My Latest Hill

"We all have hills in our lives, times of struggle and times of ease, but how we run them will determine a lot..."

It has been over two and a half years since I wrote those words for the February 2010 issue of The Source.  I still believe them to hold true.  Back in June over Father's Day weekend I had the opportunity to hike the Grand Canyon with my dad, brother, and 12 other friends and friends of friends.  It was a 22-mile trek along the Kaibab trail that began on the south rim at 5:00 AM.

For the months and weeks leading up to the trip there was immense enthusiasm towards the impending journey. Every time I’d go home to Wisconsin I’d hike the hills of Green County with my dad and brother in preparation for what was to come.  Often times this was done during the hottest part of the day while carrying numerous textbooks in our backpacks.  As the day of the hike approached I felt I was physically and mentally ready for this adventure.  I slept easy on the eve of the hike and woke up feeling refreshed after a four-and-a-half hour slumber.  With my adrenaline pumping, I was ready to go.

It was comfortable 37 degrees when we first left our cabins for the trail at 4:30 AM.  As the sun rose and illuminated the valley, a stunning landscape was presented.  Reds, oranges, purples, and greens were found throughout the canyon walls and you couldn’t help but be awestruck by the scenery.

By 7:00 AM, it was approaching 90 degrees.  We continued on our downhill course towards the Colorado River, winding through tunnels and across bridges.  After three-and-a-half hours of hiking we stopped for a lunch of MRE’s, protein bars, and Gatorade.   We were 7 miles into the journey and grateful to be at the first water station.

Having completed the 7,260-foot descent, we were in what I called the Valley of the Sun during the hottest part of the day.  Here the mildly shaded path along the giant canyon walls were merely a memory as the trail offered no relief from the 110-degree heat for the better part of four hours.  The initial energy and enthusiasm began to be replaced by symptoms of fatigue and dehydration.  By the time we reached the next watering hole, some in our group were already starting to cramp.  Unfortunately, we still had the most difficult part of the journey ahead.

With 16 miles under our belt, an additional six to finish off the day didn’t seem terribly intimidating.  Even with a 3,900-foot climb over the last 4.5 miles, it seemed very doable.  I knew how far I still had to go, I had a relative idea of how steep it would be, and by now I was well acquainted with the sun.  However, what I did not realize is, true to the hills of the past, I was not going to be able to climb this one without learning something about myself along the way.

When we began our ascent up the last 4.5 miles, my blood sugar was 130.  Two hours and three miles later, it was 489.  I didn’t realize it right away, though.  In fact, after reaching the final watering hole before the top, I dropped my bag and fell asleep on a rock for twenty minutes.  When I woke up, I was immensely dehydrated, nauseous, and felt completely awful.  To put these numbers in perspective, on average I want my blood sugar around 100.  When I train, I have it around 150.  This reading was much too high and my body was not happy.

After giving myself insulin, I dumped out all of the water I was carrying minus a two-liter bladder.  I wanted to make my pack as light as possible for the final ascent.  Up to this point, I had been fortunate enough to not cramp up.  With this extreme hyperglycemia, however, I was now on the verge of having my quads cramp up with every step.  This subsided after about forty minutes, but I was still a ways from the top.  Then the altitude started to get the better of me.

The trail was broken into switchbacks that were roughly 50 yards in length.  At this point, I was struggling so mightily with the altitude that I had to stop at the end of every switchback to catch my breath.  I’d take five deep breaths, take a swig of water, and head up the next switchback.  This was a slow, but solid, strategy for me, until I ran out of water.

So there I was, separated from the group at this point, struggling to take in enough oxygen, dehydrated with no water, legs starting to feel like they are about to cramp again, and my blood sugar crashing down (I tested in at 63 by the time I got to the top).  I.  Felt.  Terrible.  I wanted nothing more than to be done.  This wasn’t fun.  This wasn’t enjoyable.  I was not having a great experience.  I couldn’t stop, but quite frankly I wasn’t sure how much farther I could go.  I pushed myself to the top of the next switchback. I looked over my shoulder through a clearing in the trees, and this is what I saw:

I could see clear across the Canyon.  I could see where I started.  I could see how far I had come.  I could see what I had accomplished.  And in that moment right there, when I felt as close to death as I have felt, I felt happiness.

There are many things I took away from this experience, but these are three lessons that stick out most in my mind. First, no matter how difficult somebody tells you the task will be, your ability to mentally prepare for it can only be pushed as far as your past experiences.  If your past experiences haven’t brought you to the level of fatigue or challenge you are about to experience you do not have any way of truly estimating how difficult the process will be and how far and hard you will have to push yourself throughout the process.

Second, in order to accomplish something great—truly, truly great and worthwhile—you will undoubtedly experience an uphill battle at some point that will test you immensely.  When this time comes, do not fret or panick. Instead, break the task down into small, manageable segments and complete them step by step.

Third, do not lose sight of why you are doing this.  Understand that you are facing your current challenge for a reason.  Embrace that and be grateful for it because it is the burning in your legs and lungs that makes the view from the top worth it.  And believe me, if you truly want it, it is worth it.

“...while the destination is motivation, the journey is why I breathe...”

Here’s to faith, strength, and passion.

Your body.  Your training. 

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Talent is Overrated

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“Every human has four endowments- self awareness, conscience, independent will, and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom… The power to choose, to respond, to change.” – Stephen R. Covey

In 1984, Eliyahu M. Goldratt published his theory of constraints in the book The Goal. Essentially, the theory of constraints explains how in a production plant there are certain processes that take more time than others, thereby limiting the overall amount the plant is able to produce. In other words, the chain is only as strong as its weakest link. This concept, that a weak point is always what holds something back, can be applied to far more than just a production plant. Human beings store nearly limitless capabilities, however, we constantly fail to reach our utmost potential, not because we don’t always work hard enough at the things we can do, but that we fail to sufficiently progress the things we cannot do. Our current limitations eventually become our permanent constraints.

“What if everything you know about talent, hard work, and great performance is wrong?” This is the primary question Geoff Colvin, Fortune’s senior editor at large, answers in his book Talent Is Overrated. Colvin argues that there is no such thing as innate talent; that, regardless of a person’s genetics, they can be trained for greatness in any aspect they choose. His theories expand to nearly every area of life imaginable--writing, stand-up comedy, chess, music, business, sports, and many more. If this is true, the question becomes, “What really separates world-class performance from everybody else?” Colvin’s answer: deliberate practice.

 Deliberate practice is essentially choosing one’s weaknesses in a given field and addressing them. Mindfully practicing them over and over and over again, past exhaustion, until finally, progress is made and it is no longer a weakness. For example, in order to become a better writer, Benjamin Franklin read sophisticated essays, line by line summarizing the main point of each sentence or converting the ideas into poetry. He would put away his notes and the original essay until he forgot the content, at which point he would take out only his notes or the poetry, and attempt to rewrite the entire essay. He then would compare the essay he had written with the original, noting the differences and where improvementscould be made.

If everybody has the potential to achieve a world-class level in his or her chosen field then why is true greatness so rare? The answer is because deliberate practice is difficult, unpleasant work, and requires hours upon hours of intense focus and training. However, just because you do not want to devote your entire life to becoming world-class at something does not mean improvements cannot be made. Everyone has the power to examine certain areas in their life they consider to be weak points and work on getting better at them. Just being mindful of them is enough to make a difference. Then, perhaps one day they will no longer be a weakness, but rather, a strength, and you will be one step closer toward reaching your true potential.

Enjoy this review? Get a copy of Talent Is Overrated in the Self Made® Book Store!

 

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Falling and Catching

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In previous RTS courses that I have taken the thought has been brought up by Tom Purvis that gait is a series of falling and catching.  What I believe he means by this is when you walk you are allowing your center of mass to be outside of your base of support and then you transfer the responsibility of supporting your center of mass from one leg to the other.

In other words, you are never actually having to be perfectly balanced on one leg because your center of mass is constantly outside of your base of support.

For fun, I wanted to see if I could feel what he was talking about while walking one day.  What I noticed was that whatever foot was on the ground was lateral to where I assumed my center of mass to be.  Because of that it was a continuous series of right foot on the ground, fall to the left; catch with the left foot, left foot on the ground, fall to the right; catch with the right foot.

In fact, if I would pause for just a split second during the stance phase of gait, I would notice that the associated hip of the foot that was planted would immediately adduct so as to bring my center of mass back over my base of support.  If I kept a steady stride and didn't pause at all then that falling and catching pattern between my right and left feet continued.

This experience makes me question the use of single-leg balancing exercises, specifically those that are prescribed to people with the goal of improving their balance during gait, such as is the case with many exercise programs for senior citizens.  Again, this idea was brought up in class, but I wasn't able to fully grasp the question at hand until I experienced it for myself.

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If someone's reason for prescribing single-leg balancing exercises is to improve their client's ability to balance while they walk, but while they walk they never actually balance on one leg, then is that exercise appropriate based on the person's goals?  I can justify answering this many ways, but I want to hear your thoughts.

Would it be possible to improve someone's balance and ability to walk by strengthening some of the muscles from the hips down, and do so in a more appropriate manner than just having them try to balance on one leg, such that all of the exercises are within their current structural and neuromuscular capabilities?

There's some food for thought.  Let me know what you think!

Your body.  Your training.

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Pre-exercise MAT

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All of my personal training clients start on the MAT table so I can get an overview of how their body is doing at that moment in time.  While I ask for verbal feedback regarding how they are feeling that day, many of my clients are unable to provide an accurate assessment of themselves.

A great example of this is when clients come in and their responses to my questions of, "How are you feeling today?  How did you feel after our last training session?  Did you have any soreness or any discomfort after?" are, "Fine.  Fine.  No."  Perhaps they want to move on to the "workout" as quickly as possible or perhaps I haven't effectively communicated to them the importance of providing me with an accurate assessment, or maybe to them that is an accurate assessment of themselves.  Regardless, the bottom line is I'm not getting much information from them at those moments in time.

So we head to the table and there are some asymmetries that show up in the range of motion assessment.  We move into testing different positions and then to stimulating specific muscle fibers or groups of muscle fibers, in this case it is usually through positional isoangular contractions as it is before they are about to workout.  We go back to the positional tests and they are unable to hold the position.  I retest the position and they are still unable to hold it.  Maybe I move on to another position to see if they can hold that one in hopes that by improving the contractile capabilities of fibers that share a mechanical ability relative to the range of motion assessed the contractile capabilities of the fibers that were unable to hold the previous position will improve.  Maybe I DFAMAT the attachments of the fibers in question.  Regardless, the outcome is the same:  they are unable to hold the testing positions even after treatment.

Now it is very plausible that my tests were not performed properly and therefore I was getting false negatives.  But, for the sake of my point, let's say that everything was on point on my end but they just weren't responding as expected to the stimuli.  I start to question them a little further and find out that they didn't sleep well the night before or they were out drinking or have been very stressed, etc.  Essentially, the response I received at the beginning when they walked in that they were doing "fine" was not even remotely indicative of the state of their neuromuscular system.  Because of the results from the table, anything I may have considered doing with them that day in terms of applying forces to their body will more than likely change in some regard.

This is a great aspect of MAT that can really differentiate it from other modalities.  The tests can give you immediate feedback about the state of a person's neuromuscular system, which you can use to dictate their exercise program for that day.  All the positions seem to be holding?  They can probably handle more stress on that day.  Positions not holding so well?  Maybe you take it easier or not try to stress out that tissue further during their workout by training predominantly upper body instead of lower body, for example.

Additionally, I bring my clients back to the table after the session to see the effect the collective exercises had on them that day.  Sometimes I test positions in between sets or exercises, but to be honest I haven't really gotten into the habit of doing this or having this on my mind while I am training them so this option hasn't been as used to the extent of the other two (before and after their resistance training session).

Takeaways:

1. The verbal feedback from your clients about themselves may not be completely accurate.  You may need additional assessments in order to effectively apply force to their body that day.
2. MAT delivers immediate feedback regarding the state of a person's neuromuscular system, which can and should be used to dictate their training for that day.
3. MAT can also be used to assess the effect of an individual rep/set/exercise or their entire workout on their neuromuscular system.  This information can be used to dictate future training sessions and exercises.

What assessment tools do you use to gather information about your clients?

Inter­ested in find­ing out more? Check out the “Mus­cle Acti­va­tion Tech­niques™” page.

Inter­ested in set­ting up an assess­ment time or dis­cussing this sub­ject fur­ther? E-mail Char­lie at charlie@selfmadefitness.com.

Your body.  Your training.

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How to Eat, Move, and Be Healthy!

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“Great speakers have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.” –Albert Einstein

In the game Jenga, sets of 3 wooden blocks are stacked one on top of the other until a rectangular structure, 18 levels high, has been constructed. These 18, three-block levels are strong and sturdy at the beginning of the game, however, as players take turns removing blocks and placing them on top, creating new levels, the entire tower begins to lose its integrity. The game is over once a person pulls a block and the structure topples over. Jenga. This game, though fun and challenging, can be a fairly accurate representation of people’s lives. The structure, made up of its various levels, can represent the human body, with all of its systems and functions. The body is designed to be strong, stable and healthy, but through lifestyle choices, can get broken down. If a bodily system gets broken down too much, the whole structure can collapse.

This month’s book review is on Paul Chek’s How to Eat, Move, and Be Healthy! Chek is a holistic health practitioner, neuromuscular therapist, and corrective exercise specialist, with over 30 years of experience in helping others achieve greater physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health, fitness, and high-level athletic performance. His approach focuses on treating the body as a whole; including nutrition according to one’s metabolic type, stress, sleep / wake cycles, nutrient timing, digestion, exercise, and fungus and parasites.

The book begins with each reader taking a nutrition and lifestyle questionnaire. The twelve-page self-assessment provides each reader with his or her own scores in theaforementioned categories. These scores allow people to appropriately prioritize which section they need to focus on most, as well as read first. The goal is that every four weeks the test will be taken again with the scores progressively improving as individuals engage in more and more healthful behaviors.

 How to Eat, Move, and Be Healthy!is packed with mind-blowing information regarding nearly everything American society has accepted as being “true”, without really taking the time to think about it or look intoit. Examples of this include how humans are genetically different from one another, and therefore, should eat natural foods that best fit their biological make up. Doing this, nearly regardless of the number of calories, will often result in far greater impacts on health and wellness than any 100-calorie snack could ever bring. One other example is how the invention of the electric light bulb could have been one of the most health-damaging events in human history due to its complete destruction of the natural human sleep/wake cycle.

I recommend this book for anyone looking to take more of a holistic approach to living a healthy lifestyle. By improving the systems and functions of the body that need it most, the whole structure becomes stronger and more stable. It only takes one weak link before the whole tower crumbles. Jenga.

Enjoy this review? Get a copy of Rework in the Self Made® Book Store!

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Pre-Workout Nutrition for Post-Workout Recovery

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Most of us have heard the advice that you need to drink your post-workout shake within 30 minutes of completing the workout and eat a full meal within 2 hours of completing the workout. This is due to the muscles having an increased ability to absorb and store amino acids and glucose following most forms of physical exertion. However, is the meal you eat after your workout really the most important when it comes to maximizing the post-workout recovery window?

“It’s not when you put it in your mouth that counts. It’s when it gets to the cells.” –Tim Ferriss in The 4-Hour Body

In one of Tim Ferriss’ countless experiments in his book The 4-Hour Body, he uses a glucometer to measure the time it takes for food to cause a blood glucose spike from the time it enters his mouth. What he found is that in most cases he peaked one and a half to two and a half hours after food consumption. This means that the protein shake you drink within 30 minutes after your workout may not be delivering amino acids to your muscles until 2-3 hours after the workout! This can be well after the muscles have lost their increased ability to uptake glucose and amino acids. As far as the meal you eat within two hours after completing the workout? Perhaps it’s really not any more important after all.

Timing Post-Workout Nutrition

If you want to maximize the increased sensitivity of the muscles after a workout, you need to make sure the nutrients are readily available. In other words, the glucose and amino acids you want for recovery need to be digested and in the blood stream by the time you finish your workout. Therefore, you cannot wait until after the workout to eat a meal or drink a shake, but rather, would need to consume them before the workout.

If you feel you are not responding to workouts like you should, take a look at your pre-workout meal in order to optimize your post-workout nutrition.

Do you put as much emphasis on the macronutrients and contents of the pre-workout meal as you do the post-workout meal? Why or why not?

Note: This article is intended for those who choose to eat prior to workouts. It does not take into consideration any differences in protein synthesis, insulin sensitivity, or rates of food digestion that may result from training in a fasted state.

Your body.  Your training.

Rework

 

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Businesses today have limited funds, limited time, and limited energy to accomplish what they set out to do.  While society at large tells us we need more and more, we find ourselves trying to accomplish this with less and less.  Fewer expendable resources means fewer mistakes can be made during the fewer opportunities we are allowed.

Enter Rework.  Rework, co-authored by Jason Fried and David Heinemeir Hansson, is a no-nonsense advisory to cutting the frivolous crap in your business so you are left with nothing but the bare essentials by which you can grow and prosper.  Fried and Hansson, who founded the Chicago-based software company 37signals, provide this blueprint based on how they run their company and what has worked for them.


Think you need to have a fool-proof business plan, or even a business plan in general, to succeed?  Think again.  Think you need to pull all-nighters, make multi-year financial projections, or have no life outside of the office?  Ha.  Meetings are a waste of time, as are exit strategies and resumes.  All of these ideas and more are explored and expanded on in this practical, easy to read guide that contradicts much of current conventional wisdom.

This was my second time reading Rework.  After the first time I was blown away by the simplicity of the ideas.  It all sounded really good on paper, but could it actually work for me?  Over the past year I have been implementing many of the suggestions that are given, most with high levels of success, meaning I have experienced greater productivity while applying these ideas.  While not everything in the book jives with me, there is enough WOW info that to not read it and try out what Fried and Hansson suggest would be nothing short of foolish.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who is aspiring to or currently owns and/or runs a business.  Even if you feel your revenue flow is good enough, you may be able to make your systems more efficient, allowing you to bring in the same amount of cash by doing less.

What aspects of your business are holding you back from experiencing the profits you desire?  
Where are you spending the most time and getting the least return?

Your body.  Your training.

 

Enjoy this review? Get a copy of Rework in the Self Made® Book Store!

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My Take On FMS

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When I was interning at Northwestern University I was introduced to an assessment system called the Functional Movement Screen (FMS).  This system was developed by Gray Cook and Lee Burton in an attempt to identify specific movements, or rather their compensatory counterparts, that may eventually lead to injury for an individual.  But, just like all movement screens, there are issues that come up, not the least of which is figuring out what you are actually measuring with these tests.

The FMS was designed to try to evaluate an individual's quality of motion while performing certain "foundational" movements and then correlate those evaluations with a specific set of outcomes or results.  From there, "corrective exercises" are prescribed to the individual in an attempt to improve their score when they retest at a later date.

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The screen consists of seven movement exams and each movement is given a score of 0-3 based on the athlete's ability to perform the movement according to Cook and Burton's standards, with 3 being the best score possible.  Five of the movements are scored both on the right and left side of the body and then the lower of the two scores is counted as the overall score for that test; two movements (the trunk stability push-up test and deep squat test) are only given one score.  A breakdown of the movement tests can be found here.

The scoring of the tests is said to be objective, however, it is all done by eye with the goal being to see and identify compensatory movement patterns.  In my experience with this system, the scoring is almost completely subjective to the point of scores being given out based on whether a coach "feels" like giving the athlete a 2 or a 3, etc., as if Cook and Burton were not only attempting to measure movement pattern deficiencies, but also the generosity of the proctor.

Based on this scoring system, the highest score that can be achieved is a 21.  If someone scores less than 14, it is said that their likelihood of sustaining an injury is up to 11 times greater than if someone scores 14 or above.*  However, once someone achieves a score of 14, there doesn't appear to be reports of higher scores indicating a lesser likelihood of injury.

There are numerous issues I have with this method of evaluation.  First, while evidence indicates that there is some type of correlation to the total score and likelihood of injury, there is no indication as to why an individual actually gets injured in the first place.  This is for the very simple reason that the tests aren't measuring anything specific.  They are only looking at if a movement can be performed to the satisfaction of the proctor.  If the proctor is for some reason unsatisfied with the exam, there is nothing to even remotely lead them to determining what actually caused the movement deficiency.

Image courtesy of fairfieldmemorial.org

Say someone's left knee dives in while performing the deep squat test.  So what??  All you can gather from that is, "Hey, the knee dived in.  It may make sense to not have them squat that deep."  You cannot say if it was foot issue, ankle issue, upper thoracic issue, or maybe even a shoulder complex issue because the test is supposed to be performed in at least 180 degrees of humeral flexion so as to replicate an overhead squat.  Maybe the person couldn't effectively dorsiflex their first ray.  How would you know that?  "Oh look, the knee dives in."  What can you possibly conclude from that?

Second, the FMS program has a multitude of "corrective exercises" (found here) that can be picked from and prescribed to individuals based on their performance during the exam.  There is SO much going on as far as movement in all of these exercises that the likelihood of addressing whatever issues there may be, assuming you could actually figure out what they were in the first place, is slim to none.  So now we are combining our guess at what the issue is with a shotgun approach to solving it.

Third, and this has to do less with the program itself and more how it is being applied, the FMS seems to be very popular among collegiate and professional teams.  I cannot speak to the professional level, but on the collegiate level, strength and conditioning programs are notorious for not having the amount of time they would like to with their athletes.  Because of the alleged time limitation, and because these programs are trying to get large numbers of athletes through this testing protocol as quickly as they can, the actual accuracy of the tests as well as the ability to prescribe an individualized "corrective exercise" process is severely diminished.

So, even if these tests could always point us in the right direction regarding where to look for issues, which they cannot, and even if the "corrective exercises" prescribed were specific enough to accurately address these issues, which they are not, there would still be the requirement that the "corrective exercises" be performed frequently enough and with enough attention to detail to stimulate the intended adaptations, the latter of which is often not the case when time is already at a premium.

Can there still be some good derived from using the FMS?  Yes, and here is my suggestion in how to go about it:  omit the "corrective exercises".  I keep putting quotations around this phrase because I am convinced you are not correcting what you are intending to with these exercises, and if something happens to improve it was more through dumb luck than an actual well thought out plan.

Yes.  Drop the "correctives".  Why?  Well I think you could still do the movement exams and then have your athletes or clients go through a few months of their training and then retest the movement exams.  If the score got worse, it may be reasonable to say that the program you gave them needs to be changed.  So why not just put the "correctives" in as part of the program?  Because if there is any improvement in the score, it will be thought that it is due to the "correctives" when in fact they are much too general for there to be a definitive correlation.  (That last statement is purely speculation based on observation.  I do not have an actual p-value to back my claim.)

However, by leaving them out, any changes in the FMS score may cause you to reevaluate how you are currently training people, which can be a very beneficial and eye-opening experience.  Furthermore, if something is an issue before the "correctives", doing general "correctives" will more than likely just continue to improve what is already working well, which may in turn lead to better scores.  So, once again, the underlying issue goes without being addressed.

What I would really like to see done is to have an experiment where people who appear to have the same issues based off of the FMS scoring be separated into four groups. Group 1 would do the regular FMS correctives along with their training program.  Group 2 would be assessed by a MAT specialist and each person would be treated according to their individual needs.  Their training programs would also be adjusted based off of what was found on the MAT table.  Group 3 would do the regular training program only.  Group 4 would do nothing.  After a predetermined amount of time the FMS evaluation would be re-administered as well as any other strength or movement tests that were performed beforehand.

Image courtesy of gigisfitnesscenters.com

Right now, most FMS scores are only being compared to other people who are doing the FMS assessment and correctives.  I think it would be interesting to see how these stack up to other modalities, in particular Muscle Activation Techniques™.

What type of assessment system do you use with your clients or with yourself?  What do you feel are the pros and cons of using your system of choice?

Your body.  Your training.

Want to use this arti­cle in your blog, newslet­ter, or other plat­form?  You can, but be sure to include all of the bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion found in the yel­low box below!

* http://running.competitor.com/2011/11/sports-science-update/sports-science-update-the-functional-movement-screen_42914