Expanding your pocket of strength
Today on Dad Strength
Expanding your pocket of strength
[YOUR KID] has entered the chat
A book, a quote, and a dad joke
Expanding your pocket of strength
I’m using “pocket” here like a musician or fighter might. As in, “Max Roach lived in the pocket.” In strength training, we work out of a specific pocket. Most of the time, this is an optimized position for moving the most weight. It’s what you’ll see in a standard setup for benching, squatting, or whatever go-to people have for comparing numbers. But if you are only used to producing strength from these positions, you’re working from a relatively small pocket. However, there are some real limitations to this approach. For example, I’ve experience this in BJJ, when a training partner feels wildly strong IF I’m directly in front of them but when that same strength also drops off dramatically at odd angles.
It’s the same deal for producing strength at end-range. We are weaker when are muscles are fully stretched out – like when we’re hanging from a bar versus midway through a pull-up. However, bridging that gap and bringing yourself back from the edge and into a stronger position is helpful for both general athletic strength and not getting pancaked by day-to-day life.
A few weeks ago, I was messing around at Bang and got a whole bunch of questions about this setup:
My lower-back wasn’t arched but my upper-back sure was. I was not moving a lot of weight BUT here’s what I was doing: expressing strength with my upper-back in full extension. This saves me from looking like a hunched-over caveman anytime I want to press with real force. That’s because I have more postures I can do that from. In other words, it helps me increase the size of my pocket.
The dumbbell pullover below is another way to get the same job done. This is a pretty classic bodybuilding move that has fallen by the wayside – probably because of a fixation on efficiency. Not to mention that the typical level of mobility has dropped over the last couple of decades.
I’m not suggesting that you run out and put yourself in extreme positions with high load. That’s probably unwise. However, I definitely want to encourage you to play around with expressing strength in different positions. Because you might one day find yourself twisted, stretched, or otherwise out-of-pocket when you really need to produce some real force.
[YOUR KID] has entered the chat
You have some criticisms of the world as we know it. My first clue was that you’re not in a coma. But I wonder how – or if – you communicate these criticisms to your kids. Obviously, ages and stages are a big factor here and maybe your three-year-old isn’t ready for the full brunt of your critiques of fiscal policy (or the Blue Jays’ starting lineup). Instead, you might say something like, “That thing made me sad because it wasn’t fair.” Or maybe you don’t say anything because childhood is beautiful and brief and we don’t need to bring our agendas to their playtime.
As kids get older, though, they’re able to take on more information and understand our worldviews better. In fact, they’re very likely to take on your views because you’re the coolest and smartest and handsomest guy in the world. Up until adolescence, anyway. But that’s dangerous because it’s a lot easier to manufacture a zealot than a good critical thinker. Plus it’s intoxicating to have someone you love agree with you so readily and wholeheartedly.
How do you manage this challenge? I’d love to know. Me? I look for opportunities to discuss things from a distance by finding a topic that is interesting BUT that nobody has any strong feelings about. It invites conversation without the burden of agenda.
What I’m reading/listening to
Review: *Life After Cars* by Sarah Goodyear, Doug Gordon, and Aaron Naparstek – published by Penguin Random House
It’s not overstating things when I say that cities have been built around cars. Everything single project, from houses to pet stores begins with questions about roads and parking. Cars have been marketed to us as these peaceful little bubbles of luxury to transport us seamlessly from Point A to Point B. I mean… How many car commercials show people stuck in traffic? It’s always someone completely alone on the road – or the woods. That’s a fantasy. The reality is that cars create noise, congestion, and pollution. They also create an incredible opportunity cost.
On the Dad Strength calls, we have regularly talked about how we simply don’t let our kids walk or bike alone the same way we were able to as kids. There are fears of other people, of course; strangers and chaos. But the real reason my kid can’t bike to school in the morning is because rush hour makes it weirdly dangerous.
Just last week, I was out with another dad. We had accompanied our kids to a cross-country meet and we watched a teacher across the street all but lose it on his group when they wouldn’t line up neatly. It seemed harsh until we looked around and realized that this particular intersection was an absolute gong show when it came to pedestrians. Those kids needed to be pressed against a shrubbery for their own safety. It looked ridiculous. It was ridiculous.
Here in Toronto, bike lanes have been used as a wedge issue. The political divide says that it’s the woke left riding bikes and creating congestion with their stupid hippie bike lanes. There are about a half-dozen talking points around it that you’ll hear again and again. They are rarely offered in good faith and none of them stand up to scrutiny. That’s because:
If you don’t like traffic congestion
If you like quieter, safer cities with cleaner air
If you wish that physical movement were easier to integrate into daily life
If you wish that kids could enjoy greater independence and safety outside your door
If you would like to see more local businesses thriving
More bikes and fewer cars sure do get the job done. Even in a city with cold winters. Even if a business has traditionally depended on drive-by traffic. This doesn’t mean eliminating cars, it just means not putting them at the very top of the choice pyramid for urban design.
This isn’t some fantasy. A number of cities have shown that this is exactly what happens. Life After Cars is readable and hopeful. It provides case studies of cities – of all types – that have made the switch and enjoyed the benefits. It provides examples, case studies, and insight into how and why. To wit, most of the legitimate critiques about more bike lanes are addressed with design fixes, like the one below:
Kohler unveils a camera for your toilet
OpenAI Needs $400 Billion In The Next 12 Months
A bamboo-based bioplastic that breaks down in just 50 days
Music for Saxofone and Bass Guitar by Sam Gendel & Sam Wilkes
“A quote
“You can tack ‘is made of people’ on the end of any fancy new tech idea to remind yourself it’s not magic. Search engines are made of people. Smart assistants and voice recognition are made of people. The blockchain? Looks like it’s made of math, ultimately made of people.”
— Gillian “Gus” Andrews
A dad joke
What do you call a paper airplane that won’t fly?
Stationary