There are those who view the literature as the ultimate standard, while others contend years of gym experience and time in the trenches outweighs the investigations of white-coated academics. If nothing else, the debate raises an important point: not all evidence is of equal merit.

In this article we’re going to examine several different types of evidence so that you can understand the value of each and how to best come to your own conclusions.

There are many ways to gain information on the path to forming your own conclusions.

You Got a Source for That?

“Scientific evidence” is a broad term. In the most general sense, it means evidence discovered through application of the scientific method. In common usage, most people see scientific evidence as research studies performed in an academic laboratory or clinical setting.

There are several types of studies with varying degrees of validity:

Observational Studies: These are studies of a pre-existing group tied together by a variable, like patients undergoing a specific treatment or a group of people using the same training program. Data is collected and then compared to a group where the variable isn’t present. There are several approaches to this (case series, case control, cohort, etc.) but they all fall into the realm of observational studies. They give us ideas for future research, but generally lack the ability to provide specific and conclusive statements. They’re far more common in the medical field where subjects can be observed in an inpatient setting and medical histories can be used to gather data.

Controlled Trials: In these, the inclusion criteria and data collection are very specific in order to limit the number of variables affecting the outcomes. Fewer variables translates into more reliable data interpretation. Randomized controlled trials are even better because they prevent bias in both the researchers and the subjects. While controlled trials are usually more conclusive than an observational study, their practical implications are limited due to the necessary specificity of their design. The same limitation of variables that strengthens the study’s conclusions ultimately limits its real-world value.

Literature Review: This is a broad, inclusive look at a certain topic that pulls together all of the available research to answer a specific question. A meta-analysis is a statistical method applied to the data of multiple studies that may provide insights not present when the individual papers are viewed in a vacuum. Literature reviews and meta-analyses constitute the gold standard of practical interpretation because they use individual trials as building blocks to a more complex understanding.

Beyond the surface stuff like study structure, there are a few other things to consider. Not all journals carry equal merit and it’s become a somewhat common marketing tactic for supplement companies to finance the creation of journals to give their self-funded and directed research an elevated appearance of validity. This is usually pretty obvious. As they say, follow the money.

“Not all journals carry equal merit and it’s become a somewhat common marketing tactic for supplement companies to finance the creation of journals.”

Despite the place it occupies in the cultural hive-mind, it’s important to remember that even peer-reviewed research is far from infallible. A recent expose of the junk-science industry involved a pair of journalists who conspired with a group of doctors and researchers to publish a poorly designed study with questionable conclusions.

The result? Large media outlets worldwide ate up this peer-reviewed, journal-published study and used it as the basis for hundreds of even more questionable advice columns. But not all peer-reviewed research is meaningless. The take-home point is simply that peer-reviewed status, by itself, doesn’t always mean a study has merit. No more and no less.

Anecdotal Evidence Isn’t Valid, Bro

Despite what Internet comment sections would have you believe, anecdotal and experiential evidence is not the same thing. An anecdote is quite literally a story with a questionable basis in reality. One of the definitions of anecdote is, “an account regarded as unreliable or hearsay.” Anecdotal evidence is when some guy you workout with says, “My buddy accomplished [X] and he always does [Y].” The story contains no real objective understanding of the variables involved. All you’re going on is that someone said it’s true.

“If you know a guy at the gym who did a thing and and got some results, then it must be true!”

Proper experiential evidence has more in common with peer-reviewed research than it does anecdotes. Applying the scientific method doesn’t require that you have a PhD or a strong publication record. All you need is the ability to objectively analyze data presented to you by experience.

This is where most of the trouble with experiential evidence lies. It’s not so much that experiential evidence is innately flawed; it’s that when someone tells you about his or her experience, you don’t have a good method of evaluating that process. It’s possible he or she is an eminently practical and scientific individual. It’s also possible he or she is painfully subjective and incapable of moving past personal biases. Both types of individuals can provide experiential evidence, but one is valuable and the other is not.

What Is Authority?

What this whole debate really comes down to is the question of authority. When deciding on best practices and an ideal approach to a problem, you want to base your methods on something authoritative. But authority isn’t a real thing. It may seem a bit esoteric, but authority is a mental construct, not an externally valid quality. Authority is a status we give others, not something they claim for themselves.

Mental models are properties of our perspective on the world. They organize the data in our surrounding reality into a way we can understand. They are important to us because we only have a certain amount of mental and energetic resources in a given day. Mental models allow us to interpret and use immense amounts of data without having to invest our own resources in the process. They are based on a lot of different things, some on belief and others on science, but ultimately their main concern is one of practicality – they should, at least theoretically, enable us to interact with the world better than we could without them.

“Authority provides us with anchors for our perspective. Science is great for telling us where the dartboard is.”

Viewed through the lens of mental models, it becomes rapidly apparent why we care so much about authoritative sources of information. Authority provides us with anchors for our perspective. Science is great for telling us where the dartboard is. It narrows the options and orients us to the best possible starting point when approaching a new problem.

From there, experiential evidence will often outweigh the significance of scientific research. Intermittent fasting may not be conclusively proven to accelerate weight loss when weekly workload and caloric intake are equalized, but if intermittent fasting is the first dietary approach my client has been able to use effectively and it’s not detrimental to his or her health, then I don’t really give a shit what biochemical pathways are or aren’t involved.

Science Is Not Religion

Science is not a religion. It’s not meant to provide a static and infallible view of the way everything works. It simply gives us a systematic, testable approach to evaluating and developing better mental models.

“You have a source for that?” While a totally valid question, this inquiry has also become the go-to tactic for many of us when we don’t agree with something. The next time you feel yourself calling out for sources, take a moment and ask yourself if you are upset because you think the method in question doesn’t work or are you upset because its effectiveness challenges you to reexamine your perspective?

Don’t be a scientific fundamentalist. Science is meant to empower us to do more. It should never be invoked to limit us from trying.

Check out these related articles:

• Don’t Just Argue, Debate Like a Scientist
• A Case on How Supplement “Research” Actually Works
• How to Read and Analyze Research Like a Pro

The post PubMed and Bro-Science: How to Use Evidence in Fitness appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

(Source: Bruce Klemens)

Movement disorders and motor programming are all the rage in the physio-world these days and that’s a great thing. We’re stepping back and opening our eyes to the entire body as a system, trying to understand the positions and habits that lead to problems, rather than simply treating the joint as a joint and the muscle as a muscle.

The hip is one of the most powerful joints in your body and as such plays a pivotal role in many athletic movements. Dysfunctions of the hip musculature can rob you of your athletic performance and lead to a vast and painful array of injuries.

The squat is one of the most basic movement patterns of the hip and yet it is often something people struggle to perform with perfect technique. We’re going to take a look at the two most common dysfunctions at the hip, how they affect your squat, and what you can do to fix them.

Common Dysfunction #1: Posterior Weakness or Weak Glutes

Of the various issues involved in poor squat technique, poor glute control is easily the largest factor. Movement dysfunction is a game of compensation. When you place a movement demand on your body, it’s going to do its damnedest to perform. If it can’t do so using the correct muscles, then it’s going to start firing all sorts of funky stuff in a mad dash to satisfy your demands.

The gluteus maximus is a primary mover of hip extension. Weak glutes mean weak extension. If this is you, then during the eccentric (lowering) phase of the squat there’s a good chance you’re going to start tipping forward.

People talk a lot about core tightness and abdominal bracing as it relates to the forward lean and that’s absolutely valid – but also secondary. The first step to maintaining an upright torso is proper eccentric glute control.

If you don’t have the glute strength to maintain and drive hip extension, then your lower back will kick in to compensate and guess what? It’s not really suited for the task.

Take a look at an anatomy chart and note the difference in sheer size between your glutes and the musculature of your lower back. Which one would you prefer carry the bulk of that 300lbs you’re trying to squat? If your butt’s weak, your back’s going to hurt – plain and simple.

Another issue with poor gluteal control is the compensations it causes in the anterior hip musculature. When we tip forward during a squat a couple of nasty things happen involving our hip flexors.

First, they will frequently begin to fire in order to help us balance because our glutes aren’t doing the job. Second, and weirdly enough, they will also activate in an attempt to pull us into deeper flexion. In other words, they’re trying to help us squat lower than our gluteal control should allow. The result of this compensation is an over-activation of the anterior hip musculature.

Here’s a basic test for glute max and hip extensor strength:

1. Find a table that’s about waist height (a training table would be ideal).
2. Stand with your hips directly up against the edge of the table.
3. Lean forward so your entire torso is on the table.
4. Lift one leg straight back and flex your knee to ninety degrees.
5. Without letting your knee drift out to the side or letting your lower back extend (increasing lumbar curvature), lift your foot towards the ceiling. You should feel a tightness in your glutes.
6. Now have a buddy try to push down on your thigh with light, but steadily increasing force. If you have weak glutes, it shouldn’t take a huge amount of effort for your buddy to break your hip position.
7. If your leg starts to turn or drift sideways or your lower back starts to move, those are compensatory mechanisms and they indicate that your hip extension needs a little tender loving care.
8. Do this test on both legs, one at a time.

You can also perform this test without a table by having someone lay prone on a flat surface and having him or her flex the knee and extend the hip the same way. Personally, I prefer the table test because it involves a larger range of motion and therefore provides more information when observed.

Common Dysfunction #2: Anterior Tightness or Tight Flexors

The primary movers in hip flexion are the rectus femoris and sartorius (muscles of the quadriceps; sartorius is pictured right, rectus femoris below) along with the iliopsoas (a deep muscle of the hip). There are a few smaller muscles that also play a role, but typically when you have tight or inflamed hip flexors it’s due to a dysfunction of one or more of these aforementioned muscles.

In a general sense, most hip flexor tightness isn’t the result of activity, but rather the unintended consequence of the passive positions we maintain throughout the day (sitting comes to mind).

While the squat can actually be a profoundly therapeutic exercise in terms of restoring proper gluteal activation and helping mobilize the front of the hips, when done incorrectly it will do the exact opposite: reinforce the negative positions and dangerous compensation patterns.

When your flexors are tight you will have a tendency to lean forward while squatting. A forward lean will shift your center of gravity anteriorly and increase activation of your quadriceps while decreasing activation of your glutes. In addition, once you’re in the bottom position and your hip flexors have turned on, your body is going to want to use your quads to extend your knees, and guess what?

Two of the three main hip flexors are attached to your quadriceps, which are now firing. As a result, when you stand up your flexors are going to stay shortened, which will contribute to an anterior pelvic tilt and make it really difficult to adequately activate the posterior hip muscles.

Another issue with tight hip flexors is that they are usually an indication of missing hip flexion or lacking hip mobility. As I said before, frequently your flexors will turn on as a way of pulling you down into deeper flexion.

But they really shouldn’t have to. Ideally, you should have enough passive flexion to achieve the proper depth without the help of your hip flexors. Tight hip flexors can be both a red flag for missing flexion and a secondary cause for missing flexion. Your body is kind of weird like that.

The easiest test for hip flexor tightness is the Thomas test:

1. Lie down supine with your legs hanging off the edge of a table. (Again, a training table would be ideal.)
2. Pull your knees to your chest and hold them there with your arms.
3. Extend one of your legs while keeping the other held to your chest. Let the extended leg hang off the edge of the table.
4. Have a buddy observe the location of your knee (on the extended leg) compared to the position of your hips. Your knee should hang lower than the table. If it is above the table or even in line with it, then this is a positive indication of hip flexor tightness.

Now, let’s fix the problems!

Fixing The Problem

Often when diagnosing a movement disorder you are dealing with a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg dilemma. Was it anterior tightness that caused posterior weakness or vice versa? As with most things, it’s probably a bit of both. What degree of each, though, is unique to each individual.

It’s possible that you started squatting and due to your forty-hour-a-week office posture you already had profound issues with all of the aforementioned problems. It’s just as possible, though, that initially when you started squatting your mechanics were pretty good but you increased the weights too quickly and this got you in the habit of using negative compensations.

Regardless, the most important thing is identifying the existence of the improper movement patterns and addressing them.

Hip Flexion and Hip Mobility Fixes

Quadruped Rocking With Active Shoulder Flexion:

1. Get on all fours.
2. Push with your arms and drive your hips backwards until yoru hips are sitting on your heels (or as close as you can get, anyway).
3. Make sure the motion is coming from your shoulders rather than your hips.

This drill is basically a physiological trick to get your body to move into a position of deep flexion without activating your flexors. If you get on all fours and simply start shifting backwards, then its pretty likely you’re going to engage your flexors to do so.

By focusing on pushing with your shoulders, you’re using different muscles to produce the movement and that will allow you to achieve the position without activating your flexors. This will also teach your body that your hip flexors don’t need to be firing as hard as possible in order to achieve this position at the hip.

Thomas Stretch:

Same thing as the Thomas test described above, but this time rather than simply observing the position of the thigh, have your buddy gently press your thigh downwards until you feel a stretch through your quad and the front of your hip. Hold this stretch for thirty seconds to a minute, and do this two or three times.

I’m not crazy about a lot of other hip flexor stretches because most of them involve you being upright. As long as you’re upright and having trouble balancing, then your hip flexors are probably going to fire. In other words, if you already have this dysfunction then your flexors are already prone to over-activation. Stretching them in an upright position will turn them on to a degree, but what you’re attempting to accomplish is getting them to shut off. See the problem?

Paleolithic Chair:

I think the most profound stretch or mobilization for overall hip flexibility is the Paleolithic chair. Get down as low as you can while keeping your heels on the ground and hang out there. If you have to grab onto something to maintain balance at first, that’s fine – just focus on getting low and keeping your heels on the floor. Try to do this for three to five minutes at a time initially. Ideally, you will build up to a total of about ten minutes a day.

Posterior Strength and Gluteal Activation Drills

The best way to get your glutes firing during a squat is to do some basic warm-up drills that will reinforce firing your glutes. One of my favorite progressions is as follows:

1. Glute Bridge – 10x (both legs)
2. Single Leg Glute Bridge – 10x each leg
3. Fire Hydrants – 10x each leg
4. Quadruped bent-knee hip extension – 10x each leg

You can perform all of these fixes as a five to ten minute mobility and warm-up session before you squat, which should significantly improve your squat positioning. But really, the simplest fix for weak eccentric glute control is also one of the most straightforward: lighten your weights and focus on the eccentric portion of the squat with specific attention to keeping your torso upright.

Mindfulness of your movements and strict adherence to proper patterns is the best medicine for your ailments.

The post Squats and Hip Dysfunction: 2 Common Problems and How to Fix Them appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

There are plenty of articles that go into exhaustive detail on sets, reps, and percentages. I’m not going to do that. Instead, in this article we’re going to take a look at the big-picture stuff that most people completely ignore. These aspects of training are far more important than how many sets you did at 92.5% of your one-rep max.

You Can’t Out-Recover Low Work Capacity

A few years ago, a close friend of mine started CrossFit. She had gotten into fitness a few months before that, but was doing her own stuff, mostly some running and circuit training at the gym. As far as I know, this was the sum total of her training history. About a week into CrossFit, she texted me asking how she could recover better.

I have to be honest. I had no fucking clue what she was asking me.

The concept of “recovery” has become a hot ticket subject in the last couple of years. I think the unfortunate truth is that most of what’s talked about when it comes to recovery is either complete bullshit or at the very least, scientifically dubious.

When an athlete says, “I’ve been tracking my workouts, and my objective performance markers are starting to plateau or backtrack. I don’t think I’m recovering enough,” that is a hugely different observation than, “I’m really sore and it hurts to work out. I need more recovery.”

The hard truth about long-term training goals is that you’re not always going to feel great.

Some days you’re going to ache all over, and other days, weird muscles are going to be sore. If you’re like most people, you probably won’t ever hit a point where training hard doesn’t leave you feeling a little beat up. You will, however, hit a point where being beat up just isn’t that big of a deal. Part of evolving as an athlete is realizing being strong is not for the faint of heart.

If you’re obliterated after every workout, it isn’t your recovery. It’s your work capacity. (Photo courtesy Cara Kobernik)

Most peoples’ perception of their recovery is based on subjective information. In my friend’s case, she not only felt like garbage, but she couldn’t perform in the gym the way she had only weeks ago. But her problem was not inadequate recovery or the need for more foam rolling and ice baths. The problem was a lack of proper progression and recognition of work capacity.

You can’t go from zero to 100 in three months and start working out 2-3 times a day after doing nothing for ten years and think you can make up the difference with “recovery.”

You can build your work capacity fairly quickly, given proper dosing and a reasonable timeline, but you need to use a practical progression. I realize doing a certain workout and steadily titrating your training load to increase adaptation without crossing the threshold into un-recoverable territory isn’t exciting or sexy. The truth rarely is.

“You’re not overtrained, you’re under-recovered,” is a convenient myth for most people. It allows them to ignore the root of their problem: excessive programming. If your goal is to keep training and progressing for as long as you can, understanding proper progression is paramount. You can’t cheat biology.

Why So Complex?

Let me ask you something. If you were going to put a nail through a piece of wood, and that was all you had to do, what tool would you choose? A hammer is probably the simplest choice, right?

So it is with programming. Complexity for the sake of complexity doesn’t add anything of value. Your programming only needs to be as complex as the task demands. In the case of hybrid athletes and Games competitors, there is a fair amount of necessary complexity. For most people, however, the complexity exposes them to unnecessary risk and, more importantly, takes the emphasis away from the more meaningful work.

Powerlifting is probably the most common example of this issue. Here we have a sport where you sign up months out and only have to perform three specific tasks well. Yet powerlifters are doing all sorts of weird shit. It’s one thing if you are including a weird assistance exercise for a specific reason, but I interact with enough powerlifters to know the reasons often aren’t specific.

Most people wouldn’t ever ask if a hammer is a good tool. It’s good insofar as its purpose fits the task. Programming is the same way. You don’t need endless variations and fancy assistance exercises. You need the simplest possible tools that are adequate to address the task at hand. One of the worst ideas to ever permeate the mainstream was that cross-training is always superior to specificity. It’s not.

There Is No Short Game

“Fitness is a journey.” It’s probably one of the biggest clichés in the industry. And like many clichés, it happens to be true. 

In most cases, the thing that drives people to excessively complicated and intense programming is a misunderstanding of timelines. You can certainly make some awesome progress in a short period of time. Most people can get in the best shape of their lives in less than a year. The trouble is confusing the best shape of your life with the best shape anyone’s ever been in. Being the fittest you’ve ever been probably still doesn’t make you a professional athlete. This, for some reason I’ll never understand, seems to offend people.

There are things you can do that may improve your short-term gains at the expense of your long-term health or training career. I’m not going to tell you training like a crazy person isn’t effective and that’s probably the hardest part of all of this. Training like a madman is extremely effective in the short term. The trouble is that it’s not sustainable. You want to lose thirty pounds in a month? You totally can. You probably won’t keep it off and it’s probably not the smartest approach but it’s possible. Possible and optimal are not the same thing.

This is the real “one weird trick” of working out: Over time, consistency and effort applied in a wise and realistic manner will outweigh pretty much everything else. You cannot circumvent this basic truth of training with secret programs or shortcut protocols.

Training your brains out can work for awhile, but it’s not a recipe for long-term success. (Photo courtesy Cara Kobernik)

Keep It Simple, Succeed for Life

I’ve been in the game for a little under twenty years now. In that time I’ve seen a lot of people come and go. There’s never any shortage of wildly impressive physical feats and short-term transformations.

For all that, I can tell you the following with absolute certainty: The people who’ve made the most progress and stayed the healthiest are not those with the flashiest routines or the most scientifically calculated programming. They’re the people who show up day after day and follow a program specific to their goals. Simplicity may not be sexy, but when it comes to strength, it’s the name of the game. 

If you aren’t making progress, there’s another question to ask yourself:

Are You Working Hard Enough to Succeed?

Coaches: Are you overthinking your athletes?

A Simple Programming Formula for Any Client

The post There Are No Tricks in Fitness appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The shoulder is complex, but as a strength athlete, the demands placed on it aren’t. Your shoulder only needs to do a few things well to stay healthy and happy for the length of your lifting career. Here I’ll specify what your shoulder needs to do and how to fix it if it can’t.

Basic Shoulder Anatomy

The shoulder complex is generally described as containing four joints: 

• The glenohumeral (GH) joint – where your upper arm meets your shoulder blade
• The scapulothoracic joint – where the shoulder blade moves on your ribcage
• The acromioclavicular joint – where your shoulder blade meets your collarbone
• The sternoclavicular joint – where your collarbone meets your sternum

Within this complex are a host of muscles that enable the shoulder to move. The rotator cuff crosses the GH joint and is made of four muscles: supraspinatus, infraspinatus, teres minor, and subscapularis. The scapular muscles of upward rotation (upper and lower trapezius and serratus anterior) and downward rotation (rhomboids, middle trapezius, levator scapulae, and pectoralis minor) are located in your upper back with the position of your pectoralis minor, which is proximally attached on the third, fourth, and fifth ribs. On top of that are the primary shoulder complex muscles like the lats, pectoralis major, and deltoids.

Rotator Cuff Real Talk

The purpose of the rotator cuff is one of the most poorly understood concepts in popular fitness. This is probably to do with the etiology of rotator cuff injuries. Rotator cuff problems are common in throwing athletes and other individuals whose sports have heavy overhead demands. As a result, we have a lot of evidence about cuff injuries and experience with their rehab.

The name “rotator cuff” is also a bit misleading. The cuff absolutely rotates the humerus on the glenoid, but its real purpose is to maintain joint centration. Basically, it keeps the humerus stuck into the glenoid fossa in the most optimal position for stability and force development. There are two parts to this task:

1. Proper strength in the required direction. Seeing as the goal is to keep the humerus stuck into the joint, the cuff needs to be good at resisting distraction.
2. Proprioception. Proprioception is the ability of little nervous organs in your tendons to keep your brain informed of your joint positions. It’s hard to maintain optimal alignment when your nervous system is working with faulty data.

Many people exhibit passive internal rotation of their shoulders, but this is not usually a rotator cuff issue. Both the latissimus dorsi and the pectoralis major can internally rotate the humerus, and in addition to poor scapular position, these two tend to be the primary culprits of passive internal rotation. Instead of focusing on stretching your tight lats and pecs, work on obtaining a neutral position of the thoracic spine and scapulae to clear up your passive internal rotation issues.

Exercises for Rotator Cuff Health

Deadlifts and loaded carries are good exercises to improve the traction strength of your cuff. However, it’s important to use a weight that won’t actually pull your shoulder down so you can maintain perfect form and ideal scapular position.

Kettlebell screwdrivers and arm circles are two of your best options for improving rotator cuff proprioception. Adding these two exercises into your warm up should be enough to wake up your nervous system.

Kettlebell Screwdriver:

• Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet resting flat on the floor. This is called a hook lying position.
• Place a light kettlebell in one hand.
• While keeping your shoulder blade neutral, raise your arm straight up into the air (basically the bottom position of a Turkish get up).
• Rotate your arm clockwise and counterclockwise. Maintain your scapular position, and make sure your upper arm is rotating, not just your forearm.
• Do this 10-15 times per side.

Arm Circles:

• Stand with good posture and raise your arms in front of you 90 degrees.
• Thinking of your middle fingers as a pen, draw small circles and slowly expand them until they’re roughly the size of a dinner plate.
• Change directions and repeat.
• Do this 3-4x in each direction. Keep your arms dead straight the entire time and focus on feeling the motion at the shoulder.

Deadlifts can be great for improving rotator cuff traction strength, provided the load isn’t so heavy it pulls your shoulder out of position.

Scapulae – The Foundation of Shoulder Stability

Unfortunately, not everyone who has cuff injuries has cuff issues. Sometimes the rotator cuff tendinopathy is a symptom of something else, like poor scapular positioning, or scapular dyskinesis. In my experience, this is far more often the primary cause in strength athletes.

The scapulothoracic joint is unique in that it doesn’t have a true articulation like most joints. Your scapulae move on the surface provided by your thoracic vertebrae and your ribs. While the specifics of scapular motion are complicated, the most important aspects are proper resting position, and healthy upward and downward scapular rotation.

Neutral Resting Position

The go-to movements for creating a neutral resting position are diaphragmatic breathing, followed by scapular squeezes with external rotation. The breathing will help you achieve a more neutral thoracic spine and the retraction will help return your hopelessly abducted scapulae to a more neutral position, about three inches from the center of your vertebrae.

Diaphragmatic Breathing:

• Assume a hook lying position as described earlier.
• Rest one hand on your stomach and the other on your sternum.
• Take deep breaths, drawing the breath down and into your belly.
• Exhale forcefully and feel your core muscles contract to help push the air out.
• Continue for 2-3 minutes, or until you feel some of the tension in your upper back start to dissipate.

You are trying to breathe into your stomach first and then let the air inflate your lungs from the bottom up. You should feel your stomach rise for the first ⅔ of the breath and your chest rise for the last ⅓. Your upper back should press into the ground lightly when your lungs are fully inflated.

Scap Squeezes With External Rotation:

• Assume a standing position and take a deep breath.
• As you exhale, roll your shoulders back and feel them relax downwards. This is your starting position.
• Bend your elbows 90 degrees, so your palms face each other.
• Tighten the muscles in your mid back and pull the scapulae together. Your hands should start to move outwards.
• Once you’ve squeezed your shoulder blades as far as you can, move your hands backward while maintaining the 90 degree bend at the elbow. You should feel additional tension in the upper back.
• Now relax to the starting position.
• Repeat this sequence (starting with the scapular squeeze) for 2-3 sets of 10-15 reps, or until you can feel your scapulae in a better position.

Upward Rotation

If you have trouble getting your arms overhead, try wall slides with forward pressure.

• Place the pinky side of your hand on a wall like you’re trying to karate chop it.
• Apply a bit of pressure forwards like you’re trying to push the wall over.
• While maintaining pressure, slide your hand upward in a slight outward diagonal.
• Reach as far overhead as possible without shrugging.

The forward pressure should help wake up your serratus anterior to increase upward rotation and give you some more range. Once that gets easy, start to take your hands off the wall at the top like you’re doing the Y in YMCA, but make sure you don’t extend your back or raise your ribs. This should help strengthen your lower trap.

Once you can perform wall slides with perfect form, my favorite exercise for improving upward rotation is the overhead press. Craig Marker recently wrote a great piece on how the bottoms-up kettlebell press in particular can improve shoulder stability through nervous irradiation.

Downward Rotation

Most people don’t have as much trouble with downward rotation, but strengthening the muscles in your mid back is important for overall shoulder health. These muscles include the middle trapezius, rhomboids, levator scapulae, and pectoralis minor.

To target this area, try rowing exercises with a slow, controlled motion. Focus on retraction at the end of each rep. A few sets a week on a cable machine or bodyweight rows are all you need.

Slow, controlled rowing exercises can help with scapular retraction and downward shoulder rotation.

Putting It All Together

Here is an example of how these exercises can be incorporated into a simple warm up before a shoulder-heavy workout:

• Diaphragmatic breathing: 2-3min
• Arm circles: 15 reps each direction
• KB screwdriver: 15 reps each side
• Banded retraction with external rotation: 10-15 reps
• Y-wall slide with liftoff: 15 reps
• Overhead press: 10-15 reps with an empty bar, or bottoms up press with light kettlebell

Repeat for 2-3 rounds.

Throw in some pulls or loaded carries and there you go: A simple routine to keep your shoulders healthy and happy without spending hours on maintenance. 

Complex Joints, Simple Maintenance

The human body is an incredibly complex machine and the shoulder joint is one of the best examples of this concept. The movement potential of the joint is immense and allows us to do all sorts of awesome things from snatches to throwing 90mph fastballs.

Our bodies want to move well. To accomplish this, you typically don’t need complicated neurological reprogramming or twenty minutes of banded distractions to keep your shoulders healthy. All you need is to understand what the shoulder is supposed to do and practice those things in a safe way that reinforces proper alignment and motion. Keep things simple and your shoulders will thank you.

More on Joint Maintenance and Injury Prevention:

• 5 Injury Prevention Exercises to Build Bulletproof Athletes
• You Are Not Your Shoulder Ultrasound
• Banish Pain Permanently: Basic Drills to Repair Your Posture
• New on Breaking Muscle Today

Teaser photo courtesy of J Perez Imagery.

Photo 1 courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Photo 2 courtesy of CrossFit Impulse.

Photo 3 courtesy of CrossFit Stars.

The post Simplifying Shoulder Health for Strength Athletes appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Or earlier today, in a powerlifting group, I learned that powerlifters never get injured because (and I quote), “We aren’t pussies.” Scientific!

Then I learned that just lifting weights won’t let me survive a zombie apocalypse (a major concern in my day-to-day life), and if I don’t bow down before the altar of all-holy movement by “exploring and playing,” I will stunt my journey to physical enlightenment due to lack of neurophysiological evolutionary superiority.

Unfortunately, I can’t even take the time to focus on my movement-evolution-revolution because I’m too busy trying to change my blood pH (since apparently your kidneys and lungs aren’t a thing) and finesse my paleo diet so I can justify some bastardized version of fried chicken made with artisanal farm2table almond dust and sustainable, free-range, high-school educated chickens.

Most of the industry vets can see this stuff for what it is. This article isn’t really for them. The people I want to talk to are the young coaches propagating this nonsense and the people it affects most: i.e., the people. 

If you’re a new athlete – or a new coach – beware of propagating the nonsense so pervasive in the industry.

Everybody’s Got a Story

Storytelling is a fundamental human trait. From humans gathered around campfires and cave drawings to modern day Netflix binges and Snapchat, stories are part of who we are. Even in fields like history and science where the story is supposedly objective and “real,” the truth is that narrative biases exist.

Much of what we think constitutes “reality” is an aspect of our personal narrative or the product of someone else’s.

Some of you are probably wondering why the hell someone is talking about the function of a narrative on a fitness website. The answer is because, simply put, narratives are everything. The idea of a personal narrative is a powerful psychological concept that drives and informs every aspect of development.

Frequently when I broach this subject, the reactions are some variation of, “So you’re saying it’s all in my head?” Kind of. It’s not so much that reality doesn’t exist or matter. The more important takeaway it is that you control your perception of reality. It’s not meant to be an insult. It’s empowering. Yes, your reality is just a story. But guess who’s holding the author’s pen?

So what’s the narrative when it comes to the fitness industry? It’s popular to say that the industry story is that we’re broken, and failing the public we claim to serve. That argument implies that the health of the entire country is the responsibility of the fitness industry. The idea that we are supposed to be the ambassadors of healthy living to a fat, sick, and dying society is just silly. Most of us are not doctors. Plenty of excellent coaches don’t even have a college degree. So how can we heal the unhealthy when our first instinct on encountering pain is to refer to another more qualified professional?

In hindsight, I can see that while her smoking habit is probably foolish and detrimental to her health, to extrapolate that to her quality as a human being is preposterous. She’s a speech-language pathologist who spends the majority of her time helping people with traumatic brain injuries re-learn how to communicate with their loved ones. Do I wish she had a healthier outlet for stress? Sure. Do I automatically get the higher moral ground because I work out every day and meal prep? Not a fucking chance. 

There Isn’t One Perfect Tool

One of the funniest realizations you come to as an adult is that we never really escape the social dynamics of high school. No matter how old we get or how mature we become, society will always be overly concerned with groupthink and what the “cool kids” are doing. Now that we’re all grown up, the cool kids are “celebrities,” and instead of arguing about which artist really understands us, we battle about politics and economic policy.

In the fitness world, we argue about cardio versus weights, with the same juvenility.

Imagine a conversation in which a carpenter extols the virtues of the hammer. “Sure,” he says, “screwdrivers and nail guns are cool, but they’re only fancy re-inventions of the hammer. Just get yourself a good hammer and you’ll be set.” Implausible, you say? Of course it is, because any carpenter can tell you that the job determines the tool, not the other way around. 

There’s always a humorous glut of people trying to tell us the one type of exercise we should do. But as far as the research is concerned, if your goal is to be healthy and live a long life, your exercise of choice would probably look like a combination of several things: a moderate amount of long, low-intensity cardio, some higher intensity stuff (but not too much), and some basic, whole-body strength training utilizing compound exercises through full ranges of motion. This could all be accomplished in 3-5 workouts a week, none of them more than an hour. Go for a few long walks at a brisk pace and do some squats, deadlifts, and presses 2-3 times a week.

It’s easy to get lost in all the conflicting information out there. But in truth, you only need the basics.

You Don’t Need to Fit In

I’m a weirdo. Always have been. When I was a kid, fitting in didn’t come naturally to me for a number of reasons (small, weak, interested in books, overly large ears). I dealt with my fair share of bullies, but I decided at a young age that if I couldn’t fit in, I wasn’t even going to try. 

This article is not for those who want to wail about how the industry is “broken,” or for the vets who already know shenanigans when they see them. This article is for the new professionals. Even more, it’s for the people out there who are just looking to get into fitness and don’t know where to start. 

My message is this: Why should you take the advice of any group of people that wants to alienate and ostracize you? What is there to gain? Why would you want the approval of a bunch of small-minded jerks? Far as I can tell, their answer is, “Because we said so.” But their narrow definitions of health and fitness don’t have to be yours, and neither do their methods.

Being different can be difficult, or it can be liberating. Just remember, it’s your narrative. You get to write the story.

More Insight from Coach Camacho:

• Be Your Own Expert: What We Can Learn From Fitness Gurus
• PubMed and Bro-Science: How to Use Evidence in Fitness
• How Deadlifts Saved My Life
• New on Breaking Muscle Today

Photo 1 courtesy of CrossFit Empirical.

Photo 2 courtesy of CrossFit Impulse.

The post Don’t Let the Fitness Industry Tell You What to Do appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

There’s nothing wrong with following a program written by someone else, and sometimes that’s exactly what the doctor ordered. But sometimes, we want to venture out into the great unknown and do our own scientific training experiments. A scientific approach is invaluable in understanding how to reach your goals and take control of your own training.

The Scientific Method

All good scientific experiments follow the scientific method. While the exact specifics of the method may vary a bit depending on whether you’re in grade school or a doctoral program, the scientific method follows the same basic process.

Here’s what that process looks like:

1. Hypothesis development
2. Hypothesis testing
3. Data collection and analysis
4. Test/Retest
5. Conclusions and ideas for further experimentation

The cool thing is this same basic model can be applied to your training. In this article we’re going to discuss the basic principles that will guide you through the process of developing your own program while maintaining a scientific approach. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how this works in a training context:

Step 1: Hypothesis Development

There are two fundamentally important aspects of hypothesis development:

1. What you are trying to accomplish.
2. What methods you are going to use to get there.

A big part of hypothesis development is the research that goes into determining both your hypothesis and the methods you’re going to test. We’re trying to be scientific, remember?

What you are trying to accomplish:

You need to ask a specific question and use specific methods to find the answer. “Will squats help me get stronger?” is not a specific question. You need to think more along the lines of, “Will adding three sets of pause squats to my lower body day improve my stability and power out of the hole?”

While it’s still challenging to get truly objective, quantitative data on “stability and power out of the hole,” the focus of the question has been narrowed to a single problem and a single solution.

What methods you are going to use to get there:

Pause squats are a well-known option for improving strength at the bottom position, so they seem like a reasonable solution to this particular problem. You should have solid, logical foundations for all of the decisions you make in your own experiments. This doesn’t mean you can’t push the boundaries; just make sure that the choices you make have good reasons. “I wanted to try it,” by itself, is not a good reason.

Step 2: Hypothesis Testing (Methods)

One of the most important aspects of a scientific approach is being systematic and repeatable. The use of well-documented and well-executed methods is imperative. This means a couple of different things for us.

First, you shouldn’t be testing anything you don’t know how to do reasonably well. You don’t need to be an expert, but if your technique in an exercise is do shaky that every rep of your set of five was a different movement, that’s going to fudge the data a little bit. Whatever methods you choose, you need to be familiar and experienced with them so there’s no chance your experiment will fail simply because you performed the intervention wrong.

“One of the most important aspects of a scientific approach is being systematic and repeatable. The use of well-documented and well-executed methods is imperative.”

In terms of repeatability, the body takes some time to adapt to any new method. For whatever it is you’re testing, you need to continue to use the same methods for a duration that’s actually capable of showing a response (more research, yay!). Testing a muscle building program and deciding it doesn’t work after two weeks is just as silly as waiting six months to see if your conditioning efforts had a positive effect.

You also need to know the timelines for adaptation and utilize a plan that takes them into account. The point is to eliminate any chance that the overall effect of the program was the result of anything other than the training itself.

Step 3: Data Collection and Analysis

In some ways this is the easiest part of the process. In most cases all you need is a training journal, particularly if you’re testing something you can quantify like adding pounds to a certain lift or taking time off of a specific task. Track everything that may have an effect: your sleep, your nutrition, your recovery methods, sets, reps, times, when you worked out, etc. It may even be useful to keep track of some subjective measures, like your mood and how you were feeling overall. The more data you have, the more precise picture you’ll be able to paint and analyze later on.

Step 4: Test/Retest

An easy way to establish a difference between the beginning and end of your program is by using some type of baseline testing. Again, if all you’re looking at is improving numbers, the baseline testing is pretty straightforward. Test the task, measure, and then retest under the same conditions following the completion of the program.

If you’re looking at something that isn’t so easy to quantify numerically (like our pause squat example), then try to come up with a baseline test that offers some degree of objectivity. In this case, taking a video with a certain load from multiple angles can establish a baseline. Taking another video following completion under the same load using the same angles will give you a useful and direct comparison.

The importance of testing under the same conditions cannot be understated. If you performed the baseline when you had slept and eaten well following a week of vacation, then it makes no sense to perform the re-test while sleep and nutritionally deprived in the middle of an extremely stressful week at work. The purpose of the test is to evaluate the program, not the effects of lifestyle decisions.

Step 5: Form Conclusions and Ideas for Further Experimentation

The final part of the scientific method is reflecting on what you did and putting your experiment into context. Did you see an effect? Was the effect what you expected? If it isn’t, can the difference be explained somewhere in the data you collected?

“You need to be able to see what the data’s showing you, not force it to take the form you want to see.”

One of the most important aspects of a scientific approach is being systematic. How does this new information fit into your overall understanding? Does it inform other ideas you’ve had or force you to question assumptions you’ve made? Finally, where do you want to go from here? This is how a scientific understanding is built. Research, test, incorporate, and repeat.

Important Details

When doing your own testing, it’s important to keep a few concepts in mind:

• Limitation of variables: The more things you change, the more ambiguous the data will become. This ambiguity will make it difficult to know whether the results were caused by a certain variable. Try to test only one or two things at a time. If you completely change your entire program, it becomes very difficult to be certain where the effect is originating.
• Hard, focused effort: Most long-term studies are so specific and mechanical they border on tedious. If you’re not the kind of person who can do the same thing the same way for a few weeks or more, then self-experimentation may not be for you. Science is rewarding, but it requires hard, focused effort and an immense amount of patience.
• An objective and open-minded mindset: You need to be able to see what the data’s showing you, not force it to take the form you want to see. It sounds simple, but one of the most common issues I see is people simply refusing to acknowledge what’s in front of them. Now get out there and experiment.

More Like This:

• Why All Good Coaches Must Understand the Scientific Method
• Be Your Own Expert: What We Can Learn From Fitness Gurus
• What Science Has to Do With Our Comments on Fitness-Related Articles
• What’s New on Breaking Muscle Today

Photos courtesy of Jorge Huerta Photography.

The post Use the Scientific Method to Take Control of Your Training appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

“teacher or master of a certain type of knowledge.” However, in an industry where your expertise is your currency, some experts have appropriated the term “guru” and turned it into a weapon of mass defamation. In the fitness industry, guru means fraud.

If you use anything other than industry standard terms and your perspective isn’t 100% substantiated by hard science, then someone, somewhere probably thinks you’re a “guru.”

In this article we’re going to take an objective look at the phenomenon of fitness gurus and identify how they can actually help us be better informed. We’ll also probably rustle some jimmies along the way, which is always entertaining.

A Different Breed

Recently a video recorded by a self-proclaimed functional training expert has been making the rounds on the Internet. The video is a five minute rant about why the deadlift is a stupid exercise. I’ll let you stew on that for a minute. In a similar vein, recently Charles Poliquin was interviewed by Tim Ferris and vocalised his disdain for the kettlebell swing. He also laughed as he proclaimed the goblet squat “a moronic exercise.”

From a Scientific Standpoint

On the flip side, we have hard working scientists who spend an enormous amount of time calling out individuals whose ideas they deem unscientific. Unfortunately, the over-reliance on science and the literature is yet another shade of the guru problem. There are plenty of popular academics who constantly lean on scientific literature to demonstrate why they’re right. In some way these people are the most dangerous. They have the strongest appearance of authority but may be unintentionally encouraging people to forego self-reliance and only focus on the literature.

"Latching onto a specific exercise, whether it’s in a positive light or negative, is usually a giant red flag."

While it’s hard to fault people for publishing what they believe is quality information, having a big reach is a big responsibility. When thousands of people are willing to do what you say solely because you said it, you have the ability to do a lot of good. Unfortunately, you can also cause a whole lot of harm if you’re not careful.

Hard and Fast Rules

There are some universal rules of health and fitness, but most of them aren’t particularly specific. Eat a lot of produce, adequate protein, and healthy fat. There’s roughly a million different ways to satisfy that rule. In terms of progressing your fitness level, you need to do a little bit more today than you did yesterday. Again, within that paradigm you can do more weight, more reps, run a little further or faster, or simply walk ten more steps today than you did yesterday.

The trouble is when coaches want to spew hard and fast rules for these situations. Latching onto a specific exercise, whether it’s in a positive light or negative, is usually a giant red flag. If the exercise in question is something as time-tested as the deadlift, the flag is now on fire and soaked in the blood of small children.

Straw Man and Ad Hominem Attacks

Two common methods employed by gurus are:

1. Attacking the individual rather than their opinion (ad hominem fallacy)
2. Setting up a seemingly relevant situation that’s actually completely out of context and thereby makes the opinion seem ridiculous (straw man fallacy).

Poliquin’s dismissal of the goblet squat encompasses both.

The goblet squat, strictly speaking, isn’t a maximal strength exercise. It can help make you stronger, and it’s a fantastic teaching tool, but no one’s claiming goblet squats are going to add 45 kilos to your platform attempt. Unfortunately, that’s pretty much why Poliquin said they were stupid. If you can squat four plates, lifting a kettlebell probably isn’t going to make you squat more.

"If your main concern is improvement in functional strength and work capacity without access to an Olympic level facility, a kettlebell is a fantastic option."

I have to believe the shot at both the kettlebell and goblet squat were thinly veiled attacks on Pavel Tsatsouline. The funny thing is, if you look at the methods of these guys, they’re not terribly different. They both believe in old-school strength training with a focus on proper technique and progressive overload. The real difference is in the populations they train. Poliquin works with high-level athletes. Pavel has a much larger interest in soldiers, combat athletes, and everyday people.

If you want to train someone to be at their absolute peak level of strength,the barbell is the best tool due to its variability in loading. If your main concern is improvement in functional strength and work capacity without access to an Olympic level facility, a kettlebell is a fantastic option. In other words, they’re both right where their target population is concerned. Weird.

Science as a Golden Idol

I’m all for scientific thinking. The trouble is that scientific thinking and the academic establishment aren’t that well aligned these days.

The literature provides us with a valuable gold standard, but it’s worth acknowledging that even that standard has some flaws. For one thing, by the time an idea or modality has been proven beyond any shadow of a doubt it’s usually pretty old. Studies take time, and a review article (the highest level of scientific evidence) requires that a large number of studies already exist. It’s a humourous paradox because there’s a common belief that employing scientific methods puts you on the cutting edge of the profession. Over-reliance on “the literature” means there’s a good chance you’re well behind the most forward-thinking minds in your field.

The nuts and bolts of publishing an article aren’t nearly as glorious or pristine as many people seem to think. The academic science industry seems more concerned with producing articles with iron-clad conclusions than doing work that actually matters. This is a broad generalisation, and I’m positive there are scientists out there doing good, valuable work – but the point remains. The literature is a useful source, but it is far from the infallible authority many people see it as.

The Silver Lining

Functional Patterns has almost 240,000 likes on Facebook. That’s a lot of fans. If you scroll through some of his posts you’ll see a lot of people thanking him for showing them how to get out of pain or get back in shape. I think we can all agree these are good things.

When it comes to training gurus, it’s easy to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There’s no singular definition of fitness nor is there a universal best way to get in shape. Confirmation bias is an aspect of human cognition. It means our brains organise the information we perceive in order to best support what we already believe. While this can be problematic, at least it demonstrates a universal truth: people gravitate towards the things they relate to. Right or wrong, trying to make those people feel stupid isn’t helping anyone.

"There’s no singular definition of fitness nor is there a universal best way to get in shape."

The only real guard we have against gurus is personal accountability. When you take it upon yourself to learn the science and develop your own fact-based perspective, the gurus lose their power. You might also notice that instead of immediately dismissing his or her viewpoint because it clashes with your own, you may be able to glean a few pieces of wisdom that enhance your understanding.

Gurus only have the power we give them. Maybe it’s time we take it back.

You'll also enjoy:

• How to Be an Expert – Never Believe You're an Expert
• The Fitness Professional Manifesto
• What Science Has to Do With Our Comments on Fitness-Related Articles
• What's New on Breaking Muscle UK Today

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post Learn to Ignore the Noise: Be Your Own Fitness Expert appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

“teacher or master of a certain type of knowledge.” However, in an industry where your expertise is your currency, some experts have appropriated the term “guru” and turned it into a weapon of mass defamation. In the fitness industry, guru means fraud.

If you use anything other than industry standard terms and your perspective isn’t 100% substantiated by hard science, then someone, somewhere probably thinks you’re a “guru.”

In this article we’re going to take an objective look at the phenomenon of fitness gurus and identify how they can actually help us be better informed. We’ll also probably rustle some jimmies along the way, which is always entertaining.

A Different Breed

Recently a video recorded by a self-proclaimed functional training expert has been making the rounds on the Internet. The video is a five minute rant about why the deadlift is a stupid exercise. I’ll let you stew on that for a minute. In a similar vein, recently Charles Poliquin was interviewed by Tim Ferris and vocalized his disdain for the kettlebell swing. He also laughed as he proclaimed the goblet squat “a moronic exercise.”

From a Scientific Standpoint

On the flip side, we have hard working scientists who spend an enormous amount of time calling out individuals whose ideas they deem unscientific. Unfortunately, the over-reliance on science and the literature is yet another shade of the guru problem. There are plenty of popular academics who constantly lean on scientific literature to demonstrate why they’re right. In some way these people are the most dangerous. They have the strongest appearance of authority but may be unintentionally encouraging people to forego self-reliance and only focus on the literature.

“Latching onto a specific exercise, whether it’s in a positive light or negative, is usually a giant red flag.”

While it’s hard to fault people for publishing what they believe is quality information, having a big reach is a big responsibility. When thousands of people are willing to do what you say solely because you said it, you have the ability to do a lot of good. Unfortunately, you can also cause a whole lot of harm if you’re not careful.

Hard and Fast Rules

There are some universal rules of health and fitness, but most of them aren’t particularly specific. Eat a lot of produce, adequate protein, and healthy fat. There’s roughly a million different ways to satisfy that rule. In terms of progressing your fitness level, you need to do a little bit more today than you did yesterday. Again, within that paradigm you can do more weight, more reps, run a little further or faster, or simply walk ten more steps today than you did yesterday.

The trouble is when coaches want to spew hard and fast rules for these situations. Latching onto a specific exercise, whether it’s in a positive light or negative, is usually a giant red flag. If the exercise in question is something as time-tested as the deadlift, the flag is now on fire and soaked in the blood of small children.

Straw Man and Ad Hominem Attacks

Two common methods employed by gurus are:

1. Attacking the individual rather than their opinion (ad hominem fallacy)
2. Setting up a seemingly relevant situation that’s actually completely out of context and thereby makes the opinion seem ridiculous (straw man fallacy).

Poliquin’s dismissal of the goblet squat encompasses both.

The goblet squat, strictly speaking, isn’t a maximal strength exercise. It can help make you stronger, and it’s a fantastic teaching tool, but no one’s claiming goblet squats are going to add 100lb to your platform attempt. Unfortunately, that’s pretty much why Poliquin said they were stupid. If you can squat four plates, lifting a kettlebell probably isn’t going to make you squat more.

“If your main concern is improvement in functional strength and work capacity without access to an Olympic level facility, a kettlebell is a fantastic option.”

I have to believe the shot at both the kettlebell and goblet squat were thinly veiled attacks on Pavel Tsatsouline. The funny thing is, if you look at the methods of these guys, they’re not terribly different. They both believe in old-school strength training with a focus on proper technique and progressive overload. The real difference is in the populations they train. Poliquin works with high-level athletes. Pavel has a much larger interest in soldiers, combat athletes, and everyday people.

If you want to train someone to be at their absolute peak level of strength the barbell is the best tool due to its variability in loading. If your main concern is improvement in functional strength and work capacity without access to an Olympic level facility, a kettlebell is a fantastic option. In other words, they’re both right where their target population is concerned. Weird.

Science as a Golden Idol

I’m all for scientific thinking. The trouble is that scientific thinking and the academic establishment aren’t that well aligned these days.

The literature provides us with a valuable gold standard, but it’s worth acknowledging that even that standard has some flaws. For one thing, by the time an idea or modality has been proven beyond any shadow of a doubt it’s usually pretty old. Studies take time, and a review article (the highest level of scientific evidence) requires that a large number of studies already exist. It’s a humorous paradox because there’s a common belief that employing scientific methods puts you on the cutting edge of the profession. Over-reliance on “the literature” means there’s a good chance you’re well behind the most forward-thinking minds in your field.

The nuts and bolts of publishing an article aren’t nearly as glorious or pristine as many people seem to think. The academic science industry seems more concerned with producing articles with iron-clad conclusions than doing work that actually matters. This is a broad generalization, and I’m positive there are scientists out there doing good, valuable work – but the point remains. The literature is a useful source, but it is far from the infallible authority many people see it as.

The Silver Lining

Functional Patterns has almost 240,000 likes on Facebook. That’s a lot of fans. If you scroll through some of his posts you’ll see a lot of people thanking him for showing them how to get out of pain or get back in shape. I think we can all agree these are good things.

When it comes to training gurus, it’s easy to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There’s no singular definition of fitness nor is there a universal best way to get in shape. Confirmation bias is an aspect of human cognition. It means our brains organize the information we perceive in order to best support what we already believe. While this can be problematic, at least it demonstrates a universal truth: people gravitate towards the things they relate to. Right or wrong, trying to make those people feel stupid isn’t helping anyone.

“There’s no singular definition of fitness nor is there a universal best way to get in shape.”

The only real guard we have against gurus is personal accountability. When you take it upon yourself to learn the science and develop your own fact-based perspective, the gurus lose their power. You might also notice that instead of immediately dismissing his or her viewpoint because it clashes with your own, you may be able to glean a few pieces of wisdom that enhance your understanding.

Gurus only have the power we give them. Maybe it’s time we take it back.

You’ll also enjoy:

• Knowing You Know Nothing Is Everything
• The Fitness Professional Manifesto
• What Science Has to Do With Our Comments on Fitness-Related Articles
• What’s New on Breaking Muscle Today

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post Be Your Own Expert: What We Can Learn From Fitness Gurus appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

That said, developing a practical understanding of motor control and how it can help you be a better athlete is straightforward. Rather than wasting time on the complexities of the cellular processes, I’m going to talk about what motor control means for athletes and share some easy steps you can take to master your own.

The Right Perspective

For many athletes, the first step to better motor learning involves a shift in the way they see things. Research shows the most important aspect of motor learning is engagement in the process. While this may seem like common sense, the frustrating reality is that many athletes who exhibit poor motor control do so because they don’t respect a simple truth: every movement is a skill.

“You have to respect the skill before you can excel at it.”

It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to snatch a personal record or open a pill bottle. Every physical task we perform is a learned skill. We just take most of them for granted. So if you want to move your body better, you need to change your perspective. You have to respect the skill before you can excel at it.

Presence and Purpose

One of the easiest ways to improve how you engage with something is to be more present. It drives me crazy when I see patients doing their exercises while looking at their phone and then tell me they didn’t feel it. Of course they didn’t. They weren’t trying to. They were in another world.

Movement starts in the mind, and intention begets action. It’s why when we see someone stomping down the street with hands clenched and shoulders tensed, we know he or she is angry without hearing the person say a word. It’s also why thinking, “I’m going to press this weight,” or, “I’m going to plant my feet, get my breath, squeeze my lats, and press,” will yield wildly different results.

Not all repetitions are equal. Just doing something to do it isn’t good enough. Every single rep of every single movement needs to be performed with purpose and presence. Focusing your intentions rep after rep, set after set may not seem like some sexy “hack,” but that’s precisely the point. It’s hard to be present and engage the process when you’re busy looking for shortcuts to bypass it.

Extrinsic Learning vs. Intrinsic Learning

When learning a new skill there are two processes we use to collect data:

1. Extrinsic learning is more or less conscious. It involves understanding instruction, technique, and other intellectual insights into what we’re practicing.
2. Intrinsic learning, on the other hand, is the experiential data gathered through our somatosensory system.

While both processes play an important role in skill acquisition, many athletes focus too much on the extrinsic stuff. When you’re constantly looking to your coach or an outside source for what’s wrong with your technique, you may be unintentionally ignoring what your body’s telling you. This is part of why many coaches use minimal instruction, and instead they ask questions to lead the athletes to their own answers.

“People frequently want some magic program or assistance exercises that will iron out all of their problems.”

Our bodies have an amazing ability to evaluate their own performance and position. They can tell us all sorts of things but to hear it we need to be listening.

Results Focused vs. Results Driven

When an athlete asks me to help him get a better squat, 99 times out of a hundred he actually wants me to help him squat more. People frequently want some magic program or assistance exercises that will iron out all of their problems. If I’m dealing with an experienced athlete with years under the bar, then I’ll do my best to give him what he’s looking for. But if he’s still a beginner, I’m usually more concerned with seeing how he squats than looking at his program. Squatting heavier and squatting better aren’t always the same thing and frequently what people need is more practice, not more weight.

We all train for different reasons. I’m a firm believer that concrete goals are an important part of making progress. But it’s easy to get so wrapped up in what we want to accomplish that we forget what will actually get us there. You must be engaged in the practice of the skill itself, not simply the results you want to get.

Mastery of the basic skills involved is what will ultimately drive your results. There’s nothing wrong with chasing big numbers and faster times, just make sure you’re focused on the process and not solely the end goal. If you treat your training and workouts as a means to an end, you’re never going to achieve the amount of presence and engagement with the process that you need to master the actual movements.

Muscle Activation and Corrective Exercise

There seems to be mixed feelings regarding the idea of muscle activation or corrective exercises. Some coaches and clinicians swear by them, while others think the idea that there exists a magical set of exercises that will automatically improve your technique in another movement is preposterous. As with most things, I fall somewhere in the middle.

From my perspective, corrective exercise is meant to be exactly that: corrective. A high-level athlete who moves well probably doesn’t need much correction. That said, there are some athletes (and coaches) who like to do specific muscle activation work prior to a training session. Keeping with our squat example, relevant exercises might be bridges, clamshells, or quadruped glute activation drills. If you enjoy this type of warm up and it works for you, then have at it. But I’m not convinced it offers any specific benefit above and beyond squatting with slowly increasing resistance until you get to your work weight.

“You must be engaged in the practice of the skill itself, not simply the results you want to get.”

I do think corrective exercises can be great building blocks for someone who is extremely deconditioned. They can also be useful in helping people develop kinesthetic awareness. Showing someone an exercise that activates her lats may not automatically make the muscle work when she’s doing something else, but it should teach her what activating that muscle feels like. Once a person knows that, it’s immensely easier to do it purposefully during a more complex movement.

The Best Ways to Improve Your Motor Control

1. Acknowledge and respect that every movement is a skill.
2. Be present and purposeful in your movements. Don’t be distracted.
3. Try not to overly rely on external coaching. Spend more time listening to your body.
4. Prioritise skill practice and acquisition over the pursuit of numbers. Master the skills that drive the process and the results will follow.
5. Utilise muscle activation drills to teach yourself what muscle activation feels like. Practice using that new feeling while performing more complex movements.

There are some coaches out there who can do amazing things with certain modalities, but personally I’m not a fan of physiological magic tricks. I believe in taking advantage of what the body does naturally – not trying to use human cleverness to bypass nature.

The most important aspect of improved motor control is recognising every movement is a skill and to develop those skills you need presence and practice. It’s simple, but as you know, simple doesn’t always mean easy.

More like this:

• Reset Your Mobility With These 3 Essential Movement Patterns
• 3 Reasons You Aren’t Getting Any Stronger
• 2 Things You’ve Got All Wrong About Movement
• New On Breaking Muscle UK Today

Photos 1, 2, & 3 courtesy of Jorge Huerta Photography.

Photo 4 courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post What Motor Control Means and How It Can Make You a Better Athlete appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

“Movement patterns,” “motor programs,” what does it all mean? In the last couple of years the fitness field has become inundated with these terms. Despite the apparent trendiness of the concept, motor control is an extremely important facet of athletic performance, and it’s a rather involved topic that utilizes pieces of neurology, neuroscience, psychology, and exercise.

That said, developing a practical understanding of motor control and how it can help you be a better athlete is straightforward. Rather than wasting time on the complexities of the cellular processes, I’m going to talk about what motor control means for athletes and share some easy steps you can take to master your own.

The Right Perspective

For many athletes, the first step to better motor learning involves a shift in the way they see things. Research shows the most important aspect of motor learning is engagement in the process. While this may seem like common sense, the frustrating reality is that many athletes who exhibit poor motor control do so because they don’t respect a simple truth: every movement is a skill.

“You have to respect the skill before you can excel at it.”

It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to snatch a personal record or open a pill bottle. Every physical task we perform is a learned skill. We just take most of them for granted. So if you want to move your body better, you need to change your perspective. You have to respect the skill before you can excel at it.

Presence and Purpose

One of the easiest ways to improve how you engage with something is to be more present. It drives me crazy when I see patients doing their exercises while looking at their phone and then tell me they didn’t feel it. Of course they didn’t. They weren’t trying to. They were in another world.

Movement starts in the mind, and intention begets action. It’s why when we see someone stomping down the street with hands clenched and shoulders tensed, we know he or she is angry without hearing the person say a word. It’s also why thinking, “I’m going to press this weight,” or, “I’m going to plant my feet, get my breath, squeeze my lats, and press,” will yield wildly different results.

Not all repetitions are equal. Just doing something to do it isn’t good enough. Every single rep of every single movement needs to be performed with purpose and presence.

Focusing your intentions rep after rep, set after set may not seem like some sexy “hack,” but that’s precisely the point. It’s hard to be present and engage the process when you’re busy looking for shortcuts to bypass it.

Extrinsic Learning vs. Intrinsic Learning

When learning a new skill there are two processes we use to collect data:

1. Extrinsic learning is more or less conscious. It involves understanding instruction, technique, and other intellectual insights into what we’re practicing.
2. Intrinsic learning, on the other hand, is the experiential data gathered through our somatosensory system.

While both processes play an important role in skill acquisition, many athletes focus too much on the extrinsic stuff. When you’re constantly looking to your coach or an outside source for what’s wrong with your technique, you may be unintentionally ignoring what your body’s telling you. This is part of why many coaches use minimal instruction, and instead they ask questions to lead the athletes to their own answers.

“People frequently want some magic program or assistance exercises that will iron out all of their problems.”

Our bodies have an amazing ability to evaluate their own performance and position. They can tell us all sorts of things but to hear it we need to be listening.

Results Focused vs. Results Driven

When an athlete asks me to help him get a better squat, 99 times out of a hundred he actually wants me to help him squat more. People frequently want some magic program or assistance exercises that will iron out all of their problems.

If I’m dealing with an experienced athlete with years under the bar, then I’ll do my best to give him what he’s looking for. But if he’s still a beginner, I’m usually more concerned with seeing how he squats than looking at his program. Squatting heavier and squatting better aren’t always the same thing and frequently what people need is more practice, not more weight.

We all train for different reasons. I’m a firm believer that concrete goals are an important part of making progress. But it’s easy to get so wrapped up in what we want to accomplish that we forget what will actually get us there. You must be engaged in the practice of the skill itself, not simply the results you want to get.

Mastery of the basic skills involved is what will ultimately drive your results. There’s nothing wrong with chasing big numbers and faster times, just make sure you’re focused on the process and not solely the end goal.

If you treat your training and workouts as a means to an end, you’re never going to achieve the amount of presence and engagement with the process that you need to master the actual movements.

Muscle Activation and Corrective Exercise

There seems to be mixed feelings regarding the idea of muscle activation or corrective exercises. Some coaches and clinicians swear by them, while others think the idea that there exists a magical set of exercises that will automatically improve your technique in another movement is preposterous. As with most things, I fall somewhere in the middle.

From my perspective, corrective exercise is meant to be exactly that: corrective. A high-level athlete who moves well probably doesn’t need much correction. That said, there are some athletes (and coaches) who like to do specific muscle activation work prior to a training session.

Keeping with our squat example, relevant exercises might be bridges, clamshells, or quadruped glute activation drills. If you enjoy this type of warm up and it works for you, then have at it. But I’m not convinced it offers any specific benefit above and beyond squatting with slowly increasing resistance until you get to your work weight.

“You must be engaged in the practice of the skill itself, not simply the results you want to get.”

I do think corrective exercises can be great building blocks for someone who is extremely deconditioned. They can also be useful in helping people develop kinesthetic awareness.

Showing someone an exercise that activates her lats may not automatically make the muscle work when she’s doing something else, but it should teach her what activating that muscle feels like. Once a person knows that, it’s immensely easier to do it purposefully during a more complex movement.

The Best Ways to Improve Your Motor Control

1. Acknowledge and respect that every movement is a skill.
2. Be present and purposeful in your movements. Don’t be distracted.
3. Try not to overly rely on external coaching. Spend more time listening to your body.
4. Prioritize skill practice and acquisition over the pursuit of numbers. Master the skills that drive the process and the results will follow.
5. Utilize muscle activation drills to teach yourself what muscle activation feels like. Practice using that new feeling while performing more complex movements.

There are some coaches out there who can do amazing things with certain modalities, but personally I’m not a fan of physiological magic tricks. I believe in taking advantage of what the body does naturally – not trying to use human cleverness to bypass nature.

The most important aspect of improved motor control is recognizing every movement is a skill and to develop those skills you need presence and practice. It’s simple, but as you know, simple doesn’t always mean easy.

More like this:

Photos 1, 2, & 3 courtesy of Jorge Huerta Photography.

Photo 4 courtesy of Shutterstock.

• Reset Your Mobility With These 3 Essential Movement Patterns
• 3 Reasons You Aren’t Getting Any Stronger
• 2 Things You’ve Got All Wrong About Movement

The post Motor Control and Movement Patterns: A Must-Read for Athletes appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Despite some of the negative changes, being thirty is pretty awesome so far.

One of the biggest problems with young athletes is that youth is basically magic. You can walk into a gym, swing a few weights around, and as long as you use a heavy enough weight and something somewhat resembling technique, you’ll probably make progress. Some kids don’t even need that much. It’s almost like they can look at the weights threateningly and add pounds to their bench press.

The problem, of course, is that habits you forge while you’re young will probably stay with you into your older years. In this article I’m going to talk about all the dumb shit I did in my twenties that I would have been better off without.

Pretending to Train Like an Elite Athlete

I’m not a natural athlete. Any athletic accomplishments I have to my name were achieved through cleverness and hard work, not a near bottomless pit of undifferentiated athleticism. Despite this, when I was a twenty-something, every time I saw a new workout plan for some professional athlete I had to try it.

Program hopping is bad enough. Program hopping because a plan that was never meant for you didn’t help you achieve the results it wasn’t designed for is an altogether deeper level of youth-induced silliness.

“The program an Olympic gold medalist is following now is not the program he or she followed fifteen or twenty years ago when first starting. If you’ve only been lifting for a few months, following the program Kendrick Farris is using is completely inappropriate.”

First off, it’s unlikely you’d ever come across the actual training program used by a celebrity or professional athlete unless you’re on a first-name basis with the coach. The stuff that’s disseminated through the media is usually either watered down or lacking in context. A program is one piece of the puzzle. Pros usually have access to recovery methods and nutrition well beyond the means of the average trainee.

There’s also another factor most people miss, particularly where professional athletes are concerned. The program an Olympic gold medalist is following now is not the program he or she followed fifteen or twenty years ago when first starting. If you’ve only been lifting for a few months, following the program Kendrick Farris is using is completely inappropriate. Some people find this offensive, as if assuming you can do what one of the best lifters in the world can do when you’ve only got a few months under your belt isn’t. Respect the process. The process is everything.

I’m learning to respect the process and not to rush things.

Believing I Was Invincible

Sometimes I go back and forth on this. I firmly believe most training-related injuries are avoidable with a bit of self-awareness and basic know-how. I honestly think the reason most people get hurt isn’t because of biomechanics or loading schemes. Far as I can tell, most people who get hurt simply aren’t trying to avoid it.

“Now that I’m in my thirties, minor issues definitely take longer to resolve than they did a few years ago, but overall I have far less pain than I did in my twenties.”

The reality of injury is that most of the time people don’t care about getting hurt until they already are. To be fair, a lot of the knowledge I now possess was the direct result of one problem or another. Injury can be a great teacher, but looking back at the years of good training I missed out on due to a battery of nagging injuries, I wish I’d cared more about prevention.

Now that I’m in my thirties, minor issues definitely take longer to resolve than they did a few years ago, but overall I have far less pain than I did in my twenties. Frankly, that’s kind of embarrassing. Shame on you twenty-year-old, Bob. Shame.

Not Paying Attention to Basic Maintenance

A week or so ago I stumbled across a thread on a fitness forum that started with a post asking, “How important is sleep, really?” The discussion contained therein was equal parts frustrating and horrifying.

The majority of posts were arguing or claiming that as long as you’re not tired, sleep isn’t that important. I pointed out how integral sleep is in terms of overall recovery and regulating hormone production and was immediately met by angry tirades claiming, “Whatever, bro. I can sleep an hour a night and I feel fine.” Sigh.

I get it. When I was in my early to mid twenties I used to work eleven hours straight, train my ass off, and then party all night for days on end. I, too, felt fine at the time. The issue really isn’t how you feel – it’s all of the progress you’re missing out on. I’m hardly advocating the life of a monk, but if you’re on day three of a Netflix-and-pizza bender, maybe go to sleep a little early and trade that fourth slice for a couple glasses of water.

Pizza and Netflix are great, but so is sleep.

My sleeping, eating, and drinking habits were less than perfect through my twenties. I made significant progress in my training, but when I think back I have to shake my head. One of the most profound improvements to my quality of life was the result of forcing myself to sleep eight hours a night. So simple it borders on stupid – but ask yourself, when was the last time you got a solid eight hours?

Prioritizing One Aspect of Fitness at the Expense of All Others

Balance has never been a strength of mine. I’m good at putting everything I have into one thing and doing it the best I possibly can. While this approach has its benefits, in terms of fitness it means that throughout many of my younger years I was playing tug of war with my physical preparation.

“One of the biggest problems with young athletes is that youth is basically magic. You can walk into a gym, swing a few weights around, and as long as you use a heavy enough weight and something somewhat resembling technique, you’ll probably make progress.”

I would get really strong and then stop lifting and do only cardio or conditioning. I would get really ripped and then stop running to focus on lifting again (because everyone knows running kills gainz #science). Again, I’m happy with where I am currently, but when I think of where I could be if I had held onto all the progress I’d made it makes me a little sad.

Not Eating Carbs

My time in undergrad was probably the height of the carb-a-phobic craze. For years, I avoided rice, bread, and anything even remotely processed because I knew it was “the devil” and would probably murder my soul. I looked good and felt all right, but again, hindsight is twenty-twenty.

I hit a terrible plateau in my late twenties. I was lethargic and all my lifts and times stalled hard. Then I ate a sandwich and my deadlift went up by a hundred pounds. Okay, I’m exaggerating, but all jokes aside I added a lot of weight to all of my lifts simply by adding carbs back into my diet.

Sometimes you just need to eat a sandwich.

What’s on Your List?

The list goes on. Avoiding steady-state cardio. Drinking too much coffee and not enough water. Not going to the doctor when I was sick or concerned about an injury. None of these mistakes were egregious when taken on their own, but the sum was significant.

It’s easy to get away with bad habits when you’re young, but eventually they’re going to catch up to you. So, what have you been getting away with lately?

More Like This:

• The Gifts of Being Forty-Five
• What I Learned From Deadlifting 500 Pounds
• A Simple 4-Step Mobility System for Every Lifter
• New on Breaking Muscle Today

Photos 1, 3, and 4 courtesy of Shutterstock.

Photo 2 courtesy of CrossFit Impulse.

The post Reflections on Being 30 (And the Dumb S*#! I Did in My 20s) appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

That’s one of the downsides of regular exercise. If you train hard and often, you’ve probably got a handful of minor aches and pains. They’re part of the package. The problem occurs when we allow those minor issues to develop into crippling injuries, all the while telling ourselves the same thing – it’s just par for the course.

Stay in tune with what your body is telling you pre- and post-workout.

Pain and injury, while they often go hand in hand, are not the same thing. Just because you’re hurt doesn’t mean you’re injured, and it’s entirely possible you could have an injury that doesn’t cause you constant pain. But while minor aches and pains can frequently be resolved independently, legitimate injuries often require the attention of a medical profession.

In this article, I’m going to give you a simple way to determine if you’re just hurt or if you’re actually injured and what to do in both cases.

Step 1: Pain or Injury?

Before you can decide on a plan of action, you need to have some idea of what you’re dealing with. The following questions will help you quickly determine whether you can tough it out or if you need some help.

Did Something Happen?

This question usually provides one of the most simple and telling answers. Did your pain start following a specific event? Did you feel a pop or a snap mid movement or did the pain slowly surface over time? Even with overuse injuries, where there is a slow buildup of dysfunction and tissue damage, the actual injury is often the result of some activity that pushed your body past the threshold. Unless there’s an underlying pathology or disease state, most cases where there isn’t something specific that incited the pain probably aren’t a big deal.

Was your pain sudden or has it been the result of a slow build-up of problems?

Is it Swollen, Inflamed, or Bruised?

Serious injuries usually have overt physical symptoms. They may not occur immediately, but if you pop a ligament or cause significant soft tissue damage, there will probably be some visual cues. If you can’t tell whether or not your joint is swollen or bruised, it probably isn’t. Comparing to your opposite side may help your determination. But for the most part, the stuff that would indict an injury will be right there staring you in the face.

Is There a Loss of Function?

Injury diagnosis is done using a combination of factors and observations, but loss of function is one of the biggest indicators. There may be loss of function independent of any sensation of pain or you may be unable to do something because that task has become intolerably painful. In either case, there’s a good chance you have an actual injury. It’s important to distinguish between task functions that give you some discomfort but can still be performed and motions that are so painful you simply cannot do them. This is one of the biggest differences between being hurt and being injured.

How Badly Does It Hurt?

Score it on a scale of ten and try to be as honest as possible. If your pain is passively above a six or it’s a zero but jumps to a nine or ten with activity, there’s a good chance you have an injury. The type of pain is also important. Sharp, stabbing pain, burning, tingling, or numbness are all symptoms that require medical attention. A prolonged dull ache may be resolvable through your own efforts.

Pay attention to when activity exacerbates your pain.

How Long Has This Been a Problem?

Whenever I get a minor tweak that doesn’t throw any obvious red flags, my next move is often to wait. Silly as it may seem, something that feels terrible immediately after the workout might feel like nothing when you wake up the next day.

If the pain persists past 24 hours, but there’s a significant improvement with each consecutive day, then it’s probably not a big deal. If you have something that feels just as terrible on day three as when it happened, it’s probably worth getting it looked at. On the other hand, if it’s mostly resolved but you’re left with a nagging pain that lasts longer than two weeks, it’s also probably time to make an appointment.

“People talk a lot about overtraining and while it’s a real thing, it’s not a problem most non-professional athletes ever have to face.”

Even minor injuries can cause a lot of problems when left unchecked. And, indeed, minor injuries are usually the ones that go unchecked. Sure, you can survive and keep training with minor pain, but if it’s the same pain in the same movements for weeks at a time, then you’re cultivating a physiological time bomb. Eventually it’s going to go off. It’s easy to repair a minor tear. It’s much more difficult to rehabilitate completely shredded tissues.

Step 2: What Do You Do if It’s Just Pain?

Don’t Accept Poor Form Because You’re Working Hard

Contrary to popular belief poor form alone won’t mess you up all that badly. What hurts is when you combine poor form with excessive load. The solution is simple: reduce the load until you can use proper form. If your technique suffers minor flaws from time to time due to fatigue, it’s not a huge deal, but the more time you spend in bad positions the more likely you are to end up injured. Own your movements and own your technique. You can’t build a castle on a shaky foundation.

Avoid Extreme and/or Unnecessary Programming

People talk a lot about overtraining and while it’s a real thing, it’s not a problem most non-professional athletes ever have to face. Usually when people bring up overtraining, they’re actually talking about poor programming. If you just started CrossFit and haven’t been active for the past couple of years, you don’t need to achieve a bodyweight overhead squat by the end of the month. Real strength takes time and it’s a slow process.

The competitive atmosphere in some gyms can be extremely positive and help us push ourselves. But it’s on us (and the coaches) to make sure we stay realistic and don’t push into problems. If you’re not a competitive athlete, do you really need a three-plate clean and jerk right this second? If you’re healthy you may be able to get there, but you need to respect the process. Take a look at what you’re doing and ask yourself if you can achieve more with a simplified approach. The answer is usually yes.

Stick to the basics as a novice and progress slowly to avoid major injury.

Don’t Be in Denial

If you have a minor ache, then you need to address it or at the very least be sure it’s just that. The number of injuries I’ve seen because people simply refused to acknowledge their pain is staggering. Pain doesn’t always mean you need to drop everything, but it is our body’s way of telling us something abnormal is going on. If you ignore your pain, you do so at your own risk.

Step 3: What to Do if You’re Injured

This is easy. Find medical professionals you trust and use them. The more you see your healthcare practitioners , the better care they can provide. If you don’t like your practitioners, find new ones. This isn’t always easy, but it’s worth the extra effort.

Injuries suck, but for most of us they’re just part of being active. With a little effort and self-awareness you can learn how to separate a speed bump from a car crash and keep comfortably cruising toward your goals.

Check out these related articles:

• Starting Over Again – 6 Lessons Learned From Injury
• 7 Reasons Your Injury Is Not Getting Any Better
• Avoiding Injury – How to Train Safely for Years to Come
• What’s New On Breaking Muscle UK Today

Photos courtesy of CrossFit Empirical.

The post Hurt or Injured? A 3 Step Assessment and Action Plan appeared first on Breaking Muscle.