Jason Ferruggia has a new post about what kind of coach he is, and what kind of coach he isn’t.  He’s basically helping to define his own niche for anyone who doesn’t know what it is.

The fitness industry is just like any other industry – it’s a field of specialists who know what they are good at and what they aren’t good at, and then everybody else.  If you look for a trainer and they tell you “I do everything: bodybuilding training, fat loss, functional training, strength training, gymnastics, tennis training, yodeling, etc” … find a new trainer.

If you have a specific problem, go to the guy (or girl!) who specializes in fixing that exact problem.   Now, don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying your coach needs to be so tightly defined that he’s only got ONE focus.  But, anything more than 3 (maybe four), and we’ve got a problem.

One of Jason’s major points about himself is that he is not a “motivator”.

Here’s a quote from Jason:

If you want to sit around and eat donuts all day why would that possibly bother me? And why would I want to motivate you? I’m not Jenny Craig or Matt Foley the motivational speaker who lives in a van down by the river. What you do is your choice. Sure I will make fun of you, laugh at you and encourage others to do the same; but it’s your life, not mine.

If you are too stupid to realize that regular exercise and a healthy diet is a necessary part of life I’m not going to waste my time telling you. Get on some prescription drugs, order a sausage pizza and watch another episode of Friends.

OK, he’s WAY more intense than I am.  As you know, I’m a ridiculously mellow dude.  I meditate, I read books about Zen, I love ABBA and Romantic comedies, have seen every episode of Sex and the City (twice), and have a habit of laughing at all of my own jokes.  But, I am also NOT a motivational speaker.

Someone asked me recently what the name of my strength training company was, and I replied, “PDX Weightlifting.”

“Oh,” they said, “I think that would turn off a lot of people.”

I replied, “Yep.  And that’s the point.”

You see, I’m not a yeller.  I’m not like Jillian Michaels from the Biggest Loser.  I’m not here to call you up on the phone, get you off the couch, convince you that it’s time to workout, force you to work hard, and then nitpick you every step of the way.  There are trainers who do that for a living.  They’re great at it.  You need to be DEAD HONEST with yourself.  If you NEED a trainer to be your external motivator, then you need to hire one of these guys (actually, they’re usually girls).

I ain’t that guy.  I’m almost the opposite.  I’m way too relaxed.  In the gym, I’ll make sure you’re doing everything correctly, I’ll watch your lifts, I’ll discuss any and all topics you want to about your goals and progress.  But, I’ll also be cracking (bad) jokes and being very silly.  I do a great job of keeping the atmosphere exciting and fun.  That’s my personality.  And I expect everyone in my programs to stay positive and have fun while they workout, regardless of how hard it is.  NO whining – period. I have no tolerance for whining.   If you start wimping out, that’s you’re own problem.  And I’ll focus my energy of the folks who are working hard with a great attitude.

I won’t force you to do something you don’t want to.  If you say, “I can’t do it”, I’ll agree with you.  If you say, “it hurts”, I’ll tell you to stop or modify till it doesn’t hurt.  This is because when a truly motivated personal tells me this, it’s probably true! And I’m not going to make you do something that will result in injury.

Unfortunately, unmotivated people say these things as knee-jerk reactions to anything hard and as a result never push themselves hard enough to make any progress.

One of my favorite clients of all time is my client and friend Beth.  She’s been working out with me for a few years now, and in all of that time, I don’t think I have EVER heard her say the phrase “I can’t”.  This woman’s an animal.  She’s more than tripled her strength levels, gone from “skinny fat” to seriously lean, and looks and feels great.  (She regularly tells me about moving couches and other heavy shit up stairs by herself!)  All I do is show her the most efficient path toward her goals.  But, she’s the one who does all the work.  And boy, does she!

When my people tell me “it’s hard” or “what the HELL are you having me do?!”, or “I’m going to kill you for making me do this”,  they’re saying this as a badge of honor.  They do whatever I ask of them, and they work their butts off.  They may be cursing my name in the process … make no mistake!  But, they do it.

If you have no personal motivation, you have no business doing business with me because you WILL NOT get the results you want.  I’m a “lead the horse to water” coach.  You hire me when you want over a decades worth of knowledge, program design skills, solid real-world advice, a fun atmosphere, serious weight-training, and serious results.

Tony Robbins eating Peter Griffin!

If you need more motivation, buy some books by Tony Robbins.  And hey, once you’ve figured out your sh%t and decide you are ready to see the best results of your life and have a blast doing it, contact me and I’ll kick your butt with a big smile on my face.

I found this passage pretty funny from Jason’s post:

People ask me all kinds of questions when they find out what I do for a living.

“How do I lose this?” (grabbing a handful of a 48 inch waist)

“I don’t know.”

“How long should I do the stair climber for?”

“I don’t know.”

“I can’t give up carbs but I want to get lean. What should I do?”

“I don’t know.”

“I only have twenty minutes to train, twice a week. What should I do?”

“I don’t know.”

“I know you’re into all that heavy lifting but I can’t do that. What can I do instead?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m a girl and I don’t want to get too bulky so how should I lift?”

“I don’t know.”

“How do I get motivated to go to the gym?”

“I don’t know.”

By training, I am a competitive Olympic Weightlifting Coach.  THAT is what I do.  I train athletes and people who seriously want to train with an athletic intensity on weightlifting-based programs.  Every program I create is built through the lens of a weightlifting coach.

If you are someone who wants to be able to answer YES to that question box on your job application that says “can you lift 100 pounds?”, and then laugh that that sounds light, I’m your guy.

This can include lots of different people from lots of different backgrounds who have totally different end goals: obviously, competitive weightlifters; athletes in any “power sport” like baseball, football, golf; and fitness folks who want to be in the best shape of their lives and lose 20, 40, or more pounds of fat.  The commonality is clear.  All my people lift weights – hard.  That’s the glue.

If you come to me wanting to lose 20+ pounds of fat, I’m not going to take it easy on you just because you aren’t in a competitive power-sport.  I’m going to hammer you just like I would anyone else on heavy weightlifting exercises and make you ridiculously strong.  As you’re losing that 20 pounds of fat, you’ll keep all your muscle, you’ll in fact gain muscle, become “toned”, learn a bunch of cool exercises like the clean and snatch, front squats, deadlifts, etc.  And you’ll start being able to perform in a way you never have before in all of your life.

The great physicist Richard Feynman once said that he approached every problem with only 6 tools.  Whenever a problem came up, he looked in his tiny little tool box, and tried all 6 of those tools on it.  If that didn’t work, he switched to a new problem.

I’ve found that there are things that I can coach at a high level given the tools that I have and things I can’t.  These are the ONLY things I do – 1) Competitive weightlifting; 2) power-sport training; 3) extreme fitness training.    3 things.  That’s it.  I’m great at these things.  But, if you want to become the most kick-ass marathon runner of all time … you’ll need to find someone else.  That just isn’t what I do.

This particular quote sounds very much like my own way of approaching coaching (hey, that rhymed!):

Often times people will tell me that they want to train with me and that I if they hire me or come to my gym I really need to push them. No, I don’t. You need to push yourself. You’re hiring me for my program design skills which are based on 16 years of experience. I am not a cheerleader. Any nitwit can yell at someone like a drill sergeant. Just because a workout is hard doesn’t mean it’s effective. Just because a coach yells loudly it doesn’t mean he’s smart.

If you can’t find it within yourself and are not driven to excel, there is nothing I can do for you.

I’ll give hard working, motivated, intelligent people everything I have. But for everyone else I have no time or patience. I know this offends many people. But it’s just me being honest.

I feel very lucky.  I have a great set of people to work with.  They all come in, work hard, joke around, have fun, and get into great shape.  Not a bad job.

From the Hagakure, The Book of the Samurai by Yamamoto Tsunetomo:

In one’s life, there are levels in the pursuit of study.  In the lowest level, a person studies but nothing comes of it, and he feels that both he and others are unskillful.  At this point he is worthless.  In the middle level he is still useless but is aware of his own insufficiencies and can also see the insufficiencies of others.  In a higher level he has pride concerning his own ability, rejoices in praise from others, and laments the lack of ability in his fellows.  This man has worth.  In the highest level a man has the look of knowing nothing.

These are the levels in general.  But there is one transcending level, and this is the most excellent of all.  This person is aware of the endlessness of entering deeply into a certain Way and never thinks of himself as having finished.  he truly knows his own insufficiencies and never in his whole life thinks that he has succeeded.  he has no thoughts of pride but with self-abasement knows the Way to the end.  It is said that Master Yagyu once remarked, “I do not know that way to defeat others, but the way to defeat myself.”

Throughout your life advance daily, becoming more skillful than yesterday, more skillful than today.  This is never ending.

Check out this site written (in english) by a group of Malaysian Olympic Weightlifters called Lift Hard: The Asian Weightlifting Site. They’ve got a number of great articles, including this gem.

As many of you know, I lived in Japan for a number of years as a child (read about my odd food cravings here), and my parents lived there for close to 30 years.  I have a particular affinity for Asia.  My comfort foods growing up were not Mac and Cheese, but Sushi, Sukiyaki, and Yakiimo.

It’s great to see a well-run site by a group of dedicated lifters in Asia.  I wish them luck.

ExRx has an interview with Glenn Pendlay here. In it he covers all kinds of stuff including a discussion about some of his athletes (including a 60 year old masters world champion), his own history, and training philosophy.

Important quote:  “The quicker you are, the less strong you have to be to make the same lift.”

He also discusses how there is no such thing as any one exercise to measure how strong someone is.

Sarah Bertram and Jessica Gee got 1st in the 69’s and 4th in the 63’s, respectively, at Nationals this year.  Both of them are from here in Oregon.

Both are also coached by Tom Hirtz, a legend in his own right.  My club competes against their club all the time, and it’s fantastic to see the two of them doing so well.  They both work extremely hard, and are genuinely cool people.  Congratulations!

Here’s a news story about them from KEZI news Eugene, OR. It includes shot of them practicing, and interviews.

In Part 1 of this series I highlighted 3 major myths about womens weightlifting. The First was that lifting weights would make you bulky. Not true. The Second was that Women should use Machines, not Free weights. False. And the Third was that Girls should just do cardio, cause it’s better for your health. Again, not true.

Those were the 3 that I hear the most often. But, the ones below are out there, and are worth dispelling.

MYTH 3: Lifting Weights will make women infertile.

This one is wild, but I’ve heard it more than once. It probably stems from the Gymnastics world where girls are kept at such a low body fat level that they never reach puberty. If you are a post-pubescent girl, ultra low body fat is likely not your first problem.

In fact, weightlifting will contribute heavily to your overall health and well being. Research shows that physically active women are MORE fertile and have MUCH healthier children.

Myth 4: Girls should do High reps to “tone” their muscles.

Much more common than the last myth is this one. It’s become so ubiquitous with womens weight training programs that it seems like a scientific fact. But, it isn’t.

First of all, there is no such thing as “Toning” your muscles. Muscles can get stronger, weaker, bigger, or smaller. That’s it. “Tone” simply refers to the layer of fat covering the muscle. And while weightlifting with relatively heavy weights will pay big dividends on that front, high reps won’t.

Women are far better off in the 4 to 8 rep range, than the usual 12-20 and up BS that they usually do. When Dieting it is even more important to use lower rep ranges and heavier weights, because those ranges preserve muscle. If you diet and lift in the 20 rep range, you’ll lose muscle along with fat. And then when you’ve stopped dieting, you’ll get even fatter than you were to start out with.

Myth 5: Once you stop weightlifting, your muscles will turn into fat.

This is one I get from the guys too. And it’s absolutely ridiculous. Muscles and Fat are TOTALLY different in your body and there is NO research that comes even close to saying anything like “muscle turns to fat” or “fat turns to muscle”. The point is that you gain muscle, and then lose fat, or vise versa.

This myth probably comes from looking at ex high school football players. They were large muscular men in high school, and now that they’ve turned 50, they’re tubby. Of course, no one mentions how inactive they’ve been over the last 30 years.

Second, you shouldn’t ever be quiting lifting anyway. You should never be in a position where you are choosing not to exercise. If you get fat when you are inactive, it’s the inactivity that caused it.

There are an endless supply of myths concerning women and weight training. And I have only highlighted 6 of them. But, they are the most common. In time I’ll discuss more.

See Part 1

Myths of Womens Weightlifting, Part 1

(See Part 2 Here)

We humans are an animal that has Survived, in part, because of our ability to learn from others, and apply that knowledge to our own lives. From fire to the Wheel, we’ve built on the knowledge of one another, and taken our species to ever grander heights. Unfortuanately, in our effort to not reinvent the wheel, we rely on eachother to be honest, and correct, in the information they relay to us.

Whether I’m training men or Women, there is always an initial stage of Re-education. I can’t call it education, because that would imply a clean slate. And My clients have rarely if ever come to me from that preferred vantage point. Instead, they come with preconceived notions about what constitutes good eating, good training, and good living.

And they believe this because they’ve been taught it from people they trust. The trouble is that the information is wrong. If it were supposed to be a wheel, it’d look like a square.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not so naive as to believe that all preconceived notions are inherently false or bad (I’m naive for other reasons). But, some of the ideas swimming in the minds of many of you out there with regards to weight training, and what effects it has on you, and in what way, are patently vile.

The Myths seem to also come with a gender bias. Women are faced with a wholly different set of concerns than are men (in MOST cases, this isn’t meant to be an exhaustive statement). As such, the information they seek out, and get, is of a different nature. (of course, there is overlap).

I’m going to go out on a limb, and say that the BULK of the training knowledge being spouted off by people in the gym is at best only ½ the story, and at worst TOTALLY false.

Of course, you can’t blame them. The magazines dedicated to the gym-culture are nearly all crap. And at the top of the heap of crap is FLEX magazine. The one with all the huge Pro Bodybuilders on it.

If you could do one great thing for your body and life, it would be to look at one of the proposed routines in FLEX, take their advice to heart, then do the exact OPPOSITE.

In truth, there is little or no science behind any of their advice. It’s made up. Period.

But, the culture of bodybuilding (and the fiction associated with it) has become so ingratiated into the new gym culture, that there is now no separating out fact from fiction.

To complicate matters, there was a time in our not too distant Past when even the medical community was convinced that training with weights was BAD for you. They were sure that it would give you a heart attack, make you “muscle bound”, slow you down, etc (more on this later).

Thankfully, now-a-days, the world of science, through diligent testing, and research is realizing in fact that weight training is among the most important parts of any successful health building routine, and down right essential for changing body composition.

But the Myths remain. In this series I’ll examine some myths I often hear from Women. (I’ll eventually do one about the men, who’s myths are often even more wild and outlandish).

MYTH 1—Lifting Weights makes you Bulky and look like a Man!

This is by far the most commonly heard myth given when a woman is worried about starting a weight training routine. It is saturated in the minds of the female public. And it is often crippling. Women are so worried about weight gain, and looking “big” and “Manly”, that they avoid the one thing that will help them the most to look “Small” and “Feminine”.

Bad Bad move!

To Debunk this myth, we need to break it down.

The main argument is that their muscle size will increase and therefore increase the size of their overall “look”. There is some truth to this. But it misses the point. Of course, if you increase the size of your muscles, and everything else (fat mass) stays the same, then you’ll get bigger.

But, this isn’t how it works. In the real world. When you increase muscle size, you increase your metabolism, which aids in burning fat off of your body. You get leaner and less fat.

The second argument, is that it will make you weigh more. Also partly true. Muscle weighs more than fat. But muscle is Denser than Fat. Which means, that 2lb’s of muscle is smaller than 2lb’s of fat.

Of course, the weight gain is part of it. When you lift weights, your bone density increases. That is, your bones get stronger, a lot stronger. You can’t see it, but it’s happened. You are at less risk for osteoporosis, fractures, breaks, etc. And, yes, this makes them (and you) weigh more. But, is that a bad thing when you LOOK better? Get off the scale, it says nothing about how you LOOK.

The most important reason for lifting weights is not even the muscle gain, but the act of lifting itself. When you do a form of High Intensity Training (like weight training), you actually raise your metabolism for up to 24 hours! That’s right, for 24 hours you are burning more calories than you would have had you not trained with weights.

None of that “heart-zone” cardio shit you’ve been doing will give you that benefit. When you do high intensity exercises like weight training (and intervals, hill running, sprinting, etc), you end up causing more general fatigue to your body. It also breaks down slightly your muscles, which in turn requires your body to repair them (takes energy, calories). You body must replenish ATP stores, remove acid and other metabolic by-products. And restore Glycogen (the fuel you body uses to exercise).

All of this is energy intensive, and keeps your calorie burning furnace going long after you leave the gym

In the end, that means you will NOT look bulky, you will look lean, and fit.

And the last one is the most ridiculous and related to the first. You WILL NOT look like a man unless you take steroids. It isn’t possible. The average man has up to 10 times as much Testosterone running through his body than you, and he doesn’t even look like much of a man. To get truly huge, bulky muscles requires years of dedication, a solid workout routine, perfect diet, and gobs of Testosterone.

You can and should build muscle. But, you’ll never look like a man without hormone therapy. Sorry.

You will, however, look more feminine.

So, lets just remind ourselves of a short list of benefits of weight training:

1. Increased strength and ability to get around

2. Increased bone density, decreased risk of osteoporosis

3. Reduce arthritis pain

4. Reduce Back and shoulder pain

5. Increased metabolism

6. Lowered body fat percentage

There are many, many more.

MYTH 2—Women should use machines, not Free weights

TRUTH: No-one other than the decrepit, and severely injured should ever bother at all with machines. I make exceptions for cables, and a few others, but by and large, your entire routine should consist of free weight movements.

You are human. Being a Man or a woman is not going to change that much how you physiologically respond to a given stimulus. There are differences of course: The higher Testosterone levels of Men means that they have a higher plateau point generally, and sometimes means they can recover faster than women. But, the Stimulus used is very close to the same.

In fact, because of the fact that women have less stable joint cavities than men, free weight training is even more imperative, because it builds balance strength. It trains the little stabilizer muscles that don’t get worked on a machine.

Research has shown that machines cause MORE injury than free weights, because they force your body to conform to the movement pattern of the machine, rather than your own. No machine is one size fits all. We are all shaped slightly different. Free weights allow our bodies to move in their natural pattern, without mechanical hindrance.

MYTH 3—Cardio is better for your Health

Wrong. At least not steady State cardio. (for an Article on the kind of Cardio you should be doing, check out this Article by Keith Scott).

A Harvard Allumni Health study, followed 17,000 men for 4-years, and found that only VIGOROUS—NOT moderate—exercise reduced risk of death. There is very good reason to believe this study would apply to women, as the cardio vascular systems of both sexes are nearly identical.

Hard and Heavy weight training that includes circuits, and super sets will be far better for your health than slow paced heart-zone cardio. Add in Sprints, and intervals, and you’re golden.

There you have (my rather long) first installment. I will debunk more myths in Part 2. Until then, lift heavy!