#TBT: October 8-October 18, 2012

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A big week for #TBT!  Check out these posts from last year!

Does Local Exercise Induced Fatigue Transfer?

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A couple weeks back Charlie McMillin sent out a tweet containing the following study:

Isolated Exercise:  Does Local Exercise Induced Fatigue Transfer?

The Aerobic Deception?

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Note:  This post is more of an update on what is running through my head (scary) than an actual factually-based post.

For the longest time I was under the deception that aerobic exercise was "bad".  From creating poor hormonal profiles for muscle building to being an inefficient means of calorie expenditure to the consequences of the almost certain mechanical stresses that were being inappropriately applied to a system, I was not very "pro-aero".

"Neuroligically Hardwired" Movements

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Last week I engaged in an awesome discussion on Twitter regarding my post "Lunges vs. Leg Press". It was essentially three solid days of tweets being sent back and forth between my account and another account discussing our particular view points. Near the end of the discussion, the owner of the other account brought up the idea that movements such as lunges and squats are (paraphrasing) movements that are hardwired into our brain and nervous system.

I have heard this argument before, that these two movements, in addition to others, are being considered "basic human movements". My understanding of statements like these is that squats, lunges, hip hinges, and the like are movements that all humans know how to perform and therefore should take precedence in training and exercise programs. I happen to fundamentally disagree with these thoughts.

The Other Half of the Rep

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A challenge I've been presenting some of my clients with recently is for them to make the movement they are doing as challenging for themselves as they lower the weight as it is for them when they raise it.

Articulating The Goal

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Building off of last week's post--"What's The Goal?"--I think the importance of being able to articulate that goal to your client (if you are a personal trainer) needs to be discussed.

What's The Goal?

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What is the goal of the exercise you are doing?

It's Not About The Reps

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"How many reps should I do?"
"I feel like I should be able to do more reps."
"I could do more reps if I didn't have to think about it."

Hitting Singles

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If you played baseball and every time you batted you got a hit and reached first base safely would you be considered a good batter?  In all likelihood, you might be considered the best ever.

Zero doubles.  Zero triples.  Zero home runs.  Zero outs.

How often do we hit singles when we exercise?  Not crushing ourselves trying to swing for the fences.  Not over extending ourselves trying to turn everything into a double.  But just patient with the process, understanding that four singles in a row still scores a run.

How many days have you been out from exercise because you went for the home run a day or two before?

How many runs can you score when you aren't able to play the game?

Your body.  Your training.

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My Powerlifting Deception

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 All of my weight training used to follow a powerlifting type model.  Heavy squats, bench, deadlifts, and overhead press.  In order to increase the weights I was using for each lift I used to spend a fair amount of time studying the respective technique of each lift and try to figure out different tips and tricks to make heavier weights seem easier to lift.



Now this was done in part from a safety perspective, meaning I was trying to learn how to handle these relatively heavy weights while putting myself at the lowest risk of injury.  But figuring out these tips and tricks was also done so I could lift the weights more efficiently.

I would try to "pull the bar apart in my hands" when pressing, altering the respective moment arm to the shoulder and elbow.  I would throw my body weight back while deadlifting--a tip I picked up after watching countless YouTube videos of some of the best powerlifters in the world--effectively attempting to use the inertia of the mass of my body to help lift the bar.  I would place the bar at a very specific position on my back every time I squatted in order to maximize the amount of weight I could add on top of my torso and still sit down and stand up.

The ironic thing about all of this is that I was not training to be a powerlifter.  Powerlifting was not my sport, basketball was, and I was lifting to get stronger and stay healthy.  I liked seeing a lot of weight on the bar and watching as that amount increased.  But the veil of deception that I was under for the longest time is that the more weight I would put on the bar meant I was automatically challenging my tissue more.  More challenge to the tissue meant more strength meant more weight on the bar.  At least that's how I had it in my head.

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Here's the funny thing, though:  I'm not sure how much of that weight was actually challenging my muscles in the way I wanted them to be challenged.  In fact, all of the tips and tricks I learned and applied were done in order to challenge specific tissue less to make the weight seem easier to lift.  For example, trying to pull my hands apart on the bar when I bench pressed created less mechanical challenge to my chest and more to my elbow extensors.  But why was I bench pressing?  To move more weight or to build a bigger, stronger chest?

Trying to rip the bar off of the ground and fling by body backwards when deadlifting certainly helped me pull 500, but how much stronger could I have gotten if I actually tried to lift and control the weight and the motion at every point along the way instead of trying so hard to fling the bar up that the inertial effects of the movement of that mass propelled the bar through part of the range?
And I definitely found the best bar placement spot on my back to create the most optimal moment arms to my knees, hips, etc when I squatted, but what kind of challenge was actually being presented to the muscles that controlled those joints?  Furthermore, how much was I challenging myself when I would stand up so fast that you could see the bar elevating off of my back by the time I was at the top of my rep?

There isn't anything inherently wrong with powerlifting or training to increase the amount of weight you can move, but what I have come to realize is if your goal is to improve the amount of tension (force) your muscles can generate, all of the tips and tricks to make lifting the weight more efficient by actually challenging the tissue less might need to go out the window.  You still want to set yourself in a specific manner to try to limit injury, but if the goal is truly to challenge tissue, then you need to create a different relationship of your joints to the forces of the imposed challenge, in which the pursuit of finding the most efficient way to lift the weight needs to be strongly reconsidered.

What is the goal of the challenge you have created for yourself?  Is it to move a mass with a bigger number on it or to challenge tissue to a greater degree?

Your body.  Your training.

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TRX Suspended Rows

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There are a lot of unjustified myths and magic surrounding the TRX.  Despite all of this nonsense, I think one movement that it actually creates a decent resistance profile for is what is commonly referred to as "TRX Suspended Rows".

http://www.youtube.com/embed/T1LmbIL6a9U

Impeccable control displayed above.  Classic Charlie.

Okay, back to the story.

Relative to other popular forms of pulling exercises, such as single arm dumbbell rows and various versions of pull-ups, using this tool for rowing may be more mechanically advantageous for appropriately challenging a pulling movement over a relatively larger range of motion (depending on what kind of challenge you are wanting to create within the exercise).

Because you are pulling yourself towards an upright position from a more horizontal position, the percentage of your body weight that you have to pull decreases as you move from the starting position towards to the top of the rep.  Additionally, as you perform this motion, the mechanical efficiency of the resistance at creating rotation around your joints--and subsequently challenging your muscles--increases, while at the same time the ability of your muscles to generate tension and overcome the resistance decreases (due to the shortening of the muscle fibers).

**Side note:  You also may run into a situation where your hands are closer together when your body is more horizontal and farther apart when your body is more vertical.  This would mean instead of pulling straight back, you are pulling back and out, which is going to be a less efficient way to pull yourself up.  Also, it is potentially different than the other examples given of the dumbbell row and pull-up, so for this post we are going to say that the distance between your hands does not change throughout the motion.

What this means is, as you pull yourself upwards throughout the range, the resistance force is becoming better at challenging you while you are becoming worse at overcoming it, similar to the dumbbell row and the pull-up.  However, the cool thing about the TRX version of a row is a that you will be having to pull less and less of your body weight as you pull yourself up, which makes for a more favorable scenario if you are looking to challenge a larger range of motion while performing what is traditionally labeled as a row.

There are obviously limitations to this tool as far as being able to load the motion appropriately while still getting the desired drop off in challenge throughout the range, but for all of you who are gung-ho about the TRX, this exercise can actually be fairly favorable from the perspective of trying to adequately challenge your tissue throughout a larger range of motion.

And if you are not gung-ho about the TRX or are indifferent towards which tool you use to challenge tissue with but still want this kind of drop off as you pull, check out the Nautilus Nitro™ Compound Row.  The presented challenge can be seen in the video below, as discussed by some guy with weird facial hair.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/k1Jbt7LgCcI

Questions?  Drop a comment below or take RTS™!

Your body.  Your training.

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

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"Real" Weight

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I can remember back in high school using the Bowflex in my parents' basement as my form of resistance training and coaches telling me that I'd never get stronger using it because it wasn't "real" weight.  In their head, they were thinking of something mass-based like dumbbells or barbells as constituting "real" weight and that is what they thought I needed to use in order to get stronger.  I couldn't understand why, though.

Making "Stupid" Smarter

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One thing I try work through in my head are ways to go about taking exercises that may be completely inappropriate for a client and manipulating the variables of the exercise in order to make it appropriate for their abilities and goals.  As a professional, I think this is an important skill to develop.

Maxing Motion

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Something I often fall into the trap of is having my clients move through all of their active range around a particular joint during a given exercise and magnitude profile.  I'm calling it a trap because I guess that is more or less my default right now, meaning that's kind of option A that I start with and then I might strategically choose to limit the range from there.  I guess I have an issue with this in my head because it seems to be the only thing I do it for.  I don't default to max resistance for every exercise and then scale back, nor do I think that way about speed/tempo, the duration of the set, or the effort I want put forth during the exercise.  So I think this needs to change in my head.



Most everything else I tend to drift towards moderate/easy for the first set or so then increase from there, so why with motion do I almost always start towards the most that my client can actively/comfortably attain?  Furthermore, even if I justified having them move through that much range with an easy load for the sake of warming up the tissue or practicing the motion, why do I almost always continue to have them explore that entire range once a greater resistance force is applied?  The irony is that the presented challenge in terms of resistance is usually only a challenge during a small part of the range, so how much challenge to the muscular tissue is actually being accomplished by moving through the rest of it?


I can certainly see viable reasons for moving through most of the available active range of a joint during specific exercises with specific individuals, but I'm not sure that it makes sense for me to keep seeing this as option A.  Instead, I think it is time to drop this piece that has been somewhat automatic up to this point and start to see not just the motion that is being performed, but the specific part of the motion that is performed, as a variable that needs to be strategically chosen and manipulated, as well.

Do you tend to default to moving through "full range" on your curls, squats, presses, pulls, etc, etc, etc?  Do you tend to default to maxing out on weight every rep, too?

Your body.  Your training.

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

Lunges vs. Leg Press: A Discussion at PHP

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Last week Friday during study group at Precision Human Performance we had a really great discussion about why we would have a client or ourselves perform a lunge as opposed to a leg press.  For this discussion, we defined lunge as something that looks like this:

Ahh, college.  Okay so not the greatest video but I guess at the time I thought it was obvious what was going on with my legs and feet, even though they are completely out of the frame and arguably the most important part.  Fortunately, there are plenty of other videos of lunges on YouTube, almost all of which are much more entertaining than my own, so check those out if you need further clarification.

Then, for leg presses, we are looking at something like this:

Once again, a brilliant display of control in this video...

Okay, so the discussion started by Michelle Amore posing the question of why we would put somebody on a leg press.  Interestingly, when we broke everybody's responses down, it all came down to muscle in some regard, whether it be building it, controlling it, or biasing it (for more on this, take RTS™).

Once that was established, the discussion turned to which movement allows us to build, control, and/or bias muscle more efficiently and effectively in addition to identifying the difference between performing a leg press and a lunge.  We discussed the mechanics of each, how a leg press may have the ability to keep the challenge of performing the motion relatively high throughout a given range of motion while a lunge is often only really difficult at the bottom of the rep from a mechanical standpoint, depending on how low the individual is able to drop.

Most importantly, we discussed the differences in the amount of passive restraint typically imposed during each and how the less passively-restrained lunge dictates that less weight can be handled throughout the motion, which may ultimately mean less tension will be allowed to be generated by the muscles in order to perform that motion.  Likewise, the leg press with its higher degree of passive restraint allows for the user to almost lock themselves into the position so all of their energy, effort, and force can be directed towards performing hip and knee extension.

Think of this as similar to doing dumbbell presses on a stability ball versus on a flat bench.  If you measure the 1 rep max of each situation, you are almost always going to find that more weight can be pressed while lying supine on a bench (more passive restraint) than on a ball (less passive restraint).  This goes back to the discussion back in January about balance and how balance is a skill and, more relevant to this post, if your balanced is challenged in any way the number one goal of your brain will be to keep your center of mass over your base of support.  This means that if you create a scenario where keeping your center of mass over your base of support is no longer a challenge because of the imposed restraint, performing other tasks or motions can begin to take greater precedence.  However, without that passive restraint locking you in, ensuring that you maintain your COM over BOS will trump the execution of any motion attempted.

The takeaway message from all of this is the less passively restrained a motion is, the more the execution of that motion becomes a skill.  Bringing it back to the initial goals of the exercise, if we are performing this motion in order to build, control, and/or bias specific muscle tissue, attempting to achieve these goals by performing a skill is going to be less efficient than locking ourselves into a machine and shoving with everything we have.  However, if the goal is to improve the skill of lunging, then lunges would certainly have their place.

What are your thoughts on the Lunges vs. Leg Press discussion?  Drop a comment below!

Want to join in on the Precision Human Performance study groups?  Email info@precisionhumanperformance.com to get the GoToMeeting.com id!

Want to learn more? Take RTS™.

Your body. Your training.

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

Precision and Quality

 

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"The outcome of an exercise will only be as good as the precision with which the motion/position is performed and the exact way it is challenged.  It all boils down to the quality of each individual rep!"  (Purvis, Tom.  Resistance Training Specialist™ RTSm Science 1 Manual.  4:7.  2012.)

Above is one of my favorite excerpts found in the RTS™ course manuals.  These two sentences, for me, involve a huge portion of the process of exercise.

When I read this excerpt so many concepts come to mind--structure, progression, immediate/short-term/long-term goals, exercise mechanics, the exercise equation, satellite vs. zoom, communication, cuing, current status, current abilities, fatigue, length-tension, equipment selection--all things that should be taken into consideration when designing exercises and applying forces to the body.

How precise are you with your force application?

How precise are you with what you are moving and what you are holding still?

If you had to justify how you went about doing things with mechanics, physics, or physiological principles when you exercised or trained somebody, could you?

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If you had somebody watching over you taking notes and then questioning you afterwards, could you justify the earlier choices  you made?

What are the effects of your choice of exercise equipment on your ability to maintain the chosen position while performing the chosen motion?  Did those effects play into your choices?

If the concepts mentioned above do in fact determine the outcome of an exercise, what kind of outcome are you creating by either not considering all of the details or, if you are, not having the discipline to see to it that the details are maintained for the duration of the exercise?

If the positions, motions, or presented challenge are randomly chosen, can you expect the outcome of the exercise performed to be anything but?

I am by no means perfect at any of this, but I think it is something good to think about and remind myself of and question myself on on a frequent basis to try to ensure that I am providing the best exercise experience and process for my client and myself that I can.

What level of precision and quality do you expect and require of yourself?

Want to learn more?  Take RTS™.

Looking for a place to study some of these concepts in greater detail?  Join the Precision Human Performance study groups!

Your body.  Your training.

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

Blending the Table and Floor

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Something I have been having a lot of fun playing with more recently is taking the information I gather on the table about a client and then bringing that out on the floor to challenge it and actually making significant improvements in their ability to hold positions on the table.

Beginning with Muscle Activation Techniques™ CAMs, I look for their greatest bilateral asymmetry and then test it positionally, as taught in the MAT Jumpstart courses.  If they are unable to hold that position and, depending on a bunch of other variables, if it is appropriate to do so, I have been taking them out on the fitness floor and challenging these positions with what appears to be more traditional forms of exercise as part of their "warm-up".

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Then we head back to the table to retest the position and, if they are able to hold it, move on to the rest of their workout.  Sometimes that's all I will do to try to challenge it for that day while other times I will try to challenge it in multiple ways throughout the remainder of their session.  Sometimes we head back to the table between sets to retest or drop down on a mat to check it right there and then adjustments are made accordingly.

This concept of blending the table and floor was first shown to me by Charlie McMillin during the MAT Jumpstart courses and it was quite the demonstration as he showed how it was possible to apply force in order to challenge tissue with more "traditional" forms of exercise and still get the response on the table that we are looking for when we do the positional tests or AMC&S tests.  Since then, a lot of time has been spent practicing this concept and coming up with new and creative ways to apply force during the PHP study groups ran by Michelle Amore.

The value I see in this is, first, it brings another level of individualization to my clients' workouts.  It isn't remotely feasible to do the same thing with two different people when taking this approach.  Second, if the client is hesitant to spend a lot of time on the table because of their expectations of what they are coming to you for, this can be a very useful skill so as to stay within your ethical guidelines but yet give them what they want.  It can also be a nice transition into getting them to see the benefit of spending a little bit more time on the table now and then.  And, it is a good check to see if what you are doing on the floor is too much for the tissue controlling that position.  Additionally, if you as the trainer enjoy more puzzle-like brain stimulation, this is an excellent way to stay thoroughly entertained and excited throughout your day.

The other thing it helps with is the separation in the client's mind between you performing some type of therapy and you prescribing exercises.  The less they see you as a therapist, the less they may come to you with the expectation that you relieve pain, and instead see you as somebody who makes muscles stronger.

It took me a while to really feel comfortable making that transfer from the information gathered on the table to applying force on the floor, but through continual practice, study, and re-view I now have a better ability to blend the two.  I am by no sense of the word great at it, but I am getting better, and it sure is a heck of a lot fun to practice.

If you are interested in being presented with the tools to start conducting your training sessions in this manner, take RTS™ and take the MAT Jumpstart courses.

What techniques or thought processes do you use to individualize your clients' workouts?

Your body.  Your training.

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

Where's Your Lever?

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Last week I was fortunate to be able to participate in a couple really great study groups ran by Michelle Amore at Precision Human Performance.  We spent a while going over the AMC&S positions for multiple tests and really tried to dial in on the precision of those.  One thing I had made the mistake of when I first started learning MAT™ and have been trying to be more conscientious of the past number of months is making sure that the force I apply in the testing position is 90 degrees to the lever I am trying to test.  With a lot of upper extremity and lower extremity tests, this lever is easier to see.  But with trunk and spine AMC&S tests, it has often proven to be more difficult.

When I first started, the force I applied in a lot of my tests was 90 degrees to the body, which is distinctly different than 90 degrees to the lever.  Reason being, the body has some amount of thickness, which tilts the lever created to such an angle that my force was no longer being applied perpendicular to that lever, and as such was less efficient at causing motion around the axis (technically axes) created by the tissue I was trying to bias towards.

In order to apply my force in a direction that was most efficient at causing motion around said axis, I needed to understand some things in greater detail.  Because historically I have found these things most difficult for myself to find in the trunk and spine, I will frame this list in that context.

First, I needed to understand where exactly the tissue I was trying to bias my force towards attached.  Which vertebrae did this muscle cross?

Second, I needed to understand the opportunities for motion that were allowed by the structure of the involved vertebrae.  For example, understanding what the structure that the tissue crossed actually allowed for lateral flexion compared to the position of the AMC&S test.

Third, after I located the tissue and understood the structure, I needed to figure out where the axis was that is created by the tissue and the given structure relative to the force that was to be applied for the AMC&S test.

Fourth, after the axis was determined, I needed to find which point of application for my force would give me the greatest mechanical ability to create motion around this axis in the plane required by the AMC&S test.

Finally, after finding that point, I could find the lever that was created between the axis and the point of application of my force, and then apply my force at a 90 degree force angle to that lever.

Similar to what I discussed last week with the CAMs, taking the time to precisely set up the AMC&S tests has made a big difference in the responses I get from my clients' bodies.  Understand that the force you apply during the test will be 90 degrees to some lever, but it is important to make sure it is 90 degrees to the lever you are trying to test.  If a position is unable to be held but your force was not applied in the appropriate direction, two issues have been created: 1) you have a designed a test that doesn't necessarily bias towards the desired tissue, and 2) you have designed a test that may not be recreated exactly during the retest.  Both of these issues may lead to false information that may be affecting the types of response you are getting from your clients.

If any of this discussion was unclear or didn't make sense, drop a comment below and let me know!  Additionally, if you are having difficulty understanding the axis, lever, etc. concepts, take RTS™!

How precise are you with setting up your AMC&S tests and your force application during these tests?

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.

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