The Boring Sh*t

 

 

 

Most sports have boring drills one can do endlessly. In general the more skill-based the sport, the more you can train these drills.

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Ever heard an inspirational story about a Canadian boy who spent all his spare time practicing skating, and now earn millions in NHL?

Or a poor kid from Brazil who used to spend 12 hours a day bare feet, kicking balled up bunch of socks, whilst his parents worked for 1$ a month, only to become a Premier League football player?

Or the ghetto boxing champion from US with a rough upbringing but a deep-down golden heart (despite later career rape charges) that according to autobiography practiced shadow boxing 100 hours a week and woke up before he even went to sleep to do speed bag and if he ever slept he practiced bobbing and weaving even in his dreams?

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OK, got carried away there. But soccer skill practice and similar low intensity training is something you can do for almost as many hours as you have spare time. Developing maximum strength or other singular physical attribute doesn’t have a direct equivalent, but there are still numerous things one can do to increase strength based performance that do not sap into one’s recovery ability. On the contrary, many of the things we discuss here will enhance it.

 

I will try to focus on realistic methods. Cutting your training up to 8 small chunks dispersed throughout the day would be great. But not very applicable to anyone reading my articles! Much of what I cover will go against the ‘hardcore’ grain, and I will touch upon things that are beyond the pure ‘lift this and stretch that’ line. Much of the stuff I cover is a little bit hippiesque and tree huggy, but I am only covering things that are proven both anecdotally and scientifically to have SOME effect (only debate being the amount of the effect). Not all of it will be everyone’s cup of tea, nor should it. Doing ALL the things that are good for you would mean you would do nothing else, ever. If you find one or two things that may be helpful, great.

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Before you continue, be warned: this article is what it says on the tin. It is boring stuff that has a small direct yield on your gains. It is for those who love to micromanage, those who obsess over stuff, and those who have had to try extra hard to keep up with the talented lifters. It will NOT bump your total up by 20% overnight.

 

THE USUAL SUSPECTS

Usual stuff that most of us know (or should know by now) that can benefit our performance and recovery include mobility work, cardio, and light extra workouts. These should definitely be part of any serious athlete’s routines, but how you do them makes a world of difference.

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Mobility work is something that used to be referred to as ‘stretching sessions’ 20 years ago. As much as I, and other grumpy middle-aged men, malign the internet, it is mostly thanks to the world wide web that people have come to learn that classic static stretching is inferior to actual dynamic and loaded mobility work.

Whatever method is applied: static, dynamic, loaded, yoga, pilates, or flipping animal patterns (God help me with the bollocks you see online), doing it as long targeted sessions taxes the recovery. Even half an hour of even remotely challenging yoga is a workout, albeit a light one. It may be a beneficial part of your routine, but no matter how you turn it, it taps into same overall recovery capacity as your big barbell lifts.

 

The recovery-friendly version of mobility work is doing it in small instalments, with minimally challenging movements. Think ankle rolling whilst on a bus ride, hip circles while cooking your eggs, and similar. A small, 4-8 movement routine, taking ~5 minutes to complete, done in the morning, before or/and after training, and then before bed, enhances recovery, allows you to keep any mobility you have, and if you have already become a stiff bastard, even enhances it.

 

Good example is Tom Morrison’s (slightly irritating guy, but has good videos) 5 minute morning mobility, which I have linked below. It gives you the idea of what type of easy movements would cover the whole body, without taxing absolutely nothing.

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Doing that type of 5 minute work 2-3 times a day, 6 days a week, amounts to a good 60-90 minutes of mobility work, without taxing you at all. And these small bouts of mobility do not require the sustained focus that a more challenging routine does. It has you covered, and over time you can progress to slightly more challenging movements and  ranges of motion, just as you would do if you would be on your yoga kick of ‘I shall do 30min of yoga 4 times a week’, which in most powerlifters case lasts all of few weeks before fading to obscurity.

 

Cardio of some kind is a must for anyone who takes training seriously. You might feel OK skipping it in your twenties, maybe in your thirties, but eventually skipping anything but weight training will bite you in the ass. And, at any point of your life, the type of cardio I describe here is good for not only your health, but for your recovery. Everyone knows this, yet they (I should say we) skip it.

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The boring shit doesn’t really cover ALL of your cardio bases. To actually get fit you do have to do hard enough cardio to tax the precious recovery capacity a bit. Of the benefits of HIIT training or Iron Cardio or other type of popular ways of pushing your fitness levels up there are enough articles. Here I want to focus on the fact that you can cover the basic needs of human performance by steady state, moderate intensity, vanilla tasting, slightly boring cardio without compromising anything in the weight room. It’s called walking.

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Yes, revolutionary new idea. Have a damn walk. Doesn’t sound exhilarating? Well, read the caption of this article again!

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Go for a walk, every day. 30-60min of low impact, steady state cardio that makes your heart rate slightly elevated but doesn’t make you huff and puff. If walking makes you huff and puff, then you are in a place where it should be a priority anyway. I know most write-ups on cardio talk of 3 times per week etc, but they are intentionally aimed at low achievers. Be a man (or a woman), do it every day and stop being a lazy git.

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If you have a physical job, you can skip this. If you have to pause to consider if your job counts as physical, then it doesn't. Physical in this case means real construction work, lumberjacking, hole digging or similar. Actual carrying, hauling and loading, or a job where you walk hastily for minimum of 4 miles per day (10 000 steps of loitering on factory floor still doesn't count). You’re a security guard, lorry driver, teacher, nurse, policeman, shop assistant or some such? The answer is no, your job is not physical. Go and do your walk.

Obviously stationary bike, treadmill, crosstrainer or anything of that sort does pretty much the same thing. But walking outside is always better, unless you live in the stabby cities of UK.

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Light sessions are often mocked, not the least by myself.

Yes, doing some moderately light (think 4x4x60% of 1RM) training in the gym instead of a full-blown session can be a decent idea now and then. Wasting your time doing those sessions all week and calling it a ‘light week’? Absolute bollocks.

This precious ‘deloading’, ie doing meaninglessly light workouts one week out of 3 or so, is the invention of lazy, PED-dependant heavyweight powerlifters who don’t know how to program training. All it does is prevent the athlete from ever developing a respectable work capacity.

I said what I said, fight me.

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Light sessions ADDED to the existing workload without impeding recovery? That is something I can get behind. Good example (coincidentally credited to a lazy, PED-dependant heavyweight powerlifter) is doing 4 sets of 25 reps of benching with 25% of your 1RM before you squat. This adds a bit of work in a specific pattern, lightly flushes the muscles trained the previous day and works as a general warmup.

Other often mentioned examples include famous strategies like having a pullup bar at your office doorway, and hanging for 10 seconds, or doing one pullup every time you walk past. My new favourite is five sets of 10 bodyweight squats, dispersed throughout the day (more on that later).

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You can device your own ones: 5 pushups every time you press on a click bait picture of a fitness girl doing straight leg deadlifts, or a jumping jack whenever seeing a political headline where something is misunderstood on purpose. Mind you, implementing those might lead to overtraining for avid social media users, so scratch that!

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Beyond recovery, this type of light work can be used to actually increase power output or bring up weak points or at least prevent them from deteriorating. That is, if you are boring enough to do it.

 

The above examples of pullups already push the envelope. When cut into small enough chunks, one can add tens of pullups (or a similar workload on different movement pattern) to a daily routine. That will lead to actual, measurable muscular adaptation....

BUT....​

Doing this long term means choosing exercises that have such a low intensity that it doesn’t cause lactic acid buildup and such a low impact that load on tendons doesn’t cause wear and tear even in daily repetition. The pullup example may be too much for some.

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A good example that anyone could do is be finger extensions with a few normal rubber bands. Many office workers do this to counteract stiffness caused by typing. Or, being on the forearm topic, the market grippers with very little resistance. Few sets on those can be good recovery for an office worker. Light band pronation and supination work for your wrists, unchallenging sets of 20 reps or so. All this combined to a nightly routine (example of something I have been doing the recent years), and progressed slowly, creates a remarkable change without compromising recovery of the rest of your body, in short or long term.  

This real-life example has helped me to the point where my wrists don’t even feel strained after 400kg benches, and my elbow is better than it has been in years. All it takes is 10 minutes with a market gripper, a resistance band and some normal rubber bands.

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This routine is extended with another 10 minutes of shoulder girdle exercises. Dislocations, different scapular movements, pull-aparts and postural training, both isometric and band work. This keeps the shoulders mobile and healthy. Again, low impact enough and the benefits can be reaped without a negative effects on, well, anything. All it takes is routine and time.

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These exercises are never performed with intensity equal to actual weight training, but how hard one can push these depends on the movement pattern and muscles trained. When targeting small muscle groups, something relatively neglected in your normal training program, such as forearms, calves, rear delts, rotator muscles, or muscles that generally can take a lot of volume, such as upper back and abs, one can go a little harder.

Having a forearm and rear delt pump every night in most cases does good for overall recovery, whereas even few sets of 20 on pushups might be, excuse the pun, pushing it. For a very fit and light athlete they would be fine, but for a heavyweight bencher adding 3x20 on pushups every night would cause at least momentarily an added stressor.

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The last step up in this is actual added hypertrophy work. Yes, this saps into your recovery and increases overall recovery demands, but doing extra sets as an extra session at home is still easier on the system than doing the extra work after your already heavy session in the gym.

 

Examples: Weak in the bottom of a squat? Spend 5 minutes daily within the last 4-6” of your squat range whilst holding a small weight (kettlebell, dog, child, whatever), doing static holds, slow movements, and working on positioning. 60 seconds at a time, 5 times per day. That is half an hour per week spent in the hole, guaranteed to increase your mobility and static strength for a more comfortable squat. Even half of that is beneficial. 

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Need (or just want) stronger and bigger arms? Perform 10 super easy sets of pushups and chins (or easier substitutes) daily, dispersed throughout the day (and be sensible enough to skip them the day before upper body gym work). Or do one set of 50 band pushdowns and set of 50 on super light curls every morning and night for some extra blood flow. But be aware that this type of additional training is not in the boring shit category anymore, it is bascally just a more realistic version of dispersing your workload. The most extreme version of this is of course full on barbell training multiple times a day, but for most of us taht is but a dream. Dream on!

 

 

UNUSUAL SUSPECTS

Here I will cover some of the more uncommon daily boring shit you can add to aid performance and recovery. Take my word for it, if I say something here, it is backed up by science and experience. No, I am not adding references. I can’t be arsed. I have written a PhD and had enough of references.

And yes, some of the things I cover also often come up in fitness fad videos, touted as the magic cure for everything. I will not make sensationalist claims about anything, but even the fad stuff usually has some value, at least the things that have made my list.

 

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Keep your body moving during the day! I have seen this one labelled also with a trendy term of ‘exercise snacks’. Admittedly that sounds more marketable than 'keep your body moving'.

This kind of falls into the light training category, but with the specific reasoning being to keep you from stiffening up, and as an extra benefit helping with blood sugar.​

This one is again mostly for people with less physical jobs, especially for us desk jockeys that spend most of our days sitting on a computer.

 

The goal can be achieved in myriad of ways, one being an alarm every 45-60 minutes to remind you to move around for few minutes. Something I saw in a study (covered by an internet guru, but a decent study when looked in depth) included doing bodyweight squats or similar exercise after every meal. It had a profound effect on blood sugar, and even if it intersperses the movement a bit further than once an hour, it still gives nice, steady movement. Not to be too ambitious, I apply it after each meal. with 10 bodyweight squats and 60 seconds of general flailing about. Asymmetric mobility work to avoid corporal stiffness would sound more professional than flailing, but when I do it mostly looks like me having a seizure.

 

Sunlight is something every Youtube guru is raving about. They are all essentially regurgitating each other, and making 10 minute, 20 minute, even hour-long videos of same stuff that has been known for literally millennia.

It’s good to have sunlight!

Look at your mate Brian the Nerd, or your neighbour little Miss Modern-City-Person. The people who never go outside, and if forced to do so, they stare at a screen. Does it strike you as healthy?

​​​​​​​​​​There are bazillion studies, and thousands of years of tradition, plus your Mum would say the same. Spend time outside. Every day.

If you live in UK, tough luck on the rain and clouds and wind. But even on rainy days being outside is good for you, at least when the rain ceases for a while.

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Yes, having sunlight first thing in the morning would be great, and yes, being exposed to direct sunlight whilst naked in the Himalayas, caressed by an Olympian goddess would be even better, but getting some sun is always better than none.

Through the clouds, waiting at a bus stop, or whilst contemplating suicide by an overpass, being outside is always good. Do it.

You need some guidelines? As much as possible, there’s your guideline.

 

Earthing is taking us to the deep end of new age, hippie action. But you know what? Earthing has an actual effect on your body. Human body builds up voltage in normal inside conditions, and connecting to earth releases that charge. This is not a matter of belief, but a fact. How much does this affect anything, that is a matter of debate.

There is not enough evidence for a well-established consensus in scientific community, but small positive effects are considered plausible, and no one says that walking outside on the grass would do anything but good for you.

 

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​​​Whilst practicing earthing you spend time outside and you get the sunlight, which are beneficial even without the earthing aspect. Personally, I try to do my mobility work or other training such as kettlebell or tumbling workouts outside in the lawn bare feet (on sunny days I also do them naked, but that is just me loving my country life).

You can even go tree hugging, just claim it as recovery work and you can hug trees while maintaining your hardman image!

 

I understand many live in a city and have limited access to parks. All I can say to that is to move the hell out of the city!

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Breathwork. Yeah, that thing. I am fully aware that this reads like a list of latest fitness fads, but bear with me. Breathwork is right now incredibly popular, and in ten years’ time it will be forgotten again. And then it will be ‘found’ once more. It is one of 'those things'. Right now there are million ways of breathing marketed to audiences. There is no point arguing about the benefits of different methods, that is an endless swamp to get lost in.

Just do some sort of dedicated breathing.

If it is only relaxing deep breaths in and out, that is fine. Breath holds and complicated patterns and trying to beat your previous breath hold time? Great also.

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As with the other things listed, it is not about the specifics. Try a few different breathwork videos or audio files. I personally choose the one where the voice pleases me. Aussie accent, speech deficit, or irritating breath noises and I press pause immediately. And, as wondrous as it sounds, you can also just sit 10 minutes in quiet and breath deep.

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It all carries a distinct benefit, not only physical, but psychological, perhaps even spiritual. Once again, this has nothing to with whether you ‘believe’ in breathwork or not. It has an effect, only debate is how big and how different types of breathwork affect you. For most of you, smartphone fiddling, attention deficit suffering, doom scrolling, screen staring social media addicts, I would say quite a remarkable effect!

 

I will go one step further and say that most things under mindfulness, meditation, NSDR or various other labels carry the same benefits. Main one is just stopping for a moment, being internal, focusing on your body and self. Sounds boring? Well, I promised boring!

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Anything hot or cold is beneficial. Well, maybe not ANYTHING, but hot bath, cold bath, sauna, cold shower, icing your ankles, sunbathing, plunging in the snow, infra-red ‘sauna’. All good. It facilitates blood flow and forces you out of your comfort zone. No need to go more in depth here, just do it as often as you can.

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Small disclaimer: I am unbelievably biased on this one. I come from a country where EVERYONE goes to sauna. In fact, we have more saunas than cars, not a joke. Most people have one, some have three. I know, Finland is great. And I have only used cold bath for showering all my life. Never saw any reason to spend good hot water for my showers that usually last from 30 seconds to 3 minutes. If I shampoo my hair or if I have real grime on me, I sometimes use hot water. I could say I do it because I am tough, or because I want to conserve the energy, or because it is good for recovery. I would be lying. I just like it. Same as sauna, I could do it for hours each night. This, funnily enough, makes it less beneficial (dopamine interruption, yadiyadiyaa), according to some!

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Bottom line: never skip sauna if you have a chance, if you see hole in the ice, plunge in. Thank me when you try it, don’t sue me if you die.

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Some basics to make it easier to implement these things:

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1. Emphasise things you can do daily

If you wish to pay attention to a certain muscle, movement patter, or other defect in your almighty physique, find something that can be done daily. Something that taxes your body so little, that if you did it the night before a competition, you would not notice the difference in performance. Then do it every day. For a year. Or ten.

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2. Utilise the least amount of equipment

 The ideal routine for your mobility, strengthening and cardio is something that can be done at an airport with only hand luggage with you. The less space and equipment you need, the more likely you are to do it daily.

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3. Do it at the same time each day

This is routine building 101. Doing something at the same time each day makes it easier to remember and harder to skip. After every meal, every morning, before shower, these are all examples of it. Just like your other routines, like brushing your teeth, checking your email, feeding your prisoners... Make it an automatic part of your day, not an optional task.

 

4. Stick to it forever, but don't make it a big deal

Was that contradictory enough? What i am trying to express is that do it over and over and never quit, but skipping it for a day, even for a week, is not a big deal. If you do a mobility routine twice a day, it means over 700 times a year. Skipping it once makes no difference. 

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5. Change it if you think it's broken

You may be inclined to search for the best possible routine for every aspect, and rightly so. If ou truly find something better, by all means do it. And if you focus on certain weaknesses in your physique or mobility, these weaknesses may change. change it up, but always keep thriving for something. And if the 'new thing' feels crap, return to the old one. My pre-workout shoulder health stuff has been similar for 25 years, with minor changes every few years. And I still got shoulders after two decades of competitive benching!

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6. Pick things that you like

Aim here is to pick something you hopefully do, in varied forms, thousands of times in your life. Even if you are focusing on more acute issues, it still means sticking with something for wees and months. It doesn't have to be optimal or the most effective method. It has to be something that is fun (or at least bearable) to do.

And if you just want to lift weights and eat burgers, well hell, it's your life, do it. Does beg to question why did your ead this article in the first place though...

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OK, there you have it.

Are you bored yet?

If not, go and watch Amazon's steaming heap of crap called Rings of Power. I guarantee, one episode of that crap and doing steady state cardio in the rain will feel like bliss!

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