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I have a great guest post for you today. I was recently invited back on the More Train, Less Pain Podcast hosted by my good friends Dr. Michelle Boland and Dr. Tim Richardt.
This season on their show they are focusing on training around injuries. This is one of my wheelhouses (along with deadlifts, how to look rockin’ even when you’re wearing a sweatshirt, and Ted Lasso), as I always preach the benefits of finding each client or athlete TRAINED MENU.
My episode – #13 – was released today (links below), but in conjunction with it Tim was kind enough to write a little “companion piece” that ties in nicely with the overall theme of the series.
I hope you check them both out.
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3 strategies to get fit without gaining weight
If you’re reading this blog, chances are you’re a big fan of lifting heavy things. On this we can agree and be friends.
Think back to the first time you consistently trained a squat—Linkin Park blaring, a fine mist of pre-workout spray and chalk filling the air—and you can add 5-10 pounds like clockwork week after week.
It’s the honeymoon phase of strength training—nothing hurts and there’s seemingly no stopping you from riding that sweet, sweet train of linear progress until you can, inevitably, sit up and stand up with the weight of a Honda Fit on your back .
But like all marriages, reality must eventually set in.
Over the years, pains, injuries and movement limitations pile up and the simple strategy of adding more pounds to the bar suddenly isn’t so sustainable.
So what’s an iron warrior to do?
I host a podcast called More Train, Less Pain (on which the venerable Tony Gentilcore has been a guest twice), along with another contributor to Tony’s blog – Michelle Boland – where we dive deep into strategies to keep people training hard in the gym despite injuries and mobility limitations.
This season’s focus is on maintaining a strength training practice in the context of persistent pain, which is a personal obsession of mine as I have struggled with persistent hip pain due to congenital structural hip defects for almost my entire adult life. Over the course of the last dozen episodes, we’ve talked to some of the brightest minds in the industry (Mike Boyle, Bill Hartman, some crew we’ll call “Tony G”) about this very problem, and one theme keeps coming up again and again. again. We can’t keep progressing forever. Infinite progression, in the weight room or in any other endeavor, is a myth.
NOTE From TG: You can listen to my most recent conversation with Tim HERE – titled “Easy Training, Stoplights, and Making Bigger Cups”.
In order to stay in the strength training game and continue to build muscle, strength and movement quality, we need to find ways to evolve our exercise selection and programming strategies so that we can continue to train without creating unwanted tissue damage or reducing access to a comfortable range of motion.
Here are three strategies for doing just that, taken directly from this season’s podcast guests and thoroughly vetted from my own personal and professional experience.
1. Timed sets
In the simplest form of progressive lifts, we add load to the bar each week while keeping the set/rep/rest pattern the same, essentially the missionary of the strength training world.
Not THAT missionary. Head out of the gutter
As we mentioned – this works…until it doesn’t. What if, instead of increasing the load, we simply increase the time under voltage? In fact, what if we tossed out the conventional “repetition” dosing structure and simply tried to dose an exercise over time, increasing the time (under intensity) over a 6-week training block.
In practice, this development may look something like this.
Excercise Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4
Foam Roller Wall Squat 3×1′ 4×1′ 4×90″ 4×2′
In this way, we can accumulate absurdly high amounts of workload (and stimulus) with reduced axial loading. If you struggle with SI joint pain every time you get under a bar that exceeds your body weight, try a single set of the 2′ Roller Wall Squat.
With only a fraction of the load required for a conventional barbell squat, you’ll still feel just as tired and stay engaged in the training process as you build tension time into a program.
This strategy works especially well for exercises where increasing the weight isn’t convenient due to the nature of the position or loading – think anything with a zercher or goblet grip OR a position that requires more extensive adjustment.
2. EMOM Supersets
People in our industry love to talk about CrossFit, but it has spread several things that have affected the overall fitness landscape for the better – fitness skills, concurrent training, snoring lines of grass-fed whey protein isolate before a set of 30and EMOM sets.
In an EMOM set, you’ll keep the load of an exercise the same, but perform a certain number of repetitions mvery Minute Then the Minute (EMOM).
In my own training, I’ve found it helpful to combine two exercises into an EMOM superset – meaning that every minute we’ll do a predetermined number of reps for each exercise, rest for the rest of that minute, and repeat. In practice, a 6-week progression might look like this:
Excercise Rest of Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4
A’1. Trap Bar DL 0′ 4×3 5×3 6×3 7×3
A’2. Alt. 1-Arm DB Bench Remainder of 60″ 4×8 5×8 6×8 7×8
DL EMOM trap bar
EMOM DB 1 Arm Bench Press
The beauty of EMOM sets, especially for athletes transitioning from conventional load-obsessed strength training, is that they feature a whole new strategy for dramatically increasing the total load in a program without increasing the axial load for any particular set.
Mathematically, we can contrast a session of EMOM deadlifts with a conventionally progressed deadlift session, which would look something like this:
Excercise Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 4 Workload
TBDL 6×3 @ 225 8×3 @ 225 10×3 @ 225 12×3 @ 225 8,100 lbs
TBDL 6×3 @ 255 6×3 @ 275 6×3 @ 295 6×3 @ 305 5,490 lbs
Over time, this may represent a more sustainable long-term strategy for continuing workload progression when the absolute load at any given repetition can no longer be increased. Additionally, incorporating a few EMOM supersets into your training each week can serve as a mild conditioning stimulus for those struggling to fit in aerobic work.
3. Sensory based training
The previous two strategies emphasized unconventional strategies to increase the overall workload of a workout, but our final strategy is an entirely different beast.
We like to think of increasing the performance of an exercise through the weight on the bar or total pounds lifted in working sets. But what if we got “stronger” simply by performing an exercise more efficiently, possibly using a greater range of motion, without making any changes to dosage or loading in a cycle?
Depending on the client’s goals and injury history, somewhere between 20%-50% of the exercises I program will go “feel” alone. This means they are not allowed to do anything “more” during the 4 week cycle. No more load, no more reps, no faster reps, no even more bells.
We intentionally freeze these variables to clear cognitive bandwidth to get as close as possible to *perfect* exercise execution.
In something like FFESS, for example, I might stick to 4 sets of 8 reps per leg throughout the cycle, with a #25KB in a cup, but try to improve other aspects of performance. Can a client maintain foot contact on both the front and back foot? Does their pelvis stay fairly flat in the frontal plane? Do they control the degree of anterior and posterior pelvic tilt at the top and bottom of the range of motion, respectively?
Can they bring the back knee lower to the ground? Are they able to push UP and BACK to take advantage of the recoil properties of this drill?
In some ways, this is the most boring option for “progress”, but if you can get it into your and your client’s respective heads, we can freeze the dose and just work on the integrity and fidelity of the movement, it opens up a myriad other training options.
And options, more than anything else, help people train consistently for years to come.
If you enjoyed the content of this article, I would recommend checking out More Train, Less Pain. Mechanics of the Adaptable Athlete- S3E13 with Tony drops today.
Available in both Spotify and apple Podcasts.
About the Author
Tim Richardt is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and Strength and Conditioning Coach based in Colorado. He works with runners, climbers, CrossFitters, and tactical/mountain sports athletes to help them manage long-term injuries and reach higher levels of physical performance. He also mentors new clinicians and coaches to help them develop their own unique treatment/training model. You can learn more about him at TimRichardt.com or through his IG HERE.
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