Two Inch Difference

It's common knowledge that the squat is one of the best, if not the best, exercise for your lower body. Executed properly a squat works your legs, hips, and core muscles. Helps to strengthen your back, and generally will make everything below your belly button bigger, firmer, and sexy as hell.

The Squat, done properly, is also a great exercise to rehab your knees. Have knee pain? Stiffness? Then squat. Build up the weight slowly, and you'll see a sharp reduction, to complete elimination of knee pain. For the past six and a half weeks I've been squatting regularly. For the first six weeks I had no knee pain, and at worse a twinge in my lower back. However after my workout last Saturday my knees were on fire. Absolutely screaming. I stretched, and babied them over the weekend and tried to figure out what I had done wrong. My previous workout, at 180lbs itself shouldn't have caused the amount of pain I was experiencing, so what had gone wrong?

As I was stretching, and doing a few Hindu Squats, I realized I was compensating for the pain in my knees by rolling forward as I came up out of a squat. Imagine this, when you're doing a full squat your knees shouldn't come forward of your toes. You should drop your butt backwards, drop into a squat, then drive your hips forward to stand. This motion engages the muscles in the legs and keeps your knees from having to support the weight. This is the major reason why squats, done properly, are good for your knees. You don't lift with your knees, but with your legs, and hips strengthening the muscles that support your knees. By rolling forward I was, in effect, lifting with my calves, and knees. A recipe for disaster.

With the source of the pain located, my bad form, I set about rectifying the problem. For years I've squatted high bar. Where the bar rests across the top of my traps, at the base of my neck. This is how I learned to squat back in High School and I've never taken the time to re-learn. High bar squats are easy to do, it's a fairly natural position for the bar, and it's easy to control the bar. However I was finding that at higher weight two thing were happening. First, the bar was rolling forward as I squatted putting pressure on my neck. While not painful this certainly wasn't comfortable. As I looked into the cause of my bad form I found that high bar squat, as it placed the bar higher on your body, and forward of your center of gravity caused two issues. One, you were more prone to arch your back, which would explain the back pain I was feeling, and two you took more of the weight on your knees. I figured something had to change.

So, I went back to StrongLifts.com and looked at how they suggested you squat. I figure the program I was following might have some suggestions. Their suggestion, was to squat low bar. In a low bar squat you don't place the bar on top of your trapezius where I had been squatting, but instead on top of your deltoids. In layman's terms, if you run a finger down the back of your neck you will find a bony bump, right at the base of your neck. Just past that is where you squat high bar, and it's the bar pressing on that nub of bone that causes pain. For low bar, imagine you're squeezing a pencil between your shoulders, Your arms back, elbows pointed behind you at a roughly 30-45 degree angle. If you're holding this posture, and roll your head back you'll feel a shelf of muscle. Those are your deltoids. Large slabs of muscle that cross your shoulders onto your back.

When squatting low bar you place the bar on this shelf of muscle. The difference is a matter of inches. The difference in the lift is incredible. Having the bar further back forces you to squat with a straighter back, and more upright posture. This eliminates back pain. Having the weight behind you forces you to drop back under the bar, in a good squat form, and makes it difficult, to nearly impossible, to come forward onto your toes to engage your calves. This further protects your knees.

In short, I did five sets, or five reps, at 185lbs and have no knee pain, and no back pain. Though I will admit my butt is a little stiff.

12 Week Experiment

This morning my weight was 310.8lbs. Not my heaviest, but close. Evidently the life of a bachelor was not kind on my waistline.

Today I'm beginning an experiment. I've dabbled with StrongLifts 5x5 in the past, with solid results. However, I've often lacked the nutritional component. Now, with the Mrs. and I eating pescetarian the dietary side of the equation should be well in hand.

While I have dabbled in StrongLisfts in the past the goal in this experiment is to allow the program to run it's full 12 week course more or less un-altered. My starting lifts are listed below:

Squat: 95lbs.

Bench: 95lbs.

Press: 50lbs.

Upright Row: 50lbs.

Deadlift: 95lbs.

While StrongLifts recommends beginning with an empty bar, and I will be warming up with an empty bar, I do not intend to start at 45lbs for my lifts. Including this modification will get me to a weight that is still easy, and will allow me to work on form, and technique, without forcing me to wait additional weeks to reach a semi-challenging weight.

Each week I will be lifting three times, most likely Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On those days I will record my body weight and current lifts. At the end of the 12 week cycle, I'll post side-by-side photos from week 1, day 1, and week 12, day 3. I will then begin another 12 week cycle.

My objective with this experiment is not to prove the validity of the StrongLifts program as that has already been done time and time again. I'm looking to prove that I can lift regularly, on a pescetarian diet, without sacrificing results, or incurring injury.

Day 1 : A

Squat: 95lbs.

Bench: 95lbs.

Upright Row: 50lbs.

Day 2 : B

Squat: 100lbs.

Press: 50lbs.

Deadlift: 95lbs.

Day 3 : A

Squat: 105lbs.

Bench: 100lbs.

Upright Row: 55lbs.

Five sets, five reps. I'll see you in 12 weeks.

The Modern Gym

I hate the modern gym.

Gyms should smell like sweat, metal, and bleach. Anything more and something is wrong.

Gyms should be composed of nothing more then a few benches, a few racks, a few bars, and a pile of weight. Add in some chin-up bars, boxes, and dip bars and you are 90% of the way there.

Walk into any gym and what do you see? Machines. Fixed motion, easy to use, low risk, useless crap. Wall to wall. Modern gyms smell like potpourri and new carpet. They advertise massage services, and holistic training approaches.

Bull-Shit.

You go to a gym to get stronger. You only need a mirror to check your squat form. You don't go to a gym to network, or watch TV. If you walk into a gym and your first thought is anything even close to "Oh, they have a juice bar" turn around and leave. Unless of course you don't really want to get stronger.

Modern gyms are factories, they keep people clueless and so day after day, week after week, month after month people go back to the gym because they feel they need the gym. They feel they need the four walls, the endless lines of machines, to "get fit".

Bull-Shit.

Why are modern gyms like this? It's simple. Money. Keep people paying those dues month after month.

Bull-Shit.

A gym is a place you go to get stronger. If you want to get fit, run. If you want to get strong then find a gym that smells of sweat, metal, and bleach. Especially the bleach. Bleach is good.

That gym, should you find it, will be anything but bullshit.

You Don't Know Squat

THE SQUAT

Down this road, in a gym far away,

a young man was heard to say,

"no matter what i do, my legs won't grow"

he tried leg extensions, leg curls, and leg presses , too

trying to cheat, these sissy workouts he'd do.

from the corner of the gym where the big men train,

through a cloud of chalk and the midst of pain

where the noise is made with big forty fives,

a deep voice bellowed as he wrapped his knees.

a very big man with legs like trees.

laughing as he snatched another plate from the stack

chalking his hands and monstrous back,

said, "boy, stop lying and don't say you've forgotten,

the trouble with you is you ain't been SQUATTIN'. "

- By Dale Clark

I read that poem on a poster and loved it immediately.

Reshaping Myself

I've always been heavy. Husky is what they called it when I was younger. A politically correct term for a big gut and short legs. Now, I'm just heavy.

My diet is good, the fiancee has to eat no/low sodium so my blood pressure is really low, and my diet consists of a large amount of vegetables. Not that I mind. However, I am still heavy.

I train in Judo, I have taken a week and a half off due to having too much to do and too little time. My club, Bushido Kai Judo, is a decent sized not for profit Judo club in Penfield N.Y. a suburb of Rochester.

On top of my Judo training I've been using the Stronglifts 5x5 weight training program to help build muscle and loose weight.

Still, I am heavy.

So, the plan.

- Judo 3xWeek
- Stronglifts T/Th/Su

As far this is what I have been doing. Notice anything missing?

As a new addition in the battle against my waistline I'm going to start running with the missus. Either a H.I.I.T. style workout or slow-go cardio. Once I decide I'm going to weigh myself, set goals, and go to it.

Here's to hoping!

And no, round is not a shape.