The Incredible Pistol Squat

 

The pistol squat requires mobility and strength from the entire lower body and core, and once you work up to being able to complete them you can get a great lower body workout anywhere with no equipment. 

Most people will not be able to perform the pistol squat properly without working through several progressions that help develop the specific mobility, strength and stability required to get through the exercise for repetitions.

 Pistol Squat Progressions

There are two basic ways to progress to a full pistol squat. Either use a progressively lower bench or step, or use something to hold onto while doing a full pistol to help pull yourself up and progressively use it less and less until it is no longer required.

For the step progression, you can use actually stairs or use a chair to start.    Stand facing away from the chair or staircase and put all your weight on one leg keeping the other leg straight with the hip flexed slightly so the non-standing foot is held off the ground in front of you.  

Flex the hips and reach back with your butt towards the staircase or chair and lower yourself down under control keep your arms straight and in front of you parallel to the floor to counterbalance your hips moving backwards.  

Let the standing knee and ankle flex along with your hip as you reach your butt backwards and go down.    However, you MUST keep the heel of the standing leg down and this requires a lot of flexibility of the soleus tendon (soleus is the single joint calf muscle).    

Try to lightly touch your butt down to a stair or the chair then drive the standing foot down, squeeze the glutes extending your hip, knee and ankle to the starting position.  

Perform sets of 5 – 10 reps each leg.  Overtime find progressively lower steps, benches or individual stairs so that you are progressively squatting lower and lower until you can perform a full squat on one leg all the way down to the ground and back up again keeping your non-standing leg straight and parallel to the floor while the hip is flexed.

The second option to progress to full pistol squats is to hold onto something that you can pull on while doing a full pistol squat thereby assisting the stance leg.    

You can hold onto a suspension trainer, a cable machine handle, door frame, chair or table, or resistance training band or rope anchored above you.    A great way to do this is to anchor a suspension trainer or resistance band above you to a secure point then grasp the two handles and pull on them as required to do a full pistol squat.    Over time progressively use less and less assistance from the upper body, switch to just one hand, then lessen grip and assistance until you can perform full pistol squats.

The excellent videos below show you exactly how to start and progress the pistol squat - and once you master it you can get a great lower body workout in anywhere!

Videos:  https://youtu.be/It3yvU0fomI or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPksQCbeVZw

The Incredible Benefits of Grounding - Walking Barefoot on the Ground!

 

With summer arriving many of us will have the opportunity of walking on a beach in bare feet.     It’s not just the sea air, water, and sunshine that makes this so fun.   There is a powerful connection formed with the earth when your feet are in direct contact with the ground.

Anyone with small children knows they want to try to ditch their shoes every chance they get – but if you think about this a little you will probably realize that you feel better when you can walk around barefoot.   This is particularly true when you can walk directly on the ground safely such as walking on the beach.  Researchers have begun to unravel why being barefoot directly on the ground can in fact be very good for your health!

Your immune system functions well when your body has an adequate supply of electrons, which are easily and naturally obtained by barefoot contact with the Earth.

Research has shown that electrons from the ground have measurable antioxidant effects that can protect your body from inflammation.  For most of our time on this planet we have been in direct contact with the ground without anything that would block the flow of electrons into our body – natural animal hides do NOT interrupt the flow of electrons!

However in modern time’s pavement, wood, rubber, plastics and many other forms of non-conductive material are between our feet and ground blocking the natural flow of electrons.

The surface of our planet has a negative electrical potential. So when we are in direct contact with it electrons flow to your body through a process called “grounding”.   Grounding cause positive physiological effects that promote optimum health.

Specific researched benefits include improvements in blood viscosity, heart rate variability, inflammation, cortisol dynamics, sleep, autonomic nervous system (ANS) balance, and reduced effects of stress.

When you connect directly to the ground without any non-conducting material between you and the electron field of the planet there is an improvement in the balance of two sides of your autonomic nervous system:  the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

How Shoes May be Impacting Your Health

Materials like metals are excellent conductors of electricity (aka electrons!). The human body is also conductive because it contains a large number of charged ions (called electrolytes) dissolved in water.

Other non-conductive materials, such as plastic and rubber, have very few free or mobile electrons. Traditionally shoes were made of leather, which is a good electrical conductor. However almost all modern shoes contain rubber and plastic which block the flow of electrons from the earth to your body.

The Health Benefits of Grounding

Your immune system body has evolved a method of destroying bacteria and viruses by generating reactive oxygen species (ROS) that are delivered by immune cells. These ROS do exactly what they are designed to do, but they can also cause extensive damage to healthy tissues. ROS are usually positively charged molecules that need to be neutralized immediately to prevent damage to the body after destroying bacteria or viruses.   This is one of the key functions of anti-oxidants which are most important in immune cells to protect them from the ROS they generate!

Anti-oxidants essentially provide a supply of negative charges. Food based antioxidants (such as Vitamins C and E) and anti-oxidants your body produces are critical but a regular supply of electrons grounding can supply them as well.

Evolution facilitated the process of grounding by providing conductive systems within your body that deliver electrons from your feet to all parts of your body. This system has been integral to human physiology for thousands of years. Negative electrons are always available, thanks to the Earth, to prevent the inflammatory process from damaging healthy tissues.

All of this was interrupted when we started to wear shoes with rubber and plastic soles, and no longer slept in direct contact with the ground. Several experiments have proven that a person who is grounded is less stressed and more relaxed.

So have some fun, kick your shoes off and get back to nature!

How to get the benefits of Grounding

Grounding is simple in warmer climates – simply spend time barefoot in direct contact with the earth.   Even better do this on a beach walking along the edge of the water because the flow of negatively charged electrons will be highest here because sea water is an ideal conductor of electrons!    Any amount of time will help but the more you can do it the better!  Even better spend some time laying on the beach or ground with your body in direct contact with the ground without any artificial fabrics, rubber or plastic between your skin and the ground.

For those of us who do not live in warm climates staying grounded during colder months is a bit more challenging but doable! There are actually shoes that are specifically designed to facilitate electron flow from the ground into your body like these: https://tinyurl.com/bdhcj53z 

 

 

Ideal Rest Time Between Sets of Resistance Training Exercise

 

There are several different variables to consider when resistance training including:

The exercises you chose to do

The amount of resistance used

The number of repetitions for each set of exercise

The total number of sets of exercise

The rest time between sets of exercise

There is an inverse relationship between the weight lifted and the number of repetitions completed in a set.   When you choose heavier weights you will be able to complete fewer repetitions before fatiguing the target muscles.      A general rule is that higher levels of resistance with less repetitions focus more on building strength, and lower levels of resistance for more repetitions focus more on increasing muscular endurance.

So how does rest time between sets of exercise affect the workout and the results you will obtain from a workout and how should you determine your rest time between sets?    The answer depends on your goals for the workout.        

If your goal is to maximize strength (meaning the maximum amount of resistance you can complete one repetition with) then you should choose longer rest periods of 3 – 4 minutes to allow for complete recovery of the muscles between sets and use high levels of resistance for 3 – 5 repetitions.   

If your goal is muscular hypertrophy meaning increasing muscle size then reducing rest periods to 1 – 2 minutes with less resistance and a higher number of repetitions – 8 – 15 would help to maximize progress.  

If your goal is maximizing calorie burn during the workout and caloric afterburn after the workout, then using minimal rest periods down to no rest period between sets of resistance training is optimal to drive the metabolic overload during and after the workout.

If all this seems too complicated the great news is that a recent study done with experienced weightlifters showed that there was no difference in results when one group used a timed recovery of 2 minutes and another group used a self-selected recovery period based on each individual’s perception of fatigue.     

In the group that chose their own recovery period the average recovery time chosen was less than 2 minutes.    The researchers concluded that the volume of exercise performed (total number of sets and reps) may be the more important factor in driving results versus an exact rest time.

For most of us in the gym who are focused on building a lean physique but not concerned with absolute strength or size the following recommendations are a good guideline:

Do 1 – 3 sets of exercise for each major body part such as chest, shoulders, arms, legs, etc.

Choose a level of resistance where you can complete 8 – 12 repetitions of each set of exercise in good form hitting momentary muscular failure by the end of the set.

Use slow controlled movement without momentum to keep tension in the target muscles throughout the set.

Use compound movements for most exercises – meaning movements that involve movement at two or more joints such as a chest press or push-up versus a pec fly movement.

Use the shortest rest period possible that allows you to complete 8 – 12 repetitions – probably between 30 seconds – 2 minutes!

How to Avoid the Nine Big Beginner Mistakes in the Gym!

 

Click here and watch this short video to find out how to avoid the 9 Big Beginner Mistakes that prevent people from reaching their goals!: https://youtu.be/-NL1_upNzQU_