Physical Activity: Having limited accessibility could just be a blessing in disguise; one door shuts, another one opens

Having limited accessibility could just be a blessing in disguise; one door shuts, another one opens

Key points:

1.    Find aspects of training to work on that you may neglect when you have access to the gym

2.    Have a logical rationale to your plan

3.    Plan for it to be sustainable & enjoyable till “TBD”

4.    Control what you can, don’t try to control what you cant

5.    Stick to the plan, one thing at a time!

It’s been just over two weeks since gyms in Australia have been shut down

I will admit it sucks big time, as it’s really uncertain; TBD.

Some of us are blessed with a home gym, a combo rack, etc.

Some of us don’t even have a pair of bands because they all extinct!

However, most of us are just afraid that we may lose a lot of what we have worked for; the muscle mass, the powerlifts numbers, the weight loss/gains etc.

I am not going to talk to much about how bloody easy is it to maintain or slow down the rate of decline in whatever you worked so damn hard for, but rather how it’s actually a really good time to progress further. What you work really longs for, stay for a long time & if lost, comes back easy. However, progressing to a level higher from that baseline is something else.

I found this time to be a blessing in disguise. The main issue here is, many people all over the Internet are doing all sorts of things. Distractions basically. One week you see the push challenge, one week you a pistol squat challenge etc. The thing I’m trying to across here is that most people do not have a direction. I’m not saying its not good, it’s certainly better than nothing. But the people who are most concerned about losing/maintaining/making “gains” always strive for the best they can afford – competitive athletes.

This is a time to make plans that could be progressed sustainably for “TBD” with whatever you have with. Take one of my athletes for example.

Client X:

She is a -48kg powerlifter, minimal equipment in her apartment. Her bench press is in the low 40kgs, done with a relatively big arch. It isn’t a surprise that a bigger muscle has the bigger potential to move bigger loads with lotsa evidence backing that up, so I shall not get to much on that.

Doing reps of 8-10 pushups is a little difficult for her at the moment. Slowly progressing her to 2x a week, 3x week, adding reps, pauses, add a backpack, tempos etc. There are even studies showing that push ups provide similar, or possibly better than a bench press for hypertrophy/strength gains due to the decreased ROM/TUT from the bench press. Coupla examples:

Tillaar R. (2019). Comparison of Kinematics and Muscle Activation between Push-up and Bench Press. Sports medicine international open, 3(3), E74–E81.

Kikuchi, N., & Nakazato, K. (2017). Low-load bench press and push-up induce similar muscle hypertrophy and strength gain. Journal of exercise science and fitness, 15(1), 37–42.

In other words, this could be possibly superior to achieving hypertrophic adaptations on muscles that could affect her bench press positively by achieving mechanical tension, metabolic stress & muscle damage. Some exercises can cause less or more of each. That’s where we determine exercises via the stimulus fatigue ratio…. which is a whole another topic I may cover another day. But to keep things short, we are essentially trying to look for movements that provide the individual with A LOT of stimulus (i.e muscular tension when the goal is hypertrophy here) with the minimal amount of fatigue.

So lets put the push up here for client X: she may not get sufficient tension due to a lack of ROM/TUT on the muscles as compared to the bench press. Adding on to this, higher volumes may not be realistic in terms of how her joints, injury history & recovery capabilities may not allow her to accumulate higher amounts of tension/volume etc.

Another analogy is that we can only handle THAT much fatigue. Therefore, certain movements gives us a big bang 4 buck in term of the stimulus:fatigue ratio.

Another example could be a 250kg long-femured squatter who wants to maximize quad hypertrophy – squats would cause a lot of axial loading, he might feel like he’s loading his posterior chain more than his quads; not a good SFR; really depends on the goals. Think about some exercises that you get “bigger pump” with much lesser load but you get a significant amount of tension.

On the other hand, strength – we like to sumo deadlift is cheating: why? You are mechanically advantaged to lift much more load through a much SMALLER rom, resulting in more absolute load lifting with less tension. Therefore, it depends on the context, goal, individual, etc. it depends, it depends. We all hate to hear that but well it depends.

Alright, Im going off track again lol. Lets get back to client X: What about the lower body movements you may ask? Thankfully, (or not), she is really terrible in her aerobic capacity…. to the extent where she takes 5-10s to catch her breath in between heavier deadlifts in the mid 100kgs…. this was really a head scratching issue for me as a coach for her rate of perceived exertion isn’t limited by her strength, but rather her aerobic capacity! Now, I can take this time to progress on her aerobic capacity & even muscular endurance aspects of reducing her rest times & incorporating higher repetitions that she do not usually do during strength-centric training. AnYthINg ab0Ve 3 rEps is cArDio

Therefore, for client X, I took this opportunity to plan on her making hypertrophic adaptations for her bench press related muscles involved & improving her aerobic capacity & muscular endurance that hinders her lower body lifts. Even with limited equipment, specificity is defied to significant extent. However, that is just the skill component…which I do not really have such a huge concern for client X as getting her to lift a barbell again is like asking my mom to ride a bicycle after years of not riding it; its gonna feel funny in the first few hours, but it’ll be piss easy soon after.

Fun fact: Skill is not a component that decays the fastest but that’s what most people think….in fact, its aerobic capacity.

Going back to how it may actually be a blessing in disguise for an athlete….

PERIODIZATION 101

We want to overload an aspect of training while allowing others to get relatively detrained; most of us here have development of skill, muscle mass, muscle strength, aerobic adaptations as the 5 most common aspects.

You WANT to overload one aspect and allow the others to be somewhat “detrained” so when you focus on them again, it will be better than before based on various factors (have a read on this article by Greg Nuckols r.e grow like a new lifter again https://www.strongerbyscience.com/grow-like-a-new-lifter-again/ )

In the gym, we have a variety of equipment, we get to work with all sorts of rep ranges, intensities, etc. We get to build muscle strength, mass & improve skill. However, none of these factors are truly being maximised (and/or detrained/desentized) to get better at them again over the long-term periodized plan.

Coaches as well! You may be forced indirectly to LEARN more about other modules of training that you may not be well-versed at; i.e powerlifting-specialized coaches could learn a thing or two from bodybuilding coaches!

Other areas such as nutrition, psychological aspects, further on…..a door shuts, another one opens.

Therefore, it could a blessing in disguise that we are forced to specialize in a certain area of our training that may we may not see it as “optimal” with the privilage (or curse) of what we can do in the gym.

Think outside the box, be creative, be optimistic, look long term, aim to progress & not just maintain.

Control what you can & not GAF on what you cant.