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Suspension training – tool or crutch?

World famous strength coach Charles Poliquin went to see the Conan movie that came out a couple of years ago. He disliked it so much that he mentioned it on Facebook. What caused him to dislike it so much? The physique of the actor that played Conan. He made the comment,”This guy looks like he has a TRX.” Arnold played the original Conan back in the early 1980’s and he lifted real weights and looked like it, too. The new guy, well, not so much.

So when I wrote about suspension trainers being a fad for weak people yesterday, maybe it upset a few people. Let me explain.

Everyone has to start somewhere and most of us are starting at the bootom. No problem with that at all. When I taught my kids to ride a bike, we started with training wheels on the bike like most parent’s do. But here’s the catch: eventually the training wheels have to come off.

Ask yourself really hard: are most people that do suspension training moving on to harder training? Really?

A proper progression on a suspension trainer should look something like this:
back row (high angle)–> back row (low angle) –> horizontal row –>static vertical holds –> pullup negatives –>real pullups.

This was why I designed our old STX with separate handles straps instead of having them together like other suspension trainers. I wanted people to progress to real pullups. So how many people doing suspension training progress to those higher levels? Not many, correct?

Maybe people aren’t ready to do full pullups, right? So how about the 40/40 challenge? The 40/40 challenge is 40 straight low rows followed by 40 straight atomic puhsups. The atomic pushup is a logical progression from chest presses. It looks something like this:
chest press (high angle) –> chest press (low angle)–> suspended pushups –> feet in strap pushups –> atomic pushups

How many people doing suspension training are going through that process to the harder levels? Why are they not completing the 40/40 challenge? If suspension training is so fantastic, why don’t I see more videos of clients being trained to that level? Or even trainers themselves?

We use suspension trainers to get people started and primarily for rehab (they’re great for that). But in the gym, once they’ve reached a level of competence on the STX, we get them doing real pullups and pushups and move them to barbell training. If it’s at-home training, we encourage people to move past the easy movements to higher level/harder moves that will get them stronger. We also encourage at-home trainers to buy heavier kettlebells so they can get the benefit of heavier resistance training.

The fact is you have to move beyond the easy stuff if you really want to get strong, and strength should be the major fitness goal since it’s the one missing the most often. Far too often, suspension trainers are used as a crutch instead of a temporary tool. But eventually you have to leave the crutches behind and learn how to walk on your own.

The latest fitness fad

Are you tired of kettlebells yet? According to some people, you should be. When we brought kettlebells into Taiwan, a lot of people expected us to promote them like the lastest fad. That was how these people treated every other new fitness product that had come along, why should kettlebells be any different? Afterall, a new fad comes through the fitness community every six months, right? So they were perplexed when we refused to deeply discount our kettlebells and sell them to wholesalers who didn’t know how to use them and didn’t care. We believe that kettlebells should be sold by people who actually use them. They were perplexed when we told people they should work up to using HEAVY kettlebells since the entire industry tells people what they want to hear – that tiny little weights lifted thousands of times is the way to get fit. And they were shocked again when we told people that perhaps they weren’t getting enough protein. Isn’t the latest fad to go vegan?!?

So if you’re still here then you’re not one of the fad people that is likely now talking about bikini bridges or thigh gaps or mermaid lines or whatever else people are wasting their time with.

The system of training behind kettlebells is deeper than most people know and certainly out of place in the mainstream fitness industry, which is why many of them have moved on. And that’s a good thing because the people that are left are the serious ones that won’t get distracted by the latest shiny toy to come along.

Here’s something not many people will tell you: the latest fitness fad is based on the mindset of failure. They’ll tell you that you aren’t really capable of getting strong so here’s the latest suspension trainer, instead. You aren’t capable of learning how to barbell squat properly so here’s a piece of plastic for the bar to sit on on your back. Hey, barbell squatting is scary, isn’t it? You have to protect yourself! You aren’t capable of lifting heavy kettlebells correctly. Better stay with light ones and better get the vinyl covered ones. You know – just in case you drop it because you’re clumsy.

You don’t NEED many of the latest fitness fads. You don’t need the cheap pieces of plastic. You CAN learn how to barbell squat properly. You don’t NEED vinyl on your kettlebell nor do you need your mother to cut your meat for you. You ARE capable of getting strong and fit. So when the next thing that prays on that mindset of failure comes along, ignore it and stick with what builds you up and makes you strong. Because you’re better than that.

How much of your joint health can you spend?

When you think of efficiency, what do you think of first? If you’re like most people, you think of time or money. And while those are certainly important, what about your joint health? How much of that are you willing to spend (or perhaps waste) learning how to do something like exercising? How much are you willing to lose out on because you wouldn’t make an investment when you were relatively rich?

Think about it this way: if you want to learn how to barbell squat or deadlift, you’re moving your bones and joints as well as your joints. Are you doing the moves correctly or are you grinding your gears? If you continuously do exercises incorrectly, won’t you pay a price with your joints?

One of my favorite TV commercials shows a line of men hiking up a hill with backpacks on their backs and all of them are holding their knees as they climb the stairs going up because their knees hurt. Naturally the commercial is for a supplement that might or might not help, but I often wonder if people that hurt their knees when hiking ever consider why they hurt? Wouldn’t learning how to use their glute and hamstrings to push off of each step instead of leaning forward on to the toes and only using their quad muscles be useful? That’s how most people climb stairs and over-using the quads and under-using the hamstrings is a great way to give yourself knee pain. The knee is in-between your quads and hamstrings. Overuse one side without ever learning to use the other side and the part in the middle is going to hurt.

You could spend a little joint health learning how to exercise correctly, which would be a wise investment, or you could waste your joints’ health every time you exercise. Either way, you’re choosing where and how to spend your joint health.

Are supplements a waste of money?

Many people think they are so and some people even think that they are a rip off. And honestly some supplements really do take their marketing too far by promising you’ll get huge or lose a ton of fat just by taking their pill or powder. So a healthy sense of skepticism is good. Don’t believe everyone who is just trying to sell you something.

But even though some supplements are a scam, that doesn’t mean that they all are. Many basic supplements actually have a ton of research behind them that shows how safe and effective they are. Many of these supplements have stood the test of time by continuing to be on the market for years and they’ve been used by millions of people. Usually these are the ones you want to stick with.

A good example is creatine, which is made naturally in the body for use in energy production byt the cells of the body. However, supplementing the amount of creatine you make naturally with an external source can have positive effects of your energy levels, strength, and can increase the amount of lean body mass that you have. Meat naturally has creatine in it and if you’re eating a lot of it then you might be getting enough creatine already. However, cooking meat lessens the amount of creatine in meat, meaning that even if you eat some meat, you could still benefit from increased creatine in some cases. Anyone who doesn’t eat meat for whatever reason can certainly benefit from increased creatine intake since no plant source of nutrition contains creatine – it’s only made by animals.

Contrary to popular belief, creatine is NOT a steroid and has never been shown to cause any harm in any amount that a normal human could sanely consume. Thousands of studies have shown it’s safety and effectiveness for a variety of populations, yet you rarely hear of anyone but bodybuilders taking it. That’s really too bad since anyone who is aging is likely losing muscle mass every year to sacropenia – muscle wasting due to aging.

Fortunately, a supplement like creatine isn’t very expensive and isn’t difficult to take. Taking just 5gm a day, every day for several months then cylcing off of it for a while can provide you with most of the benfits of creatine with almost no risk. So rather than considering a supplement like creatine as a rip-off, we might see it as a low-cost way to boost our physical training with little downside.

So why do people think even useful supplements are rip-offs? Because they expect them to replace hard work in the gym and when they don’t, people feel ripped off. The fact is no pill or powder is going to put tons of muscle on you or rip the fat off your body so stop expecting it to. Put in the hard work and only use supplements to help out a little. That’s the path to fitness success with supplements.

Pause squats to break your squat plateau

Barbell squatting is a great way to get strong and it should be a staple movement in everyone’s fitness routine. But eventually people get stuck at a weight and everything starts to slow down. At this point, pause squats can really help you out.
To do pause squats, first make sure that you have solid squat form and that you aren’t leaning forward too much or rounding your back or allowing your knees to cave in. Pause squats primarily help people come out of the “hole” quicker and will fix the problem of getting stuck half way up. So they won’t help you if you have another problem.
To do pause squats, put about 60-70% of your 1RM on the bar and do the squat as you normally would. But this time when you get to the bottom of the squat, stay there for 5 seconds then push your way up out of the squat as fast as you can. Do 5-6 reps and take a rest.
It’s very important that you maintain your form when you’re at the bottom of the squat. DO NOT relax!! Go slowly into the bottom position, hold the tension in your muscles for 5 seconds and then push up quickly.
Too many people get used to bouncing out of the bottom of the squat as if their tendons were rubber bands. This is a very bad habit that could cause you to get hurt when the weights get really heavy. Uusually the bounce is doen by people to want more power or who are training for athletic performance. But completely stopping the squat at the bottom and then pushing up out of the hole as fast as you can actually recruits more muscle and gives you greater power than bouncing.
Try it out and tell us what yout think.