Strong-Blog

Blog Posts

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Hard Truths on A Hard Day

Article 27/09/2024

It doesn’t get easier you just get stronger.

What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.

Suffering is universal. Endure.

Hard Reps build testicular fortitude.

There is no courage without fear.

To learn to fight you must fight.

The will, energy & desire to fight can improve most situations.

Nobody makes it out alive. Give them hell.

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A Call to Strength

Article 15/05/2024

Now more than ever before there is a need for strong men and women. These days we’re seeing a more and more diluted representation of what’s valued in society. Strength and resilience are being pushed aside as we enter an era of slipping standards and participation ribbons.

Over the last few years there’s been a noticeable softening of societal standards of what’s acceptable. We see pyjama boys being embraced and encouraged whilst more traditionally masculine characteristics are classed as “toxic”. I don’t know the true cause behind this change, but I do know you don’t have to accept it.

Never in the history of mankind have weaker men and women been celebrated. I’m unsure as to what the driver is, maybe we have it too easy and are just slipping back into a dull overly medicated comfort, maybe the powers that be just want you weak, weak people do tend to be more compliant. Maybe as a society we’ve just forgotten what it is to do hard things. Whatever the instigator you have a simple choice to make. Do I want to be strong or do I want to be weak.

Are you going to sit back with that anti-anxiety prescription your doctor gave you after a 2-minute consultation, doom scrolling the latest social media nonsense and hiding from the challenges life throws at you? Your choice. The path of least resistance can be tempting. It’s warm, it’s comfortable, but it’s also weak.

You must choose; do you want to be strong? Strong for your kids, your family and your community?

6 months of consistent strength training can make you physically stronger than most people you’ll come across day to day. At the time of writing this it’s the beginning of Summer 2024 if you started today, you would be surprised just how much stronger you could be by the end of the year.

A friend of mine recently asked me a simple question; “would I be able for that?”. He was referring to barbell training and the answer to this question was emphatically yes.

A good training programme will meet you exactly where you are and plan out a way to where you want to be. Strength training can be adjusted, modified and tailored to almost anyone’s needs. If you can stand up, sit down, pick things up off the floor and lift your arms over your head, you can train for strength. The load can start as light as you need it to be. The process remains the same. Take basic movement patterns such as the squat, deadlift and press and load them. Then add just a little weight each time you train. It’s that simple. What have you got to lose?

We all know deep down the things we should be doing. We should eat better, maybe drink less alcohol, we should take time with our families, we should train, we should add 5lbs a workout, we should save a little bit of cash each month, we should stay on top of our typical daily chores etc, etc, etc. Trouble is often times we just don’t want to. We get too busy, we get distracted, we get lazy, and things start to slide.

I heard something recently that resonated with me, I’m paraphrasing but it went something like this: “You can either live with the pain of discipline or face the pain of regret. Now discipline that weighs ounces but regret, that weighs tonnes”. If we take care of the simple, seemingly minor disciplines on a daily basis, the bigger stuff seems to look after itself. As you become stronger, more resilient, improve your capabilities, and increase your general fortitude those daily trials and tribulations seem to become less and less of an issue. Don’t get me wrong life will still kick you in the balls every once and awhile, but those balls of yours just might be a little more robust with some regular strength training.

The message is simple, there are probably a hundred other things you’d rather be doing right now. The truth is you know what you SHOULD be doing. Stop procrastinating and get it done. This is your call to strength.

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Strong

Article 12/04/2024

What is it to be strong? Is it a big total at a powerlifting meet? Maybe it is lifting more than your buddies at your local gym? For some it’s the ability to walk up the stairs again, to play with their grandchildren or just to get out of bed to use the toilet in the middle of the night without needing to rely on someone else to assist them.

Strength looks different to people depending on their current circumstances. When your young and healthy you take it for granted and most do not fully understand its importance. Like most worthwhile things in life, it’s not until after it’s gone that you realise its true value.

Not too many years ago I had to visit an elderly friend in hospital. He’d gone in for a routine test after finally being nagged into submission by his wife and kids to get a niggling pain in his leg looked at.

I remember walking in through the hospital gates and seeing a frail woman with an oxygen bottle on one of those little trollies outside the hospital door. She was fumbling with a lighter as she attempted to light a cigarette. Old habits die hard I suppose.

As I approached the section of the hospital my friend was in, I attempted to find a nurse or some member of staff to assist me in locating his bed. After a period of walking around looking through the little windows on the doors, I eventually found him. The nurses proved harder to locate maybe off dealing with some emergency elsewhere.

When I did eventually manage to find him though, I could see that he was in some distress. After some coaxing, he finally told me that he needed to use the bathroom, but he just couldn’t muster the strength to get out of bed. I smiled at him and helped him out, “no big deal let’s get you sorted” I said. At that moment one thing really struck me, I could see a look of shame and what I perceived as regret in his eyes.

After the excursion to the hospital ward bathroom was complete, we sat and talked for a little while. He told me how the pain in his leg turned out to be stage 4 cancer. Apparently, it had originated in his lungs and spread throughout the body. The irony of this was he had quit smoking only a couple years previously, but it was just too little too late. Life likes to kick you in the balls every once and awhile.

The illness had left him weak and feeble, with his everyday basic necessities, the kind that we all take for granted, transformed into mammoth tasks that he just could not undertake alone. He said the following words “we are the sum of our habits, and those little bastards will catch up with you”.

This was the last conversation I had with my friend before his passing. As I turned to leave his room and head home that night, I said “look after yourself I’ll see you again”. He nodded and said the same to me but we both knew it wasn’t true.

On the drive home I began to think to myself, what are my habits and where will they leave me?

Let’s face it nobody makes it out of this life alive but what quality of life can you expect from your habits? Will you slowly decline as your body atrophies into oblivion? Until the daily activities you don’t even notice are just no longer realistic tasks for you to complete? Or maybe you’ll do what you can. Maybe you will continue to train. To gain strength and build healthy useful body mass for as long as possible.

When we train for gradual strength improvements over time, we are actively fighting against the natural physical decline that all people encounter.

We’ve all heard the phrase “age gracefully” what does this mean though. Do we just accept our inevitable decline, or do we wake up and begin the fight to hold onto that quality of life we tend to take for granted when we are young. Surely maintaining your independence as you age is about as graceful as you can be?

How do we do this? Take the basic human movement patterns and load them. The ability to squat down and stand back up, to pick things up off the floor, put things above your head and push things away from you. These are fundamental movements that we do every day. By training the squat, deadlift, overhead press and bench press you get stronger for everyday life. Functional training at its finest.

Strength is also a very persistent adaption, the strength you build today will be there for you tomorrow. Most of us have pensions, savings accounts etc in our attempts to prepare for the future, don’t neglect the greatest asset you have. Without the basic strength to function when you retire that financial cushion won’t do you a whole lot of good.

At the beginning of these ramblings, I asked the question “What is it to be strong?”. For me being strong is the ability to live the kind of life I want to live, and on my own terms as much as reasonably possible. To me that’s worth investing in.

For the most part it doesn’t really matter what your current situation is, if you still have the basic functionality to squat down and stand back up, to pick things up off the floor, put things above your head and push things away from you can improve upon them. After all it’s in your DNA. We adapt to stress. It’s basic human physiology and It’s why we are still here. Start the process, apply a little stress to these basic movement patterns, eat and sleep enough to recover and adapt. Build your habits now because one day those little bastards just might catch up to you.

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Cold Fury

Article 04/04/2024

How do you approach your workouts when things get hard? Do you complain? Do you bitch about it? Do you procrastinate and put it off? Maybe you get mad? Maybe you get aggressive? I like that.

Let’s face it though the barbell will always win in the end. One day you will brace, take a step back, drop into the hole and not be able to lift the weight. Do you accept defeat before the battle is fought or do you pursue your goal of strength with cold fury.

The mental side of this can mess with you. Life gets busy, stress increases and the last thing you want to do is go and squat heavy.

Don’t spend your time worrying as the weights get more challenging, dreading your next workout, making up excuses in your head, telling yourself maybe you’ll just go on a cut and do some bodybuilding shit.

Train, eat, sleep and recover as best you can to prepare for the next session. When dealing with a hard block of training remember this. You’ve prepared for this moment. You’ve done the work, made the sacrifices and enjoyed the process at the same time. Lift the weight.

Maybe it’ll go or maybe it won’t. Either way you’ll learn something valuable about yourself. Did you have the balls to try.

It’s important to accept that the things that make a difference are difficult. If you want to improve you need to be willing to do hard things. Voluntary hardship will refine you.

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Not Today!

Article 04/01/2024

It’s early, the pillow feels soft, the bed feels warm, your tired, your unmotivated and you just don’t want to do it. This feeling hits us all from time to time. You may even have that little voice telling you “You deserve a break, you’ve been working damn hard”, or “One day off won’t hurt” etc etc etc. These are lies. Your mind is playing tricks on you. When faced with this or similar I tell myself one thing. “Not today”. I’m not saying don’t listen to your body we all need a break every now and then. What I’m saying is don’t let that voice, that inner weakness, decide when it’s time.

When you practise your daily disciplines and do what you planned to do that voice gets quieter and easier to ignore. It fades into the background and rears it’s head less and less. Don’t let that voice stand in the way of progress. Just remember NOT TODAY!

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Get Your Head Right!

Article 03/01/2024

Steady, linear, quantifiable progress is rarely available. However, If you are new to barbell training that is exactly what is on the table for you. The length of this window of opportunity will vary but generally 3 to 6 months of fast, steady progress is standard before the need for any real complication.

Train the big compound movements, add a little weight each time you workout and recover before your next session. It’s simple and effective. Train hard and recover harder for this period and you will make great progress rapidly. Don’t sacrifice your sleep and do not be afraid to eat. Your body needs the fuel. If your have the right mentality approaching this and are willing to add weight to the bar, sleep enough and eat enough you can make more progress over the next 3 to 6 months that you would ever suspect.

I was working out for almost two decades before I came across this method. I though I had peaked already. How wrong was I. Over the course of the 1^st 6 months of training my squat went from 80kgs to 140kgs, my deadlift went from 90kgs to 160kgs, Bench from 70kgs to 120kgs and over head press from 50kgs to 70kgs. In just 6 months my squat and deadlift had doubled. These number were not rare and continue to increase far beyond this initial milestone but at a much slower pace.  The initial phase of training is an opportunity to make fantastic progress quickly. Get your head right and embrace the process. You are capable of far more than you realise.

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Another Year, Another Resolution

Article 02/01/2024

I see a lot of people begin their fitness journey this time of year. I also see a lot of people fail. They hit the ground running they are motivated and yet after about 3 weeks they have fallen off and reverted to some version of the previous lifestyle that they wanted to change.

Why does this happen? Often, it’s a lack of progress. They hit the gym they exercise hard and end up a little sore and looking about the same as they started. This is because they are exercising and not TRAINING. A training stimulus involves incrementally increasing the workload to bridge the gap between where you currently are and where you want to be.

A great example of this is a barbell-based strength training program that incrementally loads the basic human movement patterns. In my experience this has proved time and time again to be the most effective way to illicit change to the body.

How do we do this? Here are my top 3 tips for success when starting a lifting programme.

1.Start with a small number of exercises that will give us the most bang for our buck ( I like the Squat, Deadlift, Overhead press, bench press and some chin ups, I rarely do more than these basic compound exercises).

2.Start at a reasonable load not too heavy not too light (Remember soreness is not the goal or an indication of progress you should never be so sore you are unable to return to the gym for your next session).

3.Add a little bit of weight each workout. Just a small amount of weight added to the bar (1-2.5kgs per lift) will help you to take advantage of the stress recovery adaptation cycle. This is the driver of progress once I learned about this, I made consistent progress workout to workout.

One last thing, good luck and remember: be smart, be consistent & be disciplined. The results will be reward enough and may just provide you with what’s required to keep going. Good Luck!

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Do What you Can

Article 22/12/2023

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Maybe not for your training. This time of year it can be hard to stay on track, my suggestion is simply do what you can, eat well and drink deep.

If it’s just not possible to get your training in enjoy the Christmas break you earned it. If you can get something done it’s a great time to train. I find I’m generally over fed and more well rested this time of year which is ideal if you want to lift heavy and hit some new records. Either way you decide to go enjoy it.

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Uncovering Consistent Progress

Article 15/12/2023

Sometimes the path to the goals we are chasing is unclear. This is generally due to focusing on a final goal off in the distance as opposed to looking at the next step that’s right in front of us. Take the obvious step and you’ve moved forward to find that the next small step forward is also clear. This simple approach can get you further than you think. In doing this you will also learn not to overthink it and when it’s appropriate to deviate your current approach. This should be done only as required.

Let’s take a training example, say your current squat is somewhere around 100kg for 3 sets of 5 but your goal is 200kg for 3 sets of 5. Your next obvious step is going to be 3 sets of 5 at 102.5kg. If this goes well and you can complete all the work with solid form, then 105kg becomes the next obvious step based on the data you uncovered by completing the workout. You can follow this approach for quite a while once you’re eating and sleeping enough to ensure recovery.

There will come a time when the data you uncover from your workout informs you it’s time to make an adjustment. You may miss a rep etc, this happens we are only human. Do not deviate from the simplest path until it’s necessary. When it’s necessary to make an adjustment, the questions are simply do I need more work or do I need more recovery to drive the strength adaptation. Once you know the answer to this your next step becomes clearer. You make the minimum change required to either the work or the recovery that will encourage progress again. If we consistently focus on the simple steps that are right in front of us, they will reveal the path to consistent progress. Don’t overthink it just get the next obvious step done.

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Push Harder

Article 06/12/2023

The concept of training to me is a very simple one. Essentially you need to continue to push harder. If you continue to push just a little bit harder each time you train you signal to your body that it needs to grow.

This concept has knock on effects on your mentality and how you deal with your day to day trials and tribulations also. If you refuse to push past the general resistance you face when trying to accomplish your goals you will never achieve them. You don’t need to solve every issue but if you look at your current challenges and think “what CAN I do?” you may just find there are problems you can solve.

It’s not supposed to be easy. Push Harder!

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The Sum of Our Choices

Article 04/12/2023

We all face hundreds of small choices every day. Will I get out of bed or hit the snooze button. Will I have a decent breakfast of just skip it, will I make a coffee or just grab some shitty energy drink on my way to work. Etc Etc etc.

We sometimes fall prey to the idea that these simple, seemingly meaningless choices don’t matter. To some extent this is correct. On their own, individually they really don’t. The issues arises when we combine them together. Day after day. You may find the choices you’ve been making have lead you to a place you don’t want to be.

This is OK too. Once we realise that we have the power to make the necessary changes the possibilities are endless. Start with small thing and build on this. These small seemingly minor disciplines will compound into a positive life change. You know the things you should be doing. Start small and build upon them. Who knows where the sum of your choices will lead you.

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Perseverance

Article 01/12/2023

This week I hit a squat pr of 3 sets of 5 @ 189kg. I’ll stick the video on the “Current Prs” page for anybody interested. Now it’s taken me 11 months to hit this, due to injuries that happened outside of the gym, but based on how this moved my next squat workout will be 3 sets of 5 @ 190kg and I’ll proceed on this basis until I have reason to make adjustments to my programming.

The reason I’m bringing this up is that 11 months is a long time for a lot of people. Some people change their entire routine every few weeks. From my experience I have noticed the progress is directly linked to perseverance. If you are consistent make smart jumps and trust the process, you will make progress.

This progress will be very fast initially you can literally add weight every time you train, which means every time you train you are getting stronger. This progress will slow, nobody can make progress forever, but if you persevere and keep going there will be victories still to be had.

Keep at it, sometimes progress requires perseverance.

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Maybe

Article 27/11/2023

Maybe you’re overreaching.

Maybe your just too busy.

Maybe this just isn’t for you, I mean it’s not for everyone right?

Maybe it’s just too much.

Maybe your kids didn’t sleep last night.

Maybe you’re going through some shit right now.

Maybe life is hard.

Maybe your boss hates you.

Maybe your car won’t start.

Maybe the weather is just too bad.

Maybe you’re fighting with your significant other.

Maybe you’re up since 4am.

Maybe you’re feeling sorry for yourself.

Maybe the last thing you want to do right now is train.

There will always be numerous reasons why hitting your goals just doesn’t seem possible, but maybe, just maybe, YOU WON’T QUIT!

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5 point Plan

Article 21/11/2023

1. Plan your workouts ahead of time, with a goal in mind. Meet yourself where you are and plan out a route to where you want to be.
2. Once you have a plan stick to it. Don’t do more don’t do less – stick to your plan.
3. Work outside the gym is just as important as work inside the gym, eat well and sleep so you are recovered for your next session.
4. Consistency is key don’t chop and change your goals every other week. Set a reasonable amount of time aside to accomplish your goal.
5. Enjoy the process. It’s great hitting a target but don’t stop there. Once you realise you can hit one target your perspective begins to change. You’ll begin to realise that where you once saw limitation you now see opportunity. Most of us never come anywhere close to our true potential. Set a reasonable goal and build upon your own success.

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Build Muscle & Lose Fat???

Article 20/11/2023

It’s common for people starting out on their training journey to have some unspecific goals. A common theme I come across is people wanting to gain muscle and lose fat. Now this is a fair goal to have starting out but the issue with it is that it’s actually 2 goals that contradict each other.

If you want to gain muscle, you need to gain weight, and all weight gain will consist of a % of both muscle and fat. This % can be skewed using training and dietary intake but all weight gain will consist of both muscle & fat.

Now rather than just shitting on your goals let’s take a look at both and map out a rough idea of the process.

Build Muscle

The most efficient way I have found to build muscle is train heavy compound lifts (eg: Squat, Deadlift, Bench Press & Press) in an intelligent and progressive manner. We need a weight that is heavy enough to disrupt homeostasis and drive and adaptation. I like sets of around 5 reps for this for a few reasons. A weight you can do for 5 reps is heavy enough to cause an adaptation, it’s not so heavy that minor form issues will cause you to fail the lift (a slight deviation in bar path on a limit set will result in a missed rep, generally minor form issues on a sub-maximal load can be muscled through) and it’s not so light that your workout is more of a conditioning session. If you take a workout like this and increase the weight by a reasonable amount each time you are creating a training stimulus that will promote growth. All you need to do is eat enough to give your body what it needs to build. Get your protein in and don’t be afraid of carbs or fats you need all 3.

This method works and what I love about it is you’ll know your making progress simply because the weight on bar is going up. (Assuming form is consistent).

Lose Fat

OK, first things first, if you want to lose weight you need to be in a calorie deficit. Burn more calories than you take in and you will lose weight. It’s simple maths. It’s important to realise that just like weight gain, weight loss will consist of a % of both fat & muscle mass. Again this can be skewed in your favour by the work you do in the gym and the type of food you are eating.

A simple plan to get started here is to track you food intake for a week to calculate your baseline. Reducing you baseline calorie intake by around 300 calories a day should produce a weight reduction of about a pound a week. Keep lifting the same way and make programming adjustment only as required and also keep your protein intake high. This will skew your weight loss in favour of burning fat rather than muscle.

A couple of clarification here on the fat loss. If you are in a calorie deficit your lifts will probably go down. By reducing your calorie intake you are reducing your bodies ability to recover. You are essentially becoming artificially advanced and slowing your ability to make progress. Also if you are cutting I wouldn’t recommend staying in a deficit for longer than 3 months. Lose what you can in that time then return to maintenance calories for a couple months before attempting to cut again. This gives your body time to adapt to the change and will help prevent metabolic issues, (Your body doesn’t want to lose the weight it’s a change your forcing.)

Now before finishing I’d just like to clarify something. If your main goal is to improve the way you look. Getting your lifts up is the foundation for this. For example when you get your deadlift up over 200kg you won’t look the same. Your shoulders are broader, Your upper back is thicker, forearms are stronger, hips are deeper, abs are firmer. The fastest route to change is going to be increasing your strength in most cases. If you are overly concerned with losing fat you may just be spinning your wheels and never really see the progress you are capable of. Think carefully and choose wisely.

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Do What You Can

Article 15/11/2023

Life at present has become just a little chaotic. It seems everywhere you turn there are problems that do not have obvious solutions. When faced with situations like this one thing I like to remember is that there is no point in worrying about the things I cannot control. Stop take a breath and assess the situation. Look for the things you can do and get to it. When you really look most things can be broken down into a series of simpler tasks.

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Resistance Training Your Mind

Article 13/11/2023

Whether we like to admit it or not we all face similar obstacles. Personal life issues, work life challenges, economic stresses. The nature of our obstacles may differ but one thing’s for certain we all have our fair share. The difference between success and failure in most things is how we deal with these elements of resistance.

It’s very easy to put your goals on the back burner because of whatever issue has arisen at that time. We’ve all been there – as life gets busier there seems to always be an emergency of the day demanding our attention. Most of the time our own personal goals cannot be top priority. That’s OK, but they should still be as high on your list as possible. Don’t set them aside just give them whatever you can spare on a given day. Every small step is getting you closer to where you want to be. Once you build up a little momentum it becomes easier and easier to keep going.

I like to think of this as resistance training for the mind. There is always a reason not to train, most of these reasons are just excuses though. Change is hard but if you can push past the initial resistance your momentum builds and soon, you’re ticking your goals of the list and aiming a little higher than you previously thought possible. This is a skill that can be applied to all aspects of life not just your training. If you’re disciplined enough to get the hard things done who knows where you’ll end up.

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Don’t Worry About It!

Article 09/11/2023

There are some things in life that we just cannot control. Some people spend their lives in an anxiety bubble worrying about the seemingly minor details. As we cannot control these things any time spent worrying about them is wasted energy.

A useful habit I’ve developed over time is to redirect this energy toward items I can control. For example, in the not-so-distant past, I used to have a long commute to work. I needed to be up and out of the house by 5am to be onsite by 6:30am. Now this used to cause me anxiety probably more from the reduced hours of sleep than anything else, but I digress. A quick solution to this problem was to set an additional alarm. If I knew I would wake on time I had no trouble getting a decent night sleep. It was a simple step that I could control that positively impacted the situation.

Right now, I haven’t started this article to talk about my sleeping patterns the main point is that when we look at the things that are stressing us out especially the trivial things, there are usually some small simple steps we can take that will advocate a more positive outcome.

Let’s see how we can apply this to our training. Let’s assume you are making progress on your lifts adding 2.5kg a workout and making steady progress. It’s not going to be long before that anxiety starts creeping in. “This is the heaviest squat I’ve ever done, last session was hard, there’s no way I can lift this weight” etc etc etc. Now what I’ve learned is that when this creeps in and it will creep in for most lifters at some point. The best way to address is to worry about the things you can control. Let’s start with nutrition: Have I eaten enough of the right foods to encourage recovery and adaptation to my last workout.

Sleep: Have I allocated myself enough time to sleep and rest to encourage recovery and adaptation to my last workout.

Load: Is my next weight increase reasonable based on my previous workouts. (Generally; 2.5kg on the bigger lifts would be reasonable or 5lbs a workout for our American friends)

If the answer is yes to the above 3 questions you have done everything you can to prepare yourself for the next workout. Take comfort in that knowledge, trust the process and give your next workout hell. This is where progress lies.

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Keep your Discipline

Article 08/11/2023

I recently started a new job. It has not been what I expected it to be. In fact, it’s been described to me by my new colleagues as “chaos” and more colourfully as a “cluster fuck”. As you might imagine when our day to day lives become more stressful our desire to train will reduce. This is where your discipline comes in.

Yesterday was a particularly stressful day. With a few problems landed on my desk that I was unsure how to solve. I managed to get them figured out and off the desk before trudging home for the day.

Now amid all this I was well aware that I had heavy deadlifts to do today, and that weight was looming over me for the day. Some days I look forward to training other days it feels like a chore, but I show up and get it done anyway.

Last night called for 2 sets of 4 at 206kgs on the deadlift with halting deadlifts as back off work and some conditioning to finish.

As I finished the second set of Deadlifts, thumb bleeding from a slightly torn callous, I realised that difficult challenges are required to inspire growth. This gave me a little boost and the halting’s were easy back off work with this reinvigorated mindset. So much so that for conditioning I went balls to the walls with burpees for time.

I’m writing this the morning after and have carried that mindset with me into today. The new role is certainly going to be challenging but it will inspire growth. What’s the point of this story? Keep your discipline and don’t let outside stressors mess with your training. Your training will pay you back tenfold for your consistency.

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Burpees

Article 06/11/2023

Burpees are a very versatile and effective conditioning exercise. They can be adjusted and adapted to suit most people. They are low cost; they are great for those with very little time and they also pack a punch.

I take care of my strength requirements using barbell training, but I like to incorporate one or 2 slots a week for burpee work. These are a great way to get some blood flowing, get you breathing hard, and they really help to exercise that mental fortitude. I like to set a timer for 3 mins and just pump out burpees until the timer goes off. I can generally hit around 60 burpees with one push up and a jump in this timeframe. This offers me the benefits of a high intensity circuit in minimal time. I mean 3 mins; you could spend that time just daydreaming and not miss it.

What I like about this is your heart is pumping; you’re gasping for air, and you’ve had to overcome that little voice in your head telling you to quit. This helps build that mental toughness that comes in so handy when life is kicking your arse.

It’s important to note that adding conditioning to any training plan can adversely affect your ability to recover. As this is only 3 min a couple of times a week the impact to my ability to recover from lifting heavy weights has been minimal which is an additional bonus. This means I can continue to make progress on my lifts whilst incorporating some solid cardio work into my week. It’s a win win.

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Learn to Grind

Article 03/11/2023

Once you get started on your strength journey you will quickly realise that although simple the process gets hard fast. A key skill in navigating this is your ability to grind through difficult reps.

As we add a little bit of weight to barbell each session there will come that doubt creeps into your mind. Your mind will tell you that you can’t do it. It is so important that we try anyway. More often than not you will complete the lift and realise your perception was incorrect. It can be useful to video your lifts for the purpose of gaining useful data.

As you review the footage of a lift you perceived to be too heavy to complete you may just realise that the bar speed was actually pretty fast. This indicates that the lift you thought was impossible was actually sub-maximal. This information teaches us a couple of things.

Number one: Trust the process! Fear is normal as the training load increases but if you’re taking reasonable jumps and recovering between workouts then all your previous training sessions have paved the way for the aforementioned lift. Trust the process, when applied correctly it works.

Number two: You are capable of more than you think. In today’s modern and comfortable society a lot of people have lost the ability to do hard shit. When we take on the task and give it our best attempt then win or lose, we gain something. If we win, we learn we are capable of more, if we lose, we gain insight into our current level of progression but also that we had the courage to try and this is priceless.

Barbell training allows us to push ourselves both mentally and physically. A well applied training program will not only improve your physical ability but also your mental resilience in a safe environment. The effect this can have on your overall physical and mental well being is profound. Learn to grind.

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Don’t wish for an easier life wish for more strength!

Article 02/11/2023

Inevitably when things get tough people will start to feel sorry for themselves. Wish for an easier life. Wish things weren’t quite as tough. Unfortunately, this is like wishing for the wind to change. As Jim Rohn once said, “don’t wish for a more favourable wind, set a better sail”.

If you’re not happy with your current course, why not set a new one? Small little disciplines applied overtime will compound to give fantastic results. How about this for an example: Pick a few compound exercises, I like a squat, deadlift, bench press and overhead press (You’ll generally cover all the major musculature of the body training these lifts). Pick a weight you can do for 5 reps. Do 3 sets of 5 on the Squat, Bench and one set of 5 on the deadlift then call it a day. Go home get some good food in and rest. Come back in 48hrs and do the same thing again except this time replace the bench press with the overhead press. Call it a day get some good food in and rest. Rinse & repeat. Just adding a little bit of weight each time you train. (2.5kgs is usually a reasonable weight increase).

A simple little training routine like the above example has the potential to transform any individual. Its so simple but the effects of training your body this way are immense. Give it a try you’ll be surprised at how fast you see a difference. You might also be surprised at how a little bit of strength goes a long way to making life’s challenges more manageable.

Don’t wish for an easier life wish for more strength!

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Face the Challenge

Article 16/10/2023

Meet the Challenge don’t be shy.

Live every moment before you die.

Life’s rarely fun but it’s not meant to be.

You fight and you struggle to be who you be.

The challenges mount and expand day by day.

But that’s no excuse to just hide away.

Face every obstacle with steel in your eyes.

You can do more than you know, you might be surprised.

The pressure will build but you won’t implode.

Dig deep and push because you just never know.

As challenges pass and obstacles are over come,

you may not believe just how strong you’ve become!

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Taking Back Control

Article 02/08/2023

Training consistently is not glamourous. It gets hard sometimes and our motivation wanes. This is perfectly normal and to be honest the little bit of slack we allow ourselves from time to time is all part of a happy and healthy existence.

This only becomes an issue when that slack becomes our new baseline. We get lazy, we get inconsistent and begin to settle for less. Beware of this, it creeps in slow, your mind will tell you things like “you deserve a lie on today, lets just hit that snooze button we’ve be working really hard lately”. On rare occasions there is some truth to this. Most of the time though, it’s just laziness creeping to the forefront. Only you will know the difference.

When you notice this creeping in and your training starting to stall it’s time to attack. Minor things can make a big difference to our mindset. You already know the decisions that are not helping your goals and as such you know how to address them. Make your plans and stick with them. Tell that voice “Not today!” and take back control.

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Consistency Vs Complexity

Article 14/06/2023

When it comes to pursuing your Strength goals consistency is key. Show up, do the work then get out of the gym and recover. Don’t get caught up in the latest fads, keep it simple hard and effective. This approach has helped many other before you get stronger and achieve their goals.

The trouble with this approach is it’s boring. It’s boring doing the same lifts week in week out, it’s boring being consistent with your nutrition. This can lead to the search for complexity. Complexity is interesting, complexity is sexy, complexity is wholly ineffective.

Programme hopping, swapping out your exercises every other week and jumping from one fad diet to another is a guaranteed road to, at worst failure and at best sub-optimum results.

Don’t be seduced by complexity, stay consistent and get after it and achieve your goals.

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Life is hard! What are you gonna do about it?!

Article 07/06/2023

There is no avoiding the fact that sometimes life gets hard. We all face daily trials and tribulations. Sometimes these can compound themselves and things feel impossible to manage.

The question I always ask myself when this creeps in is simple. “What are you gonna do about it?” For some reason this question has the invariable effect of giving me a much-needed kick in the arse that works to bolster my mind.

I like to couple this up with a hard training session as a reminder to myself that no matter how tough things are I’m still bull strong and very capable. Once that is under my belt I will typically find the clarity I need to deal with whatever crisis I am contending with at that particular time.

Next time you find yourself struggling try it. Life is hard, what are you gonna do about it?!

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Never Give Up

Article 23/05/2023

For all the fighters out there. The ones who refuse to give up no matter how dark it gets, no matter how hopeless it seems. Never ever forget the power you possess. One tiny little action has the power to turn everything on its head. One moment of resolve has the ability to turn the momentum in your favour. You are never defeated until you accept defeat. Keep on pushing!

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The Easy Way Out

Article 12/05/2023

With most scenarios in life there comes choices. Some are simple some are difficult but if you look closely there is usually a choice to be made. A lot of the time these choices are so small that we don’t even realise we are making them. Will I get out of bed? Will I brush my teeth today? Will I eat breakfast? Will I go to work? If I had to guess I’d say most of us went through that process this morning in a sort of auto pilot mode, choices were made with very little mental capacity actually used. This is a useful mechanism of our brains that enables us to focus on the more important or interesting stuff.

Sometimes it’s important to sit back and take stock of some of the small choices your brain makes on your behalf though. A lot of these choices are made solely on the premise that “that’s what I always do” and this can be a slippery slope. What if “I always hit the snooze button”, or “I always have a doughnut for breakfast” are these choices supportive of your goals? If you currently find yourself in a position that you are not happy with, be it mentally or physically maybe take a moment to reflect. Maybe these choices are not serving you as well as they could.

Another thing I see a lot is excuses such as “oh I can’t do that”. My response to which is usually “have you actually tried?”. “Do you know what you can do?”. Most times people are capable of far more than they think. It’s just a matter of trying. Even if you fail you win because you have learnt something useful. You know have a better understanding of where you are really at. But that’s not the easy path, that’s not the path of least resistance it will require you to make a conscious choice and decide to attack your goals. Don’t take the easy way out! You are capable of far more than you think!

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Death

Article 08/05/2023

There are only two things in life that are certain, you are born and one day you will die. There is no point in arguing against that fact or ignoring it. This is just a fact of life. Your body will grow from infancy to adulthood and then at some point began to break itself down slowly over time, until finally one day death comes for us.

With that in mind I like to think of training as giving that old shadowy bastard two fingers. Sure, we can accept our decline, or we can improve ourselves for as long as we possibly can. You go in and face the session of the day and work to your capacity. With each session you’re getting just that little bit stronger than the last time.

Now this can’t last forever but there is glory in your efforts. Sometimes you just need to grab life by the throat and spit in its eye.

Socrates once said: “It is a disgrace to grow old through sheer carelessness before seeing what manner of man you may become by developing your bodily strength and beauty to their highest limit.”

Go and find your limits while you still can.

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The Struggle is Real

Article 27/04/2023

Training will not always be easy, in fact effective training is rarely, if ever, easy. Show up, work hard, try to do just a little more than you did the last time.

Some days you win, other days there is a small victory to be had in just showing up and punching the ticket. The long term progress will come from steady and consistent effort. Those dark mornings when all you want to do is stay in bed, you need to find a way. After awhile you don’t even think about it anymore. You just get up and get to it. Your training becomes a habit. The easy route is not an option for you. You’ve committed to the process and you will succeed.

Your training is built upon the small choices you make every day. Will I get up on time? Will I train today? Will I stick to my programming or just fuck around at the machines? Will I eat the food I prepared or just grab a doughnut at the coffee shop? We have freedom to choose and some of these choices can really fuck up our progress. Let your discipline guide you. Make the right choice. The struggle is real but so are the rewards.

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When That Darkness Comes

Article 20/04/2023

The Darkness waits patiently behind

Stalking in shadow to prey on the mind

It waits for it’s moment and strikes unforeseen.

All is black and hope has departed,

As you feel it’s grip the onslaught has started.

Shall we accept it or silently rage?

Tear at the bars of the shadowy cage,

Defeat feels inevitable but never accept it.

This nemesis attacked, now let’s make it regret it.

The punches roll in, blow after blow,

How much can you take?

More than you know.

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Will Power

Article 19/04/2023

Will power needs to be trained. I have heard arguments that your will power is a finite thing. You only have so much and once you use it up its gone and this may or may not be true, but one thing I know for sure is that you are capable of attaining more than you currently possess.

Just like training for strength, regular, incremental, sustainable increases will result in an improvement.

Over the last year or so I’ve noticed that when I apply small daily disciplines to my life, my ability to maintain my will power improves.

I mentioned in a previous post that my son has Autism and our routine can be a little bit unusual. Days typically start between 3 and 4am. Now let me be clear I do not want to start my day at this time, I love my son but like most people would be I am tired and a just a little cranky at this time of day. I do not have a choice as to when my day starts. I do however get to choose just how I approach it.

I could lie on the couch and wallow in self pity, “life is hard, bitch, bitch, whinge whinge”, etc or I could try to do something productive in that time.

Lately I have been using a small portion of this time to practise my martial arts techniques, stretch and read. Activities that I know I should be doing more often that I just couldn’t seem to fit into a normal day.

The knock on effect of this has been interesting. Applying a little bit of will power to these items mentioned above has given me additional will power to write, study and improved my performance at work also.

If there is one thing I’d like you take away from what I’m writing here today it’s that as difficult as thing may seem you always have a choice, you can wallow or you can improve. These small improvements add up and have a habit of overflowing into other aspects in your life. Make the right choice.

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Just a little bit

Article 15/03/2023

On occasion I get bitten by the conditioning bug once again. In my younger days I used to take this to the extreme and try to do everything and anything, pushing harder and harder for a number of weeks until I either lost interest or got hurt.

These days I take a different approach. Just a little bit seems to go along way.

 On any normal week I will perform 3nr strength workouts, what I like to do now is just tack a short intense exercise onto the end of the 2 least stressful of these workouts. I like things that are low impact and not complicated. I go hard for as little as 1 min depending on what I’m doing and have found this to be a simple and practical answer to my desire to push conditioning.

An example of this maybe to do 1 min of burpees. Get as many as you can done in that minute. That will leave most people gulping for air, especially if tacked onto the end of a their strength training session and have very little impact on overall recovery. Next time you get the bug for conditioning give it a go.

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Anchor Points

Article 13/03/2023

Problems, we all have them. Some drink to forget, others pretend they aren’t there. Some men wanna fight the world others want to hide from it. We all deal with our shit in different ways but we all have problems.

Some people let their problems become excuses. They think their own life is so hard and that nobody could fathom the difficulty of their circumstances. Yeah, OK life is hard sometimes but just like everything else your problems are temporary. Today’s problem can be tomorrow’s lesson.

I like to use training as an anchor point when life gets crazy. The routine and reliability of it just seems to overflow into other aspects of life. I’ve often headed out to the GYM stressed out of my mind. You get there and the routine kicks in, your mind clears, you focus on the immediate task at hand and you get something worth doing done. More often than not my mind is much calmer and clearer after a decent workout. The problems that have been driving me mad become a lot less complicated to navigate.

The point is this. Don’t let your problems dictate the course you take. Set your goals, make that process your anchor point and work on it consistently or else who knows where you’ll be when the storm finally passes.

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Discipline

Article 08/03/2023

What happens when your discipline fades?  We go easy on ourselves we let that caring voice in our head tell us its Ok to sleep in just one day. It’s Ok to miss today’s workout. It’s Ok to let our nutrition slip. It’s OK to be weak.

This is bullshit. Don’t let that voice in your head fuck you up. We all have this voice and some people may even consider this to be that little angel on our shoulder helping us through our day. Helping us care for ourselves. This is false. That voice wants you weak. That voice wants you soft. That voice will lead to your downfall. That voice leads to a very slippery slope.

How do we overcome that voice? Discipline.

You know what needs to be done to improve your situation. Do you have the discipline to do it?

It’s the simple things, work hard, work smart, be consistent.

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Strength Training for Autism Parents

Article 13/02/2023

My eldest son is 5 years old, non-verbal and has ASD and sensory processing disorder. Some days are great, some days are bad but most days are challenging.

A typical day will start anywhere between 3am and 4:30am we get up, get dressed, get fed and get going. If he’s having a difficult morning, we will hit the road and go for a drive or a walk depending on the weather. The peace of these early morning excursions really helps to calm him. The whole world seems to be asleep except us. In the beginning I wasn’t too happy about being up and about when all I really wanted was sleep but I have come to appreciate and enjoy this part of the day.

Routine is critical for my son, he thrives on the predictability, and he is far more regulated, happy and calm when we can keep to a relatively repetitive timetable.

Another element of life that thrives on routine is your training. Gradually working on the same lifts over an extended period of time, adding weight and actually programming for progress is the most effective way to train for strength improvements.

My Strength journey began roughly around the same time my son was born. I wanted to continue training but needed a more streamline process than the train every day approach I had been taking. I searched for efficient ways to train and actually make progress. What I found was “Starting Strength” (https://startingstrength.com/). I used their “Novice Linear Progression” as the basis of my initial training plans and managed to put on around 20kgs of useful bodyweight. I am now stronger than I ever though possible whilst training less than I ever did before.

How has this improved my day to day life with my son?

1. Physical strength is very useful when you have a 5 year old who may just refuse to walk regardless of how far from home you may be. Just simply pick him up and make a game of it.
2. More free time as I can spend less time in the GYM
3. More energy as my every day interactions with the world around me require a smaller percentage of my overall strength.
4. Stress management – I find this simple, hard yet effective method of training is great for reducing my overall stress.
5. Mental Toughness – Inevitably when the really tough days come around and my son is just completely unregulated and suffering, the mental toughness I have acquired through training helps me to stay calm, patient and capable when the chaos engulfs our household. It also helps me to keep going as generally these days require hours of walking with him on his special needs trike in an attempt to help him calm down and come back to us. It’s not uncommon to walk 20kms in a day when he has these episodes just to keep him calm. (Thankfully these days are rare and he is generally a pretty happy & energetic little guy.)

Based on the above I would highly recommend Strength training to any Autism parents out there. It’s a great use of your time that will benefit both you and your family. Anybody who has a demanding and stressful lifestyle will benefit from regular strength training. Try it for a month and see for yourself.

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Time to Train

Article 30/01/2023

If one thing has become glaringly obvious to me lately it’s that life does not give a shit about your goals or your problems for that matter either. Shit happens whether we like it or not.

How many times have you heard something along the lines of “I need to get fit” or “I’d love to get back to training” these are usually followed with a “but” or some other precursor to an excuse.

There will always be an excuse not to train, life is demanding we have jobs, spouses, kids, commitments and responsibilities. All this gets just a little bit easier to manage when we are stronger though. You owe it to yourself. Make time and get it done.

Look at your day and you will likely see a couple of windows of opportunity to squeeze your training in. It’s easy to say I’m just too busy and leave your training behind but if you can make time and get it done you will thank yourself later.

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The Wind, The Will, The Way

Article 14/01/2023

A great man once said to me there are 3 elements you must possess to be an accomplished martial arts practitioner:

• The Wind
• The Will
• The Way

At the time this was taken light heartedly but over time these words have resonated with me.

The Wind: This is your conditioning & work capacity, the ability to defend or sustain an attack as long as required. The goal here is to achieve a level of strength & conditioning superior to your opponent.

The Will: This is the strength of character & mind to do what must be done. The righteous path is rarely the path most travelled. This builds on your strength & conditioning in my opinion as performing physically difficult challenges regularly is a great way to add mental resilience.

The Way: This is the practise of your martial arts skill. Build your repertoire, work the basics diligently and hone your weapons, sharpen your skills, improve your speed, timing and accuracy through practise.

All 3 elements are required in my opinion. Its no good being skilled if you lack the physical & mental strength required. It’s also not much good being physically strong if your have no clue how to use it.

I like to base my overall fitness goals on these 3 principles. I lift for strength, I get my conditioning work in and I train my martial arts skills regularly. The voluntary hardships associated with the physical work helps to keep my mental resilience in tact. I consider these 3 words to be some of the best training advise I’ve received to date although I didn’t realise what I was getting at the time.

This article has been written today in honour of Si-Fu Chris Denison who recently passed away. Gone but never forgotten. Your teachings will live on.

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Why Squat?

Article 10/01/2023

Why Squat?

The squat is the Daddy of all lifts. There is no better feeling in the gym than overcoming a heavy squat that you were not quite sure you could make.

Think of the steps involved.

You have to unrack it and feel every ounce of that heavy bar resting on your back.

Walk it out with laser focus as the rattle of the plates reminds you than one wrong step could be catastrophic.

Then when your in position you have a decision to make. Your crazy ass has to decide whether you have the balls to try, are you going to sit back with this heavy barbell and see if you can lift it or are you going to let fear guide you and rack the bar?

Knees move out, hips drop back, your chest faces down, you’re in the bottom position now drive that barbell up. Good job now only four more reps to go. Get it done.

The collection of these moments as you continue to add weight after each successful training session does something wonderful. You get accustomed to facing regular fear (granted on a small scale) and that is nearly more beneficial than the physical strength gains that only the squat can really produce.

The squat really is unique in this sense as you have to decide to go for it and once you decide to go for it you’re committed you can’t turn back you need to see it through. This is training for life in my eyes, when life gets heavy you push harder or that shit will crush you and that’s why we squat.

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The Deadlift & Back Pain

Article 05/01/2023

The deadlift seems to get a lot of bad press these days. It’s been labelled as “too risky” & even “dangerous” by some coaches. I have to disagree with this sentiment entirely.

When this lift is performed correctly and programmed intelligently it can be a silver bullet for back pain.

Before I started deadlifting, I had regular back pain I used to think I just had a bad back. I had injured it in a kick boxing competition a few years earlier and had issues on and off ever since.

I finally tried the deadlift after prolonged efforts from a work colleague to convince me to try. My Logic at this point was “sure my back is already fucked what have I got to lose”.

I performed a single set of 5 reps 3 days a week as part of my regular training programme, adding 2.5kg per workout.

What happened by following this methodology was a surprise to me.

I had expected to just run out of steam after a couple of weeks and not really see much improvement. But expectations are rarely accurate.

I started out with around 80kgs and had thought maybe somewhere around 100kgs I would hit the ceiling and not be able to make further progress. What actually happened was I just kept going. I was deadlifting 180kgs for a set of 5 before I had to make any programming adjustments. This was just the low hanging fruit. There was plenty more progress to be made.

There were a number of benefits I quickly noticed from keeping this lift in my training program:

1. By increasing my deadlift strength, I also strengthened and grew the musculature that supports the spine and helps to keep it stable. My “bad back” became a strong back.
2. My Physique – shoulder grew, traps grew, forearms grew. People actually noticed I was training at this point.
3. Mental Health – The increase in strength had a knock on effect on how I viewed myself and also how I was viewed by others.  

If there is one thing I really want to stress here today it’s that the deadlift is a great exercise for general strength and has a place in most training programmes. It is critical to perform the lift correctly though. It is not an overly complicated lift but you would be surprised how many people perform this lift incorrectly.

The below links are just a couple of useful form tips that I found really beneficial. Please check them out before adding the deadlift to your programme:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8luF-t9o1AM (Barbell Logic – YOUTUBE)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2OPUi4xGrM (Starting Strength – YOUTUBE)

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Don’t be Seduced by Complexity

Article 04/01/2023

There seems to be a lot of challenge type programme knocking around at the moment. I came across one yesterday that was something along the lines of 2 workouts per day, dramatic dietary changes and 100% compliance required for 60 days. Failure to adhere to the protocols required the participant to restart from day 1 and continue until the challenge was complete.

Lads please be realistic and reasonable with yourselves when starting a new fitness challenge. This shit may work for a small percentage of people but is not appropriate for most.

Aim for 3 sessions a week and focus on eating enough and sleeping enough to recover from your workouts. This will enable you to build on your previous sessions every time you train. This approach will work for anybody starting out trying to add strength and muscle mass. The added bonus is it is far easier to comply with. Be smart, be consistent and make real progress.

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Meal Prep for Success

Article 03/01/2023

It’s boring as hell but it effective. Let’s face it nobody want to spend hours prepping non exciting meals but if you plan ahead you can set yourself up for success.

Here are some basic recipes to help you out, I use these personally for 3 reasons the ingredients are cheap and readily available, they taste good and they don’t take long to prepare.

In a typical day I’ll have a breakfast I’ve prepared the night before and a lunch I’ve batch cooked earlier in the week and then just eat a regular dinner with my wife once the kids finally go to sleep.

The below is 2 recipes and expected prep times to give you some ideas:

Breakfast Idea:

Overnight Oats:

6 scoops rolled oats

2 scoops protein powder

100 grams of Greek yoghurt

Top of with Milk

Cooking instructions: Lob it into a bowl and mix. Bang it in the fridge to soften the oats. Simple as that

Prep time: 5 mins or less, high protein, high carb low fat great breakfast for training days.

Lunch Idea:

Monster Mash (Thank Stan Efferding for this one):

5% fat mince beef 1500g

2 large potatoes

3 large carrots

Rice

Cooking instruction: Chop up potatoes and carrots and cook in chicken stock or bone broth. Boil the rice in stock. Fry up the mince and season to taste. (I like some beef stock here or a savoury mince type seasoning). Once all ingredients are cooked mix together and box up to be enjoyed during the week. I usually get 5 or 6 days lunches out of this.

Prep time: 30 mins great recovery meal after a workout lots of good protein and clean carbs.

The above are pretty much staples in my nutrition plan and can adjusted depending on current goals. I suppose the main point here is to let you know it shouldn’t take hours to get your nutrition in order and its definitely easier to have something ready to go rather than trying to search out suitable options on the go.

Just a side note I finally caved on got myself on social media. Check out @strongblog2023 on Instagram.

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Do What you Can

Article 02/01/2023

Circumstances are rarely optimum. If you are not currently in a position to hit the Gym for whatever reason that does not mean you cannot do something.

Maybe you have financial constraints a lot of us do this time of year, maybe you are insecure about training around other people it can definitely be intimidating walking into a new environment to pursue a new goal.

Don’t let the minor obstacles become major roadblocks. Don’t let them stop you from getting something achieved. There is always something you can do. I started out on this road working out in a tiny room with nothing but a bed and enough floor space to allow me to do some push ups.

If you find yourself in a similar position you can use whatever is available to you to start working toward your goal. Get some push ups in, maybe some bodyweight squats or if your feeling ballsy hit some burpees. This stuff doesn’t require any equipment, can be adjusted to suit your fitness level and hey nobody watching you so why be embarrassed?

Can’t do a standard push up? Why not try do them from your knees or maybe just slowly lower yourself down, reset and repeat.

Can’t do a squat? Try sit to stands – sit down in a kitchen chair and stand up without using your hands. If this is too difficult you can adjust the height using books until you hit a height you can do without hands.

Can’t do burpees yet? Get on the floor and get back up. Rinse and repeat.

Everything can be adjusted to your level. Find out where you are at start there. What’s stopping you?

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That time of year again

Article 01/01/2023

Well here we are 2023. A lot of people start the new year with a bit of a hangover and some rough idea of getting into shape to shed some of the holiday weight gain. Over the last week or so we have eaten well and drank deep.

Now the New Year’s resolutioners are out in force. If that’s you have you got a plan? Most people who start a fitness plan as a new resolution fail. Why is this? Motivation is high enough to get them to start and they go for it, all in for a week or two but what happens when the motivation fades? Motivation is like an emotion it comes and it goes but your discipline can get you through if you have a plan.  

It’s easy to be disciplined when what your asking of yourself is not that bad. It’s easy to be disciplined when you see results. That will help stoke the fires of motivation also.

How do we do this? Here are my top 3 tips for success when starting a lifting programme.

1.Start with a small number of exercises that will give you the most bang for your buck ( I like the Squat, Deadlift, Overhead press, bench press and some chin ups, I rarely do more than these basic compound exercises).

2.Start at a reasonable load not too heavy not too light (Remember soreness is not the goal or an indication of progress you should never be so sore you are unable to return to the Gym for your next session) .

3.Add a little bit of weight each workout. Just a small amount of weight added to the bar (1-2.5kgs per lift) will help you to take advantage of the stress recovery adaptation cycle. This is the driver of progress once I learned about this I made consistent progress workout to workout.

One last thing, good luck and remember actually starting is one of the biggest hurdles you’ll face. You’ve already overcome more than most just by beginning. Now be smart, be consistent & be disciplined. You can thank me later when you see the results.

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Probationary Black

Article 19/12/2022

I recently completed successfully grading for my 1^st black belt. I felt a great sense of achievement this has been a long process for me. I started training in the martial club 15 years ago as a 20 year old kid, I was an apprentice plumber moving around constantly at the time and was in the early stages of a new relationship.

Fast forward 15 years and life looks very different. I’m 35 years old, that new relationship is now a marriage we have 2 boys and a home together and I have been promoted to a more stable office based role. We have responsibilities we did not previously have. As life evolves it’s important to have some anchor points to keep your grounded though and my martial arts training has always provided that for me. When life seemed to fall apart around me this always provided me with a solid foundation to build on. There have been times when I’ve moved away from it or pursued other goals but I always return to it. And once back I wonder why I ever stopped.

So Friday night just gone I successfully graded for my 1^st black belt, which my particular club call the “Probationary Black belt”. What does this imply “probationary”? Typically you see this title in a new job your starting out and your put on a probationary period to prove yourself in some manner. I see this a little differently though. Probationary to me means you have passed the test you have got the job, but don’t stop there. You have demonstrated enough skill or knowledge to gain access to the club, but you’re not done yet, now the real work begins, you need to build on your previous success and evolve. Your good enough but can you excel? Can you exceed the standards you have set for yourself? There’s only one way to find out. It’s important to enjoy your successes when they come but don’t take too long to get back to work.

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Dealing with minor injuries.

Article 11/12/2022

So from time to time, we have to deal with minor injuries and strains. On Friday evening I managed to twist my knee. This has left me with some swelling and a short-term reduction in range of motion in the joint. I am due to do heavy deadlifts and some tempo squats on Monday. My plan for this session is simple, I will show up to the GYM warm up appropriately using the empty bar and slowly increasing the weight. The goal is to do as close to my planned working loads as possible at a range of motion that does not cause pain. This may mean that my deadlift become rack pulls on the day or that the load is greatly reduced either way I will do what I can. The reason I take this approach when dealing with minor injuries is that I’ve noticed the injury generally feels better after getting some work done. When we workout we increase blood flow to the area, this provides nutrients to the joint which will assist in the healing process.  Now this is my own anecdotal experience. If you are concerned about an injury you should always consult your doctor.

Life

Article 09/12/2022

Sometimes life likes to mess with you. You get busier than you want to be, schedules get crazy, short deadlines in work, maybe your kids get sick and sleep is at a premium (or non-existent). When life gets heavy like this it’s important to remember that we are lifters and we like to lift heavy things.

You may not be able to chase your goals in an optimal fashion but you can always do something.

Even if the last thing you want to do that day is get your training in, do what you can. You will feel all the better for accomplishing something however small and these little choices matter in the long run. Life inevitably wins we all know this but make sure you put up a fight!

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When it gets Intimidating

Article 08/12/2022

From time to time you will face a lift that’s intimidating.

You may have known a certain number was coming up and built it up in your head. You may have just realised on the day that “shit this is gonna be heavy”.

When faced with this or a similar situation its very important to remember that every training session up until this point has been designed to prepare you for precisely this moment.

Treat it like any other set. Don’t panic, breath deep, get tight, set your back and apply force to the bar for at least 5 seconds! Something important happens when we attempt these intimidating sets, win or lose you learn something.

If you complete the lift you learn you are capable of more than you thought. If you fail the lift you gain useful data about your current training. Most importantly of all, I think, is that in attempting the lift and giving it your best shot you have learned that you had the balls to try and that my friend is something special. You’ll walk just a little bit taller from that point on.

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What to do when you stall out

Article 07/12/2022

Video your lifts

Check your form

Get a form check from a barbell coach

If your form is consistently OK you can look at your recovery: Am I eating enough? Am I sleeping enough? If the answer to both of these is yes and your form is OK what then.  We need to decipher if we need more recovery or more stress.

Let’s assume your following a linear style progression and your squat stalls out. You’ve had your form checked and it’s OK, you’re eating enough and sleeping reasonably well, what then. It’s safe to say that consistently adding weight to a big compound lift like the squat is a large stress on the system, at this point of your lifting career it’s more than likely a recovery issue.

It may be time to add a light day to your training week. For instance, if you’re squatting Monday, Wednesday & Friday adding weight every workout maybe try making Wednesday a light day. This will allow some fatigue to dissipate before you try to go up in weight again. See example below:

• Monday – Squat 100kg – 3×5
• Wednesday – Squat 80kg – 3×5
• Friday – Squat 102.5kg – 3×5

That being said if the lift that stalls out is a Press for instance, you may actually need additional stress to drive the adaptation. As the press workout is going to be far less taxing on your system as a whole than the previously mentioned squat workout it may be time to add additional Press work into your week, you could look at splitting your Press work into a day for accumulating volume and another day for relative intensity work.

See example below:

Let’s say we stall out @ 3×5 @ 55kg we might try something similar to below:

• Monday – Press 50kg – 4×5 (Volume added at the expense of intensity)
• Friday – Press 60kg – 3×3 (Intensity added at the expense of volume)

What we are doing in the above example is balancing the inverse relationship between volume & intensity to achieve both additional volume and additional intensity over the course of the week. There is a lot to unpack when it comes to making programming changes but a key take away here is this Do I need more stress or more recovery once you can figure out which is required you can make the necessary adjustment to your programming for the lift in question.

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The Importance of a Training Log

Article 07/12/2022

One of the most important pieces of equipment every lifter should have in their bag is their log book.

We mentioned the difference between training and exercise earlier in the week (see – Training vs Exercise – What’s the difference. Article 04/12/2022 below). If you are serious about making progress you need to track your workouts. If you can’t remember what you did last time out how will you know what you need to do today to drive progress.

When you write down your workouts in your log book you are collecting valuable information you can use for future programming. You also get a reminder of the progress you’ve made every time you open it. It’s a win win.

With this information you can figure out how to fix things if you get stuck. You can also review what you were doing that may have caused you to get stuck in the 1st place. This is data specific to you. You will be glad you kept it.

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Motivation vs Discipline

Article 06/12/2022

Motivation is great but its generally short lived. We may feel motivated to start our strength journey buts its discipline that will keep us going when the voice in our head starts to throw excuses around.

How do we build discipline? Consistency. Set your intentions plan ahead and get it done. Your future self will thank you for it.

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What to do on your 1st day in the Gym

Article 05/12/2022

Day 1 in the Gym can be a daunting experience, you show up to a place you’ve never been, surrounded by people you’ve never met and see an array of equipment you don’t necessarily know how to use.

My recommendations for your 1st day are quite simple. Have a plan on what your going to do on the day before you get there. Lets say for example we are going to Squat, Bench Press & Deadlift on day 1. Lets start with a Squat: Warm up with the empty bar, work in and around the 5 rep range (5 reps is a good place to start it will provide a stimulus for both strength and hypertrophy its sort of a middle ground). Add weight until you reach a load that is reasonably challenging (not too heavy not too light) and do 2 more sets at this weight. That will be your squat workout for the day done. Write down that number in your phone of logbook and next session you add 2.5kgs to that weight.

For the bench press simply repeat the same process. Again write down your numbers when complete and add 2.5kgs next time you bench.

Rinse & repeat for the Deadlift with one exception when you hit that reasonably heavy set. Just leave it at that. Write down your number and get out of the GYM.

This approach will effectively train your entire body in an effective and time efficient manner. The 1st couple of workout will likely feel a little easy. That’s OK the training stimulus here is the weight on the bar increasing. As the numbers on the bar go up, your strength level goes up and with that your muscle mass increases. This doesn’t have to be complicated keep it simple at the start the complication will come later as you advance. Get started at a level you can maintain and be consistent. Your progress will build on this solid foundation.

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Training vs Exercise – What’s the difference.

Article 04/12/2022

Have you ever joined a GYM and been given a programme to follow by the trainer. You work through this programme methodically for weeks on end, repeating the same exercises at the same load each time you hit the GYM. Eventually you realise your not really making any progress and your consistency drops off. Next thing you know your paying GYM fees and you haven’t been in weeks.

Why does this happen? Your working hard, you did the work the trainer told you to do but it just didn’t get you the results you wanted. The answer to this question is you were exercising rather than training.

Exercise is performed for the effects it produces today whereas training is a methodical step by step approach to achieving a goal later on. If your still lifting the same weights you lifted this time last year you are exercising my friend. If you are incrementally loading your lifts by adding a small achievable amount each time you workout and pushing for consistent measurable improvement you are training. Exercise produces a sense of satisfaction on the day, you’ve gotten your work done your sweaty your tired and you feel a sense of achievement when your finished. Training however produces this and much much more. Training is what’s required to build muscle mass, improve strength, it takes full advantage of the Stress Recovery Adaptation cycle I mentioned in an earlier post. You are constantly building on the progress you make. If you want results in the GYM then training is the most efficient use of your time. Train hard, train smart, and achieve your goals!

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My Top 3 Benefits of Strength Training

Article 03/12/2022

Hey Guys, just a quick post on the top 3 benefits I experienced personally while building up my strength. Here they are in no particular order;

Number 1: Physique – as you get stronger you gain muscle mass. If the weight on the bar is going up and your making progress on your lifts you’re gaining muscle mass. This tends to be a big factor on why people actually start.

Number 2: Mental Health and Psychological Benefits: I always found that exercise in general was a useful tool when feeling stressed out or anxious. However I noticed a long term improvement in my overall well being when I started strength training. You’re literally improving your physical capability every workout when you start out. This has a profound impact on how you interact with the world around you. You feel more confident and capable in all aspects of life.

Number 3: Work Ethic: I noticed that the consistent work I was putting in in the Gym carried over into my professional and personal life also. My overall drive improved and my confidence in taking on tougher challenges in work and at home improved dramatically.

The above are just 3 of the many benefits I encountered when I made training for strength a priority. Hopefully you can take advantage of these and many more also. Get stuck in lads it’s definitely worth the effort.

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Stress! Recovery & Adaptation

Article 01/12/2022

Ever hear the saying “What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger” well turns out there is some truth that statement.

The stress recovery and adaptation cycle is the main reason linear progression is so effective at getting people stronger. You hit the gym apply just SGH enough stress, eat and sleep for recovery and a strange phenomenon occurs. Your baseline level of strength increases due to the stress you previously applied and recovered from. Meaning that the next time you train you need to go just a little heavier to illicit a similar response from your body.

What’s the simplest way to take advantage of this in your training? Small incremental increases in weight every time we train.

What’s the best way to ensure we’re doing this efficiently to ensure we can actually recover and take advantage of this? Choose you’re exercises carefully!

What do we look for in an exercise? We want to use the most muscle mass possible in as few movements as we can. I like the big compound lifts such as the squat, deadlift, bench press & overhead press. You can train your whole body in 2 to 3 exercises a session.

After that its important to recovery! Sleep and eat and stay out of the gym for a day. Then get straight back at and add just a little bit of weight to take full advantage of the Stress Recovery Adaptation cycle.

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Strength Training & Martial Arts

Article 28/11/2022

As a popular 90s song once lamented everybody hurts sometimes.

Unfortunately, this is just a fact of life. Especially if you’re the kind of guy who thinks physical combat with another man of similar ability is fun. With these endeavours you inevitably pick up knocks and niggles along the way, usually with a cool story to go with them. One thing I noticed as I hit my 30s was the number of knocks and niggles increased but the stories got less and less interesting. Stories about taking a shot to land that knockout blow turned into tales of a man who just couldn’t perform to the standard he had once set for himself.

“What is this?” I thought. “I practise harder than ever. I get my road work in and pump out push ups by the hundred.”  I thought maybe I just need to work harder.

300 push ups a night turned to 500 hundred push ups a night and burpees were added to my programme. I was doing thousands of push ups and hundreds of burpees a week on top of road work, heavy bag work and skipping. I thought this was pretty impressive, but more fool me. What did it achieve?  I felt like shit with little to no improvement in the performance of my sport. What I did gain was chronic pain, constant fatigue and a loss of interest in my sport.

This was early 2020. Before I knew it Covid hit and forced lockdowns were imposed. The gyms closed. Martial arts clubs were closed. Also, during this time my 2nd son was born and my time and willingness to practice diminished. (Night-time feeding schedules have a tendency to do that!)

This left me with a predicament though, I didn’t have the time or recovery resources to continue as I had been going and needed to make a change. My thoughts at the time were If I keep my body strong, when I have time and opportunity again to “train properly” It won’t take me that long to recover what I would inevitably lose through this lay off.

Here’s what I did. Essentially 3 full body workouts a week (typically under 1hr each) consisting mainly of heavy compound movements. (See sample Idea below)

Sample workout:

Workout A – Monday

Squat – 3×5 – added 2.5kg a workout

Bench Press – 3×5 – added 2.5kg a workout

Deadlift – 1×5 – added 2.5kg a workout

Workout B – Tuesday

Squat – 3×5 – added 2.5kg per workout

Overhead Press – 3×5 – added 1kg per workout

Chin ups – 3×5 – added 1kg per workout

Workout A – Friday

Squat – 3×5 – added 2.5kg a workout

Bench Press – 3×5 – added 2.5kg a workout

Deadlift – 1×5 – added 2.5kg a workout

The Nutrition Plan:

Eat 200+ gramms of protein per day and if aiming to gain some weight have a glass of milk with meals for some additional calories.

The results I achieved with similar programming and nutritional advise to the above sample were astounding to say the least. Within 3 weeks of starting, I was visibly bigger and had noticeable strength improvements, within 3 months I was physically stronger than I ever thought possible. Coming up on 3 years later I’ve maintained this strength training as part of my overall routine. Granted the programming will get a little more complicated once the initial linear progress stalls out but even after 3 years I am still making strength improvements.

How has this helped improve my martial arts skills I hear you ask? Well, what is strength? Strength is the ability to produce force against another object or in this case your opponent, I’m sure you can appreciate how this would be beneficial in a combat scenario. This force production also has improved my work capacity, speed and power. This is of course just anecdotal evidence but if you think about it, it makes a lot of a sense. If we think of a sparring session for example, this is a 3 to 5 min period of sub-maximal force production, as in every strike or block or parry we perform is not a maximal effort because we could perform another similar movement without the need for rest and recovery. If our ability to produce force increases, we can either perform the same movements with more force OR perform the same movements for longer as they will be a smaller % of your total ability to produce force, essentially making you harder, faster & stronger.

If you are reading this, I hope you have found it informative. To be honest when I began strength training I was sceptical, as I’m sure a lot of fighters would be. We have been told for too long that lifting weights will make you slow but I have to say this journey has had a massive impact on all aspects of my life in the most positive ways. Based on that I want to share it with anybody willing to listen. Life is better when you’re strong. Trust me!

I’m planning on adding an article a week to this platform on topics such as programming, nutrition basics, balancing your conditioning work with strength work and much more. Thank you for reading!

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Contact Us: terry@strong-blog.com