Thankfully, the intentions behind this industry chatter are typically genuine. Coaches want to help clients achieve results, and the general public is simply looking to feel better. However, amidst the confusion is a growing need for the fitness industry to develop a common language that both professionals and consumers can understand. And that common language should focus on helping society move better and more often for the long haul.

Promote Movement Quality

Changing the language of the industry may feel like an impossible task, but two principles are undeniable:

• Put movement quality first.
• Help people move more.

Regardless of your goals (muscle hypertrophy, strength, performance, etc.), these two factors are critical for the industry to head in the right direction. A movement-based approach to training has the potential for magic, and it needs to start in gym class for kids. The lack of a proprioceptive-enriched movement lifestyle for children is a major concern for society.

However, it is never too late to restore what Gray Cook calls “movement competency.” Here is Gray’s definition of how to find movement competency:

This we test with movement screening. If screening reveals pain or dysfunction in the form of limitation or asymmetry, there is a movement competency problem. Alternatively, there is a basic movement-aptitude problem—pick your term, but make the point. Adequate competency suggests acceptable fundamental-movement quality.

Achieving movement competency will be hard if we focus our fitness programs purely on looking better. I am a bodybuilder at heart and have worked on building bigger muscles and looking better since I was 15. Fast-forward almost 20-years and I have realized that my chase for aesthetics has left me with faulty movement patterns. I am now forced to work on improving my movement competency instead of working on looking good.

This doesn’t mean that I will never be able to work out for aesthetics, but I do need to earn the right to make that the sole focus of my training. Building muscle is increasingly important as you age, but you can still have a high-level of movement competency at any fitness level. Building muscle and getting stronger should be your main goal, once you start moving well.

A Catalyst for Change

This was my catalyst for developing a movement-based approach to hypertrophy training. In the past, bodybuilders would maybe perform light static stretching, five minutes on a cardio machine, and a few warm-up sets before jumping into a 25-set workout of chest and triceps. Young lifters without a lot of miles on their body can get away with this method for a while, but this approach may eventually leave you with asymmetries, injuries, pain, and frustratingly slow progress.

You don’t have to be in your fifties to have an old training age. As Dan John says, “It’s not the years, it’s the miles.” I have been training hard for almost 20-years with a week off here and there, but not often. The miles are deep in this young body.

If you want to last in the lifting game for the long run, endless sets of eight to 15 reps per body part may not be what your body needs. So, what should a person chasing a bodybuilding-type physique do instead of the typical splits? Revisit and master fundamental human movements and do them with realistic sets, reps, and loads. If you focus on moving better first, you will be surprised how fast your body will be able to get back to lifting heavy objects, often.

A Collaborative Design

Like any other trainer or strength coach, my philosophy has evolved over the years. These days, I follow philosophies of various tried-and-true methods.

Functional Movement Systems (FMS) is a useful approach to understand movement baselines and exercise modifications. Most people would benefit from an FMS screening. Along with a detailed health history at intake, FMS provides a solid foundation when designing programs. For the beginner or veteran, the fundamentals are where you start and finish.

Every strength and muscle hypertrophy program should include some variation of the following movements depending on the goal of the individual. This list is largely inspired by the legendary Dan John:

• Push: push-ups, bench press, overhead press
• Pull: dumbbell row, inverted row, chin-ups, pull-ups
• Squat: goblet squat, front squat, back squat, single-leg squat
• Hinge: deadlift, kettlebell swing, single-leg deadlifts, Olympic lifts
• Loaded Carry: farmer’s carry, suitcase carry, overhead carry, sandbag carry
• Groundwork: rocking, rolling, creeping, crawling, Turkish get-ups
• Core/Rotation/Anti-rotation: ab wheel rollouts, cable press outs, chops, lifts

The New Age Bodybuilding Template

Below is a foundational hypertrophy template that consists of lifting 3 days per week for 6 weeks. Dividing your strength and conditioning into four to six week phases will keep your body fresh, resilient, and improve general physical preparedness. This length of time seems to be the sweet spot, since most people have what I call “Exercise ADD.”

Program Components:

1. Correctives
2. Movement Preparation
3. Lift Weights
4. Finisher

Correctives

Correctives are based off of FMS and health history. For example, a perfect score for an Active Straight Leg is 3/3, 0 for pain. Your goal should be to achieve symmetry (a score of 2/2 or 3/3). If your score is 2/1, the following corrective exercises will use core and motor control to improve alternating hip flexion and extension.

• Alligator Breathing: Lay down in a comfortable position for 2-3 minutes. I prefer on the stomach to feel the abdominal wall. Breathe in and out through your nose. Focus on pulling air deep into your belly. It may help to imagine pulling air down into your feet.
• Assisted Leg Lowering: 10 reps each leg
• Cook Hip Lift: 5 x 10-second holds each side

Movement Preparation

Before you begin your workout spend 5-10 minutes on the following movement preparations:

• Kettlebell arm bars: 5 each side
• Half-kneeling kettlebell halos: 10 reps
• Goblet squat w/prying knees: 5 reps
• Lunge Matrix: 6 reps
• Plank to Down Dog: 10 reps (not in video)
• Inch Worm: 10 reps (not in video)
• Jump Rope: 2-5 minutes (not in video)

Lift Weights

Below are the rep rotations for the three lifting days. Organize your week so that you don’t lift two days in a row.

• Monday (or Tuesday): 5 x 5
• Wednesday (or Thursday): 8 x 3
• Friday (or Saturday): 3 x 8-12

The following exercise options are based on the fundamental movement patterns:

• Push: One-arm kettlebell press, single-arm bench press, push-ups
• Pull: Inverted row, chin-ups
• Squat: Goblet Squat, single-leg squat, front squats
• Hinge: Deadlift, single-leg deadlift, kettlebell swing
• Loaded Carry: farmer’s walk, suitcase carry
• Ground Work: Turkish get-ups, crawling and rolling
• Core (rotation/anti-rotation): McGill Big 3, rollouts, anti-rotation press outs

Finisher

Pick one conditioning finisher per training session:

• Air Bike Sprints: 6-8 rounds of 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off
• Concept2 Rower: 1,000 meters
• Ski Erg Sprints: 3 rounds of 1-minute on, rest 2 minutes in between sprints
• Sled Push/Pull: 5 x 50 yards
• Battling Ropes: 8 x 20 reps for 2 arm slams. Rest 30 seconds between sets.

Cool-Down

Proper recovery will provide your body with a better base to keep building muscle for the long haul. Before you skip out of the gym after your workout, run through this cool-down routine:

• Alligator breathing: 2 minutes
• Head nods: 10 reps up and down and 10 reps side to side
• Bird dogs: 10 reps/side
• Rock backs: 20 reps
• Egg rolls: 20 reps
• Get up and down off of the ground: 5-10 reps
• Baby crawling, Spiderman crawling: 30-40 yards each

Change Is Here

I will always be a meathead at heart. I love bodybuilding and I am amazed at the amount of weight powerlifters can move. But the “pedal to the metal” workouts eventually take their toll.

If we continue to direct the general public towards endless sets of body-part split workouts, force Olympic lifting on people who are not ready and may never be ready to perform, and max out on the squat, deadlift, and bench press, the long haul may never come. Let’s focus on keeping people moving instead.

The post Move Well First: A New Path for Coaching Fitness appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

This means that deep down our DNA is constantly telling us to save our energy for the day there are no more pizza delivery guys, and we need to go hunt a pizza down ourselves. But barring a zombie apocalypse, this probably isn’t going to happen.

“We just want to keep moving for decades to come, not get type 2 diabetes, and then not die of pneumonia after falling and breaking a hip at 85.”

We know that movement can have a huge, positive impact on health. Despite this, the current guidelines that tell people to “move more” have made no difference to our chronic disease rates.¹ So what should we do instead?

As ever, I look to science. I love science. Admittedly, there’s a huge amount of rubbish out there in the world of research. However, I think some core overall principles are emerging that suggest how we can kick ass for as long as possible.

It’s About Quality and Longevity of Life

If you’re more of a “prepare for the zombie apocalypse” kind of person, this probably won’t be quite your speed. Equally, if you love the feeling of testing the limits of your body and mind under a barbell, over an obstacle course, or along hundreds of miles of endurance racing, please don’t let me stop you.

For the rest of us, the number of marathons we haven’t run or the size of our snatch doesn’t really matter that much. We just want to keep moving for decades to come, not get type 2 diabetes, and then not die of pneumonia after falling and breaking a hip at 85. This quality of life is easier than you think.

As everybody loves a pyramid, let me introduce you to mine.

The Great Upside-Down Movement Pyramid

Maybe the name needs some work. But it definitely works better upside down.

The Base: Sit Less

The reason this forms the base is because no matter how much you exercise, most of the benefit is lost if you spend the rest of the day sitting. There’s some interesting research behind why this is the case (inflammation, insulin resistance, etc.), but the key point is that this finding has been replicated a number of times.²

“As the amount of time spent sitting every day goes above seven to eight hours, your risk of death increases, regardless of how much exercise you do.”

Just look at this graph from a recent meta-analysis (study of many studies).³ The different lines are from different studies, so focus on the average – the thick black line. As the amount of time spent sitting every day goes above seven to eight hours, your risk of death increases, regardless of how much exercise you do. Bugger.

Graph shows hazard ratio (HR) for death from any cause, adjusted for activity level. Baseline HR is 1, so an HR of 1.5 (i.e. 12 hours of sitting per day) indicates a fifty percent increase in overall risk in death.³

Summary: How to Use the Pyramid

1. Make movement a habit rather than a chore.
2. If you’re not managing to do the level above, don’t do the level below.
3. As you use more levels of the pyramid, it becomes increasingly unstable. This means you need more time to recover – eat, sleep, rest.
4. If you can’t recover better, don’t add more.
5. Don’t obsess over the details. Do what comes naturally and what you enjoy.

Combinations: Though they haven’t often been studied in a systematic way, things like fight training (boxing, martial arts, etc.) and CrossFit will often cover everything, from strength and interval training to endurance. However, if the coach at your CrossFit box has you doing soul-crushing thirty-minute metcons (metabolic conditioning workouts) every day, consider introducing him or her to the pyramid.

Disclaimer: If you have some kind of chronic disease, you should discuss various exercise regimens with your doctor. Movement can be better than medications and medical treatments, with fewer potential side effects. Some of the references here are a good place to start, including.²¹

Take a look at these related articles:

• In 2015: Move Better Than You Ever Have Before
• Walking: The Most Underrated Movement of the 21st Century
• Use Play to Become Fitter and Stronger for Longer
• What’s New on Breaking Muscle Today

References:

1. Haskell WL et al., “Physical activity and public health: updated recommendation for adults from the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association“. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2007 Aug;39(8):1423-34.

2. Biswas A et al., “Sedentary Time and Its Association With Risk for Disease Incidence, Mortality, and Hospitalization in Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.” Ann Intern Med. 2015 Jan 20;162(2):123-32.

3. Chau JY et al., “Daily sitting time and all-cause mortality: a meta-analysis.” PLoS One. 2013 Nov 13;8(11):e80000.

4. Hamer M and Chida Y. “Walking and primary prevention: a meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies.” Br J Sports Med. 2008 Apr;42(4):238-43.

5. Richardson CR et al., “A meta-analysis of pedometer-based walking interventions and weight loss.” Ann Fam Med. 2008 Jan-Feb;6(1):69-77.

6. Newton RU and Galvão DA. “Exercise in prevention and management of cancer.” Curr Treat Options Oncol. 2008 Jun;9(2-3):135-46.

7. Mekary RA et al., “Weight training, aerobic physical activities, and long-term waist circumference change in men.” Obesity (Silver Spring). 2015 Feb;23(2):461-7.

8. Ruiz JR et al., “Muscular strength and adiposity as predictors of adulthood cancer mortality in men.” Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2009 May;18(5):1468-76.

9. Lee JJ et al., “Global muscle strength but not grip strength predicts mortality and length of stay in a general population in a surgical intensive care unit.” Phys Ther. 2012 Dec;92(12):1546-55.

10. Metcalfe RS et al., “Towards the minimal amount of exercise for improving metabolic health: beneficial effects of reduced-exertion high-intensity interval training.” Eur J Appl Physiol. 2012 Jul;112(7):2767-75.

11. Helgerud J et al., “Aerobic high-intensity intervals improve VO2 max more than moderate training.” Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2007 Apr;39(4):665-71.

12. Moholdt T et al., “The higher the better? Interval training intensity in coronary heart disease.” J Sci Med Sport. 2014 Sep;17(5):506-10.

13. Tabata I et al., “Effects of moderate-intensity endurance and high-intensity intermittent training on anaerobic capacity and VO2 max.” Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1996 Oct;28(10):1327-30.

14. Weston KS et al., “High-intensity interval training in patients with lifestyle-induced cardiometabolic disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis.” Br J Sports Med. 2014 Aug;48(16):1227-34.

15. Matthews CE et al., “Moderate to vigorous physical activity and risk of upper-respiratory tract infection.” Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2002 Aug;34(8):1242-8.

16. Nieman DC et al., “Upper respiratory tract infection is reduced in physically fit and active adults.” Br J Sports Med. 2011 Sep;45(12):987-92.

17. O’Keefe JH et al. “Potential adverse cardiovascular effects from excessive endurance exercise“. Mayo Clin Proc. 2012 Jun;87(6):587-95.

18. Haluza D et al., “Green perspectives for public health: a narrative review on the physiological effects of experiencing outdoor nature.” Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2014 May 19;11(5):5445-61.

19. Cohen EE et al., “Rowers’ high: behavioural synchrony is correlated with elevated pain thresholds.” Biol Lett. 2010 Feb 23;6(1):106-8.

20. Thøgersen-Ntoumani C et al., “Changes in work affect in response to lunchtime walking in previously physically inactive employees: A randomized trial.” Scand J Med Sci Sports. 2015 Jan 6.

21. Walther C et al., “Regular exercise training compared with percutaneous intervention leads to a reduction of inflammatory markers and cardiovascular events in patients with coronary artery disease.” Eur J Cardiovasc Prev Rehabil. 2008 Feb;15(1):107-12.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post A Simple System for Staying Healthy and Active to the Very End appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Coach to flailing client: “What are you doing?”

Client: “I don’t know really. I just saw it on Instagram.”

(Collective sigh among coaches all around).

Yeah, there are a lot of fit-looking people who like to post sexy-looking fitness moves all over social media, and most of them don’t come with a don’t try this at home unless disclaimer.

The result: It’s kind of like what would happen if a first-year engineering student enrolling in 400-level courses in college. It just wouldn’t go well.

In the case of fitness, the inappropriate movement selection that happens in mass doses – not just because of social media, but because of a lack of awareness on the part of fitness enthusiasts and even coaches – means that too many people are pursuing movements and bad exercise programs that are doing them more damage than good.

It comes down to this: Exercise selection needs to be individualized, and should take into account the individual’s strengths, weaknesses and limitations.

Whether you’re a coach or a client, we’re going to make that really simple for you through OPEX Fitness’ pattern-based approach to exercise selection.

Pattern-based approach? Huh? What does that mean?

Basically, as OPEX CEO Carl Hardwick, explains in this course, you can plug all exercises into six categories, or movement patterns. These include: Squat, bend, lunge, push, pull and core.

Some context: In short, we do each of the above movements pretty much everyday. Sitting down and standing up is the squat pattern, while bending over to tie your shoes is the bend pattern.

Walking up stairs, or even just walking, is effectively the lunge pattern, while putting something away in the cupboard is a push, closing a door or starting a boat motor is a pull, and basically everything you do requires the core (if you have ever injured your core, you probably know how hard doing anything becomes).

From there, exercise selection comes down to figuring out which types of squat, bend, lunge, push, pull and core movements are appropriate for the individual.

Practically speaking: If you or your client can’t pass a shoulder flexion test – the person needs to compensate by extending their spine or bending their arm when they put their arm overhead – then this person shouldn’t be doing overhead movements with load, like a shoulder press, a push press or a snatch. Instead, something like a landmine press is likely more appropriate.

Or, if the person can step forward into a lunge and stand back up again without assistance, or severely rounding their spine (or some other compensatory pattern), then chances are loaded reverse lunges aren’t the best call.

Sidenote: Although we’re laying out principles, exercise selection is still going to be more of an art than a pure science, and the answers truly come down to each individual.

This is why it’s important to either self-assess, or if you’re a coach to put your clients through an assessment before blindly deciding what movements are right for that person.

Take this assessment (or put your clients through this assessment) before beginning a training program. It takes a look at each movement pattern and will go a long way in providing information useful to make exercise selection decisions.

The Six Patterns: 1. Squat

Some squat movements include: air squat, goblet squat, back squat, front squat, zercher squat, overhead squat, wall ball shot, thruster, single leg squats.

Practical tip from Hardwick for the novice athlete: A goblet squat, with its built in counter balance, with a prescribed tempo to control and slow the speed of the movement (three seconds to lower and three seconds to stand, for example) is generally a great place to start.

Second, higher volume repetitions are going to help the novice athlete develop and improve the squat pattern.

The Six Patterns: 2. Bend (hinge)

Some bend movements include: good morning, deadlift, kettlebell swing, RDLs, single leg RDLs.

Practical tip from Hardwick for the novice athlete: A single leg RDL to a target-such as a 20 inch box-is a good option for a novice athlete who has limited balance and strength on their single leg.

The Six Patterns: 3. Lunge

Some lunge movements include: walking lunges, reverse lunges, farmer carry lunges, overhead lunges, step-ups, lateral step-ups.

Practical tip from Hardwick for the novice athlete: If an individual cannot pass a simple lunge test, meaning they can’t step into a lunge, get their knee to the ground and stand back up again without compensation or assisting themselves with their hands-an assisted split squat is a good tool.

This can be as simple as lowering slowly into a split squat while holding onto a dowel, and then using the dowel to assist themselves up with their arms.

The Six Patterns: 4. Push

Some push movements include: scapular protraction in a plank, push-ups, bench press, floor press, landmine press, shoulder press, push press, jerk, burpees, dips, ring dips, handstand push-ups.

Practical tip from Hardwick for the novice athlete: If the individual cannot pass a plank hold test – meaning they cannot hold a plank for 60 seconds in the front plank – then a simple scapular protraction in a plank position is a great way to build pushing strength.

This will help develop control and strength in the plank position before beginning to build pushing strength.

The Six Patterns: 5. Pull

Some pull movements include: banded pull apart, ring rows, pull-ups, chin-ups, muscle-ups, bent over row, lat pulldowns, Pendlay row.

Practical tip from Hardwick for the novice athlete: Spending time in the top of a ring row hold for as long as possible (rest and repeat three times) is a great way to build both scapular retraction and help them build muscular endurance in the pull pattern.

The Six Patterns: 6. Core

Again, everything uses the core, but some movements that tend to be core dominant include: planks, side planks, sit-ups, tuck-ups, v-sits, barbell rollouts, dragon flags, toes to bar.

Practical tip from Hardwick for the novice athlete: Planks, planks, planks. The novice athlete should build strength in both front and side planks, as this will translate into being able to engage the core in everything we do, both in the gym and in life.

Keep planking until the individual can hold each side plank for two minutes a side.

Conclusion

The bottom line: Randomly selecting exercises that look cool on Instagram is not the secret sauce to success. Taking a deliberate, calculated, individualized approach is.

So take the time to figure out what you (or your clients) actually need for long-term success.

The post A Better Approach for the Novice Athlete Than “I saw it on Instagram” appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

When you’re out of the habit, finding the motivation to get up and get moving can be difficult. If you’re feeling out of shape and don’t know how to get started, just the thought of starting to exercise can be paralyzing. So what should you do?

You can get past whatever hurdles are in front of you. There is a way to find motivation and joy in moving your body. Follow these tips, be mindful, break through whatever is stopping you, and start moving today. Your body and your mind will thank you. Here’s how to get started.

1. Eliminate Excuses

It’s easy to find excuses not to exercise, but excuses are just that. You can make time if exercise is a priority in your life. Those 15 minutes you spend perusing social media could be 15 minutes moving your body. Scheduling those 15 minutes in your calendar can remind you it’s time to get moving.

2. Change Your Commute

Why not take advantage of your commute and change it into an opportunity? Consider biking to work instead of driving, or try taking public transportation instead. You’ll increase your daily steps and the walk to and from the bus stop or train station can make a real difference. Even if you just take the stairs each day instead of the elevator, that increase in activity can change how you feel inside and out.

3. Mix It Up

One of the reasons people don’t exercise is they don’t actually enjoy the exercise itself. If that’s how you feel, it’s time to “move outside the box” and get creative. Find a style of exercise that you do enjoy.

It might be something you’ve never tried before so be open to experimenting with something new. From yoga, to tai chi, to a group fitness class, to hiking, there are so many forms of exercise to choose from. Mix it up, and you might just discover something you really enjoy.

4. Use Your Breaks to Move

During the workday, it’s tempting to use your break to zone out or get a snack, but moving your body instead is beneficial all around. Head outside and take a walk, or stow weights under your desk to work your arms when you get tired.

Even if it’s just for 10 minutes a couple times a day, keeping your blood and body moving has huge benefits. You’ll feel better, sleep better at night, and find that you’re more focused and productive at work.

5. Make It Mindful

Work on being aware of how your body feels throughout the day so you can connect with yourself and how you feel. Remind yourself to cultivate awareness. If you’re focused on holistic health and wellness, you’ll pay attention to what your body, and your mind, truly need.

Think about how your body feels each day. Does your back ache or do your legs feel tight? What movement would feel good today? If you tune inward and listen to your body, it can give you a great insight on how to move.

6. Don’t Sweat It

Waiting for the right chunk of time to exercise in the way you think you should might keep you from doing it at all. Don’t get in your own way and be mindful of what you can do. Find little ways to move more—take the stairs, walk instead of drive, stand instead of sit—and you’ll be making a difference. While aerobic exercise is necessary, it’s not always convenient.

You don’t need to get sweaty and breathe heavily every time you move. Just move! The more you integrate movement in your life, the more you’ll find you crave it.

7. Stretch

Believe it or not, stretching is just as important as building muscle. Maintaining your flexibility is essential to avoiding injury, and keeping your joints and muscles limber helps you move more efficiently and maintain range of motion. But it also helps you feel better. Think about that sensation of relaxation after a great stretch.

Even when you’re not in the mood to go for a hike or do some lunges, stretching is a great way to unwind, decrease stress, and move your body. When all else fails, practice stretching to keep your body moving and flexible.

8. Find a Partner

If you’re having trouble motivating yourself, a partner can help keep you moving. Pair up with a friend, significant other, child, or wellness coach. Make a date with friends to go hiking or walk along the lake. Enjoy quality time with a family member while playing mini-golf or taking a yoga class. Go and play with your kids at the park!

If you need extra motivation and health advice, a wellness coach might be the right choice for you. No matter who helps you stay motivated and mindful of moving your body more, you don’t have to do it alone.

You Can Do This

Staying motivated to move your body doesn’t have to be as complex as you might think. Don’t let your fears or excuses stop you. Use those small chunks of time throughout your day and stay mindful about how you can move around in whatever way works for your life.

Whether you’re walking to work, stretching under your desk, or playing soccer at the park with your kids, moving more every day has profound benefits for your physical health, mental health, and emotional health alike.

The post 8 Holistic Tips to Keep You Moving appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Examine your setup and consider the proportions of your body to find the best technique for you.

The perfect program, the perfect lifting technique, the perfect anything, is the one that’s specifically designed for you. You are unique, like a snowflake. You are, however, still a snowflake like the rest of us, made of the same ice and following the same laws of physics.

Many of us fall into the trap of obsessing over our individual differences, hiding behind imagined distinctions to avoid fixing our own gaps in performance. These perceived roadblocks come in the form of excuses like, “I’m just a hard gainer,” or “My body wasn’t designed to move that way.”

When it comes to technique, sometimes, you have to respect the snowflake and sometimes you have to admit you’re just ice. Either way, it’s important to know how you should look when you lift, when you should switch to a different exercise, and when you are blaming your genes for something that’s really just bad movement.

When you take these individual differences into account, you can adjust your technique accordingly to set yourself on the best path toward achieving your performance goals.

No Two Lifters Are Alike

Presses, pulls, throws, and squats are universal, gross-movement patterns that most athletes tend to execute close to the same way. There are common points of performance associated with each lift, but every athlete has a bit of wiggle room within these guidelines.

Two people can look dramatically different doing the same lift and both be absolutely correct. So, if your technique looks vastly different than the person lifting next to you, how do you know whether you’re different or just plain wrong?

Let’s take a closer look at five elements that play a significant role in the way you move:

Limb Lengths. The length of your body segments will inevitably change the look of a correctly executed lift. Here are a few guidelines for making adjustments on the fly:

• Examine your setup and consider the proportions of your body. If you have short arms and/or long femurs, your setup in the deadlift is going to be pretty horizontal. However, if your shoulders are just forward of the bar in your setup, the bar is over your mid-foot, and your back is flat, you may not have the most graceful, upright stance, but you’re still correct. When you try to mimic other lifters without a fixed reference point, you’re almost always guaranteed to be wrong.
• If you have wonky proportions but can’t quite picture how they impact a lift, imagine that disproportion wildly exaggerated. If your forearm was twice as long as your upper arm, how would your front rack look?

Bony Structures. Your skeleton is a limiting factor for how you perform a lift. Some people have an ideal hip and femur arrangement or a flat acromion process, which results in a naturally more comfortable approach to the squat and press. Don’t try to force yourself into an ass-to-grass squat with a narrow stance if your body was not built for such range of motion.

Injury History and Restrictions. Sometimes you can work around injuries and sometimes you can’t. With a minor technique adjustment or a close variant, many injuries will still allow you to train without a major shift. When dealing with an injury, assess the range of motion that causes you pain and finds exercise variants that allow you to continue training without causing further damage.

Body Mass and Body Fat. Lifters with a lot of body mass (muscle or fat) will look different under the bar than someone who carries less weight. A significant belly or a great deal of fat distributed in the hips and legs will change your walking gait and lead to some funky-looking angles, especially for lightweight warm-ups and novice lifters.

Competition Goals. If you’re training for overall strength, health, and athleticism, you should generally choose a technique that safely allows you to lift the heaviest weight over the longest range of motion. If lifting is your sport, though, you may compromise one of these elements to put more points on the board. For example, a super-wide grip bench press is less useful in training and more likely to tear a pectoral muscle, but that exact technique won Shao Chu a world record. Her lift looked goofy, but do you think she cares what you think about her grip width?

If you want to be your best, find your faults and learn to address them.

Looking Different Doesn’t Mean You’re Special

One of the biggest mistakes an athlete can make is not respecting their individual situation. If you have shoulder restrictions and can’t low-bar back squat or snatch, do high-bar squats and Russian swings instead.

However, this doesn’t mean that you should give up too easily and switch exercises just because something doesn’t look quite right. Instead, take a moment to examine why your movement is different. What if you’re not a unique snowflake and you just have bad form?

Before ditching the movement altogether, find the fault and fix it first. You’ll become a better lifter in the process. If you switch from deadlifting with a barbell to a trap bar because your back is constantly rounding, you might miss out on the opportunity to train yourself how to keep a rigid back under a heavy load.

There are, of course, times when you do have to abandon one exercise for another. Sometimes, you legitimately can’t fix a problem, or maybe you don’t have the time/skill/experience to correct the form fault that day. Whatever the case, before you dig into your arsenal of exercise variants searching for the technique that is designed perfectly for you, ask yourself this: “Am I using this technique for a reason, or am I trying one exercise after another until I find the one that looks “good enough” without much effort?”

Find Your Lifting Groove

Individual differences in technique can be a tough nut to crack. Just as no two snowflakes are alike, your best performance will come from tweaking your form to your unique situation. But in reality, you’re not that special.

If you want to be your best, skip the easy route. Seek guidance from an experienced coach who can help identify if your deviations from “normal” are standing in the way of your goals or are in fact putting you on a path to success.

More on Finding Your Potential:

• Unlock Power and Performance With a Golf Ball
• Talent Doesn’t Lift Weights, You Do: Own Your Practice
• Don’t Let the Fitness Industry Tell You What to Do

The post Embrace Individuality: Find Your Best Lifting Technique appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

It is increasingly possible to navigate life without ever moving. This disturbing reality whacked me over the head when I heard my two-year-old nephew bossing Google around. “Hey Google, play Sesame Street.”

Seemingly, you do everything right. You eat sensibly and reach the American Heart Association’s recommended 75 minutes of vigorous exercise and 150 minutes of moderate exercise each week. But what about those other 9,855 minutes? After eight hours of sleep, we are still left with 7,755 waking minutes.

It is increasingly possible to navigate life without ever moving. This disturbing reality whacked me over the head when I heard my two-year-old nephew bossing Google around. “Hey Google, play Sesame Street.”

We can now ask Alexa to deliver what once merited a trip to the grocery store. This past Christmas, rather than plugging in the Christmas tree each night, I stepped on a button on the floor. As harmless as that sounds, we may soon lose the ability to descend to the floor to reach for an awkward plug. Life has grown so convenient as to never require more than a few simple movements. Varied, creative movement is essential to our physical, mental, and emotional health. When we allow our bodies to atrophy to the point that we can no longer experience the joy of movement, we lose the foundation of our wellbeing.

How Bad Is It?

The problem is only getting worse. A 2015 study sampled over 2,500 teens and found that they averaged almost nine hours on “entertainment media” each day, excluding time spent at school and doing homework. For most students, this fills every non-school hour. Worse, the school day is basically seven hours of sitting, broken by a few brief walks to their next assigned chair.

This problem follows us into adulthood. Nielson Research found that adults spent 63% more time on their smartphone in 2017 than in 2015. As Senator Ben Sasse remarks in his book, The Vanishing American Adult, we are consumed by “social affluence that allows us to entertain ourselves to death.”

Does This Really Matter If You Are Working Out?

The short answer is yes!

Citing a study from the National Institute of Health¹, a New York Times survey found that:

“It doesn’t matter if you go running every morning, or you’re a regular at the gym. If you spend most of the rest of the day sitting—in your car, your office chair, on your sofa at home—you are putting yourself at increased risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, a variety of cancers and an early death.

When we sit, the breakdown of fats and sugars stalls and our body down-regulates. According to Mayo Clinic cardiologist Martha Grogan, “For people who sit most of the day, their risk of heart attack is about the same as smoking.”²

Sitting invites lethargy and brain fog. For many, this malaise has become the default state. We have become content to work out for an hour a day, only to sit and stare at a computer for the next eight hours. Then we sit in a car for the drive home, sit and eat dinner, and sit and watch TV before heading to bed. After the work week, we may even reward ourselves with a full day on the couch binging Netflix or watching sports. A sedentary weekend is far more common than one filled with play and physical activity.

Exercise is often a Band-aid applied to a gaping wound: a life devoid of human movement. While an improvement, exercise alone is not sufficient. As the age of automation prepares to rev into overdrive, it is increasingly important to examine our environments to intentionally integrate consistent movement.

Creating Opportunities to Move

We must understand frequent movement is essential for cognitive, emotional, and physical wellbeing. We must create structures to promote movement. Perhaps we break our workday every few hours for two to four minutes of exercise. Other methods include:

• Take the stairs.
• Get a standing desk. These can be inexpensive.
• Have walking meetings.
• Drink a lot of water. You’ll have to get up and go!
• Get a dog that needs a walk twice a day.
• Sit on the floor to read, work, and watch TV. You will need to constantly re-adjust and move.
• Bike to work.
• Park in the furthest possible parking spot.
• Create no-phone zones and screen-based technology boundaries. An object at rest tends to stay at rest. Falling into the phone trap less frequently can only help.

Move, Even When It Means Swimming Upstream

You would love to move more at work, but feel stuck in meetings, cubicles, commutes, and other ever-present societal expectations to sit. Every modern social gathering features two things: enough junk food to feed a small nation, and an abundance of chairs. I invite you to shrug off this pressure, get creative, and risk being weird. Max Shank inspired me to stretch between flights. I will offend no one by stretching, but I felt deeply uncomfortable at first. If expressing a desire to move after many hours confined on a flight makes you the weird one, embrace it.

Still, many work environments make it very tough to move. This is the final frontier that we as a society must address. As the diseases of seated affluence proliferate, we must address the chair-strapped workplace environment.

Encouraging movement can benefit an employer’s bottom line through increased productivity.

Workers who use sit-stand workstations “unanimously claim to be more alert, task-driven, and positive.”

Schools are the most important area to address, as they pass on cultural values to the next generation. Students now grow up conditioned to seek sedentary entertainment, even as their mental, emotional, and physical health grow epidemically poor. The CDC reports that over 30% of children between ages 2 and 19 are now overweight or obese.³ Rather than addressing rampant childhood obesity and the habits that create it, we’ve de-emphasized physical education, as 96% of elementary schools no longer offer P.E. 4 Rather than prioritize human thriving, we compel our youth to sit through a broad and superficial education, instead of immersive, experiential human development.

Do not throw up your hands, concluding that the world has gone to hell in a handbasket. We must implore those in authority in our businesses and schools to alter the environment. In the meantime, we can each take responsibility for ourselves as individuals. Your actions can influence others more than you know. Live the solution to create the momentum of change.

References:

1. Diaz, Keith M., Virginia J. Howard, Brent Hutto, Natalie Colabianchi, John E. Vena, Monika M. Safford, Steven N. Blair, and Steven P. Hooker. “Patterns of sedentary behavior and mortality in US Middle-aged and older adults: a national cohort study.” Annals of internal medicine 167, no. 7 (2017): 465-475.

2. Winslow, R. The guide to beating a heart attack: first line defense is lowering risk, even when genetics isn’t on your side. The Wall Street Journal. April 16, 2012. Accessed November 25, 2016.

3. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “CDC grand rounds: childhood obesity in the United States.” MMWR. Morbidity and mortality weekly report 60, no. 2 (2011): 42.

4. US Department of Health and Human Services. “Results from the School Health Policies and Practices Study 2014.” Washington, DC: Author (2015).

The post Moving Beyond Your Daily Exercise appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Here are the basics for strength, mobility, and flexibility. All of these skills can be developed by following my level by level progressions.

Strength Foundation

Remember, simplistic strength that has a large transfer over to complex movement.

Chest to Bar Pull Up

This is basic upper body pulling strength that will lead into movements like muscle ups, ballistic pulling, straight arm pulling (front lever), and much more.

Handstand Push Up

This is basic upper body pushing strength that can open the door for movements like press handstands, hollow back presses, basic tumbling, and more.

Ring Dips

Ring dips use arm and shoulder strength, plus core stability, to aid in the progression to movements like the muscle up.

Hollow Body Rocks

This is the foundation for core stability and trains the positions necessary to perform higher level gymnastics and calisthenic movements.

Leg Raises

This is your ability to compress your body. This is a must for movements like a press to handstand, V Sit, glide kip, and more.

L-Wipers

This addresses the rotation aspect of your core. Most athletic/sport movements involve some sort of rotation and/or bowing of the core. Being weak and tight through the obliques closes a lot of doors for movement and athletic strength.

Pistol Squat

This is the foundation strength and mobility of your lower body. Pistols show if you have enough mobility and strength in your lower body to move yourself around efficiently. These also work out many of the imbalances between legs (one leg is more mobile or stronger).

Mobility Foundation

The ability to control your body through a large ranges of motion to be able to get into more complex positions.

Skin the Cat

This develops the often underdeveloped shoulder extension strength. Most individuals are weak and tight in shoulder extension. Strength in these areas assist in L sits, V sits, mannas, back levers, muscle ups, and more.

Weighted Pass Throughs

These are the foundation for starting straight arm strength. This helps work the shoulders from inside out and takes each shoulder through a full range of motion. This keeps the shoulders mobile and will help begin the development for straight arm pulling and pushing exercises like levers, planches, and similar movements.

Pancake Pulls

These assist in folding and unfolding your body. They increase flexibility and strength in the hips, adductors, hamstrings, and more. These are helpful in developing movements like stalder presses, mannas, middle splits, and straddle presses.

Jefferson Curls

These develop our compression and back flexion. If you are unable to fold your face towards your legs, and/or fold your legs towards your face, then these are necessary. They help to stretch and strengthen everything along the backside of your body. These assist in developing the leg raise along with anything else involving core compression like L sits, mannas, press handstands, glide kips, and others.

Flexibility Foundation

Passive stretches that help loosen up tight areas to allow for increasing range of motion.

Front Splits

These will mostly stretch the hamstrings of the front leg and hip flexors of the back leg. These muscles tend to be tight and problematic areas in many individuals contributing significantly to their back pain.

Middle Splits

These primarily stretch the inner thigh muscles. Due to our lifestyle, most people’s legs tend to stay shoulder and hip width apart causing their inner thighs to get tight. This is why it is a common area to pull. The middle splits will also target the hamstrings.

Bridge

This is for thoracic (upper back) stretching. Again, most lifestyles create a lot of tension in the upper back, causing the upper back to curl forward beyond what is normal. Bridges work to open up the thoracic spine and pull your shoulders back.

Start Your Foundation

Building these as your foundation will open up doors for so much more. Complex movement is primarily the ability to do each of these together. For example, if we break down a press to handstand we can see that it involves the handstand push up muscles, leg raise muscles, hollow rock muscles, pass through mobility, jefferson curl mobility, pancake pull mobility, and all the stretching flexibility movements. Of course, while any desired complex movement like a press to handstand must be purposefully trained for, we can still see how focusing on a foundation of core movement makes training the “cool skills” much more achievable and sustainable.

Don’t get discouraged if you take a longer time than others to achieve certain skills, like the splits. Though these and other challenging exercises on the list assist in many skills, it may not be the limitation to developing a new complex skill. All this to say, keep progressing in the areas that you can but don’t forget to continue working on the foundation that has not yet developed. Acknowledging that some skills are easier for some people than others, is not an excuse to neglect working on those skills. On the contrary, it means they may require more attention. Attention to all areas will continue to open more doors to movement later on in your training.

If you’re wondering now how to begin developing your foundation for strength, mobility, and flexibility, I’ve created a system where all of these skills are broken down into level by level progressions with descriptions and demos of each to ensure the proper technique and dosage of every movement. These progressions start from a beginner level and increase in complexity as you move from level to level, so anyone and everyone can benefit from this program.

I genuinely care about my athletes taking a healthy, sustainable and, above all, successful approach to reaching their fitness goals. Follow my progressions and put in the work. You will see and feel the results. If you’re looking to become strong, mobile, and pain free through a structured, practical approach, I encourage you to sign up today. I currently offer this program for many of the commonly desired complex movements, but keep your eyes out for more complex progressions to follow.

The post Why You Need a Gymnastics Foundation appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Poor movement quality is a pandemic among athletes, and whilst many of them are able to identify their own weaknesses and imbalances, I am always surprised by athletes’ reluctance to address and remedy them. It seems to be much harder for them to be humble and regress to mastering the basics than it is to lift heavy shit and muscle their way through a workout.

For the best results in your upper body work, you need to fundamentally correct your movement. (Photo: Pixabay)

Mobility, stability, and motor control play a critical role in an athlete’s ability to perform and stay injury free. Mobility is the degree of uninhibited range of motion around a joint, and stability is the resistance offered by muscles, ligaments, and tendons surrounding that joint to protect it against injury.

Motor control refers to the body’s capability to take sensory input from the environment and execute the proper muscle co-ordination in response. Mobility, stability, and motor control are all inter-related in the human body, with most movement quality issues arising from problems within this trifecta.

Fixing Poor Movement in the Upper Body

In this article we’re going to look at how to improve movement quality in the upper body with mobility, stability, and motor control focused exercises. Sports-specific needs aside, the bulk of my initial programming for my clients’ upper body work focuses on the posterior chain, and there’s no change here. I believe in lengthening the front and strengthening the back of the body first.

Perform the exercises below to make sure you’re hitting the right muscles at the right times to improve your performance and reduce your injury risk when training your upper body. These exercises will improve your overall mobility, stability, and motor control and make sure your trifecta stays solid.

Remember:

Mobility + Stability + Motor Control = Correct Fundamental Movement Patterns

Let’s take a look at mobility first.

Mobility

Limited range of motion compromises the most basic of movement patterns, as tightness affects the ability to engage the right muscles in the right sequential order.

This inevitably leads to imbalance and injury as compensation by more dominant muscles occurs. If your upper back is movement restricted, your lower back will compensate for it, leading to instability, pain and injury.

Upper Body Mobility Issues

In the upper body, common mobility issues include tight pectorals, internal rotators, stiffness in the serratus anterior, and blocking of the thoracic spine.

These issues make it very difficult to keep a proud chest and active back in movements such as Olympic weightlifting. It can also be hard to draw the shoulder blades together during pulling movements such as pull ups.

Let’s take a look at some exercises you can implement into your program to alleviate upper body mobility issues.

Upper Body Mobility Solutions: 1. Mobilize the Thoracic Spine with a Foam Roller

One of the simplest ways to mobilize the thoracic spine is to use a foam roller. Stiffness or blocking in the thoracic spine affects breathing and posture and decreases the range of shoulder movement, particularly when lifting overhead as it changes the position of the shoulder blade on the rib cage.

• Roll from the upper trapezius all the way down to the bottom rib.
• Perform with a neutral spine, then in extension.
• Avoid the neck or cervical spine area at the top.

For further release, you can also use this method with two tennis balls taped together in a figure of eight to isolate and mobilize each vertebral joint.

Upper Body Mobility Solutions: 2. Mobilize the Serratus Anterior with a Foam Roller

The serratus anterior is responsible for holding the scapula to the rib cage. A tight serratus anterior is more common than you think, and plays a major role in pulling the shoulder forward. You can also use a foam roller to mobilize this area.

• Start at your bottom rib and roll across the muscle fibers from back to front.
• Repeat for each rib.

You can foam roll pre or post workout, on recovery days, and before bed. I find that spending 10-15 minutes targeting specific areas before a dynamic warm up to be the most beneficial. To achieve the best mobility gains, Andy Ginn suggests releasing the serratus anterior before targeting the pecs and internal rotators with dynamic warm up mobility sequences like the one I’ve given below.

Upper Body Mobility Solutions: 3. Open the Chest and Shoulders with a Dynamic Warm Up

For a general opening of the chest and shoulders, I favour using a resistance band in the simple mobility sequence I’ve given in this video.

Perform 10 reps of each exercise shown here. These variations of the shoulder dislocate are inspired by my experience with The Real Movement Project. They open the chest and the front of the shoulders first, before working on retraction and drawing the shoulder blades towards the spine.

I recommend completing this sequence after foam rolling before all workouts involving the upper body.

Stability and Motor Control

Stability is immediate integrity around a joint in the presence of full range of motion. Stabilizers are reflex dependent and rely on motor control rather than strength to function properly. Motor control and stability are co-dependent, which is why I’ve put these two components together.

The best way to improve stabilization is to improve motor control. If your alignment is good and your body position is where it should be in your upper body movements, your brain will automatically fire the targeted muscles to give you integrity, joint compression, and a perfect axis of rotation around which your primary movers can do their job effectively.

Upper Body Stability and Motor Control Issues

The most common movement fault I see in the upper body is dominance and over-development of the upper traps. This could be due to purposefully training the muscle with exercises like shoulder shrugs, or through chronic poor posture and reinforcing poor movement patterns through volume or load. Your upper traps are most likely dominant if you round your shoulders in your pulling movements or shrug your shoulders when pressing overhead.

Overactive upper traps over time can develop into uncomfortable tension around the neck, possible tension headaches and in the worst cases, chronic inflammation and pain. You need to learn how to minimize the involvement of the upper traps and recruit the mid traps and rhomboids, the lower traps, and the external rotators. A weak and/or unstable shoulder girdle will not only affect your primary upper body lifts. It can also affect your lower body compound exercises like the front squat and deadlift.

Let’s take a look at some exercises you can implement into your program to improve your upper body stability and motor control issues.

Upper Body Stability and Motor Control Solutions: 1. The T3 Raise

One of my biggest takeaways from learning under Charles Poliquin was the T3 Raise and its contribution to scapular stability. If the scapula fails to stabilize, shoulder complex function is inefficient, which results in decreased neuromuscular performance and injury in the shoulder area. Stablizing the scapula prevents this and enhances motor control in this area of the body.

I find that performing this as a single arm variation allows me to feel my lower traps engage more in my workout. When your lower traps engage in the T3 Raise, you should get a pinching feeling right underneath the shoulder blade that refers contralaterally down and across towards the opposite hip.

• Start with the hand directly underneath the shoulder. I like to exaggerate the initial movement by reaching my fingertips toward the ground in protraction before retracting the shoulder blade.
• Keep the retraction whilst the arm moves as high as possible at a 45 degree angle, with the thumb up.
• Keep the arm as straight as possible.
• Pause at the top, then lower with control before repeating.
• Make sure to keep the hips and shoulders level throughout and to brace the spine.

Start with your weaker arm, and if you fail at a specific repetition, just complete the same amount on the other side. This is a great exercise to address any imbalances you may have in the scapular area.

Perform two sets of 12-15 reps and superset the T3 Raise and the Sidelying External Rotation exercise given below. The T3 Raise can be performed before or after your workout.

Upper Body Stability and Motor Control Solutions: 2. Sidelying External Rotation

External rotation is one of the most important components of any upper body training program for postural strength and injury prevention. The rotator cuff tendons provide stability to the shoulder, and the muscles allow for rotation of the shoulder. As external rotation is not directly addressed as a component of any other exercise, it must be worked in isolation.

Sidelying external rotation is arguably the easiest external rotation exercise to perform, as you can use the wall to align the entire body correctly and for a tactile cue to signal the top of the movement. As a guideline,you should be able to complete one repetition using 10% of your 1RM bench press weight according to Poliquin’s structural balance ratio.

• Lie on your side with your heels aligned to your sacrum and the back of your shoulder blades.
• Rest your head on your forearm, and draw the belly button in. Hips and shoulders should be stacked.
• Bend the top arm to 90 degrees and place the elbow on the top of the hip bone. This is your pivot point.
• Full range of motion for this exercise is from internal rotation (hand and forearm moving across the body towards the ground) to external rotation (forearm and hand pointing towards the ceiling).
• Try and keep the shoulder from rolling forwards on the internal rotation, and squeeze the back of the shoulder at the top of the movement.

Start with your weaker arm, and if you fail at a specific repetition, just complete the same amount on the other side. This is a great exercise to address any imbalances you may have in the shoulder area.

Perform two sets of 12-15 reps and superset the T3 Raise and the Sidelying External Rotation. Like the T3 Raise, the Sidelying External Rotation can be performed before or after your workout.

Upper Body Stability and Motor Control Solutions: 3. The Hanging Retraction

The Hanging Retraction is my favorite pre-pullup drill. A good cue for this exercise is shoulders wide, sternum up. As well as a pull up bar or rig, you can also perform this exercise on a lat pulldown machine.

• Grab the bar and come into a dead hang with a slightly wider than shoulder-width grip.
• Make sure your lats are in a stretched position and your elbows are locked.
• From the starting position, initiate the movement by trying to pull your shoulder blades down, resisting the temptation to unlock your elbows.
• Pull the shoulder blades down, squeeze, then return under control to the starting position.

Perform one set of 6-8 reps before doing pullups or any upper body focused workout.

Move Well Now for Dividends in the Future

The importance of addressing your movement quality in the upper body can’t be overstated. Mobility is the foundation upon which motor control, stability, strength, and power is based, but just having the mobility to perform a certain movement does not mean that you have the movement knowledge to perform those movements correctly.

To build this knowledge, you need to groove proper movement patterning until the movement becomes automatic. With these exercises, you’re taking the first step toward getting there.

If you can’t move efficiently, you can’t move effectively, and you will struggle to make any gains in your upper body training. Never sacrifice your form for load, volume, or speed. Remember it’s not practice that makes perfect. It’s perfect practice that makes perfect.

Want to know more about great movement?

Motor Control and Movement Patterns: A Must-Read for Athletes

The post How to Combat Poor Movement in Your Upper Body Training appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Recently on Coaches Only I wrote about movement competency and the importance of having solid baselines for people to work from. The problem most people have is they want to go directly to “performance training,” but they’re not ready for it. If you can’t demonstrate movement quality then you don’t get to go onto movement quantity (which in this case could be through added load, speed, or both), regardless of your level.

The bottom line is, exercises vary only in intensity between beginners and advanced lifters. Learning how to squat to full depth is a beginner movement, while an advanced trainee will squat with two or more times bodyweight. Performing a snatch with a piece of PVC pipe is how you teach a beginner, while the advanced lifter is working on the same lift with more than bodyweight on the bar. But it’s still the same exercise, and movement quality is the first thing to address in both cases.

Standards for Movement Quality

Where does movement quality start? I find it’s best to start at one end of the body and move to the other. Here is a great website that shows what baseline movement quality is. If you cannot hit these standards, I would address them now before they become a bigger issue.

“If you can’t demonstrate movement quality then you don’t get to go onto movement quantity (which in this case could be through added load, speed, or both), regardless of your level.”

I’m sure many of you will have deficiencies in one or more areas. I know I do, and I address them daily prior to training. In some cases the issue is so big I cannot make the correction “stick” like with my hamstring, which was torn off the bone and repaired, but I can fix them enough to train right now. But generally speaking, if you can’t reach these standards then you need to address them. You need to go right back to basics.

Meal Prep and Movement

A friend of mine, Nash Davis, wrote this excellent message on Facebook while I was writing this article: “Meal prep is a simple skill that is massively underestimated. It can take a little bit of time but once you become practiced at it, it takes no time at all. Making meal prep a consistent practice will set your week up for eating well and achieving your weight goals easier.” And he’s right – without spending time on meal preparation, your physical goals are far harder to reach. When it comes to diet, nothing is more basic than getting your meal planning and preparation right and then tracking how much you eat versus what you weigh and how you perform.

Keeping with our movement theme, the meal preparation is like ensuring you have adequate range of motion in each joint. In movement terms, the cooking is basic human movements. No, that’s not squat, hinge, blah, blah, blah. Those are not basic human movements. Those are artificial constructs for you to use in a gym setting. Basic human movements are rolling, crawling, and integration of multiple appendages moving while maintaining core control.

When the Session Ends, You Should Be Moving Better

If you’re not sure why this is important, then perhaps read Gray Cooks’ take on what he calls primitive patterns. The modern fitness world is often only concerned about movement quantity, not quality. Once workouts become “how many” and not “how well,” keeping the body working well is difficult.

The body is an amazingly resourceful machine. Damage one system and it’ll figure out a way to keep going with another. Do it again and it’ll figure another, and another, and another, until you finally become aware there is even a problem. By the time you’re finally aware there may be a problem, you’re looking at surgery and some decent time off. And don’t think that talented athletes don’t suffer from this. Often the more talented an athlete, the more ways he or she has to cheat.

And at this point you go back to basics – you check for optimal range of motion. Then you evaluate your ability to perform the underlying movements before you worry about movement quantity. And you repeat the process over and over again, although if you’re smart you do it before you get injured.

How many times must you go back and check our movement? The answer is every time. Every time you do something you need to go back, assess, and make sure you’re headed in the right direction in terms of movement quality.

You need to check quality of movement at the start and end of each training session. If the purpose of training is to improve the body, then movement quality should be better at the end, right? This way you can keep a check on yourself and make sure that you’re on the right path.

Without adequate range of motion, you will always be forced to work sub-optimally, like a car with bald tires and unbalanced wheels. Once the framework has been assessed and recognized as working correctly, you can check your basic movement patterns – like revving the engine in the pits. Then you are good to go as hard as you want, returing to the same sequence in reverse order to cool down – check basic movement skills, then assesss joint range of motion.

Fall Down Seven Times, Get Up Eight

That may mean some days you don’t get to go all out. Trust me when I say you will be far more appreciative of a well-functioning body at forty, fifty, or beyond than you will be about having damaged your back attempting a lift that you shouldn’t have when you were thirty. And at forty, fifty, and beyond, this daily checklist will help you figure out when to train hard and when to take it easy and spend more time working on these basic elements.

The OODA loop (observe, orient, decide, act) that is formed by this constant checking reminds me of this article by Eric Fletter about the great Robson Moura. Fletter speaks of the old champion’s adage of, “fall down seven times, get up eight.” Except in this case, it’s one hundred.

“Professor Moura’s ‘rule of 101’ (if I may be so bold as to label it), more specifically represents the mindset when you know that this step is the correct next step, when you know it’s the right thing to do. If you are certain of the next thing you must do, and something stops your progress 100 times, you still take that next step–101 times.”

If your movement is messed up 100 times, you fix it 101.

More on movement quality:

• 3 Elements of Training and How to Order Them
• Pimp Your Strength Program With Movement and Mobility
• Why Strength Standards Suck (and What You Should Test For Instead)
• New on Breaking Muscle Today

Photos courtesy of Jorge Huerta Photography.

The post Movement 101: Standards for Movement Quality appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

But what most often happens is the brain and body hit a breaking point in their ability to recover – leading to a constant state of exhaustion. Instead of optimal power, you get overtraining, fatigue, decreased durability, and most likely injury. Is this sounding familiar at all?

Step Backward to Move Forward

The secret sauce you need is the concept of regress to progress. Back off the training throttle and allow the nervous system to work for you instead of against you. The brilliant strength-training programmer Paul Mcllroy said, “Strength isn’t built. It’s granted by your nervous system.” Take a moment to let that one sink into your brain.

Crawling has many neurological and muscular benefits that can help you rediscover lost movement.

If your nervous system perceives a threat, it will back off the power switch. So, the goal is to expand the comfort zone in training, and your power will naturally increase without extra effort. And what better way to feel more comfortable than to get back down on the ground where we all started moving?

Let’s revisit some fundamental movement patterns. Creeping and crawling are fundamental motions that prime the nervous system to pattern force for the goal of walking. Let’s discover specifically how the crawl relates to one of the most important fascial lines in force production – the ipsilateral functional line.

The Role of Stress in Strength

Stress is actually a good thing in training because it prepares us for high-output response, but too much stress does the exact opposite. The concept of general adaptation syndrome, coined by famed endocrinologist Dr. Hans Seyle, discovered there are three phases to adaptation.¹

1. Alarm phase – This is the physiological response to a perceived stressor. As the brain perceives a stressful situation, it stimulates a cascade of hormonal and neurological changes such as increased heart rate and blood pressure.
2. Resistance phase – Here, the body is adapting and learning to tolerate a repeated stressor by becoming stronger and more resistant to that stressor. If a stressor is repeated too often, without adequate time to recover, the body enters the third stage.
3. Exhaustion – This phase results in maladaptation and non-optimal performance.

Taking time to regress movement patterns and expand the training comfort zone is critical for recovery and performance. We can do this with ipsilateral crawling, which will take advantage of the fascial force transmission system of the body allowing for efficient power output in a safe environment, the ground.

The Ipsilateral Functional Fascial Line and Why It Matters

Taken from the work of Thomas Myers and his groundbreaking book Anatomy Trains, the ipsilateral functional line includes the fascial connection of the ipsilateral latissimus dorso, external oblique, and sartorius muscle:

This line can be felt when supporting the body on the latissimus as on the rings, or on swimming when pulling the hand down through the water in a crawl stroke. Hanging from a chinning bar or a tree branch and twisting the pelvis and legs will also bring this line into awareness.²

You feel this line when standing and bringing the same side knee and elbow together in flexion by your side in the frontal plane. It’s the exact motion of the unilateral creeping position you see baby and kids do while learning to move.

When muscles contract, not only do they move bones, but due to these fascial expansions, they also stretch the deep fascia. Myofascial expansions permit reciprocal feedback between fascia and muscle producing force and tension over a distance. The crawl movement takes advantage of this tensional network.

“Your nervous system with thank you and your competition will be wondering what went wrong with their training. Now go crawl and be a badass.”

Reset Your Movement

To optimize function of this line we want to do a RAIL reset of the muscle pattern. RAIL is the acronym for a system of correction I developed for my workshops. It stands for release, activate, integrate, locomotion.

We are going to release facilitated and overworking muscle and/or fascia, activate the inhibited underworked muscles, and integrate them into a fundamental pattern. Then, we stand and open up full throttle. This system takes advantage of the nervous system comfort zone by increasing movement demand via stages.

Release the latissimus, external oblique, and sartorius (muscle that goes from the anterior superior iliac spine of the pelvis diagonally across the thigh to the inner knee) with foam roller. Be careful with pressure into the sides near the external oblique. You may have to use your hand instead of the roller to release the oblique if they are too tender. Release both sides.

Activate and integrate with the unilateral crawl:

The key is to go slow in the beginning. Do one set chunking style. This means in sections, moving the arm first and then the leg. This is easier for the brain to pattern. Do one set like that on each side.

Now take four seconds to complete the movement each way. Do not hold your breath. Turn your head to the right. Bring your right knee and right elbow together, sliding on the ground. Take four seconds to do the movement. Hold and relax four seconds. Return to starting position taking four seconds. Repeat the motion on the opposite side.

“Taking time to regress movement patterns and expand the training comfort zone is critical for recovery and performance.”

Perform four repetitions total, two on each side. Then do another four reps total, two on each side, at regular speed. Do not hold your breath.

Locomotion happens when we stand up and bring the same-side knee and elbow together on each side at normal speed for four times total. Then, perform ten skips forward.

Warming Up

Do this reset as a warm-up exercise every time you want to train. Take the time to slow down and visit primal patterns that are inherent to our body’s ability to control motion.

Your nervous system will thank you and your competition will be wondering what went wrong with their training. Now go crawl and be a badass.

Check out these related articles:

• Regain and Build Your Original Strength Through Crawling
• Ground Control – How to Move Efficiently On All Fours
• Move Your Body, Move Your Brain – Training for Neuroplasticity
• What’s New On Breaking Muscle Today

References:

1. Daane, Marcel. Headstrong Performance. (Singapore: 2015).

2. Myers, Thomas W. Anatomy Trains: Myofascial Meridians for Manual and Movement Therapists. (Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone, 2001).

3. Stecco, Carla, Warren I. Hammer, Andry Vleeming, and Raffaele De Caro. Functional Atlas of the Human Fascial System. (Churchill Livingstone, 2015).

Photos courtesy of Shannon Khoury.

The post Take Your Strength to the Next Level With Ipsilateral Crawling appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Kevin Durant’s Foot Injury

NBA player Kevin Durant may not be able to play basketball again this season due to complications related to a foot injury. The original injury was expected to have a full recovery in six to eight weeks. But then his teammate Russell Westbrook was also injured and the team was compiling a bad record.

Durant rushed back to play, and soon after he sprained his ankle. By playing before being completely healed, his injury may have compounded. He has been in and out throughout the season and now he may be done.

NBA player Kevin Durant has been in and out this season and may be done.

The FMS Can Help

Recent research by Michael Garrison and colleagues might provide a background on how injury affects future injury. These researchers tracked 160 collegiate male and female athletes throughout the season. The athletes played a variety of sports. 52 of the athletes were injured throughout the season.

Prior to tracking, all athletes were given the FMS to assess their movement. This test is made up of seven movements that test mobility, stability, coordination, and asymmetry. Athletes can score from zero to 21, with 21 being perfect.

“Durant rushed back to play, and soon after he sprained his ankle. By playing before being completely healed, his injury may have compounded. He has been in and out throughout the season and now he may be done.”

The FMS score is a good predictor of injury. Lower scores on the FMS are associated with higher injury rates. The idea that poorer movement patterns lead to more injuries has been found previously and is probably something you already thought makes sense. However, the researchers found something unique in regards to previous injury status combined with poor movement.

Percentage of injuries in relation to scores on the FMS

Building on a Poor Foundation

Past injury and low FMS score both (individually) affected injury rate. Previous injury alone increased the risk of future injury by 3.5 times (i.e. a person with a previous injury is 3.5 times more likely to receive another injury). A FMS score below fourteen increased injury by about 5.6 times. However, if you have both a previous injury and a low score, the likelihood of a future injury becomes fifteen times greater. This affect is greater than the two combined and the two factors might compound each other.

This graph demonstrates the lower odds of injury with higher FMS scores

Does an injury lead to poor movement patterns, which then increase the risk of future injury? In Kevin Durant’s case, he might have been trying to protect his injured foot and moved differently. He said, “It shouldn’t be [serious]. Just a sprained ankle. But when you sprain an ankle with the injury I had, it puts more pressure on that side of the foot.” It sounds like he is indicating that he has to move differently because of the compounding of injuries. This overcompensation might be one of the reasons he has not been able to come back this season.

Durant playing on the the FIBA World Championships in 2010

Summary

As you can probably already guess, poor movement patterns assessed by the FMS lead to a greater risk of injury. However, the compounding effects of previous injury may lead to poor movement, which then increase the risk of injury even further.

The take-home message is to make sure you are fully recovered from injuries so you don’t impair your movement pattern. If you have a previous injury that impacts your movement, then you could be training poor movement patterns.

References:

1. Garrison, Michael, Richard Westrick, Michael R. Johnson, and Jonathan Benenson. 2015. “Association between the Functional Movement Screen and Injury Development in College Athletes.” International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy 10 (1): 21–28.

Further Reading:

• Exposing the Importance of the Functional Movement Screen
• Can the Functional Movement Screen (FMS) Actually Determine Ability?
• Use the FMS to Assess Mobility, Not Performance
• What’s New on Breaking Muscle Today

Photo 1 by By Keith Allison from Owings Mills, USA via Wikimedia Commons.

Photo 2 courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post What Kevin Durant and the FMS Can Teach Us About Injuries appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

As has been observed by many, we in weightlifting seem to find more such recruits than ever before. The truth is, the ones that find us are the lucky ones. They at least obtain an introduction to physical activity. They will be fine if they stick to the activity.

Conversely, it is the people who are too discouraged to even try any sport or activity who really lose out. Where does this problem stem from? How can we change this trend? The answer brings us to the concept of physical literacy.

The Definition of Physical Literacy

Physical literacy? What is that? Is it knowing how to read books about sports? Well, no, not quite, although that might be a good start for some.

We are all familiar with the concept of literacy, the ability to read and write. In this day and age, that means not only the basic ability to do so, but also the ability to do so at a high enough level that you can survive and prosper in today’s ever more complex economy. A level of literacy that was good enough for our grandparents may not be good enough today (modern texting notwithstanding). Nowadays, numeracy is expected, as well. I remember one kid asking his mother how many pennies there were in a million dollars. His innumerate mother had no idea. (It’s 100 million in case you had no idea, either.)

Getting to the point, you may imagine physical literacy as the ability to perform elementary movement skills that are fundamental to normal human activity, as well as serving as a base for common sport skills. With these abilities, kids should be able to evaluate their environment and make appropriate decisions that allow confident movement and bodily control in a wide range of human motor situations.

“Just as learning your ABCs is necessary for normal literacy, the learning of fundamental movement sport skills is needed for kids to feel good about and enjoy physical activity.”

For kids to become physically active, they need to feel confident in a number of activity settings. Such confidence results from having learned a host of fundamental movement skills and later some fundamental sport skills. Just as learning your ABCs is necessary for normal literacy, the learning of fundamental movement sport skills is needed for kids to feel good about and enjoy physical activity. (Not to mention, it is much easier to learn these things as a child, as opposed to when you’re a thirty-year-old trying to get physically active for the first time.)

According to the Canadian Sport for Life booklet on physical literacy, children should learn fundamental movement skills and sport skills in each of four basic environments:

1. On the ground – for many games and sports
2. In the water – for swimming
3. On snow and ice – all winter skating and sliding activities (we Canadian hockey fans consider this skill even more basic than walking)
4. In the air – for gymnastics, diving and other aerial activities

The Development of Physical Literacy

There is a myth that physical literacy happens naturally with kids. Not true. Many kids do indeed develop good physical skills on their own initiative, but others do not. Environment plays a big part. Those that grow up in an active family are more likely to learn by watching older family members.

But the less-skilled kids are often left on the sidelines of life, likely following in the footsteps of their inactive parents. This can lead to a domino effect characterized by poor performance, decreased subsequent effort, and eventual withdrawal from all physical activity. We are not surprised to learn that kids who never learn to read or write become adults who can’t read or write. We should also not be surprised that children who never develop movement skills become inactive, uncoordinated adults.

“The failure of children to develop their movement skills has reduced their interest and ability to participate in physical activity, and has now limited their essential mobility skills in adulthood.”

It is no secret that children’s movement skills and physical literacy have been in steady decline in recent years. As a Boomer, my neighborhood parks were always filled with kids playing baseball, football, soccer, or whatever. Today, those parks sit empty unless adults are organizing some activity. The failure of children to develop their movement skills has reduced their interest and ability to participate in physical activity, and has now limited their essential mobility skills in adulthood.

And lest anyone thinks that I am only worried about producing future weightlifters, movement skills aren’t just for playing sports. Movement skills are essential to basic health and survival. Just look at how awkward some people are in doing a simple deadlift. Compare those people to the ones who have played, danced, or run all their lives.

A Hierarchy of Movement Skills

Where do we start improving the situation? Well, just as in reading, we start at the beginning. Probably the most basic skills to learn are those called traveling skills, these involve ability to move from one place to another. Consider this to be point “A.” These skills include the simple ones of running, climbing, copying, jumping, scaling, skating, skipping, sliding, swimming, and even wheeling for the physically challenged. These are all fundamental to living in our world, athlete or not.

Next up in complexity are the object control skills. These are a little more related to sport skills. They include kicking a soccer ball, punting a football, rolling a bowling ball, striking a ball or a puck with a bat or hockey stick, and throwing any object. These skills can also include catching a ball, dribbling one as in soccer or basketball, and striking the ball as in volleyball.

“Probably the most basic skills to learn are those called traveling skills, these involve ability to move from one place to another.”

Moving right along, we have balancing movements. These kick up the skill level a bit more. These include all activities that involve rebalancing or centering your body weight, dodging a ball or opponents, landing on the ground properly, spinning, stretching, swinging, twisting, etc. where reaction times are important.

Once the child masters these levels, he or she can move on to more specific sporting movements if desired. The corresponding pedagogic skills are something that all parents should have available while raising their children. A good example concerns weightlifting legend Bill Starr, who popularized the now standard 5 x 5 big three (bench, squat, power clean) weight training programs for footballers.

Bill dedicated his book The Strongest Shall Survive to his brother Donald, whom he credited as his first coach. Being a few years older than Bill and raised in a sport-conscious family, Donald was apparently proficient at many standard sporting movements. He taught these to his younger brother when he came of age so that he would be far better prepared for the sports he would soon be playing. Things like how to throw a football, catch one, pitch a baseball, hit a home run, and so on. This all gave Bill a good head start over his peers, and his record speaks for itself.

Conclusion

We need a Donald Starr in every household, athletically oriented or not. No more tentative and awkward movements, just adequate preparation for a lifetime of physical activity. We don’t wear out. We rust out. And this will hold true even if you’ve never set foot on the playing field.

Check out these related articles:

• Physical Play During Early Childhood: Why It’s Disappearing and What To Do

• My Favorite Exercise to Get Kids Started in Lifting

• 6 Sports for Kids Who Aren’t “Sporty”

• What’s New on Breaking Muscle Today

References:

1. Canadian Sport for Life. An Introduction to Physical Literacy, a pamphlet excerpted from Canadian Sport Centres. Accessed March 5th, 2015.

2. Starr, B., The Strongest Shall Survive: Strength Training for Football. 1976, Fitness Products Limited (page v.)

Photo 1 “DSC04293” by Yasunobu HIRAOKA. Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic License.

Photos 2, 3, 4, & 5 courtesy of Shutterstock.

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