As I sit here writing in this cold, empty bathtub, listening to my thoughts echo off the smooth white porcelain cocoon I have built, I am reminded of warm memories from my childhood home. It was a place where my only responsibilities were to create mud holes, burn anything I could find with a magnifying glass, and take care of my butterfly who couldn’t fly.

You see, I was the one who robbed my beautiful friend of the gift of flight and was now his sworn protector. A few weeks earlier, I was outside patrolling our vegetable garden for unwanted pests when I happened across a fuzzy caterpillar.

He was chewing away on a particularly juicy tomato leaf and I was thrilled to have caught the perpetrator in action. I quickly swooped him out of our vegetable garden, imprisoned him in a large jar, and furnished his glass cell with sticks for bedding and leaves for food

Every day I checked on him to make sure he wasn’t causing any trouble and every day he kept comping away at the food I would give him. One day, the caterpillar stops eating, hangs upside down from a twig I had provided and spins himself in to a shiny chrysalis. Within its protective casing, the caterpillar radically transforms its body, eventually emerging as a butterfly.

But what does that radical transformation involve? How does a caterpillar rearrange itself into a butterfly and how long do I have to wait?

I waited for a full week, which felt like a lifetime, until I could see the tiniest of movements and it looked as if he was struggling to break free. Ignorant and impatient, I cut a small hole in his temporary tomb and he promptly emerged.

No longer a threat to our family vegetable garden, I hurried him outside so he could fly off into the sunset. I placed him on a flower so he could use it as a launching pad, and nothing happened. What was going on? What was stopping my former inmate from taking off?

I rushed back into the house so my boss could help me solve this problem. I explained what had happened to my mom and she gave me a soft smile as if to say, “It’s going to be ok.”

She explained that the hole I had cut, which was intended to help the butterfly, was the reason the butterfly was grounded. Your struggle develops your strengths and the butterfly hadn’t been allowed to fight and develop the strength in his wings.

Self-isolation may be the model for fuzzy caterpillars but we are much more accustomed to social interaction.

Things that we have taken for granted and have considered as constants in our lives like dining at restaurants, going to the gym, and sporting events have become uncertain and the indefinite amount of time we are to stay at home looms larger each day as we become more anxious to shake the ambiguity of our situations.

One of the hardest things for us to do is to change our patterns because we thrive on structure and consistency. It doesn’t even matter how crazy that semblance of structure and consistency might actually be.

Nature is reminding us that nothing is permanent, and everything must change, and denial of this truth causes us to become victims of our own device.

Breaking our patterns can become the necessary driver that we need for our lives to evolve and realize a fuller evolution of ourselves. Remember, as the caterpillar sleeps inside the cocoon, eventually he must be set free.

Find Your Temporary Normal

Consistently performing our normal daily routine may have been difficult at times but implementing a brand-new forced routine is another. In order for a caterpillar to morph into a beautiful butterfly, the first thing he does after building his cocoon is digest himself and almost literally become a caterpillar soup.

This process isn’t highly recommended by most doctors so it may be better to listen to Aristotle when he said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.”

Performed effectively, a routine can be a finely calibrated mechanism for taking advantage of a range of limited resources such as time, willpower, self-discipline, and optimism. A solid routine fosters a well-worn groove for one’s mental energies and regulates our ever-changing moods.

Staying at home is the temporary normal due to the current pandemic, therefore developing a healthy schedule and assessing your energy levels is critical. Every part of your body, including your immune system, functions better when protected from environmental assaults and bolstered by healthy-living strategies.

Diet, exercise, and mitigating stress are three of the most effective ways to accomplish this task and will enable you to wake up passionately and with excitement about the opportunities that the day offers.

Since our immune systems are a complete system and not just a single entity, harmony and balance of that system is important. With so many moving parts to our immune system, regular nourishment provides our bodies with a fighting chance to fend off outside invaders.

Scientists have long recognized that people who are malnourished are more vulnerable to infectious diseases due to various micronutrient deficiencies. For example, deficiencies of zinc, selenium, iron, copper, folic acid, and vitamins A, B6, C, and E have been shown to negatively alter immune system response.

Since we are limited on how we can gather our food, we need to make sure we are eating some of the most nutrient dense foods available. These include salmon, kale, garlic, potatoes, blueberries, egg yolks, and dark chocolate.

If you aren’t used to consuming some of these items, Project 13 Gyms based out of San Francisco, hosts digital supper clubs where you can join a large group of people learning how to cook healthy and delicious meals from a professional chef.

Not only does Project 13 provide nutritional courses, co-owners/coaches Nate Chambers and Thomas Conway provide virtual classes that focus on building better humans through fitness, mindset, and community.

Make Exercise A Constant

There are few things more transformative than exercise. It improves cardiovascular health, lowers blood pressure, helps control body weight, and protects against a variety of diseases.

If you choose to exercise in the morning, it prepares you for the coming day, increases your overall energy levels, and helps you remain in optimal health. Numerous studies have shown that exercise is key in fighting depression and anxiety. A Finnish study suggested that exercise is even correlated with increased wealth.

Just like a healthy diet, exercise can contribute to general good health and therefore to a healthy immune system. Implementing a daily exercise routine will prepare you for maximum success throughout the day and right now, there are plenty of great options to choose from.

A Krav Maga and Muy Thai gym based out of San Luis Obispo California, Budo Ryu, is offering a fun way to learn how to protect yourself and get in shape through their virtual class room. Budo Ryu Owner & Founder, Eric Sandahl, is one of the best Muy Thai and Krav coaches in the country and his programs are finely tuned to produce the best results for you.

Another great option is G-Fit, a kettlebell studio founded by coach Gianna Bandoni who has a well-founded understanding of the anatomical, physiological, biomechanical, biochemical, and psychological aspects of the human experience. Her workouts will educate, encourage, and empower you to discover a well-balanced and healthy body.

Find A Balanced Schedule

Although you may feel like your home is your own personal cocoon and your routine and expectations might not fit in nearly as perfect as you expected, it is okay.

Remember, like the caterpillar inside his cocoon, you too will eventually be set free. Be able to recognize when you are the most and least productive and then schedule your days around your most productive times.

Your daily schedule may be fairly fluid due to your current commitments but that will allow more for more variety in your routine. Make use of the productive times and support small businesses like Project 13, Budo Ryu, and G-Fit, that had to close their doors to keep the community safe.

Not only will you learn a new skill, you will be of service to your community by allowing those businesses to reopen their doors when this pandemic subsides. We are stronger together than we are alone so back a community where you can share, help, and support the people you care about.

The post Lockdown Is Temporary, Community Is Forever appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

During our lifetime, the human body is constantly undergoing visible and invisible changes. Spiritual, intellectual, and emotional changes are among the most prevalent due to the experiences we have accumulated over a lifetime.

Photo by Bev Childress

During our lifetime, the human body is constantly undergoing visible and invisible changes. Spiritual, intellectual, and emotional changes are among the most prevalent due to the experiences we have accumulated over a lifetime.

However, one of the most recognizable age-related changes occurs physically as our bodies begin to lose strength as we grow older. Some individuals age beautifully and manage to stay alert and active throughout their entire lives. On the other hand, some experience the symptoms of osteoarthritis and other age-related health concerns.

According to the National Council on aging, falls are the leading cause of fatal injury and the most common cause of nonfatal trauma-related hospital admissions among older adults and result in more than 2.8 million injuries treated in emergency departments annually.

Most falls are due to a combination of factors but with the high availability of information regarding physical fitness, which type of training will allow you to mitigate fall risks and add more life to your days?

The Effects of Aging

Aging is a natural process we all go through and although aging in and of itself isn’t a problem, it can become one when it begins to affect your overall quality of life. Some of the normal health issues that accompany aging are muscle weakness, skeletal weakness, lower energy, changes in physical appearance, and diminished brain function.

When discussing the improvement of these age-related health issues, flexibility, mobility, stability, and strength training are without a doubt the most prescribed types of training. However, before we can decide which mode of training best suits our needs, it is crucial that we are able to define them.

Flexibility

Flexibility is the absolute range of motion in a joint or system of joints, and the length of muscle that crosses the joint involved. It directly connects with the distance and direction a joint can move (Range of Motion, ROM) and mobility, but does not directly correlate with strength, balance, and coordination.

Though flexibility and mobility sound similar, they are not interchangeable. Mobility within a joint is the degree to which the area where two bones meet is allowed to move before restricted by the surrounding tissue such as tendons, muscle, and ligaments.

Think of mobility as the range of uninhibited motion around the joint. A good level of mobility allows a person to perform movements without restriction, while a person with good flexibility may not have the strength, coordination, or balance to execute the same movement. Good flexibility does not always denote good mobility.

Stability

Mobility relates to movement while stability relates to control. Stability is defined as the ability to maintain control of joint movement or position by coordinating actions of surrounding tissues and the neuromuscular system. Joint stability depends largely on the shape, size, and arrangement of the joints, ligaments, and muscles.

Strength

Strength is the physical energy that you have, which gives you the ability to perform various actions, such as lifting or moving things. Force is the foundation of most physical qualities and strength stabilizes the body and your actions; for example if you are running, stronger muscles will absorb impact, rather than tendons and joints.

Furthermore, the stronger you are, the more efficient you will be at a given movement. Take note that strength is not an action (lifting weights); strength is used to realize muscular actions and any muscular action requiring tension (maintaining balance while walking) requires strength.

Connecting the Dots

Though maintaining flexibility is important, flexibility alone cannot prevent or heal injuries. A person can be very flexible, but lack mobility or stability within a joint.

Rather than consider one more important than the other, think of flexibility and mobility as equal partners in creating sound movement patterns and strength is the realization of those movements.

Muscular Upgrade

According to studies cited by WebMD, individuals over 30 with a sedentary lifestyle can lose up to 5% of their total muscle mass each decade. This can be cause for serious concern since it could easily impact your mobility, stability, flexibility, strength, and overall quality of life.

The loss of strength and muscle mass caused by aging, also known as sarcopenia, can increase response times and reduce water content which makes it difficult to react to and manage physical stress resulting in aging people become less able to perform daily tasks, such as maintaining balance while walking or opening a jar.

Moreover, the heart (yes, this is a muscle) starts to pump smaller quantities of blood to the organs that require nutrients and oxygen to function properly. As a result, older individuals get tired faster and need longer periods of time to recover.

A well-balanced strength training plan will help you keep your muscle mass longer and preserve the muscle tone required to hold on to your independent lifestyle, attractive appearance, and youthful spirit for a longer period of time.

Bone Upgrade

As we age, our skeletons tend to become more subject to arthritis, osteoarthritis, and osteoporosis. These can lead to pain, decreased mobility and a higher risk of fractures leading to life-threatening falls. The Arthritis Foundation suggests that lifting weights offers numerous benefits to help manage arthritis pain.

Exercise keeps muscles around affected joints strong, lubricates the joints, decreases bone loss and helps control joint swelling and pain. People with osteoporosis and mild to moderate osteoarthritis may be able to avoid surgery if they exercise.

Like muscles, bones become stronger when they are active. Weight-bearing exercise strengthens bones by making them produce more cells. Also, those who exercised reported improved flexibility and ability to perform physical activities compared with those who did not exercise.

Brain Upgrade

In an online article published by Time Magazine, Resistance training can also slow the cognitive decline associated with aging.

Where previously positive associations had been seen between aerobic activity, particularly walking, and cognitive health, these latest studies show that resistance training is emerging as particularly valuable for older adults.

Lifting weights also improved memory and staved off the effects of dementia as well as attention span and ability to resolve conflicts.

Best Type of Training

While having big muscles might hold some appeal for some of us, it’s your strength that really matters when it comes to functioning well in old age. If you’re training right, getting stronger is relatively easy, even if your body type doesn’t build muscle easily.

Note: It is paramount to find the right coach for your needs and if you are having difficulty taking a look at Dr. Chris Holder’s article, 7 Steps To Find The Best Coach For You.

High-intensity resistance training is the best way to increase and maintain muscle function. The best results come from high-intensity interval training, which is lifting weight that’s 80 percent or more of the maximum amount you can physically do.

Two, preferably three, sessions a week is ideal and the most important thing is intensity and progression. If you can tolerate it, increase your power as well as strength by performing high-velocity, high-intensity movements, an example of that would be lifting a heavy weight quickly, then slowly lowering it down.

If you don’t have arthritis or other joint problems, adding high-impact movements, like jumping, improves bone density, can help to prevent osteoporosis.

Bottom line

Strength training specifically can help combat many of the physical problems associated with aging. It will help maintain muscular strength giving greater mobility and helping avoid the risk of falling. Strength training will also keep your bones strong, helping to avoid the risk of fractures that lead to expensive hospital bills.

Finally, it improves your brain function as well as maintain a physically attractive appearance. Although the number of birthday candles on your birthday cake can equal to the number of things that stop working, remember that strength is never a weakness and your birthday candles will equal the things you can do instead of the things you can’t.

You migt also like:

• How To Age Gracefully
• Why Age Is Only A Number
• The Simple Path To Being Your Fittest At Any Age

References:

1. Weight Lifting Exercises | Simple Weight Lifting. Arthritis.org. 5 May 2018.

2. Important Facts about Falls | Home and Recreational Safety | CDC Injury Center. Cdc.gov. 5 May 2018.

3. Falls Prevention Facts. NCOA. 5 May 2018.

4. Sifferlin, A. Mind Your Reps: Exercise, Especially Weight Lifting, Helps Keep the Brain Sharp. TIME.com. 5 May 2018.

5. You don’t have to give in to aging: How strength training can make you younger. The Globe and Mail. 5 May 2018.

6. Sarcopenia With Aging. WebMD. 5 May 2018.

The post Is Gaining Strength the Most Important Work You Can Do as You Age? appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The lifting belt is one of the most misused pieces of equipment in the gym. In fact, some manufacturers don’t understand how a belt is supposed to work due to the fact that they construct belts that are wider in the back than the front.

In order to provide some value to this review, I need to help you understand the problems this belt is meant to solve. The whole point of a weight belt is to prevent spinal flexion. Most people think weight belts support the back and help to prevent injury. While that is generally true, the real answer is slightly more complex. Performing certain exercises at near-maximal effort requires you to take in a huge breath, hold it, and exhale only after the exercise is completed. This technique called the Valsalva Maneuver, increases your thoracic abdominal pressure and braces you, allowing you to lift more weight. The increased abdominal pressure for the spine helps to stabilize it which allows for better transmission of force from your hips to the bar. To make a long story short, a lifting belt provides a wall for your abs to push against.

A belt should be 3-4″ wide all the way around. If it’s much smaller than that, it won’t provide much support. If it’s much larger than that, it may not fit well between your ribs and hips. The material should be firm so it won’t wear down, which means leather should be the material of choice. The Dark Iron Fitness belt is made of top-quality cowhide that won’t stretch out or tear under pressure. It also has a secure, heavy-duty buckle instead of plastic clips or Velcro closures that can break.

Dark Iron Offers Support

I typically lift 5-6 times per week and typically include Olympic lifts, heavy front and back squats, deadlift variations, and a variety of accessory exercises. I usually perform all of my lifts without any gear such as belts, straps, or wraps unless I am performing reps at 95% or above. I used the Dark Iron belt on one of my heavy squat and deadlift days and it did not disappoint. This belt provided firm support for my body’s core, giving me added leverage while reducing the stress on my spine. The buckle and leather guard also provided a comfortable, non-slip fit.

Time will tell if this belt will stand the abuse during countless lifts but if you are in the market for a quality belt, look no further. The Dark Iron belt comes in five different sizes with extra adjustment holes for the perfect fit. It is also compact and lightweight making it easy to tuck away in your gym bag.

This belt would be great when used for Crossfit, body building, weightlifting, powerlifting, and other high intensity training that requires added stabilization. The cost comes in at just over $40 when you include taxes and shipping which is a steal for a well-made leather belt. If you are deciding to take the next step in your exercise routine by adding quality gear, this belt should be at the top of your list.

The post Pull It Tight, Lift It Right appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Breaking Down My New Supply

Eboost claims it is for people who live to do more every day—who thrive on the go and always have a new goal on the horizon. They strive to create products that power you through the workday, a workout, and all the moments that matter. Eboost has broken down their products into four different categories with multiple flavor options in the Energy and Protein categories.

I always look forward to giving new and different supplements a test drive to see if they can help me achieve my own goals, as well as the goals of my athletes and clients. Since I have easily tried over 1,000 products and I continue to train like an athlete, it makes it easy for me to tell if a product works the way it should. I was able to sample the Eboost Super Powder, Prime, Pow, and Spruce. For these products, I stopped the usage of my current supplementation, except vitamins and minerals, in order to get the best results from my four day supply.

The packaging was easy to open, very clean looking, and reflects the image Eboost wants to project. I received all sample size packets which made them very convenient to travel with or put in my bag for work. The ingredients were also clearly labeled but may be difficult to read on the smaller packets if you need glasses. Overall, packaging receives a 4.5 out of 5.

My Adventure in Tastes and Efficacy

Before I talk about the flavor of these products, I must preface this by saying I am not at all a fan of sparkling water. I mention this due to the fact that both the Super Powder and Pow had very similar effervescent tastes. I received three flavors of the Super Powder: acai pomegranate, pink lemonade, and orange. I mixed each in 12 oz of water, as suggested, and ingested them in the late afternoon when my mind was fuzzy and energy was lacking. Each flavor took approximately 2.5 min to completely stop fizzing before I could take a drink.

Super Powder

The acai pomegranate was slightly bitter and left an unpleasant after taste which made it impossible for me to taste the flavor on the label. The pink lemonade was better, but not sweet like I expected. It tasted a little like a lemon peel smells, but still better than acai pomegranate. Lastly, the orange was the clear winner out of the taste test. It had a good orange flavor, although still slightly bitter, and if I had to choose, I would choose the orange every time. I wake up at 4:15 am most mornings to train college athletes and write programs and articles, so I don’t leave the building until 6-6:30 pm. So, despite my issues with the taste, this product was very effective at getting me back to normal about 30 minutes after ingestion. Overall, this product gets a 3.5 out of 5.

POW

The Pow pre-workout powder is the second of the fizzy products Eboost offers that I was able to sample. Once again, I am not a fan of effervescent flavors, but if you like Perrier or other sparkling drinks, then these will taste better to you. I took this berry melon flavored product 5-10 minutes prior to my workout in 6-8 oz of water, as suggested. This was easily my least favorite flavor. I did try two out of the four packets but disliked the flavor too much for the final two. The product did seem to work fairly well, but was packed with 175mg of caffeine which was too much for me. I don’t drink coffee or energy drinks, so this level of caffeine was over-stimulating. My positive note on this is that it contains 1.6g of carnosyn, which is the minimum effective dose of beta-alanine. Overall, I give Pow a 2 out of 5.

Spruce

The greens powder, Spruce, was one of my favorite items from Eboost. It contains the same amount of caffeine as about half a cup of coffee which acts as a good delivery system for the ingredients. The taste is very good. It tastes like a semi sweet apple with a hint of ginger. It is difficult to judge the effectiveness of this product since I was only able to try it for four days. I would allow four weeks of use before noticing any real effects stimming from this product. Although a bit pricey per serving, I would definitely add this to my daily greens routine. Overall, I give Spruce a 4.5 out of 5.

Prime

Last but not least, is the protein powder called Prime. Although 1 gram short on glutamine and what looks like a 2:1:1 BCAA ratio, this protein was a nice post workout treat. The flavor of the chocolate reminded me of when I was a kid working with my grandpa during Christmastime. It has a good, creamy chocolate flavor like that of Nestle hot chocolate mix. It’s tasty and brings back good memories, so let’s call that a win. The vanilla also had a good flavor but would be better if mixed in a smoothie or used in baked goods. Neither had a chalky flavor and both mixed well. This protein is on the pricier side at just over $3.00 per serving, but in this industry, you typically get what you pay for when it comes to protein. Once again, it is difficult to assess the effectiveness of this product on four servings. Overall, I give Prime a 4 out of 5.

That’s a Lot of Caffeine

Overall, this brand has accomplished its goals of having clean, effective, and energizing products that power people through their day. If you have some extra money to spend on your health, it would be well-spent with Eboost. Although I have had tastier products available on the market, Eboost hits the mark when it comes to effectiveness.

The only red flag I have is the total amount of caffeine you would intake if you used all of their products each day. If you combined Spruce, Pow, Super Powder, and Shot, that would total 477.5mg of caffeine. According to the Mayo Clinic, up to 400 mg of caffeine per day appears to be safe for most healthy adults.¹ If you are like most people and take all of these products in addition to your morning cup of joe, you are far exceeding the 400 mg. Be aware of your total caffeine intake if you choose Eboost. If you like your energy products to taste like Perrier, and want your protein to have a smooth, creamy taste, then give Eboost a try and let me know what you think about it.

References:

1. “Caffeine: How much is too much?” Mayo Clinic, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 8 Mar. 2017.

The post Feed Right, Live Right With Clean Supplements appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Coaches, athletes, and workout fanatics are in a perpetual search for competitive advantages both on and off the field. The offseason is paramount for the development of an athlete’s physical strength and psychological performance.

More specifically, improvement in anaerobic power is seen as a primary factor in athletic success, and anaerobic energy is essential to perform sprints and high-intensity runs, all of which contribute to your muscular gains and a game’s final result.¹

Given that typical football, volleyball, and soccer games last anywhere from 60-90 minutes, it also makes it important for players to include some muscular endurance exercises in their strength training routines.

These intense physical demands come with a high price that can only be paid for through proper recovery.

Most of us have heard the phrase, “There is no such thing as overtraining, just under recovering.” While this may be true, how many of us have the time to implement all of the suggested recovery tools necessary for our health?

Although there are as many recovery techniques on the market as there are exercises, qigong (chee-gong) presents a unique and previously unexplored method to eliminate the negative effects of stress and give you a 25% increase in strength in 8 weeks. 

The Damage of Workouts

In order to understand the complexity of some of the popular recovery tools, we need to first take a glimpse into the effects our workouts have on our bodies. Muscular adaptation to physical exercise has previously been explained by the classical damage–inflammation–repair pathway.

Muscle damage brought on by physical exercise can be expressed through fatigue, inflammatory reactions, high serum levels of muscle-injury biomarkers (creatine kinase, lactate dehydrogenase, myoglobin), oxidative stress, and delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS).^{2, 3, 4}

These biomarkers and ensuing symptoms peak 24-48 hours post-exercise, and can impair muscle function and physical performance for up to 7 days.^{3, 5, 6}

The prevention and treatment of DOMS are important issues for exercise programs. The use of anti-inflammatory non-steroidal drugs (NSAIDs), stretching, compression therapy, ultrasound, acupuncture, deep tissue massage, nutritional supplements, anti-oxidants, and electrical stimulation have all been tested, with varying degrees of success, for reducing DOMS symptoms.^{9, 10, 11, 12, 13}

However, there is no consensus about the most suitable method for effectively preventing DOMS and muscle injury. 

Inflammation is the body’s initial non-specific response to a wide variety of tissue damage produced by mechanical, chemical, or microbial stimuli. The mechanical stress on cellular cytoskeletons triggers acute inflammatory responses, increasing local and systemic markers of inflammation such as interleukin 6, and C-reactive protein.

The Eastern Model of Organ Function

Given these inflammatory reactions and muscle damage, recovery methods are critical for athletic performance. While the precise mechanism through which qigong is able to decrease inflammation is unclear, one possible pathway is through its effect on the immune system. Several studies have indicated that qigong leads to improved immune function.^7, 8

Traditional Chines Medicine’s (TCM) concept of an organ is much broader than the Western concept. While Western anatomy and physiology are primarily concerned with the physical body in its most concrete forms, the focus of energetic anatomy and physiology in TCM is on the underlying patterns of energy that animate and sustain the physical form.¹⁴

Given the conceptual differences between Western and Eastern medicine, it is paramount to build connections between the two philosophies.

The Liver

The liver is involved in a wide range of metabolic and regulatory functions, and is one of the most important organs in the body for maintaining the health of the blood. The various functions can be categorized into the following areas:

• Metabolism of carbohydrates, proteins and lipids
• Storage of vitamins and minerals
• Phagocytosis
• The removal of poisons, drugs, and certain hormones

The functions of the liver described in TCM are similar to those described in Western medicine. However, TCM asserts that the liver also stores and regulates the blood, smooths and regulates the flow of “qi” (the circulating life force or energy), governs the tendons, and has specific emotional influences.

In the TCM model, during exercise, blood flows into the muscle to nourish the muscle tissue, allowing it to become more pliant. When the muscles are well-nourished by the blood, the body maintains a stronger resistance to attacks from external pathogenic factors. After the completion of exercise, the blood flows back into the liver, allowing the body to restore and recharge its energy.

The liver’s most important function in TCM is the regulation of qi throughout the entire body.¹⁴

The liver governs the circulation of qi through all of the body’s internal organs, as well as regulates the function and control of the tendons and ligaments via the contraction and relaxation of the muscles. Thus, the liver is seen as the source of the body’s physical strength.

If the qi-filled blood from the liver becomes deficient, the body will be unable to moisten and nourish the tendons, which often results in symptoms such as muscle cramps, spasms, and an overall lack of strength.

The Lungs

Respiratory function is paramount for success in athletics, with the primary purpose being to deliver oxygen to the cells, while removing carbon dioxide.

Therefore, the smooth operation of the cardiopulmonary system is of critical importance. Blood must flow with efficiency from the heart into the lung tissue, where it is oxygenated, then throughout the rest of the body.

Anatomically, the lungs surround the heart, but in TCM they surround the heart energetically as well.¹⁴ According to TCM, one of the main functions of the lungs is to govern the qi and respiration.

Specifically, the lungs send qi into the heart and down in to the kidneys. The lungs also regulate breath, controlling both pulmonary and cellular respiration, and are the main organs responsible for gathering “heaven qi,” which is made up of the forces that the heavenly bodies exert on the earth, such as sunshine, moonlight, and the moon’s effect on the tides.

It is through respiration that qi and gasses of the body are exchanged between the interior and exterior of the body. Breathing in oxygen from the air during inhalation, and expelling gaseous wastes such as carbon dioxide during exhalation, maintains healthy internal organ regulation. Through this exchange, the body’s energetic and physical metabolism function smoothly.

Psychological Factors and Balance

In addition to the physiological concern of DOMS discussed earlier, there are also psychological factors that influence winning or losing in sports. The influence of stress and anxiety in sport performance is significant.

The athlete’s optimal state of mind depends on the relationship between anxiety and performance, and the factors that facilitate it. Once a stress response is produced, physiologic and attentional changes occur, such as increased muscle tension, narrowing of the visual field, and distractibility, thereby increasing likelihood of injury.¹⁵

One foundational concept of TCM that is familiar to most Westerners is the idea of yin and yang. In TCM, the theory of yin and yang energy represents the duality of balance and harmony within the body, as well as within the universe.

Yang manifests as active, creative, masculine, hot, hard, light, heaven, white and bright. Yin manifests as passive, receptive, feminine, cold, soft, dark, earth, black, and shadow. When the body is in balance between yin and yang, health is predominant. In athletes, if the body and environment are out of balance, performance, recovery, and clarity can be disrupted.

TCM views emotions as potential “internal pathogens” that have the ability to unbalance the function of our organs. This disruption can occur when we experience an emotion very intensely, suddenly, or when we chronically hold onto any emotion over an extended period of time.

Given the need for emotional balance and the effects of emotional imbalance on each organ system, TCM’s Five Element model (Fig. 1) is useful to organize everything into interacting, comprehensive patterns. This model establishes which emotion corresponds to an internal organ, and that each organ is very much affected by its related emotion.

From the TCM perspective, emotions must flow unobstructed in order to not have an adverse effect on your wellbeing. This wisdom is clearly stated in the Nei Jing, a classic text of TCM, written some 2,500 years ago: “Overindulgence in the five emotions—happiness, anger, sadness, worry, and fear—can create imbalances.”¹⁶

The Five Elements are an ancient philosophical concept created to explain the composition and phenomena of the physical universe. They were later adapted in TCM to illustrate the unity of the human body and the natural world, and the physiological and pathological relationship between the internal organs.¹⁷

Through modern holistic practices such as acupuncture, Eastern medicine can now provide an understanding that emotions are powerful energies that strongly affect our qi and our overall health.

Figure 1. Five Element Theory. The five elements in Chinese medicine.¹⁸

The Five Elements and the Body

In TCM, the lungs are represented by metal, and function much in the same way as described in Western medicine. However, TCM expands the role of the lungs to include psycho-emotional aspects of integrity, attachment, and grief.

As a consequence, if the circulation of qi becomes obstructed for long periods of time, the lung qi stagnation can give rise to chronic emotional turmoil, sometimes manifesting through disappointment, sadness, grief, despair, shame, and sorrow.

Represented by wood, the liver’s function of ensuring the flow of qi has an influence on the body’s mental and emotional states that each organ generates. If the circulation of liver qi becomes obstructed, the resulting stagnation gives rise to emotional turmoil.

For instance, anger—which also includes feelings of stress, frustration, bitterness, and resentment—directly impacts liver function. Anger makes qi rise, so many of its effects will be felt in your head and neck: headaches are the most common symptom, but dizziness, ringing in the ears, red blotches on the front of the neck, and thirst can all be signs of a liver imbalance.

In Western medicine, the spleen’s primary functions are to cleanse the blood, fight infection, and store and release platelets and white blood cells. The spleen can easily be injured as a result of local impact trauma or severe infection. As a precaution, Western medicine will remove the spleen in cases of leukemia or lymphoma.

In TCM, the functions attributed to the spleen, represented by earth, are completely different than those identified by Western medicine.

From an energetic perspective, some of the main functions of the spleen are to rule the muscles and tendons, and to distribute emotional and spiritual nourishment.

If the spleen is unable to nourish the muscles and tendons, the muscles will become weak and begin to atrophy. Emotionally, when the spleen qi becomes stagnant, this can give rise to emotional turmoil such as obsession and doubt.

The functions attributed to the heart, represented by fire in TCM, also differ from the functions described by Western medicine. Chinese energetic functions include those associated with the circulatory system, as well as emotional aspects.

The qi of the heart is the driving force for the heart’s beat, rhythm, rate, and strength. Eastern and Western medicine both agree that the heart pumps blood through arteries to be delivered throughout the body.

However, TCM expands on this basic concept, and sometimes calls the heart “the controller,” since it coordinates all of the energetic and emotional functions of the body.

When qi is flowing normally, an individual will experience peace in his thoughts and actions. On the other hand, if the circulation of qi is obstructed, this stagnation can give rise to nervousness, anxiety, panic, and guilt.

Western medicine and TCM have differing views regarding the functions of the kidneys, represented by water. In Western medicine, during exercise, skin and active muscle tissue compete for a limited cardiac output.

The increased blood flow to the skin, along with the evaporation of sweat, allows heat to be dissipated to the environment, while increased blood flow to the muscle allows for the delivery of oxygen and energy substrates.

In order to accomplish this dual purpose without a decrease in blood pressure, blood flow to the liver, pancreas, gastrointestinal tract, and kidney are reduced.¹⁹

This results in increased sodium and water conservation by the kidneys, and the maintenance of mean arterial pressure during exercise. While these adjustments are beneficial for homeostasis, excessive reductions in renal function can precipitate renal failure.²⁰

According to TCM, the main energetic functions of the kidneys include the function of the urinary system, the nervous system, emotional aspects, and spiritual influences.

Emotionally, the kidneys provide the capacity and drive for strength, skill, and hard work.

An individual with healthy kidneys will have the ability to work hard and purposefully for long periods of time. However, when the kidneys are in a state of disharmony, the individual may have deficient strength, endurance, confidence, and willpower.

Qigong: Balancing the Elements

Given the importance of the Five Element theory and the disruptions that arise due to emotional disharmony, qigong aims to cultivate life force through regular effort, and often combines movements and mind focusing.²¹

It is considered to be the contemporary offspring of some of the most ancient healing and medical practices of Asia. Earliest forms of qigong make up one of the historic roots of contemporary TCM theory and practice.²²

Qigong purportedly allows individuals to cultivate the natural force or energy (qi) that is associated with physiological and psychological functionality.²³

Qi is the conceptual foundation of TCM in acupuncture, herbal medicine, and Chinese physical therapy. It is considered to be a universal resource of nature that sustains human wellbeing and assists in healing disease, as well as having fundamental influence on all life, and even the orderly function of celestial mechanics and the laws of physics.

Qigong exercises consist of a series of orchestrated practices including body postures and movements, breath practice, and meditation. They are all designed to enhance qi function by drawing upon natural forces to optimize and balance energy within, through the attainment of deeply focused and relaxed states.

From the perspective of Western thought and science, qigong practices activate naturally occurring physiological and psychological mechanisms of self-repair and health recovery.²³

The philosophy of qigong exercise is that the mind “guides” the person’s qi to a healthy state. If the flow of qi is disturbed, illness may occur.²¹

Entering the “qigong state,” being deeply relaxed, may trigger the relaxation response that supports an individual’s recovery process.²⁴

The Study: The Effect of Qigong on Performance

The use of mind-body therapies, such as tai chi, yoga, qigong, and meditation are well-studied, and frequently reported as a means of coping with anxiety and depression.²⁵ Psychological benefits from regular qigong training include antidepressant effects,²⁶ increased self-efficacy,²⁷ and stress reduction.²⁸

Despite these findings, there is little knowledge of the impact of qigong exercise on an elite athlete’s physical and mental states during training. Therefore, I conducted a study to determine the efficacy of qigong to facilitate strength gains and wellbeing in collegiate athletes—specifically the Dao Yin exercises focusing on lungs, kidneys, heart, liver, and spleen.

The aim of the study was to find out if qigong could be used to increase strength in collegiate athletes, with the potential to improve sport performance and reduce likelihood of injury.

If effective, this qigong exercise protocol could be implemented in high school, collegiate and professional weight rooms and athletic training rooms. The increased performance could even lead to higher monetary value for athletes choosing to play professionally after their collegiate careers are over.

No previous studies have examined the effects of qigong exercises on elite, anaerobically trained collegiate athletes.

Seventy-three athletes (47M, 26F, 18-22 years old) volunteered to participate in the study, and were divided into a qigong exercise group or a standard care group.

Each group underwent the same prescribed weight training program, which consisted of eight weeks of training, four days per week. Strength gains were measured through a vertical jump test and a 3RM front squat, bench press, and deadlift before and after the program.

Wellbeing was measured through a questionnaire, which was administered before, weekly, and after the weight training program. In addition to the training program and questionnaire, the qigong group performed qigong exercises five days a week for fifteen minutes each day.

The qigong group’s average strength values were higher versus the control for bench press (+ 52%; P= 0.00), deadlift (+15%; P= 0.09), front squat (+28%; P= 0.004), and vertical jump (+52%, P= 0.223). The qigong group also had a higher average overall wellbeing score (+6%; P= 0.00).

These data suggest that eight weeks of qigong exercises for 15 minutes a day, 5 days per week facilitates an improvement in exercise performance, as well as an enhancement in self-reported feelings of wellbeing.

Further studies examining the long-term benefits of qigong, the collection of inflammatory biomarkers, and any potential association between improvement in wellbeing and reduction in injury rates may provide additional information that may assist coaches and athletic trainers in providing optimal comprehensive care.

References:

1. Aziz, A. R., M. Chia, and K. C. Teh. “The relationship between maximal oxygen uptake and repeated sprint performance indices in field hockey and soccer players.” Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 40 (2000): 195-200. 

2. Aoi, W., Naito, Y., Takanami, Y., Kawai, Y., Sakuma, K., Ichikawa, H., Yoshida, N. and Yoshikawa, T. (2004). Oxidative stress and delayed-onset muscle damage after exercise. Free Radical Biology and Medicine, 37(4), pp.480-487.

3. Ascensão, A., Rebelo, A., Oliveira, E., Marques, F., Pereira, L. and Magalhães, J. (2008). Biochemical impact of a soccer match—analysis of oxidative stress and muscle damage markers throughout recovery. Clinical Biochemistry, 41(10-11), pp.841-851.

4. Iguchi, M. and Shields, R. (2010). Quadriceps low-frequency fatigue and muscle pain are contraction-type-dependent. Muscle & Nerve, 42(2), pp.230-238.

5. Chatzinikolaou, A., Fatouros, I., Gourgoulis, V., Avloniti, A., Jamurtas, A., Nikolaidis, M., Douroudos, I., Michailidis, Y., Beneka, A., Malliou, P., Tofas, T., Georgiadis, I., Mandalidis, D. and Taxildaris, K. (2010). Time Course of Changes in Performance and Inflammatory Responses After Acute Plyometric Exercise. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 24(5), pp.1389-1398.

6. Paulsen, G., Egner, I., Drange, M., Langberg, H., Benestad, H., Fjeld, J., Hallén, J. and Raastad, T. (2010). A COX-2 inhibitor reduces muscle soreness, but does not influence recovery and adaptation after eccentric exercise. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 20(1), pp.e195-e207.

7. Yeh, M., Lee, T., Chen, H. and Chao, T. (2006). The Influences of Chan-Chuang Qi-Gong Therapy on Complete Blood Cell Counts in Breast Cancer Patients Treated With Chemotherapy. Cancer Nursing, 29(2), pp.149-155. 

8. Luo, S., & Tong, T. “Effect of vital gate qigong exercise on malignant Tumor.” In First World Conference for Academic Exchange of Medical Qigong, 1988. Beijing, China.

9. Arent, S., Senso, M., Golem, D. and McKeever, K. (2010). The effects of theaflavin-enriched black tea extract on muscle soreness, oxidative stress, inflammation, and endocrine responses to acute anaerobic interval training: a randomized, double-blind, crossover study. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 7(1), p.11.

10. Best, T., Hunter, R., Wilcox, A. and Haq, F. (2008). Effectiveness of Sports Massage for Recovery of Skeletal Muscle From Strenuous Exercise. Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, 18(5), pp.446-460.

11. Cheung, K., Hume, P. and Maxwell, L. (2003). Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. Sports Medicine, 33(2), pp.145-164.

12. Stay, J. C., M. D. Richard, D. O. Draper, S. S. Schulthies, and E. Durrant. “Pulsed ultrasound fails to diminish delayed-onset muscle soreness symptoms.” Journal of Athletic Training 33 (1998): 341-46. 

13. Zainuddin, Z., M. Newton, P. Sacco, and K. Nosaka. “Effects of massage on delayed-onset muscle soreness, swelling, and recovery of muscle function.” Journal of Athletic Training 40 (2005): 174-80. 

14. Johnson, J. A. Chinese Medical Qigong Therapy: Vol. 1 Energetic Anatomy and Physiology. Pacific Grove: n.p., 2002. 

15. Williams, J. and Andersen, M. (1998). Psychosocial antecedents of sport injury: Review and critique of the stress and injury model‘. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 10(1), pp.5-25.

16. Maoshing, N. The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1995.

17. Beijing Medical College. Dictionary of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Hong Kong: The Commercial Press Ltd., 1984. 

18. Ping Ming Health. (2017). The five elements in Chinese medicine – Ping Ming Health. [online] [Accessed 11 May. 2015].

19. Rowell, L. (1993). Human cardiovascular control. New York: Oxford University Press.

20. Buskirk, Elsworth R., and Susan M. Puhl, eds. Body Fluid Balance: Exercise and Sport. Vol. 9. CRC Press, 1996.

21. Chen, K. “Qigong therapy for stress management.” In: Lehrer, P.M., Woolfork, R.L., Sine, W.E., Principles and Practice of Stress Management. Guilford Press, New York, 2007, pp.428-448.

22. Jahnke, R. (2002). The Healing Promise of Qi. Chicago, IL: Contemporary Books.

23. Jahnke, R., Larkey, L., Rogers, C., Etnier, J. and Lin, F. (2010). A Comprehensive Review of Health Benefits of Qigong and Tai Chi. American Journal of Health Promotion, 24(6), pp.e1-e25.

24. Benson, H., M. M. Greenwood, and H. Klemchuk. “The relaxation response:psycho-physiologic aspects and clinical applications.” International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine 6 (1975): 67-98

25. Wolsko, P., Eisenberg, D., Davis, R. and Phillips, R. (2004). Use of mind-body medical therapies. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 19(1), pp.43-50.

26. Tsang, H., Fung, K., Chan, A., Lee, G. and Chan, F. (2006). Effect of a qigong exercise programme on elderly with depression. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 21(9), pp.890-897.

27. Lee, M., Lim, H. and Lee, M. (2004). Impact of Qigong Exercise on Self-Efficacy and Other Cognitive Perceptual Variables in Patients with Essential Hypertension. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 10(4), pp.675-680.

28. Lee, M., Hong, S., Lim, H., Kim, H., Woo, W. and Moon, S. (2003). Retrospective Survey on Therapeutic Efficacy of Qigong in Korea. The American Journal of Chinese Medicine, 31(05), pp.809-815.

The post Your Strength Routine’s Most Important 15 Minutes appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Although this is an imaginary ailment, many people do neglect to train the back, and I’m not just talking about the part of the back that gives you “wings.” I am talking about the part of our body that made a punch by Mike Tyson so devastating, Bo Jackson so powerful, and the most important muscles for building efficient, high-speed running.

Think about how you train your own back. Most of us perform some type of row variation in an attempt to target our lats, but never quite train the whole muscle. Do you ever recall an intense cramping sensation coming from the lower portion of your lats? If you are like the other 99% of coaches and civilians out there who have never been able to access or feel this phenomenon, then this article is for you.

The lats are the largest muscles in the upper body, and connect at five different points including the spine, pelvis, ribs, scapula, and upper arm. Because of the variety of connections, they play a primary role in all strength exercises, even if they aren’t trained directly. Take a look at the fiber orientation of these muscles. Notice how these fibers are neither horizontal nor longitudinal. The diagonal fiber orientation is an excellent blend of both, which allows the lats to accommodate a wider variety of more complex movements and stability demands. Our lats have a huge cross-sectional area, a broad spectrum of attachments, and a unique fiber orientation that accommodates diverse movements.

What Your Lats Mean for Your Lifts

As coaches, we all know the critical importance of training these larger muscles in both athlete and civilian clients. The last thing we want is to create asymmetries that result in hunched-over backs caused by the overdevelopment of the chest and shoulder muscles. Let’s take a look at the globally agreed upon use of the lats during weight room activities by coaches like Dr. Stuart McGill, Kelly Starrett, DPT, and Dr. Robin McKenzie.

Squat

During the squat, the lats are used to stabilize the bar on your back, maintain an upright torso, and protect your spine. As with all multi-joint weightroom exercises, joint stabilization is key for spinal health and more efficient movement. As an added bonus, stabilization of your spine and pelvis will enable an improved range of motion in your squat.

To engage the lats during the squat, pull the bar down on your upper traps as if you are attempting to bend the bar in half. Do this by pointing your punching knuckles towards the ceiling while maintaining straight wrists, then position your elbows directly under your fists and pull them down and toward your hips.

Deadlift

The lats play a similar role in the deadlift as they do during squats. In order to maintain proper position and a flat back, you must engage the lats. Proper engagement will allow you to drop your hips and bring your chest up.

To engage the lats correctly, think of trying to pull your shoulder blades down into your back pockets. If you like juice as much as Dan John, use his cue to pretend like you have oranges under your armpits and attempt to squeeze the juice out to ensure those lats are packed nice and tight.

Bench Press

During the bench press, your lats work to provide spinal stabilization and help transfer force. One of the most often overlooked aspects of bench strength is the use of our backs. If your back isn’t tired after a bench press workout, you didn’t bench correctly.

In order to take full advantage of your lats, you must drop your elbows down to a 45° angle. This protects your shoulders by assigning the load to your lats, and it allows you to more effectively transfer force from your legs into the bar.

The Properly Positioned Spine

Many times, problems with these exercises will be interpreted as a lack of mobility or flexibility, but in reality, the issue has to do with positioning. Organizing your spine in a braced, stable position will increase range of motion significantly. According to Kelly Starrett, a properly positioned spine looks like this:

• The pelvis is set in a neutral position. The simplest and most effective way to put your pelvis into the correct position is by contracting your glutes.

• The ribcage is drawn down. With your glute muscles 100 percent engaged, tilt your lower ribcage down into a balanced alignment with your pelvis. Imagine that both your pelvis and your ribcage are bowls of water and you don’t wish to spill a drop.

• The glutes and abs are dialed down. With your pelvis and ribcage aligned, keep your abdominal and glute muscles turned on at 20 percent tension in order to lock things in place.

• Your head is in a neutral position. Center your head over your shoulders, not down or back, and balance it in a neutral position with your gaze forward.

• Your shoulders are stabilized. Screw your shoulders into a stable position by extending the tips of your shoulder blades down toward your hips.

Head Over Foot

Setting up in this manner allows the spine to become a channel for the power generated by the hips and shoulders for weightlifting. But what about for athletic movements and running? Traditional coaching cues runners to keep the sternum stacked directly over the pubic symphysis in order for the force of the hips to translate into the rest of the body. Otherwise, you’re not running as swiftly and efficiently as you can, and you’re opening yourself up to greater risk of an overuse injury.

None of the world’s best and fastest athletes from a myriad of sports run with a braced core. Even Usain Bolt, the fastest man in recorded history, shifts his head dramatically from side-to-side while he smashes world records. So, how do you begin to tap into the speed of Bolt or the power of Tyson? The answer is by coiling your core with head-over foot-technique.

It’s all about biomechanics. Because the spine is as curved as it is, flexion in the frontal plane (side-bending) causes axial counter-rotation of the spine in the transverse plane. Side-bending to the left causes the left shoulder to rotate down and back and the left hip to rotate up and forward. The lats are essential when coiling your core due to their connection with the thoracolumbar fascia (TLF). Consequently, inhibition of the latissimus dorsi can cause compensations in the neck, shoulder, elbow, lower back, and gait. How does this happen?

When the body perceives instability in a joint, it will very often either compress that joint or a nearby joint. In the case of the elbow, inhibition of the lat causes the elbow to compress in order to stabilize the shoulder joint, many times resulting in tennis elbow. The biggest victim, however, is our lower backs. Since the lats are contiguous with the TLF, any inhibition of the lat will cause compensations in our muscles and their function. These include the muscles of the ipsilateral erector spinae group, the quadratus lumborum, the gluteus maximus, and the gluteus medius. This inhibition may also cause a contralateral rotational compensation, including the piriformis. This fascia is a critical attachment point through which several muscles can exert their desired effects.

Getting Around Restrictions

Take a look at the picture below. You can easily recognize the TLF and lat, but look at the way that the gluteus maximus’ fibers are oriented. If those forces are transferred across that TLF, they go right into the “wheelhouse” of the gluteus maximus. In other words, they work synergistically, linking one shoulder with the opposite hip. Thomas Myers goes even deeper in his book, Anatomy Trains. He discusses the spiral line, a fascial connection between the shoulder and opposite leg, from the hip to the ankle. If you have restrictions in the spiral line, both ends of the line will be negatively affected.

If the inhibited lats and fascia can cause such global problems, then they can also facilitate explosive movements when open and working properly. The key to the best utilization of our core while running is to use the spine. By using the WeckMethod Sidewinder drill and cuing athletes to place their head over their foot (HOF), we can coil the core and utilize the lats in a few easy steps. In the video below, David Weck gives a detailed explanation on how we accomplish this task.

Enhance Every Movement

In the case of the WeckMethod Sidewinder drill, we focus on coiling training to enhance the contralateral serape effect to take full advantage of our spiral line. Our core is directly related to how fast and efficiently runners run, fighters fight, and rotational sports throw. The head over foot training technique enhances every movement. Our coiling core is crucial in force production and maintaining balance. Understanding how these patterns are formed and relate is necessary to make every step stronger.

References:

1. Murphy, T.J. “A Runner’s Secret to Maximum Force Production: The Organized Spine.” STACK. January 20, 2014. Accessed 2017.

2. Myers, Thomas W., and Susan K. Hillman. Anatomy Trains. London: Primal Pictures Ltd., 2004. Print.

The post Your Lats, Your Lifts, and the Coiling Core appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

This is exactly how it feels when you allow your brain to tell you that an outcome is dictated by the intensity of the situation.

Just like a negotiator, the brain’s main function is to bring about nonviolent endings to crisis situations. Your brain will “chip away” at situations in your life by offering you minor concessions, in return for the feeling of prolonged safety. By continuing this process, your brain (the negotiator) will gradually weaken your positions, causing only temporarily safe emotional states that result in anguish caused by your delay in action. Look at the many people who are so talented at different things, but never accomplish anything. Those people have allowed themselves to negotiate with their minds and have forgotten that only the body has limitations.

Discipline Requires Action

At the beginning of each day, prepare to dominate your day. For most all of us, this starts with the snooze button on our alarm clock. For former Navy SEALs Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, their days also begin with an alarm clock, but it’s set for 4:30am so they can work out. In their book, Extreme Ownership, they note that the practical side behind the early morning is because if they chose to work out in the afternoon, then others would chip away at their workout time.

The other side is the principle of self-discipline. To be able to teach discipline, they must stay disciplined themselves, and it starts as soon as they get out of bed. I know you may not feel like getting out of bed early in the morning, but who does? When you are finished with your feelings, you have nothing, but behind every principle is a promise to yourself. When the alarm goes off, it hits you in the head with a baseball bat. So how do you respond to that? Do you hit the snooze button and break a promise to yourself? Or do you get up, get aggressive, and attack the day? If you aren’t mentally ready, you will never be physically prepared.

The biggest difference between people who achieve their hopes and dreams and the negotiators is action. The most prosperous among us are unrelenting in the pursuit of their passions, and if you haven’t found yours, you have to be willing to continue to try. Steve Jobs famously said,

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”

Everyone has a unique gift, but it’s your job to figure out what that gift is, and you must be the one to act on it. How you figure things out is to create your own personal philosophy and set a focused goal, because without a target, you will miss every time.

There Is No Straight Line to Success

Most people believe that they need to just follow a straight line to find success. They think that they will finish college, find a high paying job, and everything else will just fall into place. We know that the real truth is a winding road that will take you all kinds of places. It is difficult, discouraging, demoralizing, even scary.

Pivotal moments often come when you are the most demoralized. For Pete Carroll, his lowest point was after being fired by the New England Patriots. It was the first and only year that he had not been playing or coaching football, and he knew if he ever wanted to coach again, he would need a philosophy that drove all of his actions. After reflecting for several months, Carroll’s philosophy became, “Do things better than they have ever been done before.” That philosophy has since seen him win multiple national championships at the University of Southern California, and a Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks.

Building the discipline you need to get what you want sometimes means taking the hard road to do what’s right. Most of us stop at failure. But we all fail at things, and we will continue to fail at things. Failure can transform into the most powerful tool you can use, but it all depends on how you use it.

What Fear Can Tell You About Your Goals

A clear, well-defined philosophy may give you the guidelines to keep you on track, but when you have millions of things you need to do well, how do you prioritize? Warren Buffet, the self-made multi-billionaire, gave his personal pilot a simple, three-step process for prioritizing his goals.

1. Write down 25 career goals.
2. Mediate and really take the time to consider those goals and narrow them down to just five.
3. Take a hard look at the twenty goals you didn’t circle, and avoid those at all costs.

Buffet says that the twenty that didn’t make the cut are the goals that will distract you and eat away time and energy, taking away from the goals that matter more. You must learn to discipline and contain your fear when you cut twenty of your goals, because if you don’t, your brain will start negotiating with the things you want most.

If you become paralyzed with fear, that’s a good thing. Fear and self-doubt are like barometers for what we must do next. Your negotiations with yourself are often experienced as fear, and the degree of fear equates to the strength of the negotiation. If you didn’t really care about your goal, then there would be no need for your brain to negotiate with you. This means that the more fearful we are about accomplishing a goal, the stronger the indication of how important it is to our personal growth.

Self-doubt is also your friend, and serves as an indicator of your aspirations. According to The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, self-doubt reflects love of something we dream of doing and the desire to do it. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident, but the real one is scared to death.

Make the Decision

There are two types of people: those who are going to get what they want out of life, and everybody else. Most of us are constantly trying to improve ourselves, but we are too focused on the one thing that will change everything. We can’t break loose of the paralysis of fear, and are looking for the one thing that will change it all. But hitting the jackpot one time won’t make your dreams come true, even if you hit it ten times or a hundred times. Going after your passion isn’t a lifehack, trick, or a one-time decision; it’s a campaign. Every hour, every day, every week you must fight against laziness, weakness, and negotiation. Hard work is waking up early and making the tough decisions every day to make your passion a priority.

What will change your whole life is action. We don’t usually take action because we have created a story as to why we couldn’t achieve what we want, and we lose the negotiation with our mind. How do we get past our own story and beat our own minds? By making a decision to take massive action.

The word “decision” comes from Latin, in which it literally means “cutting off.” Making a decision doesn’t mean that you will try and see what happens. When you make a real decision, you are cutting off the fear that controls your mind and keeps you from your hopes and dreams. Remember that your brain’s job is to bring about non-violent endings to threatening situations. It also interprets everything you have never done before as a threatening situation, which means it wants to hold you back form everything you are capable of doing.

Your decision is the pivotal point in your life. When you have made it, no matter how hard something is, you will find a way. Decisions are the first step to making yourself into something. Commitment is what happens after you have decided on your goal, and provides the grit you need for the future. Decide, commit, and resolve to never let anything distract you from your passions.

The post Don’t Negotiate With Fear appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The problems we run into are viewed only as developmental opportunities, and innovation is the lynchpin for our success.

The two ideas I try to embody as a coach are to never be afraid to admit when you don’t know something, and to never fall in love with my own ideas. Instead, I fall in love with my athletes’ success. This combination drives my campaign for acquisition of knowledge while allowing me to keep an open mind. If it weren’t for this learning style, I would have never come across David Weck. David is the inventor of the BOSU ball. Prior to meeting him, I only saw the BOSU as a tool for circus tricks in the gym, so imagine my skepticism when I came across a deadlift technique from the ringleader himself.

How Deadlifts Changed Sprinting

The deadlift is commonly used in strength and conditioning programs for athletes to develop the muscles of the hip, lower back, upper back, quadriceps, hamstrings, and abdominals. They require minimal time and equipment, involve multiple joints, and work a significantly greater percentage of muscle than leg press or squats, yet accomplish the goal of large strength increases with minimal weight gain. Numerous variations are possible, by changing the type of bar (straight bar, hex bar, farmers’ bars), by adding bands or chains, or by altering the technique. If used correctly, it can be an excellent exercise to use in the development of strength, speed, and power.

Just over ten years ago, Barry Ross was the architect behind the record-breaking performances of track star Allyson Felix. Ross’s famous deadlift-based protocol was founded on a study performed by Harvard’s Peter Weyand, which determined that the key to a sprinter’s success is their relative strength; specifically, how much force he or she puts into the ground per pound of body weight. Running Speed = Stride Length x Stride Rate, and the two main factors in stride rate are turnover rate and contact time. At the time, most coaches focused solely on turnover, whereas we now know that contact time is the critical factor in stride rate.

Incorporating deadlifts allowed Ross’s athletes to produce greater mass-specific force, causing the amount of ground contact time to decrease. Getting stronger without adding bulk not only decreased ground contact time, but increased stride length without the danger of destroying good running mechanics. This innovative use of the deadlift provided the spark that Felix needed to break Marion Jones’s national high school 200-meter record, and set the stage for all future track-based strength protocols.

However, the current track athlete already has an overactive psoas from constant hip flexion, and to combine that with the lower back development of the conventional deadlift causes problems. We know without a doubt that deadlifts develop speed, but if the track athlete’s lower back hurts too much for them to perform, what is the point?

Innovation and Results

Results rule. Nothing else matters. If I couldn’t force my athletes to recover properly from weight training sessions, then a change needed to be made and my search for an innovative modification began.

Innovation is the application of better solutions to meet new requirements or unarticulated needs. This is accomplished through more-effective products, processes, services, or technologies than are readily available. The term “innovation” can be defined as something original and more effective, and as a consequence, “breaks into” the market or society. The WeckMethod Deadlift was exactly this, and I implemented it into my own training right away. Once I saw tangible results with my own training, they were immediately programmed onto my athletes’ sheets for their first quarter in school, and the real test of this new technique began.

The metrics I use to measure every new exercise are:

1. Do they reduce the incidence of injury?
2. Do they increase performance?

During the first quarter of the 2016 school year, the WeckMethod deadlifts accomplished both. During that quarter, my head strength coach Chris Holder and I had several Skype conversations with David to really dig in to the finer details and reasons behind his technique. After seeing the results, Chris and I knew that we had to go see David. So we traveled down to his home base in San Diego and spent two full days mining each other’s minds and training the new methods we were being taught. What we found was the beginning of a radical, Barry Ross-type change in approach to speed training.

The Spinal Engine and Speed

The inspiration and basis for modification is Serge Gracovetsky’s spinal engine theory. He believes the spine is an engine driving the pelvis, and that human anatomy is a consequence of function. Notice in this video of a subject without legs what happens during locomotion. It is obviously preferable to have legs, but they only amplify the movements of the pelvis, and their functional role remains secondary. So if the legs cannot rotate the pelvis, then what does? It has to be the spine. Many people understand how to train the “bracing core,” but few know how to optimize the “coiling core,” which is the spinal engine.

Think about your own lifting routine, and how important it is to prevent segmental motion while under load. But this is only critical for lifting weights. It isn’t really how you move best out on the field or court. In every basic biomechanics class, we are taught that muscles can only do work when in position to do so. If this is true, then why are we so reliant on preventing segmental motion, instead of causing it?

The goal of every new modification is to establish and maintain correct muscular tension throughout the body, to allow us to load the ground with more power and efficiency during athletic movement. The Head Over Foot technique was how we were going to accomplish this task. It gives you the optimal degree of side-bending and rotation, which strengthens and lengthens extension and flexion sagittally, and enables you to land each step in balance—which is the key to efficiency and power. The sequencing is:

1. Side-bending in frontal plane
2. Counter rotation in transverse plane
3. Step forward in sagittal plane

Results Over Dogma

Since our meet up in San Diego, David, Chris, and I have been developing and testing programs with our athletes and NFL hopefuls, and couldn’t be more pleased with the initial results. The key to this innovative method’s effectiveness? Time. Implementation of the exercises we are developing takes approximately 2-3 minutes, and the results are immediate. Cementing these movement patterns will take time, but when our athletes feel the effects from a single 3-minute session, results rule.

Some of you may not trust the method, because it challenges long-held concepts of what makes people run faster, or it runs counter to what they think they see. Others may feel there is no way to adjust training to fit their athletes. From our experience, neither could be further from the truth.

Keep in mind that this campaign wouldn’t be possible if any of us were in love with our own ideas, instead of our athlete’s success. This is the genesis of a running technique that will change the way programs will be written, like the implementation of the deadlift. If you share the same passion that we have for the success of our athletes, then continue to follow us here on Breaking Muscle, as well as in the Coaches Only section.

Over the coming months, David Weck, Chris Holder, and I will continue to write about the results of our programming, and provide detailed, step-by-step processes on how to perform the exercises we have developed. Think of the times when you weren’t getting the results you were looking for, but couldn’t get out of your own way, and your athletes suffered. Results rule; and if what you’re doing isn’t working, it needs to change.

When you prioritize results, the choices make themselves:

On Success and the Illusion of Choice

The post In Training Innovation, Results Rule appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

There is really nothing like layering ingredients into a meal then enjoying the tasty surprise that waits at the end of the cooking process. It also takes persistence, trial and error, and most of all patience to create the kind of dish that most of us will only enjoy at a fancy restaurant.

Cooking allows me to reflect on my own life and the world we live in, and make connections between the two. The kitchen, and how we approach cooking, ingredients, and recipes, can be the perfect metaphor for life. By understanding the relationship between our lives and cooking, we gain incredible insight on how to grow.

At a younger age, cooking for myself was a necessity, since both my parents worked the better part of the day to provide for us. After being picked up from school then dropped off at home, if we were hungry, we had to make something for ourselves. God knows there was no one better at spreading butter and applying just the right amount of maple syrup to a perfectly toasted Eggo than me.

These days, I apply that same attention to detail to my smoker. (Warning: A smoker carries its own unique set of tests and may result in intense frustration.) However, just as with our own lives, when we take on challenges, it takes trial and error, patience, and persistence to succeed.

The trials from a smoker will mirror and reveal the answers to the tough questions life sends our way, and help us make sense of the answers we find.

Rules Are Just Suggestions

If you follow a recipe, you will always know exactly what you’re having for dinner. Unfortunately, cooking, like life, necessitates that we learn as we go. So instead, let the recipes of life serve as a guide because you’re likely to end up with something different every day.

Different could mean bad and inedible, in which case, learn from your mistakes, get better, and you will have confidence the next time the situation arises. Different could also mean exciting, and the discovery of flavor combinations you didn’t know existed. You may learn that it can be a lot more fun to blaze your own trail, to draw outside the lines, trust your instincts, and give it a go, even if you’re unsure of how things might turn out in the end.

More often than not, taking the risk will be worth it. We have to remember that the worst times in our lives have never been so catastrophic that we haven’t able to fight through them. Mistakes will be made, and sometimes you will have to discard entire entrees and side dishes. Just remember, there is always a lesson to be learned from failure, so trust your instincts, because they are born from experience.

Low and Slow

?In the world of cooking meats, specifically in smoking BBQ, magic is found in honoring the process. When cooking tough cuts of meat with lots of connective tissue like ribs, brisket, and shoulder, it takes time to develop the flavors, break down the intermuscular tissues, and allow for the smoke to seep its way into the flesh.

That’s why these cuts are often cooked low and slow. The meat will start to become tough and dry around 125°F to 140°F, if heated quickly. When heated slowly, the rubber band-like collagen fibers have time to relax and coat the muscle fibers with soft, gelatinous lubricant. (Yes, this collagen is pretty much the same thing the Hollywood wives have injected in their faces to get rid of wrinkles.) This gives meat a wonderful silky texture and adds moisture.

Like our lives, this low and slow process demands patience and consistent attention. There are ways to try to hack the system and speed up the process, but in the end, it never turns out the same. Things take time, so appreciate the process it takes to reach your goals. Relationships take time, building sustainable businesses takes time, and losing weight (the right way) by dieting takes time. You can try to find a path that gets you there faster, but along the way, you are bound to skip over some key steps. Life takes time.

Don’t Skimp on Ingredients

Have you ever opened a cookbook and had all but one of the ingredients? It doesn’t seem worth it to drive all the way to the grocery store just to complete the recipe, so you compromise. You decide to use margarine instead of butter, or use nonfat milk instead of heavy cream, but it rarely turns out right.

Simply put, recipes are there to keep you on track, and not to be disregarded. Remember salivating over what looks like a perfectly smoked brisket, but when you taste it, it is dry, bland, and seems to be missing something? Your shortcut might put you ahead in the short run, but in the long run, it never seems to work out.

In our own lives, cutting the corners with our own responsibilities also never seems to work out. Think about your cheat days when you start a diet, or giving in when you don’t really want to go to the gym. If you don’t stick to what is best for you, it always results in frustration with yourself. What a disappointment. How often do you see this in your own life?

(Source: Bev Childress)

Sometimes Your Dish Doesn’t Turn Out Right?

When starting unfamiliar projects, there are some things we know without a doubt, but sometimes there are things we don’t even know that we don’t know. A brisket takes 24-48 hours of prep and cooking time, if done really well. During the cooking time, it feels as if you dropped your kid off at pre-school for the first time and all you want to do is check on him every five minutes.

We can’t control everything, and unforeseen things are bound to happen. I’ve ruined plenty of meals, and fallen short of impressing guests, dates, and even myself. That’s part of life. Things don’t always go as planned, and we certainly don’t always get what we want. But, if you never had an inedible meal, then you would never truly know what it meant to have one that was absolutely delicious. If you’d never tried an overcooked and dried out steak, then you’ll never appreciate when your favorite cut of meat is prepared just how you like it.

The less-than-perfect meals allow us to appreciate the ones we most enjoy, and the same experience happens in life. Sometimes the weather calls for rain. If we knew that we would never lose our loved ones, we wouldn’t appreciate them nearly as much. When life has been particularly generous, use that time as the perfect opportunity to reflect back on the things for which we have to be grateful.

Don’t Skip to Dessert

In cooking, as in life, we rush through things, just trying to reach the finish. Along the way, we forget to look around and notice the things that happen between the beginning and the end. Take a moment to analyze what you learned about the meal you created, and how you could have adjusted things along the way. Otherwise, we miss those opportunities for growth.

There is so much valuable information to learn that we often skip right over it, and don’t realize it’s right underneath our noses. We follow a recipe, because that’s what a cookbook tells us to do. Why not spice it up a bit, and improvise along the way? Discover what works, what doesn’t, and take what you’ve learned along the way, and pass it on to those who might benefit from it. That’s life.

Most of us are so busy chasing success that we don’t slow down enough to have fun, enjoy the little things, and switch up the recipes in our lives, for ourselves. In cooking, as in life, we’ll get to the end, but how did we arrive at the finish? Did we follow instructions every step of the way, or did we use the recipe to guide us, allowing us to season it in a way that brings out the best version of ourselves?

It is important to remember that we have all endured many hardships. We may even be experiencing one right at this very moment, but we have survived every one of them. Take some time and slow down, so you can reflect on how far you have come.

Recognize all of the hard work that took place, and thank the people that forced you to grow through the tough times. Difficult times won’t last, and you won’t always be a novice, so use every new challenge as an opportunity.

Seek out new ways to become more accomplished and create even more value for yourself. At the end of the day, there is no better sensation than working hard, and sinking your teeth into your long-awaited accomplishments.

When you’ve found your purpose, decisions make themselves:

On Success and the Illusion of Choice

The post Smoke, Bake, Roast, or Slow Cook Your Training appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Weakness and Injury Risk in Tennis

Strength and conditioning play a pivotal role in injury prevention. Unfortunately, the tennis athlete is not always prepared to handle the demands of their sport. Poor posture, weak cores, limited range of motion in joints, and strength imbalances exhibited throughout their bodies are a few liabilities linked to injury.

A strength imbalance means that one group of muscles acting at a joint is considerably stronger or weaker than the other muscle groups that work at that joint. For example, due to the combination of sitting, electronics, and tennis itself, the muscles that internally rotate the shoulder are usually extremely strong, and the external rotators are weak in comparison. This imbalance may cause the shoulder joint to move abnormally, which could lead to injury. Training all of the muscle groups around the joint instead of just the “functional” tennis muscles will help reduce injury, promote proper joint function, and keep the athlete on the court longer.

Core strength is another key element that should be in every tennis player’s strength program. Our core includes all of the muscles in our midsections, including the front, back and sides. The core also includes the traverse abdominis, erector spinae, obliques, and your lower lats. These muscles work as stabilizers for the entire body. If they are too weak, it may result in lower back pain and tendonitis. Ten years ago, tendonitis presented itself as the primary injury in tennis players, but we now realize that it is just a symptom of muscular instability in the shoulder, or weakness in the core of the body. Keeping these core muscles strong can do wonders for your posture and help give you more strength in other exercises.

Our bodies are made up of a series of successively arranged joints and segments that have an effect on one another during movement. When one is in motion, it creates a chain of events that affects the movement of neighboring joints and segments constituting a kinetic chain.

In tennis, this chain allows power to be transferred through the body and into the racquet. Our core is an important link in this movement chain, since it is one of the main force transfer points between your hips and the racquet. If that link breaks, or becomes weaker over the course of a practice or a match, the other links in the chain will be forced to handle the extra stressors that the core couldn’t handle. To be effective, tennis players must consistently train the core of the body to be able to generate the power and balance that is needed . Next time you watch Andy Murray hit a baseline forehand, watch how he uses his entire body to generate power rather than just his arms.

Mobility Concerns for Tennis

The third area that players typically need to develop is mobility. One of the areas commonly identified as a weakness in today’s players is lack of mobility, predominantly in the shoulders, hips and lower back. Lack of mobility will cause forces to concentrate at specific points in their joints during a swing instead of moving through a complete range of motion. This places added stress on the other structures around the joint, possibly leading to injury.

Mobility training should be a part of any proper strength and conditioning program. Static stretching is no longer the gold standard, and hasn’t been for quite some time. Proper mobility programs involve performing dynamic movements, in which players stretch while moving in ways they might on the court. This allows the athlete to warm up while improving mobility. The hip flow or something similar should be included in every athlete’s training plan.

Training for a Stronger Tennis Game

Injuries can be very damaging to a player’s season. An injury occurring at the wrong time can result in a loss of practice time or even cost them their season. Consequently, every coach and player should seek out all possible methods to minimize the risk of injury.

Proper conditioning, core strength, and mobility are the three main areas that should be the focus of a tennis strength program. Making sure to strengthen all muscles of the body and not just those that make sense for tennis will allow the athlete to maintain relatively normal ranges of motion and reduce the risk of injury. Unfortunately, not all injuries can be eliminated, but by following these basic points, their incidence can be diminished.

Below is a five-week training program that I have written for you to use as a guide.

Click Here to Download the Program

And here are some demonstrations of the ab complexes in the program. Have fun and play hard!

How full is your range of motion?

Grade Your Mobility With Kettlebell Overhead Squats

The post Strength Training for the Modern Tennis Athlete appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

So with all that development and technology, why do 3 out of 4 Americans experience serious foot problems in their lifetime?

With all that we use our feet for over our lifetime, it might be better to ask how they aren’t injured more often than they are.The average person takes 8,000 to 10,000 steps a day, which adds up to about 115,000 miles over a lifetime. That’s enough to go around the circumference of the earth four times. During an average day of walking, the forces on your feet can total hundreds of tons, equivalent to an average of a fully loaded cement truck. While running, the pressure on your feet reach up to four times the runner’s body weight.

A focus on injury prevention and the type of footwear we wear is crucial to any fitness endeavor. Dr. Chris Holder wrote an excellent article on how to reawaken and reconnect with your feet, and his advice should be your first step in injury prevention.

What to Do When You Get the Boot

But what if it’s already too late? What if we have already hurt our feet or ankles and earned ourselves a very fashionable, midnight black walking boot? At least black is slimming. Since prevention didn’t work, maintenance is now priority number one. Whether you are an athlete or a civilian wearing a walking boot, it is imperative that you begin or continue to exercise. Remember, it only takes two days for your muscles to begin to detrain, and only two weeks of inactivity before they begin to atrophy.

I have had quite a few athletes come to me with preexisting foot and ankle issues; some who are already in a walking boot. Depending on the type of injury, they are usually out of most activity for 4-6 weeks, which can be devastating for an athlete’s season.

In an attempt to maintain and save some of my athlete’s strength, I created the “Das Boot” Program. This is a five-day-per-week program that focuses on upper and lower body strength, core and rotational strength, and a small amount of conditioning. Each day emphasizes a different part of the body so that the whole system remains trained. I have had a considerable amount of success implementing this program, with most of my athletes able to begin training again at almost the same point they left off before the walking boot.

Below you’ll find the program in its entirety, along with a several videos describing the exercises. Stick to this program and after you shed your walking boot, you will have a much shorter road back to full recovery.

The “Das Boot” Program

Click here to download a printable version of this workout plan.

Movement Library

How you come out of an injury all depends on your attitude:

The Gift of an Injury

The post How to Train Around a Bum Foot appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

This may sound like a bad joke, but John Rockefeller, Bill Gates, Vasily Alekseyev, Henry Ford, and John Wooden are all remembered for their remarkable contributions to our society. Their inventions and accomplishments are immeasurable in value, and evidence of their influence can be seen in everything from highly specialized technical objects to items we use during our daily routines. If success is what binds this diverse group of individuals, then effort and teamwork define them.

There is no greater example of united effort and teamwork among diverse individuals than that of the French Foreign Legion. The Foreign Legion is a branch of the French Army established in 1831, which is comprised of foreign nationals willing to serve in the French Armed Forces. In its diverse composition of individuals united around a goal, it is not unlike the structure of teams and corporations today.

Training for the Legion is often described as physically challenging and psychologically stressful. Each legionnaire becomes your brother in arms whatever his nationality, his race, or his religion might be. You show him the same solidarity that links members of the same family. Respect for traditions, devotion to your leaders, discipline, and comradeship are your strengths; courage and loyalty your virtues. In combat, you act without passion and without hate, you respect defeated enemies, and you never abandon your dead or wounded. Your missions are sacred, and they are carried out until the end, even in the face of certain death. There is no greater showing of effort than that of a legionnaire.

Fixed vs Growth Mindsets

Application of the legionnaire’s discipline and virtues into our own lives begins the moment we decide to focus solely on that which we can control. Our mindset can have profound effect on learning, skill acquisition, personal relationships, and professional success, but we must work to continually develop accurate self-perception. Dr. Carol Dweck, in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, says that most people will fall into either a fixed or growth mindset:

“In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success—without effort.”

People who have adopted this type of mindset believe their traits are permanent and there is no way to change them. For example, some of my athletes believe they will never be able to power clean because they just “aren’t good at them.” Instead of attacking the reasons behind their lack of success, they shy away from challenges. They harbor a fear that poor performance might confirm they can’t learn, if they believe they lack the intelligence, or else indicate that they are less athletic than they think, if they believe they are an All-American. When these types of athletes fail, they make excuses and try to rationalize their failures.

On the other hand, “In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment,” writes Dweck. Individuals with growth mindsets believe they can become smarter and better if they work hard and persevere. This mindset allows them to learn more, learn it more quickly, and view challenges and failures as opportunities to improve their learning and skills.

Advances in neuroscience indicate that the brain is far more malleable than we ever knew. Brain plasticity research has shown how connectivity between neurons can change with experience. With practice, neural networks grow new connections, strengthen existing ones, and build insulation that speeds transmission of impulses.¹ In the past, most of us believed that “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” and the only the young could be taught new behaviors. These neuroscientific discoveries have shown us that adults can increase neural growth, but the amount of growth will be a direct result on the amount of effort we put into our brain’s development. 

Full commitment to the success of the team and maximum effort enables limitless growth. [Photo of French Foreign Legion: davric | CC BY-SA 3.0]

Growth Requires Your Fullest Effort

The sign inside my high school locker room reads, “Give 100%, 100% of the time. Ask no more, accept no less.” That statement is both a motivational call to a standard, and a limitation. To expect anything more than everything from yourself or someone else is the surest way to set up for failure.

If we possess a fixed mindset, success will be measured exclusively by results. But in a growth mindset, we take advantage of practice opportunities and measure progress on the way to the result. What matters most is that we make the effort to be the best version of ourselves. Our tendency is to hope that things turn out the way we want, sometimes without doing the things that are necessary to make them turn into a reality. But if we consistently give 100% of ourselves to the work that is required, the results will come. This does not guarantee the results will be exactly what we want, but only you will know if you truly gave 100% of yourself.

During my collegiate football career, effort and honesty about effort were central to the philosophy of my coaches. Our coaching staff utilized the techniques of the French Foreign Legion to draw our attention to the details of our assignments, and focus our efforts on improving after every rep and every play. Axioms such as “play the next play,” and “the scoreboard is always a lie,” were intentional distractions from the end result. They forced us to concentrate on the task at hand. Discipline, attention to detail, and no less than 100% effort were rewarded with a highly-coveted helmet sticker. But unlike most universities, these stickers were not handed out often. These stickers, which held the emblem of the legionnaires, were an honor and privilege to receive and apply to our helmets.

During the end-of-season banquet, each person who earned a helmet sticker was given a hat adorned with the emblem of the legionnaires as a sign of our success. I still wear the hats I earned, and continue to implement the same growth mindset strategies that my parents and coaches taught me as I was growing up. The symbol of the French Foreign Legion is a powerful reminder that we pave the road to great accomplishments when we view challenges and failures as opportunities to improve our learning and skills, instead of viewing them as roadblocks.

Are You Giving Your All for Your Team?

John Wooden believed that the winning score of the game or success of a project should be a byproduct of the efforts of each individual on the team. More often than not, there is a star player or leader that receives all of the praise for the team’s success. But regardless of popular acclaim, each member plays a vital role in keeping the team together and running as it should. Wooden likened his team to a car. He was the driver of the car and provided the team with direction, the standouts on the team were like the engine, and the other teammates were like the oil, nuts, and bolts that helped hold the engine together and allow it to run smoothly. Not one section of the car could run effectively alone, and they all needed each other to arrive at their destination.

Think of the teams you are currently on. Are you being honest with yourself and truly giving 100% effort? Are you accepting less than 100% effort from your teammates? We need to be legionnaires for our jobs and teams. If we are able to give our best effort day in and day out, then no matter the outcome, success will be ours.

When you focus on your best effort, comparisons don’t matter:

Why Better Than Average Isn’t Good Enough for Me

Reference:

1. Kishi, Noriyuki, U. Shivraj Sohur, Jason G. Emsley, and Jeffrey D. Macklis. “Adult Neurogenesis and Neuronal Subtype Specification in the Neocortex.” In Neurogenesis in the Adult Brain II, pp. 173-187. Springer Japan, 2011.

The post Maximum Effort: Fixed Versus Growth Mindsets appeared first on Breaking Muscle.