Why You Should Be Spending More Time on the Ground

This post is inspired by some ideas I came across in a short article written by Dan John.

In some cultures and places around the world, it's the norm to sleep, eat, and just spend a lot of time on the ground. But that is not the case in America and in much of the Western world. With comfy chairs and couches in every room and beds set at a nice comfortable height a few feet from the floor, it's no surprise that we as a culture are spending less and less time on the ground, particularly as we age. Don't get me wrong, I love a good soft couch as much as anyone else. But I think our aversion to ground-time is a serious problem. We need to spend more time on the ground. Why?

(By toomanycircles from UK (Chris Ashton) [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons)
Just getting comfortable.

Ground-time can be hard work.

Getting onto and off of the ground requires a bit of work. The average 50-year-old's descent to the ground is probably accompanied by a symphony of joint pops and creaks and an eventual sigh of relief, and the ascent back to standing is likely slow, awkward, and coupled with groans of effort and dismay. In the Dan John article linked above, he proposes an interesting experiment in which you wear a heart monitor and spend five minutes just getting down on the ground and standing back up. That's it. Get on the ground (on your front, side, or back), and then get back up for five minutes.
Ground-time requires a lot more physical effort than sofa time, and, if we're being honest, the average American needs some more physical effort built into his or her everyday life.

Ground-time requires some strength and mobility.
When you get down on the ground, your hips, shoulders, legs, arms, and core are all working to control your descent, and getting back up generally requires (depending on your positioning) some sort of sit-up or push-up coupled with a squatting or lunging movement. (Hey, that almost sounds like a good basis for a workout.) 

In addition, ground-time requires and promotes mobility. When sitting on the ground, our hip and knee joints are generally not at a nice, modest 90 degree angle. Sitting on the ground usually involves near-end-range flexion or extension of the ankle, knee, and/or hip joints. Spending time in these positions (assuming good posture) can improve joint health and range of motion. The same cannot be said of your positioning sitting on the couch. Additionally, most people probably have enough basic strength to get on and off the ground without a problem, but they are lacking mobility and/or stability in end-ranges. Getting on and off the ground generally requires considerable knee and hip flexion as well as shoulder stability in a position of extension. 

Spending more time on the ground can encourage and improve strength, stability, and mobility of major joints. No, sitting on the ground instead of the couch will not turn you into Dmitry Klokov, but it might just make you into a better-functioning human being.

The ground is hard.

It's no surprise that our culture is generally averse to spending time on the ground. Comfort-wise, the choice between a plush, leather couch and the living room carpet is an easy one. I'm not here to argue that being on the ground is more comfortable than your La-Z-Boy recliner (though sprawling out on the floor can be incredibly refreshing at times), but this might actually be a great reason to prioritize ground time. It's pretty easy to spend 3 hours in your recliner and not move much other than your chip hand and your beer hand, but ground time tends to make you a bit more restless. While restlessness isn't always a positive association, it can be a very positive factor in combating the average American's overly-sedentary lifestyle. Spend more time on the ground, and chances are you'll be moving around, switching positions, and getting up and about a bit more. That's a good thing. 

I've fallen, and I can't get up.

There is no question that falls are a major problem for the elderly. According to the CDC, in 2010, falls cost the US healthcare system $30 billion, and among older adults falls are 5x more likely to result in hospitalization than injuries from another cause. While aging does naturally make a fall relatively more dangerous (through osteoporosis, general declines in strength and mobility, etc.), it doesn't have to be as huge of a risk factor as it is. If ground-time were a regular part of our everyday lives throughout the years, not only would we be generally stronger and more mobile, but we would be much more comfortable getting up from the ground if/when a fall does happen. We wonder why it's such an endeavour for great-uncle Louie to get up off the ground after a very minor fall--there's a good chance it's because he hasn't been on the ground in half a decade. 

Athletes need to be comfortable with ground-time. 

(By National Photo Company [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

All contact sports and many other sports require athletes to be comfortable with ending up on the ground and quickly returning to their feet. Football, rugby, hockey, gymnastics, wrestling, MMA, basketball, soccer, baseball, softball, volleyball, and many more require, to varying degrees, athletes to be able to quickly and efficiently get up off the ground and continue gameplay/competition without pause. Particularly in contact sports where being knocked to the ground is a frequent occurrence, athletes should be well-trained in ground-work such that their movement is quick and effortless. 

Additionally, ground-work can be a great way to examine movement patterns, functional mobility, and joint stability of athletes. Have you ever seen someone getting on the ground who looks like they're just not sure how to do it? Their knees cave in and jut forward, their upper back hunches awkwardly forward and to the side, and their arm stretches out towards the ground, and then they kind of just plop the rest of the way down. A lot can be learned from watching someone get down on and stand up from the ground. While there are certainly more complex movements that a trainer or coach can use, watching an athlete get onto or up from the ground is a great starting point for movement screening. A coach or trainer can tell if an athlete tends to over- or under-pronate, if they lack ankle or hip mobility, if they naturally tend towards valgus or varus knee movement, if they have a habit of rounding the upper back or rolling the shoulder forward, if they strongly prefer one side, and so on. 

And it's not just for athletes.

You may not be playing in the Super Bowl or the Olympics, but chances are at some point you'll be playing with your kids, grandkids, or friend's kids, that you'll need to get on the ground to reach something under the sofa, that you'll want to work under your car, you'll want to plant something in the garden, or maybe you just want to lay down on the beach or a nice patch of grass without having to worry about how you'll get up. 

The ground is dirty.

(By Charles L. Ford, IV [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
This dog knows what's up.

Yes, this is a positive thing. We live in a time and place where our hands undergo a constant barrage of anti-bacterial wash-rinse-repeat, where hand-sanitizer is in every purse and every doorway of every public building, and where dirt is the enemy and "bacteria" is a naughty word to many people. However, there is some evidence suggesting that for optimal health, we need some dirt. Our gut health--which, thanks to yogurt commercials, we all know is an important thing--is dependent upon exposure to new bacteria. In addition, mycobacterium vaccae, found in good ol' dirt, has been found to have antidepressant properties. In other words, a little dirt exposure could make you happier and healthier. And the ground is the perfect place to get friendly with some dirt. I don't suggest that you lick your doormat or never clean your bathroom floor again; however, something as simple as laying on the grass, doing some gardening, or just sitting on the floor and playing with your dog is a great way to expose yourself to some immune-boosting bacteria. 

(Note: I am not proposing that we return to Middle Ages sanitation habits. Our modern Western lifestyles and cleanliness habits/abilities are a vast improvement; however, we've gone a bit overboard with our germophobia and sanitization-o-philia.)

Practice makes perfect.

So you need to spend more time on the ground, and maybe it is just that simple. But I'm not suggesting that you just throw yourself down and see what happens. In addition to spending some of your leisure time on the ground rather than on the couch, there are a number of exercises (some of which you might already be doing) that can help you incorporate ground-work into your training. 

First and foremost, yoga. Yoga is chock full of opportunities to be on the ground, bring yourself down to the ground in a controlled manner, and get up from the ground, all with a focus on stability, positioning, and fluid movement. This, I think, is one of the most positive aspect of yoga and its current popularity. If you're looking for a good way to incorporate more ground-work into your training, yoga is a great place to start. 

Additionally, burpees or up-downs are a great way to incorporate ground-work into your training and get some conditioning in at the same time. 5 minutes of fast, constant burpees or up-downs will give your lungs a good run for their money. 

Core exercises and some gymnastics movements are also a great way to get in ground-work. A few of my favorites are hollow rocks, planks or side-planks, roll to candlestick, pistol with roll, turkish get-ups, supermans, and other basic abdominal exercises like sit-ups, v-ups, and lying leg raises. Additionally, a number of sprinting and speed drills involve starting from the ground. These can be hugely beneficial to field athletes. 

Lastly, foam rolling, soft-tissue work with a ball, and many other drills and stretches involve spending time on the ground. 

--

Sometimes we get too stuck in the rut of separating "exercise" from daily life. We're left with the detrimental idea that fitness is what happens in the gym, and life is what happens everywhere else. Changing the way we see our daily habits can help close that gap and bring forth the realization that fitness is "happening" every minute of every day. 

Keep your swole grounded.

"Core" Concepts, Part 1 - What is the Core, Really?

Core training is the bee's knees right now. A Google search of "core training" comes up with 604,000,000 hits (soon to be +1), countless lists of the top 10 exercises for core strength, and a mind-boggling number of uses of the word "shredded." Unfortunately, the ubiquity of internet users' desires for a strong and well-exercised core overshadows the presence of any good definition of what the "core" really is, any real clarity on what it means to have a strong one, and any good explanation of why we should care.

(By U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate Airman Lamel J. Hinton. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

So what is the "core?" 
Of those 604 million Google hits, I'd be willing to bet that about half of them are using "core" synonymously with "abs," and that to many people a "strong core" means visible and well-defined (see: SHREDDED) rectus abdominis muscles with very little body fat. While there's nothing inherently wrong with having a visible 6-pack, and while the rectus abdominis muscles are indeed part of the core, they are only a small piece of the whole ensemble.

I propose we define the core as:

The system of muscles and connective tissues surrounding the spine, including both deep and superficial muscles, which directly contributes to the positioning and stability of the spine and aids in the positioning of the rib cage and the shoulder & hip joints, including the pelvis and the scapulae; and which allows for (and in some cases contributes to) the transfer of force (muscle force) from the limbs to some external point(s) of resistance (resistive force) which is not a point on the force-producing limb (particularly in a closed-chain movement). 

This definition of core has two tiers: anatomical and functional. The anatomical definition, which could be generally summed up as "the torso," is quite general and really only sets the stage for the more precise and function-based definition. Because we are talking about the core in the context of human movement and performance, we need the specificity of function.

The functional demands on the trunk in the context of basic movement, sport, optimal force production, etc. provide us with a pretty accurate view of what tissue groups make up the core. The core is aptly named in that it is at the "center," both anatomically and with regard to movement. The arms, legs, and head are all attached to and anchored in your torso--your core. Most all multi-joint movements, and particularly those which could be deemed "functional" movements, are produced through a limb that has proximal insertions in the torso. And unless you believe competitive typing or staring contests are sports, all sport movements are anchored in, and in some ways originate from, the core.

In order to get a clear view of what the core is in the context of function, let's look at a few examples of common movements and the demands on the core in each. For the sake of variety and thoroughness, the movements I have chosen span a wide range of intensities and complexities:

- Walking: Probably the most "basic" and common of all human movements is walking. It is a low-force, low-speed movement. While the prime movers in walking are muscles of the legs and butt, the limbs which generate the movement are attached at the hip joint, and many of these muscles have insertions (i.e., where the muscle attaches to bone) in the torso, and therefore require a stable base (the core). Generation of force at the distal end (away from the center) of a joint requires stability at the proximal end (close to the center) of the joint.

- Swinging a baseball bat: Swinging a baseball bat is a low-resistance, high-speed, rotational movement. Force is generated primarily by the legs and hips and contributed to by the arms, shoulders, and trunk. The back leg generates a strong force against the ground and weight is transferred forward; that force is then translated through the rotation of the hips and subsequent rotation of the trunk and shoulders; the shoulders and arms add additional accelerative forces which are then transmitted to the bat. Ultimately, the swinging of a baseball bat involves the generation of a large force against the ground and transmission of this force through the trunk. In the swinging of a baseball bat, the core is involved in force transmission, acceleration, and deceleration. The core is involved in force transmission in that the enormous forces generated against the ground and through the legs and hips require rigidity in the torso in order to transmit said forces to the shoulders; the core is involved in acceleration in that the muscles of the core (particularly the obliques) contribute to the rotational force that is transmitted to the shoulders; and the core is involved in deceleration in that it must slow down and stop the rotation of trunk in the follow-through.

- Blocking/Form-tackling: A standard block or form tackle is a high-speed, high-resistance, high-impact movement. Force from the legs and hips and momentum are transmitted through the torso to the shoulder or arms, and subsequently to the opposing player. When blocking or tackling, the primary point of contact between the blocking/tackling player and the other player is generally the shoulder or the forearms and hands, while the legs and hips are continually driving into and accelerating against the ground. The torso is the connection between the two points of resistance (the player being blocked/tackled and the ground), and therefore must exhibit great stability in order for the accelerative forces against the ground to be transmitted to the opposing player. This is the job of the core. The core is also required to resist rotation (as blocks/tackles are generally on one side or another, not straight on) and sometimes to generate rotational force. Football hits can involve in excess of 1500lbs of force (sources 1,2). Without a strong, rigid core, a player attempting to block or tackle would just fold in half.

- Bench pressing: The bench press (when performed with maximal or near-maximal loads) is a very high-resistance, lower speed, low-impact, and primarily upper-body movement. However, the core is still an absolutely essential element in performing the bench press. One of the prime movers in the bench press, the pectoralis major, is proximally attached at the rib cage and distally attached at the humerus of the upper arm. When the muscles contracts, it pulls on both the insertion at the rib cage and the insertion on the humerus. If the rib cage were not stabilized and rigid, the forces generated by the muscles would pull the rib cage towards the arm and would not allow transmission of nearly as much force through the arms. In the bench press, the core is responsible for stabilization of the proximal insertions to allow transmission of forces. In addition, the core is responsible for creating and maintaining optimal positioning of the back, chest, shoulders, and hips, and is necessary for creating leg drive and maintaining stability against the bench.

These examples should demonstrate that the core is more than just the rectus abdominus muscles. It is all of the muscles, front and back, surrounding your spine. Yes, your back is your core too (I'm looking at you, Six Pack Shortcuts). Do cut/chiselled/shredded abs look better than flab? Yes. Do they necessarily prevent you from destroying your spine when you help a friend push his stalled car? No. Strength is not always what you see in the mirror.

Why does it matter?
It should be pretty apparent by now why it's important to have a strong core; but, I'll offer a brief summary and explanation in case you're not tired of reading yet.

Think about trying to push someone off of a diving board. Not too hard if they're not expecting it, right? Now think about trying to push someone off of a diving board with a pool noodle. How's that going for you? The pool noodle is a weak, unstable core. You have plenty of strength to push your foe, but the limp pool noodle is sapping all of your force production and turning it into a floppy, bendy, comical dud. Now think about pushing someone off of a diving board with a concrete pylon. Much more effective. The concrete pylon is a strong, stable core. All of the force you generate is being transmitted through the pylon and too the unsuspecting victim.

The core has a unique job in that it is required to both produce stability as well as express mobility around the spine. The core’s job is very precise: it needs to allow mobility of the trunk and limbs around the spine (think about swinging a baseball bat), but it also must prevent excessive mobility (think wrestling or deceleration in a golf swing), and be able to create stability under extreme forces (think football tackle). Most back injuries (and joint injuries, for that matter) occur when joint stability is lost and when a joint is pushed beyond its active range of motion. A strong core is the main player in keeping your back/spine happy and healthy, and in allowing optimal force production and sports performance. 

(By U.S. Navy photo by Mr. Damon J. Moritz [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

Willing to bet there are some strong cores in that mix.

Stay swole.

In the next post, I'll discuss some exercises you can do to optimally train your core. (Hint: it's probably not crunches 'til the cows come home)

Five Low-fuss Conditioning Workouts to Start the Summer

Summer is almost here, and that means it's time to shed some of those extra winter layers and make sure the abs are showing and the guns are glowing when beach day rolls around. Right?
But in all seriousness, there really is no bad time to get in some solid conditioning work, and there's nothing wrong with wanting to look good in your bathing suit. Here are some simple and effective workouts to improve your conditioning and maybe even shed an unwanted pound or two in preparation for summer (and life).

(By Steve Holden [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

Workout #1 -
Required Equipment: something moderately heavy and preferably unwieldy (sandbag, heavy dumbbell, 5 gallon water jug full of water or sand, medium size child, large rock, etc.)

- Take your heavy object of choice and hoist it up to your shoulder. Put it back down.
- Do this 7 more times (for a total of 8 reps).
- After your 8th rep, keep ahold of the object and run about 100 yards.
   - Repeat this cycle a total of 10 times.

Notes:
* Don't actually use a child.
* How heavy should your object be? I don't know—how hard do you want to work? (Just don't be stupid)
* For the runs, hold the object wherever you want—on one shoulder, over your head, hugged to your chest, etc.
* No need to time this or measure exact distances. Just put the work in and keep a steady pace.


Workout #2 - 
Required Equipment: a backpack with something heavy in it (preferably a nice backpack, such as one from the army surplus store or www.goruck.com), a full water bottle, lots of fortitude

- Find a good trail and go at it. Keep a steady pace (not quite jogging, but not strolling either). That's it.

Notes: 
* Pick a distance that's reasonable for your level of fitness and preparedness—anywhere from just a couple miles to 10+ miles if you're an experienced backpacker/rucker.
* Stay hydrated. Be prepared.
* Remember that the distance you hike out, you must hike back as well. Don't be that guy that needs a heli-rescue 10 miles out from his own backyard.
* Bring a buddy.
* Take care of your feet (and make sure your feet and shoes are ready for the miles).
* You can use a paved road/sidewalk if you want to be boring.


Workout #3
Required Equipment: Pull-up bar (or tree branch, jungle gym, etc.)

- Perform 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, and 5 jumps (going for height). This is one round.
   - Repeat 6-10 times.

Notes:
* No need to time yourself, but keep a quick pace—you should be suckin' air by the end.
* Take ample time on the jumps. Use good form and go for height on each one. If you have something to jump up and touch, even better.
* This circuit is great when you're short on time and/or don't have much space to train.
* If you can't do pull-ups, use a resistance band for assisted pull-ups.


Workout #4
Required Equipment: ~50 yards of grass or pavement to run on. 

- Perform 8 push-ups.
- Immediately after finishing your 8th rep, sprint ~50 yards. (Go straight from the top of your 8th push-up into the sprint. Do not rest in-between, do not stand up first.)
- After the sprint, walk back to your starting point. This is your rest period.
   - Wash, rinse, repeat 8-12 times.

Notes:
* Go all out on the sprints. Stroll back to your starting point to catch your breath a bit. 
* If you are a mere mortal as I am, these will get terrible and awful and difficult and you'll want to cry about half way through.
* If you want to add a bit of spice, have a friend time your sprints and try to make each one faster than the last.


Workout #5 
Required Equipment - some gettin' yoked music, barbell or dumbbells (optional)

- Perform max reps of chin-ups in 30s. Rest 15s.
- Perform max reps of close hand push-ups in 30s. Rest 15s.
- Perform max reps of sit-ups in 30s. Rest 15s.
- Rest 1min. 
   - Repeat this cycle 4-7 times.
- Optional finisher: lots of curls for the girls (or guys, but that doesn't rhyme).

Notes:
* Just put in the work and get a pump. 
* Choose your music wisely. 

So there you have it. No reinvention of the wheel here. Just some ideas to help you stop thinking about what to do and to start doing it. Mix one of these workouts in with your usual routine every week. Do a couple per week after your lifting (you are lifting, right?). Do all five in one week. Do all five in one day (don't).

Sun's out, guns out!

Training Truths, Part 2 - Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.

This post is inspired by some recent lessons that I've re-re-re-relearned about training, life, training life, life training, etc.

Truth #2 - Be patient. 

Honestly, all of this could be lumped under the general heading, "things that bear repeating." If you don't know that patience is a good thing, then you've likely been living under a rock and you've definitely never watched Star Wars. But our attitudes and beliefs don't always line up with our actions. Sometimes we need a swift kick in shins as a reminder that we should do what we know we're supposed to do. We can be stupid creatures sometimes.

Of course, "be patient" applies to life in general; but here I'll be focusing on patience as it applies to training (and transitively, as it applies to becoming a better human being). 

Half of the world is trying to sell you the quickest and easiest way to wealth and health, and they're making a pretty penny because people are falling for it. "6 Minute Six-pack," "Fat to Fit in Forty Minutes per Fortnight," "Butt Firming and Thigh Slimming Shoes"--this garbage is everywhere. We all want the quick-and-easy road to success so we can retire, rich and beautiful, at age 25. We want it so bad that we often delude ourselves into thinking that whatever is being sold to us, despite the painful gimmicky-ness and preposterous claims, might just work. Guess what. It won't. There is no quick and easy way. If there was, we would all look like Brad Pitt (before he tried the Castaway look) and Scarlett Johansson. Despite humanity's best efforts, hard work and patience remain the path to fitness. 

(By LokkoRobson (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)
The only kind of easy 6-pack.

So why patience? Well, to put it simply, the body adapts slowly. For the same reasons that you don't go from athletic to obese after one day of laziness and bad eating, you don't go from weak and fat to strong and beautiful after one day of working out and eating right. The body does not adapt in hours and days. It adapts in weeks, months, years. When you build muscle, your body is undergoing a complex adaptation to a stressor and preparing itself to handle that stressor more easily and efficiently the next time you may encounter it. This adaptation takes time. Your body must recognize and respond to the stress, receive the proper nutrients and release the right hormones, and recover and rebuild. It's a fact that your body can only repair itself so quickly. One may certainly expedite or hamper this adaptation, but there is a limit on how much one can do to change the nature of the adaptation process. 

I could leave it at that: you have to be patient because the body adapts slower than you want it to. But I think there's more to patience than just saying, "it is what it is." Patience is an attitude as well as a necessity. Jim Wendler, a powerlifter, strength coach, and creator of a great strength program, is a huge advocate of the idea that strength (and fitness in general) is a long-term thing. It's not an endeavor in which you race to the finish, but a long-haul commitment in which you progress consistently over the span of months and years. This patience and mentality of slow-and-steady progress over the long-term is one of the greatest training lessons I've learned. 

With a lack of patience comes a tendency to jump from one program to another, abandon goals, lose motivation, stagnate, and give up too easily. When you're losing patience, feeling like maybe you should try a different program, change your goals, take up knitting instead of lifting, whatever, you need to tell yourself to suck it up and stick with it. It doesn't matter as much what the "it" is, as long as there is an it and you are sticking with it. 

Sometimes the life-train picks up a bit too much steam and things get crazy and you forget to eat and sleep, and maybe your squat suffers for it. Sometimes you're just not mentally there and things don't go the way you'd like them to. Sometimes you just don't have time to get to the gym. Life happens. And if you remain patient, remind yourself that this isn't a matter of today and tomorrow, but a matter of this year and next year and next decade, you'll be able to handle the bad days. The great thing about having a crappy day in the gym is that, unless you blew out your ACL or ripped the butt-seam of your shorts in front of a crowd of on-lookers, you're probably going to be just fine. If you have the right approach and attitude, even the worst days in the gym can make you stronger, faster, fitter. And of course, there's always tomorrow, next week, next month, etc.

Swole is 4ever.

Hey Bro, Whaddaya Bench? - The Over-Glorification of the Bench Press

We've all seen it—a huge gym, packed with $500,000 of equipment, outfitted with 20 of the latest and greatest bench press racks and chest exercise machines taking center stage (all in use, of course), and a lonely squat rack gathering dust in the corner. It makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit. Not because I hate the exercise or the equipment or the idea of having disproportionately large pectoral muscles (actually, I kind of hate that), but because it has been over-glorified to a colossal degree—to the point of negligence towards other aspects of strength, physique, and fitness. In many common circles, the bench press (and to some extent its correlate movements) has become the end-all, be-all, alpha and omega, status defining, holy grail, apotheosis of all strength-related exercise. And the worst part by far is that most people suck at it.

(By Jay_Cutler_bodybuilder_2008.jpg: robbden derivative work: Nesnad (Jay_Cutler_bodybuilder_2008.jpg) [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

Bodybuilder Jay Cutler has probably benched once or twice before.

First, let me start by pointing out that, despite its ubiquity today, the barbell bench press as we know it has not always been a thing. The style of bench press that we see today, using an elevated flat bench and uprights positioned arms-length overhead (called stanchions) to hold the bar, did not come into popular use until the 1950s. Before that time, most horizontal barbell pressing was either done lying on the floor or sometimes on a standalone flat bench with a pull-over type movement used to bring the bar from the ground—behind the lifter's head—to over the chest before the actual press movement began. In other words, sorry dudes, the Spartans didn't use the bench press to develop those sweet bods (though I'm sure Gerard Butler did). 

To make it crystal clear right off the bat, I have no contention with the use of the bench press in a balanced strength, physique, or otherwise fitness-oriented program. In my own training I perform the bench press and/or one of its variations 1-2 times per week, I program the bench press as a core lift for anyone whom I am training for strength, and I encourage everyone who wants to have a strong and/or muscular upper body to implement the bench press in their training (unless you have awful form, in which case you need to learn how to properly bench before you annihilate your shoulders). Because of the potential for using heavy loads and the compound nature of the lift, the bench press is a great exercise for building upper body strength, especially in the shoulders, chest, and arms. But, as Spiderman's Uncle Ben and Voltaire tell us: with great power there must also come great responsibility.

Aside from the abundance of wretched form (saving that for another post), the “problems” with the bench press can be boiled down to: 1) too much of it, and 2) not enough other stuff.

1.

The general population of gym-goers benches too darn much (frequency and volume). This can lead to a whole host of shoulder, chest, and arm injuries (common injuries include pectoral tears, rotator cuff tears, triceps tears, and general inflammation [tendonitis, etc] in the shoulders and elbows). While improper form is likely the most common cause of such injuries, overuse is also a huge contributor. Muscles and joints need time to heal. When you bench five days a week and supplement every bench session with a dozen other chest and shoulder exercises, adequate recovery will not happen. In addition to overuse injuries, benching too much will almost always lead to stagnated progress and often to regression. In the same way that muscles and joints need recovery time in order to stay healthy and injury-free, they need recovery time in order to get stronger. All bench and no recovery makes Jack a weak boy.

In addition, benching too much, especially when combined with a lack of pulling exercises and/or a lack of mobility, will often lead to bad posture. Bad posture leads to looking like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, poor leverages (sub-optimal performance), potential for injury, and nagging pains down the road. Don’t be that guy.

(By MGM studio [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

Hunchie learned the side effects of too much bench press the hard way.

2.

A good program needs balance. If you are going to bench (a pushing movement), you must also pull. With the proliferation of bodybuilding split routines in which you spend one day working chest and biceps, another back and triceps, another calves and glutes, and so on, it is all too easy to forget that the body is a system. When you perform the bench press, your pectoral muscles and triceps are doing the majority of the pushing work; but a whole host of other muscles, ranging from the lats to the abdominals to the glutes, is making that movement possible—strengthening your base and your positioning, stabilizing, decelerating the weight, etc. In other words, if you don’t supplement your benching with a heavy dose of pulling and other assistance exercises, not only are you creating a visual imbalance (gross) and subjecting yourself to injuries and poor posture, but you are limiting how much you can bench. There are all kinds of ratios thrown out there for the best balance of pushing vs. pulling exercises (I’ve seen everything from 2:1 to 1:3). I don’t think there’s a magic number, but I do think that with a bit of intuition and trial and error it shouldn't be hard to figure out if a program lacks balance. When in doubt, do more strength work for your back.

In addition to balancing pushing with pulling, I am a strong advocate of strengthening the whole body. That means balancing upper body work with lower body work. Gym culture today is stricken with an obsession with upper body strength and appearance. I’ll keep it short: do lower body work, because weak chicken legs suck.

Let me end by saying that my negative feelings toward the over-glorification of the barbell bench press are followed very closely by my negative feelings towards the reactionary nay-saying and mud-slinging of the exercise. Some “counter-culture” hooligans of the day are responding to the obscene popularity of the bench press by condemning the exercise as non-functional, ineffective, and a general waste of time, heaping abuse upon anyone who dares to bench, claiming that “you’ll never find yourself in a situation where you have to press a heavy object horizontally away from you while you’re lying flat against a hard surface, you non-functional jag.” This is horse crap. Strength is functional, and the bench press makes your upper body strong.

So, what is the message of this post? Balance. Bench, but not too much, and make sure you train the rest of your body too.

Balance your swole.