Andrew Ferreira, Author at Show Me Strength

On Getting Shredded: The Truth Underneath The Abs

July 16, 2017 by Andrew Ferreira Leave a Comment

Being shredded will not change your life.

Other’s perception of you may change but if you’ve been there, you intimately understand that it doesn’t actually change you.

Let me explain.

You’re out on a Friday night and others may see a living sculpture, a walking piece of art, and maybe admiration flows from the work and dedication that took to get there.

Or more likely, there is a sneer of jealously. There are jabs that hint at your reclusion or your inability to have fun and eat some pizza and drink beer.

They reek of projection and insecurity. But, they are not the only one.

The night will end and you will rush home. It’s sad but the most present you’ve been the entire night is when you take your shirt off and stand before the mirror. The invisibility cloak finally comes off and you are exposed for the façade that you are.

For minutes that feel like hours, you are a surgeon with a finely tuned scalpel dissecting your body inch by inch. Others may see a sculpture but you see nothing but imperfection.

All night, instead of enjoying your company, you judged.

Without asking, you knew no one had a date with the gym the next morning. They were too consumed with shitty IPAs, mediocre women, and the contentment of being average.

The inner ego pacifies you for a moment. Whispers, no, it yells trying to drown out the maniacal critic that you’re better than them. To some extent, you are.

But the story runs deeper.

The gym has been fixated on your mind since the moment Bulleit grazed your lips.

Don’t they see you? Haven’t they noticed the shape you’re in? Why haven’t they?

Fuck it. Another Bulleit, please.

A passerby can’t help notice the steely, intensity in your eyes.

You’ve long removed yourself from the bar but you keep drinking to forget, a futile attempt to quiet the voice that you’ve always run from.

5 more lbs, you tell yourself.

You reconsider, think deeper, and prolong the long introspective moment that’s been the entirety of your life.

The master waits for you. Stockpiles of self-improvement books and thousands of hours of sweat equity have not been sufficient offerings. It wants more but you have no more left to give.

Bulleit, please.

The bourbon is crisp and some of the finest you’ve had. But, you don’t know that. You drink like you do everything else. Onto the next.

Something happens. Time slows just enough, your mind quiets. For the first time, you notice the girl across from you. She’s here but absent. Her energy betrays her. For the first time, you empathize.

To be.

That’s what you’ve sought all these years.

Thousands of reps and countless hours sacrificed. The cruel irony can’t help but draw out a quiet smirk.

Saturday morning comes but something’s different.

You want to go, you don’t need to; it’s subtle.

For a decade, the gym was your outlet to project your insecurity onto the world. It was the race without an ending. 5 more lbs of muscle would have been 5 more lbs of muscle until you were standing on stage looking like the Hulk dressed in sheep’s clothing.

The bar is light but heavy.

4 reps in and your chest is screaming with the fire of a thousand suns. I want 10.

7 reps in and you’re laughing at the pain. I want 10.

You stop at 11, 1 extra just for fun.

Stand up, see white lights and black out for a second. Look in the mirror; it’s different this time.

For the first time, you see who you are, not who you want to be.

You smile, the inner voice sleeps; this is it.

I want 12 next set.

On The Paradox Of Health Obsession

March 12, 2017 by Andrew Ferreira 1 Comment

The more you know, the more you care, and the harder it is to just be.

It is interesting to reflect upon what drives health-obsessed people to become who they are. Everyone has a story. Some more interesting than others but these individuals seem to share a common thread.

The roots of their story are almost always planted with seeds of quiet desperation and struggle. I could be wrong but one typically does not come to understand that advanced glycation end products are bad for your health from an internal state of bliss and contentment.

Ignorance is not bliss but maybe neither is knowing everything.

For a long time, there was a reservoir of restlessness flowing inside me. It permeated the entirety of my being and it created this insatiable drive to acquire more. More knowledge that led to more questions and down the rabbit hole we go.

I’ve ventured down more rabbit holes than I care to share. Pearls of knowledge that fostered a diverse understanding of subjects that to the passive eye never seem interconnected.

But for what?

For the paradox of rabbit holes is that there never is an ending. It is the fickle mistress that lures you in with a gentle touch that sets off a succession of fireworks. You need more and the sad reality is that you will always will.

My intention is not to denigrate the acquisition of knowledge. Knowledge is what drives us humans forward. It’s what has allowed us to build civilization, as we know it today. It is what will cure cancer tomorrow.

For most on this journey, we never wanted knowledge; we wanted health. We wanted peace of mind and the stormy seas to be calmed. We wanted to set sail on the vast expansive ocean on nothing but a shoddy wooden raft, a volleyball, and a calm assurance that we’ll be ok.

It is not a vision of kum buy ya or a utopian world where lions lay with lambs. Far from it, actually.

Life is built for struggle. It is what makes it beautiful, what gives it meaning. It is what makes death the perfect gift.

We treasure what is scarce. A world of infinitude is one without purpose.

The difference is intent. Intention of thoughts and action.

The health obsessed can never have what they truly seek.

There is a gnawing feeling of inadequacy that they are hoping to fill with something. It could be knowledge; it could be another supplement. Whatever it is, stuck are they in the grasp of their mistress.

I do not have an answer. I do know that “health is not incessantly worrying about how healthy you are” – Ben House.

Some may suggest mindfulness. Or going on walks in nature. Activities that science tells us quiet the mind and promote a greater sense of well-being and contentment. I can vouch for these benefits anecdotally.

If you think about it and dive deeper, however, it is interesting to prescribe mindfulness to someone who incessantly worries about health.

It becomes another thing on their list.

Another rabbit hole to learn and explore. I guaranfuckingtee that such a person starts meditating and soon enough they will become an expert in the benefits and science of the practice.

Now instead of being more mindful, they HAVE to be more mindful because they know how good it is for them. Cue the shot of dopamine and back on the train we go.

Having to meditate isn’t the game. That’s not The Show.

I don’t have a means to The Show for you. In truth, I’m sure there are many paths to true health and contentment.

Or maybe, our insatiable drive is both the gift and curse of being human. It is what has given us more than we could have ever imagined and at the same time left us feeling like we have nothing. If so, then the gods are cruel bastards.

True health starts with just being. Letting go and letting live. Figuring out how to get there? Well that is what makes life fun after all. It’s all just a game.

Be well.

Ruthless Introspection: How to Get What You Want

May 9, 2016 by Andrew Ferreira 1 Comment

Bridgewater Associates is one of, if not, the most successful hedge funds of the last quarter century.

One could argue that the output is simply a manifestation of putting the smartest people from the best schools in the world and having them synthesize data until you have a robust enough model that is too good to fail.

But as an partner at Bain Capital told my close friend while he was interviewing, “Smart lines up around the door, what makes you different?”

And anecdotally, every hedge fund I work with on a daily basis has people from the likes of Harvard, Stanford, and Princeton. These guys are oft wicked smart but mediocre in output.

Why then is Bridgewater so successful and why should we care?

Looking past the veracity of their investment model, one could very well find the answer in the ethos of the firm and it’s founder, Ray Dalio:

“Hyper-realism, a notion that brutal honesty, no matter how uncomfortable, yields the best results.”

Ruthless introspection if you will.

At Bridgewater, everything you do will be dissected and scrutinized to ensure progress and improvement. Even if you are Ray Dalio, how you think will be put under a microscope.

There is no place for sugarcoating the truth and concern for self-esteem at Bridgewater; it’s aim for objective truth, however cold and painful, is what has made it the Titan it is today.

Rid Yourself of Your Ego

What makes the ethos of Ray Dalio stand out is that we are an egocentric species. Everything we do and think is driven out of the core of self-preservation.

Think about it.

Imagine for a second that you are by all accounts a loser. Does it make sense from an evolutionary perspective to operate within this framework as your modus operandi? Will your genes survive if you are just realistic with yourself?

Unlikely.

Our default setting is the false pretense that whatever negative events happen in our life emanate from forces completely outside our control.

These are not rare occurrences. We are self-driven. We are gene-driven.

And that is why the vast majority of us remain mediocre. Our minds are too coddled to see why we have stagnated and failed to progress.

Why Have I Failed?

I’ll take myself for example.

If I refrained and kept my deconstruction to myself, this post would be nothing more than word vomit without substance.

It is time we become comfortable with uncomfortable truths whether they are made public like at Bridgewater or they remain confined to the inner depths of our psyche.

To continue to harp on Dalio (he’s a billionaire, you should probably listen),

“There is nothing to fear from truth…being truthful is essential to being an independent thinker and obtaining greater understanding of what is right.”

Show Me Strength

I’ve “wanted” for a long time for this platform to be a big-time player in the online fitness world.

In an industry dominated by superficial bullshit and bio-hacks, I truly believe Chad and I offer a unique voice and knowledge from living and breathing everything training and nutrition over the last decade or so. We’ve failed a lot on our journey of perpetual self-improvement but kept going.

Onward and upward.

That is what this is all about after all.

Abs and bench press totals are fleeting, hallow joys. But the process of self-improvement, constantly bettering You Inc., that’s the secret sauce. That is what keeps people coming back for more after the quest for vanity has long been abolished.

To Chad’s credit, he’s crushed it.

He’s gotten all of Southwest Florida incredibly diesel. Don’t believe me? Check out our instagram feed and observe what he’s done with women who love getting strong and transforming themselves and their bodies. He got featured on Dan John’s email list. The Dan John. These are all big things, all integral steps that have significantly advanced Show Me Strength forward.

Me?

4 articles in the past 18 months. Even worse is that I have about 25 half-written but “shame” has overtaken my mindset and I haven’t finished.

Mindset

I’m naturally an introvert. Some who have gotten to know me over the years may think otherwise but outward manifestations may never reflect what is true.

As any introvert knows, we can be pretty damn good at the whole ruthless introspection thing. The voices in our head rarely, if ever, lie dormant and at times they can take you to hallow depths in your mind.

As Milton said, “The mind is its own place and in itself can make a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven.”

While introspection has been paramount to my growth as an individual, one needs balance.

Dissecting and critiquing yourself is not an optimal state to live in and as I’ve written here, at times it’s been quite the struggle.

Read: How To Improve Your Mental State: Movement is Medicine

But what have I done to quell the storm?

I’ve trained maybe three times in the past 3 months despite knowing that aerobic exercise and training are nature’s anti-depressant. Those who know me may think that’s a typo – it is not.

I read the best mindset book on the market – Gorilla Mindset – but have I ruthlessly applied the exercises in my life? Not nearly enough.

You get the idea.

To Get What We Want

We all have our wants and our desires but so few of us get to where we want to be.

As Charlie Munger said,

“to get what you want you have to deserve what you want. The world is not yet a crazy enough place to reward undeserving people.”

Many may quickly dismiss Ray Dalio because they’re the ones who are different. They acquiesce that ruthless introspection may be a useful tool but only for those who haven’t been dealt as shitty a deck as they. These people are victims. They always have been.

Do not let your hubris cloud the objectivity of your life.

What you find may be bleak.

If progress and improvement, and not just it’s romantic ideal, is what you truly desire, then ruthless introspection must become your new modus operandi.

Find out what you want in life. Not what you would prefer, what you want.

Take being rich.

If you say you want to be rich and you punch out at 5 everyday to go Netflix it up at home, you simply like the idea of being rich.

Those that are serious would assess want they want and then ask the hard questions as to why you haven’t accomplished it yet. Operative word being YOU, not what others have done to get in your way.

You saw how I deconstructed myself. Be ruthless in your assessment.

Charlie Munger, the man Warren Buffett calls the smartest person alive, stresses the need to view and observe the world through mental models.

For those willing to confront themselves, embrace pain, and trudge forward to accomplishing something significant with their lives, adopting ruthless introspection is non-negotiable.

What you’ll find on your journey is that you can never trade what you want most for what you want in the moment.

How To Not F*** Up Your Diet On Weekends

March 10, 2016 by Andrew Ferreira Leave a Comment

Diets can be made or broken on weekends

It’s really pretty easy.

Follow this three-step process and you’re gold.

Never go out.
Don’t drink.
And don’t even think about ordering pizza while you Netflix and chill.

There, done.

By now, if you were sane, you’d be thinking, “Yeah, screw Andrew. What’s the point of being ripped if you’re a hermit.”

And you’d be right.

Screwing up your weekend is the biggest problem in dieting

That’s a horrible solution to a big problem and yet it’s one I see people making every single day.

In my time in financial services – you know, the real world where people have no idea what the heck carb cycling or IIFYM is – here’s typically how it plays out.

People go cold turkey and totally eliminate drinking or they get creative with “Irish Lent,” where you don’t drink from New Years until St. Patrick’s Day. It goes well because people are generally pretty good at committing to a psychotic plan for awhile. Think fad diets.

Then shit hits the fan. Eventually, they say “fuck it,” get drunk with their buddies on a mini-bender and realize that the fun they had was way more enjoyable than any stupid restrictive diet.

End of diet.

There’s a better way

Weekends don’t have to destroy your diet anymore. And the best part is you don’t even need to “science the shit out of it” like Matt Damon in the Martian.

You need a system that works.

One that’ll let you work hard and play harder all while getting lean and keeping you from falling victim to become a boring, Type A recluse.

My clients, many of whom work high-stress 80-90 hour work weeks while still managing to get lean and enjoy themselves on the weekend, are a testament to this notion.

What follows is what I typically prescribe to clients and utilize myself:

Note: these results are typical.

This Isn’t Tim Ferris 4 Hour Body Fantasy Land

Full disclosure: I can’t help you if you drink and/or eat like an asshole 4-5 nights a week and plan to continue doing so.

Tim Ferris has greater magical powers than I and I simply can’t hack your life through a computer screen. Sure, if you worked with me 1 on 1, there’s a chance I could “science the shit out of it” and make it happen but for the purposes of this article, ya just can’t do it.

This system is all about optimization with THE assumption that you have yourself together during the rest of the week.

That means putting in the work regardless of whether or not it’s perfect or optimal. As I’ve mentioned before, bad science has gotten thousands of people ripped. A poor work ethic has not.

With that being said, let’s get to the goods.

Priority #1: Create A Deficit

It’s Saturday night and this week’s been an absolute ball-buster. A string of 12-hour days, 4-5 hard workouts, and a diet that’s been immaculate.

You’ve put in the work and now it’s time to get loose and enjoy yourself.

Game on.

We both know that Newton’s 4^th Law is that you need to create a deficit to lose fat.

Where many people go wrong is in thinking that you can go ham on the weekend, drink like a fish and eat like a cow and come Monday morning, everything will be all fine and dandy and the scale will give you the goods.

Unfortunately, math doesn’t cease to exist on the weekends and calories are still calories.

To create an enjoyable, diet friendly Saturday night, it’s imperative to impose a deficit for some wiggle room.

To create a deficit, we want to drain some muscle glycogen so all that pizza later will be stored in our muscles and not our love handles.

Our best bet is interval training.

Lifting, contrary to popular opinion, doesn’t deplete glycogen a whole heck of a lot.

From Bayesian Bodybuilding:

A full-body workout consisting of 9 exercises for 3 sets each at 80% 1RM (something only a beginner can do) only depletes about a third of the body’s glycogen and 9 sets for a specific muscle result in 36% depletion in that muscle (Roy & Tarnopolsky, 1998). After performing sets of 6 leg extensions at 70% 1RM until absolute failure occurred (weird protocol I know) and not consuming anything afterwards, 75% of glycogen was restored after 6h (Pascoe et al. 1993).

So much for the notion that you “need” carbs to strength train but that’s a topic for another time.

Compare that to 2 30s sprints on an ergometer and you get 44% glycogen depletion.

Here’s a sample interval session that I like to implement with clients on such days:

10 minutes
10 seconds as hard as possible
50 seconds at an easy pace

If after trying that, you still have more in the tank, you didn’t try hard enough.

As much as people probably hate when their boss tells them to earn their weekend, earn your drinks.

Training Days and Drinking Don’t Mix

Any movement is better than no movement BUT if results matter to you, I’d highly recommend you schedule lifting days away from when you drink.

Why?

Intelligent, purposeful training is performance-centric. It isn’t an exercise in fuckarounditis.

This doesn’t happen from fuckarounditis

To progress forward, you must recover from an imposed stress.

That means adequate sleep along with ample calories to provide enough substrate to fuel recovery.

Let’s call a spade a spade and acknowledge that your night out on the town will likely include too much alcohol and too little sleep to ensure proper recovery.

Thus, it makes no logical sense to train on a day you plan on going out and drinking. While not optimal, it’s better advised you chug some caffeine the morning after and train hungover than eviscerating your chest the day of a drinking session.

Nutrition Priority #1: Limit Fat Intake with Alcohol

Don’t worry, this article isn’t going to evolve into some if it fits your macro pedantic diatribe extolling the benefits and necessities of counting calories on days you hit the bottle.

With that being said, for general health purposes, you should be aware of what fat is, what foods are predominately fat, that fat is NOT the devil, and it WON’T make you fat by looking at it.

General thesis: keep fat low on days you drink.

Here’s why:

After a meal, insulin levels rise, fat burning (oxidation) stops, and you use said energy for fuel.

Because energy from your meal is being utilized for fuel, fat oxidation is blunted meaning that any fat intake is stored for future use.

That DOES NOT mean any fat you consume ever is confine to the shallows of your love handles never to be seen again. As hours pass and insulin and blood sugar levels return to baseline, fat oxidation begins again.

This process happens all day, every day. Little stored, little burned. Whether or not you store fat is ultimately based on your level of calorie intake.

Except when you drink.

Alcohol is fanfuckingtastic but it’s by-product in your body, acetate, is not. Acetate is toxic to your body so it takes numero uno priority in the energy hierarchy.

Alcohol and consequently acetate must be burned off before your body will touch another source of fuel.

If you’re still following, that means the yin and yang cycle of fat burning stops. You’re in full grizzly hibernation mode storing all the fat you eat.

Hence the problem.

That nice, fatty, delicious, deep-dish pizza you throw back after having a dozen or so beers will cause you to gain (store) significantly more fat than if you had it stone cold sober.

Does that mean you can eat 1000 g of carbs that day and not gain fat if you limit the fat?

In the short-term probably, but the bro-science school of thought where you can crush carbs and limit the fat and not gain fat is exactly that: a myth.

What To Do On Days You Drink:

Limit fat intake. If you’re looking for hard macros, I always tell my clients .3 g/kg/bw.

This is per Martin Berkhan’s recommendations that I’ve implemented with my clients ever since and it’s worked fantastically. If you’re looking for a more in-depth science to alcohol and fat loss, check here. No need to reinvent the wheel on my end.

Protein and veggies are your best friend.

Until you go out, your meals should be predominately protein and veggies. This will keep you calories low and keep you satiated. The more satiated you are, the better the chances you won’t eat like an asshole after drinking.

Avoid the post-drinking nuclear bomb of a pizza or something equally as fatty.

But shit happens, food tastes better drunk, so I would err on the side of try and keep it more carby than fatty. It’d be beneficial to keep the dinner before the drinks lean as well to preserve calories.

Own Your Sundays – Protein Sparing Modified Fasts

I’m going to assume you weren’t the best padawan and failed to follow the above protocol to a T.

Not ideal but understandable and expected. I wouldn’t be writing the guide to not fucking up your diet on the weekend if we were all innocent angels without any food or alcohol vices.

One night doesn’t ruin a diet. Mini-benders from Friday to Sunday absolutely can though so it’s imperative you right the ship on Sunday.

Enter the protein sparing modified fast.

I’ve been fortunate enough to partake in the Bayesian Bodybuilding Online PT course and it’s been nothing but phenomenal. In it, I learned about the PSMF and have had great success implementing it with my clients on rest days and in particular on weekends.

Incredible Resource

Essentially, a PSMF is exactly as it sounds.

A day of low calories, high protein, alongside minimal residual fat and carbohydrate intake.

The rationale for inclusion is as follows:

You likely gained fat on Friday or Saturday night. It happens. We’re not robots and dieting would suck even worse if we were forced to be recluses to be successful.

A PSMF is designed to all but eliminate any and all fat gain from the previous day’s shenanigans.

Protein is kept high to preserve lean body mass.

A good general target is 1.82 g/kg/bw as your minimum. Going above this number is perfectly acceptable.

Fiber intake is imperative for health, satiety, and because it makes you a better human.

Fiber One bars don’t count either. Eat some greens and make your mom proud. Better yet, add resistant starch to your diet.

Aside from that, keep fat and carbohydrates low (less than 10 g per meal) to keep hunger at bay.

Further, it is important to keep the mealtime and frequency as close to what is habitual as possible for optimal nutrient partitioning and insulin sensitivity. For the “why” I urge you to invest in the course and get your nerd on.

In terms of training, I generally recommend clients stay away from a hardcore training session. I typically recommend a nice easy 20-25 minute restorative aerobic session to get some blood flow and prep for a big day of training the following day.

With that being said, some of my most memorable and enjoyable training sessions have come post-hangover with some caffeine jet fuel. It’s ok to grind through sometimes. If not, all the time.

Note: A PSMF is not recommended if you plan on lifting. Nutrients are needed during the anabolic window. Regular training day nutrition or macros are advised.

An Alternative to Alcohol: Phenibut

Note: I’m not a doctor. This isn’t medical advice and it’d be smart to consult with a physician before embarking on any supplement regimen.

What if I told you there was something that you give you the same euphora, mood, and relaxant as alcohol without the rubber necking, the hangover, the texts sent to ex-girlfriends, and the unwanted fat gain?

You’d probably ask me if I believed in unicorns too.

Touche, but your aggression would be misplaced, as such things do exist.

Enter phenibut, the best legal supplement/drug you’ve never heard of.

Alcohol and phenibut both act via GABA receptors in your brain.

GABA is the chief inhibitory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system. Alcohol’s action as a GABA agonist are what causes you to relax, “quiet” the inner voice in your head, and in all likelihood feel like Superman because of your lack of inhibition.

It’s important to note that alcohol primarily acts via the GABA A receptor while phenibut targets the B receptor, which may explain phenibut’s effects without the motor function loss as seen in alcohol.

In many ways, phenibut gives you all the advantages of alcohol without everything that is deleterious for body composition: namely blunting of fat oxidation and impaired sleep quality resulting in reduced androgen levels and protein synthesis.

But I’m not going to go into too many specifics. Here’s a good guide on phenibut and the contraindications involved. Here’s another.

It’s a tool that you can use. Nothing more, nothing less.

But the lack of hangovers doesn’t suck.

Eliminate (Uncontrolled) Cheat Days

If you have cheat days, stop.

There is and shouldn’t be any reason for planned all day glutinous binges like Dwight Goodman at the end of dodgeball.

If you feel you “need” it, I’d highly suggest you look into why you feel that way.

Important questions to consider are:

What does your diet look like during the week?
Is it too restrictive? Think bodybuilder diet of chicken and broccoli.
Are you eating enough calories? There’s a difference between a deficit and starvation. The latter will set you up for a nice gigantic rebound.

An ideal diet and a concept that I implement with my clients is that there should be no guilt or shame in going out with friends on a Friday or Saturday night and getting some good, delicious, less than nutritious food to eat with some drinks.

Heck, I’d even advise it for quality of life and maintaining sanity on a diet.

The idea of a cheat day is destructive and offers little physiological or psychological utility.

Refeeds are overrated and seem to be heavily popularized by bro-science. Elevations in metabolic rate, leptin, and any other physiological reason touted in support are typically transient and their inclusion doesn’t appear to be supported in the literature.

What cheat days can do is destroy your diet. You may want to be the Rock but you’re not.

It’s helpful to think in terms of weekly caloric energy balance.

While nutrient timing and calorie cycling can get fancy to maximize the anabolic window to further body recomposition (lose fat, build muscle), thinking simplistically it’s important to maintain a weekly deficit.

A 4-5000 calorie uncontrolled binge is all but guaranteed to abolish the weekly deficit you had created through 5 or 6 days of hard work and meticulous preparation.

Though I’m against the idea because of it’s connotation with regards to dieting, if you want to “cheat,” it’s important to control it through calorie control.

For example, if you’re running a moderate 500 calorie per day deficit and you want to go buckwild on Saturday, increase your deficit per day throughout the week to increase your error margin on Saturday.

A better strategy is to give yourself one cheat meal as recommended by Jason Helmes at Anyman fitness, a man who is consistently putting out diesel work.

Enjoy yourself, get the demons out, and move on.

Wrap-Up

I’m all for a good time and that may seem hard to believe given all the fancy science I just gave you so you don’t f*** up your weekend.

It’s not rocket science, I promise. I don’t even consciously think about this stuff anymore and neither do my clients. It’s become intuitive and a skill that you can easily learn if you take the time to implement.

Start small. Get an interval session in the day you plan on going out. Fast the next day if you’re up for it.

But start.

Don’t sacrifice all your hard work during the week because you turn into Van Wilder on the weekends.

Fat loss and fun can go hand in hand. Sometimes you do have to embrace the suck but if your diet keeps you in on Friday night because you think you “have” to, you’re doing it wrong.

P.S. Want to get shredded for summer? Email me at showmestrength@gmail.com and we can get the ball rolling.

Do You Deserve It: The Ugly Truth About Getting the Body You Want

February 24, 2016 by Andrew Ferreira 1 Comment

Wolf urine.

I can buy that on Amazon and it can be on my doorstep in two days.

Now I’m not sure I could find some good use for some wolf urine but before you write me off like some kind of weirdo, stay with me for a second.

It’s Tuesday night and I’m sitting in a Harvard Square Starbucks.

I’m surrounded and through some weird osmosis probably inspired by the level of weirdness and hipster that only a place around my great institution could provide.

While wolf urine could be a hipster staple (I won’t judge), it is not the point of my thought experiment.

Rather, it is to illustrate just how much is available to us at the click of a button. Forget ipods, flat screen TVs, and girlfriends, I can buy fucking wolf urine on the line from the biggest on the line retailer.

Anything and everything is available to me at a moment’s notice.

It’s one of the benefits of living in the age of consumerism where we are sold something every minute every day of our lives.

The problem with the age of consumerism is that we are not just sold goods, we are sold ideas too – many of which feed our primitive brain that wants success now.

Need evidence for the short-term wiring of our brains?

Salt, sugar, fat.

Beyond tasting awesome, those are the foods our brains are programmed to seek out and devour because they provide high short-term survival value.

We’re Sold False Ideas

The effects of food are evident in the obesity epidemic and America’s growing waistline but the short-term reach extends past food. Think about the recent best sellers in business and entrepreneurship.

The 4 Hour Work Week and The Lean Startup come to mind. Selling the notion of efficiency is fine but it’s the idea framed within the title that prompts me to reflect – work less, outsource, and build systems so you can sloth around on a beach all day sipping pina coladas.

Will Durant, one of the great thinkers of our time, said, “A nation is born stoic and dies epicurean.”

As a society, we’ve become obsessed with getting more out of doing less.

With the advancement of science and the rise of charlatans like Dave Asprey, bio-hacking is the next logical cultural progression. But should it be able to displace the virtues that breath life into great achievement?

Have we not become exactly what Durant has said would destroy us?

A nation fixated on the fulfillment of pleasure, whose identity has forgotten what it means to be stoic in the face of accomplishing something meaningful – in this instance, maximizing our health.

In the attempt to satisfy our epicurean ethos, we’ve been sold an idea – the wrong one – about health and our body.

From New York Times’ Bestsellers about dropping 17 lbs in 10 days to Dr. Oz promoting raspberry ketones as the next fat loss cure, in the age of consumerism, we’ve been programmed to buy a lie.

Not Exactly War & Peace

Smart marketers have capitalized on the realization that humans are addicted to the dopamine rush that comes with being sold short-term success plans.

We feel good when we go on 10-day juice cleanses or when we type in our credit card information to buy the latest weight loss cure that’s reached the top of the bestseller charts. We see a means to a short-term reward, and we’re all in.

Our default instinct as humans is to run from pain and to pleasure.

Why do we fail in maximizing our health and getting the body you want?

Because we’ve been using a lottery approach to try and be successful.

Every time we try the latest cleanse or buy the book full of skewed science and superfluous claims, we’re taking another spin of the wheel hoping for the right combination of numbers to pop up.

We wake up everyday hoping that we came across the latest secret to solve our health quandary while not having other areas of our lives suffer.

People in our consumer driven society are more likely to buy the new turbo fat burner Starbucks sells alongside their pumpkin spice latte than they are to put in the blood, sweat, and tears necessary to make necessary changes.

We are continually offered the mirage of health at the click of a button and most of us take it every single time.

A New Approach

The age of consumerism isn’t going anywhere and lamenting upon the uphill battle that we encounter on a daily basis in order to achieve our health goals is a tireless exercise that does not need to be further expounded upon.

The cards are stacked against us, now what?

Charlie Munger, self-made billionaire whom Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have called the smartest man alive, said, “To get what you want, you have to deserve what you want? The world is not enough a crazy enough place to reward undeserving people.”

Everyone wants. To want is to be human. We all want the granite abs, Schwarzenegger biceps, and the ability to fit into college skinny jeans for the ladies out there.

But do you deserve it?

To lose 100 lbs, you have to deserve to lose 100 lbs.

If you want a better body, stand naked tomorrow morning in the mirror. What do you see? This isn’t an exercise to lower your self-esteem or to guilt you to take action.

No, be objective. Give yourself an honest assessment.

What you see doesn’t reflect failing to know the ins and outs of carb cycling, the sensationalized demonization of saturated fats, or the knowledge base to perform metabolic resistance training.

There are a million workout programs out there. There are even more diet plans.

They all will work.

Quick aside on the nutrition front, have you attempted to master the basics first?

Have you been limiting processed foods? Keeping the sugar overload and fried food at bay? How often do you exercise and/or train?

This isn’t rocket science. It’s not even about the science. Bad science has gotten tons and tons of people ripped over the years.

Do the Work

There is a caveat of course.

The truth is if you haven’t showed up everyday and put in the work, any work, you haven’t tried yet. You may want to look like the guy on the cover of Men’s Fitness, but you don’t deserve anything yet.

Get off TNation and bodybuilding.com. Get off Show Me Strength. If you’ve visited a fitness site more than half a dozen times, you know more than enough.

Wake up. Fail. Show up again tomorrow, fail. Improvement isn’t linear.

If you’re not failing everyday, you’re not trying.

This isn’t about being efficient. Our whole lives have been hacked with shortcuts; it’s time to take the circuitous route.

The one filled with pain, suffering, and failure. The one that’ll take a lot of blood, sweat, guts, and tears to overcome.

The one that will build a process that’ll feed a lifetime of success.

Pain today or the pain of regret tomorrow. Either way, there is no avoiding pain.

Do all of that and a year from now when you stand bare before yourself, what will you see?

Someone who has earned what they wanted.

P.S. Chad and I wrote a book on overcoming fear. It could change your life. Get your copy here.

How to Build Muscle: Divorcing Ego From Training

February 16, 2016 by Andrew Ferreira Leave a Comment

The Problematic Male Ego

Freud referred to the “ego” as the realistic part of the brain that seeks to mediate the demands of both the “id” and “super-ego.”

Others have thought ego to be the manifestation of testosterone and the inner circuitry of the male brain that has propelled the masculine identity of arrogance and confidence over “weaker states” like that of humbleness and self-reflection.

While I would love to spend an entire post psychoanalyzing the male ego, I unfortunately don’t have my Freudian cap on today; rather, in my years of training, I have come to understand that there is an intimate connection between the ability to divorce one’s ego from the process and the ability to build muscle.

At the advanced levels, there is an intimate difference in intent between trying to get outrageously strong and building slabs of muscle. Contrary to popular opinion, most bodybuilders are really strong but their intent while training can be much different than those chasing maximal strength like elite powerlifters.

For our purposes, getting strong and “being strong” requires one thing: the completion of a rep or reps at a weight that would make mere mortals cringe in fear.

If you compete at a powerlifting meet with 750 lbs on your back while you squat the judge nor your total will reflect that it was a 15 second grind where your knees experienced enough valgus collapse to make your ACLs cry and your back experienced so much flexion that it felt like a silverback gorilla just rode you to the promised land.

315×1, just for shits. Haven't benched in four years but figured I'd see what the madman @jasonkanzler's programming has done for my overall silverback status. Not too shabby my friend. #juggernaut #silverback #pitching #gainz #johnrocker2.0

A video posted by Show Me Strength (@showmestrength) on Mar 18, 2015 at 5:35pm PDT

340×3 With @miggsybogues programming, @thestrengthhouse shirt, and my boy @smurrrr training with me, knew it was going to be a good day. Weight felt real fast.

A video posted by Show Me Strength (@showmestrength) on Nov 28, 2014 at 12:06pm PST

Not powerlifter strong by any means but back in the baseball days where performance and strength but not muscle were a priority. No stringent rep cadence control. My ego and hubris probably forced their inclusion.

Despite how unsightly the squat I just described is, it still counts as a successful squat pinning you as one strong motherfucker regardless of the fact that in all likelihood you won’t be very strong for long because of your abysmal attention to biomechanics.

The ego, in this instance, likely aided your quest for strength allowing you to undertake and successfully complete a weight that in a non-competition setting with human like levels of adrenaline would have stapled you in the hole and taught you a good lesson in humility.

The Pursuit of Muscle

Let’s contrast this to the pursuit of building muscle.

Studies have shown that the optimal range to build muscle is between 70 and 85% of one’s 1 rep max which translation from nerd speak means between eight and fifteen reps. It’s unfortunate that our friends in the white coats don’t qualify these studies with the fact that not only is it a certain rep range that’s optimal to build muscle but it is how these reps are performed that matter most.

The GOAT

Bouncing the bar off your chest with a hip drive so powerful you wouldn’t dare try on your girlfriend with the lights off (or on since you’re jacked) is not in the same stratosphere as a bench press done with a slow descent, pause on the chest, and a controlled completion of the rep just short of lock-out to stimulate maximal tension on your pecs.

Fast-forward years and several hundred workouts down the road with these two styles of training in mind. Who do you think will build more muscle? Who do you think will inevitably be stronger because a bigger muscle is a stronger one?

The answer is clear.

Ditch the Ego

If you want to build an impressive physique, you must divorce your ego from the training process. While pursuing added strength should always be a training goal, how much weight you are lifting is a secondary consideration.

What matters is what those reps look like. Are you maximally contracting your pecs on a dumbbell fly to initiate the concentric swing or are you jerking the weight up like an adolescent boy? Are you completing a set of 8 rows in 15 seconds when if you were really serious about building muscle, it would take upwards of 30-40 seconds.

Notice the control and then watch every video on John Meadow’s channel

For this reason, commercial gyms could be the perfect breeding ground for muscle wannabees and mediocre results. It becomes almost impossible to divorce one’s ego from the process when you throw 30-40 testosterone-fueled men in a weight room. When you see your mortal enemy benching 25 more pounds than you and doing it easily, what’s your natural inclination?

“Fuck this baby weight, I can’t let that asshole show me up. Hey Sean, throw a 25 on there” – Your Ego.

What started as a stimulating, engaged training session where your pecs were under hellacious fire from your dedication to each rep, turned into a humping session where the only thing accomplished was a temporary saving of your ego.

Fail.

I can think of no faster way to stay mediocre in the pursuit of muscle than to let the training of others dictate how you approach each session.

So what can you do about it?

First off, stand in the mirror, look yourself in the eye and ask yourself why are you doing what you are doing? Is it an exercise fueled by a relentless desire for self-improvement or are you chasing muscle to impress others? If it’s the latter, pick a new hobby hombre because you won’t last very long when the training gets hard and progress is all but non-existent.

Go to your commercial gym (better idea – train at a private one) during dead hours. Do this for a couple weeks to a month and start to understand what it’s like to train properly. With no other bros around, you’ll be able to remove your ego and start to understand the importance of “feeling” the muscle and why a controlled rep cadence and time under tension is far superior to the 8-second jerk fest you’re accustomed to.

Rather than utilizing rep ranges, train for time. For example, instead of the typical 4×8 rep setting, replace it with 4 x 30 seconds. This all but eliminates the ego-fueled desire to lift heavier weight with egregious form because you’ll have a next to impossible chance of completing the lift. Not only does it divorce your ego, but also it maximizes time under tension, which is imperative for muscle growth. Mass by Pat Davidson is an outstanding resource.

Get a training buddy that will keep you honest. Preferably, he will be a bit stronger and bigger so you will be incentivized each training session but not so much further in development that you’ll start to try and compete with him when you are not ready.

Become mindful. Our ego is allowed to take over when we get stuck inside our own heads plagued by self-deprecating thoughts about our current inadequate state. Anxiety is allowed to build and manifest itself in poor reps because you failed to be mindful. If you are present, truly present, then there is no time for debilitating self-talk. You are engaged in the moment where nothing but you and what needs to get done matters.

Give these a try and consciously work at being better at your state management. Building muscle is as much mental as it is physical and ultimately your mindset may be the limiting factor in whether or not you see a different creature in the mirror years from now or the same mediocre body plagued by the same over-bearing ego.

P.S. Chad and I would love to help you on your pursuit on building muscle, losing fat, and journey to become your most diesel self. Email us at showmestrength@gmail.com. We also offer online coaching.

How to Improve Your Mental State: Movement is Medicine

February 4, 2016 by Andrew Ferreira Leave a Comment

December was a dark month.

I didn’t train once; and by train, I should really clarify what I mean. Us fitness snobs love to differentiate between working out and training because it inflates our elitist muscles. No. I didn’t do fitness once. No sweat, no movement.

To understand why that matters, let’s take a quick detour for some context.

Harvard is a place of many things: brilliant students and faculty, equally impressive student-athletes, a famous statue covered covertly in urine, (don’t rub his foot), and a breadth of history that is hard to comprehend.

What you don’t usually find are the stereotypical meatheads – the dudes closely resembling the “I pick things up and put them down” Planet Fitness cavemen, or our beloved patron saint of serial hydration, who obnoxiously carries around a Poland Springs galloon jug in fear of going 30 minutes without a voluminously clear piss. Cause gains.

Funny thing is, to my friends, and everyone else that knew me at Harvard and still know me today, I’m sure I was associated with all those clichés at one point or another. I was shirtless way too often at parties, would read Mike Robertson’s Bulletproof Knees through class while proudly lugging around my galloon jug, consumed more training books than actual assigned literature, and definitely spent more time in the weight room than a classroom. In case you think I’m kidding…my nickname on the baseball team was Meat.

So yes, I liked lifting weights, but my relationship with the Iron transcended the superficial vanity-chasing process of “getting jacked”. I had found an outlet and a tangible metaphor for my struggles in life. When pain and disappointment came my way, it was a means to violently express myself and divulge all my anguish. It was my panacea and a beacon light to keep me on the right course when the seas got rough.

And then, this December, it was gone.

In truth, I can’t tell you how many times I set my alarm for 5:00 am to finally break the streak and give myself some positive momentum only to find myself a slave to the comfort of the snooze button until I had to finally, begrudgingly, get moving to work.

Pharmaceutical aids, brain drugs if you will, utilized for studying and passing licensing exams, left me with minimally functioning dopamine and androgen receptors. Otherwise not a big deal except dopamine and testosterone (androgen) are the very things that make you want to do things, like take over the world, have sex, work hard.

I had none.

The aftermath was a vast hole of psychological torment, utter mediocrity, and depression that penetrated like a cemented dagger.

Since the dawn of our species millennia ago, we have always been products of our environment. Make it known, however, there is a stark difference between proactively shaping one’s environment and being a passive victim.

I had become a self-inflicted victim to my environment and circumstances, and had morphed into something I always promised myself I wouldn’t be – another zombie cog in the corporate America machine. The Walking Dead isn’t just another television show, divorced from reality. Want proof? Go stand and observe the lifeless souls boarding the train heading into any city on a Monday morning.

We like to preach habits and gradual shifts of behavior as the appropriate means to create lasting change but not this time. I needed to mount a full physiological and psychological assault on the forces that had been shaping my precipitous demise. I needed to bump my rider, shake the elephant and get a entirely new path (a reference for all the Switch fans out there). Whatever jargon you want to use, I needed to get moving.

Reading a passage of Gorilla Mindset by Mike Cernovich (get this book) served as my kick in the ass. To understand why, see below:

To dismiss Mr. Maybe, I needed action. I needed to rewire my brain and my habits to create a physiological cascade of fucking awesomeness.

I needed to move.

So I made a commitment (because I hate resolutions) to move everyday in 2016. Every single day I would do some sort of physical activity – including but not limited to lifting weights, running, and playing quidditch.

Why?

Because, to quote Dr. Spencer Nadolsky, movement is medicine.

It’s only fitting that I recently finished reading Born to Run and then immediately started to reread The Story of the Human Body.

Both phenomenal books that share a central thesis: we are who we are because we evolved to run.

Let that soak in for a second.

We evolved brains that have allowed us to essentially take over the world because of our ability to run.

Movement is in our DNA. It is so intimately woven into the fabric of who we are that to take it away, to divorce ourselves from our innate passion, is a recipe for catastrophic disaster.

Look around you and see the results of the largest failed experiment in human history.

Chris McDougall, author of Born to Run, argues our health problems have manifested because we’ve stopped becoming a running people. While the issues are far more nuanced than that, our lack of movement has played a vital role in our demise.

The rates of obesity are exponentially increasing. We die predominately from diseases of opulence and modernity – heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, and staggering amounts of people suffer from depression.

This isn’t normal.

Our biology does not dictate these ends to be inevitable. Death, yes; but diseases of modernity are not fixed manifestations of our DNA at work.

Ido Portal has lead a movement revolution. Not abs or biceps. Movement.

Movement is medicine. It is who you were and it is who you can be again.

Words cannot begin to express the profound difference I have experienced over the last month or so.

Sure, I look better but ultimately that doesn’t matter. The vanity of aesthetics doesn’t matter. Anyone who has gotten in great shape knows it can be a hollow feeling at the end if you solely derive meaning from your looks. Process, not outcome.

My acute depressive state has dissipated. I’ve had worse in magnitude and duration but my mindset and mood have never been greater. Each day, I wake up with my soul ablaze about the potential of the day, a new opportunity to tackle, and any other Elite Daily cliché that you want to throw in there.

I no longer board the train on autopilot amidst the other zombies in corporate America. Instead, my eyes have been opened to the disconnect we experience as humans when we distance ourselves from who we are as a people born to move.

This isn’t some magical placebo effect either.

This is science.

Things change when you exercise – neurotransmitters in your brain (dopamine and serotonin) get up-regulated, stress is reduced, and testosterone elevation are just some of the underlying mechanics of why we experience such a profound sense of well-being when we get back to the basics. Something so simple. So innate.

I challenge you to join me. Move every single day for the rest of the year. Find something you enjoy, whether that be running, yoga, sex, P90X, it really does not matter.

For the time being, forget the aesthetics. The vanity. Commit to moving. It can be 10 minutes or two hours.

I guarantee if you take it upon yourself to undergo this simple change, in a matter of weeks you won’t recognize that person in the mirror. You’ll look better, feel better, and you’ll no longer be a zombie come the Monday morning “grind.”

Because movement is medicine.

P.S. I read every message I get at showmestrength@gmail.com. I’d love to hear about how you’ve overcome adversity in your past and what you’ve done to keep moving forward.

Aerobic Conditioning For Baseball Players: Practical Application by Doug Kechijian

November 24, 2015 by Andrew Ferreira Leave a Comment

Read before: Part 1: Baseball Physical Preparation: Aerobic Fitness 101

In part 1, we provided the physiological rationale for incorporating aerobic development into baseball physical preparatory programs.

Here, we’ll discuss how to translate theory into practice. To begin, we must dispel some common myths about aerobic development.

Aerobic Development Myths

The first is that one can train the aerobic system, or any energy system for that matter, in isolation. At any point in time, all three energy systems work concurrently to respond to environmental stressors as efficiently and safely as possible. Remember, in biology, everything has a cost- and potentially a benefit. Even as you read this article, presumably in a state of rest, your glycolytic system is “working” and producing lactate. The concentration of lactate, however, is not sufficient to skew the energy balance into the anaerobic realm.

In medicine and physiology, we compartmentalize things into different buckets to make the whole easier to understand. In reality, there is one “energy system” that calls upon different balances of various chemical processes (phosphagenic, glycolytic, aerobic) depending on an athlete’s physiological output.

The second myth is that interval training is necessarily anaerobic.

Interval training is only “anaerobic” if during the course of the protocol, the rate of lactate production exceeds the rate of lactate removal. Many (not all) of the interval training studies people cite in support of “anaerobic” training, especially those conducted on untrained subjects, utilize aerobically-based intervals performed at a higher intensity than the steady state control group.

Untrained subjects, in particular, aren’t fit or motivated enough to push themselves deeply enough into glycolysis for successive repetitions. That kind of stress is often too threatening for somebody unaccustomed to high intensity work. What these studies do suggest is that in certain populations and in certain contexts, aerobic interval work performed at higher intensities (but still below anaerobic threshold) may be superior to the steady state training traditionally associated with the aerobic system. Baseball players may, in fact, be one such population.

Train Slow, Be Slow?

The expression “train slow, be slow” requires context.

This saying is more applicable to true speed and power athletes than to athletes who accumulate several miles of running throughout a game. Most team sport athletes, baseball players being an exception, are not speed and power athletes.

Therefore, steady state training or long(er) duration intervals performed below anaerobic threshold serve more of a purpose in disciplines like soccer, MMA, and basketball, for example, than in baseball, powerlifting, and track and field throws and jumps. Appreciating the manner in which aerobic development may enhance performance in speed and power sports does not mean that all athletes should train the aerobic system the same way.

One of the best ways to develop the aerobic system for baseball is tempo running.

Charlie Francis discusses the “tempo method” at great length in The Charlie Francis Training System. Tempo work consists of interval-based running sessions conducted at submaximal velocities that often still far exceed the velocities encountered in other aerobic, and even glyocolytic, protocols.

The difference lies in the manner in which the distances and rest periods are manipulated.

When working with sprinters, Charlie utilized both extensive (less than or equal to 75% intensity) and intensive (generally between 80 and 85% intensity) methods depending on the duration of a sprinter’s event. For the purposes of this article, only extensive tempo methods apply.

During an extensive tempo session, a sprinter might perform 50 to 100m repeats at 75% or less than the speed he/she is capable of running for that distance. So a 10.0s (10m/s) 100m runner would perform extensive tempo repeats no faster than approximately 13.5s/100m. Since team sport athletes, including baseball players, rarely ever reach top speed in a game, even this “slow” tempo work is faster than the overwhelming majority of running that occurs in competition. Extensive tempo work remains “aerobic” as long as adequate rest is provided between repeats.

Video of tempo runs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ7tl8zqX2o

In Applied Sprint Training, James Smith cleverly modifies Charlie’s tempo volume prescriptions for team sport athletes.

So while a 100m sprinter may perform 1000-2000m of extensive tempo in a session, 3000-4000m might be more suitable for a soccer or Aussie rules football player. Smith does not provide a prescription for baseball players, probably because baseball is physiologically simpler than the other sports he covers.

1000-1500m of extensive tempo work performed 2-3 times/week seems sufficient enough to aerobically cover a baseball player. Moreover, the extensive tempo work is fast enough to groove sprinting technique and condition the hamstrings for pure speed work conducted at different points in the training cycle.

There is a lot of controversy about how to best prevent hamstring injuries.

Confining an athlete’s training to the weight room until he/she leaves for camp, as is often done, is definitely not best practice. Calisthenics and medicine ball work can also be incorporated into the tempo sessions to increase the volume of work and the demand on the cardiac system. An example 8-week offseason extensive tempo progression for a baseball player might look something like this (remember MAXIMUM of 75% of peak velocity for that distance):

Sample Program

Week 1: 16x (Run 50m/Bear Pose x 5 breaths in though nose and out through mouth/Med Ball Side Throw x5 per side), heart rate recovery to 110bpm after each repetition

Week 2: 18x ….

Week 3: 20x

Week 4: 22x

Week 5: 10x (Run 100m/Full Rockback on Elbows x 5 breaths/recoiled rollover stomps to floor x8 total throws), heart rate recovery to 110bpm after each repetition

Week 6: 12x…

Week 7: 14x…

Week 8: 15x…

Performing a breathing-based exercise after the run forces the athlete to control his/her breathing with an elevated heart rate, a useful skill when confronted with any kind of stress. It also prevents athletes who have a difficultly autoregulating their intensity from running too fast.

The key during the run is to feel smooth and relaxed. The medicine ball work should be performed dynamically but not with max intensity. Once again, smooth and relaxed.

Tempo sessions should be performed on low CNS days if one follows a high/low template or on recovery days.

Assuming someone does pure speed and strength work on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, the tempo work would be done on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Tempo running is A way, albeit an effective and relatively specific one, to develop the aerobic system for baseball. Unless you can hit like Babe Ruth or Big Papi, you too might benefit from incorporating more running into your program. Just don’t run too long or too slow.

If you’re already at this level of ballerness, disregard everything you just read

About the Author:

Doug Kechijian is a performance-based physical therapist who specializes in treating orthopedic injuries and chronic pain. He recognizes the continuum extending from acute rehabilitation to high-level sports conditioning. His comprehensive and integrated approach helps to not only relieve one’s symptoms, but addresses the underlying biomechanical and neurophysiological patterns that contribute to injury. A co-founder of Resilient Performance Physical Therapy, Doug consults with professional sports teams and military and law enforcement special mission units.

Also a Pararescue Jumper (PJ) in the Air National Guard, Doug has trained and conducted operational missions with elite military units throughout the world. He is a nationally certified paramedic with advanced training in emergency, trauma, and wilderness medicine. In 2015, he was selected as the Noncommissioned Officer of the Year by the U.S. Air Force.

Doug received his AB in Biology from Brown University and MA in Exercise Physiology/Doctor of Physical Therapy from Columbia University. He has undergone advanced training in Postural Restoration, joint and soft tissue manipulation, movement screening, and dry needling.

Doug is the owner of Resilient Performance Physical Therapy. You can reach him at info@resilientperformancept.com and find out more information about his services at http://www.resilientperformancept.com

Baseball Physical Preparation: Aerobic Fitness 101 by Doug Kechijian

October 27, 2015 by Andrew Ferreira 2 Comments

Note from Andrew: Chad and I are thrilled that Pat Davidson and Doug Kechijian have decided to come on board at Show Me Strength and address all things physical preparation for the baseball athlete. Pat and Doug are two of the most knowledgable, yet humble professionals, while also doubling on the side as savages. We couldn’t be more excited to have them on board.

For this installment, I asked Doug a series of questions pertaining to aerobic fitness and baseball. What follows are his introductory thoughts on the subject. Tomorrow, we got a bruiser from Pat going into high detail and science into the need for aerobic fitness.

Why the need for an aerobic foundation given baseball’s notorious slow pace?

At first glance, baseball does not seem like a sport that requires much development from the aerobic system. Baseball athletes certainly don’t need to be able to run a competitive time in a marathon but a requisite level of aerobic preparation is necessary.

The best baseball the players are generally the ones who produce awesome amounts of force very rapidly (e.g. throwing a fastball or hitting a home run). In the most extreme cases, however, baseball requires that power be repeatedly produced with little deterioration throughout the game. The best starting pitchers, for example, are those who can throw as hard and maintain command in the seventh or eighth inning as well as they can in the first.

The aerobic system/long term energy system helps to replenish the short term energy system associated with powerful, explosive efforts.

Fatigue compromises technique and biomechanical efficiency.

All things being equal, power athletes are more likely to be injured in a fatigued state because the nervous system develops compensatory strategies to delay fatigue. Compensatory strategies may help to maintain power outputs (throwing velocity, base running ability, bat speed) but can put joints and soft tissues in compromising positions.

A well developed aerobic system attenuates the “need” for compensatory motor patterns because it delays the onset of fatigue.

What is it’s relevance in terms of physical preparation, recovery, and on-field performance?

The aerobic system can improve on-field performance for the reasons mentioned above but its relevance is even more substantial when the athlete is not competing.

Improving recovery is one of the biggest initiatives in the field of sports science.

There are compression pants, fancy ice machines, devices that allegedly stimulate areas of the brain associated with relaxation, nutritional supplements, you name it…The truth is, we don’t know if any of this stuff really works to improve recovery.

Think of a well-developed aerobic system as free recovery.

Biological power and the ability to produce energy is finite, like a bank account. Athletes spend a certain amount of “currency” just to meet basic survival needs. Aerobic fitness is associated with increased vagal tone and parasymathetic dominance.

This means that the “cost” of living at rest is less for the athlete with superior aerobic conditioning.

Athletic performance is costly form a biological perspective. It induces a stress on the system that necessitates the need for a compensation that inoculates the organism against subsequent stressors. Athletes who lack the requisite level of aerobic fitness for their respective sport are “competing” when they’re not playing relative to their more aerobically fit counterparts.

The aerobic system is the off switch that facilitates recovery after competitions involving explosive efforts. Simply put, the biological cost of energy production is less the greater the relative contribution of the aerobic system.

Physiology is a trade off between efficiency and speed.

The aerobic system produces energy less rapidly than the anaerobic system but with less of a withdrawal fee. Overnight shipping is more costly than ground shipping. When less biological resources are invested to sustain basic function at rest, more resources are available to replenish energy substrates depleted during competition.

How you would best go about regaining and establishing an aerobic foundation after a long season of deconditioning? Is aerobic exercise in the traditional sense (jogging, biking, etc) the preferred way or is there a more optimal means – e.g. cardiac output training?

The heart is a “dumb” muscle so if the goal is simply to develop the heart’s ability to distribute blood to the working muscles, the means don’t really matter.

Energy utilization comes down to delivery and extraction. In the aerobic system, the heart pumps oxygen-rich blood to the working muscles and the muscles must utilize this oxygen to produce ATP, the cell’s energy currency.

Both delivery and extraction must be trained to optimize the power of the aerobic system. The delivery side of the equation can be trained with more generalized means since developing the pumping capacity of the heart is the primary objective. Extraction should be developed with more sports specific movements since extraction is a local phenomenon.

In the next article in this series we will discuss specific ways to develop these different components of aerobic development for the baseball player.

About the Author :

10 Nutrition Thoughts for the MLB Off-Season

September 30, 2015 by Andrew Ferreira Leave a Comment

I’ve been away from Show Me Strength for far too long. During my hiatus, I was working on making a comeback with my baseball career and graduating from Hahvard.

The former didn’t materialize so it was time to retire and echo in new challenges and trials to master and overcome in my post-baseball life.

For many reasons, I passed on detailing the reasons behind my retirement and the long arduous journey that encapsulated my baseball career. Maybe down the road when I’m in the reflective not living mode. For now, Chad’s series is top notch and provides incredible value for any individual looking to make their mark in the game. It’s hard to beat close to 10 years of professional baseball experience.

Going forward, it’s going to be my goal to impart all the knowledge I’ve accumulated in my tireless pursuit of a big league dream onto those who still have the chance to lace up their spikes.

To start, here are some preliminary thoughts on how to attack the off-season from a nutrition perspective:

You are an athlete, don’t diet

There are two types of players who embark on an off-season diet: those who live with the ever-present fear of being labeled as a bad body guy and those in the vain fruitless pursuit of looking better with their shirt off.

Dieting is the wrong approach in both instances.

The professional baseball season is a marathon not a sprint and it’s both a battle of performance and survival. If you can’t stay healthy, your chances of ever making the Show are drastically reduced.

The off-season is a time to build your body back up and to recover from the stressors that you endured from a chronic lack of sleep, poor nutrient quality, enough stimulants to kill a small animal, and probably your fair share of booze.

The last thing you want to do is embark on a calorie-restricted diet, which impedes the restoration process. Sleep will continue to suffer as will anabolic hormone levels such as testosterone and IGF-1.

A better approach, as related by Chad and I’s mentor Eric Cressey, is to focus on improving nutrition quality and to begin training hard again.

That alone should take care of most of the bad weight that was put on during the course of the season.

Intermittent Fasting is great for weight loss, not professional athletes

My assumption is that your training during the off-season is going to strain your recovery abilities. If it doesn’t, work harder.

Planned over-reaching is the fancy term but in normal jargon it means that if you don’t sleep well, eat enough, and take care of yourself in the hours that you’re not in the gym, you’re going to feel crappy.

You won’t feel explosive, weight that should feel light feels like a metric ton, and that mythical 10 that just walked by you isn’t going to do a damn thing for you.

Given these assumptions, intermittent fasting is not suitable for your unique needs as a professional athlete.

Going upwards of 15-16 hours without food places extreme demands on your system (in our context) and makes completing training challenging.

Trust me, I did it my entire first off-season. I trained fasted, got home, and would have to eat like an absolute glutton to ensure I got enough calories in my body in eight hours to make the entire process make sense.

In short, it doesn’t make sense.

Eat Breakfast

Given the fact that I’m anti-intermittent fasting for athletes, I consider it near dogmatic for you to consume some sort of breakfast in the morning.

The exception being if you have an intellectually demanding job or internship that forces you to be sharp first thing in the morning, then you may feel better going without food.

Note: I implore all of you to take it upon yourself to do something other than training and playing XBOX during the off-season. Get an internship in an area of interest that you want to explore professionally after baseball ends because it will, often times without a big-time paycheck to compensate you for your time that you spent chasing your dream. Take it from me, I graduated from Harvard and still felt unprepared heading into my post-baseball life.

If you aren’t typically a breakfast eater, I’ve found habit stacking to be the best means of getting into the routine. I’ll go into this more in another post, but try eating breakfast right after you brush your teeth or make your morning coffee. You’ll find it becomes habitual much quicker.

Here’s how you construct a good breakfast

Take care of your gut

This is going to be the subject of a whole slew of posts because it’s that important.

If you maximize the health of your gut, you’ll sleep better (with ridiculously awesome dreams), recover from training better (less inflammation), and you’ll feel better in terms of your energy and mood.

For brevity sake here, here’s what you can do to improve the health of your gut today:

Eat more green vegetables. It’s monotonous and boring but being successful is often monotonous and boring. The fiber in the vegetables feeds your gut bacteria.

Have more beans. Beans help improve insulin sensitivity and insulin sensitivity is a key ingredient in maximizing both health and building muscle.

Add potato starch to your diet. This has been the biggest game changer for me personally and has honestly changed my life. Bob Mill’s Potato Starch is cheap and incredibly effective. 2- 4 tbsp a day.

Buy a greens supplement

Despite the importance that vegetables play in keeping our bodies functioning at a high level, many of us will neglect to act on this pertinent information.

It happens and I’m guilty of this as well as it’s simply not sexy or much fun unless you’re a weirdo and love the taste of broccoli.

If you fall victim to this trap as well, buy a greens supplement. I prefer Amazing Grass Orac. If you’re a high roller, you could go with Athletic Greens although personally I think you get a much better bang for your buck with Amazing Grass.

Maximize Sleep Quality

Sleep is king. “Nough said.

Re-establish your stimulant tolerance. Cut down on the caffeine

The life of a professional baseball player means that you probably drink enough caffeine to kill a small animal. Given the lack of quality sleep available, it’s incredibly difficult to play for five to six months in a fatigued state without a pick me up in the form of caffeine.

That being said, the off season is a time to reduce your intake, regain sensitivity to caffeine, improve your ability to recover from training sessions and ensure better sleep quality.

If you need a coffee at 5 in the afternoon to get through the rest of the day, there are going to be many adverse effects down the road. For one, you won’t be getting much quality sleep as caffeine later in the afternoon prevents you from reaching the restorative phases of deep sleep, which in and of itself hurts your ability to recover.

Further, coffee is a driver of the sympathetic nervous system. After training, you want to spend as much time in a relaxing and restorative state as possible. Chugging espressos won’t allow you to do that.

It’s easy and ignorant to tell you to simply stop drinking coffee. You’ll hate your life and in turn hate me so I won’t be giving you that horrible advice.

Some may be able to stop cold turkey without any symptoms of withdrawal. If so, congratulations you’re an asshole and hated by millions throughout the world. If not, here’s what you can do:

Gradually reduce your caffeine intake

Let’s give an example of what I mean. Let’s assume your typical day is three coffees of 450 mg of caffeine total:

Day 1: 2 coffees, 1 green tea à ~400 mg of caffeine

Day 2: 2 coffees, 1 green tea à ~400 mg of caffeine

Day 3 : 2 coffees à ~300 mg of caffeine

Day 4: 2 coffees à ~300 mg of caffeine

Day 5: 1 coffee, 1 green tea à 250 mg

Day 6: 1 coffee, 1 green tea à 250 mg

Day 7: 1 coffee à 150 mg

Optimize your caffeine intake based on your circadian rhythm.

Brilliant article here on this method.

Use rhodiola rosea to combat fatigue associated with reducing caffeine intake

Rhodiola is a Scandinavian herb that has been used for centuries to combat fatigue.

I use it personally myself and love the anti-fatigue effect it has both chronically and acutely. Check out examine.com for more information.

Gaining weight doesn’t automatically equal functional velocity or power

Hard throwers or powerful hitters are often times the most efficient biomechanically.

Even if you aren’t necessarily considered a hard thrower by professional standards, it’s reasonable to assume that you probably are pretty efficient biomechanically. You don’t become a professional otherwise.

Given these assumptions, gaining weight doesn’t automatically mean you are going to throw harder as a result. You’re inducing a disruptive change in an efficient system and the end result isn’t always what you were expecting.

For me personally, gaining weight didn’t work but individual variance is going to play a large role in assessing whether or not it’s worth your while. Going into my first pro season I weighed 205 lbs but didn’t have the prototypical pitcher body as I was pretty muscle bound, both upper and lower body.

After my first off season, I went in weighing roughly 220 lbs and didn’t throw a tick harder. Going into my final comeback, I went into workouts weighing 235 lbs and again didn’t throw a tick harder.

Could my time have been spent better in some other capacity? Probably but it’s impossible to say given that I may have reached my genetic ceiling in terms of velocity.

The key is that I don’t have an exact answer for you. Given an assessment of what your body type is and your experience in the weight room, I could certainly provide you with an hypothesis but ultimately you must weight the potential positive and negatives because unlike bodybuilding, bigger isn’t always better.

Eat More of It

People can debate until the universe implodes about how much protein you actually need and how often. The truth of the matter is that I don’t really care and as professional athletes neither should you.

Being dogmatic about macronutrient numbers never got anyone closer to the big leagues.

What you do need to do is give your body an ample supply of nutrients on a regular basis in order to ensure an anabolic state to fuel your recovery sessions.

A good general rule of thumb is a source of protein every 4-6 hours and at the end of the day be somewhere around or north of your bodyweight. Do these things and you’ll be right around where you should be.

Leave worrying about the minutia to people wasting their time on bodybuilding forums.

Don’t miss the forest for the trees. Simplicity works

Kai Greene could be one of my favorite athletes. It’s not because I am a diehard fan of bodybuilding because I have no stake in that game but because he is the personification of committing to the process that in turns leads to great success.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTcya6SS3vI

It’s not sexy and in actuality it’s probably the furthest thing from sexy that it could possibly be.

In Kai’s world, getting to where he is today was built on a foundation where the basics were mastered. Prepping food ahead of time, eating every four to six hours, doing due diligence in training sessions that may not be sexy for the cameras but address his needs.

Now his needs are entirely different than yours as baseball players but the process is similar. To be successful nutritionally means that you execute the basics with dialed in precision. To me that means the following:

Providing the appropriate fuel for your body. That means foods with high nutrient density

Avoiding the minutia of stuff like intermittent fasting, carb back loading, or anything else that may distract you from a commitment to the basics.

Ensuring a commitment to adequate rest. Sleep is king, make sure you get plenty of it.

Balance is king and in no way should you not go out and have a good time. But there’s a big difference in going out a couple times a week and boozing every night. The latter will eventually catch up to you.

This list is far from encompassing but it should give you a good guideline when formulating your off season nutrition plans. In the future, I’ll go into more detail on each of these topics as well as other pertinent things relevant to your success.

Just don’t ask me what pre-workout you should be taking because that’s eyewash.

P.S. If you have any questions or want to get more details on how Chad and I would go about structuring your off-season, shoot us an email at showmestrength@gmail.com