Rest, rest, rest.....

Whenever You are obsessed as I am about training and dancing, off days need to be part of a bigger plan. Today I'm fasting, doing some laundry and watching Doctor Who!

Resistance almost beat me today!

I felt like shit and had the hardest time to move my ass out of bed. At 8:30pm, I finally headed toward the gym and decided to take it easy. In the end, I lifted my usual weights.

Warm up set. #pullups x 3.

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40 days stronger

I just finished my 40 days challenge and I'm very satisfied with the results. I had some free time in the summer and I thought I would consider that like athletes off season. The whole idea is simple enough and goes as follow :

-Pick 5 lifts: 1 big posterior chain movement (deadlift is the right answer), 1 big upper body push, 1 big upper body pull, 1 explosive movement, 1 anterior chain movement.
-Max 5 reps per set (big lifts)
-Around 10 reps total (big lifts)
-Between 10 and 20 reps for the explosive move.
-5 reps total for the anterior move.
-3-5 min rest in between sets
-Never train to failure
-It should feel easy! At the end of a workout, you should feel ready to do some swing outs on a fast tempo!

Here's a list of my moves, previous best attempt and goals:

-Conventional deadlift 350lbs ~ 405 lbs
-Bench press 165lbs ~ 225 lbs
-Bent row 115lbs (hypothetical, never done it) ~ ?
-Power snatch ? Lbs (I learned it and could not do it at first!) ~ ?
-Torture twist (as instructed by Barry Ross) ~ N/A

Yesterday, after 3 days of rest after my last session, but not enough sleep due to previous night partying, I accomplished this :

-Conventional deadlift 405lbs (+55 lbs)
-Bench press 205lbs (+40lbs)
-Bent row 165lbs (+50lbs)
-Power snatch 135 lbs

Observations

-It sounds like little effort,  but it very time consuming since you must show up to the gym every day.
-Keeping it easy is harder than you might think. I never bring my ego to the gym and I have never been so close to get hurt during a program, for you never completely recover. I would recommend it only for intermediate / Advance lifters.
-It really changes your views from a workout to a practice.
-The first time you do it, it's basically a lead of faith. You make quick progress at first, then it's harder to notice them until you take a break.
-I put on about 9-10 lbs
-I failed 1 deadlift at 395lbs in my 6th week.
-I set unreachable goals for the deadlift and bench press and I'm surprised that I reached 1 of them. I couldn't believe it when I actually pulled those 4 plates off the ground. I wished I would have push more on the bench press. I really thought my problem was the lack of practice and that it would explode with that kind of protocol. Well +40lbs is not that bad, but I still bench like a little girl!

Next steps

I'm getting closer to my basic strength standards (or Pavel's):
-Bench press 1.5 x bodyweight
-Squat 2 x bodyweight
-Deadlift 2.5 bodyweight

My goal would be in the next 6-12 month to reach those results with the bench and the deadlift and as long as my squatting pattern in functional, I would be pretty happy.

First, I'm going to change my routine and get back to my kettlebells for the next 12 weeks at least with the RKC challenge and add some dumbbells pressing and front squatting once or twice a week. The only advice I haven't listened to improve my bench is to build some more muscle. I don't feel like giving up just yet!

Fred

On deadlifting

Many coaches in a variety of disciplines will swear almost soly by deadlifts as long as strength is concerned. I love that quote!

Elliott Hulse:  Deadlifts.  If there's only one thing that everyone does, it's deadlifts.  When you deadlift, you're using every single muscle in your body, and you have to use every single muscle properly in order to perform the deadlift.  Deadlifts are not one of those exercises where you can fake it for very long.  The minute you get down to put your hands on that bar, you don't even have to lift it, I know where you're screwed up.  I can tell if your ankles are tight, if your low back is weak, or if your neck is tense and tight.  I can tell you anything you need to know about your body the minute you bend down to touch that bar to pick it up.  And once you can get your deadlift looking good—and it doesn't even need to be heavy—and when you can move in a proper pattern, then everything is where it needs to be and the sky is the limit. 

Read the full article here.

Being your own coach: micro managing to failure

After a while of strength training, I would feel stronger, but I would still bench press like a little girl. I was watching Elliot Hulse on Youtube and realized my head was not in the workout I was doing, but already thinking about what I should change, adjust, important exercises I was missing and so on. Elliot also said something else that stuck into my head. There are a lot of great programs out there, so I should just pick one proven to work and stick to it. I had to think about my priorities:

<![if !supportLists]>·         <![endif]>Focus on strength and power

<![if !supportLists]>·         <![endif]>Not to time consuming, I need time to dance!

<![if !supportLists]>·         <![endif]>Not too tiring, I need to be able to dance right after workout.

From there I switched to a 5/3/1 program (explained in detail here). Basically, this program focuses on 4 lifts: Squat, Deadlift, Bench press and Overhead press. In 5/3/1, we workout with ridiculously sub maximal weight most of the time and lift 90% of 90% 1RM once every 4 weeks for 1 rep. I finish every workout fresher than when I started it! Also, You can pick freely all accessory exercises which accommodate my burning desire for customization and in the end, as the author put it, there are just accessory then don’t matter as much as the main lifts. Plus, beside the fact that I need to go at the gym 4 times/week, my training session can be super short between 25 and 45 min.

The math can be quite intimidating at first glance, but all I did was to automate a calculation sheet on Google drive and I add weight every 4 weeks, that’s it! I always carry my phone to the gym anyway and I was already keeping track of my training session on a calculation sheet. I got myself a program I’m not allowed to customize in the essence and that works itself up.

It got me thinking. What if I was doing exactly the same thing with my dance training. What if I keep changing my focus, so it limits my ability to improve over the time through deep practice? I usually start every session with aerial/dip/lift training, for this is exhausting. I will stop before my partner or I is tired, so we can keep practicing after that, avoid injury and keep the best form possible. Then, I will choose a random theme (such as rhythms, moves, lines, jams, etc.) and work on it for the entire session, but if I can’t work on it because of my partner’s limitations. In that case, I will select some drills to work on the specific difficulty we encountered and get back to whatever we were doing if possible.

Because you can’t quantify dancing, we need to rely on subjective results such as videos, feeling and memory. What if I avoid what I should be working on, because it’s easier this way? I definitely do that with solo dancing! Everybody has a tendency to surf over difficulties especially when nobody is pointing them out. Automating my practices and tracking actual results, that’s what I still need to improve.

If you are interested to follow my day to day workouts and dance practices, I suggest you take a look at my Google+ Page where I post personal videos almost everyday.

Keep on working!

Fred

Balboa guy, fitness guy, massage guy, nutrition guy...or about being labeled.

Over the last couple of years, I received several labels. Truth is, labels are often there for a reason, but just part of the portrait. 

Because I have never seriously competed into Lindy Hop, I still known mainly as a Balboa dancer even if I practice just as much in Lindy Hop, Ballrooming and other minor specialities such as Collegiate Shag, Break Away and Charleston 20'.

Because I started to develop an more athletic vision of the path of the Swing, people starting calling me fitness guy. I admit that I know a lot now about athletic development and how a dancer should train for peak performance, but fitness as never been my final goal.

Fitness lead me on the nutrition topic, fat loss and peak athletic performance, and I got deep into it as usual. Shortly after that, I became nutrition guy!

Pain releasing techniques, anatomy, fitness, nutrition, those are all tools any athlete should be aware of, including Swing dancers. I only decided to school and educate myself and keep doing it everyday.

+Frédéric Barbe 

What have I been doing last fall?

I know I have been more busy than ever. Here's a recap video of last September. Other clips should come up eventually! 

Arnold Schwarzenegger - Blueprint to Succes (English)

Methods & findings in swing dancing

In an Era, where certification is all that matters, it is so hard for self taught like myself to get any credibility in fields like fitness and nutrition. It’s alright for the moment though, for I have no intention to turn that knowledge into a business anytime soon, and if I do one day, I know I will need some monkey paper to prove I’m good. Well, that’s life in the 21st century.

The most useful certification I ever got was my degree in Ancient Studies. It sounds farfetched doesn’t it? Well, that degree was so difficult, du to a bunch of enthusiast over qualified teachers that it forced me to develop a learning method that works for me.

I have started martial arts and then swing dancing pretty much in the same period. It struck me right away, coming from a hardcore academic program, how unstructured and amateurish those fields were. Most of the talented dancers or martial artists I looked for to teach me had a hard time passing away their knowledge.

I eventually found decent teachers, but having developed a method in my earlier years is what served me the best. It become obvious to me what the basics were and that I had to work on them neglecting everything accessory. Fortunately, I never had a hard time managing my ego, so while people who started dancing about the same time I have were working on fancy stuff, I kept on working on the basics. Then when I’ve mastered them enough I moved to the fancy stuff and it became obvious to everyone that I have become an advanced dancer at that point.

This is about the time I started wondering about how they train in similar professional disciplines such as gymnastic, other form of dancing, circus, partner skating and so on. I was coaching a team with the Swinging Air Force back in those days, but the way they trained, mostly treadmill and machines, didn’t seem like something that will truly help me out.

My first clue was Pilates. If this is a well kept secret of the ballet dancers, it’s probably worth checking out. So, I taught my Pilates with books and videos. This is about the time P90X became very popular among star dancers.  I decided to give it a shot after a couple of months starting with the videos that develop abilities Vs. those that develop muscles. It worked great! This is why I will never spit on that program. It gave me a bunch of clues about athleticism and what I should work on. So, I focused mostly on core workouts, a lot of yoga, Pilates and mixed with Insanity workouts. This is also when I started noticing that Pilates seemed only to improve when mixed with other workouts which rang a big bell to me!

The drawback with such a regimen is that if you dance and workout 6 days a week, it becomes very taxing for the body. Studying anatomy, reading a lot of books, watching a lot of videos and surfing the web finally put my on the trail of strength training.

I finally discover that beside some cultural differences, this is how most of professional athletes are doing. They treat strength as any other skills they have to master to improve in their respective field. And the great news was, there is no such thing as a specific program depending of the sport you practice. Despite the different strength programs, theories and schools, the basic ideas are always there: low reps, heavy weights, lot of rest between sets and you should feel energized after your workout and ready to practice your sport. Forget about ‘’cardio’’, crunches, machines and other non sense. 2 or 3 big bang exercises such as deadlifts, squat, bench press, overhead press, pull ups or any of their variations is all that you need.

It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it?  Well the major obstacle to success, especially in a world without anyone to guide you is yourself. Our fitness background tells every one of us that we should sweat, work hard and be sore after a workout and if we did a good job, we should even feel it for a couple of days. Even for someone as open minded as myself, it took me months to finally accept that I should do less and keep my workout very short and very efficient.

Guess what? It works! And the results were almost immediate. 8-10 weeks were all I need to note a real change in my athleticism, even while doing too much. I would move faster, jump higher and could throw my girls like never before for an incredible amount of repetition. How about my cardio? I got better as well! That is the beauty of it. What being stronger really means is that everything physical that used to be hard becomes tolerable and everything tolerable becomes easy. The stronger you get, the easier it becomes to do what you could not or barely could do before. Strength is a skill and should be treated as such. Plus, working out 3 days a week for 30-40 minutes or so and focusing most of your time on your dancing skills put all the pieces together.

Despite some adjustments I am still doing on my method, it seems to be surely what a professional swing dancer needs to differentiate himself from the others. As we often hear in the world of strength: ‘’at equal skills, the strongest opponent wins’’. It does sound better when talking about UFC fighters, however facts remain. The objective is not to be as strong as a power lifter, but simply stronger to maximize your other skills!

Fred Barbe

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New strength protocol since August 22nd

One word: simplification. After all my readings this summer, far away from any gym or pressure to perform, I realize I was probably still doing too much with too much variety. Inspired from Pavel’s programs, what I do now looks like this:

• Deadlift 10 reps total in 2 or 3 sets
• Initial Weight: 196lbs
• Side press 10 reps total per side 2 or 3 sets
• Initial weight: 45lbs
• Dumbell swings 10-20 reps (no kettlebell at my gym!)
• 75lbs (I quickly switched for 95lbs and then 100lbs)
• Ab wheel 4-6 reps

Some important side points in this protocol:

• Magic number 10. No matter how many sets (but for singles), I target 10 reps total.
• Wave cycle on 6 weeks. The 6th week is my final objective (for me 310 lbs). (A, B, C), (B, C, D), (C, D, E), etc.
• 5 minutes minimum between exercises, even for switching sides.
• 3 workouts/week.
• No warm up. Some mobility exercises if needed. For the deadlift, I will lift about 100lbs a couple of times to get into the groove and remember my form.
• No belt, no glove, no shoes. Only me, some chalk and the barbell.

I still cherish the idea of improving my pull ups without overtraining. What I do now is try to do super easy reps (in my case 2) each time I go under my pull ups bar with at least 5 minutes between sets. At the end of the day, I do 10-20 reps per day. 3 weeks later, I feel lighter…. It might just be me! Next week or so, I will go for 3 reps.

Fred Barbe

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Bodyweight strength training until I'm back

Since I'm leaving next Tuesday for Europe, I have switched for the last  month already my workout toward a bodyweigth program. Inspired most by Paul Wade's Convict Conditioning and Chad Waterbury's blog, I reduced my workout to very few exercises according to the same principles I have been practicing since the beginning of this blog. My target zone is max tension for 2-5 reps.

• 1 hand assisted push ups right side
• 1m rest
• Wall assisted bridge
• 1m rest
• 1 hand assisted push ups left side
• 1m rest
• Glute-ham raise
• 1m rest
• repeat 3-5 times (before I start feeling weaker)
• 2-4 min rest before 2nd block

• 1 leg squat right
• 1m rest
• Abs roller
• 1m rest
• Pull ups
• 1m rest
• 1 leg squat left
• 1m rest
• Handstand push ups
• Repeat 3-5 times (before I start feeling weaker)

I also planned on taking 2 weeks off from training. I have never done that since I started and I think my body greatly needs it. Because doing absolutely nothing sounds way too much to handle for my overproductive personality, I will focus on the 8 mobility drills Michael Boyle suggests and that should do the trick!

Fred Barbe

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4 Steps to Effectively Coaching Exercises (re-blog)

This is an awesome article from Mike Robertson about coaching a movement. Of course, it first targeted gym coaches, however almost everything in this article is applicable to coach swing dancing. Have fun!
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One of the most important things we do at IFAST is teach.
It goes further than just teaching our clients; we’re convinced that teaching our interns and starting them on the path to becoming a great coach is part of what makes us great at what we do.
A few weeks back, I was grilling our current crop of interns on the various soft-tissue, mobility, and acute corrective exercises we use. One common mistake they made was failing to properly introduce a new exercise.

When coaching new exercises, I think it’s imperative to follow a four-step process.

• Step #1 – Name the Exercise

• Step #2 – Describe the “Why”

• Step #3 – Show It

• Step #4 – Coach It

Let’s examine each of these points, along with why each one is critical.

Step #1 – Name the Exercise

The first thing you should do when introducing a new exercise is to tell them the name of the exercise. If you have a typed or written program, pointing to the name while saying it will really help the visual learners in your gym.
This part is pretty simple, but telling them the name (and showing it to them, if possible) will help them remember the exercise in the future.

Step #2 – Describe the “Why”

This may be the most important part of our equation. Furthermore, this is a critical component of the selling process.
(Keep in mind whether you’re selling your services in a gym or selling your program to athletes at your school, this always applies – you’re always selling).
When you write a program for a client, each and every component of said program should have a rationale behind it. You don’t just randomly pick exercises, sets and reps, tempos, etc.
Instead, every component of your clients’ program has reasoning behind it, and it’s your job to explain how this specific exercise will help them achieve their goals.
Keep in mind, this doesn’t always need to be incredibly in-depth or technical. 98% of your clients don’t care about their psoas, thoracolumbar fascia, or lateral pterygoid!
Instead, they want to know why those muscles in the front of the hips are causing their back pain, or why they shouldn’t stretch the big muscles on the back of their thighs.
Describing the “why” in a down-to-earth and easy to understand fashion is a critical component to your success. I firmly believe the more you coach and educate your clients, the more they will trust and respect you!

Step #3 – Show It

Once you’ve named the exercise and explained why it’s important, the next step is for you to physically perform the exercise for them.
This is where you need some modicum of exercise proficiency yourself!
If you work with an elite or professional athlete, you may not need to perform the exercise with the same amount of load, but you need to be able to demonstrate the exercise correctly and with solid technique.
This reminds me of a conversation I had a few years back with Carolina Panthers strength coach Joe Kenn. He told me that his goal was to be able to power clean, front squat and back squat 135 until he was 60 years old, because that would keep him in the game and show his athletes he could still walk the walk.
After demonstrating the exercise, you need to highlight a few of the key points or things to focus on as well. The goal isn’t to overwhelm them or give the 101 things to think about. Instead, give them a few big focal points, and then let them give it a shot.

Step #4 – Coach It

You’ve name the exercise, you’ve stated why it’s important, and you’ve demonstrated it.
All that’s left is actually watching them and coaching them on the lift!
I like to focus on one or two big cues per set. Obviously, if they are doing something that is blatantly injurious, that’s the first thing you need to fix! The last thing you want is someone getting injured on your watch.
A big issue I’ll often notice with interns once they start to “see” what’s going on is overwhelming the client with cues, like:

• “Your right foot is turned out 2 degrees too far,”

• “There’s the slightest hint of hyperextension in your lumbar spine,”

• “Your neck is 3.73 millimeters away from neutral,”

and so on. Yeah, I’m exaggerating, but not by that much.
It may help to think of coaching exercises as a pyramid. The base of the pyramid is the big-ticket items that absolutely must be correct in order for them to execute the exercise correctly.
These are the things you want to focus on and address first and foremost.
From there, as your client improves the quality of their movement and technical proficiency, you work your way up the pyramid and you start to fine-tune the little things you want to address.
But if you try and build the entire pyramid at once without prioritizing, you’ll not only overwhelm the client, but you’ll reduce their likelihood of success as well.

Summary

Coaching new exercises is something that we do as coaches and trainers every single day.
If you’re not already using the method outlined above (or one similar to it), give it a shot for the next 3-4 weeks. I think your clients and athletes will really like this streamlined approach to coaching!

Fred Barbe swing pratices & workouts : May 24th to June 6th

I haven't been lazy lately, just busy! Here's some footage from the beginning of the month. And if you think I don't know my Collegiate Shag is still lame... If it's hard, it must be good, right?!

Fred Barbe

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Swing Dance Montreal

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Swing pratices, classes & workouts : May 4th to May 23rd

What do I do when all pratice partners can't make it? I practice anyway!

Fred Barbe

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Dance pratices & workouts : April 23rd to May 3rd

Fred Barbe

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Swing Dance Montreal

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3rd week of my new strength training :Wednesday

You heard me comlaining about my lack of results. Those are nice results for a 3rd week!

Box jumps : 1st week stage 15 / 3rd week stage 17

Box plyo push ups : 1st week stage 6 / 3rd week stage 8

1 leg cross body rows : 1st week 80lbs / 3rd week 85lbs

1 leg squat  cross arm on a box : 1st week 0lbs/ 3rd week 15lbs

Bridge : 1st week from the ground / 3rd week down the wall & up the wall
This is why witing down results is important. It's obvious what works and what does not. This new protocol seems to fit me better so far.

Fred Barbe

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Dance pratices & workouts : April 9th to April 22nd

Fred Barbe

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Initial weights : Wednesday's workout

Box jumps : stage 15 / 3reps / 3 sets / 2 min rest

Box plyo push ups : stage 6 / 3 reps / 3 sets / 2 min rest /

1 leg cross body rows : 80lbs / 3 reps / 3 sets / 1 min rest between sides

1 leg squat on a box : 0lbs / 3 reps / 3 sets / 1 min rest / 1 min rest between sides

Lifts : 65 lbs / 3 reps / 3 sets / 1 min rest / alternate with chops

Bridge : 0lbs / 3 reps (under 10 sec under tension) / 3 sets / 2 min rest

Fred Barbe

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Initial weights : Monday's workout

2 handed 1 leg deadlifts : 150lbs / 3reps / 3 sets / 1 min rest / alternate with one hand push ups

1 hand push ups : stage 4 / 3 reps / 3 sets / 1 min rest / alternate with 2 handed 1 leg deadlifts

1 hand Pull ups : 0lbs / 3 reps / 3 sets / 1 min rest between sides

Chops : 95lbs / 3 reps / 3 sets / 1 min rest / alternate with lifts

Lifts : 65 lbs / 3 reps / 3 sets / 1 min rest / alternate with chops

Myoptactic crunch : 3lbs / 10 reps / 2 secs at top & bottom / 4 sec in between

Fred Barbe

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Recovery 2 weeks resuts

Here's what I did during my 2 recovery weeks after all. I had to adapt because of my very tight schedule, so anytime I could not go to the gym and was stuck home, I had to stick to a recovery protocol. The basic idea is lighter charge than usual, done as fast as I can while keeping a good form.

Monday April 2nd (gym)
Turkish get ups 65 lbs / 1 rep / 3 sets / 2min rest
2 handed dumbbell swings 45 lbs / 75 reps / 1 set

Wednesday April 4th (home)
Chin ups 0 lbs / 5-6 reps / 3 sets / 2min rest
1 handed snatches / 3-4 reps / 3 sets / 1 min rest / switch sides
2 legged 1 dumbbell squat 40lbs / 3-4 reps / 3 sets / 2min rest

Friday April 6th (home)
Chin ups 0 lbs / 5-6 reps / 3 sets / 2min rest
Push ups / 8-12 reps / 3 sets / 2 min rest
2 legged 1 dumbbell squat 40lbs / 3-4 reps / 3 sets / 2min rest
2 handed dumbbell swings 40 lbs / 75 reps / 1 set

Monday April 9th (gym)
Turkish get ups 65 lbs / 1 rep / 3 sets / 2min rest
Chops 85lbs / 3 reps / 3 sets / 1 min rest / switch with lifts
Lifts 50 lbs / 3 reps / 3 sets / 1 min rest / switch with chops
2 handed dumbbell swings 45 lbs / 75 reps / 1 set

Wednesday April 11th (home)
Chin ups 0 lbs / 5-6 reps / 3 sets / 2min rest

1 handed snatches / 3-4 reps / 3 sets / 1 min rest / switch sides

2 legged 1 dumbbell squat 40lbs / 3-4 reps / 3 sets / 2min rest
2 handed dumbbell swings 40 lbs / 75 reps / 1 set

Glute-ham raise

Friday April 13th (gym)

Turkish get ups 70 lbs / 1 rep / 3 sets / 2min rest

Chops 90lbs / 3 reps / 3 sets / 1 min rest / switch with lifts

Lifts 60 lbs / 3 reps / 3 sets / 1 min rest / switch with chops

*Glute-ham raise o lbs / 3 reps / 3 sets

Fred Barbe

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