The number one exercise you have to be able to do.

The Number One Exercise you HAVE to be able to do

...for your own sake.

by Johan Simu
The NarkSide, July 2010




I spent many years training as the stereotypical meathead, spending loads of time on the "show muscles". Bench pressing, dumbbell pressing, curling. For legs I doubt anyone has leg pressed or hack squatted more than me. I certainly also did my fair share of deadlifting, rowing and hitting the triceps as well, with a sprinkle of quarter squats throw in, especially during the periods when I focused on powerlifting. In short having no fucking clue what the hell I am doing.

Now don't get me wrong, there is nothing particularly wrong with those exercises, what was wrong was the way I was doing them and what I didn't do. I didn't do any overhead pressing because I was gripped by the fear of overtraining after hearing the mantra time and again that one shouldn't go heavy in both bench and shoulder press. I never gave a rats ass about flexibility, I never pushed the depth of my squats and fooling myself into believing that my squats where actually deep and nice. I never had any coach that told me "you are doing this wrong" and since I trained in commercial gyms most of the time I was usually one of the strongest guys around and people never corrected me.

Whenever I got stronger in the legs my knees threw in the towel, whenever I got my bench over 350 lbs my shoulders revolted. If I was pulling 450+ in the deadlift my back started aching. That didn't stop me though, I would just wrap my knees like a mummy and go through the pain and stop all shoulder movements and just blast on with benching, thinking my shoulders where "overtrained".

Pain, frustration and going stale in lifts was the inevitable result. I was damn lucky to never injure myself seriously, even though my shoulder problems at its worst prevented me from benching for half a year. Turns out spending a bunch of years doing the compound lifts with bad form, while spending 90% of the day hunched in front of a computer, has a tendency to make you stiff as Rocco Siffredi while on the set.

So what does all of this got to do with the one exercise everyone should be able to do? Well it turns out there is one exercise that pretty much challenges flexibility and stability in every damn part of the body. The overhead squat! It is the undisputed king of full body movements. If your hip flexors are tight, if your hamstrings are tight, if your thoracic spine makes you look like Quasimodo, if your shoulders are inflexible or if you lack shoulder stability, then you will simply not be able to do an ass to grass overhead squat! There is no other exercise that singlehandedly challenges each and every one of the common problems most gymrats suffer from. If you can ass to grass overhead squat, chances are you never have shoulder, knee or back pain. If you can't its very likely you are suffering from it.

So next time you go to the gym you better try overhead squatting. Nothing is easier in theory, walk out with the bar as when squatting normally, but with a grip that is outside of the rings. Push the bar up behind your head and squat. Now like I said chances are you wont be able to do this. If you are like me, the first time you try it what will be going through your head "How the fuck am I ever going to do this fucking exercise" while you are almost toppling over after sinking down perhaps 1 inch into the squat.

The second thing going through your head will be "Fuck this and fuck that shitty article, I don't need and fucking overhead squat pussy shit. Stick it up your ass! I'll just wrap my knees, tighten my belt and struggle through the pain when benching. OH squats are for girls".

For girls indeed, I know few things that are more humbling than the knowledge that there are tiny Chinese women and kids, weighting perhaps 120 if soaking wet, overhead squatting over 350 lbs while you can't even do it with the bar. In short, they make you look like a god damn bleeding vagina. I don't know about you, but I don't want to run and buy tampons every time I watch the Olympics. I'll rather go to town and master that mofo! The day you can overhead squat your bodyweight is the day you will have less pain, and can switch from tampons to a pad.

I am a firm believer in SAID(Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands ), its a fancy way of saying if you do shit, the body will get better at it. So how does one get better at overhead squatting, well you can probably guess it! You fucking overhead squat and squat and squat. You need to get that hunched back straight, you need to get that hip flexor lose and those hamstrings longer. Every workout, every single workout, you should start by overhead squatting. Pushing yourself as deep as possible each and every time. Over time you will be able to hit parallel and then ass to grass.

To accelerate it a bit you should also do some accessory stretches and squats.

Hitting deep squats while holding on to a power rack and really focusing on keeping back arched and knees pushed out stretches shit better than nothing else. Like in this video at 3:15



Progress to wall squats as shown in 6:24 in the above video.

Do the wall squats with arms hanging between the legs, with a broomstick overhead and with a broomstick on your shoulders. This will teach you to keep chest up. Do them DEEP, it will stretch the shit out of the hip flexors.

Start every workout with shoulder dislocates. You can do it with bands like this guy:



You can also do it with a broomstick (my favorite), with a towel or whatever you got handy. DO NOT get the idea to do it with a barbell though.


Doing extra stretches for hip flexors and groin wont hurt. Hit these two stretches a few times a week.





If you really feel like it, throw in a bunch of hamstring stretches as well. But from my personal experience hamstring stretches are very inefficient, while just squatting deep will fix it by itself.

Doing all of this wont cure AIDS or fix cancer, but it sure as hell will make your shoulders, knees and back feel like a million bucks again. Give it 10 weeks at least!

-Johan Simu
Co-admin of: The NarkSide

Self Pity

Self Pity

by Jan Merritt, 

Contributing writer to The NarkSide, on Sunday, August 29, 2010 at 1:44pm

*woosah* 

*inhale* 

*exhale*

Here goes: 
Now i am no poet ...and neither am i a writer, but when i have something to say, i have no issue with putting pen to paper ...so please afford me a few minutes, as i shall make this very short and to the point.

The other night while talking to my chica Lucinda, the conversation gravitated towards the issue of self pity.

Now there are basically two forms of self pity (NB: I loathe both forms). These are:

1.) Self pity based on true personal conflicts and unhappiness, and
2.) Self pity based on the thoughts and opinions of others.

Today, we shall look at both.

SELF PITY - True personal conflicts and unhappiness

This basically relates to those folks who dislike or hate things about themselves because THEY hate THEMSELVES. It maybe that they think they are too fat, or too uneducated... or it may be that they hate the negroid texture of their hair or (something like that).

"...how is wallowing in self pity (and saying "woe is me") going to change anything??"

Ok FINE - none of us is perfect ...If you do not have the skills to accentuate the positive, thereby downplaying the importance of the negatives, how is wallowing in self pity (and saying "woe is me") going to change anything??

The short answer? It won't!

 There are so many gyms in BIM[1].

They range from the backyard gym, to the swanky expensive ones. How is it that you are still on the couch cuddling with a bag of snacks feeling sorry for yourself?

Do you think you will wake up one morning and be skinny?

"HELL. NO." 

What you NEED to do is this: open the phonebook (or ask a friend for direction)... and you get yourself to a gym. Link up with a personal trainer. Do what needs to be done!

It takes work, but it'll be worth those pounds you can lose.

Never got those CXCs[2]? Join a class, a study group, or something.

 

"GO GET THOSE PAPERS! - No one will hand them to you." 

Heyyyy there is even UWI[3].

You may be slightly crazy by the time you get through up there, but at least you'll have that diploma or degree. (i'm kidding)

Just thinking about not being qualified and complaining about not being able to get the job you need will solve nothing!

"...I rock my dreads like nobody's business and i'm cool with them."

Now as crazy as this may sound, there are still folks who believe that if your hair isn't straight there is no hope for you. We live in 2010 yes?

I rock my dreads like nobody's business and i'm cool with them, but if for some reason you should have a problem because your hair isn't staright enough, perm it, straighten it, cut it off or something. Everyday you will just wake up and look at it and complain?

THINK IT'LL CHANGE OVERNIGHT? - I don't.

So of you women may be involved with a "no good man". You know the type I mean ladies.

The type that causes you to exclaim outloud everyday:

• "why do you do this (or that) to me", or 
• "why don't you love me anymore"...uugghhhh. 

What are you doing slouching around the house in your sweats looking like a broken down drag queen. Put on those heels, get your hair and nails done, slip into that nice lil red or black dress (the one that knows how to hug all those curves) and step out into the night.

Give him an ultimatum: Either shape up, and act like he knows you deserve the best, or he can pack his shit and bounce.  Don't worry this goes for you men too... There are a load of "No-good women" out there as well. Don't stand for it.

SELF PITY - Based on the opinions and thoughts of others

Now i shall be super brief with this because if i get too caught up in this part of the note, i shall surely have a conniption.

Simply put: If your self-awareness is based on what someone else thinks of you, then you need to adopt my mantra of "fcuk the ppl".

"...maybe someone else told you that anorexic bitches are cute?"

"FAIL!"

So suppose you ARE, 200 lbs and YOU believe you are beautiful... what gives anyone the right to tell you otherwise?

Why? So, so all of a sudden, you start to pity yourself ...and wanna go from a size 20 down to a size 2. Not because you want to, mind you, but because someone else said you should. Maybe someone else told you that anorexic bitches are cute?

FAIL!!!!

So what if someone out there thinks your skin isn't perfect, or that your hair isn't straight enough?

*ARE YOU HAPPY WITH WHAT YOU HAVE?!*

Why should your standards, appearance or self-awareness be gauged and defined by what someone else thinks is cool, or fun or "normal"?

Why do people always feel the need to conform?

The basic thing is that you can be happy and self pity so went out with "pepperseed bags" people. Change is good and it's possible if it's what YOU want. No sense in feeling sorry for yourself when there are options out there. However, you should never feel worthless because someone thinks you are. YOU DO YOU. For those who don't like it, they can roll the fcuk on.

That is all.

-Jan Merritt

P.S: For those who may read this and think i am a bitch for saying "fcuk the people", thanks so very much for being so kind. And yes Corey, a good rant is like oxygen, thanks to you as well.


Glossary:
1. Bim: Colloquial name for Barbados
2. CXC: The Caribbean equivalent of "O-Levels".
3. UWI: The University of the West Indies

If I had a time machine...

If I had a time machine...

by Johan Simu
The NarkSide, May 2010

I am not the oldest, biggest or the strongest mofo around. In fact I am only 25, my guns doesn't measure much more than 16 inches and my best deadlift is just a shy bit more than 500 ibs. But I have been training seriously since I was 16-17 years old and I have done pretty much all mistakes one can do on the way. That's the reason my arms are just 16 and my dead is just 500 after all, despite training hard for over 8 years. Someone doing things right from the beginning can easily surpass my level in as little as 3 years or shorter. So what message would I leave myself if I could send myself a email 8 years ago?

1. Information overload/training ADD.

There is so much information floating around, accessible by everyone, that it is incredibly hard to stay focused. When I started training I read the muscle mags religiously. Every month I saw a new articles with tempting titles like "Build a monster back with Ronnie's routine", "Gunz like Priest, here is how" or any random permutation of the name of a pro mixed with the name of a muscle group. Arnold's good old Encyclopedia of bodybuilding was my bible. As a beginner you can pretty much gain by jerking around any way you feel like in the gym, so even though I randomly jumped from Priest biceps blaster routine to Levrone's huge delts supreme program to Arnold's contest prep I could still make some gains. But those gains where much smaller and came slower than if I had been more consistent.

I still occasionally suffer from training ADD, jumping from Doggcrapp(yeah it IS spelled like that!) training to Westside templates to linear periodization with far to little time spent on each. Always with the feeling that THE magic routine is out there that can give me massive gains in the shortest amount of time. So what have I actually learned from all that? That almost any training program that isn't obviously stupid(more on that later) will give good gains, IF one sticks to them for long enough. Stop second guessing the program you are on, just go with it for at least 2 months and see what happens. I guarantee the gains will be better than if you switch to something new every week!

2. Doing the same week after week.

Now it sounds like I am contradicting point one. But let me explain, for a while I trained with a guy that was obsessive compulsive about his routine. He would walk into the gym day after day, week after week, year after year, going through the exact same motions, with the exact same weight and for the exact same reps and sets. He even admitted to me that if he skipped an exercise he would get anxious like hell thinking the workout was wasted. No surprise he looked exactly the same year after year. Don't get me wrong though, this guy had a awesome body and was a competitive bodybuilder, but he had stalled completely!

If you want to grow stronger and bigger, and that's why you're in the gym in the first place, then you have to progress! Doing the same weight for the same reps in the same exercise for weeks in a row is a complete waste of time. Your body has already adapted to that load and it won't respond to it anymore. You have to add weight or squeeze out one more rep every time you walk into the gym. If you can't then its time to make a change. Making a change doesn't mean jumping on another training program however, because every good training program has progression built into it!

3. Recognizing the obviously stupid.

Just copying Leverone's glute maximiser workout isn't the same as following a decent training program. We have all heard it a million times, a good training program is based around the compound lifts, and how many time's haven't we ignored it and sunk into the temptation of wasting weeks on concentration curls, triceps kickbacks and garbage like that? Don't ignore it anymore! What should then be include in a good training program?

* It should involve Squats, deadlifts, rows, chins, military presses, bench presses, cleans and not necessarily much else. It might not be as sexy as doing 28 different curls to hit every angle of the muscle. But it sure works better.

* Progression should be built into the program, with that I mean that there should be a clear approach to how one increases weight on the bar week to week. A example would be that every Monday you should do 5x5 in the Squat and increase weight on the bar with 5 lbs each week. When you reach a point where you can't do that anymore you should switch to 3x3 and continue increasing weight. Another approach might be to switch out the exercise when the plateau is reached for a similar compound exercise, switch Squats with front squats, deadlifts with rack pulls, chins with pull-ups etc etc.

* The body should be worked through multiple times a week. Don't do a split where you have a day for arms, a day for shoulders, a day for chest etc etc. Every workout should include a squat variation or a heavy pull(deads or cleans) or a heavy press. Every muscle in the body is worked to some extent doing these exercises, trying to split the body into isolated muscle groups and working them separately is a illusion. Unless you are 5'8, 220 lbs at sub 5% and ready to step on-stage there is no reason to worry about isolation.

* Deloads, the program should include a light week every third to fifth week.

4. Proper form

Spend the time to learn proper form in the compound lifts. Find a local weightlifting or powerlifting club, talk to the old guys that seem to know what they are doing. I wasted years after years squatting and deadlifting like an idiot and only now have I managed to correct that after over half a year of struggling! It only took me a spinal disc hernia, busted knees and reoccurring shoulder pain to realize I was doing the exercises wrongly. Be smarter than I was! If you are in doubt and have no one to advice you, then videotape yourself to see how your form is. You might be surprised!

5. Back down every now and then.

This point is worth repeating. Deload! We who love training and consider it one of the most important things in our life has a weird tendency. Whenever we hit the wall we tend to push harder and harder. If we realize one week we have regressed, the first thing we think of isn't to back down for a week and let the body recuperate. No we instead go at it like mad and increase our efforts. I can not count how many times I have done this, just to crash and burn and lose all motivation. If you walk into the gym and feel weak after a bunch of awesome weeks, don't be hard on yourself and assume you are not training hard enough. Just do light weights for a week.

6. You're not as advanced as you think.

Countless times I have done the mistake of believing I have reached the point where I need very advanced routines to progress. Contemplating breaking the year into different macro cycles, all kinds of advanced intensity waves. Then reality always hits me like a mac truck, I am no where near that point yet! Unless you bench 400+ and squat 500+ then don't worry about any advanced waves or whatever. K.I.S.S rules supreme. Something as simple as working to a 5 rep max one week, a 3 rep max the week after and a 1 rep max the third week, followed by a light week and then starting over again, is "advanced" enough for 50% of lifters and to advanced for the rest! No reason to emulate how the eastern European coaches designed their 2 year plan to prepare their athletes for peaking at the Olympics. For us non Olympic athletes simple programs simply works better because we have not yet reached a point where our performance is so close to our genetic limit that we need to go towards extreme measures to squeeze out another pound. To be honest most of us will never reach that point.

If we look at the Bulgarian weightlifters, at the elite powerlifters or even good old Arnold's twice a day contest prep routine form his book. Then we have to realize these people have spent years and years working up to that level of work. Their programs are tailored for them, with their massive recovery ability that have resulted from years of slowly increasing training frequency and volume. If we where to jump straight into that, then we would crash and burn within weeks.

7. Diet is important, but not more important than a proper program.

On bodybuilding forums one can often read that diet is responsible for 80% of gains while training is much less important. On powerlifting forums one can read the exact opposite. So where is the truth? The truth is, as long as you get enough protein and enough calories and most of the things you eat are decently clean(i.e don't follow the big mac or mentos diet) then you will gain muscle and strength. Eating enough doesn't have to mean eating 5000+ kcal as many claim, or 500 grams of protein a day. Enough is different for everyone, but a decent rule of thumb is 30-45 calories per kg of bodyweight(13-20 calories per ib) and 2 grams of protein per kilo of bodyweight(about 1 gram/ib). If you easily get fat start at the lower range of calories and have a larger proportion of the kcal from fat, if you have a hard time gaining weight start somewhere in the middle and work your way up until you start gaining strength consistently.

A shitty diet will ruin the best training program in the world, and the shittiest training program in the world will give no gains if the diet is crap. Pay attention to both, but keep both simple and realistic!

8. Set realistic goals.

If a program promises 50 pounds on your bench bench in 5 weeks, then its bullshit. Small, consistent gains is what build a big, muscular and strong body. 2.5 pounds increase per week means 130 pounds per year, that by itself is a massive gain. The longer you have trained, the harder each increase becomes and the more important the small increments become. If you did 300 pounds in the squat last week, do 302,5 this week! Don't snort at the small plates. Keep your goals realistic, adding 25 pounds in ten weeks on a compound lift is a realistic goal, adding 100 pounds in the same time frame isn't.

9. Enjoy life

Training is important, but having a balanced life is even more important. Walking around stressing yourself to hell about having that beer while watching the game will just break you down mentally. There is more to life than lifting, having a life outside of the gym won't limit your gains. But it will do a lot to make you happy. Don't let the hunt for more muscle turn into a life consuming obsession. 

 

-Johan Simu
SuperModerator of: The NarkSide

All Rights Reserved

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Uk-based Fitness Magazine quotes Corey Springer! - Feb 2010