It’s All About Progression: Push Ups

Beginners make a lot of mistakes when they first start lifting and it isn’t their fault. They see a workout in FLEX or SHAPE magazine and just go at it. Then their form is poor, they are complaining of soreness, and they don’t see results. Why? Because they don’t use progressions. Why start with reverse lunges or body-weight squats when you could be doing back squats with German volume training that promises 100 lb increase in your 1RM in 3 months? Same think with push ups to benching. I don’t let any of my untrained athletes and clients bench until they have shown proficiency in the push up. I mean they should be able to do 15 body weight push ups before I put them under the bar. Dumbbells are another case, but hopefully you are picking up what I am dropping you.

The Push Up

The horizontal press is another one of those movements that people tend to progress to rapidly. Should you really be joining in with your buddies on Bench Monday if you can’t do 12 bodyweight push ups? Probably not. What about doing dips, dumbbell press variations, or dumbbell flys? Oh yeah, and that brings me to my next point, stay the hell away from machines unless you want to get into bodybuilding (and can eat and train for it) or have a specific reason for doing so (training for EXTREME hugging does not count, although I am all for it).

Now let’s talk about the push up a little more before we continue. Personally I think it is in the argument when you talk about the top three exercises you can do for optimal strength, performance, and overall health promotion. Just for discussion (in the comments) I believe the other two are the single legged squat (or lunge) and the pull up and its variations.

How to do a perfect push up

Keep these things in mind when performing the push up:

• Keep a straight line from the back of your head to your heels.
• Keep glutes tight (will help you keep that straight line
• Chin tucked
• Don’t lead with your head
• Hands shoulder width apart (or more) and under your shoulders (don’t have your hands past your face when you are on the ground.
• 45-70 degree angle at the armpit
• Bring chest all the way to the ground for proper scapular retraction

Phase 1:

• Elevated Push Up (hand elevated)
  • If someone can not do push ups from the ground the best place to start is with their hands on a box or an elevated barbell in a rack. This way you can progress them by moving the bar in the rack closer to the ground or a shorter box.

Phase 2:

• Bodyweight Push Up
  • You should be able to complete a minimum of 12 push ups correctly before moving on

Phase 3 (Where the Fun Begins):

• 1-Legged Push Ups (Great for core and shoulder stability, I am a big fan of this as the first progression after bodyweight push ups)

• T-Pusp Ups
  • These are great for also addressing thoracic mobility as well.

• Feet Elevated Push Ups (12 inch box)

• Clap Push Up

Phase 4:

• Spiderman Push Up

• TRX Push Up
• TRX Atomic Push Up
• Slideboard Push Ups

• Valslide Push Ups

• Renegade Row

Spicing it Up

Now what if you have become a master of all of the push up variations and now you need more of a challenge that is where these come in play.

• Chains
• Band Resisted Push Ups

Now what are your favorite push up movements? I could go the rest of my lift just doing push ups… But I won’t… Because I love benching…

Flux Capacitor Friday (3/4/10)

What to hear something original? I am going to do a random thoughts post on a Friday. Can you believe it? Now hold on to your butts while we light this candle.

1. Here are a few sites you should be checking out on a regular basis. They have tons of great content and some even have a little humor as well to brighten your day.

• Mike Boyle’s Blog (Mike is always reading new stuff and writing about it. He just had a great post about goals recently, I recommend you check it out if you have a hard time with completing tasks and reaching your potential.
• LeighPeele.com (Since Leigh and I are sleeping together I guess I should give her a plug as well. Her recent post on body fat was pretty bad ass. Check it out)
• RobertsonTrainingSystem.com (Another Mike. He had a great post on Young Coaches the other day. A must read for anyone who wants to get into this industry. I kept my mouth shut for about 4 years while learning from the best and brightest in the industry before I was even able to have my own opinions and not just steal from others.)

Yeah, I left some people out, that is just what caught my eye this week.

2. Get Your Sh*T Together and Have a Plan

Do you have a plan? We only have a few months left until beach season, are you 8 weeks to being beach ready? No? Then write out a gameplan and stick to it. Don’t want to do that? Let someone else do it like with Leigh Peele’s Body By Eats or Bodyfat Troubleshoot. You can even drop $15 on a book that will get your ass into gear. Check out Tom Venuto’s “The Body Fat Solution” if you want to go the Amazon route.

3. Laugh Your Ass Off Sometimes

I think that we work TOO HARD sometimes and never take a second and relax. That is why I am going to post the following video for your enjoyment:

I laugh every…single…time.

4. Bioshock 2 is Fantastic

Yep, I am talking about a video game. When I have a few spare hours on the weekend I like to get in some gaming. To be honest I am just as passionate about video games as I am about the fitness and nutrition world. Does that make me a nerd? Yeah, sure. But I am sure some of you are just as into fishing, or gardening, or American Idol, or cars. I like video games and the video game industry.

This week I want to talk about Bioshock 2, the follow up to one of the best games (if not the best) of 2007. The sequel is not being made by the original developers (2K Boston/Irrational Games), but instead 2K Marin. This was cause for concern when gamers first heard about this, especially when the first game seemed like it didn’t need a follow up. I consider myself an ADD gamer and can only play for 30-60 minutes at a time before checking e-mail or watching a movie instead, but I was hooked! It took just about 9 or 10 hours to finish. Bioshock 2 delivered in every way including the story, the gameplay, and the fantastic soundtrack. If you were a fan of the first I highly recommend you check this one out. Next week I will talk about my favorite dead console, the Sega Dreamcast…

That is all for this week! Thanks for stopping by and checking out the random Friday content!

Random Tips of the Week: Desk Jobs and Fat Loss Methods

Sometimes I have some cool things to talk about, but they wouldn’t justify a whole blog post. That is where the random tips posts come in. I am not going to go too in depth on these, just some thoughts on diet, nutrition, training, and rehab.

1. If You Work a Desk Job, Do 2:1 Pull to Press.

This one should be pretty obvious. A large majority of people today have desk jobs, and for the guys, still tend to do too much horizontal pressing. You know the whole “Bench Monday” thing? And this is not just a postural thing. Many people wonder why their bench never goes up while their back and lats are proportionally weak compared to their chest. So, maybe do your barbell bench in the beginning, but throw in two row variations later on in the workout. Push ups are great too as it promotes scapular retraction and you can do some many progressions (coming up on Monday I will have an article on it). You can even super set the BB bench with a 1-arm DB row or a facepull. BONUS: A little thoracic mobility work wouldn’t hurt either.

2. Fat Loss: Train More to Eat More? Or Train Less, But Eat Less?

I don’t think we discuss this subject enough. Yeah, you have heard that, “you can’t out train a bad diet” a thousand times, but what about what is optimal for fat loss? A program where you are lifting 3-4 days a week with high intensity interval training along with a calorie deficit around 3500 cals/week? What about a 3-day full body program with some steady state walking on off days and a 7,000-8,000 Calorie deficit? Would we be able to retain most if not all of our muscle mass?

Do we have the answer? Has it been researched? Personally, I think it depends:

• How quickly do you want to lose weight?
• How important is it to train at a high intensity when it comes to your enjoyment?
• How much time do you have to dedicate to training each week?
• What have you done in the past and has it worked?

It is just a case of different strokes for different folks. Both will work if you have the calories, workout nutrition, macronutrient partitioning, and training down. Does one work better all things equal? In my experience with clients and personally, I would go with the lower calories, 3 day lift, and some steady state work on off days if they have their nutrition locked in. BUT!!! Remember, it does depend on their goals. I am just talking about looking good naked. Not deadlifting 400 pounds, or doing 40 pull ups, or having a 30 inch vert, or the ability to run a 6-minute mile.

Some of my clients just don’t want to eat protein at every meal and count calories. For them I take a little harder approach with the lifting and conditioning because I know they are fueling themselves to recover from it. For some of my male clients at least I can promise that they will put some muscle mass on and drop some bodyfat, it is just going to be a little slower.

I understand that everyone has their own different training and body composition philosophies. There is more than one ways to skin a cat, I guess I think we need to evaluate our clients and ourselves to determine which method will garner the best results.

It’s All About Progressions: Core

Beginners make a lot of mistakes when they first start lifting and it isn’t their fault. They see a workout in FLEX or SHAPE magazine and just go at it. Then their form is poor, they are complaining of soreness, and they don’t see results. Why? Because they don’t use progressions. Why start with reverse lunges or body-weight squats when you could be doing back squats with German volume training that promises 100 lb increase in your 1RM in 3 months? Same think with push ups to benching. I don’t let any of my untrained athletes and clients bench until they have shown proficiency in the push up. I mean they should be able to do 15 body weight push ups before I put them under the bar. Dumbbells are another case, but hopefully you are picking up what I am dropping you.

The Plank

This post I want to focus on the plank,  the most basic core stability exercises. I have a hierarchy of goals the athlete/client needs to meet before moving on to further progressions:

Phase 1

• 30 second front plank/15 second side plank (Per Side)
• Ability to do Pallof Presses properly in the tall kneeling position (weight will vary, I just want them to be able to stay tall and squeeze their glutes)

Phase 2

• 60 second Plank/30 second side plank (Per Side)
• Ability to do half-kneeling and standing Pallof Presses properly
• 12 kneeling rollouts on an exercise ball or TRX.
• Half Kneeling Cable Chops/Lifts

Phase 3

• 30 Second Feet elevated (FE) Plank (on 12″ box)/15 second FE Side Plank (per side)
• Ability to do 1 Legged Pallof Press
• Crawling Planks
• Rollout on Ab Wheel
• Landmines/Extreme Core Trainer
• Standing Cable Lifts

Phase 4

• Feet supported Side Plank
• Standing TRX Rollout
• Landmine/Extreme Core Trainer with Handles
• Band Resisted Rollouts

Phase 5

• Use your imagination

This is just what I go by and it can change based on other variables. But for the most part this is what you should go by for your own training and your clients.

Should We Care About Mainstream Media?

Do you get pissed off when you are eating your morning omelet and you see this on the tv:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

First off you have a, “Medical Correspondent” who clearly has never heard of HIIT until the morning of the broadcast. Seriously? I will never blame general practitioners of not know this stuff because their scope has to be so broad, but she was asked to talk about the subject and to give her opinion as an expert.

Her opinion was that (interval training), “is the uber workout.” This video isn’t the airing I saw live. Where the host asked her if shed used HIIT and she said something like, “No, but I will now!”

Personally, I think it is good that people are getting some info out there on HIIT and hopefully strength training. Even The Biggest Loser has had some beneficial moments with the sled training and kettle-bells. Just remember the source and the commentary that follows it.

My New Hotness: Good Earth Tea

I Love this tea. Seriously, I sleep with a box in my arms every single night, excited that in 6 or 7 hours I will get to drink it’s sweet and spicy, energy injecting goodness. I have never had a better tasting tea in my life. Green tea? I can live without it. Black tea is my new hotness…literally… Specifically Good Earth Original.

Brian St. Pierre actually turned me onto this stuff when I was visiting Cressey Performance a while back. When I smelled it I immediately asked what kind of tea it was. Brian went into the trash and got the wrapper for me so I could track the tea down and try it myself. He said that he bought his from Whole Foods, unfortunately, there isn’t a whole foods near my house so I tried four separate stores before ordering mine off Amazon.com. Amazon has a 6 box pack for under $20. Whole Foods sells the tea for $4/box. A pretty nice savings if I do say so myself. It is even cheaper if you subscribe (I have for 1 case/month).

Each serving is 3 calories and has about 50mg of caffeine. If you want to replace that morning cup of coffee with something different this would be a great alternative. Black tea has been shown to work as an anti-inflammatory in some studies as well . No sweetener is needed, trust me! Black tea is jam packed with antioxidants as well, like it’s green brother.

Good Earth also has a Caffeine Free version which tastes just as good. I am drinking a cup right now at 8:30pm. I really love this stuff. And please don’t stress out about 3 freakin’ calories.

Buy some, you won’t regret it.

Ask Kevin: Episode 1 (I Totally Copied Leigh Peele)

Download Episode 1 here: AskKevin001.mp3 (Right Click and Save-As to download)

It was bound to come eventually, I can’t shut the hell up, so I figured I would record it and share it. Here is episode 1 of my solo fitness and nutrition podcast that I will be releasing mid week as a companion to The FitCast. It will be 20-40 minutes covering diet, fitness, nutrition, rehab, workout music, Destination Abs stuff, Back to the Fut… OK, maybe a little off topic at the beginning is something particularly cool happens.

At this point I have no artwork, and the name is just temporarily until I can think of something brilliant and catchy (don’t hold your breath). Also the podcast isn’t on iTunes. If I get 1,000 downloads for episode 1 I will add it to the FitCast iTunes feed. EDIT: Added it to iTunes after 3 e-mails under The FitCast Feed. I caved early…

Here are the notes of the show:

NEWS

• KevinLarrabee.com
• T-shirts
• Kim’s Accountability

Questions

• Ever look at the Vegas Pro Straps vs TRX? Any advantage to not having a single point attachment like TRX? Thoughts?
• Should I be sore after every workout (except maybe times of deload)?
• Do thonkgs like spike really help workouts?  How should these energy drinks be used if at all? -Erin
• G’day kevin,
  just a question about your training. what kind of assistance work are you doing with 5/3/1? are you doing boring but big or assistance work you chose yourself?
  Also do you find that some lifts respond better to volume that others, or is that just me. my bench dies unless i’ve been hitting with twice a week with solid volume, 5×5 style, where as my deadlift only need one high intensity set to keep improving.
  thanks Harry
• Hey Kevin,
  Long time listener here. I was just wondering your thoughts on a couple of supplements I am planning on taking. I’ve been hearing a lot about the Animal brand of products and was wondering your opinion on them? As far as Animal Paks multi’s and then the Animal Cuts fat burners? I’ve heard positive things about them and was wanting to try them out. I’ve noticed BioTest has been out of Hot Rox for awhile and I’m wanting to help jump start my fat loss at the gym. Any comments would be greatly appreciated.
  -Jason
• What’s on your workout playlist -Dan

Off Season Soccer Training

On Episode 167 we got a question from Hannah about training for soccer. Jon and I had a little bit of a disagreement about what she should be doing. If you haven’t already, check out the podcast and let us know your opinion. Anyways, here is the article I told Hannah I would write.

When it comes to female high school soccer players, or high school athletes in general (just females more so because of their higher rate of ACL and MCL injuries) they tend to lack the lateral stability and endurance that is necessary for optimal performance and injury prevention. Mike Boyle wrote in his article titled, “ACL Injury Prevention Is Just Good Training,” that, “estimates run to over 100,000 ACL tears per year, with 30,000 of them high school age females.” So 30% of ALL ACL tears happen to high school females. That is a pretty astounding statistic. All thanks to the Q-Angle of the female hip.

Building a Solid Off Season Program:

During the podcast I argued that Hannah (the listener) should be focusing some of her time on lateral work. This includes

• lateral warmups
• ladder drills
• and lateral plyometrics

Of course she should also be focusing on a solid weight lifting program. Do your lunges, single legged squats and deadlifts, glute activation, and upper body work. My point was that if she has 75-90 minutes 2-3 times per week to train, she should have plenty of time to do all she needs to do.

I would only recommend you focus on the lateral aspect of the warm up and plyos every other session to make sure you still do some linear work. For example:

• Session 1 (Lateral)
  • Foam roll
  • lateral dynamic warmup: forward lunges, lateral lunge/squat, 3 direction SLDL, along with her upper body warm ups
  • Active warm up: side shuffle, carioca, ect
  • Ladder work
  • Lateral plyos (heidens, 1-leg later hops, ect)
  • medball/LIFT
• Session 2 (Linear)
  • Foam roll
  • Linear dynamic: walking lunges, toe touch squat to stands, and upper body (push ups, scap wall slides, reach roll and lift)
  • Linear Dynamic (part 2): butt kick pull backs, knee hugs, walking lunges, spiderman lunges, inch worms
  • Linear Active High knees skips, high knee run, butt kicks, back pedal, ect)
  • Linear plyos (box jumps, depth drops, ect)
  • medball/Lift
• Conditioning
  • Shuttles will be great for improving lateral movement speed and (when done correctly) teaching your body to decelerate.

I am not saying to do all of this, pick and chose and make a recipe that fits your training level, time of the year, and time you have for the session. Try to limit the hops to 20 each session. Also, keep in mind, this is just a basic outline for ideas, not a program.

Here are some videos of exercises and warm ups you should use:

(in regards to the video of me, make sure to land softly, toe then heal and stick the landing. You should be able to hold that position.

Welcome to My New Blogging Home

(Myself and Roger Lawson of http://www.roglawfitness.com 1uping Arnold and Carl Weathers)

So… I will be doing all of my blogging here now since TheFitCast.com is pretty busy with all of the Episodes, FitCast Accountability Blogs, Client Blogs, and Destination Abs. I wanted my own home for writing about training, nutrition, rehab, and some off topic stuff.

As you may have noticed from the last six months of so on the podcast, I have quite a bit to say now and voice my opinion on many topics. I am very lucky to have had learned from all of The FitCast guests, the hundreds of articles and blog posts from the best in the field I have read, my internship with Eric Cressey, my stint at a commercial gym, and currently at Mike Boyle Strength and conditioning. Also the whole Destination Abs project has taught me a lot about nutrition. I don’t mean just calorie recommendations, macronutritents, cycling, and supplements. I am talking about the psychological aspects of dieting. I have been there, and I know what it takes to reach your goals.

(Yep, Jason Statham is bad ass,)

My first post will be coming tomorrow in the form of a mini article about off season soccer training.