How do you spend your time?
By Steve Nagle

If you’re like most of us, the time you get to spend working out is valuable time. Most of us have to schedule workout time into our daily and weekly planners. Once that time arrives, when you’re away from work, children, spouses, and responsibility, how are you making the most of it?

What are you training for? Everyone has different goals. Everyone has different reasons to exercise. Although everyone is different, everyone has three similar things to choose from when designing their exercise program: cardiovascular, flexibility, and strength training. In this article we will discuss strength training.

I have always said work the whole backside of your body and your abdominals and you will be fit. This works for everyone, grandmother to professional athlete. Even if you’re lifting weights purely for aesthetics this philosophy will benefit you. Think about this for a moment. Where do the most common injuries occur? Usually they occur in the weaker muscle groups. The neck, trapezius, posterior deltoids, rotator cuff, low back, hamstring, and Achilles tendon are where most injuries occur. In many cases these are the underdeveloped muscles in most people. Again, if training for asthetics only, wouldn’t being noted for broad shoulders, a nice “V” shape, firm glutes, nice calves, and abdominals be desirable? Of course it would. Spend your time training your posterior chain and abdominals.

Let’s start with the abdominals. Since they are the center of the body, they are your core. Much to do has been made lately about the core, with functional training being the key word in the new millennium. Functional training is designed “outside the box” to aid you in everyday activities ranging from improved job performance, to better recreational sports, to just being able to play with your grandchildren. My opinion is any abdominal exercise is good. Top 10 list notwithstanding, most exercises are determined by the participant’s skill level. Therefore, an abdominal exercise that looks like it would break you in half is probably, at present too difficult for your skill level. Although that same exercise may be just what another individual has been looking for to improve their performance. Remember any abdominal exercise that strengthens the rectus abdominis, internal and external obliques, transverse abdominis, and spinal erectors are good. The challenge, then, would be to keep a balance between them. Many times when someone’s back is bothersome, it’s not necessarily the spinal erectors that need to be trained, but the abdominals that need to be strengthened.

A large percent of your training day should be spent on the core, possibly 40% of your time or more. After you have sufficiently addressed the midsection you have two choices. Train either the upper body or the lower body. Lets start with the lower first. Your hamstrings, hip flexors, and glutes are the muscles that do a large portion of work in everyday activities. Walking, stair climbing, and squatting, which is basically getting up and down from a chair, all involve these muscles. Athletics that require sprinting, jumping, and being explosive will use the posterior chain to do so. Any exercise that works this area should be effective for you. 

The upper body has the showy muscles of the pectorals and biceps, but again it’s the posterior chain that should be maintained for better health and function. Your latissimus dorsi, trapezius, posterior deltoid, and triceps are your movers of heavy weight and should be kept in balance with the pectorals and anterior delts. 
Shoulder pain experienced by many who train with weights is usually because of an under developed posterior deltoid and a weak rotator cuff. This is the result of too many years of bench pressing without doing any foundational work. Another mystery to me is why individuals new to weight training spend so much time on their biceps? It’s actually the triceps that account for two thirds of their arm size. If that’s not enough reason to focus more of their time toward triceps, how about these two reasons: All of your pressing exercise movements are ultimately determined by how strong the triceps are. Plus, this is one of the areas women tend to store fat as they age. Whether you believe in spot reduction or not, how many women do you know of who have firm triceps? Biceps are worked to a large extent on all of your pulling motions, working the latissimus dorsi, the foundation for which a good chest is built. 

After reading this article you may be wondering how do I go about training these muscles? The use of all modalities, like abdominal exercises is a good thing. Free weights, cables, machines, bands, chains, medicine balls, flexbars, rollers, disks, weighted sleds, and stability balls are just a few of the tools you should be using. These differing modalities should be used to aid you in creating a solid foundation, correcting muscle imbalances, and strengthening weaknesses. Remember that your time is valuable. When you get the time to exercise, spend it doing the exercises that matter.


Stephen C. Nagle

Steve Nagle has been a professional in the fitness community since 1991. During that time, Steve has had the opportunity to work with hundreds of individuals from various backgrounds and numerous settings. Steve’s self motivation plays a vital role in the success of many of his clients. Steve is still an athlete himself. Formerly a bodybuilder, Steve switched to powerlifting because of the desire to experiment with training techniques to help his clients. Steve knew there was more to training than just eating clean, as diet is largely responsible for a bodybuilder’s success. The general population is not going to have the desire to modify their diet in this manner. The switch to powerlifting came naturally and the information gained has helped his clients. His competitive best includes a 505 squat, 425 bench press, and a 545 deadlift. 

Steve is also involved in the long distance hiking community. His total backpacking miles, U. S. and abroad total 2,000. This mileage was mostly completed between 1994 and 2000. In 2002, Steve led 14 group hikes in various wilderness areas in Kentucky and is doing the same in 2003.