Staying in Your Lane

Having worked in sports, health, and fitness since starting my undergrad sports science degree in 1997, (when I remember not picking up my new University email address for a whole term thinking this interweb thing would never catch on...) its fair to say I've been around the block a few times when it comes to exercise and seen a fair few fads come and go

OK I wasn't around for this one, and also: WFT?

It has also given me plenty of time and experience to figure out what my 'niche' is.  For me that has been looking to bridge the gap between clinical rehab and performance.

Building a niche is, in my opinion, one of the most important things a health and fitness professional can do in ensuring longevity in an industry renowned for chewing up and spitting out willing and enthusiastic newbies.  Those have been led to believe that a world of instagram selfies is the key to the 'four hour working week' and being a 'six figure trainer' (spoiler alert, its not).

Which brings me on to the point of this post.






Staying in your lane, or rather, within your scope of practise is often overlooked as being one of the most effective ways to build credibility, integrity and a full client book.   Conversely many people feel the need to try to cover all bases for their clients.  No one, I repeat, no one is an expert at everything - to truly become an expert Malcolm Gladwell would have us believe that 10,000 hours of practise is required.  In coaching terms thats 100 sessions a month, every month, for over 8 years - and that would just make us an expert at 'coaching'  when you have found your niche, be that nutrition, hypertrophy, S&C, or in my case biomechanics, you're looking at 10,000 hours of practise in that field  to consider yourself an expert.


Keeping all of that in mind we can hopefully start to see the importance of building an effective referral network of other experts that compliment your own skill set.

This collaboration continuum illustration was borrowed from a Postural Restoration Insitute seminar, and is one I have incorporated into internal training at the facility in which I am based.
Unfortunately, due to either a lack of understanding, or just plain and simple egotism, the health and fitness industry tends to exist towards the left hand side of this diagram.  if we wish to encourage movement towards the right hand side - we need to have an appreciation (and therefore an understanding!) of our scopes of practise....

Now I will caveat this somewhat by clarifying that a 'greying of the edges' of an individuals scope of practise is in many ways inevitable when considering a long career of a lifelong learner - and that particular areas of focus and emphasis can tend to change over time.  However, even with such individuals, there must still be a commitment to actually learning their new skill!

Once we understand our own scope of practise - and where it ends - we can and should begin to build a professional network of individuals who excel in areas that we do not.  That way we can continue to do the right thing by our clients and refer them to people we know and trust to best help them - trust me on this one, if your client has an issue outside of your scope, and you refer them to someone who is better positioned to help - you have a client for life.

The flip side of the 'if in doubt refer it out' mantra - is of course 'if you are not trained, qualified, or insured to do it - find someone who is!'.

In my own area of dealing with a majority of post rehab clients,  both athletes and general population, I consider myself highly fortunate to have a solid working relationship with arguably the top sports physiotherapist in Europe.  The reason that it works well is because of mutual trust, and an understanding that we have skill sets that are complimentary, but different.  I do not put my hands on any clients or patients, I do not stretch or force range, I make no attempt to change any physical structure.  My job is to coach people to move well, and to get them stronger - and to select the most appropriate movement for that individual at that time.  In short, we stay out of each others lanes.

One thing I cannot stand is the trainer who thinks he's a physiotherapist because he's watched a few videos on youtube, or sat in on a treatment session or two.  Just as someone wouldn't trust me to fly a plane they were in because I've watched Top Gun a few times,  they shouldn't trust a person with their physical health who is not educated, qualified, and insured to look after it!


Of course this argument works two ways, and we also shouldn't  see manual therapists with no coaching experience taking people through loaded strength training protocols.  However,  as the barrier to entry to become a chartered physiotherapist is very high and requires several years of study and continual further education - we do tend to see a higher level of professional integrity in this field than in the world of personal training  - where the barrier to entry is essentially non existent.

If you are one of those professionals looking to expand your scope of practise - and get more hands on involvement with clarinets (patients), there are a whole heap of further education training resources and certifications out there that are available to personal trainers and strength coaches who want to get more hands on.  Sports Massage, ART, IASTM even acupuncture and dry needling are all available to non medically qualified individuals.  Personally I have been pursuing higher education through the Academy of Applied Movement Neurology and the Postural Restoration Insitute, and found both systems provided me with a great range of tools to help get people moving better.  However, NEITHER  qualify me to manually change the structure of a persons tissue, so I don't ever do that.  I reach out to a person in my network who I trust and collaborate with him to get that done.

In short:  Don't be a Cowboy  <-- unless you are, in fact, a cowboy (which is infinitely more cool than being a PT anyway)

Core Training

I was recently asked by Mens Health magazine to put together some information for an article about core training. As is often the case with these kind of requests they are a little unsure what shape the article will take - as such I cobbled together my current (because they do change!) thoughts on the core – what it does – and how to train it. The Mens Health piece ended up being shorter than planned and more of a sample workout – you can see the article here.

However, I thought it would be worthwhile publishing the information I had put together for them.

The core - depending on who you listen to – can include everything from your ‘6 pack’ mucle (rectus abdominus) through to your gluteals (butt) and even your diaphragm. Training it effectively will require understanding that its more than doing crunches.



 

Muscles in the body can be broadly catergorised into ‘tonic’ or ‘phasic’ muscles.

Tonic muscles have a job of maintaining tone and are also known as postural muscles or stabilisers.

Phasic muscles - as the name suggests - provide movement.

[caption id="attachment_101" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Avoid dysfunction, imbalance and injury by not mixing up your Dachshunds with your Huskies. Or just get your stabilisers to stabilise.[/caption]

 

Maintaining optimal functionality requires us to use the right muscles,  at the right time, for the right job.  When we have large global (phasic) muscles doing the job of smaller, local (tonic) muscles, the big boys become overly 'tonic' (tight) and the little guys become weak and inactive. Classic example of this is the chronically tight hamstring doing the job of stabilising a pelvis  in a person with a weak core - you can see my post on the relation between hamstrings and core strength here.

The musculature of the ‘core’ falls into the tonic category .  Tonic, or postural muscles have a role of resisting movement rather than providing it. Their job is quite simply to keep you upright, or more specifically keep your ribcage on top of your pelvis.

 

[caption id="attachment_97" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Core stability - natures version of Jenga[/caption]

Understanding the role of the core then makes training it very simple. All we do is understand how many ways our upright, neutral posture can be compromised, and train to provide strength resisting those forces.

What directions can affect or challenge our 'neutrality'?

Flexion (forward bending)

Extension (backward bending, or arching)

Lateral flexion (side bending)

Rotation

Now to effectively train the core we need exercises to provide strength and stability resisting ALL of those directional forces. The most important to consider are the flexion and extension resistant exercises – as they are the most common forces we have to deal with – which of those we bias will depend on the starting posture of the individual.

Good ‘bang for your buck’ exercises for each plane:

Anti-flexion: ‘bird dogs’, prone ‘superman’, glute bridges

Anti extension: dead bugs, roll outs, plank variations.

Anti lateral flexion: Side planks, suitcase carries

Anti-rotation: chopping variations (as a guide - start with half kneeling and progress through tall kneeling, to standing)

 

Most important point to get across with core training, or indeed training any other tonic muscle (rotator cuff etc) is that you do not train them to failure – ever!

[caption id="attachment_98" align="aligncenter" width="105"] Little, often, and always with correct form is the key to core stability[/caption]

 

Crushing a bicep / tricep workout till you can fry an egg on your arm is all well and good – but ever tried doing that and then performing a fine control task with that same arm the next day?

Muscles that we need to maintain posture and prevent injury we do not teach to fail and shut down– think of it as driving without your seatbelt on….

How Functional is the Overhead Squat?

I am well aware that this post may upset a few people – and whilst upsetting people is not its main aim – I do like to encourage people to challenge ideas, ask questions, and formulate their own opinions rather than blindly follow

 



 

Over the past decade there has been a shift away from the single joint machine based training popularized by Joe Weider in the 80s, and towards ‘functional’ exercise.  I am all for this – preparing people for life outside of the gym  - whether its on the sports field or simply being able to climb the stairs at home without any pain – that is what I’m all about.  However, there is a case to be made for the pendulum having swung too far…

 

[caption id="attachment_81" align="aligncenter" width="224"] Awesome bosu leap brah, let me high five myself in the face[/caption]

A functional exercise by definition must have a function.  As simplistically stupid as that may sound.

The overhead squat is often billed as the ‘king of functional exercise’ and the be all and end all of programming. In many functional gyms.   I would strongly beg to differ on this point.  How many times in your every day life, or even in your sports are you required to hold a load directly overhead and squat to the ground repeatedly, whilst keeping said weight directly over your head?

The overhead squat is a derivative of the snatch – one of the most dynamic and explosive movements in competitive sport.  As well as requiring speed and power, the snatch also requires technical expertise .  The ‘catch’ position of a snatch is, essentially, the bottom of an overhead squat.  For the competitive Olympic lifter – training this movement under load makes a lot of sense – they may have all the speed in the world to get under the bar, but without adequate core stiffness and lower extremity strength they wont be able to get ‘out of the hole’.  If your goal is to perform a loaded snatch, then yes, the OHS will be an important programming concern for you.  Now whether you should be programming the snatch for either yourself or your clients is a while other conversation!

 

[caption id="attachment_82" align="aligncenter" width="236"] Olympic lifter at the bottom of a snatch. note the heels, hips, shoulders, head and the centre of the bar are all directly above one another.[/caption]

The overhead  squat, in my mind, is an excellent assessment tool – it gives an indication of ankle mobility,  hip mobility and stability, core stiffness, thoracic mobility and scapular stability – all important parts of successful and pain free movement.

However – how many people that we assess ace it on every one of those?  Not many…   So how many of those could or indeed should be loaded through this movement pattern?  Even fewer….

 

[caption id="attachment_83" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Well aligned olympic lifter on the left. The guy on the right has neither the ankle, nor hip mobility to be in this position. The bar has to be above his feet or he will fall over - he is going into an excessive lumbar extension, forward head posture and hyper extension of his neck to try to maintain some kind of balance. Note the knees collapsing in due to the excessively wide stance he has had to adopt to get down there, this is also causing inversion at his ankles. We won't even go into whats going on with his shoulders.[/caption]

Heck 90% of the clients I work with (everything from Olympians through weekend warriors, to orthopedic referrals) don’t do any form of overhead lifting. Ever!

Now lets take those small number of  the population who can safely be loaded in an OHS position.  If we remove those who are competitive O – lifters, then what training effects are we going to give to the rest?

Can the person stably support enough weight in the overhead position to get any kind of training effect in their legs and hips?  I doubt it  - not unless the you were looking at higher repetition sets, however, in a high rep set what is going to fatigue first - the upper back or the legs?  When the upper back and the posterior cuff start to give out, and you're plugging away trying to get something out of it for your legs, what takes over?  Your lumbar extensors and the passive retrains in your shoulders - so essentially you promote hyper lordosis and hang out on the ligamentous structures of your shoulders - nice.

At best you may build in some upper back hypertrophy – given the time under tension required through the thoracic extensors. But if thats really your goal there are far safer ways to achieve it.

If I want to train an average Joe or Jane to get stronger, so they can better function in the outside world – surely deadlift variations, anterior loaded squat patterns, and loaded carries have far more relevance…

I’m fairly sure that when I changed my dishwasher the other day I pulled and lifted the old one over the step with it in front of me – I did not hold it above my head and repeatedly squat up and down with it.

If we think through the activities and movement patterns in most peoples daily lives, or indeed within competitive sports, the deadlift, and its derivations are infinitely more ‘fucntional’ than the overhead squat.

This is not to say the overhead squat is an entirely redundant movement.  Far from it.  as mentioned above I find it an excellent assessment tool, a very quick and easy way to get a snapshot of an individuals gross movement patterns.  I also think it has a place as a mobility drill, and I often use it as part of my clients dynamic warm ups.  It has a nice 'feel' for the client getting in and out of the position with stability, and is a great prep for doing some loaded front squats.    However,  just because something is a useful mobility tool does not mean we stick 60% of their bodyweight on a bar and ask them to do it to failure!

As Gray Cook  - creator of the FMS system so simply put it "Train the deadlift, maintain the squat"

How to design a warm up

A warm up is not about getting warm. Looking around you when you come in to train you will notice that a typical gym bunny ‘warm up’ consists of a couple of light weight sets of the exercise they are about to do, then pile on the weight and go for glory.

If you’re lucky you may see someone do a few minutes on a cross trainer or a rower then one or two static stretches or swings of their limbs. They may be warm – yes, but are they prepared for the movements they are about to undertake – absolutely not.

The purpose of this article is to change the emphasis of a ‘warm up’ from simply getting warm on a frosty morning, to being adequately prepared for a training session. By following some of these pointers you should see a marked improvement in how you move and feel, your performance in the gym, and most importantly reducing your risk of injury. From a typical gym session of 1 hour, you should spend at least 15 minutes of that on your warm ups.

The most important consideration when designing your warm up is that strength training cements movement patterns. Therefore if you have a faulty or dysfunctional movement – then performing it under load for sets and reps will make it very hard to ‘un learn’. Your warm up, therefore, should be about getting into the most optimal position available to you at that time and then beginning to work under load.

I like to break a warm up into four distinct sections:

Release: Foam rolling or other myofascial work to reduce sympathetic tone and improve tissue quality.

Reset: The most simple way to look at this is ‘reverse posture’. Have you just been sat hunched over a keyboard for 8 hours? In which case consider thoracic extensions. Have you just run to the gym or been on your feet all day? In which case think of core activation work and specific hip mobility.

This is about getting you as close to a ‘neutral’ posture as you can get on that particular day. Your re-set drills will be specific to you and are things you should see progressions with from session to session.

Readiness: What movements are you about to perform in the gym?

Overhead pressing – then think of scapular stabilisation and shoulder mobility. quatting – then consider ankle mobility, glute activation and hip flexor mobility.

This portion of your warm up will be specific to your work out. If you are unsure then I recommend working ‘toe to head’ through your body segments – each adjacent segment should be either mobile or stable i.e.:

 

Feet – stable

 

Ankle – Mobile

 

Knee – Stable

 

Hip – Mobile

 

Lumbar spine – Stable

 

Thoracic spine – Mobile

 

Scapular – stable

 

Shoulder – Mobile

Reactive: This is really your transition from your warm up to the workout. Reactive work is prepping your central nervous system (CNS) and getting it fired up to do some work. Examples of reactive work for the lower body are skipping, hopping and bounding drills. For the upper body - medicine ball throws, slams and stomps. For the supermen (and women) out there this is where your box jumps and clap push ups should fit in to your session.

Give this a try, and let me know how you get on, and remember - a warm is not about getting warm – it is about getting your body in the optimal position to cope with the demands you are about to place on it.