The Less Thinking, More Doing Starter Program

It’s easy to get overly-heady about exercise. Being a strength/fitness nerd, it’s not only easy for me, it’s fun. For those new to this world, though, I suspect it can be a little overwhelming.

After all, you might just want some simple advice on getting started. If so, this article is for you. This program starts you off with a few basic movements that are guaranteed to increase your overall strength and fitness if you’re a beginner.

Of course, this is just a start. You are encouraged to look around this site, take in all the information and even e-mail questions to Krista or myself. You’re definitely encouraged to learn enough to start putting things together on your own. Unless you’re an iron-pumping savant, however, this will take more than an afternoon.

And you want to get going now! Good. So while you’re learning, may I present a starter program.

Here’s what you’re going to do:

Warm-up

Move around. Step deep, reach high and breathe deep. Pay attention to where movement feels restricted by tight muscles and gently (gently!) move through that range of motion. Now start moving faster. Jog, crawl, shuffle from side to side. Up the pace until it’s a challenge to keep your breathing even. This whole process should take about 10 minutes. Good? Good enough!

Exercise 1: Split squat – 10 each leg
Weight: Bodyweight

Take a lunge position, but leave your feet in place as you go up and down. The front heel stays dug in, the rear heel stays up. Get nice and long – long enough for you to feel a real stretch. Your feet should be at hip width and both pointed forward. The rear knee should almost touch the ground with each repetition. Your front hip, knee and ankle should form a straight line. Up and down on one side, then the other. If there is any joint pain, stop.

Exercise 2: Dumbbell row – 12 each side
Weight: 40 lbs. for dudes, 20 to 30 lbs. for chicks

Put one hand on a bench. You can have the same-side foot on the ground or put the shin on the same bench. Whatever. Grab a dumbbell with your other hand and pull it as far away from the floor as possible, control your descent and then repeat. Don’t rotate your torso. If there is any joint pain, stop.

Exercise 3: Dumbbell bench press – 12 each side
Weight: 30 lbs. for dudes, 15 to 20 lbs. for chicks

Lie back on a bench with your feet on the ground. Keep your shoulder blades squeezed together throughout and push those dumbbells (one in each hand) toward the ceiling. Keep your elbows within about 45 degrees of your body. Control your descent and repeat. If there is any joint pain, stop.

Exercise 4: Forearm plank – 60 seconds total
Weight: bodyweight

Lie face-down, with only your forearms and feet touching the ground. Hold just a slight pike (your ass should just be slightly higher than the rest of your body). Take very short breaks whenever you feel like your spine is trying to bear the weight (as opposed to your abs). If there is any joint pain . . . well, you know.

Now that you’ve been through all four exercises, go through them a second time. Maybe even a third.

Now get on an exercise bike and perform the following:

Go fast: 30 seconds
Go slow: 2 minutes
Repeat this four times (that’s 10 minutes total).

Towel off, go home and do some more reading. Don’t forget to tip your servers. Thank you and goodnight!

---

Geoff Girvitz runs Bang Fitness in Toronto, which offers personal training, group classes and combat conditioning in Toronto. Bang Fitness is, like, totally sweet. It has tires and sledgehammers and an Olympic lifting platform and a dragging sled and freakin’ Astroturf! If you are in the west end of Toronto, this is definitely the place to train.

Geoff is also one of my favourite boys in the whole world. He introduced me to the epic joy of Rottblott’s, a hardware surplus store — basically a candy store for people who love old-skool strength training toys. Thanks to Geoff I now own 20 feet of thick rope. And I’m eyeing a heavier sledgehammer…

The Less Thinking, More Doing Program, The Sequel: Slightly More Thinking, Slightly More Doing

The Less Thinking, More Doing Starter Program was unveiled to wild enthusiasm from Stumpfans. Now Geoff Girvitz is back with more asskicking glory. It’s LTMD: The Sequel: Slightly More Thinking, Slightly More Doing.

This is a simple program. It’s easy to understand and easy to follow – just a bit less so than the original one, which you’ll find here.

---

The purpose of the original LTMD Program was to provide an antidote for those of you paralyzed by too much information. The purpose of Phase II is to help you keep you moving forward while you continue to learn. As long as you’re familiar with the exercises, it’s something you can print out a copy of and bring to the gym with you right now.

Working out can be quite simple. You need only follow these three steps:

1. Show up: consistency is more important than anything else


2. Work hard: don’t half-ass things


3. Don’t do anything stupid: skip anything wildly inefficient and always weigh risk with reward

While optimizing the efficiency of your workouts is an inevitable goal, it represents perhaps the last 10-20% of your journey. You can choose a program that isn’t great and still walk away with an A in results. Just follow the three steps above.

Let’s divide up duties: your job is to show up and work hard. My job is to give you a program that minimizes injury risks and makes good use of your time. Good? Good. Let’s get to work.

Part 1: Soft tissue

Grab a foam roller. If you don’t have a foam roller, use a medicine ball, aluminum bottle, a rolling pin, or anything else that will let you regulate pressure. Roll it along your body (or your body along it). Hit the following:

• The sides of your legs (between knee and thigh)


• Your quads and hip flexors (knee to hip)


• The inside of your thighs (by the knees and by the groin)


• Your bum


• Your upper back


• Your lats


• Whatever else feels tender

Give each area 8-12 passes. Each spot should take no more than a minute. If there’s a problem area, frequency is the key, not duration. If something’s bugging you, hit it again in an hour.

Part 2: Stretching

Pick the two tightest parts of your body and stretch them. The odds are strongly against these being any part of your back. However they are likely to be the:

• Front of your shoulder and pecs


• Hamstrings


• Hip flexors


• Glutes

Don’t force anything and only look at range of motion through the joint you’re stretching. Rounding your back out until you look like a hedgehog will not give you more flexible hamstrings; it will give you a bad back.

Some people consider it heretical to perform any static stretching before a workout. Ask them for links to the relevant journal articles. If they can actually name some, read them and draw your own conclusions.

Part 3: Warm-up

Spend 5-10 minutes practicing light versions of the movements you’re going to use during the strength training portion of your program. Those movements might be:

• Glute bridges


• X-band walks


• Reaching to the sky


• Bodyweight split squats


• Scapular push-ups


• Regular or knee push-ups


• Running forward


• Running backward


• Skipping sideways


• Crawling around like a ninja

Remember that the objective is not to fatigue yourself, but to prepare your body for the more intense exercise to come.

Part 4: Loading

It should feel as if you can perform one or two more reps in each set (maintaining good technique throughout) than the number prescribed. If you’re not finishing the set, you obviously selected too heavy a weight. However, if you’re finishing the set, you may be overestimating how difficult things felt. For that reason you will periodically choose one (and only one) exercise and go to failure.

Failure means not being able to perform another rep. Not for a $100,000 cash prize. Not to scare away an axe wielding maniac. That’s how you’ll know.

Naturally, you will want to take whatever precautions necessary to ensure that you don’t get hurt if you’re unable to move the weight from Point A to Point B (refer to Step 3).

Part 5: The exercises

Letters denote a series. For example, on Day 1 you will perform the A exercises in the order above. You will rest 60 seconds after each circuit. You will repeat this three times before going through the B exercises – again resting for 60 seconds between your first and second sequence. Within the circuit (i.e. from exercise A1 to A2), rest as little as possible. If you’re going to upchuck, of course take a moment. But push yourself — within reason — to take care of business without too much lollygagging.

Part 6: Intervals

After you finish your strength training, you’ll seal the deal with some conditioning. Intervals may not be easy but they are simple, quick and highly effective. If done properly, they will also be the most difficult 15-20 minutes of your life – every time you do them.

Here’s what you need to do:

• Choose an exercise that you can perform safely at a relatively high intensity.

I recommend a stationary bike. Swimming is ideal for many reasons but pool access is rarely convenient enough. A step mill will be fine and dandy. An elliptical machine will not be. I don’t recommend running unless you’ve already been coached or hail from Kenya. Few of us are sufficiently good natural runners. If you’re really de-conditioned, something as simple as walking fast and/or uphill may be fine.

• Experiment with whatever level of intensity you can safely handle.

Seek good medical advice (not to be confused with listening to any old MD) if you have any cause to be concerned. In a healthy person, 90% of maximal heart rate is considered to be a good goal. If you don’t have a heart rate monitor, then you will have to go by your own sense of difficulty. Take it easy on your first few days. Move into things progressively. Be careful.

• Once you have figured out your own parameters for safe exercise, push them for one minute.

One single minute and no more. You will do this four or five times.

• In between your high intensity minutes, drop your pace as much as you need to in order to recover for your next round.

Beginners may find they need several minutes to recover. Others may find less than one minute to be adequate. Remember that the effectiveness of this style of training has very little to do with how hard you go during your breaks. Don’t get suckered into thinking that more time at a lower intensity will be more effective. It won’t.

Part 7: Post work-out

Take a few minutes to cool down. You can and should repeat the stretches and soft tissue work from the beginning of this program.

Part 8: The big picture

You will get far more out of this program with proper nutrition. Refer to Stumptuous, Kyle Byron or Precision Nutrition for more information on what (and when) to eat.

This program will serve most people well for four weeks or so. I would recommend using it 2-3 times per week. You’ll simply alternate between Day 1 and Day 2, regardless of your training frequency.

Every time you revisit a day you will try to do better than the last. Before you try to up your weight, try to improve your technique. You may have noticed that doing things right is usually more difficult than doing them poorly; the same goes for lifting weights.

---

Geoff Girvitz runs Bang Fitness in Toronto. He puts HGH in his smoothies and once punched Flex Wheeler in the soleus.

Yoga for Fighters: Releasing the Psoas

by guest author Candace Stump

In between beatdowns, MMA fighter Gina Carano demonstrates hip flexion.

Yoga means, among other things, “yoking” or “unity”. Traditionally this means unity of body, mind, and breath; the breath being the most important.

One of the most effective ways to think of yoga is as sophisticated relaxation: freedom from unnecessary tension in body, mind, and breath. This does not mean lying down doing nothing! This means using the *least* amount of effort necessary to achieve results. (Sound familiar, grapplers?) Even if that result is a very, very difficult pose.

Most BJJ practitioners, grapplers, and MMA fighters end up with certain muscles totally overdeveloped. I’d like to start with psoas.

The psoas (SO-az) is the main muscle linking the upper body to the legs at the front of the hips. Because of the way BJJ works, the psoas gets very, very tight. I am always surprised when any BJJ or MMA player can sit up completely straight; most have such tight psoas muscles that they can no longer do this.

However, many non-grapplers also have a lot of psoas problems, simply from sitting all day in hip flexion, with thighs at 90 degrees to the torso. The psoas shortens and becomes tight.

An overdeveloped, shortened psoas means less mobility, reduced speed, and greater risk of injury. It tips the front of the pelvis forward and gives us “duck-butt”. It’s more or less abuse of the spine, which will eventually cause back pain.

Poses for relaxing the psoas

Supta Padangusthasana
(Reclined hand-to-big-toe)*

Parvrrta Supta Padangusthasana
(Revolved reclined hand-to-big-toe)

Utthita Trikonasana
(Extended triangle)
Don’t dump into this. Take your time.

Virabhadrasana II
(Warrior II)
Knee over second toe. BEND into this.

Eka Pada Rajakapotasana
(One legged pigeon)

Bhujangasana
(Cobra)
Chest forward as your tailbone moves toward your heels. Pull your spine apart!

Vrksasana
(Tree)
Spin your lifted buttock under, toward your standing heel. Lift your armpit chest!

Virasana
(Hero)
Use a block if you need one.

Ustrasana
(Camel)
Do this at the wall! Push hips into the wall and LIFT your chest.

Supta virasana
(Reclining hero)
DEFINITELY support your upper back.

Dhanurasana
(Bow)
Knees IN.

Urdhva Dhanurasana
(Full wheel, or modified: head to floor)
Knees and elbows IN!

*If you cannot remember the pose by reading it, try going to the Yoga Journal site and typing in the Sanskrit name in the search box. You’ll get a picture and description.

**If you are new to yoga or need a different variation, check out this article… it walks you through ten simple ways to release the psoas.

I also recommend a few abdominal strengthening poses.

Good luck. Enjoy your practices, all of them, in good health.

Namaste!

“One of the most important skills in any field is learning what to ignore.”

Further reading

The Psoas Is…
The Almighty Psoas Muscle