Competing – Louisville Strongman

The Glass is Half Full

Coaching, Funny, Gains, Movement, Programming

Dr. Mark Clevenger

Let’s be honest about the current state of affairs– they suck. People are worried, losing their jobs, there’s no toilet paper, and the ONE THING we meat heads use to combat the stress of normal life, let alone our now apocalyptic lives, has been taken from many of us. THE GYM.

Like every other gym rat out there I was pissed when I heard my gym was closed. After that first initial shock, the coach and physical therapist in me began to process the situation and I realized two things. First, this is a public health issue bigger than my desire to lift in the grand scheme of things. Second, the glass is half full because this is really an opportunity to grow as a coach, athlete, and as an overall person. Time to play “20 questions” to help you see the better side of this pandemics effect on your training.

Be honest with yourself, when was the last time you had a deload?

Not a missed session or two, not a taper for a competition, but an actual deload? One that is built around reducing the systemic stress on your body from heavy weights and high training volumes to let your body catch up on the fatigue you’ve been putting it through? A lot of athletes know how to push the gas pedal on the platform and in the gym, but have they ever really learned to let off and how this can help make them stronger? This forced training gap that many of us are experiencing is our opportunity to take some time away from the gym stress to physically and mentally recover.

When was the last time your training cycle consisted of large amounts of general physical preparedness (GPP?)

Let alone any GPP? As strength athletes, we’re always obsessing over that maximal number. We want to lift heavy to be strong as hell but don’t want to do the little things that allow us to recover, build work capacity (so we can compete in multiple events in a contest), or build the connective tissues that support our heavy lifting because we “don’t have time” or these things “aren’t fun”… usually because we suck at them. GPP is the base that strength and longevity is built upon and the older I get the more I’m realizing its importance. Take these few weeks and start walking. Carry your toddler around the block a few times. Do some interval shuttles. Hell, even try to go for a light *gasp* jog. If you find that a 20-minute walk carrying your young child around wears you out that’s a clear sign you’re not in very good shape and should be doing more of these types of activities. If not for your strength gains, then do it for your heart gains so you can be an active participant with that kid (or furry animal) in another 10 years. Get creative with this, find what you suck at and do more of it, so you don’t suck at it. You may find this was the missing piece to adding pounds to your total or what allowed you to not hit a wall at a Strongman competition after the third event.

When was the last time you performed body weight or calisthenic exercises as the bulk of your program?

Much of this question can be rolled back into the GPP paragraph above so I’ll leave that aspect of it alone. Research shows us that when training youth lifters we start with body weight exercises. Why? To develop neuromuscular and proprioceptive control. Why is this important? You spend most of your life moving and controlling your body which is the foundation of athleticism. While most strength athletes must be more strong than athletic (unlike say, a basketball player) they still must be able to move in fluid and controlled motion, *cough* *cough* talking you Strongman competitors. Being able to control your own body is the foundation of human movement, not the barbell (or atlas stone, or yoke.) This compares to someone who drives a race car around and around the racetrack all the time but never takes the family car out to the grocery store. They forget how to drive like normal people and end up causing an accident on a neighborhood street. So, if you struggle with body weight movements this is a great time to go back to basics and develop some of that relative strength before you wreck yourself by trying to play with your kids in the backyard because you don’t know how to move your own body.

Any nagging injuries?

I get it, when you get to a certain point in a strength sport, you’re always dealing with something. That becomes a part of the sport a certain level. Some athletes let these little things become bigger things that they try to cover up with horse creams, neoprene everything, and supportive gear, all of which ‘allow’ them to train but don’t fix anything. To those folks, this is the universe telling you to take the time to really rehab your problem. Pain can down regulate muscle activation which in turn limits force production and motor coordination, taking the time to get rid of these pains may make you stronger during this down time. Do your research, reach out to remote PT coaches for telehealth consults given the current world situation, and do the things you need to so when the zombie apocalypse finally passes, you’ll come back to the gym healthier and stronger than ever.

When was the last time you unplugged and connected with your loved ones?

Do you ever involve your family and loved ones in your house with your fitness? Depending on the level of competitor you are, your families make a lot of sacrifices for you to compete. They pick up after you, deal with you talking about it ALL THE TIME, watch the kids for you, put up with your hangry when you’re cutting, and most importantly are forced to give up their time with someone they love dearly… you. Take this time to unplug from your lifting videos on Instagram, spend time with the loved ones in your house, take them with you on walks, and involve them in your fitness as well. Now if your spouse or loved one is anything like mine, they may not like you trying to have a strict training regimen with your workouts where you’re dictating everything they’re doing. So ask them what types of things they would like to do, and do those. Moral of the story here, take this time and connect with the loved ones in your house.

I’m in the same boat as everyone else here. I’m upset I can’t train the way I want to, I’m worried about my small gym owner surviving this mess, and I’m wondering how long I have to use coffee filters in place of toilet paper since I can’t seem to find a roll at any store. Let’s all take a deep breath, remember this is a public health issue bigger than our training, and if we follow some of the points outlined above there’s a good chance when your gym opens back up you’ll make all of your gym buddies jealous when it looks like you haven’t missed a beat. Hell, you might even be hitting new PR’s to start your post apocalyptic gym life. Worst case scenario? You’ve strengthened the relationships with the loved ones in your house which is always the best type of PR.

The Top 3 Things Physical Therapy School taught me about being a Strength Coach

Coaching, Funny, Movement, Powerlifting, Programming, Strongman, Uncategorized

Mark Clevenger

Over the last 3 years I’ve had the unique experience during Physical Therapy School (PT) of simultaneously operating part-time as a freelance strength coach for Olympic Weightlifting, Strongman, and Powerlifting. While I’ve had one foot in each discipline for 3 years I’ve noticed a lot of parallels between these two fields, but I’ve also noticed there’s also a lot they could learn from each other. Now I could go onto write a big long article covering every detail on this two-way topic, but something tells me most people wouldn’t read it (TLDR). So I’ve chosen to spare you computer screen space and only discuss what I feel are some of the more important topics that need to be covered with regards to what PT school taught me about being a strength coach.

Complete the Puzzle

In PT one of the most important first steps we take when working with a new patient is the evaluation. In PT we break the evaluation down into subjective history, systems review (cardiovascular system, ect…), objective findings, assessment, goal setting, and a plan of care. While much of this information may or may not apply to this person and what brought them to you, we still need all the puzzle pieces to try and understand the whole picture of the patient. I equate it to having a jigsaw puzzle with more pieces than you need, you can still put the picture together as opposed to an unsolved puzzle due to several missing pieces.

This evaluation was the first thing about PT school that I carried over to being a strength coach (SC). How am I supposed to help an athlete if I don’t know everything about that athlete? Injury history? What’s their typical day look like? What is their warm up and cool down consist of? Nutrition? Sleep? Goals? Compensatory movement patterns? Movement constraints? Weaknesses? Motivation level? Overall health? Any question you can think of to give you more information about your client as it relates to their life, sport, and body, the better.

This is definitely something I feel is lacking in the strength training community from a coaches perspective. Too often I’ve seen coaches take on new clients and only ask them about their max’s and training goals. Don’t get me wrong that’s important to know but it leaves too much off the table and really tells you nothing about the client. I get it, we get busy and want to narrow everything down to the simplest of questions but the initial client interview is the foundation that everything else you do for that client is built on. The more information you have, the better a plan you can create for that client, the better their outcomes will be, the better a reputation you will earn. So take the time on the front end with your clients to ask a lot of questions and really listen to all of the puzzle pieces they give you.

Training should not be Spaghetti Thrown at a Wall

When I started my first outpatient clinical rotation I felt like I needed to fill every session to the brim with exercises to fix whatever issues my patients had. I would seriously do 6-8 different exercises in a treatment session. After a few weeks when I started seeing success with various patient outcomes, and feeling like I was hot stuff, my clinical instructor sat me down to review some of my patients’ cases with me. He asked me to pick out what exercises I had selected for each case had the biggest impact on that patients outcome? I honestly had no clue so I told him all of them. He asked me how I knew? I told him because the patient had positive outcome measures. He told me that patient outcomes were an important part of practice but how we got there was just as important.

The point he was making, one that I wouldn’t fully appreciate until my rotation was almost over, was that treatments were not a matter of throwing the kitchen sink at a patient hoping for a good outcome. It was about implementing exercises or changes one at a time and assessing their impact on patient performance. Learning what selected exercises worked and which ones didn’t so you could focus all of your attention on those things that actually worked. Looking back on it I can’t help but ask myself how much extra pointless work I was having patients do that wasn’t really making them better? How much faster could their positive outcomes have been if I would have learned what worked best so I could focus all of our attention on those things?

The point for us strength coaches is this: Find your clients signposts; those exercise signs that tell you what direction to take their training. We all remember those teachers in High School that assigned busy work for the hell of it and nobody liked those teachers. Don’t be your most hated High School teacher to your client, assign meaningful work that you know moves clients towards their goals or strengthens their weakness, not because you think it does but because your programming experience with them tells you it does.

A Balanced Athlete is a Healthy Athlete

One of the biggest lessons I learned in PT school and clinical rotations is the value of being physically balanced. Think about it, how many pathologies do you see as a result of an imbalance to a bodily system(s)? Poor posture plus lot of heavy pressing equals shoulder problems. Weak hamstrings and glute complex plus deadlifts equal lower back pain. The point is I began to see a correlation between the overall musculoskeletal health of an athlete and number of physical imbalances they had. This could range from specific muscle weakness, to joint range of motion, to energy systems utilized in training. This sold me on the belief that the better balance we can bring to our athletes the greater their longevity in their sport of choice and healthier they will be.

Let’s be honest, how many of our clients are amateur lifters and how many are pro’s getting paid for what they do? For most of us the answer is the former, we have to keep that in mind. These are clients who recreationally compete and whether they want to hear it or not it’s just a hobby. These athletes have full-time jobs, families, and other life commitments that they need to be able to physically perform for. From a parent playing with their kids to a firefighter saving lives during a 24-hour shift, they have other physical demands that must be accounted for in training that we must keep them healthy for. By keeping athletes balanced through intelligent programming we can keep them happy in their sport with personal records (PR’s) as they get stronger, as well as keeping them happy in their everyday lives because those PR’s aren’t costing them anything from their other life commitments.

While I’ve had my hand in two baskets for the last 3 years I’ve learned how to take the lessons learned about the career I’m preparing for and parlay those into my passion for coaching strength athletes. While these three topics are not an all-inclusive insight to everything I’ve carried over from PT to coaching, they are the three biggest lessons I’ve noticed and implemented. Maybe some of these ideas help you, maybe not, maybe they’re something you already do, by any account I hope you take something positive from it for either for your athletes or yourself.

Bigger is Not Always Stronger: Fallacies of Muscle Hypertrophy for Strength Athletes

Coaching, Gains, Powerlifting, Programming, Strongman

Mark Clevenger

Today’s diet and fitness industry preys on the insecurities of the masses. We live in a world where mass-marketing movements of companies, coaches, and trainers aim to exploit these myths on unsuspecting athletes at every available turn. From the notions that juice cleanses will result in immediate weight loss to the idea that the only (and best) way to lose fat is through endless amounts of cardio, the fitness industry is in no short supply of unsubstantiated BS. So hang through some technical terms as I establish an argument against one of these particular misconceptions- the fallacy that working out to make your “muscles bigger” will make you stronger, faster, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

Hypertrophy is generally defined as the growth of a tissue or organ as a result of increased size of individual cells¹. For sporting performance there has been a quest for skeletal muscle hypertrophy since it was established that a muscle with a larger cross sectional area produces greater force than a muscle with a smaller muscle cross sectional area (a bigger muscle is a stronger muscle)^1,2,3,4,5. Unfortunately, strength athletes are so pre-occupied with getting those ‘gains’ or getting ‘big’ that they find themselves believing, and trying, every stupid broscience tip that comes down the fitness fallacy pipeline to increase their muscle mass in the hopes that they will become their strongest selves.

There are primarily two different types of hypertrophy:

Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy- The growth of the structures supporting and surrounding the contractile elements of the muscle fibers such as the sarcoplasmic reticulum and sarcoplasm². This type of hypertrophy is the result of body building style training regimens.
Sarcomere hypertrophy- Growth of the contractile components of muscle fibers². This type of hypertrophy is the result of strength speed and speed strength training, aka powerlifting and Olympic lifting style training regimens.

The problem with sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is that there isn’t much growth in the parts of the muscle fibers that actually cause a muscle contraction. This can limit how strong of a contraction you can get. Since sarcomere hypertrophy has a greater proportion of contact area of the contractile elements which results in a stronger muscle contraction, sarcomere hypertrophy should be the goal of all strength based athletes. It’s important to point out that there are no distinct lines that can be drawn between these two types of hypertrophy in training, meaning while training in a bodybuilding style which produces more sarcoplasmic hypertrophy this does not mean that there is no concurrent sarcomere hypertrophy happening and vice versa. The training styles just mean that a greater proportion of one is happening over the other.

Now here is where the butthurt comes in for those coaches who prescribe inadequate, ill-advised, and malformed hypertrophy ‘templates’ aimed at exploiting strength athlete’s misinterpretation of the “muscle size equals strength” fact. The biggest problem with this ‘fact’ is that it’s taken out of context. It completely ignores the neurological contribution to force production (strength) as well as the appropriateness of hypertrophy for the athlete given their training history^2,6. In motor control and force production, the nervous system is responsible for the number of fibers active at any given instant (number coding), the rate at which fibers are firing (rate coding), and the sequence of fiber recruitment (pattern coding)². A big muscle is no good if the neurological components I’ve outlined have not been sufficiently trained for all the different types of sporting strength an athlete requires (speed strength, strength speed, explosive strength, acceleration strength, ect…).

What this means is that every athlete has a training period of 6-8 years (6 for lightweight athletes and 8 for heavier athletes) that their body maximizes strength gains via neuromuscular coordination and development in the absence of significant muscle hypertrophy⁶. Essentially, it takes our nervous system 6-8 years to maximize the muscle mass we already have, so why would someone want to take concentrated training time away from strength and skill development for muscle mass to get ‘stronger’ if they haven’t finished maximizing their current muscle mass for strength? How much in strength gains are you leaving on the table by taking this concentrated time away from strength and skill? Yes, in time the increase in muscle mass will make you stronger but in the meantime you could compete in higher weight classes when you haven’t fully developed your current strength potential. Hypertrophy training (and most techniques associated with it) will make you stronger, but not nearly as strong as you would be if your primary focus was purely on developing your sport specific strength and technique in your main lifts. This is the equivalent of an Olympic lifter concentrating on hypertrophy to get stronger before they’ve ever completely mastered the snatch or clean and jerk. This isn’t to say hypertrophy of muscle and connective tissues during those 6-8 training years doesn’t occur, it’s just not the significant contributor to the observed strength gains from training.

Deciding if hypertrophy training is beneficial or just a time-suck involves thinking through the needs of the individual athlete in their specific sport. Is mass a requirement in order to be competitive or to compete at higher levels of your sport? For a high school senior defensive tackle coming into their freshman year of college football, they will need to put on weight in order to compete at their position. Hypertrophy training for a strength athlete in this position would be appropriate. For the powerlifter who is naturally incredibly strong and wants to compete in higher weight classes for increased competition and notoriety associated with competing at that level, hypertrophy training would be appropriate. So, while the general rule for the strength athlete is that those who have less than 6-8 training experience should focus solely on strength and worry about hypertrophy after that, there are some special circumstances that must be considered from athlete to athlete.

So where have the feathers been ruffled? Wait for it… Wait for it… Right… Here. With all of these facts we can conclude that the mass produced hypertrophy templates from internet ‘coaches’ are useless for the majority of strength athletes. Almost all of them are rooted in the traditional sarcoplasmic hypertrophy style of training (body building concepts) that we all formally associated with muscle building to make us stronger… until we were further educated… like through this article. As strength athletes, this style of training and specific type of hypertrophic adaptation, does us little good and can even be detrimental to our specific sporting strength. These athletes (with the exception of those outlined above) would yield more benefit from continued strength training geared toward their sport.

Understanding that hypertrophy is not necessary for strength athletes with less than 6-8 years of training and doesn’t require special training regimens or templates is a concept that many online coaches and generally ignorant coaches alike will rebuff. These coaches make their living perpetuating the broscience falsehoods of hypertrophy training (via bodybuilding style workouts) and preying on your fear that you have to get bigger to get stronger. The proof is in the pudding and the pudding is the field of exercise science. If you’re a strength athlete within 6-8 years of training (with the exception of certain athletes defined earlier) just train for strength. Don’t get lost in the fallacy that hypertrophy is your only path to getting stronger. Motor control and force production (muscle strength), at its core is a complimentary neuro and muscular system that should be trained as such. I hope this article has clarified some of the myths associated with hypertrophy for strength athletes and will save some of you time (and money) from broscience coaches who would love to steal both from you if you hadn’t educated yourself on your sport specific training needs.

References:

Macinstosh B.R. Gardiner P.F. McComas A.J. Skeletal Muscle: Form and Function. Second Edition. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics; 2006.
Siff M.C. Facts and Fallacies of Fitness. Sixth Edition. Denver, CO; 2003.
Baechle T.R. Earle R.W. Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning. Third Edition. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics; 2008.
Verkhoshansky Y. Siff M. Supertraining. Sixth Edition. Ultimate Athlete Concepts; 2009.
McArdle W.D. Katch F.I. Katch V.L. Exercise Physiology: Nutrition, Energy, and Human Performance. Eighth Edition. Baltimore, MD: Wolters Kluwer Health; 2015.
Medvedyev A.S. A System of Multi-Year Training in Weightlifting. Livonia, MI: Sportivny Press; 1989.
Ogborn D. Schoenfeld B.J. The Role of Fiber Types in Muscle Hypertrophy: Implications for Loading Strategies. Strength and Conditioning Journal. April, 2014; 36(2): 20-25

Top 6 Competition Day Philosophies for the Strength Athlete

Coaching, Powerlifting, Strongman

Mark Clevenger

Last week I wrote a short article about my Top 6 Training Philosophies for Strength Athletes. This week I want to follow up with my Top 6 Competition Day Philosophies for these same athletes. These philosophies are rooted in the concept I call ‘controlling the controllables.’ Exercising control over these variables will ensure no matter how the event plays out you walk away within the framework of success that you construct for yourself.

Set yourself up for success: Going into a competition define your success beforehand with goals that are within your physical abilities. Don’t set the mark outside of your reach (I’m going to deadlift 1,000lbs!) because you’re only going to get discouraged and upset with yourself when you don’t reach it.
Stick to the plan: If you’ve trained a certain way with certain equipment for certain events, compete in that manor. Comp day is not the time to change the way you do anything. Don’t allow some unknown variable into any of your lifts that could lead to a decrease in performance, even if you believe the change has huge upside to increase your projected performance. Always take the safe bet rather than the risk everything you’ve worked for bet.
Savor the moment: You’ve worked your tail off to be on the platform with all eyes on you, that moment is yours. With that in mind don’t let it be bigger than the task at hand, you still have to execute the plan regardless of how the competition is playing out. In the end the moment is yours but isn’t bigger than what you’ve come to do.
Throw the book out the window and take the test : To this point you’ve been thinking about everything from your goal, to your training, and everything in between. Competition day is what all that thinking has led to but is not the place for any further thought. You’re beyond prepared because everything is second nature to you at this point. Just go pass the test.
Celebrate your successes: Be happy with your PR’s and goals that were met. Go out and have a drink, eat a good meal, and spend time with those who supported you throughout the process, after all you earned it. Don’t let the honeymoon period of success last longer than 1 week. Enjoy the victory then set a new goal and start the process over again. Keep the things in your training that made you successful and apply them to future goals.
Own your failures: Your failures are yours and no one else’s, just like your successes. Take ownership of what you did wrong and make it a positive. Dwelling on failures does you no good and never learning from them makes you destined to repeat the same mistakes. Make it a positive learning experience and move on.

Many of you probably use most of these concepts in competition already. For those of you who don’t, write these things down, commit them to memory, and apply them on game day. I promise exercising control over these 6 variables will yield you a >95% success rate within the framework of success as you’ve defined it. This success will keep you positively engaged and competing in the sport you obviously love.