Doing the Splits

           “Ryan, I keep hearing people talking about splits. What are these things?”

           Excellent question fictional follower of my blog! And allow me to answer this imaginary question. A “split” is the common term for how you split up your workout. When you first started your fitness journey, I was recommending solely an A & B workout, which by definition would be a two-day split because it takes you two days to work through your entire body. But then as you begin to develop and improve, you will find yourself wanting to improve more and more. Improvement becomes a wonderful drug that it is quite alright to get addicted to.

           Now, as you began to get more accustom to the weight room, you moved beyond the simple A and B Tyro workout that I provided for you in the opening of this blog and then we moved from Warrior Sets to Furyan Sets. This let you spend more and more time working on specific body parts. Unfortunately, we have two big barriers in our way: Lactic Acid and Time. 

           As you work out, your body produces lactic acid which causes your muscles to fatigue so as much as we would like to, we cannot work out endlessly. Plus, I’ve got dinner to cook and laundry to do. I’ve got pages to write. And isn’t tonight the night that ARCHER is on? I cannot spend 4 hours every evening in the gym and fatigue is still very much a real issue. So the trick to this is splitting up your workout to target specific body parts. 

           Ultimately the question becomes, how should I split up my workout? I wish I could tell you that there is an ultimate answer but everyone eventually has to cater their program to their tastes and their availability. How I have split up my workouts works for me and you will have to adapt your program accordingly.

           Through the Furyan Sets there is a day dedicated to chest and back because of the push and pull of antagonistic sets. The next split is shoulders and lats that utilize a push/pull routine. Again, antagonistic sets. The next routine revolves around legs. That day is typically torture so I reward myself the next day with a “fun” routine which is arms; biceps and triceps. By definition, this is a four day split because it takes me four days to cycle through my entire body.

           Now there are other theories that will stagger your days differently than I have arranged them but I feel that this routine is pretty solid. You may hear of people splitting their workout where they have a push day (chest routines and triceps) and a pull day (middle back). I prefer that back and forth routine that gets you that full range of motion so that is my plan. What can I say? It works for me.

           So when you hear me say “splits,” this is what I am talking about.

Motivation Monday -- Dr. King Edition

           In honor of the holiday, I am going to go a slightly different route for this edition of Motivation Monday. Now, I am quite certain that Dr. King never imagined his quotes would be listed on a fitness blog but I want you to keep something else in mind. The tag line of this blog if you will is “Creating a Better You Through Bodybuilding.” This is not just an improvement of the physical. One cannot grow simply within that one area. One should seek to obtain enlightenment in mind, body, and spirit.

           So with that said, let’s look at some quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King on today of all days.

 

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.”

           This one is difficult to master but if you have faith in your plan, sometimes you just need to put your head down and focus on the task at hand. Don’t look around too much at the big picture because the enormity of your task may be defeating. Just put the work in and climb one step at a time.      

 

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”

           Disappointment is always going to be there but you need to nuture the goal to be slightly better than you were yesterday. If you did a mile yesterday, go for 1.05 tomorrow. Get one more rep. Even if you try and fail, know that you can be successful tomorrow.

 

“Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.”

           I am amending his quote slightly here in that I am not listing the other two sentences of the quote. However, I found that this is very true. It takes hard work for improvement and all your thought must be bent upon it. As a wise man similarly said, “No pain. No gain.”

Finding Your Why

           To those on the outside looking in working out sounds pretty stupid. Via your gym membership, you are actually paying someone to let you torture yourself. Why would a person willingly take an hour or two out of their day to punish their bodies by lifting heavy weights over and over again?

           What I have found in this world is that you have to “find your why.” You have to choose why you are doing something. And to quote Eric Thomas, “Your why has to be greater than you.” When you are doing something for someone else, you can go one more day at work. You can go one more mile. Because it is not just about you. 

           In June of 2014, I made a decision to improve my life through exercise. The majority of this was for me but there were other motivating factors. I would be lying if I said there weren’t a few dashes of hate sprinkled in there as well. I know that isn’t healthy but it is what it is.

           But one major motivating factor was the dream that I wanted to cut a sharp figure in a tuxedo at my daughter’s wedding. As I walk my baby girl down the aisle, I want to do it on my own knees, preferably without wheezing, and without the aid of a rascal scooter. I figure that since she is who she is, the gentlemen callers will be a plenty. By my estimates, I have ten years minimum. And thus, the campaign began.

           As I have mentioned already, I am the product of divorce. It is a sad and horrible thing to go through a divorce and I would not wish it on my worst enemy. But as you go through that baptism of fire, you find that it is a fantastic time to work on yourself both mentally and physically. A broken individual is perfectly timed for the self-improvement that a program like Furyan Strength can bring.

           Look, the guy that my wife left me for, I don’t know who he is in real life. Mentally, I have painted a picture of him in my head and I think about him when I am tired and don’t want to get another set. “Is HE putting in this kind of work? No.” My goal is to be better than him and I am achieving this on all fronts. Granted, he is an imaginary enemy but it is motivation for me. We all have that imaginary dragon that we want to slay and it keeps me focused when I want to quit. (I am aware that this is not healthy emotionally but if it gets the job done…)

           If you were like me when you are starting this journey of self-improvement, there are going to be times where you think it is going to be impossible. It will seem like you are facing a seemingly insurmountable task and that the mountain is too tall to climb. That is when you have to find your why. Because when you find it, you dig deep down and find reserves that you might not have even known were there.

           That will keep you going and that will keep you motivated. So, let’s end this lesson by tasking you with your homework. Take some time and really ask yourself what you want to get out of training. Decide why you are doing it. Maybe you are like me and you were tired of being fat. Tired of not taking selfies or pictures with your kids because you were ashamed. Maybe there is that moment where you don’t know if you can get another rep. That is often when I look at myself in the mirror and think, You know that little red-haired girl didn’t go out with you because you are fat. Suddenly motivation springs eternal. Whatever your reason, you have to find your why. That gives you direction and it gives you purpose.

           Thus endeth the lesson. Now go forth and do likewise. 

The Importance of Goals

          Having both long-term and short-term goals are tremendously beneficial for anything you want to accomplish in life. I know this sounds strange but you have to have the courage to write your goals down. It seems like a very simple thing but many people are afraid to do this. Writing goals down makes it concrete. This can be intimidating because here is a tangible record of what you want to accomplish. The problem with writing down a concrete goal is that now it is something that you can fail at. It is kind of along the theory of Schrödinger's Cat in that if you don’t write a goal down, you can’t experience failure because the goal was never written. (And some people cannot mentally handle failure. They can be discouraged by it.) The problem is that a goal that is not written down can be forgotten or the margins can be fudged to simulate success.

          I have found that writing down goals can also help you stick to a schedule. When I am working on important writing projects, I actually print out a calendar and map out my page count of where I have to be on any certain date in order to hit my deadlines. If I don’t do this, it is easy to let a Saturday slide by without anything getting done. But if I write out a tangible record that says, “You have to have 56 pages done by the 17th,” it helps keep me on task. You will be surprised at how this written record keeps you focused be it at work, doing household chores, or setting up schedules for a new activity. The same is true of your lifting strategy.

          It is important to set short term goals and long term goals. And these are not goals that you set because of someone else. You set them up for you. For what you want.
          For instance, my long term goal is to slim down to 215 pounds. That is 35 pounds that I want to drop. Within the last few months – if you just look at the weight numbers – I have been failing in that goal because my weight loss has stagnated. But my biceps are gaining in size and my strength goals continue to increase. So, I feel like I am gaining muscle. This is a greater victory than just losing pounds simply for pounds sake. Sure, I could ensconce myself in those garbage bag suits and just do cardio if I only wanted to lose weight. But I want to lose fat at a healthy pace while continuing to grow stronger. You have to be able to look at the bigger picture.
          My other long term goal is to join the 1,000 lb. club. Inspired by Hugh Jackman and his video posts of him joining this impressive club, you have to lift a combined weight of 1,000 pounds across 3 exercises – the deadlift, squat, and bench press. You have to perform a minimum of 3 reps with each exercise. I figure if I can deadlift 405, squat 345, and bench 250, I am there. As of right now, I am in the 890 lb. club but my long term goal is 1,000 pounds.
          I remember when I was first getting started, I read Joe Manganiello’s book EVOLUTION. In that, he was talking about how he would squat his body weight to warm up. When I first stepped back into the squat rack, after being gone for over 20 years, and looking at my starting weight, I knew it was going to be physically impossible for me to just squat my weight, much less warm up with it.
          Now, I was trying to listen to Manganiello’s advice and I was performing reps of 15, 12, 10, 5, 10, and 15. I went back and looked at my tracking and in Week 9, I was doing 135 pounds (which is one 45-pound plate on each side) for this insane rep count that he was suggesting. [Again, this is where I was developing my belief that you need an “Average Joe” workout before you can get to that professional level.] I changed up my techniques, I went to a more reasonable rep range and slowly, over time, I have starting seeing the numbers begin to increase and recently I summoned enough gumption to squat 300 pounds for as many reps as possible. (I got 4.) A few weeks later, I tried for 350 and I was able to achieve 1 rep. I mentally now knew that I could do it once. I just need to be able to add three more reps to that lift. This is not to say that I will not go back and revisit Manganiello’s theories but for now, I know I am not nearly at the level I need be to follow his program. And that is okay. I will get there eventually.
          As my strength increased and my weight began to drop, I thought about what Manganiello said.  In April 2015, my rep range was around 8 reps for 225. Well, if my long term goal is to weigh 215 pounds and if I am doing 225 now to work out, then warming up with my body weight at 215 sounds pretty darn reasonable!
          But when you are sitting at 275 lbs., getting to 215 pounds seems like a pretty large mountain to climb. That is where short term goals come in. So instead of focusing solely on the mountaintop, let’s get work our way up a series of plateaus instead. You set short term goals. “Last week I benched 100 pounds for 3 set of 10 reps. Next month, I want to be benching 120 pounds for 3 sets of 10.” That is a good short term goal. Ask yourself what you need to do to accomplish your goals.
          Short term goals give you something to strive for and it gives you a sense of accomplishment that can become more tangible in an immediate timeframe. Again, this is where you have to embrace the concept of building a wall. You are laying things down brick by brick and when you eventually come up for air, you will look back and be amazed at how far you have come over the course of six months.
          Set your goals. Be realistic but also challenge yourself. Again, you want to give it 100% every time. 

The Gear You Need: Gloves

           If you follow Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson on any of the countless social media outlets that he dominates, you will often find him complaining about his “damned calloused hands.” The repetitive gripping of textured barbells, dumbbells and v-bars, it is going to develop callouses on your hands pretty darn quick. (I will let you all insert your own self-pleasure jokes here.) So my recommendation is to get you a pair of gloves as quickly as possible.

           I know that Schwarzenegger advises against gloves but the days of working out in dungeons with concrete floors and using chalk for grip has started to go by the wayside. The Pryor Recreation Center specifically has signs up that say “No Chalk.” I don’t want to come across as “unmanly” but I have developed callouses on my hands from lifting weights and I wear gloves 99% of the time.

            I picked up a pair of Gold’s Gym gloves at Walmart for $10 and they worked well to start. I later got a second pair from Amazon.com because I wanted a pair of gloves that had wrap-around straps for wrist support. I’ve since used three different pairs and I really like the set I am using now. (Reviews will be forthcoming in later articles.)

            If this is you and me talking, when you are sitting in the movies with your girlfriend and she is holding your hand, I don’t think she wants to feel those rough callouses. This is one area where it is okay to be metrosexual. Because – and let me state again – I wear gloves and still get callouses. I cannot imagine what it would be like without wearing them. So, yeah, get you a pair.

 

Bonus Entry: The Gear You Need

            I have mentioned on several occasions that I am incredibly motivated by music. There are certain tracks that you can listen to and just get pumped up. I am aware that some tracks are going to have personal significance that put them up higher on my radar than might be on yours. But I hope that some of these tracks are slightly more obscure and might have been missed but need to be in the MP3. This week’s entry is Champion Sound by Ill Factor.

            Many may know this song from the Assassin’s Creed franchise but for me it is the entrance theme for a local professional wrestler named Jon Cross that is very “wrestler entryish.” Lots of industrial slams, big bass, hard rock, and great lyrics. This is an awesome track for the gym.  

   

The Issue of Soreness

          Yeah, let’s go ahead and talk about it. The soreness… My God… The soreness. So first a little bit of medical backlog. When you are working out, you are literally tearing your muscles. Granted these are not massive tears, they are small microtears and the soreness that you are feeling is your muscles stitching themselves back together. So when you are at the point where getting up and out of your midsize sedan seems like pure agony after leg day, believe me, this is totally normal.

          Someone once asked me when the soreness goes away… Truthfully, it doesn’t. And if you are experiencing this, it is a very good thing. Now I will tell you that the soreness lessens but it doesn’t really go away. I will say that first those first few months you are going to be in agony. Keep in mind, soreness is very different from injury. Knowing your body means knowing the difference and that will come with time.

          Now, as you are first getting started, for those first few months, if you are working hard, we are going to label that level of soreness as a 9 or 10 and the recovery time will be extensive. Much like the alcoholics that need a little hair of the dog that bit them, I have found that languishing about in pain is not the route to go. During all my time, I have yet to buy any sort of analgesic muscle rub (which makes you smell like a medicine cabinet) but I have taken a few ibuprofen from time to time. Instead, getting the heart pumping and blood flowing back into those muscles, getting them warm and loose are going to be better for you than any over-the-counter product.

          We have talked about workout splits. If you have just got done with a heavy leg day, I do not recommend going back and squatting heavy again the next day to relieve the soreness. Rest and recovery are just as important as heavy lifting. But getting on that treadmill and getting that soreness worked out is one of the best ways to relieve that pain.

          Remember, when you are just getting started, you are training your body to do what it wants. Hopefully, as your routine develops and you begin to expand your exercises, you are going to find new ways to stimulate those muscles. As you grow comfortable with shoulder routines, say you add Bent Over Dumbbell Raises that you perform while sitting on a bench. If you have never performed this exercise before, the first few sets are going to be teaching your body what you want to accomplish and this should be done with a light weight. As you begin to master the movement, that is when you will start increasing the weight. As this is a new exercise, it will be “tearing” your muscles in a new way. So, when you wake up in the morning – boom – new soreness.

          Let me stress here. Soreness means growth. Soreness means you are doing something RIGHT. I think if you wake up in the morning and you are not feeling at least a little sore in the target area from the day before, either you weren’t going hard enough or your body has adapted to your exercise choice and it is time to start varying up your routine.

          As you get deeper into your routines and the weeks and months begin to roll by, the soreness level begins to lessen. Let’s say before the pain level was at a 9 and it took a week to recover. You will start to find yourself at a soreness level of 5 and recovery only takes a few days. So it does lessen but as you are rotating in new exercises and finding new things to do, expect to be sore the next day. It lessens but it doesn’t go away and the recovery time is faster.

          Now, I will note something strange that I cannot explain. Last week, Thursday was my leg day. I admit that I was doing slightly heavier than normal Deadlifts. I did Romanian Deadlifts (which target the hamstrings). I also decided on some Straight-Legged Deadlifts (which target the lower back). And then I rounded out the exercise with some ancillary exercises. Friday was a little bad in the soreness department but for reasons I cannot explain, on Saturday, my legs hurt worse than on Friday. This “staggered soreness” seems to happen regularly where it is two days after that the soreness really catches up with me.

          Personally, I like that where after I get home. I sit down on the couch and have some dinner and maybe watch a little Netflix and then when it is time for me to get up, I hobble about like a 90-year-old geriatric. I know I must look pathetic during these times but I keep telling myself that I hurt for that one day so that I can walk the other six days of the week without pain.

          Soreness is a badge of honor that you should proudly wear. It does lessen as you progress but those twinges of soreness and that dull ache when you get out of bed is always going to be there. It means you are working hard and for that you should be proud.

Motivation Monday

 

          Well, we are officially into 2016. What I have found that this is the inevitable time where the gym becomes crowded from all the “resolutioners” that are there because of their “New Year, New Me” mantras that last for about three weeks or so. If you are just finding this blog, maybe you are at a time where you are wondering where to move forward with your fitness goals. If so, I hope that this blog can help you.

           I don’t want to sound like I am downing resolutioners. I really am not. If that 01/01 date helps you move forward, then by all means use that as motivation. Working out consistently is something very difficult to do. But you move forward and continue to put in the work, eventually you are going to turn a corner. Then your workouts start to become a habit and suddenly you feel worse for skipping a workout than the pain you experience while working out. If you can turn that corner, you will no longer just be a resolutioner.  

          There are going to be times where you are going to experience setbacks and failures. Don’t let that stop you.  Take note that this weekend, the playoffs began for the NFL. All the teams work hard all year to get to the playoffs. But for all of those team – with the exception of one – are going to lose their last game. That is a huge kick to the gut because it can be one and done. We saw a loss from the Houston Texans. Now, I am a New York Giants fan but I appreciate the work ethic of one Mr. J.J. Watt. He took the loss very personal and a certain motivator that I idolize even more took to Twitter to give Watt his support and remind him losers stay down.

          Getting knocked down is not a loss. Staying down is. Happy Monday!