Strength

Is it possible to increase strength/mass ratio without gaining excessive weight?

Hi Fletcher. Here's your question is it possible to increase strength to mass ratio without gaining excessive weight? Absolutely. You can definitely do that. Listen, if you're going to be training to try to gain weight and your training, more of a hypertrophy style of training program, that requires you to have an excessive amount of calories in your diet in order to make that happen. So not only do you have to train really hard, but you also have to eat quite a bit. So, Orders for me to gain excessive weight. I've got a lift lots of weights and I have to do it quite frequently with high volumes and I have to eat quite a bit of food. Here's the deal. If you keep your calories the same and you train for strength endurance and you do relative strength training and you continue with your sport, you will probably improve your strength to mass ratio without excessively gaining weight. Hope that answered your question if you have a more clarifying question. Please drop it below in the discussion.

You can increase your strength to mass ratio without gaining excessive weight by focusing on strength endurance and relative strength training rather than hypertrophy style training.

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What is one of the most under utilized lift or exercise in your opinion for swimmers?

Hi. I really love this question. So, what is one of the most underutilized lifts or exercises in your opinion, for swimmers? Well, one of the things that I like to think about is well, what planes of motion are those individual spending, a lot of their time in what are the movements that they're doing most of and then how can we kind of offset that in the gym? So I'm going to demonstrate one where we're doing a pressing movement because the experts mentioned some presses and I completely agree but we're going to do Reciprocating press. It means when one is going out, the other ones coming down. At the same time, we're going to do a frontal plane motion at the pelvis because we don't get too much of that in the water. So we're going to start here and then dry and I'm doing a staggered stance, which takes a little bit of pressure off your lower back. So I'm going to do it with one leg further forward than the other for a set. And then on my next setting is stagger my stance. The same idea. There you go, try that one out. See if you like it.

One of the most underutilized lifts or exercises for swimmers is a Reciprocating Press. This exercise involves pressing two weights out and in at the same time while also engaging the frontal plane motion of the pelvis. It can be done with a staggered stance to take pressure off the lower back.

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How does one reduce body fat properly? This is a subject we could talk hours on. But what we will say is that there's a combination of exercise that we do in a structured format, there's exercise we do in the form of physical activity frequently throughout the day that will help reduce body fat. There is looking at your nutrition and talking to some of the registered dietitians on this channel. They can give some very good insight as to how we balance out the amount of macronutrients that you have the proportion of Nutrients that you're putting into your body for fuel how those macronutrients work for each individual. I know for myself, I need more protein in my diet than I need carbohydrates. And that's just how my body responds to energy. So trying to find the right biochemical makeup for you and how your body uses nutrition to simulate and and fuel the activities that you're going to be doing. And the other part to that is I think just being more active more Frequently. So I mentioned improving your, the amount of physical activity that we do. But just being cognizant of the fact that fat has a very vital role in her body and having an excessive amount of fat around the abdominal area and around your Visser is not a good thing, but having fat on the body is a very good thing. It is a, it is storage. It is something that aids in our movement, it's something that Shields us. So having an An optimal amount of body fat is a very healthy thing. And I don't think that we should be concerned with trying to get super lean. If you're an athlete, I think we need fat on the body and I think it's one of the things that we could talk about for hours is to as to how to maintain that. But those are some of the big key factors.

Reducing body fat requires a combination of structured exercise, physical activity throughout the day, balanced nutrition, and understanding what macronutrients work for your body. It is important to maintain an optimal amount of body fat as it has vital roles in the body such as storage and shielding.

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What difference is there doing overhead shoulder presses with dumbbells vs barbells?

So the question is, what difference is they're doing? Overhead shoulder presses with dumbbells versus barbells. Well, the barbell is, you know, we're in a fixed position with the arms. So because of both hands are moving, they will be moving at the same time or what we say in a bilateral motion. So, both arms are moving together. We call that bilateral motion, the difference with dumbbells is that while I could also mimic having a barbell and pressing overhead the benefit to Using dumbbells, I can create some variety so I can change the angulation that I'm even starting at. So instead of being in this position with a barbell, I can now turn my hands just a little bit and press, which will give me a little bit more freedom of motion at the shoulder complex itself. But here's where variability gets really cool. I can go one at a time. Right, so we go, single press, we can go one, then the other, so we call alternating shoulder press which we can do with the bar. But what would happen is the bar is going to tilt side to side. And that's a really cool way to doing it too. We could do a reciprocating press. So as one's going up, the other one's going down. Okay, and then we can do things where we're moving one at a time through different planes of motion and pressing in different directions. And we can now start to incorporate more parts of A body with an overhead press so I can do an overhead. Press going behind me a little bit more, one at a time to share the load through this oblique system or the functional front line so I can load and take my overhead press not only just straight vertical but vertical and post here at the same time. So lots of variability that you can get with a dumbbell that you can't necessarily get with the barbell.

The difference between overhead shoulder presses with dumbbells versus barbells is that with dumbbells you can create more variety and incorporate more parts of the body, such as the obliques and the functional front line. You can also do alternating, single arm, or reciprocating presses.

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How many reps and sets do you recommend for squats?

All right, how many reps and sets do I recommend for squats? Well, it's going to depend on a few things. The first thing is, what is your goal is your goal to improve strength in the squat. What type of squad is it? Because a back, squat is a little bit different than a front squat, we're going to look at. Are we doing a split squat? Are we doing a lateral, squat? All these have different qualities in the acute variables that we're Choosing. So let's go back to the goal. Are we looking for submaximal strength or am I working towards maximal strength? Those two are going to have more. If I'm doing submaximal we're looking for more repetitions with less sets. If I'm doing more maximal, efforts of three to five reps. I'm probably going to train in the area of having more sets because I'm doing less reps. So so the relationship between reps and sets is usually the heavier that, I go, the less reps I'm doing, but I'm probably going to do more sets of them. If I'm working for strength endurance, I'm going to do more repetitions and less sets. Now if we're thinking of the number of exercises that I'm going to do of squats in a particular workout that depends on the goal and the individual. So if you have somebody that's just starting out an exercise, we're not going to do as many repetitions. Ends and as many exercises because they're going to get pretty sore. But if you're someone that has a big exercise experience, someone like myself who might just do a squat day, then you will be able to tolerate greater number of reps and greater amount of sets. That's what we call the total volume of activity. So, there's a lot of nuance this, a lot of variety and each individual is a little bit different, but that gives you a bit of an idea as to how we might cut. Customize this experience for each individual.

It depends on your goals and the type of squat. If you’re looking for submaximal strength, you should do more reps with less sets. For maximal strength, you should do fewer reps with more sets. The number of exercises and total volume of activity will depend on the individual.

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Hey Eduardo, great question. Weights before or after cardio. Well, I got to think of it. As what's the most important thing you need to do that day. So is the most important thing in your planning to be able to make a change with the amount of strength training. You're doing that day, then definitely, you should do your weights first. If your most important thing that you need to do is to improve your cardiovascular performance or cardiorespiratory performance. You do that first thing in the day. So it's simple to simple little rule to follow. That I really like doing is whatever the is of utmost importance. You do that first then give yourself at least about six hours if you're going to do a, if you're going to do both concurrently in the same day, I prefer to keep it between four to six hours between a very challenging training session in the morning to an afternoon session. So that gives you enough time to be able to reconstitute some of the fuels. That, of course the carbohydrate. So you're going to need to be able to be able to perform do. Your weight training and or be able to save some blood glucose and muscle glycogen for your cardiovascular training. So hope that helps you. That's what I do. And let me know what you guys are doing to.

It depends on what you want to focus on that day. If weights are the most important, do them first. If cardio is the most important, do that first. Make sure to give yourself 4-6 hours in between if doing them both in the same day.

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John Sinclair is an experienced sport and training management professional with a bachelors degree in physical education and sport performance, 15 certifications, and 20+ years of coaching experience. He has authored articles, created a programming algorithm, and is a programming consultant. His other achievements include inventing, being a master coach and educator for 7 different companies in the fitness industry, competing and training in 11 different sports, and coaching amateur hockey and baseball. 

Is it possible to increase strength/mass ratio without gaining excessive weight?

John Sinclair