“I’m bored.”

You are connected to the largest, most easily accessible repository of information in the history of time by so many orders of magnitude that words are insufficient to convey the significance of the difference. In less than half a second you can watch a tutorial video on nearly any topic from gunsmithing to philosophy. You can take courses from Ivy League institutions that people pay tens of thousands of dollars for – for free. There is a device that is smaller and lighter than a paperback book can hold over 2000 books at a time and access over 1 million books including approximately 42,000 classic books that have stood the test of time and are free. You can start a business in any number of directions ranging from selling arts and crafts to an enormous marketplace of buyers to charging $5 for quick digital tasks. There are online communities for every hobby, fetish, disease, sport, addiction, job, or desire imaginable filled with people who have a desire to connect on the topic they have in common.

But you’re “feeling weary because one is unoccupied or lacks interest in one’s current activity?”

No, you don’t get to be bored.

As I get a little bit older the aphorisms my parents taught me as I was growing up have bubbled to the surface. One of the things my mom would say was “I’m bored is something idiots say.”

You’re not an idiot, are you? I don’t think you’re an idiot.

If you’re bored you have the choice to change direction and do something to occupy your mind or body.

There are some things that don’t give you a lot of choices. If you’re tired you have to go to sleep. If you’re hungry you have to eat. If you’re bored you have a million and one different ways to change that.

 

 

 

 

There are two exercises that have the lamest of lame connotations when I think of them. Maybe you too. The step-up and the clamshell. At least when I think of the clamshell, I think of the Eric Prydz Call On Me video:

But the step-up. Holy hell what a lame exercise, right? Invariably you see it demonstrated like this:

How many repetitions do you think our friend would have to complete to affect a stimulus? My guess is somewhere between 1500 and 15,000.

Almost any time you have an exercise that seems lame or ineffectual, you can find out if that’s true or not by making it heavier. When it doubt, go really heavy.

What happens when you go really, really heavy on a step-up? You get:

• Massive core stability demands due to the offset position and asymmetrical force transfer.
• Huge end range hip extension requirement.
• Less ankle dorsiflexion requirement than a comparable squat – can be good for people with poor ankle movement.
• Depending on the loading position & implement, upper back recruitment comparable to a similar squat or carry.
• Less lower back stress than a squat or a deadlift due to the more upright torso position.

You’ll find many people raving about heavy carries and for good reason. Ambulating with a heavy load is a fantastic way to build strength in a useful, usable range of motion. Heavy step-ups are like dialing carrying up to 11, and I think they’re an underrated strength exercise.

If you have access to one my favorite way to do heavy step-ups is with a safety squat bar. The next heaviest option is in a back squat position. Finally, if you want to work on your grip strength or you already have ferocious grip strength then very heavy kettlebells or dumbbells can be a good option as well.

It seems like a simple exercise, and it is, but there is a coaching point that I think is useful that I picked up from Nick Tumminello. In short, Nick teaches to lean forward onto the working leg, and then lift the heel on the non-working leg. This combined with driving through the heel of the working leg virtually eliminates the cheating, double-leg step-up you often see.

Here is a guideline I tell my gym members when it comes to the relationship between box height and weight:

If a tall box tests well, go lighter.
If a short box test well, go heavier.

Tall-light, short-heavy.

Different heights have different benefits and are in many ways very different movements from each other. Do what tests the best.

Get it on with some heavy step-ups and let me know what it does for you.

Here’s a demo of a heavy-ish set:

 

A few weeks ago I noticed my friends Hunter Cook and Jen Comas Keck posting videos on Instagram of themselves doing various fun feats of strength and challenging the other to attempt what they had just done. It looked like they were having fun, I liked the photos, and didn’t give it  much more thought.

Then a couple days ago my training partner and colleague Mark chimed in and asked, “Are these challenges open to anyone?”

Mark is one strong S.O.B. so I decided that if he was going to throw his hat into the ring I would  beat him to it. At the moment, the challenges involved rope pull-ups, so I laid my cards on the table with this:

Since that moment, this little challenge has absolutely EXPLODED. As of this moment there are over 40 videos on Instagram with the tag #instabattle2014 and Facebook is littered with the posts as well. You can see all of the tagged entries (Hunter went back and tagged the ones that pre-dated having a hashtag for it) by searching on Instagram for #instabattle2014.

The general idea is that someone posts a video of a challenging feat of strength, and you seek to one-up it in some way. It might be more weight, or it might be a variation like today I riffed on Jessi Kneeland’s very impressive barbell Sots press with a one-arm bottoms-up Sots press. Not least because I don’t have the mobility to do a barbell Sots press. Everyone has been incredibly encouraging and respectful of others, often reiterating that you should just try it before saying “I can’t do that.” I have to say it pairs pretty well with Jen’s post about the question “Can I do that?” 

There’s no one keeping score, there’s no governing body. Just people having fun training “together”, separately.

I’ve said this on Facebook but I want to reiterate it here .The camaraderie that has emerged is a perfect representation of physical culture and what it should be about. Using your body for one of the things it is best suited to doing: playing and being physically active. Coming up with new ways to challenge and push the limits is the best part of having training partners. I often miss training with Adam T. Glass in part because he had such a knack for coming up with creative changes to make things more challenging to constantly drive our strength forward. I made almost unbelievable progress during that time with the questions he’d ask that usually started with “Can you…”

My challenge to you is: Can you join in?