I hope you all have liked the Quick Fix series I’ve been doing lately. I plan on doing more over the next few months. Not this week though.
This week I thought I’d go over the importance of listening to your body. This is something that, over the years I have:
-completely ignored
-taken to the extreme and been too conservative
-done exactly as needed
I am sure that many of you are in the same boat.
Your body is an incredibly smart and efficient machine. It tells you things all the time, things you need to know. You just need to be smart enough to hear it.
Let’s say that your knees come in when you squat; your body is telling you that something is off, either technique or strength, or that your upper back collapses when you press upwards in the bench, it is talking to you.
You need to interpret this and listen. It is telling you what it needs.
Your body also tells you when to follow the program or deviate from it (this is why I love RPE).
You just need to HEAR it.
Here is an example: I added low box squats as my first movement for two weeks in my current training block. I knew this was a bad idea, but low box squats are a tremendous exercise for building strength, so I said let’s run with it. I figured I’d add my Ace briefs to keep my hips from getting too jacked when I did them. The voice in the back of my head screamed “Don’t do these!”.
My body was telling me what to do, I didn’t listen.
My hip was getting pretty good, I had a few days with almost no pain and have been keeping up with my mobility and rehab for the most part, so I said what the hell.
Two weeks ago I did squats to a 14 ½” box which is one inch below parallel for me, not insanely low, but low enough. Well, on the first few sets my hip was screaming, but I continued. I added a few ½” mats to see if it made a difference. It didn’t. I shut it down after two or three working sets.
I paid for it dearly for a week as well. I was walking around like a dog with three legs for a week. I was almost unable to bench last week as a result too.
I should have listened to my body and my brain. Sometimes your body says stop or find an alternate exercise for the day and sometimes it tells you to push it harder.
This time it was telling me to stop.
I spent the rest of the week hitting recovery stuff pretty hard and scaling back my training. This was smart.
This Monday I was supposed to low box squat again but I listened to my body and did Good Mornings with the Duffalo bar instead.
Two words on the Duffalo bar.
Get one.
It is a masterpiece of craftsmanship. Duffin is an old school master craftsman whose work shows the highest level of attention to detail and pride.
Anyhow, I gave Kevin strict instructions to punch me in the face as hard as he could if he saw me benching on Wednesday (today). Kevin is one of my training partners and the Director of Strength and Conditioning here at TPS and has more than a few MMA fights under his belt so you don’t want him punching you in the face.
Today during the warmup my hip felt really good so I rescinded the order to punch me as I was intent on benching. Again, I listened to my body.
I went through my work sets of 5 sets of 4 at an RPE 8 on the bench with 2 chains per side and the hip felt 100%.
After that I was supposed to take an AMRAP set at 80% of the top weight used sans chains. Since my body and my training partners were telling me to push harder I listened.
I took out the brand new Slingshot that Mark Bell sent over, thanks Mark, and gave it a whirl.
The belt and the Slingshot really pull the fat in and make you look jacked. I'll be wearing them all the time from now on.
I ended up with a blazingly fast 315 bench for the day.
Now this is not a big bench by any standard, but for me at this point in my life health wise it is the most weigh I have had in my hands since my last meet that I outlined in the 44 and Broken series.
I had ZERO pain in my hip during the lift or after. As we speak right now, I am writing this at my desk listening to Sheer Terror full blast with ZERO pain in my hip.
Training partner, "The Chief" hitting 135 at 123 pounds.
Lesson here: Listen to your body. If it is telling you to back off and live to fight another day, do it.
If it is telling you to push harder, do it. I don’t really advocate going off book on a program but sometimes you gotta ride the wave as we say here. Especially if you train on an RPE system.
On another note, we’ve got a big weekend at TPS.
Jane “The World’s Strongest Granny” Stabile is lifting this Saturday in New Hampshire and Russ Smith is lifting in Rhode Island Sunday.
They are both looking for Elite totals in their respective classes.
I am handling Jane Saturday and Russ is lifting Sunday with another one of our coaches taking care of him.
They’ll both be swaddled in the finest gear that Metal has to offer and I am sure they will come away successful.
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Vincere vel mori
