Training for life!
Some of the best reading on strength and health can be found in the (well written iterations of) articles with titles like, “how to train if you’re over 40.” Take Dan John’s rightfully famous “Training for Middle Age and Beyond” as a prime example. A lot of us seem to forget that we’re all aging, and that we all age similarly. This by itself is a prime directive of training for strength and health regardless of your own age, sex, activity or other goals.
Apart from the powerlifting team I worked with at Danny Sawaya’s Tucson Strength and some athletes and weekend warriors with very specific needs, almost all of my clients received training from me that was built upon very similar guidelines. Dr. Vladimir Janda’s theory of tonic and phasic muscles (which I first heard referenced by Dan somewhere) along with the joint-by-joint approach I learned from Gray Cook’s materials fueled much of this instruction and programming for me.
Some quick notes on the ‘tonic’ and ‘phasic’ groups of muscles.
Tonic muscles:
-tend to be tight/overused
-deep local flexors
-form first in utero
-think of what is used to hold fetal position
-anti-gravity or ‘postural’ muscles
The tonic muscles include the upper traps, pecs, biceps, the low back muscles, hip flexors, and hamstrings. Their usefulness in keeping us balanced and upright might well exacerbate their natural tendency over time to become too tight. Notice, too, that if you’ve ever read about upper or lower crossed syndrome, these are the culprits! Our culturally sedentary lifestyle is contributing to our natural aging process here, and so too is many people’s routines in the gym (chest, traps, and bi’s anyone?) so it’s kind of a perfect storm situation here. These muscles need stretching and mobility work, strong counterparts to balance them out, and to have their healthy range of motion maintained.
Now for our underdog heroes, the phasic muscles:
-tend to be weak/atrophied
-superficial global extensors
-think about what is used to propel the body
-available on demand, not always ‘on’
The phasic muscles include the rhomboids, deltoids, triceps, abs, vmo, and the lats and glutes. They form later in the human developmental process, are more susceptible to injury, and since they aren’t needed all the time tend to not work as much as they should (hence the term ‘sleepy’, as in ‘sleepy glutes’). They operate in pairs with the tonic muscles–when they underwork, the tonic muscles tend to overwork even more. When your abs don’t do their job, the lumbars pick up the slack. Same goes for the rhomboids, when they’re weak and don’t work, the pecs will get even tighter. The phasic muscles need strength and hypertrophy work–that is, progressive overload over time.
This is where these two practical concepts come into play:
1. “Train the hinge, maintain the squat”
2. “Pull more than you push”
The first means that hinge patterns–the deadlift and the kettlebell swing being our MVPs here–should be loaded heavy and progressed over time. These will build the glutes, teach them to work along with the abs, and help open up the hamstrings as well. In short, proper hinging is the answer to our lower body tonic muscles. Squatting is arguably less important to load heavy for those who don’t have to do it, but maintaining mobility here is very important. Taking a light load to a rock bottom, flat footed squat on your last day would be an excellent life training goal.
Not thinking of the squat so much as a maximal strength builder but more a loaded mobility movement means that there are more ways to load it. There are only so many places to put a ridiculously heavy weight if you’re going to squat it, after all. But front loaded squats with light to moderate loads are magical. Goblet squats, double bell front squats, zercher squats, and ‘bearhug’ squats with a sandbag all displace an individual’s center of gravity to make those deep knee bends easier. Plus, front loading the weight, when done properly works the hell out of the abs, which are an important phasic muscle group as well.
So: for lower body and core training think heavy hinging and moderate, front loaded squatting.
For the upper body we have to balance our back with our front. The traps, pecs, and biceps pull the shoulders up and forward and round the upper back. Our goal is to undo that, so strengthening the rhomboids and lats as well as the external rotators is going to be key. “For shoulder health, pull more than you push” has become a common piece of wisdom among strength coaches for good reason. Most smart coaches advise good quality pulling for twice, maybe even three times as much volume as pressing is done. The other part of keeping shoulder health is maintaining good range of motion through the presses that we do. Locking out your overhead presses and bringing benches and pushups all the way to your chest will preserve that. Together, balancing our pulls with our pushes and pressing with full rom will take care of the upper body tonic muscles and ensure that the phasic ones can and will do their fair share.
As with the squats, we can vary the exercises to cover more bases. Performing proper bodyweight rows on a suspension trainer will involve the core and glutes to keep the body in a planked position, making them far superior to machine rows. Doing standing or 1/2 kneeling overhead presses likewise require locked-in abs and glutes for stability, giving them an advantage over, say, seated dumbbell or machine presses.
So, for upper body: think 2-3 sets of pulls for every set of presses, and do them all with a full range of motion.
Our winners for exercise choice:
Deadlift or kettlebell swing–the hinge
Front loaded squat or reverse lunge–the squat
Half kneeling press or pushup–the press
Bodyweight row or pullup progression–the pull
That’s not to say that you can’t spend extra time on your arms, your upper chest, doing shrugs, and so forth! Just think of them as the cherry on top of your healthy baseline and don’t skip your requisite mobility work.
Let’s say that you have three days to train each week, and have limited time. Maybe 30-45 minutes each session. Let’s also say that you know how to perform all of these exercises, and have no outstanding movement issues 😉
Day one:
A1. 1/2 kneeling dumbbell or kettlebell press 4×6-8
A2. Pullups or pullup progressions 4×6-8
B1. Deadlift, work up to a top set of 5 then two backoff sets with 10 and 20% less weight.
C1. Slider reverse lunge holding a sandbag, 3×6-8
C2. TRX row 3×10-12
Day two:
A1. Pushup progressions or weighted pushups, 4×8-10
A2. single arm TRX row, 4×8-10
B1. Double kettlebell front squat, 5×5
C1. Two arm kettlebell swing, 10×10 in 10 minutes
Day three:
A1. Standing military press 5×3
A2. incline dumbbell row 4×10
B1. Romanian deadlift 4×6
C1. Goblet squat 3×10-12
C2. YTWLs on a TRX, 3 sets
Follow up each day with something else if you want–ideally this would be some high tension gymnastics-style core work, heavy sled pushes, or loaded carries; but a gunshow day or some calf work is fine too. Do 45 minutes to an hour of low intensity aerobic work–walking, rucking or slow jogging–3 other days each week, nose breathing the entire time. Add weight whenever you can complete the programmed sets/reps with good form and back off the weights/resistance by 25-40% for a week when you feel yourself getting stale.
There’s a real simple example showing how to have some fun with variety, cover all of your major movement bases and focus on what matters most.
