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Workouts

FEEL ABLE

I grew up in the 80s.

What I mean by that is that the core years of my adolescence occurred in the 80s. In 1985, I was a freshman in high school. One of the things that I believe was particularly unique about this time in our American popular culture was the social pressure put on boys of my age to lift weights. Popular films of the time starred action heroes such as Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Back then, these men were viewed, somewhat, as pinnacles of masculinity. I believe a whole generation of young men were directly influenced in a very powerful way by characters like Rocky, Rambo, Conan The Barbarian, and The Terminator. I know I was. And so were my friends.

Almost every guy I knew lifted weights back then.

growing up in the 80s | personal training | strength training
“How much do you think he eats?” | “About 202 pounds.”

Many of the workouts performed by my friends and I were, initially, virtual imitations of the workouts we saw performed in the Rocky movies. We jumped rope. Every day. We hit the speed bag as a warm-up to virtually every workout. And, of course, we lifted weights, nearly every day, always trying to out do each other. An unfortunate aspect of this time, I believe now, was the irrational emphasis put on chest and arm development. Looking at the chest of Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator and the 20-something-inch “guns” of 80s personalities such as Hulk Hogan, I’m sure you can understand where the basis of this emphasis came from.



paul newt | personal trainers | dracut
Overhead Squat, 242 lbs.

Unfortunately, for a generation of young men who also put high value on their ability to perform in various sports, excessive chest and arm training was, at best, irrelevant, and was, at worse, compromising athletic performance. It has taken me significant time to “get over” the idea of weight training being about building “respectable” chest and arms. Some of the deprogramming was difficult to accept, but my training, of myself and others, has continued to evolve in a better, more productive, direction.
Looking at chest and arms, and let’s throw shoulders (deltoids) in there too, one can easily see that we are talking about only about one third of the body’s total muscle mass. The vast majority of the body’s muscle mass, about two thirds (about 67%), lies in the quads, hams, glutes, and back. Assuming you are looking for balanced development, your weight training programs should reflect those percentages. Ideally, one would be spending two thirds of his/her time in the gym training quads, hams, glutes, and back. My training, until about 15 years ago, was about two thirds chest, shoulders, and arms training. I suspect many of the men I grew up with would also be inclined to design their weight training program with this somewhat irrational emphasis on chest and arms.

Fifteen years ago (in 2003), I started putting more appropriate emphasis on each muscle group. Instead on doing some sort of upper body work every 3 days out of 4, I began having about 50% my workout time dominated by lower body, performing a squat type movement as often as every 3 days. Squatting every 3 days?!? Many men in my peer group would call this crazy. I call it extremely productive and effective. Personally, my physique, performance, and health all responded in a very positive way after making this physical, and philosophical, adjustment.



weightlifting | strength training | personal training
The Olympic Snatch

Almost 6 years ago (in late 2012, I modified my program design, designating the Olympic Snatch as a “centerpiece” lift. I discovered that building the exercises that improve the Olympic Snatch can dramatically increase your flexibility, mobility, and overall physical prowess in a very real, “feel-able” way. Because this type of training is more comprehensive in a real-world, functional sense, you immediately start noticing that you can perform better physically, in your day-to-day living, in ways that are truly remarkable. Lifts like front squats, dead-lifts, high pulls, squat cleans, snatch from the hip, snatch pulls, dip snatch, overhead squats, and slide and drag drills are much more translatable to your everyday living and general physical performance levels than the bench press and barbell curl. I have integrated these concepts into my personal training methods as well – the results have been spectacular.

It is this natural evolution of my program design that has led to the development of Trilateral Training.

Paul Newt has been privately instructing and strength coaching since 1994. He is the founding President of Edge 24 Hour Private Fitness and Master Trainer at New Energy and Weight-loss Training Systems.

IF YOU ENJOYED READING THIS ARTICLE, you may also enjoy reading An Interdisciplinary Approach to Weightlifting Part I by the same author.

General Exercise, Workouts

Basic Human Function

(as previously published in the Merrimack Journal)

Squats. Maybe you have heard of them. Maybe you have heard some of the myths about them like, “squats are bad for your knees”, or “squats are bad for your back”. I especially enjoy encountering someone in the gym who rationalizes to me why they “don’t need to do squats”. It’s funny to hear that because we ALL squat. Every day. It’s part of basic human function.

Do you doubt that you squat every day? Go into the bathroom and perform another basic human function. When you’re finished, stand up. You just performed a “Box Squat”. Sit back down. Stand back up. Now you have done 2 repetitions in the Box Squat (you initially sat down to the toilet, stood up, sat down, stood up… that’s 2 repetitions). See how easy and convenient resistance training is? Another example? Go sit down at the table for breakfast. Stand up. Sit back down. Stand up. Sit back down. Stand up again. Congratulations. You just performed 3 repetitions in the Box Squat. That’s a 50% increase from your last set. You’re progressing nicely!




I think you get the point. Squatting is totally necessary for basic human function and your day to day living. So now let’s talk more specifically about the Box Squat as a part of your regular exercise program. Anytime you squat to a toilet, chair, hassock, milk crate, or anything else that will safely support your weight, you are squatting to a “box”. A “box” just represents a platform of specific height. In general, the lower the box, the more difficult the box squat. Squatting lower means you need to move a given weight (your own bodyweight, in these examples) over a larger distance. An important, little known fact about squatting – the lower you squat, the BETTER it is for your knees. A critical point of advice for box squatting is SIT GENTLY TO THE BOX. Sit down as if you were sitting on an egg (don’t break the egg!). Land gently. Then stand back up. Make sure that the feet are placed in a way so they look like mirror images of each other. Your feet should be planted firmly about shoulder width apart and your heels should NOT raise from the floor as you descend to the box. Descend slowly, sit gently, and stand up. Control your body.

Do you want to continue to be mobile, functional, and pain free as you grow older? Yes? Then don’t lose your ability to squat. Here is a small challenge for those readers out there interested enough to humor me. Find a chair or hassock in your house that will safely support your body weight. Take a medium sized blanket or towel and fold it a couple times so you end up with a neat square that will fit nicely on the “box” you have chosen. Making sure you have given yourself ample room to squat, sit down gently to the box, allow your body weight to momentarily transfer to the box, then stand back up. Repeat this process 9 more times in a row. You have just performed 1 set of 10 repetitions in the Box Squat. Rest 1 minute (watch a clock). Perform 5 more sets of 10 repetitions. Rest 1 minute between each set.

I would enjoy hearing about your experiences and results.

Warning: if you have never done this before, expect some Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS).



General Exercise, Workouts

A Day Off…?

What do you mean… “a day off from the gym”?

Paul Newt Squats | Personal Trainers | Gyms | Dracut
Paul Newt. March 2012. 415 lbs.

I lift weights. Every day. Actually, I lift weights twice a day, Monday through Friday. I take it easy on the weekends- I only lift once per day, Saturday and Sunday. I must be young, right? That’s the only way somebody would be able to do that. No… I’m not so young. How do I possibly find the time to exercise so often? I make time. Even though I spend an average of 60 hours each week working, I still make exercise a priority. Of course, it DOES HELP that I do not subscribe to cable television, so I do not waste ANY time watching garbage like reality TV. Never turning on the “idiot box” definitely frees up some time. Whatever the case, the fact remains that I lift weights about 7-12 times every week. And I am even thinking about increasing that. I “olympic” squat, which means that I squat real LOW. To the point where my hamstrings cover my calves, almost like I am trying to touch my butt to my heels. I squat like this every day. With weights. And my knees, hips, and lower back are ALL still in perfect health. Why does it matter what I do? Because. What one man can do, another can do.



Personal Training | Strength Training | Heavy Duty Training
Mike Mentzer

Back in the 90s, one the many self-proclaimed gurus I chose to learn from was Mike Mentzer. Mike was preaching a low-volume training system he dubbed Heavy Duty Training. The premise was pretty simple – do only as much in the gym as you need to, to come back STRONGER the next time. His workout prescriptions frequently featured doing only 1-2 sets per body part. Under Mike’s tutelage, your workouts might last as little as 20 minutes per session (including warm-ups). He based the philosophical foundation of this training system partly on the teachings of Ayn Rand and frequently referenced her works, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Basically, Mike was out of his tree. A can or two short of a six-pack. NUTS. But, he could logically argue all day long why YOU and everyone else should only spend about 2-4 hours PER WEEK in the gym, no matter who you were. Like I expect all great teachers to be, Mike was a fanatic. I am glad that I devoted a significant time period seriously exploring his methods and the value of low volume training. I learned a lot. The concept of low volume training has its place in the larger picture of successful weight training, but it is just a small, small, SMALL sliver of the picture. These types of low volume training gurus come and go. A more contemporary version of the Mike Mentzer type (Mike is dead now), is a guy like Jim Wendler, who is, you guessed it, promoting a low-volume training system. Ironically, Jim Wendler was, at one time, a student of Louie Simmons. Simmons, the most innovative GENIUS in the history of powerlifting, generally believes in four “core” workouts per week and 3-9 “mini-sessions” per week, equaling approximately 7-13 workouts per week. Personally, when I am asked about Mentzer-Wendler types that are preaching low volume routines, I have the same general answer. “These guys are preaching low volume training so you can RATIONALIZE being LAZY and have more time to lay around and read their lame articles and/or buy their crappy products”.



john broz | average broz's gym | weightlifting | Coach
John Broz of Average Broz’s Gym

At the other end of the spectrum of training advice from Mike Mentzer, we have an Olympic weightlifting coach like John Broz, who is an advocate of a high frequency, high volume training system.  This is sometimes referred to as a “Bulgarian” style training system. I have a lot of respect for what guys like John Broz are trying to accomplish. And, although it may seem like I am now a student of John Broz and other promoters of high frequency training systems, I have been saying things like, “there is NO SUCH THING as overtraining, only under-eating, and under-sleeping”, for over 10 years BEFORE I ever heard of John. I also assert, as a product of my own now nearly 30 years of weight training experience, that there is an inherent harm and benefit in EVERY training system that must be considered. In the short term, you will notice the benefits of a given system rather quickly, but in the long term, the harm will become evident. A “perfect” training system DOES NOT EXIST. Training is much more dynamic than that. As soon as you take the time to write it down, there are going to be some subtle changes that need to be edited into it. It may seem that I am arguing against low volume training systems. It may seem that I am advocating high frequency training because that is similar to what I currently do. What I really want to say to you is – TRAIN AS MUCH AS YOU NEED TO TO SUCCEED.




pnewt pt business cardPaul Newt has been privately instructing and strength coaching since 1994. He is the Founder of Edge 24 Hour Private Fitness, and Master Trainer at New Energy and Weight-loss Training Systems.  He is available for consultations.  Visit www.newtsystems.com for more information.