I looked across the gym and instantly recognized the strange lift. There was a guy doing a Jefferson deadlift. I wasn’t in my own gym, so how could this be? I legit had a moment of glory thinking that my quest to make the Jefferson deadlift universally known and adopted was reaching a critical mass before I remembered that the guy doing the Jefferson was my friend Greg Kowal, a physical therapist who is currently working in northern Minnesota, whom I had brought with me to this gym. Oh well, maybe next time.

Asymmetrical training, using lifts like the Jefferson deadlift, is one of the things I have become known for being a big proponent of. The interesting thing is not that I necessarily think that asymmetrical training is ideologically or automatically better, it’s simply that once you start following your biofeedback you find that asymmetrical is often better.

Towards the end of my lift, Greg was finishing up a session on the ergometer. He waved me over and started telling me about what he had been doing lately in his rowing sessions. Immediately I knew this was too useful not to share, so I had him back up and shot a video. I’ll let Greg take it from here:

Big ups to the moron doing half-rep barbell glute bridges and grunting for the sound effects toward the end.

Off camera, Greg and I went on to discuss some of his other thoughts on rowing training. I will be the first to tell you that I know nothing about competitive rowing – but I do know some things about movement and despite what indoctrinated sport coaches like to think, sports are not special — they are just movements.

In addition to testing the slight asymmetry on the actual erg, smart rowers would be wise to test their gym training. When it comes to sport training, the gym is an opportunity to hit contra-specific or opposition patterns. For example, Greg enlightened me, in sweep rowing the athlete is getting hundreds of repetitions per session of a very uni-lateral movement in one direction. This is a prime candidate for testing opposition rotation and extension patterns in the opposite direction to the rowing position.

Greg’s application of biofeedback testing to rowing is a perfect example of asking better questions. Rowing may test well, but Greg wondered if he could make it test even better for him. Better questions lead to, as you heard him say, better results. What if you were to apply biofeedback testing to your sport or activity?

 

By now I’d estimate I’ve personally taught about a thousand people how to use range of motion as a biofeedback test. I find it incredibly effective, and I think it’s a proximal association to why my clients get better results than when doing whatever they did before (or sometimes after) training with me.

With that many reps, I’ve seen a few patterns or issues that people run into. In Jen’s new coaching group for Get Stronger Faster a question came up that I think can be instructive for a wider audience, since I see it in about 10% of the people I teach testing to. Basically the question goes:

I never see a difference in the testing. My range of motion always stays the same. What am I doing wrong?

Here are five things you should be aware of that will probably help:

1) If you’re not already, make sure to touch on your body (shins, ankles, feet) so that you can get a good measurement of the actual range of motion. It can be hard to tell if you just have your hands hanging out in front of you.

2) People’s sensitivity varies. Some people have a very wide range from bad to great, and some people will never see more than an inch total variation. It’s highly individual. If you’re one of the people for whom the range is much smaller you’ll have to pay much closer attention.

3) Some people treat the test as a stretch and push too hard. It’s critical to stop at the FIRST sign of tension anywhere in your body. What this means is that if you’re stretching to the very end of your range of motion, you might be blowing past that first sign of tension. For me personally I note tension with my fingertips right at my ankles, but even then I can push my knuckles all the way to the floor if I force it. Notably, I can ONLY put my palms flat on the floor when I have done something that tests very well.

4) When you very first start testing, it can be good to compare two different tests to make sure that they agree. We call this “testing the test”. You can use the toe touch as well as a side or front arm raise to compare. They should both agree on the increase or decrease, which verifies that it’s a valid test for you. The side arm raise is exactly what it sounds like, just raising your arm out to the side and noting the angle. Very few people can put their arm straight out above their head with no tension. Same with the front raise.

5) Finally, it’s worth nothing that some people WILL test well for nearly everything. This is a good thing! My only clients who test well for a very narrow range of movements, and test out of it quickly are the ones dealing with severe chronic pain, and or rehab situations. You don’t want to be there! That being said, every single client I have ever worked with, even those from whom everything seems to test well, eventually has their watershed moment where something tests badly and they can clearly see the correlation of why that movement wasn’t good that day.

I hope these things to check are helpful. Drop a comment if this is useful or if I can clarify any more on this specific topic.

It’s very likely that some of my clients think I’m a real pain in the ass to work with. I have to be, at least from their initial perspective, for it’s exactly what makes me seem like I’m being evasive is exactly what gets them the unprecedented results they’ve been looking for.

Here’s a typical conversation: “Hey David, I have a question for you.” To which I respond, “OK, I have questions for you.”

I don’t have (many) answers, but I have a lot of questions. To understand what that means, we have to take a trip back to middle school science.

The Scientific Method

If you’re not familiar with the scientific method, you’re about to get a crash course. The scientific method is currently the best algorithm we as monkeys who stood up have to begin to understand the world around us. It’s far from perfect, but it’s what we’ve got.

The scientific method begins with asking a question.

“If the sun is so powerful but the power is very widely distributed, what could I do to harness the power of the sun?”

or:

“How do I make muscles bigger?”

The next step, perhaps preceded by some amount of research, is to construct a specific hypothesis that can be tested. The hypothesis is an educated guess as to what happens or how it happens. The key to a good hypothesis is that you have some idea in mind, and that it can be tested specifically.

“If I were to use a magnifying glass to focus the power of the sun on one spot it might be powerful enough to create fire.”

Or:

“If I were to do bicep curls often, my bicep muscles would get bigger.”

Notice that the scientific method begins with a question, but a hypothesis is more like a statement of belief.

Next, you would design an experiment to test the hypothesis. Experimental design is important because the results are only as good as the experimental design. You can be perfectly correct in your hypothesis, but not prove it out correctly because your experimental design was flawed.

“I will take a magnifying glass that combines a 6 inch diameter area of sunlight into a spot one sixteenth of an inch in diameter and determine how much heat is generated by measuring the temperature rise on the bulb of a thermometer. Or just burn some ants.”

Or:

“I will do one set of bicep curls to failure every other day for the next 4 weeks.”

Keep in mind the limitations of experiment design. For example, I rarely if ever train to failure, but if I were designing an experiment for multiple people I would want to control the variables, so I might use failure as a common stopping point for everyone.

Once you’ve come up with your experiment that you’re going to use to test, you’ll perform the experiment and collect data.

Collecting data on your experiment is vital. I am one of the biggest proponents of keeping a training journal or log. This is your experiment data.  You are hopelessly lost without it. If your training results suck I would bet my stack that you don’t keep a training journal.

Second to last you analyze your data. In short, did it work?

“Through a highly accurate analysis of the smoke coming up from the melting ants, I was able to determine that a magnifying glass does in fact enable you to concentrate the power of the sun.”

Or:

“My biceps have grown a half-inch in circumference since 4 weeks ago, proving that 4 weeks of 1 set of bicep curls to failure appears to be associated to muscle growth in my biceps.”

Finally, and this is perhaps the most important step of all: construct a new hypothesis or ask a new question. The fundamental limitation of the scientific method is that when you’re done with an experiment you have an answer that is very limited in scope, most especially temporally or in terms of time. In other words, you only know that what happened, happened right now – you don’t know that it will always happen and you don’t know that it will happen to everyone unless you test everyone. One set to failure of bicep curls might make your muscles grow now, but unless it always makes (your) muscles grow then it’s not really the answer, it’s an answer.

The question you ask could be bigger, such as could the same principle apply to other muscle groups? Or it could be smaller, such as what would happen if you were to change the movement variation slightly.

In any case, the process never ends.

The Experimental Mindset

This questioning or experimental mindset is one of the most fundamental ideas I hope to instill in people I interact with. No one else has the answers, but they’re inside of you if you are willing to ask the questions to find them.

Asking better questions, like nearly everything worth doing, is a skill that you will develop over time. As a coach I consider asking questions to be my most valuable skill. When I ask a client if turning their foot out slightly makes their movement feel better or test better I am asking a better question of their body. Sometimes the questions are the more traditional kind such as “how much protein are you eating” but often the questions are for the body, such as “what happens if you eat more protein?”

One of the unexpected benefits of approaching training (and life) with this experimental mindset is the understanding that experiments often don’t yield the results you predict or expect, and that’s an acceptable natural part of the process. Too many people are wrapped up in guilt with what they can and can’t do or change especially when it comes to exercise and health. If you decide that you’re going to start eating better across the board it’s easy to feel guilty and frustrated when you predictably fail a few days in. On the other hand, if you acknowledge that it’s an experiment to see what you’re capable of doing then it’s simply a data point when you realize that you aren’t capable of doing what you had in mind – yet.