7 Ways to Fix Weak Hamstrings

By Jason Ferruggia

If you’re picking teams for any type of sport choose the guy with the big hamstrings and J-Lo ass. You know he’ll be powerful.

If you wake up one day in some Game of Thrones type world and have to fight a guy to the death in order to have your life spared choose someone with no hamstrings and a pancake ass. If his feet are pointing out to the side like Donald Duck, instead of straight ahead, that’s a pretty good sign that he’ll be easy to bring down.

Hamstrings and glutes are the power muscles. They improve your athletic ability, help you lift big weights and will serve you well in medieval style battles or zombie apocalypse throwdowns.

Strong hamstrings also keep your knees healthy. This is critically important for athletes. Running, cutting and jumping with weak hammies is an injury waiting to happen. Strengthen your hamstrings and you reduce your chances of sustaining a knee injury. You’ll also run faster, jump higher and squat and deadlift a lot more weight.

Some coaches mistakenly believe that the quads should be stronger than the hamstrings. The late, great Olympic track and field coach, Charlie Francis believed that the ratio should be at least equal or possibly even as high as 2-3:1 in favor of hamstring strength.

Now, exact ratios don’t matter and are very hard to measure. The point is you NEED strong hamstrings.

Weak Hamstring Fix #1: Train Them

This sounds pretty obvious but it’s not to most people. The majority of guys only train quads. Leg curls are thrown in at the end as an afterthought. You need to do as much work for your hams as you do for your quads on a regular basis.

Weak Hamstring Fix #2: Prioritize Them

If your hamstrings are weak train them first and train them often. That means you should start two leg days per week with direct hamstring work before you do any type of double or single leg squatting. Bomb the hamstrings then move on to more quad dominant exercises. You can even do some Frankenstein sled walks on off days to bring them up faster. In fact, I’d recommend it.

Weak Hamstring Fix #3: Live on the Glute Ham Raise

Nothing brings up weak hamstrings quite like the glute ham raise. That’s why powerfifters use it all the time.

Years ago I remember being stuck at a 365 squat for quite some time. Then I got the idea from Louie Simmons to start doing three sets of glute ham raises at the beginning of all of my four weekly workouts. On lower body days I even threw some more sets in at the end.

Within two months I squatted an easy 405 for the first time and my hamstrings no longer resembled a wall. The added side benefit was that my knees felt far better than they ever had.

Weak Hamstring Fix #4: Train Them as Hip Extensors

Glute ham raises and different variations of suspended leg curls are great and need to be done but you’ve also got to do dedicated hip extension work for the hamstrings. This means Romanian Deadlifts (both single and double leg), good mornings, pull throughs, reverse hypers and back raises/extensions need to be a regular part of your programming.

Weak Hamstring Fix #5: Box Squat

At Renegade we always start everyone out on the box squat. The reasons are twofold. Firstly, it teaches you to sit back, engage the hamstrings and use proper form. Secondly, just about everyone’s hamstrings are too weak to free squat safely when they begin training. Their knees end up going a mile over their toes and the whole thing is a car wreck. The box squat simultaneously allows them to squat safely while bringing up the hammies.

Weak Hamstring Fix #6: Squat Deep

Half squats, as you see everyone in public gyms doing, put a lot of stress on the knees and do nothing to bring up the hamstrings. To fully engage the hammies and glutes you’ve got to squat down below parallel.

A properly performed full squat is an excellent hamstring exercise. The problem is most people will never be able to do that when back squatting. That’s not the end of the world, though.

The solution, in that case, is to mix in some barbell, safety bar or kettlebell front squats, belt squats or goblet squats. The method you use isn’t as important as the act of squatting deeply.

So if box squats are the only type of big barbell squat you can do just be sure to also include some deep goblet or kettlebell front squats in your program as well, to round things out.

Weak Hamstring Fix #7: Make Like Steve Miller

And go to Swingtown. Kettlebell swings have been hailed by many insanely strong powerlifters as one of the best assistance exercises for bringing up the deadlift. The great thing about the swing, in addition to the active hamstring stretch, is that there is very little eccentric component and it doesn’t really beat you up. That means you can push the volume quite high without fear of overtraining.

Making swings a regular part of your routine and hitting a few sets at least twice per week will definitely help bring up your weak hammies.

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Is cardio better than weights for fat loss?

Nutrition, Training

Research Review: Is cardio better than weights for fat loss?

by Helen Kollias | March 15th, 2013

Contrary to recent headlines, aerobic exercise alone is not a recipe for faster fat loss.

Instead, a combination of resistance training and aerobics will lead to the most impressive, and longest lasting improvements in body composition.

Introduction

Where to begin?

First, Science Daily’s headline misrepresents the study’s results. The study doesn’t actually conclude that aerobic exercise is better than resistance training for weight or fat loss.

Huh? Then what’s up with that headline?

Well, first – as usual – the media oversimplified things; to the point of not even being accurate. And yes, that’s why most media headlines are not very trustworthy.

Second, the study used terrible training programs. Both the aerobic training program and the resistance-training program were less than optimal. Way less than optimal.

Of course, it’s pretty difficult to draw reliable conclusions about the relative effectiveness of exercise programs that are ineffective in the first place!

Third, this study included no nutritional intervention.

Finally, researchers in this study didn’t seem too concerned about the difference between fat loss and lean mass loss. They lumped it all together as “weight loss”, as though there really wasn’t a difference between a pound of muscle and a pound of fat.

Muscle mass matters. A lot.

Do you like walking up stairs on your own or would you rather take one of those home stair lifts? Have you seen one of these things?

First you have to wait for the lift to ever-so-slowly make its way down the stairs. Then you get in it and slowly go up the stairs.

I tried it once with my pet turtle Herb. Herb jumped off half way up. He didn’t have the patience and decided to walk up the stairs.

On a more serious note: For a while, I researched treatments for muscular dystrophy, a disease that causes severe muscle loss. Do that kind of research for a day or two, or talk to people with muscular dystrophy, and you’ll quickly recognize the vital importance of maintaining muscle, even if your goal is to lose weight.

My biggest peeve in the weight loss industry is that weight loss is the measurement for success. For example, here are some other ways to lose weight:

Amputation.

Osteoporosis.

Stomach flu (though intestinal parasites will do in a pinch).

Coma.

Chemotherapy.

Shaving all your hair off.

Lobotomy.

Thanks, but I’ll pass on all of those.

Muscle helps you walk up and down stairs and pick up a soup can. And, of course, keeping you moving is muscle’s most important function.

But muscle can also help you lose fat and stay lean.

Muscle metabolism

Increased basal metabolism is probably the most obvious advantage of having more muscle. Actually, to be more exact, the more muscle you carry, the higher your resting energy expenditure (REE).

Since REE is the biggest part of your total energy use in a given day, it can change how many calories you burn [1] .

Have you ever wondered why muscle uses energy when you’re doing absolutely nothing? Seems like a waste.

Well, muscle is always up to something. It’s constantly being broken down and re-constructed, or synthesized. In fact, all tissues, to one degree or another, are constantly being remade. It takes about seven days to completely regenerate your skin, and seven years to replace every cell in your skeleton [2].

What makes muscle special is that you can make more of it – a lot more. In other words, unlike bone and skin cells, muscle generation is, to some extent, within your control. Whereas after puberty, you can’t make a lot more of other tissue. Except fat.

Schematic of muscle synthesis and breakdown. Muscle synthesis requires amino acids and energy.

Muscle: by the numbers

Your body uses energy to break down and remake muscle. How much energy? That depends on how much muscle you have.

If you really want to know how much energy muscle uses, take a look at the calculations below.

(In case you have deep-seated math phobia, here is the lowdown: Each kilogram of muscle uses at least 10 kcal per day [3]).

Okay with that? Then skip to the next section. Fellow math nerds can read on for the more detailed explanation.

Warning: Math ahead! Proceed at your own risk.

The amount of energy being used can be calculated if you know a few things:

How much protein is synthesized by muscle in a given hour (this is called fractional synthetic rate, or FSR).
How much muscle somebody has.

The average fractional synthetic rate (FSR) of muscle protein is about 0.075%/hour [3,4].

Now, the average young, healthy man is about 35 to 50 kg (77 lb to 110 lb) of muscle. (Note, we are referring only to muscle, not lean body mass.) [3,4].

Voila! An average healthy male with 35-50 kg of muscle makes about 630 g to 900g of protein per day.

(For comparison, a frail elderly woman has about 13 kg of muscle. We will leave the calculations to you, but obviously, she will be making less protein.)

To determine what this means in terms of energy use, we need to do a little more math.

Four moles of ATP (energy cells use) are required for each mole of amino acids used to make protein. One mole of ATP releases 20 kcal of energy.

So, using the average molecular weight for amino acids of about 110 g/mole, we can calculate the amount of kcal used per day to make protein [3, 5,6].

Energy used per day by 50 kg of muscle:

Clear as mud?

Well, to repeat, it boils down to an extra 13 kcal/kg of muscle.

Robert Wolfe, one of the biggest researchers in the muscle synthesis field, rounds this number down to about 10 kcal/kg per day [3].

Don’t confuse Robert Wolfe, the protein turnover researcher, with Robb Wolf, the Paleo guy. Despite the similarity in names and the fact that both Wolves promote the eating of meat, they are actually different people.

How much does this matter?

Either way, you might be thinking: Big deal. Muscle doesn’t seem to give a significant metabolic advantage. Right?

Well, not exactly.

First, the 10 kg to 13 kg figure is likely an underestimation [3].

Second, remember that a frail elderly woman has a muscle mass of 13 kg compared to 50 kg for a healthy, young male.

That works out to 37 kg of muscle difference.

Which means that Granny is using lots less energy than our hypothetical young man.

Instead, she is likely to be gaining fat. Possibly lots of it. And she wonders why it is accumulating so much faster than when she was younger (and more active…and…um…slightly more muscular).

Meanwhile, if she had more muscle mass, she would be using more energy just by sitting in her rocker!

Okay, realistically, Granny isn’t going to put on 37 kg (81.5 lb) of pure muscle this year – or ever.

But she could put on some muscle, or at the very least she could slow down how much muscle she loses each year. And by doing that, she will decrease the fat she gains.

In terms of what’s possible, if a little optimistic – a five kg (11lb) weight gain in muscle works out to 250 kcal per day, or 2.4 kg (5.3 lb) of fat lost per year – and over 12 kg (25 lb) in 5 years.

Just from resting muscle. This doesn’t include extra calories used for exercise or walking to your car or rocking in that chair or whatever else you do.

The moral of the story? Throw away your scale (or at least hide it for awhile.)

Generally, you don’t need to convince men to gain muscle, but women tend to be more concerned about getting “too big.”

Here’s why women should gain muscle.

Lose weight the easier way

Here’s a familiar scenario. In January, Jane and Bob agree to lose weight – together. Jane watches what she eats, counts every calorie, and spends hours on the treadmill every day. After a month, she’s down by a pound.

Meanwhile, Bob decides to drink less soda and manages to cut down to one can a week from his usual four. He gets to the gym when he can – maybe three times a week – but half the time, he ends up cutting his workout short. One month of this, and he is ten pounds lighter!

What the heck? Why does this happen? (I can hear women around the world gnashing their teeth from here.)

There are many physiological reasons, but the difference in their muscle mass is one of the biggies.

Let’s compare two women. Jane and Mary both have the same amount of fat, but Mary has an extra 7 kg (15 lb) of muscle.

If, for one year, Jane did exactly what Mary did to maintain her weight– snowboarding, sleeping, swearing in six languages, whatever – Jane would actually gain 8.5 kg (18.7 lb) of fat, increasing her body fat percentage to 35.8%. Just because of the differences in their resting muscle mass.

The other thing you might notice is that since Mary has more muscle and weighs more overall, despite having the same amount of fat, she actually has a lower percentage of body fat.

Weight versus size

Since muscle is more dense than fat, 1 kg of muscle will take less space than 1 kg of fat. Muscle is 1.06 kg per liter of space and fat density is 0.9196 kg per liter of space.

If you gained 10kg of muscle at the same time you lost 10kg of fat, you would be smaller. About 1.4 liters smaller. On the scale you would weigh the same. But your pants would be looser.

Let’s say you and your friend decide to start two different weight loss programs at the same time. After 6 months, you’ve lost 10 kg by working out and eating right, while your friend has lost 11 kg by lying in bed drinking coffee and smoking.

Your 10kg scale weight loss might equal a 10 kg muscle gain with a 20 kg fat loss. If so, you’d be 12.3 liters smaller.

On the scale, it would look like your friend who lost 11 kg (9 kg of muscle and 2 kg of fat) was doing better, but in fact, she’d only be 10.7 liters smaller, making her 1.6 liters (3.8 pints) bigger than you. Ha!

Meanwhile, going forward, who will maintain her new weight more effectively? It sure won’t be your friend.

Of course, this is an oversimplification, because muscle and fat are not the only things at play. But the message is the same – losing weight is very different from losing fat.

Size matters. Five pounds of fat takes up more space than 5 pounds of muscle.

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The Better-Sleep Diet

Nutrition, Training

Want to clock more ZZZ’s? Change up your plate. Certain nutrients in your diet—like vitamin C, lycopene, and selenium—are associated with healthier sleep patterns, according to a new study on 4,500 people published in Appetite.

Researchers crunched sleep and nutrition data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). They broke people up into four sleep categories: “very short” (less than 5 hours per night), “short” (5 to 6 hours), “normal” (7 to 8 hours) and “long” (more than 9 hours) and examined the participants’ diet patterns from 24-hour food recall interviews.

One key finding from the study: People who ate a more varied diet were more likely to be “normal” sleepers (about 18 foods versus 14 in the shortest sleepers). Eating a variety of foods may indicate you’re consuming more nutrients. In turn, “that may provide the nutritional coverage to help your body work optimally, which, among other things, would translate into better sleep,” says study coauthor Michael A. Grandner, Ph.D., a research associate at the Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology at the University of Pennsylvania.

So why’s the sleep-diet connection so important? People who get 7 to 8 hours of sleep at night are generally healthier. Research shows those who log less hours have an increased risk of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, while sleeping more than 9 hours has been linked to depression.

“This study should remind us that not only is sleep an important part of overall health, but sleep and diet are related to each other,” Grandner says. The reasons why vary—people who sleep better may make more nutritious food choices, or they may make healthy eating a priority. Other studies have shown that sleep loss affects certain hormones that control hunger and appetite.

Although Gardner says his research didn’t uncover why certain foods are related to better sleep, it can’t hurt to eat more of the nutrients identified in the study that help make your night better. Here are five:

Lycopene: A cancer-fighting antioxidant found in tomatoes, watermelon, and pink grapefruit.

Vitamin C: One cup of strawberries or one medium kiwi packs more than 100 percent of your daily value of this heart- and cancer-protective antioxidant.

Selenium: An ounce of Brazil nuts or a can of tuna are both excellent sources of this anti-inflammatory that’s key for immune function.

Theobromine: Find this heart healthy phytochemical in tea and chocolate.

Lauric acid: Most commonly found in coconut oil. Though it’s a saturated fatty acid, studies show that it may improve “healthy” HDL cholesterol without affecting “bad” LDL levels.

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Kettlebells: The good, the bad and the (potentially) dangerous

Training

By JOSEF BRANDENBURG

For a little over a decade kettlebells have been the hot “new” trend in fitness. They’ve even made it on national TV for better or worse. While kettlebells really are fantastic training tools, they – like anything else – are quite dangerous in the wrong or unqualified hands.

Let’s take a look at the actual benefits of kettlebell training, what potential risks are involved (primarily unqualified instructors), the exact checklist to be ready to use them, and the best possible attempt I can make to help you get started if you qualify. If you don’t qualify, I’ll show you how to find the person most likely to help you because an article is a terrible tool for removing a mobility restriction or for dealing with a medical issue.

BENEFITS

Kettlebells are highly effective, efficient and safe tools for fat-loss, cardiovascular conditioning, strength and power. For at home “cardio,” there’s a lot to love about kettlebells. A treadmill or elliptical machine is going to be at least $1,000 – and that is for a cheap one that might be awfully expensive on maintenance if it’s actually used. These machines will only allow you to do one thing, and they take up a lot of space. Whereas you can get a reasonably sized kettlebell of good quality for $50, they will literally fit in the corner of a room or closet, and you can do dozens of things with them.

Kettlebells are a great tool for high intensity interval training, which is second only to resistance training for fat-loss results. They have some unique properties for interval training:

1. Zero impact: Running a mile is 1,500 repetitions with five times your bodyweight on a single leg that is a lot of pounding on your joints, especially if you’re heavy. With kettlebell training you don’t leave the ground, so there is literally no impact.

2. Great for your butt: The foundation of most kettlebell exercises is the deadlift, which is one of the best exercises for your entire backside … the backside of your body, aka your posterior chain.

3. Allow for very, very high intensity: For some reason – maybe it is the lack of impact – research has shown that they allow you to work at an intensity level for periods of time that are physically impossible with something like sprinting.

4. All high intensity interval training is both highly effective and time efficient that means better results in less time than with something like jogging. This isn’t unique to kettlebells, but it’s worth repeating about interval training in general.

Kettlebells are tools and nothing more. In the right hands and for the right jobs, they are wonderful, but if used incorrectly, even on the right jobs, they will just mess your body up.ARE THEY DANGEROUS?Really, their danger only comes down to the instructor. To be a valuable instructor on requires two things. The first is to objectively know when someone is qualified to do something like a swing, and the second is to know how to teach and progress someone up to an exercise like a kettlebell swing. Both are essential.

Here’s a short cut to finding an appropriate instructor and finding out if you qualify for this kind of training. Look for a certification called “The Functional Movement Screen,” Level Two. And if you’re seeking someone with the ability to teach, you are looking for an instructor with RKC or SFG credentials.

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5 Surprising Reasons You’re Not Gaining Muscle

Training

by jasonferruggia

Let me start out by saying that this post is not for beginners. If you’ve been training for less than two years most of what’s written below will not apply. As a newbie you need to learn proper technique and stick to the basics. Once you’ve built your foundation and packed on your first 15-20 pounds a plateau is sure to rear it’s ugly head at some point.

So if that’s where you’re at right now and are wondering why you’re not gaining any muscle read on and hopefully you’ll find some useful info to get you growing again.

You’re Still Doing 5×5

A beginner plan like a 5×5 set up is awesome. For beginners. But once you’re no longer a beginner you’ll burn out on that after a while. There are no championship lifters or bodybuilders who follow such a plan. It’s good to take you from point A to point B, to enforce proper technique and to keep training volume manageable for a newbie who usually doesn’t have the best work capacity.

Once you’ve milked your newbie gains dry 5×5 and other beginner type programs will start to become more and more useless. For one thing, you can’t do nothing but big barbell lifts all week long. Secondly, you’ll need some more variety and rep work to keep progressing and remain healthy and injury free.

You’re Not Getting a Pump

Getting a pump doesn’t matter when you’re a beginner. That’s actually the last thing you should be worrying about. So you can do a 5×5 workout and be fine.

A pump is not necessary for muscle growth during the first year of training… Personally I always like to attain a sound pump, with one proviso. I like to arrive at it via quality sets… – Vince Gironda, The Iron Guru

But cellular swelling and the act of accumulating fatigue is a very important aspect of muscle growth for everyone beyond the newbie phase. That means you need to some higher rep sets (8+) or rest less between sets or both. But do it with high quality, heavy sets like The Iron Guru advised. Just doing sets of 25 reps with light weights ain’t gonna cut it.

The biggest problem you need to worry about is not getting a pump when you are doing both of those things. If you’re doing multiple sets of eight with a minute rest between and hardly getting a pump something is seriously wrong and needs to be addressed.

I’d look toward your hydration, sodium intake, increase your carbs, especially around training and make sure you’re sleeping properly. When you can’t get a pump something is wrong and needs to be fixed ASAP.

Then you know something’s wrong.

Which leads me into the next mistake…

You’re Just Hoisting Weight & Not Maximizing Tension

Everybody wants to lift the heaviest weights possible. So they often do more on each set than they can handle and end up using less than perfect form. That’s fine for some people but too many others only feel exercises in their knees, hips, lower back, elbows and shoulders instead of where they’re actually supposed to feel it… the belly of the muscle.

I can’t tell you how many guys I work with who never feel their lats or their pecs or their glutes or whatever simply because they are just heaving weight. All the stress is in their joints and connective tissue. Instead of building the size they hoped for they end up with shitty physiques and shoulder injuries.

When I have them lighten the load a bit and focus on keeping the tension on the muscle they’re supposed to be training, instead of just mindlessly heaving away they actually start to get a pump and grow.

Heavy low repetition work performed with plentiful rest between sets is not the way to gain quality size. Divorce yourself from this type of notion and any preoccupation with handling continual maximum weights, be it in singles or low repetitions where weight and not work is the motivator. –
Bill Kazmaier

You’re Resting too Long Between Sets

Shorter rest periods have always been positively correlated with muscle growth. That’s why big guys always recommend an average of a minute or so between assistance exercises. If you’re working up to a heavy, top end set of a squat, deadlift or press variation you can rest a bit longer.

But on stuff like dumbbell presses, rows and glute ham raises you shouldn’t be sitting around chatting and texting between sets. Somewhere between 45 and 90 seconds rest should be plenty. That will do more for body composition changes and hypertrophy than rest periods of 3-5 minutes.

You’re Not Changing Your Program Frequently Enough

 As a newbie you should stick with the same program for quite some time. But as a more advanced lifter you need more frequent changes.

The first Mr. Olympia, Larry Scott, always said that the variety was the key to muscle growth and also the key to staying healthy. I agree wholeheartedly.

When you’re advanced the concept of progressive overload, which is critically important during your first couple years of training, no longer holds water.

As Louie Simmons has said a thousand times before, it will actually destroy you. So you need variety. That’s why many top powerlifters, including all the Westside guys, rotate exercises weekly. It allows you still train hard without burning out and it keeps you healthier.

The reason it keeps you healthier is because it eliminates the repetitive stress. When you swing a tennis racquet or golf club over and over you can develop tendon issues.

Everyone’s heard of tennis elbow, of course. Well, what do you think happens when you press a barbell, that weighs a hell of a lot more than a tennis racquet, in the same plane over and over again? You get hurt, that’s what.

I haven’t done the exact same workout twice in a row in years. I have all my advanced guys make some changes to their programs a minimum of every two weeks.

The key is to have some rhyme or reason to the changes and to keep track of things over time.

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