Lifting blocks

A Reduced range of motion deadlift.

A few years ago, I was training a younger, but very tall athlete and wanted to shorten the range of motion of their deadlift to work on form in a little easier position. The best way to manage this is to place the plate up on lifting blocks. This makes it easier for the lifter to get into potion if they are tight, and can also make the position a little easier to learn.

The top of the blocks are 18mm plywood, 500mm x 500mm. These are screwed to 75mm square posts I had left over from an old fence. Since I don’t plan on using these for very heavy pulls I’m not worried about damaging the plywood. However if you want to build something like this for heavy pulls the only change I would suggest is covering the top plywood in some rubber gym mats.

Top and side view

These are also quite handy for single leg work like step ups and for exercises like the Jefferson curl. I’m glad I built them, even if it seems like they might have limited use, I end up using one every week.

Example of with and without blocks

And that's it, if you have some scrap plywood and timber laying around consider building some blocks if you don’t already have something similar.

Rolling board/sliding board

This piece of equipment doesn’t need an explanation so I’ll keep this brief. When performing natural hamstring curls inside my house I was able to use a cloth or sock to slide against the vinyl flooring. However, when I shifted this exercise and workout into the garage gym this method wasn’t going to work. The other option most people use is furniture sliders, but they wouldn’t work on the concrete either.

I decided that setting up a small rolling board would be the best option. The wheels were only a few dollars each and hold 20kg + each. The off cut of plywood is approximately 200mm x 200mm. All four wheels can spin a full 360 degrees (I don’t suggest the wheels that lock in place).

This board works perfectly for the natural hamstring curls, and would probably work well for ab rollouts and other exercises too, though I only use it for the hamstring curls.

You don’t have to let a change in environment dictate what exercises you can and can’t do. Adapt as necessary.

Yearly themes

We all know New Year’s Resolutions suck. I don’t need to explain why picking an arbitrary date in the future (the first of January), isn’t a great way to make a lasting change to your life. Nor is it a good idea to set a big goal for the year, which will take most of the year to achieve. It’s too hard to track progress, stay on track, and finally to actually complete a goal. It had been my goal for several years in a row to complete 5 sets of 5 pistol squats. But every year I would get side tracked, not put in the work required, and would eventually ‘fail’ at my goal. (Note: goals are very important but they need to be SMART – see Chris Duffin’s video for more)

The question then stands “What to do instead of New Year’s Resolutions?” I stumbled upon a good alternative, without quite knowing what I had two years ago. Having listened to a lot of the Jocko podcast, the term “Get it done” embedded deep in my mind. I felt like that would be the perfect ‘phase’ for my year. My daughter was about 6 months old at the time and I was trying to find/create a new routine for myself. The particular issue I was having was that I would leave small jobs un-done, leaving them to be done in a rush at a less ideal time. I wanted to get into a routine of doing the dishes, washing, packing my lunch and generally cleaning/tidying in the evening before bed, so all jobs were done before the morning. Sounds simple enough, but how’s the resolution to “be more organised” going for you? Not well I suspect. A much more useful option for me was to say in my head “get it done”, it sounds so simple, and yet it was extremely effective. It was also helpful to bring me back on the path when I slacked off.

After the first year of having a yearly “phrase” I discovered why this worked so well. I had inadvertently been using a yearly theme. CGP grey explains why a yearly theme is so beneficial in his video here, and it is well worth watching.

Some of the non-fiction

And some of the fiction

Given the successes of 2019’s phrase, my phrase for 2020 was “Put in the work” (again inspired by the Jocko podcast). To me this separated out into two parts of my life to focus on. The first was my workouts; I struggled to get my workouts on track in 2019. In 2020 I wanted to get back to regular workouts, and in particular to build up my strength endurance for gymnastic bodies (I’ve written before about my workout plan). So “put in the work” got me out into the gym getting my workout in, especially the extra volume. The second part of this phrase was for me to do more reading in 2020 (Covid really help out this goal). Originally, I had planned to read 12 books (Setting a number on a goal like this generally isn’t particularly helpful), and I eventually read 52 books that year. There was a mix of young adult (The Mortal Engines quartet was my favourite) and general non-fiction (‘When breath becomes air’ was so powerful and beautifully written that when I finished it I when straight back to page 1 and started reading again).

This year’s phase/theme is “Do all then things” (Odd I know, but it speaks to me and that’s the important part). This (hopefully) builds on the success of the previous two years. I want to get back into being efficient and getting things done around the home, and continue the progress I made in my workouts. I also what to build on the work I put in reading so widely, by beginning writing again (so far so good). I love to hear if this post helps you come up with a yearly phrase or theme, and later how you go with it.

Morning Movement/Workouts.

I’m not much of a morning person, and definitely not a morning exerciser. A typical morning for me starts at 6:30am. I get up after hitting snooze several times; make coffee and bacon for a quick breakfast then sit down to watch a 20–25-minute minecraft let’s play video. It’s a little bit odd, I know, but it makes for a relaxed start to the day. Obviously this morning routine leaves a lot of room for improvement. For the last year I’ve been trying out some different simple morning workouts, by getting up only 5 - 30 minutes earlier. My only condition was that it couldn’t be so strenuous that it required a morning shower as we had a long season of water restrictions this past year. I wasn’t looking for major strength or endurance gains; mostly I was looking for a little morning movement/mobility.

By far the easiest and most successful morning workout was a 25 minute walk. I was listening to a back episode of the UMSO podcast when a 20 minute walk was mentioned as a good method of fat loss, so I decided to give it a try to lose a couple of kilos. This was extremely easy, just get up 30 minutes earlier; go for a walk around the block while listening to a podcast. I normally did this around 4 times per week, and lost about 2kg during that time.

Another simple morning workout I tried only took an extra 5 minutes before I left for work. Tim Ferriss call these “Jane Fonda’s” in ‘Tools of Titans’, its Ryan Falherty’s 7 way hip. This ‘warm up’ is 7 different movements, 10-20 reps each, done in succession on one side, and then the next. Each movement hits the external rotator in the hip/glute area and can really get it burning.  This sequence is set up as a warm up/pre-hab for running, helping knee stabilization by strengthening the hips. I found this sequence very tough, but short enough to push through and it’s worth putting in the effort for the amount of train running I do. I also noticed some quick endurance gains on this workout which also carried over to some of my gymnastic training. I highly recommend giving this a go.

These don't look like much, but it burns by the end of the set.

A similar idea to the 7 way hip for me was to get in some volume in the mornings of hindu squats as a form of knee prep/pre-hab. I would do 3-4 sets of 20 hindu squats, super set with toe lifts (lift the big toe only, then the little toes, not moving the big toe). This was a really good morning warm up for my knees. Although when my knees were inflamed I wasn’t able to do these.

Hindu squats are great if pain free

The gymnastic bodies stretch course is a morning workout I keep attempting, as it’s a good morning wake up and nice to start the day limber. However, these courses are on the long side (40-45 minutes), and get super tough by the end. Well worth doing, but I find it hard to get in the head space for such hard stretching so early in the morning. I really should do more, I just dislike stretching.

My stretching needs more focus

Ideally every day would start with a walk or some stretching, or possibly some pre-hab knee work, but if I can manage a couple days per week, I’ll call it a win. Aim to get a little better every day (or every week). I hope this has given you some ideas for short, simple working movements to add into your movement practice.