Rosencutter Ultra Fitness & Performance

Could the competitive stage be in her future?

The last transformation story featured Joe Becker.  Joe has a favorite quote that was written by the man himself, Louie Simmons.  "Some men grow older, others grow stronger."  This is a brilliant quote and I'm going to go ahead and change "men" to "people." In this month's feature, Veronica Ariens, aka Big Ron the Ripper, will be featured and she is the definition of this quote. 

At 61 years young, she outtrains and outperforms most people in their twenties.  She is truly an inspiration.  Over the course of the last year, she has dropped around 9% bodyfat and is now in the low 20 percent range, which is considered excellent for females at any age let alone over 50. She has also shed inches off of her waist and abdomen. She can knock out pushups and pullups with the best of em, squat and deadlift well over her bodyweight and has developed the conditioning of an animal.

Even more impressive, she follows some amazingly consistent eating habits and it shows in both her physique and performance.  She has even been asked on more than one occasion if she is a cop.  There are some clients that, with a little guidance and direction, will go above and beyond what you would normally expect and take things into their own hands in order to push limits and achieve their goals.  Ronnie is one of those clients.  Even when she is not working directly with me, she gets in for extra workouts multiple days a week with her partner Gwen (who I'm sure will be featured soon as well).

Any females (and males for that matter) that think pain, injuries and osteoporosis are all that await you as you grow older and that you can't train hard and be an athlete after college have proof right here.  Get better everyday; there are no excuses.  In addition to the body comp changes in the pics below, take note of the great postural improvements all the way up and down the body, both in rotation and flexion/extension.  Big congratulations to Ronnie, keep up all of the amazing work!!

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After



Get to work kids.

Ronnie in action

This awesome transformation has taken place over the course of the last 4 months.  The pictures pretty much speak for themselves.

Joe came in to see me back in August and said that he wanted to take his body to higher levels that he'd never taken it before.  When I first consult with a potential client, I can usually tell within a few minutes whether or not they are serious and going to be successful with what they claim they want to do.  I knew right away that this guy was going to be successful with any goal he set. He wanted to get strong, powerful, ripped and in awesome overall shape.  Well, in 4 months hes accomplished more than many people do in 4 years.

Strength? Joe went from struggling to perform a proper bodyweight squat to front squatting 300 pounds.  He went from never really deadlifting at all to pulling 315 for reps.  He took his bench from 185 to 225.

Ripped?  Joe dropped around 11% bodyfat and 10 pounds.  He lost inches off his waist and hips and put on muscle everywhere else.  He dropped at least 8 millimeters on every single body fat site, including 20 on his abdomen site alone!! Look at the pics if you don't believe it. 

Great overall shape?  Kettlebell swing intervals, prowler pushing, box jumps, band sprints, circuits, sled work and plenty of specific energy system development to go along with the strength and muscle development. Movement and neuromuscular coordination has improved and back pain is gone.

Joe works extremely hard both in and out of the gym to better himself.  By training to get stronger and performing the proper conditioning along with practicing good diet including upping his eating frequency, cutting down processed food and getting ample protein, he has gotten himself along a successful path to a new body.  Sky's the limit from here.  May this be a piece of motivation to anybody out there who wants to change their life and body.  Stay tuned for more transformation stories coming up!

Before

I attended the Perform Better Summit in Chicago this past weekend for the second year in a row and as expected, it was another great learning experience.  I got to listen to and observe many great presenters and catch up with and meet friends and professionals from all over the country.  One great presenter that I saw was John Berardi, of Precision Nutrtition.  Berardi is one of the best, if not the best, nutrition experts on the planet.  He put forth a very simple, yet amazingly effective idea.  It is the concept of focusing on one small habit or goal at a time. 

Whether we are talking about exercise or nutrition, this concept can go a long way.  It is something that is overlooked far too often by many. Instead of trying to accomplish a hundred things at one time, picking one or two key things is usually much more effective.  With an exercise program, trying to get as strong as possible, as lean as possible, as aerobically endurable as possible, as powerful as possible and also trying to balance out the muscles around the pelvis and trunk because you have lower crossed syndrome along with a right external oblique that is not up to par with the left external oblique, all at the same time will most likely lead to less than desirable results.  Can it be done? Maybe.  With the right person and situation; but in most cases it will work much better to focus on a couple of key qualities at one time and progress/shift focuses when needed. 

This same concept carries over to coaching exercises. When I'm coaching, I usually coach one or two key things at a time.  New variables can be added in the next workout or maybe the next set depending on the situation and the person.  For example, if I am teaching a beginner how to squat, it would not be very effective if I said get tall, sit back, chest up, push your knees out, push your stomach out, keep your trunk tight, back locked in, grip the floor, drive through your glutes as you stand, etc. all at one time.  It would be ridiculous and overwhelming.  With a beginner in this situation, I might say get tall and sit back.  These are two key things that will help develop a good squat pattern.  Once they are nailed in, I can add in some more detail such as pushing the knees out/spreading the floor and filling the stomach with air before descending.  Keeping it simple and focusing on one aspect of technique at a time goes a long way.

When it comes to programs, many uninformed trainees constantly try the newest program that they see in a magazine or on the internet that promises to add 5 inches to their arms or 50 pounds to their bench in 5 weeks, without ever allowing ample time for their bodies to adapt and make any kind of real progress.  Of course, it is important to advance to different programs after a certain amount of time (depends on the physical quality and situation) but enough time must be given on one program to allow actual progress and progression to be made.  Changing programs every week will usually lead to no real progress and even regression.  Keep it simple. Allow the results to come and focus on the task at hand.  You aren't going to add 5 inches to your arms or a thousand pounds to your bench in 5 weeks anyway.  It takes time and dedication to get real results. 

This can also carry over to exercise selection.  You don't need fancy machines and crazy weight/bosu ball combos to get a great and effective workout.  Stick to the tried and tested basics.  Do your squat variations, deadlift variations, push, pull, move heavy stuff, sprint, etc. and give your body a stimulus to make it get better.  If you had to, you could make an entire workout out of a bodyweight squat.  You don't need a building full of fancy crap to get an awesome workout in and make yourself better.

Berardi related this concept to nutrition.  Instead of telling someone to eat protein at every meal, get 5 servings of veggies, 4 servings of fruits, take fish oils, drink more water, eat grass fed beef, eat a cup of almonds, get protein after a workout, cut down on soda and candy, etc. all at once, it can be much more effective to pick one small habit at a time.  He uses this concept effectively with many many clients through his Precision Nutrition coaching program.  One small and attainable habit or goal is focused on for two weeks and if that habit is successfully established after the two weeks, a new habit is introduced.  If it is not, a different one might be tried.

Nutrition is often the hardest thing to get clients to be compliant with because I am not following them around all day when they aren't at the gym.  During a workout, I can see technique, instruct on what to do next, etc. but I do not have direct control over what goes on the other tons of hours that they are outside of the gym on their own. For people who have had bad nutrition habits for any appreciable amount of time, it can be very hard to get things on track.  Coming into the gym and busting your ass a few days a week is great but if you go and eat processed garbage the other hundred some hours that are outside of the gym, progress will be halted, straight up.  So helping the client to decide on a small habit that they believe they can adapt can help tons. An example may be eating a serving of vegetables at 3 meals for the day.  This would be the goal for the next two weeks.  Not too hard to achieve, right?  Eventually this habit will be automatic and a new one can be added in.  These things will add up and the client will be much more successful.  It is something that I plan on using much more often with certain clients and their nutrition habits. 

This concept can also carry over to many other things in life.  For me right now, I train clients during the day, have school at night and then have plenty of things to do to stay on top of these major things. Instead of trying to accomplish fifty things at once, I will pick a few select goals each day and get them done.  If I have something due for school, I'll focus on getting that done.  If I have a program that needs to be written for a client, I'll get that done.  If you have to pay some bills, go to the bank, play with the kids, get reading done, catch up on stuff for work, etc.,  pick the most important things and focus on them at one time.  Prioritize and keep things simple.  Guess what, exercise and proper nutrition should always be at the top of the list.  I always hear people complain about how they have no time to exercise.  This is just not true.  I don't care if its 20 minutes a few times a week.  There is always a way to make time.  Make that workout one of your habits or your focus for the day and it will happen.

Simple can go a long way.  End of story.

Does anybody have any examples or thoughts on this concept?

This man knew a thing or two about keeping it simple

Relative flexibility is a very important phenomenon that most people do not even begin to understand.  Shirley Sahrmann details this concept beautifully.  In her book "Diagnosis and Treatment of Movement Impairment Syndromes," she sums up the concept like this: "Because of the intersegmental variations in the springlike behavior of muscles, a reasonable hypothesis is that increased stiffness of one muscle group can cause compensatory movement at an adjoining joint that is controlled by muscles or joints with less stiffness."  Basically what this  means is that a particular muscle may not actually truly be stiff; it is just stiffer than a neighboring muscle or muscles. Here's a couple of good examples that I see all of the time and that Sahrmann discusses.

Lats are stiffer than the lumbar spine
I see this all of the time when I take new clients through assessments.  Someone flexes their shoulder (raises their arm overhead) and their low back extends (most likely hyperextends) rather than their shoulder reaching through to its end range. Since their lumbar spine is more flexible than their lat, this compensation occurs.  Chances are, if we can get their trunk muscles to stabilize their lumbar spine and get the stiffness in the low back up to par with the stiffness in the lats, the range of motion in shoulder flexion will improve.  It could also be a situation where you may need to decrease some of the stiffness in the lats AND increase the stiffness in the lumbar spine.  This is a great example of why assessments are so important.

Rectus Femoris is stiffer than the abdominals and supporting structures of the lumbar spine
In this situation, the rectus femoris (big quad muscle that crosses the hip and knee) is stiffer than the supporting trunk muscles.  When the knee is flexed, there will be excessive anterior tilt of the pelvis and the low back will extend.  At the same time, the knee will not flex to its ideal range.  In this situation, if we increase the ability of the trunk muscles to stabilize and stiffen, we might get better range of motion in knee flexion and less pelvic tilt and lumbar extension. In another light, it could be a situation that rectus is so stiff, that the body has to compensate by extending the low back and tilting the pelvis when the knee is flexed.  There are various implications that could be present and Sahrmann gets into great detail on them all.  But hopefully, this gives you a decent idea of what I am talking about.  In my experience, it is most often a combination of stiffness in the talked about muscle and lack of stiffness/weakness in the supporting muscles.  Both would be addressed to make the situation better.  Again, everyone has specific things going on so not every condition will be taken care of in the same way. 

A good real time example would be with the squat.  Someone with an overly stiff rectus femoris in comparison to their low back will generally stand with their pelvis tilted forward and their low back extended past neutral.  With this stiffness imbalance, there will be compensations within their squat pattern.  As they descend into a squat, they will get to a certain depth and when their hips run out of room to move, they will move where their relative flexibility allows them to, which in this case is their low back.  With someone like this, in most cases, the rectus will need some lengthening and their abdominals (usually the external obliques) will need some strengthening.  The glutes and hamstrings usually will need some work as well.  When you increase the ability of the muscles that posteriorly tilt the pelvis (abdominals, glutes, hamstrings, etc.) and improve the length in the muscles that anteriorly tilt the pelvis (in this case rectus femoris), the relative flexibility will be better and the squat will be a lot prettier with a stable trunk and mobile, nice moving hips. 

As I said earlier, it could be a condition where all you need to do is stretch rectus and your fine.  Could also be a condition where all you need to do is stiffen up the lumbar spine and your good.  From my experience, it is often some form of combination.  Whichever way it is, taking care of problems with relative flexibility can relieve a multitude of back, knee and shoulder pain and problems.

Hamstrings stiffer than the low back
Here is one more good example.  If you lay on your back and raise your leg straight up, how high can you go without your low back flattening into the ground?  If your hamstring is stiffer than your low back, your back will try to compensate by flattening in order to gain more movement.  A little trick to get your leg higher is to brace your abdominals as if someone is going to punch you in your stomach.  The added stability for your lumbar spine will allow your leg to raise farther without loss of a neutral spine.  This example is tricky though because if it is truly hip flexor muscles that are stiff, the pelvis may be anteriorly tilted to start; thus, giving the illusion of the hamstrings being the issue when in reality it is the hip flexors that are the issue.  See my past write up on misconceptions about hamstring stiffness to read more on this.  Either way, bracing the abdominals will help your cause with the leg raise. Being sure that the pelvis is in a neutral position to start can clear things up.

Notice how all of these examples feature an issue with the lumbar spine being unstable and too mobile?  Stability and the ability to stiffen when needed needs to be developed around the abdominal wall and lumbar spine.  The inability to do this is one of the biggest and most repeated causes of back issues, knee issues and performance detriments that you will find.  Yet, tons of people continue to promote more movement here with blind stretches and exercises.  I've touched on this multiple times as have some of the best strength coaches, therapists and specialists in the world.  Rationalize what you do.  If you really do need more movement here, than by all means you better work on it.  In my experience, this is a rare case. 

Randomly and blindly training for flexibility does many people more harm than good.  If you took the person from either of the last two example and stretched his low back and trunk muscles, his problem would become worse.  Both strength training and flexibility training need to be individualized and specific.  Relative flexibility is a great and proven concept. Contrary to conventional wisdom, sometimes stretching might not even be needed to improve flexibility at a certain joint.  Simply balancing out the relative flexibility by increasing the stiffness at a supporting or neighboring joint will take care of the movement at the area in question.  Think about how this could revolutionize what you do in the gym or in your sport.  Pretty powerful stuff!

Where do you think his flexibility/stiffness imbalance is?

Franco surely had better relative flexibility for the deadlift than the guy in the last picture

Check out Mark.  Since the end of August, he has lost 26 lbs and 8% bodyfat. He has also lost 4.5 inches off of his hips and 4 inches off of his waist.  He no longer has pain in his back and he trains like an animal.  Hes knocking out pullups for sets of 10 and now looks like an athlete when he trains. He moves better, feels better and certainly looks better.  I couldn't be more proud of his progress. 

 

Jessica has been training with me twice a week for around 4 months now.  From the time we started to today, she has lost 7% bodyfat, 4 inches off of her hips, 3 inches off of her waist, and 15 pounds.  The first pic is from two months in and the second was taken a couple of days ago.  While I don't have pictures from the very beginning (didn't have my camera yet),  you can see some great improvements over the last two months.   She works harder than most people I have seen and its paying off big time. 

2 months in

a little over 4 months in, (now)