Lift to music. Here is why!

How Can Your Workout Benefit From Music?

 Lifting to music has more benefits than just making your workout more badass. In a New York Times article, published in 2008, titled: They're playing my song: Time to work out, sport psychologist Costas Karageorghis explained how listening to music while working out can:

1. Reduce your perception of how hard you are working by about 10 percent during low-to-moderate intensity activity.

2. Profoundly influence your mood; elevating the positive aspects, such as vigor, excitement and happiness, and reducing depression, tension, fatigue, anger and confusion.

3. Be used to set an appropriate warm-up, workout, and cool-down pace.

4. Be used to overcome fatigue, and control your emotions if you're in a competition.

Exercise with Music = Stress-Reducing/Health-Promoting Duo

Exercise is perhaps one of the most effective stress-reduction strategies there is. And, with or without exercise, music is also a great mood regulator in its own right. Loud, upbeat music generally has a stimulating, energizing effect, whereas slow music can act as a sedative and have a calming, soothing impact on your mental and emotional state.

Other Health Benefits of Music

Harp music can be particularly helpful for individuals with heart issues, or suffer from pain or anxiety. Harp music has also been found to have benefits for premature infants. The Bedside Harp web site lists an impressive number of studies on harp music's impact on human health and well-being.

Interestingly, Harvard researchers have shown that the rhythms of healthy hearts may be similar to those found in classical music, and that certain rhythms (such as that of harp music) can train your heart to beat more normally.

In fact, Harvard has a nice web site dedicated to Music and medicine where you can read more.

Music therapy has also been shown to:

• Improve motor skills in patients recovering from strokes

• Boost your immune system

• Improve mental focus

• Help control pain

• Create a feeling of well-being

• Reduce anxiety 

Music and Focus

Another study mentioned by the New York Times was published last year. It discovered that listening to music could prevent basketball players from "choking" while under pressure to perform. 

They theorize that the music allowed the players a new focus; a distraction, "from themselves, from their audience and from thinking about the physical process of shooting," which freed their bodies to perform more automatically, without nagging interference from their own thought processes.

What kind of music do you listen to at the gym? What would you recommend to people looking to make a playlist? How else can music help you lift more efficiently and effectively? Leave a comment on what music you recommend or prefer!

Triangulated Power!

Today I want to go over something that will help ensure you are performing your clean's and snatch's to a better degree. If you're not into Olympic lifting, guess what!?! You can you this too as an athlete in order to better perform a major lift in the gym to accomplish true power and strength! Read through all this and apply it to your Power Cleans! 

 Look around you. Triangles are everywhere!  Any structure requiring a strong and rigid construction depends on triangles to achieve that goal.  Even though they might not be obvious or even seen for that matter, triangles are at work wherever strength and rigidity are important. This holds true even in weightlifting. Ask any coach what the "power triangle" is and he will gladly show you a person who has a developed set of shoulder blades, abdominal, and the glutes. However, today we are not talking about how to create a power triangle. We are here to discuss how to properly close the weightlifting triangle that has created the power and stability for your lift. 

Once you get past your knees in the initial pull, you should certainly have a triangle between your knees, shoulders and the hips. Can't imagine what I am talking about? Go ahead and grab a stick, bar, or just act as if you are holding the a bar. Go slowly thru the 1st pull and stop when the "bar" is just past your knees. Pause there and think. You have created a triangle. This position is important to form: The hips are away from the bar, the arms are directed back towards the thighs, and the chest over the bar forming 3 sides of a “power triangle.” In this position you are strong, stable and prepared to transfer the weight thru the 2nd pull.

This is where people make a big mistake. They either close the triangle to slow, to fast, or do not actually keep the bar in contact leaving a gap in the triangle. You may hear it at the gym as: completed a short pull, leaving the hips out, or not finishing with extension. Regardless how you are completing the pull, you are not closing the triangle in one way or another.  

The triangle stores a ton of potential power, the hips/glutes/lats are primed and ready to explode with force. You basically have to try in order to not create the triangle when the bar is above the knees. However, people often form the triangle correctly... but do not properly shut it.

Focus on driving your hips to the bar as soon as the bar passes your knees. Keep the bar close by utilizing your lats. Pull your knees under the bar with a dipping type movement, and then forcefully thrust your hips forward into the bar while simultaneously pulling the bar into your hips with the lats. DO NOT BEND YOUR ARMS!  Shut the triangle with control and conviction to get the most power into your clean or snatch. I however want to caveat this with one thing that will inevitably happen as you practice. Body position is always critical throughout any Olympic lifts. So... ensure proper body positioning at all times!. As you transition thru the 2nd pull your back/hips should move in conjunction with your knees. Neither should extend earlier than the other. If you extend your knees to early, you have no more room to explode upward. Same goes for your hips... if you open to early you will be leaning to far back and taken out of the proper power position as well as your bar path will be impacted. Either way, you are unable to create triple extension as intended or desired.

Practice closing the triangle at a slow pace with light weight. Gradually increase your speed as you get more familiar and are able to demonstrate proper positioning throughout the lift. Once you are moving in a fluid motion and able to maintain positioning, then move up in weight.

 As always, if you found this helpful, please leave a comment or email me. I am always looking to write what interests the readers, so have an idea of an interesting or debated topic , want to know something specific, liked a previous post and want it expanded upon? email or comment below. All feedback is greatly appreciated! 

Until next week... Lift it over head, slam it to the ground and repeat! Practice makes progression and progression to Gold!

Nitty Gritty

This week I wanted to focus on something that is going to lead you to success. I focus a lot of weightlifting itself, but I wanted to get a post in about mentality and how it can help make you more successful! So this weeks topic is mental mindset and its all about GRIT! Do you have it? Do you know what it truly is? Well read on and find out what it is and how you can benefit from it!  

Imagine yourself out for a jog when you are presented with a steep hill. You could turn and forgo the hill. Or you could dig deep inside yourself and find your strength and energy to tackle that monster. If you chose to charge over the hill, most likely you’ve got grit—the tenacity and stamina to put in hard work in pursuit of a goal, despite obstacles or setbacks. While talent and skills are important for getting ahead, grit is actually the biggest predictor of how successful you’ll ultimately be, according to Angela Duckworth,author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance.

So… How do we develop or nurture our grit? Whatever your Grit level is currently, you can build more anytime. The following will aid in your desire to grow your grit. Or follow these 5 steps from theweek.com.

First, find something you are truly passionate about.

Do you love to run or bike? Maybe consider training for a triathlon.  For me its weightlifting... hence the blog. If your passionate about what you’re doing, your grit will intensify, and you’ll be much more likely to succeed. You can also choose a goal that gives you a sense of purpose—becoming an instructor or launching a kids benefit, for instance. This can be especially motivating, because you see the effect your work has on other people. Maybe you just lack motivation. Try reading 5 reasons your motivation may be missing.

Next, focus on what you really want.

To reach a goal, it needs to be “SMART” Specific, Measurable, Attainable (Realistic), Relevant,Time Bound as well as challenging enough that you have to work toward it. For example, if your goal is to “become better at weight lifting," aim for something precise like ‘I want to lift my body weight in the Clean and Jerk.” 

Ensure you surround yourself with gritty people.

“We spontaneously model the behaviors of those around us,” Duckworth says. “When you join a team, you gravitate to its culture.” If you want to become a weightlifter but have a hard time getting in the gym and pushing yourself, find a group that meets every day to crush weights with. The members’ motivation and work ethic will rub off on you.

ALWAYS... Allow AND expect yourself to fail.

Failure sends most people’s confidence and morale plummeting. However, the thing about truly gritty people: they aren’t discouraged when they come up short. Its the opposite, they’re not only undaunted by adversity, but they are also fueled by it. OK, so how can you learn to embrace failure? Keep telling yourself that ability is not a fixed quantity. Anders Ericsson, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Florida State University and a coauthor of Peak: Secrets From the New Science of Expertise says, “with practice and dedication, you can evolve and eventually become excellent at doing something you once found difficult.” 

Try to view setbacks as opportunities.

“Gritty people appreciate the work they put in on the way to reaching a goal, not just attaining the milestone itself,” says sport psychologist Gloria Petruzzelli, Ph.D. “For them, setbacks become chances to learn something and are simply part of the process of mastering a skill.” To help cultivate grit when things go wrong, ask yourself, “What am I learning about myself in this moment?” and “How can I use this situation to shape myself for the better?”

Lastly... become determined to never give up.

If you’re inclined to blow off soccer practice after a hectic day at work, remind yourself that you’re the kind of person who honors commitment! Or if you’re tempted to end your long-term goal of lifting your body weight in the clean and jerk, tell yourself, “I will not quit, I cannot quit, period,” Petruzzelli advises. “Thinking of yourself as a gritty powerhouse will help you believe—and achieve.”

Need more advice in order to never give up? Review these 7 tips.

So what will you do to determine your grit? How will you ensure you will not quit? How will this advise aid you in pursuing your goal? Leave me a comment letting me know how this information has helped aid you in your pursuit of greatness!

 

Until next week... Lift it over head, slam it to the ground and repeat! Practice makes progression and progression to Gold!

"Pause"itive Gains

Being explosive is a necessity in weightlifting. The unfortunate aspect of training for Olympic Weightlifting, however, is that often the simple foundational factor of strength is forgotten. Everyone focuses on form and power (which are also a necessity), how to move quickly, open the hips explosively and move the bar overhead in a smooth motion. That’s all great, but your form isn’t going to make up for the fact that you’re a weak A$$ Biotch!

So how do we become stronger?! Strength training... duh! "But this is Olympic Weightlifting." 100% true... so lets incorporate a technique that will still build on the lifts, but make gains on, gains on, gains!

PAUSE REPS!

Pause repetitions are a tried-and-true method of building muscle and strength and should be a staple in any training program. Pause reps are the opposite of ballistic or explosive training. Rather than seeking to take advantage of speed or the elastic components of our muscles, pause reps force you to face your lifts with strength and strength alone.

Pausing during any portion of the rep ensures the elastic energy has dissipated while simultaneously breaking your momentum. When completing pause reps, there is no stored energy to take advantage of, no kinetic energy to assist in lifting the weight. When you pause, it takes pure muscle to produce the force you need. No cheating... just pure strength.

Here is a video of a pause snatch to give you an idea of how this looks for Olympic weightlifting.

Some people go overboard with the pause, stopping for a full two or three seconds between reps. There is certainly some utility to this approach, but doesn't need to be used for Olympic Weightlifting. That's more of a powerlifting technique. That being said, you only need a small pause to get the advantages pausing provides. Just long enough (Say Pause in your head... that's long enough) that you know your momentum is broken and you are starting from a halted position. If you pause between 1-2 seconds, I am telling you now... getting the weight to move again is going to suck! However, this is how you know you’re doing it right.

Utilizing a pausing phase into your lift is the cornerstone of simplicity. We know the obvious benefit (strength) it offers, but there’s another reason I particularly like pause reps: pausing forces you to lower your weight to a load you can handle, thus ensuring strength AND technique are accomplished in unison. I’m a huge advocate of simplicity in my training. Hence, my love for pause reps. Simple... straightforward... productive... and honest.

It’s easy enough to slap on some shoes and grind through a set of heavy cleans. When you have to mindfully pause at the knees without releasing any of your tension and then initiate pull entirely with pure strength, then there’s not a lot of room for interpretation. You can lift the weight or you can’t. Your technique tricks (speed/momentum) won’t help you.

If you want to get strong, take a second and learn to pause.

Pausing forces you to pay attention to your body positioning and the muscles you're activating to lift the weight. This essentially allows you to focus more on your form. Something that is not as easy at full speed.

One of my favorite ways to use pause rep is during my warm-up while using lighter weights, often just the bar. My reason is that it sets the tone for my entire workout. Instead of thinking about everything else going on in my head (upright back, hips move in unison with knees, lats pulling in the bar), I can focus and zero in on my positioning and mind muscle connection.

Another way I use pause reps is within my prescribed workout. This to me is the simplest way to ensure I build some strength, but also work on technique and positioning. On days that are prescribed around 50-65%, I will use pause reps in the clean, jerk, snatch, squat, deadlift etc. I specifically use pause reps at this time as I am using lower weights (we stated that is a must in the text earlier), as well as, the purpose within a training program to work at weights within these percentages is to focus on technique and positioning. I can accomplish strength gains as well if I incorporate pause reps here.


The pauses can also give you a chance to see if you're performing some common mistakes within your lifts, such as having your knees collapse inward or coming too far forward onto your toes.When you slow down the movement and use the pause to stop momentum, you will occasionally witness the imbalances within your snatch, squat, clean etc. and be able to better structure your workouts to work on the weaknesses.

So do you want gains?

Implement Pause Reps in your training and see your strength and performance sky rocket!

Found this helpful? Want to know how to exactly implement pauses in any of the Olympic lifts? Want to hear about a specific topic? Leave a comment below or send me an email! 

Until next week...

Lift it overhead, slam it to the ground and repeat! Practice leads to progression... progression to Gold!