If you haven't already read part one, then check that out first. Aside from the overview in part one, here are some other key points I took away from PRI's Postural Respiration.

*The diaphragm often gets stuck acting as a postural muscle instead of a respiratory muscle when things are out of whack/position. Position needs to be restored and diaphragm needs to restore its respiratory function.

*Right hemidiaphragm pushes air into the left lung and left into the right lung. Since we favor our right hip and have our liver on the right, we have an easier time getting air into the front of our left chest wall and a harder time getting it into our right anterolateral chest wall (mentioned this in part one). We need to get air into our left posterior mediastinum (posterior thorax) and right chest wall better. An important component of making this happen is developing our left abs (obliques) to help balance out the stronger right diaphragm.

*We often need to hypoinflate left ribs and hyperinflate right ribs; maximize exhalation on left and inhalation on the right and alternate.

*Neutrality is found when the diaphragm is contracting without the expense of extension and there are smooth transitions between left and right during gait. (Someone with an anterior tilted pelvis and hyperlordosis in the low back will tend to extend excessively to breathe, leading to unwanted back stress).

*Underneath every symmetrical movement is an asymmetrical challenge. I.e even if you are doing barbell squats bilaterally, there is still a war going on between left and right underneath that double leg squat. This supports my belief that bilateral and unilateral training should have a good balance in a program to keep things in check as doing only bilateral work will ultimately lead to an overpowering side (can you guess which one).

*Positions proceed patterns. To change a pattern, we need to reposition first. For example, if a muscle is not firing correctly or a muscle is inhibiting another muscle, we need to check position first because without proper positioning, neuromuscular patterning/firing will be off. If we restore position and THEN there is a neuromuscular problem, we can deal with it. Same story with movement in general. Until we get control of our pelvis and ribs, movement won't be ideal.

*The sphenoid, sacrum and sternum are the base points that all positioning branches off of.

*Modern day ergonomics lock us into the patterns mentioned earlier. We need to get out of them.

*Since the left brain has more responsibilities for speech and language and controls the opposite side of the body, the right upper extremity becomes dominant with communication, development and growth. This pattern needs to be balanced with neurologic and muscular activity on the left.

*The normal imbalances mentioned need to be regulated by reciprocal function with walking, breathing and turning. When they are not, weakness, instability and musculoskeletal pain often results. “Balancing muscle activity around the sacrum (pelvis), the sternum (thorax) and the sphenoid (middle of the head) through a PRI approach best positions multiple systems of the human body for appropriate integrated asymmetrical function.” This quote is taken from the PRI manual and sums up a real good point. It is a matter of being positioned well enough to work effectively in our normal asymmetrical state. This is what neutral means. Many people (including myself at first) get confused when they talk about neutral. Neutral does not mean symmetrical. It means being able to control and function optimally with the normal asymmetries that our body has and is supposed to have while avoiding overcompensations, pain and performance detriments.

*Being out of position can often stem from neurological reasons. For example, if you experience some kind of trauma whether it be an injury, an event such as a car accident or abuse, your body will generally go into sympathetic fight or flight mode.  When you go sympathetic, your body has a good chance of falling deeper into these positional patterns mentioned earlier.  So, you might be out of position (i.e. left AIC pattern or PEC pattern) as a result of your fight or flight response.  I actually have a client who was doing well improving her left AIC/right BC pattern (shifted right, pelvis rotated left side forward, poor apical expansion on the right, left rib flare, etc.) and getting rid of pain nicely.  She then got into a car accident and she went backwards, getting back into her old habits again. This was most likely a sympathetic response from the accident.  A month after the accident doing the appropriate exercises and drills, she is better than ever.  It is a very fascinating phenomena.

*Everything from vision to in uterine position can influence asymmetrical habits and patterns. Take someone who has had Lasik eye surgery and you will probably see some changes in muscle tone in their back, balance and certain patterns since their brain now has a changed sensory input with the improved vision and depth perception.

*A flat thoracic spine will result in an unstable scapula. Until flexion is restored, many scap exercises will not be as effective. In my experience and past learning, its usually been about improving thoracic extension. Many people actually do need better thoracic flexion.

*We need to get serratus anterior, low trap and tricep functioning optimally so that we can reach without excessive spinal/trunk rotation and maintain a stable position of our ribs and spine

*After digging into this stuff, I am amazed at how many people I see out in public standing on their right hips, with their left legs crossed into external rotation and/or right legs crossed into adduction/internal rotation, right shoulders lower and so forth.  These patterns start to emerge right in front of your eyes.  The assessments I have been doing (didn't cover this specifically in this article) continue to follow suit with much that the base courses cover as well. 

In conclusion, it was a great course and on top of the things mentioned here, I picked up some great manual techniques and exercises to help facilitate better breathing function in people. I look forward to exploring the rest of their courses and deepening my understanding of the complex and asymmetrical body that we as humans live with.  There is always so much to learn.

If you'd like to dig deeper, I'd highly recommend looking up stuff by Bill Hartman, Zac Cupples, Patrick Ward and Eric Oetter to name a few.  They all have some brilliant insight with this material and have been studying it longer than I.  Of course, you can also go to the source at posturalrestoration.com  Thanks for reading.

(This picture will make sense later)

I recently took a great course put on by the Postural Restoration Institute (PRI) called Postural Respiration (actually a few months ago; its just taken me forever to get to this article with my oh so crazy schedule).  PRI holds multiple courses that deal with analyzing, treating and dealing with imbalance in systems of the body. The main idea behind their practices is the fact that the human body is asymmetrical by nature. No human being is meant to be perfectly identical side to side. Some main facts about our static design show this: We have a liver in our right abdominal cavity, a larger hemi-diaphragm on the left, a pericardium and heart that is on the left and three lobes on our right lung versus two on our left. Because of these major static asymmetrical design components, we develop dynamic asymmetries that come about with our everyday functions.

We tend to favor and stand on our right hip with our left pelvis rotated forward (right hip becomes adducted/internally rotated and left becomes abducted/externally rotated), crunch down on our right trunk/ab wall, and rotate our upper thorax to the left to counteract the pelvic rotation to the right, creating left anterior rib flare and right posterior rib hump. They classify specific patterns that we fall into as Left AIC (anterior interior chain), PEC (posterior exterior chain), BC (brachial chain, usually right bc) and other patterns up into the head/neck/face and vision. I'm not going to get into details of these for the purposes of this article but they basically specify certain chains of muscles that are overactive or inhibited with different positions we get stuck in, in most cases right being different than left.

Continuing on, with our liver on the lower right and heart on the upper left, we tend to get air into our left chest wall better than our right. We have more lymphatic drainage on the left. Left and right parts of the brain control different sides and areas of the body. The list goes on. We are asymmetrical animals. This is normal.


Ok so what is the purpose of analyzing and treating people then if this is normal?


With these asymmetries present, we still need to have the ability keep things “in check” and function effectively for activities of daily living and sport. Looking at gait (they base everything off of this), we need to reciprocally get into and out of our left and right hip with adequate rotation and movement of our thorax, ribs and extremities. Right hip and left arm move/work together, left hip and right arm together, etc. etc. Problems come about when we lose the ability to keep things in check and can no longer get out of that right hip and fully into the left as we move. We get stuck on the right and in a half assed attempt to make the left work, we jack the left hip out of place and activate stabilizers on the right side excessively to try and stay upright and functional. This carries up to multiple compensations in the abdominals, thorax, shoulders, head, neck, face and eyes and down to the knees, ankles and feet.

At the root of all of this is our breathing; our diaphragm function. Breathing is what controls everything else in the body. If our breathing is off, something else is pretty much guaranteed to suck. If something else sucks, then you better believe that even something else is going to start sucking. You get the idea. When our pelvis is out of position (left side forward, shifted right) our thorax rotates the opposite way in an attempt to get ourself somewhat centered. When this happens, our right ribs tend to get stuck in a state of exhalation and our left ribs in a state of inhalation (look at rib flare). When we don't get air into our right chest wall due to this occurence, our right shoulder gets out of position and compensations, pain and injuries can then occur there, such as losing internal rotation on the right shoulder and losing horizontal abduction on the left shoulder. This is not a situation where “stretching” would be needed to gain internal rotation. Simply repositioning the ribs and sternum and restoring airflow into the right chest wall will allow IR to return on its own. I have gotten multiple clients back to full IR without touching their shoulder since I've started experimenting with this stuff.


Again, breathing function and mechanics are at the root of all of this. Many people, in our society especially, tend to get stuck in a hyper inflated state of constant tension, never fully exhaling and never fully relaxing. Their brains get stuck in sympathetic fight or flight mode, leading to excess tension in muscles, nerves and organs throughout the body; hello back and neck pain. Instead of having a zone of apposition (ideal alignment between ribs, pelvis and diaphragm to get optimal airflow with inhalation and exhalation), many develop a “zone of anxiety" where hyperventilation and panic lives. Without proper breathing, our brains freak out and start causing chaos in our muscles, nerves, joints and movement. Restoring full exhalation allows us to get back towards parasympathetic, rest and relax mode or at least somewhere closer to the middle.



Parasympathetic (Rest & Relax)----------Sympathetic (Fight or Flight)


Some people just need to breathe, period. Some need to get air into their right chest wall better. Some need to stop using their neck muscles to breathe. Some need to stop breathing with all belly and get their sides and back involved. Some need a combination of all of these things. Bottom line is: breathing is the key to many, many things that are kind of a big deal. You know, like brain function, blood ph levels, emotional stress, organ function, movement, joint alignment and position, walking, fatigue, sports performance, pain, relationships, sex, crushing heavy weights. Cool things like that!

So, if your pelvis and ribs are out of position, breathing will be off and if your breathing is off, pelvis and ribs will probably have an easy time being out of position, and if all of this is happening, other things are going to suck. Restore position, restore breathing and you will be golden (and less things will suck).


This is just the surface of a nutshell of what is all covered with these courses and their research and study. Specific assessments, treatments and exercises are used to identify exactly what issues someone is having (that is usually causing pain) and to improve the problem at hand and get people back to neutral. (Neutral meaning we can function effectively without excessive compensation; there will still be some natural, normal asymmetries no matter what).  In my next post, I will go over some other key points that I took away from the course.

Here is the second part to a previous article written by Dan Zwirlein. Whatever your goals may be, proper nutrition is huge.  If you didn't already read the first part, check it out with the link below.  Take it away Dan!
...........................


In the first compliance article, I talked about why people have trouble seeing results from their prospective fitness programs. In review, this usually stems from what they are doing outside of the gym rather than inside the gym, and it has to do with their compliance/adherence to a nutritional plan. In this article, I want to expand on this idea and give more thoughts/tips on how to develop a more disciplined nutrition plan for better body composition.




A common question is “so then what do I eat?”, “what is healthy eating?” “what is considered clean eating?”. This is a hot topic in the nutrition today: what really is clean eating or what is healthy? Honestly, I don't think there is an accurate description of what clean eating is and if you asked someone to give you a formal definition, I don't think they could. That's one of the major flaws with the clean eating concept: it means something different to everyone. There was a very good article just written about this topic and I suggest everyone checks it out. You can find it here. Basically, the article debunks the notion of “clean” eating; meaning there aren't actually groups of clean and dirty foods respectively. For example, the body doesn't have different processes for digesting, utilizing, and storing nutrients from so called clean foods vs. dirty foods; i.e., fat from cookies isn't digested and stored differently than fat from avocado. Your body doesn't know the difference between the macro nutrients it receives from these different foods. Obviously, there is a difference between the complete nutritional profile of a cookie and a vegetable, and you shouldn't use this as an excuse to eat as much cookies and ice cream as you want even though it still fits your macro nutrient profile.




So what can we do with this information to make educated decisions about our nutrition? It doesn't really change anything but the mindset, meaning you still should concentrate on eating nutrient dense foods a majority of the time. The 90% rule still applies but now your outlook on those supposed cheat meals is different. There is nothing unhealthy with enjoying a treat for 10% of your meals IF it is planned properly and accounted for in your total caloric intake. This way you don't have to worry about it completely derailing your progress. Keep in mind though that something that is “unhealthy” might be “healthy” for someone else based on their goals or medical condition. Its all about the right context. HOWEVER, once again we are talking about 10% of your meals, which still means only about once a week. The biggest point I want to make is that your focus shouldn't be on the 10% of meals, it should be on the 90%. The other thing I want to emphasize is the fact that these are planned single meals and snacks that must fit within your weekly caloric intake, not all day binges that some suggest.




The 90% meals should be a combination of protein, fat, and carbs in ratios that help you reach your goals. For weight loss, that means about a gram of protein for every lb of your targeted body weight. (The same is true if you are trying to put on muscle) So if you weigh 200 lbs but you want to weigh 185 lbs you would consume about 185 grams of protein. Fat intake would be up to half of your protein intake and carbs will vary based on your goals and activity level. For example, someone trying to put on muscle mass or an athlete will need more carbohydrates in their diet than the average person looking for weight loss. These are all estimates and can be adjusted as needed; they are just a good basic guideline to start with.




The sources of your protein, fat, and carbs for the 90% of your meals should be your main focus. Whole food sources including quality meats, eggs, fruits, vegetables and certain healthy starches and grains (depending on the goal at hand). A good rule of thumb is if it didn't grow, run, fly, or swim then don't eat it. For most people starting out, this is a challenge just in itself. Changing 90% of their meals to some combination of these foods will be enough to make a large difference. This is why in the previous article I talked about making small progressive changes that can lead to long term habitual change. I want to make another point clear however: calories DO matter. This means that besides quality, the QUANTITY of food still needs to be monitored. It doesn't matter if you only eat things that I just mentioned, if you still eat too much you will not burn as much fat or lose as much weight, if at all.




What a typical meal should look like:

About a palm size portion of protein of your choice ( Grass fed Beef, Eggs, Chicken Breast, Pork, Salmon, etc., some type of vegetable, and a starch like a potato/sweet potato or some oats in equal portions. You should get your fats from the meat sources, eggs, avocados, and cook with things like grass fed butter, olive oil, or coconut oil.




This article is supposed to be about compliance right? So now lets talk about more ways to help with compliance within the framework of ideas I've been talking about. I think the best way to stay compliant within your 90% meals is to have a plan of attack and stick to the plan as much as you can. One of the best ways to stick to a nutritional plan is to limit your choices. Find a few meals that you like, are easy to make, and fit within the framework of your macro nutrient intake (carb, protein, and fats) and stick to them. There will always be ways to spice things up later or add more choices in. Limiting your choices early on helps you take the guessing work out of preparing food and inherently keeps you more disciplined because you only have a couple of meals to choose from. This also forces you to develop good habits. If you eat just about the same things everyday you can form a routine around these meals.




Preparing of multiple meals is also a great way to increase nutritional compliance. If you prepare all your meals ahead of time it keeps you on a plan, and like limiting your choices, you are forced to stay on your plan because the food is already prepared. A big barrier for a lot of people to stay compliant is meal preparation. There is work involved in preparation of meals, and when people are short on time or they just don't feel like cooking, they look for something quick and easy. What types of foods are usually quick and easy to make? Not usually things that fall into the grow, run, fly, or swim category.




Decrease the amount of times you are eating out. This goes hand in hand with preparing meals ahead of time, which will limit the need for eating out as much. Lets face it, as I already mentioned, most people don't enjoy meal prep so going out to eat or ordering something is an easy cop out; however, once you decide to go out your chances of sticking to a plan diminish quite a bit, because you really are no longer in complete control of what you are eating. It is easy to get off track when there are so many restaurant and menu choices out there. Not to mention, now you really are not in control of the portion sizes or what exactly is being used to cook the meal. By limiting the times you are out, you avoid temptation, stay on track, and best of all save money.




Limit alcohol consumption. This might be the biggest nutritional hurdle for a lot of people. They don't realize how many extra calories they are consuming just from alcohol alone. For some it means getting rid of half a day's worth or even a full days worth of meals in calories each week just by dropping alcohol consumption down! I am not saying to never drink alcohol, but it should be limited to a couple drinks a week or special occasions.




Drink Super Shakes. Even If you prepare all your meals ahead of time there will still be those situations where you need some nutrition in a pinch. Having a few go to super shakes that are quick and easy to make are a good way to stay on track and satiated until you have time to eat more whole foods. But remember, you shouldn't just live off of shakes, it is necessary to eat whole food as much as you can.




Find out what a super shake includes here.




If all else fails try preparing all your meals from a lean eating cook book. There are many good options out there these days but I would recommend:




Gourmet Nutrition




Practical Paleo (Disclaimer: You would need to add in more carbs when using this one.)




4 hour chef ( Disclaimer: This is more than a cook book but a very interesting read.)







With this information in hand I don't think anyone should have a problem making some healthier choices, especially if you take the time to make a plan and follow through with it. Using just some of the tips I've outlined in these two articles should give you everything you need to be successful. The key is actually making the time not taking the time. You make time for things that are important to you and what's more important than your health?

A common mistake people tend to make with their lunge, or single leg squat variations in general, is caving or falling over as they go down or come out of the bottom.  This can be due to abdominal, low back or hip weakness, improper breathing or just poor neuromuscular coordination.  Whatever the reason, it is important to stay tall during the lunge (looking at the reverse lunge here) while driving through the hip.  Here is a great exercise to help teach proper hip drive while staying tall.  It is also just a killer exercise in general that can be loaded real easily and also hits the entire core real nice.  Peep the vid.

When is the last time you hurt your back? Yesterday picking up a grocery bag? Helping your buddy move last month? Getting up off the toilet wrong as you were reading the latest Mens Health magazine? Picking up your girlfriend to twirl her around until you dropped her when you spasmed up? Well if you answered yes to any of these then you better keep reading this article. If you didn't answer yes to any of these, you still better keep reading this article. If you are here for any reason at all, you better keep reading this article.

Building upon the last question, when is the last time you hurt your back intentionally? I'm going to go ahead and guess that for many of you, the answer to this question is never or not recently. I don't mean when is the last time you hurt your back as in intentionally injured yourself. I'm saying when is the last time you straight up went to war in the weight room and made a solid effort to train, strengthen and bulletproof your back muscles. If you don't know when that time was, then perhaps you deserve all of the aches, pains and injuries you sustain with mundane little tasks like picking up a grocery bag to get out your crap food that you don't need or the crap food that you think is good for you because some garbage magazine said that it was but it really isn't and is in fact, in all reality, crap.

Now, before going further, let me make it perfectly clear that hip mobility and stability, glute function, abdominal endurance and stability, lumbopelvic stability, proper movement patterns, good thoracic spine mobility and solid control all around the pelvis and spine is of huge importance and should always be developed for optimal back health. McGill's stuff, Sahrmann's stuff and all of the movement impairment and corrective stuff out there is all awesome and needs to be addressed. What I am going to write about today is something that, at least in my eyes, you don't hear a whole lot about anymore. Actually training the heck out of your low and mid back and developing bulletproof muscular support, strength and endurance all around your spine and back region. There are tons of muscles to be developed and while glute work, abdominal work, etc. are all important, the back needs to be trained and trained hard. It seems to me that many have almost become scared to train their back because of all of the info that is now out there about stability, hip function, etc. Iliocostalis, longissimus, spinalis, multifidus, rotatores, semispinalis, quadratus lumborum, lats, trapezius and even the deep little intertransversarii and interspinalis muscles make up just a general summary of the many muscles that make up the lower region of the back (many of which continue up into the rest of the back on up into the neck). Want to be freakishly strong? Better train these muscles. Want to get big and muscular? Better train these muscles. Want to get lots of chicks (or, umm, good looking guys)? Better train these muscles. Want to prevent unnecessary episodes of back pain? Better train these muscles.

More commonly than should occur, I have clients “alert” me that their backs hurt or were sore after certain workouts. Now, “pain” as in bad pain that occurs from a tear or passive tissue injury is not something we want and if this is in fact occurring, the program needs to be modified for that individual or you need to learn how to use proper form. However, muscular soreness from training hard with solid exercises like deadlifts, back extensions, reverse hypers and good mornings is something that we need to push through with. Now, if your back is completely torched all the time and you don't feel much in your glutes or hamstrings, then you should probably reevaluate your technique or program. But if your back is sore or hurting sometimes after a hard training session, then maybe your building up some tolerance in those tissues where it needs to be built up. Maybe your toughening those tissues up so that next time you want to pick up that bag of groceries or carry that piece of equipment across the yard, you won't curl over and use three forms of the “f” word. Because when it comes down to it, if you never train those muscles and tissues and are afraid to put some positive stress through those muscles and tissues, when you do put some unexpected stress through them, you can easily run into problems.

If you look at some stuff out there by guys like Louie Simmons and Chuck Vogelpohl, some of the strongest men to ever walk the planet, they even go as far as to say you should do some exercises with a “bad” or rounded back position to build some tolerance in the tissues so that if you do catch yourself in that position, nothing “bad” will happen. When I worked at a corporate wellness center in La Crosse, my boss at the time, Cori Cripe had general population clients do some exercises with “natural” form (which often was not textbook like) so that if they found themselves in a bad position in a real life situation, their body would be prepared for it. I think that this is an interesting concept because while we can train proper body mechanics as much as possible, there will usually be some odd situation where we might not be able to use picture perfect form. Look at some strongman activities or warehouse jobs. While I don't think doing tons of sets and reps with “less than perfect” positioning is a good idea and that people absolutely need to learn and train with proper mechanics first and foremost, I think this idea has some value for certain people. The main point that I am getting at is that we can't be afraid to train the low/mid back and put it through some work.

Deadlift heavy, do your back extensions, perform reverse hypers, do good mornings all morning, row and pull heavy, swing plenty of kettebells and do things like these until you have some nice steaks on each side of your spine. (Of course learn proper form and use good hip drive w/ a good back position) Train each side and get the deeper fibers with side holds, side bridges, cable chops, heavy carries and windmills. Get a little dirty with it. Build a fortress. Get rolling. Have a little soreness? Good!! Get stronger. Build some endurance in those fibers (research shows back extensor endurance is a huge part of preventing back issues). The more tolerance you have in the wide array of tissues back there, the easier everyday activites will be, the stronger your body will be as a whole, the more muscle you will build and the more members of the opposite sex you will attract. A strong, endurable, muscular and well developed back is the cornerstone of a fit and strong body (talking mainly about low/mid back in this article but upper is just as important; i.e. do your rows and face pulls:). That goes for males and females. While pecs, arms and abs get all the attention in many “circles,” the back is where its truly at. It is the base for everything else. So train it and reap the rewards.

Todd Maier is a lieutenant at the St Francis Fire Department.  I've had the privilege of working with his wife Penny for over 2 years.  Her amazing progress finally inspired him to start getting serious about training this past fall.  He quickly took everything in and his hard work ethic both in and out of the gym has carried over to many others in his department.  He has gotten pretty ripped, stronger and out of pain in around 8 months time.  He is proof that hard work and dedication with training and diet will lead to awesome results.  From September 2011 to February 2012, he went from ~27% bodyfat to ~16% bodyfat. Looking at the last pictures shown down below (taken in May), he is now under 10% and lean. Peep the photos kids.

Training has been going great the last 4-5 months and I've been hitting some nice weights on multiple lifts. I'm hoping to get back on the platform this summer.   Heres video of my workout from yesterday where I work up to a 675lb reverse band rack deadlift and a 315lb zercher squat for 5 reps; the rest of the workout is listed in the video after the main lifts. 

I'll list a couple of other notable workouts I've had lately in no particular order. 

Max floor press week 1
Floor Press w/ 40lbs of chain 135lbsx3 185lbsx3 225lbsx3 245lbsx3 275lbsx3 PR 285lbsx2 (325lbs w/chains) PR 225lbsx12
Lockouts (pin3, ~top half of press) 225lbsx3 315lbsx3 335lbsx3 365lbsx3 405lbsx2 PR
Incline db press 85lbs 3x15-10  
Chest supp row 1platex5 2platesx5 2plates&25lbx5 2plates&35lbx5 3platesx4.5
One arm pulldown 60-80lbs 3x7-8
Rolling db extensions 40lbs 2x8-10 50lbsx8 45lbsx8 Chain extensionsx20
One arm rev curl 65lbs 3x8
Chest supp Y 12lbs 3x10-15
External rotation at side 15lbs 2x12

Max floor press week 2
Floor Press w/ 32lbs of chain 135lbsx3 185lbsx3 225lbsx1 275lbsx1 300lbs2x1 PR (340lbs w/ chains)
225lbsx~10
One arm face pull 30-60lbs 5x8-12 (in between sets)
Rack lockouts (hole 3) 225lbsx3 315lbsx3 365lbsx2 405lbsx1 315lbsx8
Incline db press 85lbs 3x8-15
Chest supp row +45lbsx5 +70lbsx5 +90lbsx5 +125lbsx5 +115lbsx6PR +90lbsx10
One arm  pulldown 60lbs 3x8
Db extensions 40lbsx8 band pushdowns grey 3x8-10
One arm rev cable curl 50lbs 3x8
One arm chest supp Y 15lbs 3x8-10
Ext rotation at side 3x10-12

Max Box Squat week 1 at Badgers Facility
Buffalo Bar Box Squat w/ 88lbs of chains  (buffalo bar is 52lbs) worked up to 282lbs+chainsx3 322lbs+chainsx3 (410lbs) PR 332lbs+chainsx2 (420lbs) PR  332lbs+chainsx3 232lbs+chainsx8
Trap Bar Deadlift 1platex5 2platesx5 3platesx5 4platesx5 3platesx5
One leg glute ham raise 3x8
One leg belt squat machine 3x8  (+10-+45lbs)
Reverse hypers +90lbs 3x~20reps
Hanging leg raises, high to low rope chops, offset farmers carry
Clams/side leg raises/psoas raises/adductions
Belt squatx20/belt pullx20 3rds nonstop  airdynex20s



Max Box Squat week 2
Saturday
Box Squat w/ ~80lbs of chain 135lbsx3 185lbsx3 225lbsx1 275lbsx1 315lbsx1 335lbsx1 355lbsx1 PR 365lbsx1 PR (445lbs w/chains)  315lbsx5 PR 225lbsx6
Yoke Bar Good Morning off rack 132lbsx5 172lbsx5 222lbsx5 262lbsx5
One leg press 2platesx8 3plates 2x8 3plates&25lbx8
One leg glute ham raise 2x8  ghr w/ grey band 3x8-10
One leg reverse hyper short strap +70lbs 3x8 Lateral kb lunge 52lbs 3xreps
High to low chop 90lbs 2x8 Hanging leg raise straight and to sides 2xreps
Offset kb carry 52lbs 2x fwd and bwd

From about a month back
Wednesday
Front Reverse Lunge 95lbsx5 135lbsx5 185lbsx5 235lbsx5 PR 205lbsx5 135lbsx5 w/ pause
Barbell One leg hip thrust 135lbsx5 155lbs2x5 135lbsx5
Tall kneeling cable hold 40lbs 2x8
Hanging circumductions 3xreps
High to low chop 80lbs 2x8
Long strap reverse hyper +90-+140lbs 3x12-20

A couple weeks ago
Speed Box Squat 135lbs+greensx2 185lbs+greensx2 205lbs+greens ~6x2
Speed Deads 135lbsx2 225lbs 4x2
Step up 135lbsx5 185lbsx5 215lbsx5 225lbsx5 PR
One leg bb hip thrust 135lbsx5 155lbs2x5
Reverse Hyper long strap +180lbs 3x12-20
Tall kneeling cable hold 50lbs 2x8
Hanging/cap chair oblique/leg raises 3xreps 
High to low chop 90lbs 2x8
One leg calf raise/ reverse raises

A couple months ago
Saturday one
Reverse Band Box Squat w/ greens  straight weight warmup 135,225,315 bands on  365lbsx1 405lbsx1 455lbsx1 495lbsx1 505lbsx1 PR 405lbsx5
Sumo Deads off rack (floor level, speed) 225lbsx5 315lbsx3 365lbsx2 335lbsx3 315lbsx5
Sled Drag 5-6plates fwd bwd 3 trips
Reverse Hypers long strap one leg/dbl leg 180-230lbs 4x8-10
Back extensions 2x15-20 w/ rotation on 2nd set/ reverse hyper 180lbsx20
Hanging leg/knee raise 3x15-20  Horizontal cable chop 70lbs2x8
Suitcase hold 115lbs2x6
Band one leg curl  grey 3x12
One leg calf raise/reverse 3x6

Saturday two
Zercher Squat off rack w/ yoke bar 122lbsx3 172lbsx3 222lbsx3 262lbsx3 312lbsx3 PR 332lbsx1 PR 352lbsx1 PR 372lbsx1 PR 402lbsx1 PR 172lbsx5
Good Morning off rack w/ yoke bar 122lbsx5 172lbsx5 222lbs2x5 172lbsx8
Sled drag 6platesxd*b 7platesxd*b 8platesxd*b
Back extensions (45deg) avg band 2x12-15, offset kb x16/bwx10 w/rotation
  Superset w/ Roller Reverse Hyper +90lbs 3x10-15
Band one leg curl avg band 3x12,12,10
Hanging leg raises 3x8-15 alt raisesx~20 leg/knee raise pulse above 90xreps
High to low cable chop 70lbsx8/side 80lbsx8/side
Suitcase hold 135lbs 2x8
Calf raises dbl and sgl, dorsiflexions dbl and sgl



Those workouts are taken straight from my  log.  Essentially my training schedule right now looks like this.
Monday- Speed Work for Bench if in cycle, Overhead work, accessories with shoulders/arms focus

Wednesday- Speed or power work for squat/deadlift, heavy single leg variation, accessories for glutes/hams/back/abs/quads, etc.

Thursday- Max Strength Upper w/ a heavy press and pull variations, accessories w/ more of a chest/back focus

Saturday- Max Strength Lower w/ accessories for glutes/hams/back/abs/quads/etc.

Conditioning 2-3 days a week for extra workouts

I still do lots of low/mid trap and tricep work on my upper days and lots of glute/oblique work on my lower days.  These have been weak points I've been bringing up the last couple of years.

I've been doing 4 week cycles of max strength and speed strength work followed by 2-3 week cycles of deloading from barbell work with mostly moderate to high rep sets with exercises like pushups, goblet squats and pull throughs in place of barbell presses, back squats and deadlifts.  This allows me to ramp up neural output and strength for a month, rest my CNS for a few weeks while adapting differently to some superset, high rep bodybuilding style stuff, then coming back for another 4 week cycle hitting new strength levels again.  This has been working good for strength and muscle gains, recovery and staying healthy.  Reading and understanding lots of material on block periodization has helped me plan my training a lot more effectively than I have in the past. I've found that if I go too intense/heavy for much more than 4-5 weeks that I will start to drain my nervous system a little too much.  Thats not to say that I'm not challenging myself at all during the 2-3 week lower intensity cycle; I'm just training in a way that allows my nervous system to recover while still building the important muscles and movements that will help the big lifts.

I'm looking to hit some nice numbers coming up.  For raw numbers, I'd like to hit a mid 1300 total with a mid 400's squat, a low to mid 300's bench and a low 600's deadlift.  Geared (w/ lifting suits/shirts) I'd like to total 1500-1600 w/ a mid 500's squat, a low to mid 600 deadlift and a 400+ bench.   I'm also closing in on a 225 overhead press; I've come close with 215.  I've been doing lots of overhead work as its something I've wanted to bring up.  It definitely helps with my bench.  I've done one arm presses w/ a slight push with 85lbs for 8 reps as well.  All of the heavy single leg work I've done has contributed greatly to improved squat numbers, which will help with improved pull numbers.  I've never felt more stable or stronger with squatting and all of the single leg work, glute work and oblique/core stability work has helped tons.

I got a nice workout in at the Badger's facility a few weeks ago with Jeff Zuhlke, a good buddy of mine from college, who is an awesome strength coach out there.  Also checked out Nx Level in Waukesha last week and caught up with another buddy from college, Nic Hansen; very awesome place with lots of knowledgeable coaches out there. Always good to pick up some good tools to add to the toolbox from other good professionals.  My facility should be opening this summer and I'll knock out some details when everything is set.  All I can say is that it will be THE place to train in this area.  Lots going on and lots of exciting things coming up.  I should have a couple of articles posting either here or other sites relatively soon.  A great one on the importance of aerobic training, one on self soft tissue modalities and a couple on figure skating training and firefighter training.  Stay tuned!  Hope everyone's training is going as well as mine.