of a movement is better than another in terms of growth.

This is why the word optimal has lost its value to me in a lot of contexts, because what is optimal? Optimal for who? For what goals?

Who’s to say my skull crusher won’t grow my triceps compared to your cross body cable extension?

When it comes to movement selection I look for the following in no specific order:

• Can you feel tension in the target muscle? If the target muscle is the one getting fatigued and is the limiting factor to that exercise— MONEY.

• Are you getting insane pumps from just a few sets? Yes? Glorious.

• Is it making you sore in the target muscle? Yes? Cash.

• Is it painful to your joints? No? Great.

• Is it mentally fatiguing? (set up time, loading time, mental prep and effort, think HEAVY deadlifts) No? Got it.

• Can you progress/improve it week to week? Yes? Dope.

• Are you enjoying it? Yes? This exercise is perfect for you!

Remember, no movement is inherently good or bad (except Triceps kickback- BAD). Each exercise is just one option of many, and when performed with good strict technique (reference Hypertrophy I) they can be equally effective.

Something I take into consideration is reference and constraints. I have a post on this called the constrains model so I won’t get into the weeds here, but reference is anything your body is in contact with and allows your body to be stable to in space (gives sensory feedback if you will). If you’re standing on a train and you don’t hold on to the railing you’re likely to tip. Hold the railing and BOOM— stability.

Constraints refer to anything that fixes the path of movement, like railroad tracks.

Machines are fixed, we can’t move them off the tracks which is great from a stimulus standpoint compared to free weight movements.

It’s pretty hard NOT to feel hack squats in your quads, BUT if you are squatting a very hingey low bar style squat you’ll probably feel more posterior chain.

I love the use of machines for this reason.

NOTE: THIS DOES NOT MEAN FREE WEIGHTS ARE BAD.

Read the line above one more time please :)

I really love free weight movements for hypertrophy and use them often for myself and clients. Use the implement that gives the best stimulus for YOU.

Free weights not cutting it? Try a machine. Machine hurting the joints? Try free weights.

Be adaptable.

VARIATION

“Now that I know how to pick the right set of exercises for my cycle of training, how many variations do I need? When do I need to change the variation I’m currently using? When do is the right time to shock the muscle?”

First, muscles can’t actually be shocked— I feel like people should know this but someone did ask, so this is me debunking the theory altogether.

You only need to change a variation of a movement when it stops checking off the boxes we used to pick the exercise in the first place! Pumps aren’t as wicked, you can’t feel as much tension, joints are getting beat up, etc.

Don’t fret, time away from your favorite movement may be just the thing to rekindle the flame and it can feel just as good as the first time!

That being said don’t be afraid to try new things— schedules change and training will never go as planned. It is okay to change things up from time to time. Example, I went on vacation for the new year and had to complete a week of training in a barn with no heat in 25 degree weather with only a squat rack and barbell… I got that shit DONE crazy pumps and all, but it was NOT how I had planned it out 4 weeks prior lol.

I recommend trying to stick to the plan as much as possible and deviate only when needed so that it helps build an understanding of the movement and if it is or isn’t causing growth.

This is the reason I keep my variations the same week to week.

In my chest training I have 3-4 variations I like to use. A flat variation, a flye, an incline variation. Typically one of the flat and incline variations will be a bench and the other will be a machine or a smith machine. If I add a forth variation for more volume, I will do another flye variation with a different implement than earlier in the week.

For instance, Monday is a cambered bar bench press and cable flye, Thursday could be incline machine press and a DB flye.

This variation stays consistent week to week, but offers some diversity throughout the week which offers slightly more gains than if I only did the same two exercises both days I hit chest.

I pick variations within a week of training that each have something slightly different to offer, so in the chest example I want to hit the largest portion of the pec (flat bench), sternoclavicular portion (incline bench) and the also get some horizontal adduction of the humerus (flyes).

For each muscle group I try to think of the muscle action and choose a variation or two that can get the job done!

On top of hitting different parts of the muscle, adding variety loads connective tissue differently and even though slight— effective for recovery.

Let’s say bench press hurts the shoulder, but it is the only movement you have built in for your pecs. Without variety you subject your body to at least 2 bench presses per week.

Instead, keep a few variations that rotate throughout the week. This will allow the shoulder to heal from the bench press specific stimulus before the next bench session!

Variation can be changes in grip, implement, rep scheme, tempo, pauses, you name it!

Don’t know where to start? Please ask! Always happy to help a fellow swoldier.

FREQUENCY

“How often should we hit a muscle to keep it GROWIN’???”

Well It depends… How quickly do you feel that the muscle is recovering? Are you sore going into your next session? Did you never even get sore?

Let’s take a dive.

Different muscle groups fatigue and recover at different rates. AND this also varies person to person.

If I hit chest and triceps in the same day, same number of sets per muscle group. My chest might be CHALKED for 2-3 days whereas my triceps only need 1 day of recovery to feel fresh.

Hence the issue with the bro split— hitting a muscle group once a week probably isn’t the best plan of attack.

If a muscle is fully recovered and ready to be OBLITERATED again, why wait an extra 3 days to train? Those are just gains being left on the table.

A better plan is to train a muscle when it’s recovered to milk the most out of the training cycle.

This presents a slight issue as large muscles TYPICALLY take longer to recover than smaller ones!

The best option is likely to train the group the recovers faster with more frequency throughout the week— this might mean ending a leg day with some triceps or biceps or both. Too easy.

This does take some experimenting because recovery times are completely unique to the individual.

My chest can usually take a beating, but my hamstrings… They can be sore for 5 days later in the block, as I train closer and closer to failure.

My favorite training partner can CRUSH hammies over and over again and fully recover in half the time. Such is life.

The principles are simple.

Train. Recover. Adapt. Repeat.

In that order— train too frequently and you can’t adapt. Too infrequently and you miss out on an opportunity to make more adaptations!

SET RANGES

I covered this the tiniest bit in ‘Basics of Hypertrophy I’ but a short refresher will serve well. As such I won’t get too deep but for reference to some terminology go check that article out.

Set ranges really depend on the stimulus you get from an exercise. You can actually use the bullet guide from the exercise selection portion and instead of yes or no make it a sliding scale of 1-4 to gauge a good number of sets to use for a specific muscle group.

Let me explain. One set of a seated leg curl and 2 sets of stiff legged deadlifts with 1 rep in the tank leaves me with a 4/4 pump, 4/4 workload in the target tissue and 1/4 joint pain. It also leaves me with soreness that I recover from just in time for my next leg day.

Do I really need more hamstring volume for that day? Will it benefit me? Probably not, it might actually hinder performance if I can’t recover in time for my next session.

Don’t go bananas on one specific muscle group so much so that you’re still beat up by your next session. Just food for thought! Play around and see what works for you!

REP RANGES

I will keep this section super simple with some general rules I like to follow.

The first rule is train close to failure.

Thinking 1-3 reps from failure, ramping the intensity closer to failure week to week and only training to failure at the end of a block.

I prefer training really close to failure but NOT to failure every session because it allows me to recover better between sessions thus extending my training blocks.

I recommend this approach for most, BUT it’s important to understand what training hard feels like.

If intensity is compromised and you stop sets before getting close to failure you won’t elicit the results you seek.

Be honest or train with a partner who will keep you honest.

Rep ranges themselves like most everything are dependent to the individual but generally if you’re working 5-30 reps, that’s within range for hypertrophy.

I understand that the range is HUGE so let me walk you how I structure my reps.

Please note that there are many other ways to structure reps!

5-10 Reps: I save this range for heavier compound movements like a barbell bench press, still with great control and pauses.

p.s. if your ass is off the bench, reduce the load— not much work is getting done for the pecs anyway! Get the most bang for your buck and use better technique!

Generally I keep these in lower rep ranges because it feels very familiar to powerlifting training.

8-15 Reps: This range I use for heavier compounds performed on machines.

Personally, I’m getting insane pumps pushing leg presses and chest supported rows in higher rep ranges and I think it’s because I have a fixed track and lots of feedback to destroy the target tissue.

DUB!

12-30 Reps: This is the range I use for isolation type movements like a flyes, curl, lateral raise, etc.

The range is HUGE here because if I do the same exercise twice in the same week, the first time I do it, I like to use heavier loads and hit lower end of the rep range.

By the second time I hit the exercise I can add reps, add longer reps, a longer pause or “squeeze” to help add variety to the stimulus making it like it’s own exercise!

Example— If I do a leg extension on Tuesday and Friday, Tuesdays session will be programmed at 120lbs for ~15 reps.

Fridays session will have 60lbs with a 3 second top hold for ~25 reps.

If you’re asking yourself “Isn’t this just variation we just talked about already?”

*YOU’D BE RIGHT* — It’s an excellent way to add variety with limited equipment!

Just an idea— remember variety throughout the week is great!

NOTE:

The actual number of reps you do is completely arbitrary as long as you’re in the range. 15 reps is no different than 16 or 14.

Don’t feel like you need to stop at a number that looks nice on a sheet— Don’t worry about hitting a specific number as it may hold you back from extra reps or push you past failure!

In the end rep scheme is MUCH easier to manipulate that weight within a set.

I hope this guide is useful and is something that can be referenced again and again.

Thank you for tuning in and get ready for the next installment of the Basics of Hypertrophy Training!

If this article was helpful for you please share it someone who you think would benefit! Believe me my old self would’ve appreciated it!

Yours Truly-

This has been on my mind for quite a while now and I am very excited to dig a little deeper into hypertrophy training as it has been my focus since my return from basic training— I would LOVE to get beefy before hopping back into powerlifting— I mean who doesn’t want to look big and strong amirite…

I’d like to preface that eating is a critical component to building size. Eat for your goals and if you don’t know where to start reach out and we can help you :)

In this article I am going to shed some light on some great training principles and some cool ~science-y~ terms so you can feel confident in your ability to train.

Let’s get rollin’.

Maintenance Volume (MV): The volume that allows you to keep you current level of muscle.

Minimum Effective Volume (MEV): The minimum amount of training that actually stimulates a muscle to GROW. Train above the MEV to grow— train below it and maintain muscle at best. For new lifters, you’re in luck— your MEV is typically much lower than that of an intermediate or advanced lifter.

Maximum Recoverable Volume (MRV): The max amount of volume your body can recover from. Anymore than this and you won’t be fully recovered by your next training session which hinders, performance, growth and increases injury risk!

Maximum Adaptive Volume (MAV): The range of volumes to cause an adaptation to a muscle group. Think overload principle. This volume changes throughout training cycles because the muscle needs more volume (weight x reps x sets) each week to have the stimulus to cause growth!

Understand that these very person to person and vary between muscle groups!

Don’t be overwhelmed, these are just concepts to carry into training— keeping an eye on how well you’re recovering, your performance, and your pumps will give you a great gauge on the volume that you can and can’t get away with and let you know that you are doing enough.

In my experience most people do TOO much volume and end up over training. I’ve been there too, but recording how I feel has allowed me to stay within my limits and recover to the best of my ability.

More recovery means you can actually train harder without accruing unnecessary fatigue!

If you WOULD like a deep dive on these terms and learn to find them on your own— subscribe and let me know!

Now for the real reason you’re here— training principles you can walk away with and apply TODAY.

ECCENTRIC LOADING: You have probably heard this before… control the negative, actively resist the eccentric (easy portion) of the lift. Eccentric portion (lengthening portion) of the lift has been shown in research to be stronger than the concentric. Controlling the down portion of a bench press, squat, Romanian deadlift will DESTROY the target muscle, stimulating TONS of growth.

The problem with eccentric control is it also destroys the ego— But we’re not here to stroke our egos, we’re here to get f*cking huge! Use less weight, feel the BURN as you slowly control the weight on each lift before exploding through the concentric contraction.

BUT before you explode that bench press off the chest…

PAUSE: Pausing in a fully stretched position does a few things.

1. It is particularly growth stimulating to the muscle.

2. It keeps tension and reinforces control of the eccentric portion of the lift.

3. It reduces the risk of injury by reducing the peak force at the transition from eccentric to concentric action

4. Again checks the ego making light loads harder to lift, BUT aiding recovery efforts because of reduced loading!

Think taking a 1-3 second pause in the stretched position of a lift— I’m talking hamstrings and calves KISSING during leg press type stretch.

STRETCHED POSITIONS: I mention pausing in the stretched position. The stretched position where the muscle feels like it is at end range (within reason and this varies person to person) not only allows for great sensation of the movement and amazing pumps, but it VERY growth stimulating!

Getting DEEP on that leg press if going to kill the quads like never before I promise you AND you will walk away with an amazing pump!

TRAIN IN THE LENGTHENED POSITION: This goes hand and hand with stretched positions. Let’s take the triceps for example. Imagine you decide to do a triceps kickback (please don’t do these— you’ll get why in a minute).

Notice how on the left, the position of the Triceps (highlighted in blue) is completely perpendicular to the force of gravity and the dumbbell, both forcing down. The triceps do not have to do any work in this position— you can sit here all day.

As the lifter goes through the movement, the triceps really only need to work and produce force in the ULTRA shortened top position shown on the right, where they are working now to resist the force of gravity and the dumbbell.

This does not allow us to get into that stretched position that is so growth promoting.

This would be like training a bench press but only going down 3 inches instead of bringing the bar to your chest!

Except in this triceps kickback movement we are limited by the movement itself.

A better move for example would be this pushdown shown below!

Here on the left the lifter has his triceps (highlighted in red) at full stretch, he can even take a pause there that will burn like hell as the muscle is actively resisting the force of the cable stack.

Notice here that his triceps are more or less parallel to the forces of the cable (straight up and down).

Then as he contracts the muscle, it remains parallel to the forces of the cable! from a fully lengthened position to a fully contracted one— a thing of BEAUTY.

EVEN BETTER would be an overhead triceps extension where now you have some more long head involved which crosses the shoulder AND the elbow (I’m just being a geek now— don’t listen to a word I say).

Training the shortened position won’t break the bank, BUT you can probably get more bang for your buck favoring lengthened positions that offer some stretch on the target tissue.

In summary train in a controlled manner— Don’t worry about the weight you lift (I promise no one worth caring for is judging you).

Lower weights with intention, pause them at a FULL stretch, drive up, and for bonus points DON’T rest at the top to maintain tension in the specific muscle.

This is an example of IFBB Pro Jared Feather training with phenomenal technique practicing each principle above.

Leave a like if you found these tips helpful and comment your thoughts!

I won’t talk shit on any specific style of training. In fact I’ve used a lot of the methods myself— I’m a big believer in taking things I find valuable from other professionals and implementing it where I see fit either for myself or my clientele. I highly encourage it!

A good artist copies, a great artist steals.

***SIDE NOTE: I often hear people say don’t follow your fitness idols because their leverages and anatomy are different than yours. They follow that statement up by saying the result won’t be the same for you as it is for them. In my HUMBLE opinion there is value to be found everywhere— have fun, learn what works for you, MAKE MISTAKES, adapt and adjust accordingly. For all we know you might take something away that makes everything click for you! that’s a win.

The the growth of social media has left people who don’t know any better in the dust. The message we should all be sending is to TRAIN. PERIOD.

Consistent training is the first step to reaching any fitness goal. Keep in mind there is not a single way to reach a goal as implied by the charlatans on Instagram.

Don’t stress over the perfect angle to hit your upper chest fibers. Don’t worry about your hand position in the bicep curl, which attachment you use in the row. In the early stages the ONLY thing that matters is training CONSISTENTLY and with INTENTION.

Consistency is the means to an end. Its the only way anyone whos ever been successful has been great— relentless repetition.

Intention is the game plan which allows for the mental focus to complete a given task.

Don’t worry about the minutia. It won’t matter until you prove to yourself you can train CONSISTENTLY and INTENTLY.

Here are 5 ways I have built consistency and intention with my training:

1. TRAIN w/ A PARTNER

   

   I recently rediscovered how beneficial training with a partner can be. It improves accountability both ways, training intensity, and creates a safe environment for those who feel lost in the gym. Now this can also be a downfall if the buddy you go to the gym with is distracting and only cracking jokes— Ideally they are someone with similar strength to push friendly competition and someone who can motivate you during sets. *BONUS* you will always have a spotter which takes away the fear of failing lifts.

   I worked out with a partner for 2 years before being consistent on my own. Now I love the lonely grind, but when I have the opportunity to train with someone who understands intensity, my sessions are unmatched. Energy is improved, focus is better, I always do more than I expected of myself.

   Think of the Westside Barbell guys. For those who don’t know, legendary coach Louie Simmons created absolute animals, the cream of the crop in powerlifting, by training as a team (granted many hated each other). Each and every session they pushed each other to the BRINK for DECADES. Quite extreme in the case of westside, but we can reap the reward without being cut throat.

2. ENJOY YOUR TRAINING

   

   Don’t get it twisted— within each set, you will be hurting, the work will be hard AND you need to be focused. HOWEVER, you should feel rewarded each time you leave the space or you will never want to go back. You don’t need to be serious or “on” the entire time. In your rest period crack a joke, enjoy music— relax. Not only will it help you to recover between sets, but it will help you enjoy the session even after BRUTAL sets.

   Pick exercises you like. I will put exercises in my programming for the SOLE reason that I get a SKIN RIPPING pump that makes me feel good at the end of an insane lift. And that is plenty good reason for me.

   When Powerlifting training became stale and dragging myself to the gym became a chore instead of a hobby— it was time to revamp the program with things that made me WANT to be there.

   At the end of the day you have the opportunity to train that some don’t have— be grateful, don’t squander it. Enjoy the grind.

3. GRIND

   

   TRAINING IS TRAINING. Make your body adapt to stimuli. Train HARD, push yourself. You will thank yourself later when you see the progress you’ve made. The bottom line, any program you chose will elicit results. Stick with it, apply yourself and don’t stray away for what you think you’ve found the next best thing— the truth is, everyone wants to sell a program… find one you like made by people you trust (there are great FREE options out there… (*You’ll be able to find free options here soon*) run a program to completion, reflect, reassess, THEN and ONLY THEN should you make changes.

4. PLANNING

   

   A loose plan works just fine— at the start of my lifting journey, I had no plan and made little progress. Later I used a log to write down what I did, the weight and number of reps. The following week I would do the same workout more or less and try and beat my previous week either in weight or number of reps. Honestly a great scheme used by many high level body builders still.

   The more I plan a session the harder I can focus during each individual set and the better I get.

   You can use apps to click in a rep or weight, or you can follow a program. Having a plan makes the gym experience worry free, and allows all of your energy to be applied to training. Now Apply focus to planning and you have true intention. Repeat over 4-12 weeks…Watch the progress!

5. ROUTINE

   

   Create a schedule to be consistent— I know that every Tuesday I will be at the gym by 5:00am. It allows me 2 hours to lift (On my current hypertrophy program I only use about an hour 15 minutes max) I can get home, shower make breakfast, eat and catch the train by 8:30am get into work by 9am to enjoy a coffee before my first appointment that day at 9:30am.

   My Tuesday is a science and it is my favorite day of the week. Granted other days of the week I have to be in for an appointment at 6:30am, but I plan accordingly and adhere to my schedule.

   My pre-lifting routine includes ingesting some carbs, some salt, I’ll listen to music before stepping out the door— It sets the tone as soon and my body knows to prepare for what’s to come.

   Create a habit, a routine that allows you to get in the zone for the days session. Like fine wine— it only gets better with age so practice and refine.

Training is not complicated— don’t go searching for the perfect program or exercise. Try to implement some of these tips and you will make plenty of progress AND mistakes! And that is okay— learn from them, adjust, adapt and start making the progress you WANT to make.

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I improved! I got stronger over time and my running improved because of it.

Fast forward 5 years to when I got BACK into lifting after a running hiatus, my goals had changed— now I had the necessary knowledge to be successful, or so I thought.

The Dunning-Kruger effect explains my confidence at this point in my life so well.

A simple graph of how confidence to speak on a subject develops depending on experience and knowledge. It states that people tend to overestimate their cognitive ability until their competence increases to the point where they become aware of their shortcomings.

Sidebar aside—? My lifting journey had set off, I was consistent with my lifts and exercise selection, and I practiced progressive overload both in intensity and volume. Everything was set to create the body I wanted both aesthetically and in terms of strength.

Fast forward ~12 weeks after the start of my training— I had made minimal strength gains, and no changes in size. Timing clearly plays a role here, in the grand scheme of things 12 weeks is not a lot of time.

Where I place the blame is my inability or reluctance to track my progress. I remember often forgetting what weight I had used the week before or if I had changed an exercise, I can’t say that I had gotten good sleep, definitely was not hydrated and I didn’t track my calories to make sure I had hit my goals for the day.

I placed way too much trust in my biased intuition instead of writing objective values down on a sheet of paper.

Tracking can be a very simple thing— and it certainly doesn’t need to be every detail of every second of each day. Turns out my old track and field coach new a thing or two; that which gets measured gets improved. Keeping tabs on a number of things resulted in… better results.

My training changed immensely when I introduced the following changes to my lifestyle:

1. Tracking sleep and finding things that affect my sleep. This doesn’t mean I get 8 hours every night, but it does make me aware of sleeping habits that either positively or negatively affect my sleep. For instance, I know that if I eat a really high protein meal before bed I have lucid dreams and feel groggy the next morning— I don’t know why, but that’s my anecdote. Find what affects your sleep and you’ll sleep better simply by paying slightly closer attention to it. I check my sleep daily when competing, maybe once to twice a week on the regular through my Garmin *People tend to complain that these are inaccurate however I find mine does just fine— and if it doesn’t as long as I use the same inaccurate but consistent measure I get a good picture!

2. Tracking progression through weights, reps, and maybe most importantly perceived effort. I typically use the RPE scale of 1-10, 10 being the hardest. I also track how I feel going into a lift. This allows me to actually track my performance in the gym— I pair this with proper planning and have a general idea of what a session will look like PRIOR to going in. DEADLY.

   

3. Tracking food— This one is sticky, it is hard for many individuals to track and it can be associated with disorderd eating. However, my experience has been nothing but positive when trying to gain or lose while tracking calories. As an added bonus knowing the nutrients in my food has allowed me to maintain weight intuitivley WITHOUT tracking daily. The app I like to use is CARBON. (We’re not sponsered— BUT I wouldn’t mind… @Layne Norton)

4. Completely unrelated to lifting but I created a habit tracker in a dotted journal to track anything from daily mood, hydration, steps in day, supplementation, you name it. This may be above and beyond, but it is my single most useful tool as far as progress goes because it holds me accountable on a dialy basis and all I do is check a box— I know I said it didn’t have to be daily AND it doesn’t… I just genuinely enjoy doing this one daily.

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Tracking is important for progress— find what methods work for you and hold yourself accountable— feel free to reach out for more info or tips!

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THAT BEING SAID— This model is cool as F*CK and I am stoked to share it.

In my experience, the most difficult aspect of coaching and training is the fact that literally every person is different and has a unique response to any given stimulus. The issue this presents is obvious; we can’t program the same things for each individual, regardless if they compete in the same sport or even have the same goals :(

Genetics, skeletal structure, and shape limit our ability to train individuals the same way. The sport also limits our ability because the demands of the sport are universal— complete a specific task.

That’s the second challenge. All athletes want to be strong, mobile, and fast… but to what degree? Clearly, a middle linebacker in the NFL needs to be stronger than a cornerback, but he still needs to be mobile enough to beat an offensive lineman, who is probably pretty mobile, but not as mobile as a running back that they need to be able to tackle as they sprint by. Catch my drift.

Finding the balance of all of these traits is difficult as you learn and get deeper into the nuances of training. It’s the reason trainers who know close to NOTHING can see client success, especially with general population clients, and why an experienced trainer might actually push a client or athlete away from the desired result. We all train on a spectrum.

The trainer who is not an expert in anything will train an individual so generally that they don’t lose much of any desired trait. If a trainer who has trained NBA players for 10 years trains NFL players and fails to recalibrate his approach to said sport— he will destroy the physical beasts of the NFL.

It sounds like a simple adjustment but because there are so many ways to achieve a result it’s MUCH harder than it seems— especially for someone who is advanced in any specific facet of training.

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So what’s the spectrum? High Grounding <————————> Low Grounding

Think of grounding as the sum of sensory feedback and external support.

Sensory feedback refers to knowing where the body is in space.

External Support refers to the physical things we are in contact with during a movement.

A sport that is highly grounded and has lots of sensory feedback and external support is powerlifting (we will dive deeper— hang tight). A sport that has low grounding is acrobatics. You can maybe say other sports are as high or low but these are two good examples and basically every other sport falls somewhere between these two on the spectrum above. Train a powerlifter like an acrobat… may not go well— train an acrobat like a powerlifter… YIKES. Specificity amiright!

So we can’t change the genetics of the person or the demands of the sport… We have to change the training environment. We have to create a baseline of grounding that everyone can meet and adjust as needed for a goal or demand of sport. To create the list (lists may vary) I want to think of ways to make movements and the desired outcome of that movement as easy as possible to attain. Here is my List:

• Constraints (Tracks— Think the fixed movement on a machine like a Hack Squat)

• Reference (Physical things that allow sensory feedback)

• Bilateral Stance

• Single Plane Movement (Saggital)

• Utilizing Control

• Short Lever Length (Torque)

• Utilizing External Load (load is like a bell curve— need just enough to be right)

• Management of Gravity

To explain a few I want you to think back to grounding, and create a baseline— The easiest path to the goal.

The most stable stance is bilateral—cakewalk

Most people have the least trouble moving through the sagittal plane—cheese

Short level = less torque— a no-brainer

If you want to make these more difficult or less grounded take away stability through stance maybe a single leg, incorporate multiplaner movement as opposed to sagittal plane, and increase the length of the lever, increasing torque.

An example of using the constraints model is trying to hit a knee-dominant movement with a new client (I view knee-dominant movements as having vertical hip displacement).

Here is my selection and reason:

Hack Squat- Uses a stable, bi-lateral stance, moving in one plane, on a physical track with lots of padding for sensory feedback. They also won't need to manage gravity, the weight of the machine is an external load, with low torque. Because of all the reasons above, I can GUARANTEE they feel quads here little to nothing else.

I love this model because it allows all the primary movements to be tossed into one basket for beginners and can be adjusted as needed for any given individual.

And what are all of the primary movements of the body?

Breathing, Core for Pelivs, Core for Thorax, Locomotion, Triple Extension, Throwing, Knee-Dominant, Hinge-Dominant, Vertical Push, Vertical Pull, Horizontal Push, Horizontal Pull… Yeah, I know there are a lot, and if you have something you would add please comment or ask any questions as to why I might’ve left something out!

Let me know what you think of the framework! Put it to good use and try it out in your own training and practice.

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By 15 I had made significant improvements in all my sports (puberty probably). I played soccer year-round on top of running cross country in the fall, track in the winter and spring, basketball in the winter, and on top of all of that being a teenage buffoon jumping off of cliffs, playing pick-up football, soccer, and basketball each chance I could. I wouldn’t change that for the WORLD!

Exposure to all these sports provided great health, lifelong friends, and some great opportunities along the way. For the sake of this article, the most important thing it provided me was an athletic foundation. 

Playing lots of sports gave me some great insight in retrospect.

There were always ‘the specialists’-- These kids played club and AAU and went to camps all for one sport. All of their efforts were dedicated to one sport and they were usually so technically skilled that they left other athletes in the dust. This is the soccer player who can’t touch-shoot a basketball without looking like they’ve just had a stroke (or pretty much every wrestler I’ve ever met). These kids have the ability to make it to college and sometimes pro.

Then you had the non-athletic regular people or NARPs for short. These kids never participated in sports in a competitive capacity and it showed. The movement looked slow and choppy and just foreign (because it was). Don’t hate the NARPs though, everyone has their niche.

Then you have the JALTs or the ‘Jack of all trades’ kids. They range from mediocre to pretty good at just about everything and usually change sports each season, maybe they favor one over another or they are simply better at one sport than another. The one’s that are good take them all seriously and generally like competing or have some innate athletic ability. I was a JALT, I was about average or slightly above in everything I did. My experience came from playing different sports and not innate athletic ability. These kids can get to college and sometimes, but rarely pro.

Last and the most dangerous athletes are ‘the gifted’. These kids are the ones everyone else hates. They are as good as the specialist in their sport… but they don’t practice nearly as much AND to top it, they are usually well above average in most things they try. They have athletic ability paired good understanding of movement and how it relates to sports. Maybe the athleticism is made in a gym, but we have all me the kid who just “has it”. These are the kids that go to college and make it to the next level consistently.

This is NOT true for every case mind you– It is a gross generalization of my experiences… However, I am going to list the names of athletes that DOMINATE pro sports and list some secondary sports they dominated below.

Pat Mahomes - Baseball

Tony Gonzales - Basketball

Kyler Murray - Baseball

Ed Reed - Track & Field (Javelin)

Michael Jordan - Baseball

Lev Yashin - Ice Hockey (Imagine being the world’s best goalie in two sports)

Tim Duncan - Swimming

Allen Iverson - Football

Let kids be kids. Letting them experience and experiment with different movements. Different stimuli allow young athletes opportunities to solve problems in real-time! A ‘specialist’ type athlete may develop great technique, but their ability to solve real-time problems is limited by the stimuli of the sport.

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The beauty of watching a shortstop at quarterback is the fact that they think and move like a shortstop– they realize that at the end of the day doesn’t matter how it happens, the ball needs to hit the target.

The perfect example here: Pat Mahomes

Mahomes has an incredible ability to problem solve on the fly, paired with his athleticism, and ability to throw on his off-foot, off-hand– Skills that he attributes to his college baseball days. Even Kobe Bryant attributed his footwork to watching European futbol.

Part of the reason that Brazilian soccer is PRAISED worldwide is the ability of players to create and do things NEVER SEEN before… the primary form of soccer or futbol in Brazil, futsal a smaller-scale freestyle soccer game where the field is 1/8th the size of a normal field, forcing players to adapt to the stimuli… move that to a large field, and the abundance of space leaves them with LIMITLESS options.

Long story short… Become a problem solver– Play a variety of sports… and play them often. Become one of ‘the gifted’.

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