A holistic approach to sport: Mind - Body - Bodybuilding

Mindfulness in an extreme sport - contradiction or a necessary requirement? 

Earlier this year I went to the World Athletic Centre in Arizona for a coaching intern program.
I watched track sessions and I watched weight room sessions of some very very good Olympic gold medallists.  Essentially there was no exercise or drill I had not seen before and that's the interesting thing. The genius is then... bringing all the components together of a program, so that the sum of the parts is so much greater than just an exercise program. I believe part of that success is the coaching philosophy and the attitude instilled in these athletes. Part of that philosophy was making sure, that athlete had a phD level of understanding of the sport and they understood smart training where quality is actually a determinant of quantity and not the other way round.
Installing an attitude, mindset and an ethos to athletes is really really important for success and a meaningful life. Overcoming limitations and hurdles, coping with failures and successes requires an athlete to be listened to and understood and this level of communication provides a vehicle for transformation and progression.

Lessons learnt from coaching that can be applied to one's own training

Having a deep level of understanding has helped me immensely in my training. Sometimes lack of progression is about mental blocks rather than pushing harder. It's about resolving internal conflict. Understanding others and gaining more compassion and empathy allows me to change my behaviour in training. Understanding hardwired habits and how to change them is part of the job. A coach can facilitate those changes by enforcing repetition and habit, but actually you can do it oneself if the awareness is there.

I wonder if there is value in treating yourself as another person - going outside of yourself momentarily, because you don't then have that emotional attachment to ego. Asking, "what do I need to do today" rather than "what do I want to do today". Being really honest about behaviours that hold you back. Most of the time we actually know this already!! and then having the balls and courage to change it by just reinforcing new habits. Changing behaviour is about being conscious of it and then repeating a new habit - EVERYDAY. It's the consistency that seems to be key in the reinforcement. But it needn't be hard. It just requires a bit of attention and perhaps the support of a good friend to kick you up the ass.

There are 3 things I have really had to embrace:

1. "Fasted" training - No breakfast running/jogging/walking/lying on the ground!

2. Preventing overtraining

3. Well timed, consistent intake of smaller meal portions.

None of these things I particularly naturally polarise to. Of course, what is one person's nemesis is another's pleasure. But just "doing" EVERYDAY....works when it comes to changing behaviour.  I may not love it but I certainly don't hate it and that is a great place to be - neutral! I always question extreme resistance to something. It is usually symptomatic of something bigger.

Understand sabotaging behaviour patterns

“If I get my athletes really mentally healthy…maybe they wouldn’t be making certain mistakes – well-being is crucial” Dan Pfaff (Education Director - World Athletic Centre)

I love this idea. It's sort of chicken and the egg. Which comes first? Healthy body or healthy mind?
Of course both feed into one, it's an ever turning treadmill. But a REALLY healthy, self aware mindset can identify and resolve unhealthy behaviour and attitudes which can sabotage progression.

Lessons learnt from training elite "trained" individuals

I have been competing and training myself for nearly 20 years and training others for nearly half that time. So lessons have been learnt - lessons will continue to be learnt. But what I have realised is....people are different and respond differently to different things, hence the need to individualise. Similarly, there are a million different programs that could deliver the same result.

I'm going to talk here about "trained" individuals, because I work with young elite track and field athletes and there are interesting lessons to be learnt from this cohort.

As an athlete gains training years, things change. There is more of a requirement to fine tune; subtlety of movement becomes important.

I realise my role as a coach for these individuals is not so much about the exercise choice but HOW that exercise is performed. Subtle changes in hand position or foot position can make a big difference. The difference to transfer of strength from gym work into the sport could also be as simple as understanding a feeling of movement and doing it with a different kind of intention. This is where words that evoke a sensation or create an image can be really powerful.

In this environment and with these athletes I have to go down a deeper path. One where I need to really watch and listen to them, understand their psychology, motivation, limitations, fear and overcoming these. I also have to help create and destroy perceptions, amongst many other things.

Spirituality meets Bodybuilding

It really made me think what a wonderful tool, sport (and/or competition) is for creating a meaningful life. It teaches one about failure, success, realising one's potential and overcoming self imposed limitations. I use an assembly of mental tools for when I struggle training for my bodybuilding show. I have to face my demons all the time, as partaking in an aesthetic sport is unfamiliar territory. I'm scared about getting on stage, scared about being judged, scared about performing, because actually that's not my natural personality. I'm an introvert with an few extroverted tendencies but you're much more likely to find me hiding in the loo, than being the life and soul of a party. But the confidence you get from facing these things; the accompanying freedom you gain from knowing you can ebb and flow with change is a great thing. 

So perhaps bodybuilding is considered a narcissistic sport but my journey has been one of immense self growth too. 

Can you train pain tolerance?

I have been recently playing around with HIT training Arthur Jones style to really good effect. In approximately 10 days, I have now noticed an ab vein to accompany my 1 ab from 14 mins of weight training 3-4 times a week. All fairly unflattering on me admittedly, but ho hum, this is bodybuilding.
Essentially the format I'm using is 1 set of 5-8 exercises performed to momentary muscular failure. The key is going to failure. I love that failure is a strategy for success in this case - a necessary requirement; this is a good lesson for life! As can be imagined, it is not a particularly pleasant place to be, but being an adventurer.....I like to walk the path less trodden - and sometimes, that means in your own head.

My last post explored the HIT method and the fact that not everybody can work to that intensity. This week I wanted to explore the idea of why not! Why is it so hard to work to that level of intensity. Can that psychology be trained?

The doubled edged sword of "hardness"

It really got me thinking about discomfort, pain and fatigue. As with all personality traits, pain tolerance exists on a spectrum. Can you train it? Can you change perception of pain?
And here in lies the double edged sword. There is a kudos surrounding things that are hard. Accomplishing difficult, challenging hard tasks are perceived as good; it gives one credibility and validity - a sort of virtuousness. There is therefore a benefit to an event or a training session being marketed as "hard" and many races like the Tough Guy take full advantage of this.

But I wonder if this expectation of something being hard can prevent fully embracing the experience?
The demographic of people that are going to voluntarily want to do hard training or a hard race are going to find the difficulty of a challenge, a motivator, but it places a "ceiling" on the effort if you have an expectation it will be hard. In actual fact there maybe plenty more effort in reserve.

My question is: If you remove the expectation, would the effort in an already motivated person be more or less? If you told that same person, the weight they were lifting was in fact heavier or lighter than perceived, would their perception of fatigue change and consequently repetitions of weight lifted (outcome).

A similar analogy might be going to the doctor for an injection. If you are told, it is going to hurt, no surprises for what the perceived pain is going to be.

I believe that embracing that "place" of discomfort relies on being fully present in the situation, as you have no judgement or expectation. It is what it is. Not resisting or avoiding and essentially.....wanting to be there. There are other schools of thought where, re-focusing anger or rage can accomplish the job but I can't help feeling that the outcome of this is a state which is way too emotional. In my experience, there is most definitely a negative correlation between the red mist, focus and performance.

Intensity creates focus

There is a level of exertion which creates focus, where distractibility is minimised. When perceived rate of exertion is low, you can get away with a bit of daydreaming or people watching but at around 70-80% perceived exertion things very much start to change. That moment, you realise that actually you need to concentrate on the task.
An interesting study performed by Professor Nilli Lavie, at UCL Psychology utilised a psychometric test to look at distractibility in 61 subjects. One finding was that all subjects, whether they are generally easily distracted or not - were far less distracted when performing a more difficult task. There was no extra brain capacity for processing distracting information. Although this was not a physical test, I believe that a level of challenge is required for focus and presence and in turn these qualities are good for effective training.

14 minutes 4 times a week

I'm embracing full on, balls out intensity - I'm also reaping the benefits very quickly, considering my total weight training is about 14 minutes 4 times a week now.

My personal motivation to want to go to this "place" of intensity is understanding it is part of the 2.5% effort that gets 95% of results! It is where improvement will happen. But I'm also hard wired to train like this. It suits my temperament. Everybody's unique psychology is very different and I'm fully aware this strategy doesn't work well for everybody. I'm in the the midst of reading the autobiography of Andre Agassi - "Open". The impressive thing about his story is not the titles and wins but the fact he hated Tennis. He always hated it from aged 7, but was made to do it by his father. So there is proof that, it is not a necessary requirement to love your sport. Indeed, you can still do something really well despite not having a natural predisposition for it. It can be trained.

I really do believe you can train pain tolerance, it's just knowing how to trigger the necessary response in the individual. What's going to make them want to do the things they "need" to do versus "want" to do to make them better. That is about understanding the psyche and motivation but where there is a will...there is a way.

Single Set HIT Training - Minimum effective dose

Unfortunately I did not inherit or learn the art of efficiency very well. In fact my temperament is much more "work horse" than albatross. However, when you get older and you are working close to your physical and mental limitations - adapt or die so to speak!

Note to self: Learn efficiency and effectiveness.

Variation is key

The theme throughout these last 6 months of bodybuilding training has been VARIATION, so I was researching what I was going to do for my next training block. Variation doesn't have to mean dramatic changes to exercises but rather subtle manipulations to hand/foot positions in exercises and various training parameters such as; tempo, load, sets, reps, rest etc.

Interestingly, William Kraemer (a well known sports scientist - professor of Kinesiology) calculated how many possible ways there were to do a training program, when you consider order of muscles worked, particular exercises for each muscle group and the use of free weights or machines. The number of possible programs was 10 to the power 67. Each, although similar is in fact different. This
explains how magazines can constantly churn out new programs.

I have played around with rep ranges between 3-15+ but will usually vary sets to compensate, so total training volume is roughly similar. I have personally found, I get the greatest and longest lasting muscle mass gains from doing low rep (4-6), heavy load training. There are also discussions about high rep training for hypertrophy as some people have made good gains with this. (Some evidence suggest it may occur through metabolic pathways which lead to up-regulation and production of natural anabolic hormones and growth factors). My personal experience with this kind of high rep training was a really sad, non-satisfying muscular pump, kind of like when you blow up a punctured bike tire that you haven't actually fixed. Whether there is a gender difference or it's genetic, who knows.


Again, I must emphasise individualisation is key with programming because everybody is different. Genetics plays such a huge role in bodybuilding and that should not be underestimated. So at best, a good program provides instructions to take you to your genetic potential. The rest is mind set and nutrition! The use of drugs and dosages again is a factor to consider and a particular training program may well work very differently for an individual who is using a cycle of drugs compared to if he/she is not using.

History repeats itself

I was thinking back through my training history and when I was in good shape. It was probably when I was competing in Thai Boxing and was actually doing about 20 mins total of very high intensity pad work and sparring. This was only because I was banned by my very smart coach! from doing more. I used to do a 60 min run in the morning and then afternoon gym work was limited to about 6 * 3 min rounds of very hard pad work. No weight training. This was a tried and tested method that was found to work really well after discovering high volume training just made me overtrained, stale and ill. This is not a state you want to find yourself in; neither when you are faced with an opponent who wants to smash your face in or when you are lying underneath a heavy barbell.

Arthur Jones and HIT - High Intensity Training

"If you like an exercise, chances are you're doing it wrong"


As an extension of this idea of low volume, high intensity training, I researched HIT- high intensity training, popularised by Arthur Jones in the 1970s but now largely forgotten. Casey Viator, Sergio Oliva, Mike Mentzer, Boyer Coe and Tom Platz, amongst others were all advocates. Essentially it is a single set of a few exercises performed slowly (often using negatives), to momentary failure.

Arthur Jones was a real generalist with very varied interests from wildlife film making to flying planes; he invented the Nautilus and MedX equipment. I'm slowly getting though a periodical he wrote called the Nautilus Bulletin. Very interesting and well worth a read. I always like to read fitness in history; when you bear in mind it is a reflection of the era and the time it was written, it is very illuminative. Nautilus Bulletin

The Colorado Experiment and Casey Viator

Casey Viator ( I am a huge fan) won the Mr America aged 19 in 1971. He trained for 10 months before that competition under the guidance of Arthur Jones.
The Colorado experiment was an interesting case of nature vs nurture coming together. The experiment was conducted in  May 1973 at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado. It was designed by Arthur Jones and supervised by Dr. Elliott Plese. The training was condensed to about 3 sessions a week lasting 33.6 minutes.

Results

Increase in bodyweight: 20.5kg
Loss of Body Fat: 8.1kg
Muscular Gain 28.7kg

The Colorado experiment protocol

28.6kg in 28 days (Casey Viator)

There was a lot of criticism about this experiment and of course it is a n(1) on somebody who had tremendous genetics to support muscular growth. There is also the issue of "regression to the mean", where Viator went into the experiment with a deficit of muscle from atrophy after a car crash.
But still....numbers don't lie and this protocol has been replicated with successes and also failures I must also add (drop outs)! He contested that he was not using anabolic steroids.

The example of Arthur Jones and Casey Viator is a nice one. An example of good synergy. Jones brought the knowledge, and Viator brought the intensity. The two of them together created this tour de force. Casey could really train in a way most people would balk at; he also had great genetics! Arnold Schwarzenegger was an example of someone who couldn't tolerate the method. It didn't work for him. He didn't want to go to that "mental place" of intensity, so instead opted for the high volume route, which did work.

This era of bodybuilding really fascinates me. Of course, like all sport, knowledge evolves but so does drug use. Bodybuilding today is more chemical than it was 50 years ago, it doesn't make it better or worse but it is different and I think training today reflects that. Effective training is finding that balance between stimulus and recovery. If recovery is better (drugs!), you can use more stimulus and hence high volume training can work very well. I think it is also worth to note that the different categories in bodybuilding are very different. Training for Fitness category (both male and female) is very different to bodybuilding category. In the latter, the degree of muscularity and leanness in competitive physiques is extreme and is virtually unobtainable without steroids. Bodybuilding is an aesthetic sport, so what is deemed desirable is a reflection of the time too. What judges want to see today was different to 10, 20, 50 years ago. The sport, the categories and perceptions of what constitutes a good physique, evolve and change.

HIT Basics

HIT relies on a single set of a few exercises but performed to absolute failure - so a real balls out, gut wrenching effort -that is the key to it's success and use. It relies on that intensity, and not everyone can go there. Arthur Jones believed that most bodybuilders at the time, were over trained from high volume programs, and what they lacked was rest and intensity. What comes with high intensity, is the requirement for adequate rest, so training was spaced out at least 72 hours apart. Interestingly, the same rationale and inclusion of a good proportion of intensity is used to explain the reason for the success of Kenyan marathon training programs. The intensity is what lacks in British marathon training, but the double edged sword of intensity is the need for recovery. Not easy when you also have to factor in high mileage for building an aerobic capacity.

The training concept is interesting. There are various variants of training and specialising for different body parts but essentially the basics are: Intensity, Progression, Form, Duration, Frequency and Order.

• Do each repetition slowly - as an approximation, 4secs concentric 4 sec eccentric, with no rest between. Tempo can vary from slow to super slow (30s for each portion)

• Perform 8-12 repetitions per set. Time under tension is therefore about 60-90seconds per exercise

• You need to reach momentary muscular failure for maximum intensity

• Limit a routine to 12 exercises or fewer

• Train for 3 nonconsecutive days or less per week

• Order of training - largest muscles first and smallest last

• Utilise both single joint and multiple joint movements

• Initiate specialized routines for only 2 consecutive weeks. Wait for 3 months before specialising on the same body part

• Optimize recoverability; train less as you get stronger

• Take a 9 day layoff after each 6 months of steady training. 

Curiosity killed the Cat

So in the name of curiosity and experimentation, I decided to trial this. 

And yes....no surprises it's really tough. It most definitely requires someone to spot you, as you're going to failure (with good form). 

My workout: 

1 set of 4 exercises with 3 mins rest between each exercise. Tempo - 4secs for each portion of the lift. 

Squat, bench press, dumbbell pullover, bicep curl. 

The challenge to the neuromuscular system is immense as you are getting more muscle recruitment. (All or nothing principle of muscle recruitment). Time under tension is high but weight would be dropped roughly by about 20% compared to a set at a faster tempo. 

Above is the description and now let me try and explain the emotion, which I shall sum up with the below diagram

Of course, the translation would be simply "unprintable" but you get the idea. There were "F" and "C" bombs thrown left, right and centre.  I was amazed at the muscular shaking that happens from the central nervous system input. This also caused me to then drop a 10kg weight plate on my foot from shoulder height. Excellent. 

The next day, unbelievable DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) which I'm still suffering 60 hours later. So, I can conclude considering I did a total of 360 seconds of exercise - I'm fairly impressed by the level of discomfort induced. There is nothing dignified about the experience but we''ll see what the effects are after 2 weeks. I plan on doing 3 sessions of HIT (5-8 exercises) a week, combined with  6 cardio sessions early morning (45-60mins). 1 day of complete rest.  

I like this concept of the minimum effective dose. At the moment, I'm on a calorie restrictive diet, working and studying an MSc, so I don't have huge reserves of energy or time for the gym. I have to be very efficient and make sure the little that I do, does count i.e efficiency and effectiveness! My goal is preservation (not building) of muscle and losing body fat, so in theory this method may just work! 

I think again, this just confirms that there is no good or bad program (within reasonable logical limits!) but efficacy depends upon many factors including, genetics, recoverability, drug use and mentality. Bring on gene therapy - then I can just stay in bed for a year and eat Rolo's.