Stop Exercising, Start Moving

Over the last few years I've had the opportunity to learn about a great variety of "Exercise" methods. From Weightlifting and Crossfit, to Spinning and even Yoga. One of the things this type of variety gives you is a giant toolbox with which to help people achieve their goals in health and fitness. But as widely different, and at times polarizing, as they can be, what I keep realizing is that they're all just combinations of movement. Some may be fast and explosive, whereas others can be extremely slow, and even stationary. But no matter what about them seems so much different from each other, they all share that same similarity. And it's in that similarity that I think most people have lost touch a bit with what's so powerful about exercise in the first place.
These days exercise has become something that people do as a means to an end. "I want to get bigger", "I want to get leaner", "I want to get stronger and faster". So we do our homework to find out what we need to do in order to achieve that goal, or we hire a trainer, and set forth to get it done. We spend days of our lives on the treadmill, under the bar, on the track, in classes, and hopefully if everything's planned out right, in a matter of months or years we'll have reached that goal. Hurray!!
But I feel that using exercise simply as a tool is taking for granted what an amazing piece of machinery we're born with. Over hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years, our bodies evolved into a miracle of moving parts, energy systems, and neuromuscular magic, that is nearly endlessly adaptable to any and all stimulus placed upon it. You can make it stronger, faster, leaner, bigger, capable of the fastest and most explosive, as well as the slowest and most graceful actions. And as different as a world record Snatch seems from the slow methodical precision of a Tai Chi form, they're all based in human movement. The perfect synchronization of hundreds of muscles moving about dozens of joints, all controlled by an organic computer and wiring system that the most brilliant scientists in the world are barely beginning to fully understand.
But in today's society, where everything is rushed and we have no time to even look sideways at a rose, much less smell one, we've lost touch with the wonder of our bodies. The beautiful concerto of movement is relegated to 30 minutes on an elliptical, or so many sets and repetitions at some certain loading parameter. When was the last time you took the time to focus, and I mean really focus, on a movement, just one single movement, during one of these "Workouts"? When was the last time you tried to feel every muscle moving your arm or leg through some range of motion? Tried to feel your body change is pursue and joint alignments to keep your center of mass perfectly in place? Tried to sense how your entire body works together to absorb force, stabilize itself, and redirect that force back outward?
Sure, maybe these are just the types of things that exercise science nerds like me think about. But it's not required of You, the ordinary human, just to simply focus all your energy and simply feel what is going on during these movements. I promise you there are millions of people around the world that for whatever reason can no longer perform certain movements that once filled them with happiness. Whether they're paralyzed, injured, or just broken down, they might give everything just to move that way just one more time. Do you think they'd just fly through it from beginning to end to get it done? Or would they feel every muscle fiber? Every breath? Every signal in their brain? Imagine the effort and focus they would put into just feeling that movement! That's what I urge you all to feel.
Obviously it's not realistic to do this every single time you're going to move. You still need to train, work, pay rent, compete, for those of you who do. I understand that. All I'm asking is that over the course of the next few days pick a movement. It doesn't matter which one, but hopefully one you enjoy, a certain lift, or yoga pose, or gymnastics element, whatever. Try to do this in a quiet place if you can, to help you focus. Set up everything you need to get it done, and then just wait. Start by visualizing that movement. Over and over. See in your mind which parts of your body are moving where, which muscles are moving which joints, where everything starts and finishes. As you view it in your mind, start to focus on different muscles each time. See if you can feel those muscles ready to work as you stand there being ready. Towards the end try to focus on feeling each of those muscles, primed and ready. Take some deep breaths. Feel the air flowing in and out. Feel your heart beating, over and over, pulling pint after pint of blood throughout your body, and into all those muscles. Once your ready, take your ready position. Feel your toes grasping the floor, feel your hands gripping your equipment (if there is any). As you get set, notice how all your joints and muscles tighten in unison to prepare for what's to come. As you begin and finish the movement, focus on as much of your body as you can. If you can't feel all of it, then try the movement again, focusing on different pieces and parts.
Try this exercise a couple times a week if you can. I want all of you to stop simply exercising, and instead make each and every session a Symphony performed by the great Orchestra that is your body. Stop making all these workouts something you dread throughout the day, and instead look at them as an opportunity to get in better touch with who you are and what you can do. Above all else our bodies were designed to move. Let's get that back!

Stop Exercising, Start MOVING!!

A Body divided against itself cannot stand!! -- Part 1

Okay, so that may not be exactly how that quote goes. But it's more relevant to my post that way, so just go with it. After the last few months of teaching I've come to the troubling conclusion that most people really have no idea how torqued up their bodies really are. Now this time I'm not talking about nutrition, or aversion to exercise, or the strange eagerness for a large bench press (although that will make an appearance later on). In this particular case in speaking of the unfortunate lack of attention to proper posture and joint mobility.
Now I'd rather not talk at length about proper posture, as most people are pretty tired of hearing about it. Instead I'd rather talk about the havoc it creates in and around the joints of your body, because it seems that same majority of people has no idea the pain and suffering they may be inflicting on themselves. Overall, what I'm talking about is muscle balance, or more importantly muscle IMbalance around your joints. To keep this simple (and in many cases is very much Not simple) imagine that every joint in your body has one muscle on each side of it, and that these two muscles are designed to work together to produce a balance of forces across that joint to both create and stabilize movement. The easiest joints to envision in this fashion are his type joints like your elbows and knees. The biceps and triceps muscle work together to ensure that Flexion and Extension of your elbow happen safely, smoothly, and in a very stable way. However, if one of those muscles becomes overly tight then an imbalance can occur that could threaten to put more force on one side of the joint. On the one hand this makes the partner muscle have to work harder in order to move the joint to its side. If this was the only consequence that might not be so bad. However, in order to keep stress and friction in that joint to a minimum your brain many times will actually inhibit that actions of that partner muscle, making it weaker, slower, and less effective in both moving and stabilizing that joint. That's where you can run into issues.
So you may be saying to yourself "Who cares if my elbows are imbalanced?" Perhaps nobody, but the real problems are in those more complex joints, specifically the Hips and Shoulder Girdle. Create imbalances there and you're on the road to Pain, Injury, and possible Disfigurement. And make no mistake, I'm not shitting you in any sense of the word. Muscle imbalances in these two regions lead to more lower back pain, herniated discs, knee ligament sprains and tears, broken hips, rotator cuff sprains and tears, shoulder dislocations, postural deformities, and overall flexibility limitations than any other cause or malady in the history of man. And during the last century of two those types of issues have taken what can only be described as an Exponential rise. Why the last two centuries you ask? What kind of changes could possibly have led to this population of broken down souls weeping in their own sorrows of weakness and disfunction?! (Okay sorry, that one got away from me) To be honest one could almost entirely blame this downfall on our ever increasing opportunity to Sit Down. Yup. Just sitting. Weird right? Allow me to explain.
The human body has a truly amazing ability to adapt and respond to the world around it. The ability is what allows us to run faster, jump higher, and become ever bigger and stronger. We in the Fitness Industry have named this ability Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand, or the SAID principle. Basically speaking your body will respond to any stresses placed on it. And this ability can be used for both good and evil. Every human body on planet earth is designed to function and move in a certain standard way. And these movements are typically meant to move back and forth from what we call Anatomical Position. Stand Up straight with your toes pointed forward, hands at your sides, palms forward, and you're roughly in anatomical position. From here your joints are all in balance, with the right amount of tension and force necessary to safely move in any direction and speed you wish.
Now if you spent most of your time in this position, as say or primitive ancestors did, you'd be good to go for the most part. But think about an average day for most people. Where are they? Running around the Urban Serengeti? Nah, chances are they're sitting in a nice comfy office chair somewhere sending emails and filling out TPS reports, only to spend another hour driving home to spend a few more hours on the couch watching TV. So we're lazy. That's my point right? Not this time. Remember how I said your body adapts to how it's stressed? If your body spends the majority of its time in a seated position with a round spine, hunched shoulders, and arms resting out in front of itself, guess what; it's going to adapt to be more functional in that position. What's that mean? In order to produce normal forces around your joints, some of your muscles are going to shorten themselves, and their partners are going to lengthen themselves. Specifically, your calves, hamstrings, inner thighs, hip flexors, pecs, biceps, shoulder internal rotators, lats, upper traps, and neck muscles are now in a much shorter position. So what Is my point? From this new position you've adapted to, stand up. Two things will happen. First off, all those muscles I mentioned are now being stretched out, and are likely unhappy about it. They're going to try to keep their shortened positions, meaning horrible ankle positioning, inwardly turned knees, a rotated pelvis, hyper-extended lower back, rounded upper back and shoulders, and a head that's pulled forward like a giant plucked rooster. The second issue is that with all these muscles on the body being stretched and producing a lot of extra force, their partners on the back side of the body are now being inhibited from properly activating, just like our elbow example from above. Still not seeing an issue? Now almost all of the muscles on the front of the body are short and tight, and all the muscles on the back of the body are long and weaker/slower. The big issue here is that it's the muscles on the Back of your body that are needed for this like walking, running, jumping, pulling, moving side to side, decelerating your body from jumps, steps, and those side to side movements, and generating pretty much any power, speed or explosiveness you may need to, let's say, move out of the path of a runaway bus. Problem? Yeah, you could say that.
In addition to your new complete lack of ability to move like anything other than a Rollie Pollie, you've got one more problem: Stabilization. Those now weakened muscles on the back of your body that are supposed to work with the now shortened and pissed off muscles on the front of the body? They also now lack the ability to provide the proper stability of those same joints during movements. Lack of stability in the ankle/knee/hip? Sprains, tears, falls that cause broken bones. Lower spine? Herniated discs, muscle strains/tears, chronic pain. Upper Spine/Shoulder Girdle? Complete lack of flexibility, muscle strains/tears, dislocations, chronic pain.
At this point I'm hoping you're picking up what I'm putting down about how devastating a little imbalance can be, and how our favorite office chair may be the biggest Wolf in Sheep's clothing EVER! For now I'm going to leave you thinking about how you spend the average day, and the unseen hell it may be causing you. In my next post I'll get into how to reverse some of these issues, and to be honest it's fairly simple and straightforward. In the meantime, if you simply can't wait, talk to your Strength&Conditioning Coach about improving your postural distortions and muscular imbalances. And as always, if they give you a funny look like you just asked them for a half dozen Gordita Supremes... in Russian, then find yourself a new Coach!!

Now Friends, Go Forth, and be limber!!

Sometimes you've gotta Stop before you can GO GO GO!!

So as I've traveled the long and winding road of health and fitness I've notice that, just like in the rest of life, performance oftentimes is a lot of Give and Take. There are a lot of ways in which I could make use of that old cliche, but in this particular instance I'm talking about how a fast, efficient athlete (or average walking talking human being) must be able to effectively Stop before they can ever hope to effectively Go. In just about every athletic endeavor there will come a point where your average athlete will have to halt whatever forward inertia they've created, no matter how fast or slow, and some themself in a completely different direction. Think about the cut of a runningback; a center fielder having to make a throw to home plate after running back to the fence to make a catch; or in a slightly more abstract (and perhaps more relevant) example, an Olympic weightlifter stapling him/herself under a few hundred pounds and not being squished.
Every one of these athletes must have the ability to rapidly and effectively DEcelerate their bodies and just as rapidly and effectively be able to stabilize and reposition their center of mas in the direction they need to go before any type of strength or explosive REacceleration can begin to happen. The best athletes in the world can cut the time of this type and magnitude of directional change down to fractions of a second. And the ones who can't? They get to collect a lot of second place trophies.
Luckily for You, Me, and Them, your body has a very impressive capability to absorb and redistribute a huge amount of force...  but only if trained to do so. Most athletes, and people in general, spend a majority of their time, if not all of it, training their bodies to Go, to Explode, to Drive. But what they tend to forget is that the ability to create these types of movements from a dead start are rarely the real opportunities to display true athletic prowess, not to mention leave their competitors eating turf and clutching at air. To really train your body to be explosive in the performance realm your systems of deceleration and stabilization must be trained just like your systems of acceleration.
One of the most effective ways to train this type of ability is through training Plyometrically, and in every conceivable plane of motion. Plyometric training is a way of training your body to absorb and redistribute force more quickly and efficiently. Simply speaking, try to imagine there are little slinkies wrapped around your muscle fibers. The entire job of these slinkies (actually called Muscle Spindles) is to monitor the length of your various muscles both while still and during movement. Your brain uses this information to calculate where your different appendages are at, a term we call Proprioception. However, these slinkies have another very important capability. When a muscle stretches very quickly, such as in absorbing the impact of jumping down from a couple of steps, these slinkies can trigger a massive contain of that same muscle in order to counteract the forces of gravity, mostly so you don't eat shit and far all your muscles in half. However, with proper training we can use that contraction response to not only stop your body more quickly and stably, but also create a great deal of force in a different direction.
Aside from just this involuntary contraction from your slinkies, there are two other ways we can generate force in order to make this whole process more powerful. First off, many of the various tissues in your muscles have some degree of elastic properties. To keep things simple, imagine that mixed in around inside your muscles are thousands of rubber bands. When you quickly stretch that muscle all those rubber bands get stretched out, and immediately want to rebound to their normal position, which creates a lot more of that counter active force in the other direction. Last but not least is your ability to voluntarily contract as many muscle fibers as you can to create force in the opposite direction. Each of these three systems can be trained to be more efficient and powerful. Ask yourself, if you could have the power of three systems of contraction, versus just one, wouldn't that be a pretty sweet deal to take advantage of?
Quickly, let's perform an experiment to demonstrate what I'm talking about. Grab a chair and sit down so your hips are about level or even a touch lower than your knees with your feet on the floor. Now position your center of mass over your feet so you can jump straight up and not lose your balance. Without swinging your arms or learning forward, jump as high as you can. It helps to have a friend nearby to keep track of how high you're going. Next, stand straight up, arms extended in front of you. When you're ready, squat down and swng your arms back behind you, concentrating on feeling that energy storing up in all your little rubber bands. A split second after you hit the bottom of your squat drive up as hard as you can with yourlegs and arms and jump as high as possible. See if your second jump isn't significantly higher.
You see, sitting in the chair all you get is the force you can voluntarily produce with the muscles in your legs. Whereas using that squat first, a method we call a Counter Movement, allows you to store up and redistribute the energy in your rubber bands, as well as take advantage of the force generated by the activation of your slinkies. Many people train that dead stop power, like jumping from the chair. But to really take advantage of your capabilities, training the other two systems is vital, and pays big dividends.
Other factors apply as well, such as good flexibility, core strength and stabilization, and a Shitload of time practicing the actual redirection skills (which is improved through a different type of training), but being able to increase the ability of your muscular system to absorb force, stabilize your joints/body, and redistribute that force in a fast, effective manner will make even the most average of individuals a much more explosive athlete.
To find out more information about how to incorporate Plyometrics into your training program contact your nearest strength coach. If they look at you funny or ask Why, find yourself a new strength coach. I know a few as well if you don't have one...

Now, Go Forth Athletes, and practice the Art of the Stop!!