Exercise of the Week #11: Inverted Row

Check out our newest Exercise of the Week, featuring the Inverted Row. This exercise is a great bodyweight alternative to a cable or dumbbell row, and additionally can help you build the upper body and core strength required for a full pull-up. I love this exercise as a transition to bridge between the more upright TRX low row and an assisted pull-up with a band. Give this a try!

How to Reach Your Goals Faster

For those of you that don’t know me already (because this tends to come up within the first five minutes of any conversation I have with anyone), I’m a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu athlete (student? Practitioner? I do Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, is what I’m trying to say), and have been for about two years, after my stint as a college athlete ended but the need to feel like a part of a team remained. While two years is a drop in the bucket compared to many of my teammates, I’ve been around long enough to witness a few belt promotions. Like any other martial art, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu adheres to a belt system to define rank, from white (the lowest rank) to black (the highest rank), and every instructor or gym decides how they want to go about promotions. At the school where I train, promotions are done with no advanced notice—your instructor simply gives you the belt when he feels you are ready. Granted, there are some criteria that go into deciding who exactly is ready, and being that I am not yet a black belt, I’m not entirely certain what all of the criteria are. However, one night, at the conclusion of a class, my instructor made an announcement. This was at the end of a week of training, and some promotions had been made earlier that week. This is what he said to us:

“After I promote some students, the following weeks my classes are twice as full. Students that haven’t come to class in months all of a sudden show up to train again. But these aren’t the students that I’m promoting; these are the students that are going to stand there, clapping for the other students I promote.”

What I gleaned from this rather pointed remark from my instructor is that consistency is of significant importance. Now, lets shift for a second and apply the analogy of a belt promotion to your own personal gym goals, whether that’s weight loss, strength gain, or overall health. As a martial arts practitioner, I’ve asked the question, “how do I get better at jiu-jitsu?” and was met with the response “keep coming.” Be consistent. Put in the time. As a trainer, I’m asked all sorts of questions: how do I lose weight/get stronger/improve my squat/deadlift better, etc.   On the surface, all of these questions have different responses, but all have one common denominator: consistency. If you pick an example of anyone you know who has had lasting success in the gym (I’m not even talking about high-level athletes here—I’m talking about the people I see the same times every day in the gym, either working out with a trainer or following their program), chances are its because at least one aspect of their program was followed consistently.

So, consistency is great. But life is crazy, even if “the diet/weightlifting regimen/eating a vegetable at every meal starts Monday,” and we have the best of intentions, it’s so easy to get derailed. So how do we harness the elusive quality that is consistency (note the irony of describing consistency as “elusive”)? Here are some ideas:

Decide on a Goal

Are you trying to lose weight, put on some muscle, run a marathon, add 50lbs to your squat or deadlift, or just get healthier? Whatever you decide, keep this in mind as your goal. Remember, some goals might overlap, but picking just one goal is ideal to ensure that 100% of your attention in the gym is dedicated to achieving that goal, so that the movements you choose to do will not detract from it. For instance, if you’re aiming to run a marathon, you would likely be doing movements that are very different from a person whose goal is to add 50lbs to a deadlift.

Check yourself

I believe it was Aristotle that said, “we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but habit.” Habits make our world go round. You already know, some habits are good and others are not so good. Be honest with yourself. Identify your habits—the good and the bad. Recognize your strengths, as well as the areas of your life—or in this case, your fitness—that need some improvement. If you are looking to lose weight and you go to the gym faithfully every day, and see a trainer three of those days, but every Friday after work ends in a junk food binge, we then know that the habit of going to the gym is a positive one, while the Friday night junk food isn’t so positive. Knowing your habits can be the first step in replacing or improving them.

Be Accountable to Something or Someone

Being accountable to a trainer or workout partner can be a great tool for people who struggle with getting to the gym consistently or sticking to a program, or even those who lack motivation. For starters, you are less likely to bail on a workout if you know someone else is depending on you, or, in the case of a trainer, because you’re paying for it. If nothing else—or even in addition to having accountability to a trainer or partner— be accountable to a date: sign up for a 5k or road race, or mark your calendar for the start of that beach vacation you have planned.   Having a trainer or partner as a third party not only keeps you showing up to the gym, but also keeps you honest as far as exercise (was that weight too light? Did you really do ten repetitions or was it more like eight?). Having a date can help set the ball rolling—once you realize that achieving a certain goal by a certain date will take a defined amount of work, it may be easier to develop a plan, and easier to keep going.

Focus on your behavior, and the outcome will take care of itself

Mature athlete and powerlifter Charles Staley often writes about what has continued to keep him motivated and consistent as a weightlifting veteran, and one of the points he made has stuck with me when talking training with clients or friends about success in the gym. I’ve already mentioned how important goal setting is, and how it can give direction to your workouts. But, when it comes to achieving those goals, we tend to focus on how close or how far away we are to achieving them, and less about what its going to take to get us there. So, take a tip from Charles Staley on this: the goal is the outcome, but focus on the behaviors that will get you there, like completing so many workouts a week, or logging so many miles. Reaching your goal is the product of many different behaviors, and the outcome involves so many factors that it is difficult to control what ultimately happens. Your behavior, however, is comparatively easy to control. Remember when we talked about habits? Identifying the good and bad habits is the first step to ultimately being able to control your behavior. So, while you may have less control over the end result, I can say with confidence that focusing on your behavior first, and working to replace your bad habits with good habits will not lead you in the wrong direction.

Success, particularly in the gym, is the sum of cumulative efforts, not just a couple of hard sessions and stints of clean eating spaced out over the course of months.  It’s hard to see no results after what feels like ages, but attainable, sustainable progress will be yours through dedication and consistency.

~Maria Capuano, CPT

Exercise of the Week #9: Weighted Glute Bridge