mamapeach910 wrote: »

I'll start with an annoying noob question. I have medical problems and do work with a trainer. I am very slowly progressing. I'm still working with dumbbells.

Anyway, I have some issues with my squats. My knees keep wanting to turn in.

What muscles are weak/need more mobility that they want to do this, and what exercises can I do to help out this problem?

Generally speaking it could be weak glutes. If your trainer is NASM certified and also follows NASM procedures he or she may also think that it could be caused from tight opposing musculature (adductor complex, etc) but on a personal note I don't quite buy into that theory in general.

I'm going to link something from Bret Contreras on this because I think it's a good article but I'm also going to point to one possibility that could exist, and that could be that you just don't know how to properly keep your knees out. Sounds silly when I say it but in my experience a lot of times it has less to do with proper strengthening of muscle groups and even less so to do with over-active opposing muscles and more to do with teaching someone how to squat.

My favorite tool for this is to just take a light resistance band or loop and place it around the knee area and squat with the band on with either body-weight or a very light load. The band will force the knees inward and you will then have to forcefully drive the knees out against the band.

Now you could make a logical argument that this strengthens the muscles responsible for hip abduction and it probably does, but in some people this works so fast that I don't quite buy into it being a strength issue. This will cue you to drive the knees out.

At any rate, see here for a more detailed explanation and some additional fixes:

http://bretcontreras.com/knee-valgus-valgus-collapse-glute-medius-strengthening-band-hip-abduction-exercises-and-ankle-dorsiflexion-drills/


EDIT: When I make that little knock on the NASM theory I'm specifically referring to the idea that tight opposing musculature is responsible and should be foam rolled and static stretched. Ankle mobility issues can definitely be problematic as Bret points out in the above article.

mamapeach910 wrote: »

SideSteel wrote: »

mamapeach910 wrote: »

I'll start with an annoying noob question. I have medical problems and do work with a trainer. I am very slowly progressing. I'm still working with dumbbells.

Anyway, I have some issues with my squats. My knees keep wanting to turn in.

What muscles are weak/need more mobility that they want to do this, and what exercises can I do to help out this problem?

Generally speaking it could be weak glutes. If your trainer is NASM certified and also follows NASM procedures he or she may also think that it could be caused from tight opposing musculature (adductor complex, etc) but on a personal note I don't quite buy into that theory in general.

I'm going to link something from Bret Contreras on this because I think it's a good article but I'm also going to point to one possibility that could exist, and that could be that you just don't know how to properly keep your knees out. Sounds silly when I say it but in my experience a lot of times it has less to do with proper strengthening of muscle groups and even less so to do with over-active opposing muscles and more to do with teaching someone how to squat.

My favorite tool for this is to just take a light resistance band or loop and place it around the knee area and squat with the band on with either body-weight or a very light load. The band will force the knees inward and you will then have to forcefully drive the knees out against the band.

Now you could make a logical argument that this strengthens the muscles responsible for hip abduction and it probably does, but in some people this works so fast that I don't quite buy into it being a strength issue. This will cue you to drive the knees out.

At any rate, see here for a more detailed explanation and some additional fixes:

http://bretcontreras.com/knee-valgus-valgus-collapse-glute-medius-strengthening-band-hip-abduction-exercises-and-ankle-dorsiflexion-drills/

Thank you! Yes, he's NASM and does think it's my abductors, but I didn't think it was the case.

After reading the link, I now know what my problem is -- my ankles. I broke one a couple years back and it's still pretty tight. I couldn't do the box squat without my knee turning in either. I'll do the drills he recommends to get more mobility.

Thanks!

It could be weak abductors but I doubt it's tight/overactive adductors.

Try the ankle mobility drills, try elevating your heels slightly (squat shoes would be ideal but you could stand with heels on 5lb plates as an experiment), try the banded squats.

If it's a cueing issue/motor pattern issue the banded squats will likely improve it rather fast. If it's ankle dorsiflexion depending on the severity you may see improvement immediately when you elevate the heel so at least these two things would give you relatively quick feedback and you could go from there.

ncboiler89 wrote: »

Does *kitten* really cause blindness? I'll hang up now so that I can hear your answer.

In your response can you please tell me what you are wearing?

Could somebody please read this to me? I can't see.

I'll write a bit more later, just fyi

SideSteel wrote: »

arditarose wrote: »

Hi, wondering if you could help me with my programming a little. The thing I'm struggling with now is how to make sure I'm adding weight appropriately every week. I used to do 5/3/1, so I just followed those calculations, and if I stalled I'd run the cycle at the same weight again. Now I'm doing PHUL and feel like I'm just adding weight/reps willy nilly when it comes to my compound lifts. That made me anxious so I went back to doing 5/3/1 for bench, squat, and deadlift just to have some structure.

Am I over thinking this?

This is a good post and I think a lot of people are in a similar situation to you where they are just not sure quite how to follow progression when it comes to programming.

How fast you can progress tends to be proportionate to training experience in that less experienced trainees can progress faster than more experienced trainees. Now there are probably going to be exceptions to this but for example it's feasible for someone relatively new to add 100-200lbs to a deadlift in a year whereas an advanced lifter isn't likely to get anywhere near that under normal circumstances.

So no I don't think you're over-thinking anything.

One thing I would look at would be whether your program is designed to increase total volume over several weeks.

I have a bit more to say about this but my daughter is getting pissed at me. lol.

Ok so in addition to above and to attempt to possibly provide you with a bit more direction you could consider something like the following but keep in mind that there's plenty of ways to handle progression but they all revolve around increasing volume over time which usually means increasing weight on the bar at some point but not necessarily weekly.

For example one thing you could do would be to follow something like 5/3/1 for the main lifts and add 1 rep per week on accessory movements, such as 3x8, 3x9,3x10 followed by a weight increase on week 4 and repeat.

If you wanted to lay out 5/3/1 in an upper lower format I would consider the following and I'll simply denote "main" as the 5/3/1 calculated movement and "assist" as a separately progressed movement following the main.

Bench Main
BB OHP Assist
Upper press accessory
Upper Pull accessory
Arm accessory

Squat Main
Deadlift Assist
Lower Quad Accessory
Lower Glute Accessory
Calves

OHP Main
Bench Assist
Upper Press accessory
Upper Pull accessory
Arm/Core accessory

Deadlift Main
Squat Assist
Lower Ham accessory
Lower Glute accessory
Unilateral accessory

And then generally speaking you could handle all the accessory movements somewhere between 8-15 reps and try to add 1 rep per week per session until you reach the top end range of the movement and then increase weight by the smallest increment and move to the lower end of the range.


For Assist movements one thing I've experimented with that makes sense theoretically (I've had one client run it) is to run the assists in a %rm fashion but follow an intensity progression similar to 5/3/1 so that on 5/5/5 week the assist is slightly higher volume and lower % rm, and as you progress through the weeks (3/3/3, 5/3/1) the %rm on the assist goes up and the volume goes down.

I believe I had it set up something like this but I'd have to go check my client sheet to confirm:

5/5/5 week 65% 3-4x10-12
3/3/3 week 70% 3-4x8-10
5/3/1 week 75% 3-4x6-8

Then as the main movement goes up every 4th week as it does in 5/3/1, the assist movement also goes up, and each week you're proportionately following a periodization scheme rather loosely in that as volume goes down, intensity goes up.

Anyway there's plenty of ways to do it but the above should give you a rough idea.

nossmf wrote: »

My right front delt has been painful for a day or so now. Not sure how it happened; I lifted OHP back on Friday for the first time in a few weeks, I figure it's a contributing factor, but my shoulder didn't begin to hurt until Sunday night. Specifically, I have full range of motion if I move slowly, and I can move my arm out in a lateral raise move easily enough, but if I try to move forward quickly there's a sharp pain which lasts for a split second. In addition, keeping my elbow to my ribs while twisting out is a trifle problematic.

I figure on taking this week off from the gym entirely, see if that'll clear things up. Rather annoying, since lifting is one of my primary methods of stress relief.

I know you guys aren't doctors, but do you think what I describe could be from my lifting? I.e. sharp pain when move quickly, but dull pain or none at all if move slowly?

I would tend to think that if you injured something during a lift it would show symptoms before 48 hours post training but that's entirely opinion on my part and obviously I'm not a physical therapist/etc.


If I were you I would avoid any movements that cause pain either during or shortly after.

celticlass69 wrote: »

I started this journey in Dec 2014. Fairly consistent weight loss for the first 20 lbs. I've been hitting a wall lately, ie. a bit of plateauing for the last 2 months, will go weeks without change, then I'll loose a couple of pounds. So that is why I think I need to change things up. Plus, I want to tone up this flab I have. So should I do so many cardio, so many weight sessions a week? I know that at least 20 mins is good.

What have you been doing while you lost that 20lbs and are you using a food scale?

Variety is fine for entertainment purposes and it's also okay to add activity to try and increase the deficit, but I'm a big fan of not fixing things that aren't broken. If you are still losing (even if it's in steps as you describe) then you don't need an overhaul.

Regarding exercise there's many ways to do it but if I were to generalize it, 2-4 days/week will cover most people. Really depends on how you set that up.

zzia15 wrote: »

This is a Noob question too. I have read through a number of the beginner files, and played with some of the calculators, but I am stills struggling with where to set my calories. I am 152lb, I would like to get down to about 130-135. I would say I am lightly active - though I also use a fitbit and get in about 10000 steps per day (at least, more on running days). Right now I am lifting 3x per week, and running or doing cardio 2-3x per week. I am also EBF, which I think is where the wrench gets thrown it for me.
MFP says I should be eating 1500 per week for 1lb per week weight loss. I had previously been using that calculation, but eating back some of my exercise calories, which typically had me eating on average 1800 cals per day. I have tried the other calculators listed, and it comes out to about 1800 calories. I don't know then if I should eat 1800 + calories from EBF, or 1500 + exercise cals + ebf cals. I have been losing, but I don't want to be eating too little.

Do you have any further guidance on this? Or would you recommend sticking with a certain number for a few weeks and monitoring how it goes?

Thanks!

I would start by erring on the side of additional calories given EBF even if that means slowing down your weight loss temporarily. Beyond that though I would observe your results and use rate of loss to dictate which direction to bring calories.

I know that's a horrendously vague answer on my part.

Also Lisa, that's not a stupid question. Please feel welcome to ask anything you like.