Answer: As always, the short answer is that it depends.  Mainly on how they are done and the person doing them.  Frankly, this is truly the only way to analyze if a given exercise is ‘safe’ or not, any exercise can be relatively more safe or unsafe for a given individual for a given set of circumstances.  That said, the upright row does tend to be surrounded by it’s share of ‘unsafe exercise’ beliefs so let’s look at why.

I think the first place I saw it asserted that upright rows were categorically unsafe was in the old 7-Minute Rotator Cuff Solution from Health for Life (a now defunct company that put out a variety of different manuals).  And this was based on the mechanics of the movement.  Specifically, upright rows put the shoulder in an internally rotated and horizontally abducted position.  And this is a potential problem because it puts the shoulder/rotator cuff at risk for impingement.  Hence, to avoid shoulder problems, upright rows became one of the big no-no exercises.

But is this strictly true?  In my opinion, no and much of it has to do with how the exercise is performed.  Certainly, the traditional bodybuilder method of performing the exercise is pretty high risk.  I’ve shown the typical form below.

High Ouchie Potential

As you can see, the elbows are being brought very high (often the goal is to get them to the ears) and certainly that tends to put the rotator cuff in a high risk position even with excellent shoulder control.  As well, you don’t really get a whole lot more involvement of the deltoids in the first place by pulling the bar this high.  So you increase the risk without really impacting on the movement’s benefit as a shoulder movement.

So for those reasons, I certainly wouldn’t recommend folks do upright rows using that technique.  The risk is high and the benefit relatively low.  This is especially true given that it’s easy to modify the movement into one that is not only safer for the shoulder but targets the deltoids just as effectively.  And that is to do the movement where you stop with the elbows only going as high as the shoulders themselves (this typically put the weight/bar/dumbbell about sternum level) as shown below.

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Less Ouchie Potential

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The above has far less potential for impingement issues, simply by limiting the range of motion.  Yet it still provides full stimulation for the medial deltoid. I’d mention that it does still require some ability to control the scapula (in terms of setting the shoulder down and not letting it elevate) so someone with a previous rotator cuff injury might still have problems with it.  But for someone with good scapular control and no other shoulder issues, I see no problem with doing upright rows in this fashion.

As a final note, I would suggest doing the movement either with a rope handle (off a cable stack) or with dumbbells.  The wrists tend to get a bit cocked using a barbell so even if the movement doesn’t bug your shoulder, it can jack up your wrists.  And, of course, if doing upright rows even in the above fashion still bugs your shoulders, drop the movement.  As I said up above, movements can only generally be rated as safe or unsafe for a given individual under a given set of circumstances.  If a movement causes pain, it’s not a good one for you.

Hope that clears things up.

Answer: It depends.  Simply there is no single proper way to squat despite what many will have you believe or vigorously contend.  At the very least most will define three primary ‘types’ of squats which are:

1. High-bar/Olympic squat
2. Generic Power Squat
3. Geared powerlifting squat

And I’d note that that only begins to scratch the surface of the different types of squats which have been done over the years.  But those general categories tend to encapsulate the three ‘primary’ types of back squats that are done by trainees.  I’ll describe each generally and try to look at some of their various pros and cons below.

The high-bar/Olympic squat is done with the bar held high on the traps and the goal is generally to keep the torso as vertical as possible; this is usually facilitated by wearing shoes with a slight ‘heel’ on them as this lets the lifter get the knees further forward.    The focus is generally more on squatting ‘down’ than ‘back’ in this style of squat and it’s critical to push the knees way out and squat ‘between the knees’ (as Dan John puts it so simply).   A slightly narrower stance is also usually used (as this tends to have more carryover to pulling and the jerk in Olympic lifting). 

Olympic lifters use this as a general leg strengthener as well as to strengthen the muscles used in the Olympic lifts.  Generally, lifters using this type of squat aim for maximum depth (often called ass to grass or ATG) although bodybuilders often use a high-bar style but stay above parallel.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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The second type of squat is what I call the generic power squat.   In this style of squat, the bar is held a bit lower on the back (but typically not as low as some powerlifters would do it) and the lifter sits more back although there is also a down component.  Generally, there will be more even involvement of the lower body and the low back tends to work harder since the torso will tend to be tipped further forward.  Depth is typically just below parallel and a wider stance is often used; this can be perfectly appropriate for raw powerlifting competition and the following video shows a fairly generic ‘power’ squat.

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Finally is the geared powerlifting squat.  Frankly, technique here can vary massively depending on the type of gear allowed, whether or not a monolift is being used and how strict the federation is about depth.  You will see anything from a squat that looks almost like a high-bar squat (in IPF competition) to insanely wide stance squats.  The focus is generally more on squatting back than down but, again, there is huge variance here. Unless you’re planning on competing in a geared powerlifting federation, this probably isn’t relevant to you.  You can go Youtube videos and you’ll see all kinds of different techniques, again depending on the gear and federation and what’s being passed as a ‘squat.

And of course, there are endless other details to squatting which is what I suspect you are actually asking.  Debates over head position, how much torso lean, whether you break at the knees or hips first have been going on for years and aren’t going to end soon.  All techniques have their pros and cons and there are always trade-offs in techniques and you will see top competitors doing all kinds of different stuff along with differences in ‘style’ between two people doing the same ‘type’ of squat.  I doubt this really answers your question but short of writing a lot more, that’s the best answer I can give you.

So which is the ‘right’ way to squat?  That’s a question with no answer.  For most, either the high-bar style of squatting or generic power squat is going to be the better choice than the geared power squat (unless they are planning to compete in a geared federation).   

To really do a high-bar squat right usually requires Olympic shoes (especially if the goal is to hit depth without getting up on the toes); if a lifter doesn’t have those I’d tend to teach the generic power squat with the lifter sitting both back and down and aiming to hit parallel if they can do it without tucking their butt.

Which brings me to your second question, about the ‘butt-wink’. This is a term invented by, I believe, Mark Rippetoe, to describe the phenomenon whereby the butt tucks under (and the low back rounds) during a squat.  This video shows a pretty exaggerated version of tucking the butt under.

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Frankly, this can be related to a lot of different things often various aspects of flexibility or mobility in the lower body.  Tight hamstrings are often a culprit, tight glutes can be a problem too.  Often a lack of ankle mobility sort of ‘moves’ up the chain and causes problems higher up.  Sometimes it’s just an issue of the lifter not consciously trying to keep the back arched. 

I will note that with ATG squats, some amount of butt tucking is almost invariable. What I personally look for is what’s going on at the low back.  If the butt only tucks to the point that the back is flat, it doesn’t concern me; if the back actually rounds (as it does in the above video) then that has the potential to put a lot of stress on the spine due the combination of flexion and compression.

How you go about fixing it depends on the problem and I usually use a combination of static stretching, what’s usually called the squat stretch and focusing on keeping a hard arch.  The squat stretch probably has the most potential to do benefit here, since it’s about as specific as it gets. 

To do it, load up a bar with maybe 50% of your best squat.  Now holding a hard arch in the low back lower yourself to the point in the squat just above where your back would normally start to round.  Now trying to hold that arch (you may need a helper to let you know), let the weight push you down a little bit deeper; this is stretching all of the tissues that might be limiting in as specific a way as possible and over time you should be able to lower your depth without tucking.

If you want to get more information about squatting than you ever hoped for, I’d refer you to Boris Bachmann’s Squat RX blog and video series.  Excellent stuff and he’s got an entire video on correcting low back tuck somewhere on the blog.

Answer: There are actually two different issues that you’re bringing up here which are the general fatigue and the soreness and I want to address them separately.

First, the easier of the two which is soreness.  Simply, this doesn’t matter.  Soreness appears to mainly be an issue of connective tissue damage more than anything muscularly (despite still being called Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness or DOMS) and there is no problem training through it.  Most find that by the time they finish their warm-ups (see Warming Up for the Weight Room Part 1 and Warming Up for the Weight Room Part 2 for detailed information on this), the majority of the soreness is gone and even more find that as they get used to a higher training frequency soreness becomes much less anyhow.  They also usually start growing better.

The general fatigue issue is something else.  Mind you, without knowing more about your weekly setup, it’s a little hard to address this totally.   Because while it could be related to the previous workout it could also be related to lifestyle factors like sleep (or a lack thereof), nutrition, overall life stress, etc.  Making sure that those are in order often fixes any problems. 

As well, realize that many people find that they have some of their best workouts when they walk into the gym feeling a bit under.   They’ll be yawning and a bit apathetic and then just proceed to blow it out or have banner and PR days.  I suspect this is just an issue of not wasting a lot of mental energy ahead of time and relaxing during the workout and letting it happen instead of trying to force it.

But that’s far from universal.  My usual recommendation for folks when they get to the gym or training not feeling really up for it is to at least go through their warm-ups.  Often by the end of it they feel great and have a good workout.  If it’s still not happening, I’d either recommend calling it a day and going home or just going through a short active recovery workout (read Active Versus Passive Recovery for more), keeping volume and intensity dialed way back.  Ideally you should leave the gym feeling better than you walked in.  If not, you went too hard.

I’d mention that often the problem is related to the previous workout simply being overwhelmingly intense.  Many people who start to increase their training frequency don’t dial it back in their workouts and get themselves into trouble.  You may find that reducing the workload even slightly (not taking any sets to failure, reducing  volume a bit) at the previous workout (i.e. the Monday workout before a Friday workout) prevents the soreness and fatigue issues.

Finally, I’d mention that people who are using considerable poundages (i.e. who are very strong) often can’t pull off the higher training frequencies without adjusting their total work load majorly.  A heavy/light system (where only one workout is truly heavy and the second workout for that exercise or muscle group is much lighter) often allows the same higher training frequency while improving recovery.  Again, that’s usually for more advanced trainees who are handling very heavy weights and for whom two truly heavy workouts per week are simply too much.

Answer: With early morning training (and here I’m talking here about resistance training specifically) there are a few issues that need to be taken into account.  One of them is food intake and here there is a lot of variance.  Blood glucose is usually on the lower side in the morning and not everyone performs at their best under these conditions. 

In this situation, getting something (ideally with some carbohydrate and protein) before lifting is a good idea (I’d mention here that the studies which found that pre-workout carbs/protein were more anabolic were looking at morning fasted training so this is one place where getting something into the system is probably ideal from a training adaptation standpoint).  This isn’t universal and some people do just fine without eating.

But let’s say you’re one of those people who needs to have something in them to lift at their best.  Now we have another issue, some people don’t do well with food in their stomach during high-intensity activities.  At the same time, others can eat a big meal and go train and have no issues.  Some of this depends on the type of training as well: folks doing low repetition work with longer rest intervals don’t tend to have the same issues as those doing more ‘metabolic’ type work (with higher repetitions and shorter rest intervals).

Mind you, you don’t need a lot of food to get blood sugar into the normal range and I wouldn’t recommend a huge meal prior to training regardless.  A small amount of protein with some carbs is all that’s needed.  But what if you can’t handle any solid foods prior to a workout?  Then what.  In this case, liquids can be invaluable.  A simple glass of low- or non-fat milk or even a premade carb/protein drink will get carbs and amino acids into the system without sitting in your stomach during an intense workout.

So that’s issue one.  Another has to do with the training itself.  Research back in the day suggested that most people show optimal performance about 3 hours after they wake-up, it simply takes some time for the body to warm-up after you’ve been asleep.  And for folks who train first thing in the morning, this can be a real issue because odds are you’re not getting up at 4am for a 7am lifting session.  How to get the body warm?

A hot shower is one approach although it’s more of a passive warm-up.  Mainly realize that you may need to do a bit more extensive warm-up for early morning training than you did while training in the afternoon/evening (when you’d been up all day).  That may mean a bit more cardio to get the body fully warmed and you may need more warm-up sets prior to heavy lifting (read Warming Up for the Weight Room: Part 1 and Warming Up for the Weight Room: Part 2 for more details on optimizing your warm-up).  Of course, stimulants are usually part and parcel of early morning training as well.

Finally realize that there is likely to be an adaptation phase as your body gets used to training first thing in the morning.  You may have 2-3 weeks where your workouts just aren’t that great until you adjust.  But the body does eventually adjust (and there are plenty of folks who have gotten to their goals despite very early morning training).  The body’s circadian rhythms to adjust to training (and there is evidence that you perform best when you habitually train) but it can take a little while.  You may have to reduce your volume or intensity a bit initially but within a few weeks you should be back to your normal workouts without any issues.

Hope that helps and good luck.

Answer: While I’m not 100% certain where those values come from, it’s probably safe to say that Stuart McRobert and the folks who contribute to Hardgainer magazine have done the most to promote them as good goals for natural lifters.  But, as you point out, occasionally you can find instances where the numbers don’t seem to pass the reality check, usually where the squat exceeds the deadlift.

Part of this is due to some of the assumptions going into those numbers.  First and foremost realize that that exact numbers are easy to get hung up on but were probably chosen as much for convenience as anything.  People like round numbers and 300, 400, 500 has some nice ascending round numbery symmetry to it.

It certainly looks better to most than the Metric conversion (the exceedingly useful values of 136, 181 and 227 kg which just look messy).  I’d argue that, for someone using pounds anyhow, using 45 lb divisions makes more sense.    A 315 bench, 405 squat and 495 deadlift (respectively 3, 4 and 5 plates per side) makes more sense since that’s how pound using lifters think.  But doesn’t look as clean as 300, 400, 500 (the 495 deadlift is especially irritating since it’s only a baby plate per side off of 500 lbs).

But beyond that the pattern is what’s really important here, the idea is that bench is lower than squat which is lower than the deadlift.  Assumed in that pattern, mind you, is that equal work is given to each lift.  Clearly a typical gym lifter who benches 8 times per week and doesn’t know where the squat rack is (or puts nothing more than token work into their squat or deadlift) may bench way more than they squat or deadlift.  It’s really not a relevant example though.  It’s outside of the parameters of what’s being discussed.

Also assumed is something about the form being used: at least a controlled bench (I don’t recall if the bench required a pause), a below parallel squat and something approximating decent deadlift form are all being assumed here.  A guy doing a heave-ho off the chest bounced bench press with a ‘I just touched it’ spot or a 1/8th squat may very well have completely screwy relationships poundage-wise.  Deadlifts are harder to cheat for a variety of reasons so guys that get away with shenanigans on bench or squat get tested for real with deads; and they usually fail.  But that’s outside of the parameters of the values as well; assumed is certain form on each.

The powerlifting example is a bit different and worthy of some analysis.  Certainly here, under certain circumstances, squat results do sometimes exceed the deadlift in competition and this seems to run contrary to the 3,4,5 recommendation or the idea that you should see an increase from bench to squat to deadlift.  But there are a few issues at work here.

The first is equipment.  By and large, the squat responds to equipment better than the deadlift (consider that the first 1000 pound squat was done decades ago, the first 1000 pound deadlifts only recently); even recent deadlift gear doesn’t seem to give the same benefit that squat gear has given for a couple of decades.

As well, many federations nowadays are passing squats that, well…I don’t want to get into this argument about depth or whatever because it will just get stupid in the comments.   Let’s just say that partial squats used to be considered crap, not record setting.  Make no mistake, I’m as impressed as anyone with a guy with the balls to take 1200 out of a monolift.  But don’t squat part way down out of a Monolift and pretend it’s equivalent to what Coan or Hatfield did walking it out and hitting depth.  Olympic lifters may not be able to ‘squat the Sunday paper’ but they can sure go below parallel.

The point being that between gear and federation/squat depth issues, there is some elevation of squat numbers far above what you’d see raw/below parallel which is what the original values are assuming.  And when you combine that with the general lack of deadlift gear (and the limiting factor of grip) which has kept deadlift numbers down a bit, the numbers can get skewed and put squat numbers above the deadlift.

Finally is the fact that, again so far as I can tell, the original 3,4,5 recommendations were meant to be done in separate workouts.  They were just long-term goals to be done at some point in one’s career.  In contrast, in a powerlifting meet, the deadlift is done at the end of a long day after squats (which tire the legs) and bench (which can fatigue the upper body).

So deadlift poundages are often lowered compared to what can be done fresh in the gym (tangentially this is a reason for lifters to occasionally train all three lifts in the same workout, to see how squatting and benching first can impact on their deadlifts so they don’t get surprised some meet day).

But even with that, if you look at RAW powerlifting records, almost without exception the deadlift is higher than the squat.  How much higher can vary (again, keep in mind that deads are being done at the end of what can be a very long day) but higher nonetheless.  For example, here are the USAPL Raw records for juniors aged 20-23.

With the exception of an odd blip in the superheavyweight class, the deadlift records are always higher than the squat records.  If you looked at individual meet results, this would almost universally be the case with the occasional exception where someone did less in the deadlift than they did on the squats.  It’s not impossible for someone to squat more than the deadlift, it’s simply unusual given what I’ve talked about above.

And if you think about what I’ve discussed, assumption of a below parallel squat and something approximating a normal deadlift (again, a lift hard to cheat on) it’s pretty inconceivable that the squat would be higher based on the biomechanics of the two lifts.  Having to go below parallel takes lifter through the big sticking point (which varies significantly depending on the mechanics of the lifter), deadlifts invariably start with the hips above that.

Some lifters with horrid mechanics can have deadlifts just insanely out of proportion to their squat since they don’t have to get the weight through their personally awful sticking point.  It would take a really unusual situation (such as gear, or a stunningly weak upper back and even that would tend to limit squats) for someone to lift less in a lift that avoids their sticking point than in a lift that requires they move through it.

So the powerlifting example doesn’t necessarily apply.  Between the gear issue, differences in squat depth judging and the fact that all three lifts are done on the same day the results don’t really apply to how the original values were being advocated. Squat below parallel, bench with a brief pause (or at least no bounce), a true deadlift off the floor, done in individual workouts with equal attention paid to each.   It would be a rare lifter indeed who didn’t deadlift more than they squatted and squatted more than they benched.

Also keep in mind that the values aren’t meant to be holy writ, minimums or maximums.  Rather, they were always only posited as good long-term goals for natural lifters.  If you think about the number of truly legitimate 300 pound benches, 400 pound squats or 500 pound deadlifts you’ve seen in the average commercial gym, a number probably ranging from zero to a few (if you train in a powerlifting gym, the above may be considered ‘light’ weights) among average lifters of average size, you can see that they probably do represent some good long-term goals.

I should mention that some assumptions about bodyweight are also being made here.  The values assume a lifter who is 5’9-5″10 weighing 190-200 (bigger boys would be expected to do more, smaller guys less) so the numbers correspond to a 1.5 BW bench, double BW squat and 2.5 BW deadlift which are fairly advanced lifts (consistent with the idea that they will take most lifters near their maximum muscular potential).  And the values don’t apply to females, especially as they often see a bigger differential between upper and lower body lift poundages for various reasons I’m not going into here.

Answer: Imbalances across the body (e.g. left vs. right leg or right vs. left arm or what have you) are fairly common and can be caused by a number of things.  You mention one, many jobs involve moving in a repetitive fashion in one direction only.  For example, grocery store checkers typically rotate one direction (from the register to the belt) repeatedly with no shift.  Many labor jobs are similar with the same asymmetrical pattern being repeated for hours, days, weeks, months or years on end.

In many sports, the same is seen.  Runners who always run the same direction around the track can end up with issues as one side of their body is stressed differently than the other; rowers often get imbalances as a function of one oar moving differently than the other.  Imbalances (and back problems because of them) are absolutely endemic to my former sport, ice speed skating.  I think you get the idea.

Injuries can cause this to occur as well; when one side of the body is injured for example, the body often adapts by inhibiting a certain muscle (or finding a substitution of a different muscle) and over time this leads to imbalances.   Making this more difficult is that once an imbalance occurs, the body often finds ways to use other muscles to do a movement to avoid the weakness.   You also often see adaptations in muscle length with the weaker side becoming somewhat loose and the strong muscle becoming tight. This isn’t universal but at this point we’re getting into physical therapy.

So what do you do about it?   I’m going to assume you know where the imbalance is.  It might be between your right and left arm (most people tend to be a bit stronger on their dominant arm side since they tend to favor it already) or a right and left leg.  That could mean quads, glutes, hamstrings when I say ‘leg’. For someone who does a lot of rotation, you might see a bunch of different issues including imbalances between arms and even rotationally (i.e. the obliques on one side might be significantly stronger than the other).

The first thing I’d generally recommend is some type of strength testing to determine the level of the imbalance; this will also let you see if you’re making progress towards fixing it.  This also lets me address exercise selection.  For the most part, for both testing and fixing imbalances I strongly suggest using isolation exercises.

While this will offend those who feel that compound movements rool and isolation movements drool, my reasoning is this: when there is an imbalance, the body is often fascinatingly creative at finding substitutions to make the movement happen while throwing the least stress onto the weak muscle.

So consider the case where someone has a right quadricep weaker than the left.  If you use a quad dominant split squat or step-up, the body will try to find other muscles to help out, avoiding the problem.  Case in point, years ago I had a trainee who had sustained a hip/SI injury.  When I had her do step ups, she’d get sore in her quads on one side and glutes on the other.  The movement looked identical but her body had found ways around the injury and was using different muscles.

In contrast, if I want to fix a quad problem and I use one-legged leg extensions, the body is going to use the quads no matter what.  The same would hold for fixing imbalances between arms (use a one arm curl or triceps pushdown), pecs (use pec deck one arm at a time or a one-armed cable crossover).   If someone had a rotational imbalance in the obliques, this would be a good use for the ‘ab-rotation’ machines that so many waste their time on trying to whittle their love handles.

In any case, the first issue is testing.  Since we want to test strength, we ideally want a weight that will cause failure somewhere between 6-10 repetitions.  Fewer than that can be a problem for isolation movements; more and you start getting into issues of muscular endurance.  After a proper warm up you want to test one side vs the other to compare the two; make sure to keep form and lifting speed the same.

So say you’re doing one-legged leg extensions with 100 lbs and get 10 reps with the strong side and only 6 with the weak side.  Now you know your baseline.  Every month or so you’re going to retest to make sure that the weak side is catching up with the strong side.

Now we fix it and there are two ‘rules’ I apply here.  The first is this: you will always start with the weak side and always let the strength of the weak side determine what you do with the strong side.   So if you do your first set with the weak leg and get 8 repetitions with 80 lbs on the 1-legged leg extension, you will stop at 8 reps with 80 lbs on the strong leg.

Even if the strong leg could easily do more (and it probably can).  If you don’t do this, you will simply keep making the strong side stronger and the weak side will never catch up.  And yes, if you’re worried, this may weaken the strong side a bit.  That’s fine, what we’re trying to do here is achieve balance so that body sides can be strengthened again.

The other rule would be to do more sets (perhaps twice as many sets) for the weak side than the strong-side.  As I’ve discussed elsewhere on the site, you can maintain strength in a muscle group with a volume reduction of up to 2-3′rds so you can cut the volume on the strong side down to 1-2 sets and not lose much strength.  At the same time you’d want to do 3-4 sets for the weaker side to stimulate strength gains so that it will catch up.  So you could do 1 set for the strong side and 2-3 for the weak side or 2 for the strong side and 4 for the weak side.

So in practice, again using quads as an example, you’re looking at a situation where you might do a workout consisting of

Warm-ups as described in Warming Up for the Weight Room
First set with weak side: say you get 80 lbs by 8 reps on the 1-legged leg extension.
Do your first set with the strong side.  Even if you can do more, stop at 80lbX8reps. 
Second set with the weak leg.  If you can do the same 80 lbs by 8 reps, that’s fine. 
If you need to drop weight, do that.
Second and final set with the strong side.  Match it to the second set with the weak leg.
Third and even a fourth set for the weak leg

Take about a minute between opposite legs and perhaps 1.5-2 minutes on the final two sets (since you’re working the same leg).  You’d do the above twice per week and, of course, apply progressive overload as things got stronger.  IF the weak leg improves to 90lbsX8 reps, bump up the strong side to match it.   And again, retest every month or so.  Once you’re within 1-2 reps difference between sides (nobody is ever perfectly symmetrical) you can move back to more compound movements.

As a final comment, one thing I’ve noticed and perhaps any rehab oriented readers can chime in in the comments is this: once people have had an imbalance the body often shifts back towards it even if you seem to have fixed it.  It’s probably due to well established neural pathways but there may be good reason to throw in some one-legged work in from time to time (e.g. finish quads with one-legged leg extensions after squats or leg press) to both ensure that the sides stay symmetrical as well as doing a spot-test from time to time.  Otherwise the same imbalances seem to come back gradually over time.  And it’s always easier to prevent a problem than fix it.

I’d also note that imbalance can also be caused by reasons totally unrelated to anything that the above can fix.  Nerve pinches or other things that only a competent physio can address are potential causes here.  If you apply the above and nothing is happening, it’s worth getting checked out by someone to see if there is a bigger issue at work.

Hope that helps, good luck.

I was just wondering, why does this work? How much should you back cycle weights? Should you back-cycle everything at the same time or only lifts that are stalled? Can you do this indefinitely (back-cycle and build back up and just keep repeating, passing your maxes with each cycle)? Also it’d be nice to hear some of your random thoughts
about this concept, and plateauing in general. Thanks!

Answer: Ok, a lot going on here and this is going to be a fairly long answer for a Q&A.  First let’s define terms: Back-cycling in this context refers to a situation where someone deliberately backs off their work weights for some period of time before starting to work back up towards those previous maxes in an attempt to smash through them.

So, for example, someone who had been stuck at 200lbsX8 reps in the bench press (for example) might back up to 80% of that 160 lbs for 8 repetitions and then start working back up in some fashion.  How they work up isn’t that relevant although, as you’ll see, I’ll assume a fairly linear increase.  That isn’t required, one could just as easily work in an undulating fashion back towards their previous maxes.

Mind you, this is only one way to back-cycle but it’s the simplest; you drop back to the realm of 75-85% of your previous best weights and then work back up over some period of time.  How far you drop back and how long you take to build back up depends on a host of factors; one of the primary ones is the length of your training cycle.

As a generality, the longer the training cycle, the longer you spend working fairly submaximally before getting back to your previous maxes.  Many old-school powerlifters would do long 12-16 week cycles where they didn’t even attempt new maxes until the end; you can google Ed Coan’s training as an example of this.  Similarly, Hardgainer author John Christy (RIP) often recommended a 4-6 week submaximal buildup before trying to push past your previous maxes into new territories for months on end (he kept progress going by using small weights and lots of food).

By the same token, the shorter the cycle, the shorter the build-up period.  In my own generic bulking program for example (which can be found on the support forum and I’ll eventually write up here), I use 6-8 week cycles.  It’s for intermediate trainees and I have folks take 2 weeks of sub-maximal work before pushing hard for PR’s for the next 4-6 weeks.  Then they back-cycle  and go again.

With that out of the way, let me address each of the above questions.  First off, why does this work?  There are at least two reasons.  The first has to do with something I won’t detail here called the Fitness-Fatigue model of adaptation.  Simply, training generates both fitness and fatigue and it’s the balance of the two that determines how well you express your fitness.

So for example say you do a hard workout and that increases fitness by 1%, but it also increases fatigue by 1%.  You won’t be any stronger until you rest and the fatigue goes away and the 1% can be ‘seen’.  An added principles is that fatigue goes away faster than fitness.  So when you rest, your fitness hangs around but as fatigue goes away you see the actual strength gains.  This is the basis of tapering for sports; you build up a lot of potential fitness over the cycle of training and then as you taper and let fatigue go away, performance increases.  Backcycling is sort of a taper.  Sort of.

In this vein, as I talked about in Returning to Training After a Layoff – Q&A, many people find that after short layoffs (3-5 days) that they come back stronger.  This is most likely due to the dissipation of fatigue that lets their strength fitness return.  So that’s probably part of it; someone who has been grinding along for weeks or months at the same weights who then drops back lets fatigue go away and they get stronger.  This shows up when they get back to their previous maxes.

Another issue and one that is often forgotten in the world of ‘go heavy or go home’ is that it’s not required to work at maximum to make gains in fitness.  For intermediates, as a a general rule, working in the realm of 80-85% (or 90%) of their best is sufficient to stimulate strength gains.  This is especially true if volume is increased somewhat.

An example will make this more clear. Say that fresh you can do that same 200X8 bench press for one all out set.  If it’s truly a limit set you’re not going to do more than 1 set of 8 with it although you might get multiple sets by dropping reps per set (or lowering the weight).

But let’s say you work in the realm of 170-180 (85-90%). You can probably get 3 or more work sets of 8 at this weight since it’s sub-maximal.  It’s work but you’re not grinding yourself out and you can get far more total repetitions than if you did the one maximum set at 200X8.  Alternately you might do 200X5 reps and get 3-4 sets (15-20 total repetitions vs 8 reps) because none of the sets are maximal.

And both of those approaches, to one degree or another will be stimulating strength gains.  Since this Q&A is about back-cycling, I’ll focus on the first one; just realize that dropping reps and maintaining weight is another way of back-cycling.

In any case, by dropping back to 160X8 for 3-4 sets, not only are you allowing fatigue from the previous training to go away, you’re still stimulating some strength gains.   Sure, maybe not as much as if you were grinding out 200X8 but gains nonetheless because you’re above the 80% threshold.  Then you go to 170X8 for multiple sets and you’re still stimulating strength gains.

Then 180X8, 190X8, 195X8 so that by the time you get back to 200X8, you’ve gotten stronger compared to where you started.   Stronger, such that 200X8 is no longer your maximum.  Which allows you to power through to a new level of strength.  And you might find that you keep making progress for some period of time until you come up against the place where fatigue has outstripped fitness.  Which is where you plateau and then back-cycle and start over.

In essence by back-cycling, you get back to a place where you can generate at least some strength gains without burning yourself out on maximum weights such that when you get back to your previous maximum level you can surpass it.  The old Hardgainer groups called this ‘gaining momentum’ but basically that’s all this is; you get your fitness moving upwards by working above a certain threshold (but below maximum) and that lets you power through old plateaus.

So that addresses the first question; don’t worry the second and third won’t take nearly as long.  The question of whether to back-cycle only stalled lifts or everything is one of those it depends areas.  Certainly some lifts tend to plateau before others; in general smaller muscle mass exercises seem to plateau sooner than larger muscle group exercises.  And it seems sort of illogical to back-cycle an exercise that is still gaining just because something unrelated has stalled.  Why stop making progress on squats or deads just because bench has stopped moving?

At the same time, you can’t separate everything from everything; there is overlap and all exercises impact on general functioning to one degree or another.  I’d generally say this: if you’re training without any sort of formal structure (i.e. the 2 week run-up to 4-6 weeks hard of my generic bulk), just back-cycle individual lifts as they stall out.  So if bench stalls, back-cycle it and run it back up; don’t back-cycle everything else.  If you are on something more formally structured, I think it’s better to back-cycle everything or stuff gets out of synch.

Finally, will this work indefinitely?  Probably not although I think it will work for more people than realize it for fairly long periods (throughout the intermediate years of training). If it did nobody would ever stop making gains and clearly this isn’t the case.   Eventually you get so close to your limits that you have to start using even more complex schemes to eke out the final bit of progress.  I’d strongly suggest the book Practical Programming for Strength Training by Rippetoe, Kilgore and Pendlay as a good starting place for some of those more complex schemes.

Answer: First I’d like to start with an old joke.

Q: Which is faster, heat or cold?
A: Heat, because it’s easy to catch a cold.

Ok, with that out of the way, some commentary on training when sick.  This seems especially relevant now that’s it’s winter and people are often carrying around various bugs that they can pass to one another (and I’m not just talking about drunken make out sessions at the office Christmas party that makes everybody uncomfortable the next day).  This was something we dealt with constantly in Salt Lake City; since we skated on a big ice oval, the air was pretty stagnant and anybody who carried a bug to the oval often gave it to everyone else.  Which brings me to my first point.

When you’re sick and especially when you’re contagious, do everyone a favor and stay out of the gym.  Here’s why: it’s selfish as hell of you to put everyone else at risk of being sick.  Yes, we all know that you’re body obsessed and addicted to training.  But it’s not all about you, believe it or not.  I’m as sociopathic as the next guy (perhaps a touch moreso) but making a bunch of other people sick by being a selfish asshole is just rude.  Gyms are a veritable haven of germs to begin with and making a bunch of other people sick because you’re too neurotic to miss a single day of training is bullshit.  If you’re contagious, stay home.

But let’s assume that you’re not contagious, or you train at home, or whatever makes my paragraph above irrelevant. Can you train when sick? More importantly should you?  Finally, if you can and want to, what should you actually do?

And the answer to the first question is that it depends.  The general rule of thumb is that if your sick is only in your neck or above (e.g. stuffy nose, sneezing, headache, sore throat; basically the stuff that Nyquil fixes), you’re cleared to train.  It may not be much fun but you can train.

However, if the sick has moved lower, such as a chest cough or chest cold, the general advice is to avoid training.  I’ll be honest that I forget the exact reason for this, something to do with it getting much worse.  I think you could cause real problems.  Again I forget offhand and it doesn’t really matter; just take my word for it.

But that’s the general rule: if it’s neck or above, you can train; below the neck and you should skip training.

But even if you can, should you train?  Again, the answer is that it depends.  But here it depends more on you and less on the fact that you’re sick.  It depends on whether or not you have any self-control.  Because if you don’t, you better not train unless you want to make it worse.

To explain that I have to bore you with a bit of physiology and how exercise affects the immune system.  Simply, exercise and immune system function have a rather complex relationship.  It’s actually described by what is called an inverted-U shaped dose response curve. Essentially people who get no exercise tend to have poorer immune system function than folks who train some; but people who train excessively tend to impair their immune system.

Especially acutely.  People who do very intensive or extensive (duration) training often find themselves getting sick afterwards.  Upper respiratory tract infections (URTI’s) are endemic among marathoners for example. But it’s not that the event makes you sick.  Rather, extreme workouts tend to impair immune system function; if you are then exposed to some sick, you’re more likely to pick it up.  Basically there’s a window of vulnerability that occurs after extreme training that briefly impairs immune system function.

Over a decade ago (man, I’m old), I found empirically that a reasonably short, moderate intensity workout (talking 20-40 minutes at a middling intensity, either cardio or the weight room) usually helped me get over being sick.  That is, sitting around didn’t help and working too hard made it worse.  But a moderate workout helped me get over it faster.  When I’d start to feel something coming on, I’d go do a moderate workout and that would help.

As laid out in Supplements Part 2, I’ve found in recent years that megadosing glutamine and Vitamin C helps folks get past stuff so long as they start with it at the first sign of being sick. I also have what I call The Cure ™ but I have to keep some secrets so you don’t get to know about it yet.

Anyhow, research later showed up to support my observation: moderate intensity and volume activity bumps up immune system function while no exercise or too much/too intense activity impairs immune system function.   Which brings us to you.

If you have the self-control to go to the gym and do a moderate duration moderate intensity workout, not only is it ok, it will probably make you get better more quickly.  But if you lack the self-control to keep it in your pants, and feel compelled do stay in the gym forever or blow your brains out with intensity, you’re going to make it worse.  If that’s the case, you should stay the hell home and maybe get a self-help book on impulse control.

And that also tells you how you can/should train if you choose to (and can stay in control). You must keep both the duration and intensity moderate.  Again, if you can’t do that, stay at home and get someone to bring you soup.  It worked for grandma and it will work for you.

If you do cardio, keep the intensity in the easy aerobic range (130-150 HR).  Thirty to forty minutes tops.   Don’t even think about intervals.   Just nice moderate steady-state cardio.  The kind that everyone says is ineffective and makes you fat but which seems to do nothing but create great athletes and leanness.  Yeah, that.

If you lift, keep it far away from failure and moderate volume and intensity.  Like 80% of your maximum capacity for a handful of sets.  Just get in, get your pump on and get out of the gym.

And if you can’t show that much self-control, stay the hell out of the gym.  Because if you go in and destroy yourself, you’re going to make it worse.  Then you won’t just have missed a day or two of training while you got over the sick naturally, you’ll get real sick and miss a week or more.  And it’ll be your own fault for being stupid with poor impulse control.

Happy Holidays!

“I don’t have her do sprints. I have journal research that shows that sprints interfere with biochemical pathways involved in muscle growth.  While sprints will help pack on mass for beginners, it can actually negatively impact more advanced lifters in terms of hypertrophy. That’s why the bodybuilders don’t sprint or do plyos – the risk isn’t worth the benefits.”

The comment did not specifically cite the particular research, nor did it make mention of the sort of volume and distance of the sprints, i.e. whether this was low or high volume and whether the sprints were somewhere in the 10-40 yard range or beyond that range.

To the best of your current knowledge, is there a legitimate reason (biochemical or otherwise) why sprints would interfere with muscle growth? (I realize that with specific parameters and context this may be a bit tricky to tackle)   I am not necessarily arguing that figure athletes or bodybuilders need to be or even should be performing them, simply wondering if those who may do so would actually be compromising results as Bret seems to intimate.

Answer: The short answer to your question is that Bret is right; certainly distance probably will have an impact but when people talk about ‘sprinting’ for bodybuilders, it’s usually some form of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) being discussed.  That is, longer repeats (typically in the 30-90 second range).  Few would be doing short sprints like a track sprinter.

As to the mechanism, Bret is most assuredly referring to AMPk (adenosine monophosphate kinase) and how it impacts on muscular metabolism.   I wrote an article years ago about AMPk: Master Metabolic Regulator and talked about it in some detail in the Methods of Endurance Training series.

AMPk is activated, essentially, by alterations in the energy state of the cell: things that occur in both endurance training and longer sprint type training (AMPk is regulated both by the duration and intensity of activity).  Activation of AMPk has a number of implications: it’s involved in the adaptations to endurance training (stimulating various improvements to occur in the fibers in which AMPk is activated), increased fat burning, insulin sensitivity and a host of others.

Relevant to this specific issue, activation of AMPk has been shown to directly inhibit a molecular marker called mTOR (which stands for the mammalian target of rapomyacin, aren’t you glad you know that now ).  mTOR is a key player in muscle growth; for example, the amino acid leucine that so much has been talked about acitvates mTOR directly and this appears to be the major way that leucine/BCAA turns on protein synthesis.

So when you activate AMPk, via long-duration and/or high intensity endurance/interval training, this inhibits mTOR activity; inhibiting one of the prime players in muscle growth.  Again, that’s surely what Brett is referring to.

Now, as you bring up, this probably doesn’t hold for very short sprints but those would be uncommon for bodybuilders or physique athletes to do in the first place.  For the type of sprint/interval training commonly advocated for such athletes, I agree that the negatives would outweigh any potential positives when maximal muscle growth is the goal (interval training can have potential benefits for fat loss, including stubborn fat loss, as discussed in The Stubborn Fat Solution).

Answer: The above question, in one form or fashion, has come up on the support forum and is certainly relevant enough to be worth addressing.  Because while I tend to focus on the goals of bodyrecomposition (losing fat and/or gaining muscle), clearly that’s not the only reason that people choose to work out.

Certainly, I think that, to put it somewhat crassly ‘looking better naked’ is a primary goal for most people who get into training but clearly some people are simply interested in basic overall health and wellness.  For that explicit goal, what kind of training is necessary?

And the answer, really is not much.  Here the basic American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) guidelines are going to be more than sufficient in that they target the primary factors involved in basic health and wellness which are basic cardiovascular health and muscular strength.  Of course there is more to overall health than just those two factors.

For basic cardiovascular fitness, a training frequency of three times per week minimum has been found to be necessary.  Certainly more than that can have other potential benefits (in terms of body composition or what have you) but three times per week is the basic minimum. Durations of 20-60 minutes at an intensity that is typically defined relative to maximum heart rate (i.e. 60-85% of maximum heart rate) are what’s recommended.

I’d note that using estimates of maximum heart rate is problematic at best since there tends to be a great deal of variability here both in terms of maximum heart rate (which can vary massively from prediction equations) as well as functional threshold.

Using Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) as I discussed in Training the Obese Beginner (e.g. an RPE of 3-4 on a 10 point scale, challenging but doable) or something like the talk test are not only equally valid but are probably easier to use than heart rate monitoring and will put people in the right range.  And an intensity of 3-4 on a 10 point scale puts most people where they need to be.  The talk test I mentioned in that same series, working at a level that allows for a broken conversation to be maintained is another easy way of putting people at the right place.

Certainly interval training, the alternation of bouts of higher intensity with lower intensity, is being found to provide some potential further benefits for both health and fitness.  If nothing else, it can help to avoid some of the monotony that tends to occur when folks do the same types of training day-in and day-out.   As I’ve discussed rather endlessly elsewhere on the site, it can’t substitute completely for steady state type training; but it can provide a nice adjunct for people who want to push things a bit harder from time to time.

Intervals could be incorporated in multiple ways for those seeking general health.  Either a block of intervals, for example doing them twice weekly for 6 weeks (along with 1-2 lower intensity steady state sessions), could be done between every 6-12 weeks of steady-state training or one interval session could be done per week for longer periods of 6-12 weeks (i.e. two to three steady state sessions, one interval session per week).

Interval durations of anywhere from 30-60 seconds all the way up to several minutes with an equal rest interval at varying intensities would be done after a warm-up with a total of maybe 10-20 minutes of ‘on-time’ during each workout; as the duration goes down, the intensity should go up.

So following a 10 minute warm-up, someone might do 10 sets of 1 minute hard/1 minute easy (10 total minutes on-time) at a near-maximum pace during the on bit and a very easy recovery pace during the rest interval and then cool-down.  Longer sets of 3-4 minutes with a 2 minute rest or so could be done for 3-4 sets but at a lower intensity.

While early ACSM guidelines for resistance training were exceedingly moderate (e.g. 1 set of 8-12 repetitions done twice per week), more recent guidelines have embraced more periodization concepts with different ‘levels’ of training for different populations.  Beginners, as discussed in my Beginning Weight Training series need very little training, 2-3 days per week at low volumes (1 set often gives the same gains as multiple sets in this population).

At the intermediate level (after perhaps 6-12 months of beginner training), a frequency of 3-4 days/week might be used.   Some type of basic split routine would tend to be used at that level.  The ACSM guidelines recommend 4-5 days/week for advanced trainees but, honestly, I can’t see 5 days/week in the weight room when the goal is simply general health and wellness.  Four days/week would seem to be more than plenty for all but the most performance oriented folks.  Two to three days/week is probably more realistic for most.

Repetitions can vary and there is probably benefit for even the general health seeking individual to go to lower repetitions ranges (perhaps sets of 5-6) from time to time since that will tend to have benefits for bone health and other important parameters.  Constant pounding in that range can become problematic, especially in older folks for whom connective tissues are often the limiting factor.  Heavy work is good but too much can cause joint issues.

Some type of basic periodization scheme, starting with sets of 12 and gradually adding weight and dropping repetitions every few weeks until heavier sets of 6 are hit before back-cycling and starting over would give the benefits of the heavier work, along with some much needed variety (needed to avoid boredom), without causing the potential for joint issues down the road.  So 2 weeks at 12 repetitions, 2 weeks at 10, 2 weeks at 8, 2 weeks at 6 before backing off and starting over or something very simple like that.

Alternately, a simple double progression using a repetition range of 6-12 would be workable.  So the trainee would add reps until they hit 12 before adding some weight to the bar (bringing the repetitions back down) and building back up.  I’d note that some people simply suck at adding repetitions in this fashion, but discussing that would take another article.

Another option would be some sort of undulating periodization scheme where one workout was done in higher repetition range (perhaps 10-12) and a second was done in a lower repetition bracket (6-8).  The possibilities are fairly endless here and finding a training style that the person enjoys and will do consistently is arguably more important than anything else.

Depending on the repetition count, anywhere from one to perhaps 3 sets should be more than sufficient (as reps go down, the number of sets should go up).  This also helps to keep workout length down.  Individuals with more lofty goals in terms of muscle growth or performance might do more than this but this Q&A is meant to be talking about general health.

For exercise selection, the general health trainee has many many options since there are no strict requirements for any exercise to be done or not done; I generally wouldn’t see much reason to do more than one exercise per muscle group/body part in any given workout.

There certainly appears to be some benefit of heavy axial loading (e.g. squats, overhead press) in terms of bone health and including those movements, or at least movements that load the spine and extremities from time to time  would seem useful.  Of course, doing those movements properly tends to require some amount of competent coaching which isn’t always available.  Even a horizontal type leg press will load the spine and lower body axially.

But trainees can mix and match exercises to their hearts content.  This is a case that it’s more important that the training gets done than how it gets done. Again, the possibilities for mixing and matching are fairly endless here.  Some trainees may prefer to use the same exercises for a complete block of training (perhaps 6-8) weeks and then switch everything out.

Others may prefer to perform one batch of movements for one workout each week and a completely different batch of movements for the other workout (I’m assuming an average frequency for each muscle group of about twice/week).  Personally I’m not a huge fan of switching things out much more often than that (it makes it hard to track progress) but certainly boredom can be avoided more easily with more variety.

As far as overall training structure, there are many possibilities.  Individuals just looking for basic all around fitness may want to put equal amounts of energy into both their strength training and cardiovascular work.  That might mean 2-3 basic weight workouts per week and 3 cardiovascular fitness sessions per week.   These workouts could be done on the same days (which can make for long workouts) or on different days (e.g. weights Mon/Wed/Fri or Mon/Fri and cardio on Tue/Thu/Sat).

Folks who prefer to push one or the other can simply alternate blocks of training.  So in a strength training focused block, weights would be emphasized (with perhaps 3-4 workouts/week in some type of split routine) and cardiovascular fitness maintained (with 3 low to moderate intensity aerobic sessions to avoid interfering with the weight work too much).

After 6-8 weeks, a switch would be made with weights being moved to maintenance (lowered volume and frequency perhaps 2 short workouts per week) and cardiovascular fitness emphasized.   Two to three short maintenance weight workouts per week along with perhaps 4 cardiovascular workouts (2 steady state workouts and 2 higher intensity sessions).  I’ve talked about how to integrate interval training with weight room work in Steady State vs. Interval Training: Part 1 and Steady State vs. Interval Training: Part 2.

Of course, eventually the general health trainee will be as fit as they need or want to be (or they may decide to become more serious about it and move into some type of competition and train more) and can simply move everything to maintenance.  I would note that things like mobility/flexibility work (e.g. dynamic or static stretching) and foam rolling type stuff can be done as part of warm-ups as described in Warming Up for the Weight Room.

In any case, that’s an overview of how someone would train for general health and wellness. In the big scheme of things, the only real difference between this type of training and something more goal intensive is that of scope; individuals seeking maximum hypertrophy or strength or endurance performance will generally do more total training and put more emphasis into that singular goal.  For general health, a more all around approach to training and less overall emphasis and total training is done.  But the fundamental principles of overload, progression, etc. are still relevant.