Lessons from the HIIT Locker
Two lifters, in their 60’s and boasting 40-year careers under the bar, share some findings:
1. Through the years we have gained a great deal from barbell training: strength, health, and athleticism. However, we have also come to learn a fair bit about its pitfalls and limitations.
Barbell training’s greatest pitfall is its willingness to encourage the folly of pushing one’s self too long and too hard with heavy weights in the vain hope of a miraculous breakthrough during a period of stalled progress. Too often the result is the opposite, a regression in strength.
Barbell training is also ultimately a finite set of leverages with similarly finite benefits provided to the body. In a well designed program, barbell training is quite comprehensive and effective, but it is not entirely complete. The body’s capacities for movement are far greater than those allowed by two hands grasping a bar. This should compel a lifter to consider the alternative training aids that allow for greater ranges of motion and more direct muscular engagement.
2. Overtraining and regression are risks to people who are strong enough to operate near their bodies’ limits. These are the weights that create strength adaptations, but done to excess, they can create exhaustion.
People operating in this zone must change their exercises every three weeks, following a protocol established by the accomplished powerlifters at Westside Barbell. If, for example, barbell bench presses were alternated with dumbbell bench presses for three week cycles, exhaustion in one exercise is staved off while the lifter resumes nearly maximal training in the other.
NOTHING IS SACRED in strength training. There is no need to stick with any particular exercises for a long period of time.
3. The training aids that allow for greater ranges of motion than conventional barbell lifts are dumbbells, kettlebells, parallettes, heavy clubs, and a belt squat attachment.
In upper body training, a barbell bench press trains the chest, shoulder, and arm muscles, but it does so with a fairly optimal leverage for each. It does not call upon a full range of motion for any of them, and ultimately . . . sadly . . . surprisingly to Western Civilization, the bench press does not prove to be an effective muscle builder - especially given the amount of time and attention people devote to it.
The pecs, shoulders, and triceps can - separately or together - be far more thoroughly engaged by using dumbbells or kettlebells. Where a bar crossing a lifter’s chest limits the depth to which his hands can sink relative to his chest in a bench press, grasping a dumbbell or kettlebell allows his hands to sink far deeper, stretching the chest to its full range of motion and making the subsequent contraction engage more of the muscle as it lifts the weight a greater distance.
Put another way: imagine a skinny, untrained youngster trying to improve his bench or overhead press. He’s not strong enough yet to engage the barbell weights that could make him stronger. Dumbbell training would present a far more direct and extensive engagement of his muscles, and his strength and muscularity would improve far more efficiently than with the comparatively incomplete effect of barbell training.
Wait a minute. Really? Dumbbell or kettlebell pressing is the BEST form of strength development in the linear presses?
Not by itself: The optimal combined leverages of barbell pressing will allow athletes to lift a heavier singular load than they can with a pair of separate weights. This cues the brain to recruit the additional motor units needed to handle heavier weights. The best possible training is a combination of the neurological stimulation of heavier barbell weight and the increased muscular engagement of dumbbell (or kettlebell) reps.
Kettlebell single arm presses make for the greatest overhead press training possible. The freedom of movement in using one shoulder at a time and the support from the entire trunk enable each arm to drive up more weight alone than it could as part of a pair, whether with a barbell or two separate weights.
Yes, kettlebells are better than dumbbells here. With a kettlebell, the lifter can drop a fist to sternum level, maximizing the range of motion in the shoulder. This would not work with a dumbbell.
Parallettes allow for the greatest ranges of motion in upper body training. Athletes are limited to bodyweight usually, a light load which can be useful in restoring motion after injury.
Heavy clubs are a category all their own, developing strength as well as an understanding of whole bodied athleticism. Initiating and containing circular motion gives an athlete the sense that the chest, shoulders, and arms together form a harness of sorts. Heavier loads will dictate that this harness is rooted to the muscles of the trunk, and that the lower the forces are felt, the better. The lowest muscles of the trunk, along with the hips and legs, are the real basis for athletic movement - even when it’s ultimately expressed as extension or contraction of the arms.
A belt squat attachment (to a squat rack) allows for deep, deep squatting since the spine is not loaded.
Conventional barbell squats demand a chest held high and a spine held in rigid position for the sake of safety, which is mainly keeping the vertebrae stacked and the muscles under load safely contracted in their proper places. Provided they’re prioritizing their movement correctly, just about any athlete can squat to a below parallel position.
A conventional squat depth is where the center line of the thighs, (as seen from the front or side) running from the knees to the groin, dips below a plane parallel to the floor.
That is NOT necessarily the fullest range of motion for all of the muscles involved. Getting all the way down, ‘ass to grass,’ very often means the lower back must round. A backbone loaded with a heavy bar would be susceptible to injury.
A belt squat is as it sounds: the weight hangs from a belt slung around the hips. As the spine is not loaded, the athlete can safely drop into that ‘ass to grass’ position to maximize the range of motion.
SIDE NOTE: An athlete will belt squat more weight than they can back squat. In a back squat, all of that considerable effort in holding the chest high and trunk in rigid position as the bar rests across their shoulders is vital training, but it comes at a cost.
An athlete can simply bear a greater load close to his center of gravity.
4. In Section 1, above, we see that ’barbell training is quite comprehensive and effective, but it is not entirely complete. The body’s capacities for movement are far greater than those allowed by two hands grasping a bar.’
This is particularly important for older lifters to bear in mind for two reasons:
- It is key in the treatment or prevention of aches and pains.
- Older lifters need greater specificity in their strength work. Even when other exercises are close, the strength in any range of motion can wither if it’s not trained.
5. Aches and pains: Seemingly sore joints are really sore tendons caused by weak muscles. These are muscles that are undergoing stresses for which they are not prepared - as they’re caught up in exercises targeting other body parts entirely.
Sore shoulders, the sensation of biceps tendonitis, are caused by weak and tight rotator cuff muscles, namely the infraspinatus and teres minor. The infraspinatus sits on the shoulder blade and attaches to the top of the arm bone. The teres minor is also rooted to the scapula, and it ties to the top rear of the arm bone. When they’re tight, they pull at the numerous other muscles that attach there - and the result can be very deceptive. Lifters are led to believe they have problems with any number of muscles, and not the truly guilty parties, the rotator cuff.
THE SOLUTION to this weakness and tightness of the rotator cuff is old school bodybuilding pullovers - or a reasonable facsimile thereof: the lifter lies lengthwise on a bench, and with his two hands reaching above and behind him, he grasps a kettlebell on the floor. With his arms at 90 degrees or thereabouts, he heaves the kettlebell up and over his head to a position above his chest. He should be sure that touching the floor behind himself with the kettlebell represents a stretch that gets his upper arms behind his ears.
Sore knees in the squat come from weak quadriceps. Conventional barbell squats are very hamstring intensive, to the detriment of the quads.
THE SOLUTION is to perform squats that more directly stress the quadriceps. One option is to raise one’s heels by way of a two by four. This sends the knees further forward and the hips less backward than in the conventional squat, which places a greater share of the load on the quadriceps.
The Hack Squat, named for strongman and wrestler Georg Hackenschmidt, in its purest form is a direct stress on the quadriceps muscles. It also does wonders for knee mobility.
The lifter grasps a kettlebell with two hands behind his back. The weight will hang behind his backside. With his heels close together, he leans forward in order to bear the kettlebell load on his hips. As he drops into a squat, his knees spread apart and he rises to his toes. The bottom of his motion is essentially how far his knees and quadriceps will allow him to drop. A loose set of knees will allow the hips to drop all the way to the ankles.
To stay on his toes and maintain a vertical path, he will lean quite far forward. The lifter pushes back up to a standing position.
6. To prevent shoulder trouble for older lifters, the rotator cuffs must be strengthened.
The pull overs handle the infraspinatus and the teres muscles running from the shoulder blades.
Lateral raises with light dumbbells, done in such a way that the lifter is reaching and extending upward with his shoulder blades, can strengthen the supraspinatus, which assists in lifting the arm away from the body, a motion most associated with the deltoids.
The weights are lifted from a bottom position, the hands beside the hips, out directly sideways in two giant circular motions resembling the famous DaVinci ‘Vitruvian Man’ diagram. The weights continue to fully overhead, where they clank together.
7. Greater specificity for older lifters: Just like the rotator cuff muscles that must be strengthened, the major leverages of the pectorals and shoulders all contribute to shoulder health.
Younger lifters would seem to enjoy a potent training effect: some flat bench work and a bit of overhead often beef up the entire shoulder complex.
This is not the case for older lifters. They must hit every point on the compass: overhead, inclined, flat bench, declines, and dips. Neglecting any one of those would make for a serious gap in one’s physical preparation - and over time a heightened risk for injury in that unprepared portion of the musculature.
The same is true with lower body work, with regard to the squat and deadlift and their respective variations.
OLDER LIFTERS are encouraged to alternate cycles between belt squats with the heels raised and barbell back squats done to a box.
Discussion: Belt squats are safe and simple, and they allow a lifter to keep their torso largely upright as they grasp handles or a trusty Judo belt during each set.
A danger with the conventional back squat is the acquired habit of hunkering down and forward. It’s wear and tear from years of training, but ultimately this telltale sign of struggle becomes a default movement, wrecking the lift’s efficiency.
As God told Moses on Mount Sinai, barbell back squats were never meant to be done with a truly vertical torso. The body inclines to a certain attitude so that the bar, up on the shoulders, is directly over the centers of the lifter’s feet.
Through the lift, the bar stays over that same place.
Yes, the thighbones send the hips increasingly backward during the descent, and the torso must tilt forward a little bit to keep the bar in its vertical path - but not much - AND the lifter MUST NOT pitch forward to the point that the bar is out over his toes, or even further.
Box squats, like the Commandments the Lord provided Moses and the Israelites - either to keep them on the straight and narrow or help Him articulate the shit they were constantly doing wrong - give a lifter a target depth and the opportunity to establish a consistent motion that can lend itself to a torso properly handled.
When alternated in training cycles with the very vertical belt squats, the lifter can retain the skills of getting to a decent depth while remaining upright.
A few rounds of Hack Squats should complement barbell back squats, for the sake of engaging the quadriceps.
PRESENTLY UNDER CONSIDERATION as the HIIT Locker era ends is a Paul Anderson inspired range of motion progression.
The famous strongman and Olympian Paul Anderson was said to have a farmyard full of train and tractor axles. In the case of a weight so heavy he could not lift it, the legend is that he’d dig a hole underneath it deep enough for him to climb in below the bar to heave it a few inches at the very end of his range of motion. As he grew stronger, he’d fill in the hole a few inches, so he’d have to move the weight a greater distance.
The analogy for modern liters is to quarter squat a weight well in excess of their current maximum full squat. Then, just as Anderson filled in his hole over time, the lifter would lower the starting position of the heavy bar so that he too would be moving the weight further. Someday, conceivably, an impossibly heavy weight could be lifted from a full squat depth.
We’ll see how well this works. Generally, the weight is set on pins at various heights in a squat rack. However, the quality of movement could be suspect without careful coaching or video documentation.
One idea to consider is to lift the heavy weight off hooks, as with a normal squat set, and descend to a box - whose height would change over time.
8. DEADLIFTS teach mainly that life is hard, and often we face burdens greater than what we can reasonably be expected to bear. However, if you absolutely brace yourself to the best of your abilities, you’ll find that you can handle that load after all. The deadlift quantifies an athlete’s maximum systemic capacity.
Conventional deadlifts from the floor should be cycled with a combination of rack pulls and halting deadlifts. These latter lifts help sharpen an athlete’s technique for the conventional lift.
- Rack Pulls, done from below the knee, with straps and for reps, teach the athlete to concentrate on leg drive as opposed to standing still and heaving upward with the back.
The athlete drives his legs downward as if doing a squat or leg press, but there’s also a sense of bodily extension, as though one is trying push his hips and legs down a slide.
- Halting deadlifts are done from the starting position on the floor to a position where the bar has passed the knees. The emphasis here is on leg drive as well. The athlete, braced in the starting position, should drive the floor straight downward by extending the legs. His upper body maintains the attitude it assumed upon grasping the bar in the starting positon. As viewed from the side, this will make three points rise at the same time and speed for several inches: the lifter’s hips, his shoulders and the bar.
This will not stay perfectly in sync at the very top of the halting deadlift, but this is a skill that should be nailed down for a consistent first effort off the floor.
In conventional deads, this will translate into the lifter ‘levitating’ his body, remaining at a constant angle as he separates the weight from the floor, before he then ‘lifts,’ bringing his torso to an upright position. This is facilitated throughout by the leg drive trained in these two segments.
Alternating conventional deads with these two component lifts will be fatiguing over time, as the weights can be quite high. Another option, as a break from wear and tear, is Romanian deadlifts, done with straps and for reps, with 50 to 66% of one’s best deadlift.
We have experimented with Pendlay Rows and very low pulls with a moderate weight to a pin set below the knees, holding the weight isometrically for a count of a few seconds. These are helpful in training torso strength, the better to maintain that levitation position off the floor.
Power cleans do not build strength. They use strength but do not build it.
9. CALF RAISES or ONE-FOOTED JUMPS on and off a 45 pound plate (both in moderation) are important for ankle, calf, and Achilles tendon strength.
Do moderate endurance work, twice a week, on non-lifting days, 25-40 minutes of cruising speed swims, rows, or stair runs. Sport activities like ice hockey or basketball, which are of lesser intensity, can be played for longer durations. These sessions will provide muscular recovery and cardiovascular training.
