You Wanna Progress? Sometimes You Gotta Regress!

Ask my boy Dan Allison about how critical regressing is. He's been powerlifting for the last 4 years or so, pushing his body to the limit. It's a necessity.

The title may sound a bit contradictory to conventional wisdom, but I'm going to breakdown why you should regress at certain times, how to do it, and when to do it.



The Why:
There are two different ways (right off the top of my head) to regress. One way is regressing an exercise due to the fact that you aren't ready to perform the current exercise that you wish to execute. Why should you regress it? Decrease chance of injury first and foremost, also because you want to avoid developing strength imbalances, avoid developing faulty movement and stabilization patterns, avoid looking like an assclown while performing it, and you want to keep getting stronger without sacrificing your health.

The other category has more to do with particulars of a training cycle which include intensity, volume, training environment, and frequency. These measures are usually used as a "taper" pre-competition for an athlete, but they can also be applied to the Average Bro. These all can lead to increased restoration which can lead to bigger lifts, better performance, and overall health. Chyeaaaa Boi!

The How:

In reference to exercise selection here are some ways to know how to regress if you need to:
1. Dynamic -----> Static
2. External Load ----> Bodyweight
3. Maximize Gravitational Pull ---> Minimize Gravitational Pull
4. Open Chain Exercise -----> Closed Chain Exercise
5. Decrease BOS (base of support)---->Increase BOS

Now variables of a training cycle:
1. Decrease intensity
2. Decrease volume
3. Change of scenery
4. Decrease of frequency of training sessions


Recovering from getting hammered with your bros, requires de-load in the form of some GTL with the fellas before going out and doing it again later.

The When:

For exercise selection its fairly simple. For example, if you aren't performing a front lunge properly because you lack the hip mobility and ankle mobility to do it without excessive anterior loading, then you would want to make it less dynamic to work on your hip and ankle mobility, loading your posterior chain, and probably proper stabilization patterns (long and tall spine for abdominal bracing, avoid shrugging, relaxed arms, engage external rotators of hip to avoid valgus of the knee). So a split stance squat would be a better option.

The point is to know when you aren't doing something correctly and know how to regress it. If you don't know how, then just drop me a line. CTPmike@yahoo.com. I'm always willing to help.

For the other variables of a training cycle it is a little bit trickier. Regressing will come in the form of a de-load week and can result in a de-load of all the training variables discussed. Which ones that are taken down a notch all depend on what your goals are. For instance, if you are working on developing max strength in the squat your weekly training split may look like this for someone with a 400 1 RM on the back squat....

Week 1(85% 1 RM): 300x5, 320x5, 340x5
Week 2:(87.5% 1 RM): 300x5, 325x5, 350x5
Week 3: work up to 1 working set at 60% 1 RM, 240x5
Week 4: (90% 1 RM): 315x5, 335x5, 360x5

For week 3 we dropped the intensity and the volume (not as many sets to work up to working sets for the day sine we were working with a much lower percentage). This will allow for full recovery (we hope) of the Central Nervous System, which will allow for our example to squash his weight in week 4 due to higher nerve conduction velocity, the rate at which the motor unit fires, synchronization of the muscle groups firing together, and the contractile ability of the fast-twitch muscle fibers (all of those are interrelated). Now again, this is just an example. And keep in mind, our example worked up to those working sets of 5 reps for each day. Always warm-up to your working sets.

Also, everybody is different. Our example may be ready for a de-load on the 3rd week of a training block while you may not be ready to your fourth or fifth. Keep training hard and get to know your body responds to different training means. Also, have a plan! You can't make progress if you don't have a plan to start from and reference as you go along.

The Anti-Broski Exercise Index: Push Up Hold with 3 Point Touch

This exercise is by no means sexy (sorry Mike Robertson, I had to steal that one from ya ;-)), but you can bet they will add a lot more quality to your program. Just don't count on "The Situation" to ever be performing these while gettin' his swell on. You can find him on the pec deck machine. That's how real mofo's get jacked and strong (please note sarcasm).

Exercise: Push Up Hold with 3 Point Touch

My apologies on the video not being directly on the blog page. I can't figure out how to get this mac to upload my videos.



What's the Point?:

There are a number of benefits that can be taken from this exercise. First, we can look at the core stability component. Specifically we are working on the shear forces that many find it difficult to overcome. A lot of times people do not have the proper stability patterns and core strength to perform this exercise properly. You will see rotation at the hips, lumbar spine, and thoracic spine to compensate for weakness/faulty stabilization patterns as well as inability to use the correct musculature to stabilize in the sagittal plane and in this you will see the hips pop up and rounded upper back.

Second, the arm that is in the closed kinetic chain (arm touching the surface) is getting the benefit of scapular stabilization. If you are in proper position (think big chest, avoid rounding the t-spine, and push through the ground as hard as you can), this will have huge benefits for serratus anterior activation, and you can turn your hand out to involve the external rotators of the GH joint as well.

Lastly, in the dynamic portion of the exercise we are getting some scapular mobility with the limb that is in the open kinetic chain (free moving). It may be minimal, but its still another benefit of this exercise.

How To Do It:
Start in the top position of a push-up. Push through the floor as if you were performing a scap-push up. This is where the scapular stabilization will come into play. Think big chest, abs braced (do not draw or "suck" in, think fill the belly with air and push out), and glutes tight. Once starting position is established reach out with one arm and make three touches. Think of it as a compass. So we will touch N, W (left arm), E (right arm), and S. You can reverse the pattern or start in the E or W. Each time you make three touches, that counts as one rep. Aim for at least 5 on each side.

Regress/Progress:

Progressions for this exercise go in this order:
1. Narrow base of support (bring feet closer together)
2. With OKC upper limb, increase the distance that you reach out for your three touches
3. Feet Elevated

Regressions for this exercise include:
1. Widen base of support (move feet further away from one another)
2. No reach. Just a hand lift.
3. Push Up Iso Hold
4. Cut the exercise out. Not everyone is ready to perform this exercise. The are a number of training effects that can be obtained from this exercise, and generally the more training effects we attack in a certain exercise then the more qualified you need to be to perform it. What constitutes qualified? Inability to perform a proper plank, not fully able to achieve scapular "flush"(I'm pretty sure I just made that up, but it sounds cool) in a scapular push-up, and lack of shoulder mobility would be a few red flags that I would say makes you ineligible to perform this exercise. Then again, I am by no means an expert so go ahead and try it hot shot.