Run 6 Tabata rounds
Tabata bag work 3 rounds
Foam roller and stretching
Core work with first attempts at front levers
Shoulder pain this morning.
Monday, January 23, 2012
WOD 01-23-12
Run 6 Tabata rounds
Tabata bag work 3 rounds
Foam roller and stretching
Core work with first attempts at front levers
Shoulder pain this morning.
WOD 01-22-12
Body weight pistols
Deadlifts 5x5 with 220 lbs
Sissy squats with ball
Bulgarian split squats
Lateral and front raises
Foam roller work
Sunday, January 22, 2012
WOD 01-21-12
Dumbbell floor press
Ring push ups and fly's (incline too)
Lateral and front raises
Cable triceps press downs
Foam roller work
Run on lower deck with working Gymboss
6 sets 20 sec x 10 sec
Friday, January 20, 2012
WOD 01-19-12
Run on lower deck and stairs 1 min x 30 seconds 8 rounds
Bag work 10 min
Lateral and front raises
Foam roller work
Planks and core work
WOD -01-18-12
Body weight pistols
Deadlifts 5x5 with 220 lbs
Sissy squats with ball
Bulgarian split squats
Lateral and front raises
Foam roller work
Deadlifts 5x5 with 220 lbs
Sissy squats with ball
Bulgarian split squats
Lateral and front raises
Foam roller work
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
WOD 01-16-12
Run on lower deck and stairs 1 min x 30 seconds 8 rounds
Bag work 10 min
Lateral and front raises
Foam roller work
Planks and core work
Monday, January 16, 2012
WOD 01-15-12
Ring push ups and fly's (incline too)
Dumbbell floor press
Ring dips
Lateral and front raises
Cable triceps press downs
Foam roller work
Sunday, January 15, 2012
101 Simple Truths We Often Forget
101 Simple Truths We Often Forget
It‘s not where we stand but in what direction we are moving.
Sometimes we find ourselves running in place, struggling to get ahead simply because we forget to address some of the simple truths that govern our potential to make progress. So here’s a quick reminder:
The acquisition of knowledge doesn’t mean you’re growing. Growing happens when what you know changes how you live.
You can’t have good ideas unless you’re willing to generate a lot of bad ones.
A good idea without action is worth nothing.
Change is often resisted when it is needed the most.
Discipline is choosing what you want most over what you want right now. Read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
People seldom do things to the best of their ability. They do things to the best of their willingness.
You can’t change other people; you can only offer guidance, and lead by example.
Right now, there’s a lot you don’t know. And if you never challenge your own beliefs, the list will never shrink.
If you’re talking to someone you don’t know well, you may be talking to someone who knows way more about the topic of conversation than you do.
The most common and harmful addiction in the world is the draw of comfort.
Growth begins at the end of your comfort zone. Stepping outside of your comfort zone will put things into perspective from an angle you can’t grasp now.
When you spend time worrying, you’re simply using your imagination to create things you don’t want.
It’s usually only as good or bad as you think it is. Most of what we see is only what we think about what we see.
Most of the bad things you worry about will never happen. Most of the bad things that do happen will have never have crossed your worried mind.
Some circumstances are uncontrollable, but we can always decide how we react to those circumstances.
Those who complain the most, accomplish the least.
Whenever somebody discredits you, and tells you that you can’t do something, keep in mind that they are speaking from within the boundaries of their own limitations.
Every problem you have in your life right now is your responsibility, regardless of who initially caused it.
It’s not so much about finding opportunities as it is about creating them.
Having a plan, even a flawed one at first, is better than no plan at all.
Paving your own road is intelligent only if nobody has gone exactly where you are going.
What you do every day matters more than what you do every once in a while.
What you don’t start today won’t be finished by tomorrow.
If you’re waiting for the perfect conditions, ideas or plans to get started, you’ll never achieve anything.
Doing something and getting it wrong is at least ten times more productive than doing nothing.
Putting something off makes it instantly harder and scarier.
You cannot change what you refuse to confront.
If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting.
The harder you work, the luckier you will become.
Kindness and hard work together will always carry you farther than intelligence.
Lots of successful people have failed as many times as they have succeeded.
Failures are simply lessons that help you prepare for next time.
Being successful is a journey, not a destination.
To be successful does not mean you have to dominate others; it means you have to dominate your own potential.
Your success isn’t just about you. It’s about how you positively impact the lives around you.
Being busy and being productive are two different things.
Being happy and being successful are two different things.
You have every right to be happy, but it’s up to YOU and only YOU to exercise that right. Read Stumbling on Happiness.
Everyone you meet is better than you at something. We all have different strengths. What worked for someone else might not work for you.
When you’re worried about what others think of you, you’re really just worried about what you think of yourself.
The bad news: nothing is permanent. The good news: nothing is permanent.
You don’t have to settle. It’s simply a choice you make every day. If you don’t like your life, then it’s time to start making changes and better choices.
There’s no such thing as ‘risk free.’ Everything you do or don’t do has an inherent risk.
No matter how smart you are, you will make mistakes.
Problems, when they arise, are rarely as painful and hurtful as the process of fearing them.
Confusion isn’t a bad thing. It means you’re growing and thinking.
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
In the beginning, you need to say “yes” to a lot of things to discover and establish your goals. Later on, you need to say “no” to a lot of things and concentrate on your goals.
Even if it doesn’t cost any money, it’s not free if it takes up your time.
No matter how you make a living or who you think you work for, you only work for one person, yourself. The big question is: What are you selling, and to whom?
Money makes life easier only when it’s yours free and clear. The stress of financial debt can change a person.
The fewer possessions you own, the more you will use and enjoy them.
Life is not easy, especially when you plan on achieving something worthwhile.
There is good reason why you should wake each morning and mindfully consider what and who you will give your day to: Because unlike other things in life - love, money, respect, good health, hope, opportunities, and many more - time is the one thing you can never get back once it’s gone.
Cutting your losses is often better than the alternative.
We sometimes do things that are permanently foolish just because we are temporarily upset.
Screaming at people always makes things worse.
Everyone likes a person who gets straight to the point.
First impressions are oftentimes inaccurate judgments of a person’s true character.
When you’re up, your friends know who you are. When you’re down, you know who your friends are.
If someone wants you in their life, they’ll make room for you. You shouldn’t have to fight for a spot.
When someone truly loves you, they don’t ever have to say a word. You will be able to tell simply by the way they treat you over the long-term.
We rarely lose friends, we usually just figure out who our real ones are.
Just because one person doesn’t seem to care for you, doesn’t mean you should forget about everyone else who does.
Family isn’t always blood. They’re the people in your life who want you in theirs – the ones who would do anything to see you smile and who love you no matter what.
Good looks attracts the eyes. Personality attracts the heart.
In human relationships, distance is not measured in miles but in affection. Two people can be right next to each other, yet miles apart.
Being nice to someone you dislike doesn’t mean you’re fake. It means you’re mature enough to control your emotions.
If you aren’t happy being single, you won’t be happy in a relationship. You have to create your own life first before you can share it with someone else.
Whenever you hate someone or something, you are giving that person or thing a piece of your heart. Read The Road Less Traveled.
Life is too short to spend time with people who suck the happiness out of you.
It’s better to be alone than to be in bad company.
Saying “no” to right people gives you the time and resources required to say “yes” to right opportunities.
When you stop chasing the wrong things you give the right things a chance to catch you.
You can raise the bar or you can wait for others to raise it. Either way, it’s getting raised.
In life you get what you put in. If you want love, give love. If you want friends, be friendly. If you want money, provide value. It really is this simple.
Cynicism might seem warranted at times, but it’s never useful.
Everyone dies, some sooner than later, and often unexpectedly. To know this means you are alive, with a chance to make the time you have left count.
You are in competition with one person and one person only – yourself. You are competing to be the best you can be.
Trying to be somebody you’re not is a sure path to self-hate, and a waste of the person you are.
It’s better to be disliked for who you are than to be liked for who you are not.
Giving up doesn’t always mean you’re weak, sometimes it means you are strong enough and smart enough to let go.
Sometimes you need to distance yourself to see things clearly.
You can’t make the same exact mistake twice. The second time you make it, it’s no longer a mistake, it’s a choice.
Not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
You never have to deal with more than one moment at a time.
Many of the greatest lessons we learn in life we don’t seek on purpose.
You have to fight through some bad days to earn the best days of your life.
A harsh fact of life: Bad things do happen to good people.
Regardless of the situation, the sun rises the next day and life goes on.
You never know how strong you really are until being strong is the only choice you have.
We end up regretting the things you did NOT do far more than the things you did.
We meet no ordinary people in our lives. If you give them a chance, everyone has something amazing to offer.
Every passing face on the street represents a story every bit as compelling and complicated as yours.
People are not as beautiful as they look, as they walk, or as they talk. They are only as beautiful as they love, as they care, and as they share.
Silence is often the loudest cry. So pay attention to those you care about.
Making one person smile can change the world. Maybe not the whole world, but their world.
Blowing out another’s candle will not make yours shine brighter.
No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying.
Things turn out best for people who make the best out of the way things turn out.
Life is short. If there was ever a moment to follow your passion and do something that matters to you, that moment is now.
It‘s not where we stand but in what direction we are moving.
Sometimes we find ourselves running in place, struggling to get ahead simply because we forget to address some of the simple truths that govern our potential to make progress. So here’s a quick reminder:
The acquisition of knowledge doesn’t mean you’re growing. Growing happens when what you know changes how you live.
You can’t have good ideas unless you’re willing to generate a lot of bad ones.
A good idea without action is worth nothing.
Change is often resisted when it is needed the most.
Discipline is choosing what you want most over what you want right now. Read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
People seldom do things to the best of their ability. They do things to the best of their willingness.
You can’t change other people; you can only offer guidance, and lead by example.
Right now, there’s a lot you don’t know. And if you never challenge your own beliefs, the list will never shrink.
If you’re talking to someone you don’t know well, you may be talking to someone who knows way more about the topic of conversation than you do.
The most common and harmful addiction in the world is the draw of comfort.
Growth begins at the end of your comfort zone. Stepping outside of your comfort zone will put things into perspective from an angle you can’t grasp now.
When you spend time worrying, you’re simply using your imagination to create things you don’t want.
It’s usually only as good or bad as you think it is. Most of what we see is only what we think about what we see.
Most of the bad things you worry about will never happen. Most of the bad things that do happen will have never have crossed your worried mind.
Some circumstances are uncontrollable, but we can always decide how we react to those circumstances.
Those who complain the most, accomplish the least.
Whenever somebody discredits you, and tells you that you can’t do something, keep in mind that they are speaking from within the boundaries of their own limitations.
Every problem you have in your life right now is your responsibility, regardless of who initially caused it.
It’s not so much about finding opportunities as it is about creating them.
Having a plan, even a flawed one at first, is better than no plan at all.
Paving your own road is intelligent only if nobody has gone exactly where you are going.
What you do every day matters more than what you do every once in a while.
What you don’t start today won’t be finished by tomorrow.
If you’re waiting for the perfect conditions, ideas or plans to get started, you’ll never achieve anything.
Doing something and getting it wrong is at least ten times more productive than doing nothing.
Putting something off makes it instantly harder and scarier.
You cannot change what you refuse to confront.
If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting.
The harder you work, the luckier you will become.
Kindness and hard work together will always carry you farther than intelligence.
Lots of successful people have failed as many times as they have succeeded.
Failures are simply lessons that help you prepare for next time.
Being successful is a journey, not a destination.
To be successful does not mean you have to dominate others; it means you have to dominate your own potential.
Your success isn’t just about you. It’s about how you positively impact the lives around you.
Being busy and being productive are two different things.
Being happy and being successful are two different things.
You have every right to be happy, but it’s up to YOU and only YOU to exercise that right. Read Stumbling on Happiness.
Everyone you meet is better than you at something. We all have different strengths. What worked for someone else might not work for you.
When you’re worried about what others think of you, you’re really just worried about what you think of yourself.
The bad news: nothing is permanent. The good news: nothing is permanent.
You don’t have to settle. It’s simply a choice you make every day. If you don’t like your life, then it’s time to start making changes and better choices.
There’s no such thing as ‘risk free.’ Everything you do or don’t do has an inherent risk.
No matter how smart you are, you will make mistakes.
Problems, when they arise, are rarely as painful and hurtful as the process of fearing them.
Confusion isn’t a bad thing. It means you’re growing and thinking.
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
In the beginning, you need to say “yes” to a lot of things to discover and establish your goals. Later on, you need to say “no” to a lot of things and concentrate on your goals.
Even if it doesn’t cost any money, it’s not free if it takes up your time.
No matter how you make a living or who you think you work for, you only work for one person, yourself. The big question is: What are you selling, and to whom?
Money makes life easier only when it’s yours free and clear. The stress of financial debt can change a person.
The fewer possessions you own, the more you will use and enjoy them.
Life is not easy, especially when you plan on achieving something worthwhile.
There is good reason why you should wake each morning and mindfully consider what and who you will give your day to: Because unlike other things in life - love, money, respect, good health, hope, opportunities, and many more - time is the one thing you can never get back once it’s gone.
Cutting your losses is often better than the alternative.
We sometimes do things that are permanently foolish just because we are temporarily upset.
Screaming at people always makes things worse.
Everyone likes a person who gets straight to the point.
First impressions are oftentimes inaccurate judgments of a person’s true character.
When you’re up, your friends know who you are. When you’re down, you know who your friends are.
If someone wants you in their life, they’ll make room for you. You shouldn’t have to fight for a spot.
When someone truly loves you, they don’t ever have to say a word. You will be able to tell simply by the way they treat you over the long-term.
We rarely lose friends, we usually just figure out who our real ones are.
Just because one person doesn’t seem to care for you, doesn’t mean you should forget about everyone else who does.
Family isn’t always blood. They’re the people in your life who want you in theirs – the ones who would do anything to see you smile and who love you no matter what.
Good looks attracts the eyes. Personality attracts the heart.
In human relationships, distance is not measured in miles but in affection. Two people can be right next to each other, yet miles apart.
Being nice to someone you dislike doesn’t mean you’re fake. It means you’re mature enough to control your emotions.
If you aren’t happy being single, you won’t be happy in a relationship. You have to create your own life first before you can share it with someone else.
Whenever you hate someone or something, you are giving that person or thing a piece of your heart. Read The Road Less Traveled.
Life is too short to spend time with people who suck the happiness out of you.
It’s better to be alone than to be in bad company.
Saying “no” to right people gives you the time and resources required to say “yes” to right opportunities.
When you stop chasing the wrong things you give the right things a chance to catch you.
You can raise the bar or you can wait for others to raise it. Either way, it’s getting raised.
In life you get what you put in. If you want love, give love. If you want friends, be friendly. If you want money, provide value. It really is this simple.
Cynicism might seem warranted at times, but it’s never useful.
Everyone dies, some sooner than later, and often unexpectedly. To know this means you are alive, with a chance to make the time you have left count.
You are in competition with one person and one person only – yourself. You are competing to be the best you can be.
Trying to be somebody you’re not is a sure path to self-hate, and a waste of the person you are.
It’s better to be disliked for who you are than to be liked for who you are not.
Giving up doesn’t always mean you’re weak, sometimes it means you are strong enough and smart enough to let go.
Sometimes you need to distance yourself to see things clearly.
You can’t make the same exact mistake twice. The second time you make it, it’s no longer a mistake, it’s a choice.
Not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
You never have to deal with more than one moment at a time.
Many of the greatest lessons we learn in life we don’t seek on purpose.
You have to fight through some bad days to earn the best days of your life.
A harsh fact of life: Bad things do happen to good people.
Regardless of the situation, the sun rises the next day and life goes on.
You never know how strong you really are until being strong is the only choice you have.
We end up regretting the things you did NOT do far more than the things you did.
We meet no ordinary people in our lives. If you give them a chance, everyone has something amazing to offer.
Every passing face on the street represents a story every bit as compelling and complicated as yours.
People are not as beautiful as they look, as they walk, or as they talk. They are only as beautiful as they love, as they care, and as they share.
Silence is often the loudest cry. So pay attention to those you care about.
Making one person smile can change the world. Maybe not the whole world, but their world.
Blowing out another’s candle will not make yours shine brighter.
No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying.
Things turn out best for people who make the best out of the way things turn out.
Life is short. If there was ever a moment to follow your passion and do something that matters to you, that moment is now.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
WOD 01-14-12
Run on lower deck and stairs 1 min x 30 seconds 8 rounds
Bag work 10 min
Lateral and front raises
Fascial Fitness: Training In The Neuromyofascial Web
Fascial Fitness: Training In The Neuromyofascial Web
by Thomas Myers
Research shows why taking a different approach to exercise and the movement brain is the wave of the future.
If you are interested in the role of fascia in fitness training, the following questions lead to new take-aways:
Most injuries are connective-tissue (fascial) injuries, not muscular injuries—so how do we best train to prevent and repair damage and build elasticity and resilience into the system?
There are 10 times more sensory nerve endings in your fascia than in your muscles; therefore, how do we aim proprioceptive stimulation at the fascia as well as the muscles?
Traditional anatomy texts of the muscles and fascia are inaccurate, based on a fundamental misunderstanding of our movement function—so how can we work with fascia as a whole, as the “organ system of stability”?
Consciously or unconsciously, you have been working with fascia for your whole movement career—it is unavoidable. Now, however, new research is reinforcing the importance of fascia and other connective tissue in functional training (Fascia Congress 2009). Fascia is much more than “plastic wrap around the muscles.” Fascia is the organ system of stability and mechano-regulation (Varela & Frenk 1987). Understanding this may revolutionize our ideas of “fitness.” Research into the fascial net upsets both our traditional beliefs and some of our new favorites as well. The evidence all points to a new consideration within overall fitness for life—hence the term fascial fitness. This article lays out the emerging picture of the fascial net as a whole and explores three of the many aspects of recent research that give us a better understanding of how best to train the fascial net.
The Neuromyofascial Web
Fascia is the Cinderella of body tissues—systematically ignored, dissected out and thrown away in bits (Schleip 2003). However, fascia forms the biological container and connector for every organ (including muscles). In dissection, fascia is literally a greasy mess (not at all like what the books show you) and so variable among individuals that its actual architecture is hard to delineate. For many reasons, fascia has not been seen as a whole system; therefore we have been ignorant of fascia’s overall role in biomechanics.
Thankfully, the integrating mechano-biological nature of the fascial web is becoming clearer. It turns out that it really is all one net with no separation from top to toe, from skin to core or from birth to death (Shultz & Feitis 1996). Every cell in your body is hooked into—and responds to—the tensional environment of the fascia (Ingber 1998). Alter your mechanics, and cells can change their function (Horwitz 1997). This is a radical new way of seeing personal training—stretching, strengthening and shape-shifting—as part of “spatial medicine” (Myers 1998).
Given the facts, many would prefer the term neuromyofascial web to the fascia-dissing musculoskeletal system (Schleip 2003). As accustomed as we are to identifying individual structures within the fascial web—plantar fascia, Achilles tendon, iliotibial band, thoracolumbar aponeurosis, nuchal ligament and so on—these are just convenient labels for areas within the singular fascial web. They might qualify as ZIP codes, but they are not separate structures (see the sidebar “Muscle Isolation vs. Fascial Integration”).
You can talk about the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Mediterranean oceans, but there is really only one interconnected ocean in the world. Fascia is the same. We talk about individual nerves, but we know the nervous system reacts as a whole. How does fascia webbing function as a system?
Magically extracted as a whole, the fascial web would show us all the shapes of the body, inside and out. It would be just one big net with muscles squirming in it like swimming fish. Organs would hang in it like jellyfish. Every system, every organ and even every cell lives embedded within the sea of a unitary fascial net.
This concept is important because we are so strongly inclined to name individual structures and think that way clinically: “Oh, you tore your biceps,” forgetting that “biceps” is our conception. Our common scientific nomenclature gives a false impression, while the New Age shibboleth is more literally true: the body—and the fascial net in particular—is a single connected unity in which the muscles and bones float.
You can tear this net in injury, cut it with a surgeon’s scalpel, feed and hydrate it well or clog it with high-fructose corn syrup. No matter how you treat it, it will eventually lose its elasticity. In your eye’s lens, for instance, the net stiffens in a very regular way, requiring you to use reading glasses at about age 50. In your skin, the net frays to cause wrinkles. Key elements like hip cartilage may fail you before you die, and need replacement, but when you finally breathe your last breath your fascial web will still be the same single net you started with.
It’s no small wonder that this system, like the nervous and circulatory systems, would develop complex signaling and homeostatic mechanisms (Langevin et al. 2006). The larger wonder is that we have not really seen or explored the connective-tissue system’s responses until now.
A Definition of Terms
In medicine, the term fascia designates tissues with specific topology and histology, as distinct from tendon, ligament or other specified tissues. In this article, however, we are using fascia as an overall name for this systemic net of connective tissue, because there is no generalized term (Huijing & Langevin 2009). Connective tissue includes the blood and blood cells, and other elements not part of the structural net we are examining. Perhaps the closest term would be extra-cellular matrix (ECM), which includes everything in your body that isn’t cellular (see Figure 3). The ECM has three main elements:
fibers: the strong pliable weave—consisting primarily of collagen (which has 12 types) and its cousins elastin and reticulin—that both separates compartments and binds them together
glue: the variable and colloidal gels like heparin, fibronectin and hyaluronic acid that accommodate change and provide the substrate for other cells like nerves and epithelia
water: the fluid that surrounds and permeates the cells as a medium of exchange; mixes with the glue to make materials of differing properties; and keeps the fibers wet and pliable
Though the ECM will be our topic just below, the term fascia as we define it also includes fibroblasts and mast cells, which give rise to the fibers and glue and then remodel them in response to the demands of injury, training and habit.
The principal structural element in the ECM comprises the fibers collagen, elastin and reticulin. Collagen is by far the most common of these, and by far the strongest. This is the white, sinewy stuff in meat. The collagen fiber is a triple helix; if it was a half-inch thick, it would be about a yard long and look like an old three-strand rope (Snyder 1975). Collagen fibers can be arranged in regular directional rows, as they are in tendons or ligaments (dense regular), or in random crisscross ways, like felt (dense or loose irregular).
The collagen fibers cannot actually stick to each other but are glued together by other proteins called glycoaminoglycans (GAGs), which are mucopolysaccharides, both of which are long words for snot. We are held together by mucous, a colloidal substance, which, by varying its chemistry slightly, can display a surprising array of properties, from thick and sticky to fluid and lubricating. The fernlike molecules of mucous open to absorb water (they are hydrophilic) or close and bind to themselves when water is absent. Depending on their chemistry, they either bind layers together or allow them to slide on each other (Grinnell 2008).
The phenomenon we call “stretch” or lengthening (and that scientists call “creep” or hysteresis) is a function not of the collagen fibers lengthening but of the fibers sliding along each other on the glue of the hydrated GAGs (Sbriccoli et al. 2005). Take the water out of the GAGs, and the result is tissue that is mightily reluctant to stretch (Schleip 2003).
Most injuries occur when connective tissue is stretched faster than it can respond. The less it is hydrated, the less elastic response it has in it.
The Body Electric?
Connective-tissue cells produce the fibers and the GAGs, and these materials are then altered to form a remarkable variety of building materials. If you were to try to recreate your structural body out of items you could buy at Home Depot®, what would you need? Wood or PVC for the bones, silicon rubber for the cartilage, lots of string, wire, tubing, plastic sheeting, rubber bands, cotton, nets, grease and oil—the list goes on. Would you try to build a body without duct tape?
Your body manufactures all these materials and many more by mixing together various proportions of the ECM’s fibers and glue and altering the chemistry in different ways (Snyder 1975). In bone, the fiber matrix is there—much like leather—but the mucousy ground substance has been systematically replaced with mineral salts. Cartilage has the same leathery substrate, but the glue has been dried into a tough but pliable “plastic” that permeates the fibrous leather. In ligament and tendon, almost all the glue has been squeezed out. In blood and joint fluid, the fiber exists only in a liquid form, until it hits the air, when it forms a scab. This manufactory in your body is fascinating: the dentin in your teeth, your gums, your heart valves, even the clear cornea of your eye—are all formed in this fashion.
Remodeling and Tensegrity
Your muscles may determine your shape in the training sense, but connective tissue determines your shape in the overall sense. It holds the bones together, pulling in on them as they press out (like a tensegrity system; see Figure 2).
The ECM is capable of remodeling itself in a variety of ways (Chen et al. 1997). Just as your muscles remodel themselves in response to training, the fascia remodels itself in response to direct signaling from the cells (Langevin et al. 2010); injury (Desmouli`ere, Chapponnier & Gabbiani 2005); long-held mechanical forces (Iatrides et al. 2003); use patterns (including emotional ones); gravity; and certain chemistry within your body (Grinnell & Petroll 2010). The complexities of remodeling are just now being explored in the lab; the details will be revealed over the coming decade.
The idea of tensegrity (tension and integrity) and the phenomenon of remodeling are the basis for structural therapy, including yoga and the forms of manual therapy commonly known as Rolfing® or Structural Integration and its deep-tissue relatives, including foam rolling. Change the demand—as we do in bodywork and personal training—and the fascial system responds to that new demand. This common theme points to a future where manual therapy and movement training combine to form a powerful method for
restoring natural settings for posture and function;
steering small problems away from developing into big ones later on;
easing the long-term consequences from injury; and
extending functional movement farther and farther up the age scale.
How to Train the Neuromyofascial Web
If the fascia is a singular space-organizing adjustable tensegrity that traverses the whole body and regulates—both locally and as a whole—the biomechanics of tension and compression, we can then ask: How can we train this system, in conjunction with our work on muscles and neural control, to prevent and repair injury and build resilience into the system?
The answer to this question is still developing—rapidly—both in the laboratory and on the training floor. Some research is confirming our images and practices as they have developed and are traditionally applied. Here we focus on a few surprising sets of findings that are (or soon will be) changing our ideas of how the neuromyofascial web really works and what role connective tissue plays in developing overall fitness for life. More of these results can be found at www.fascialftness.de or in the fascial fitness section of www.anatomytrains.com.
Finding #1:Specific training can enhance the fascial elasticity essential to systemic resilience.
Fascial elasticity has not been recognized until recently, and the mechanisms involved are still being studied (Chino et al. 2008). Nevertheless, applications to training are already evident. The basic news is that connective tissue—even dense tissues like tendons and aponeuroses—is much more significantly elastic than previously thought. The second essential part of that news is that fascial elasticity is stored and returned very quickly. In other words, it is more like a superball than a Nerf™ ball. Thus, fascial elasticity is a factor only when the motion is cyclic and quickly repeated, as in running, walking or bouncing, but not as in bicycling, in which the repetitive cycle is far too slow to take advantage of fascia’s elastic properties.
Measurements of calf lengthening during running have shown that much of the length required for dorsiflexion is coming from an elastic stretch of the fascia, while the muscle is contracting isometrically (Kubo et al. 2006). This contradicts our previous understanding that the tendon was nonelastic, and that the muscles were lengthening and shortening during these cyclic motions prior to and following footfall.
The runners who train for and employ more of this elasticity will be using less muscle power (read: less glucose) during their runs, as they are storing energy in the stretch and then getting it back during the release. Thus, they will be able to run longer with less fatigue.
Building in this elasticity is a matter of putting a demand on the tissues to act in this way. Doing this slowly (compared with muscle training) is a definite attribute of fascial training (it may take 6–24 months to build fascial elasticity).
What’s in:
Bouncing. When you land on the ball of your foot, you decelerate and accelerate in such a way that you not only make use of but actually build elasticity into the tendons and entire fascial system. The best training effect seems to follow the pleasure principle: feel for that sense of elegance, an ideal resonance with minimum effort and maximum ease.
Preparatory Countermovement. Preparing for a movement by making a countermovement—for example, flexing down before extending up to standing, winding up before a pitch, or moving the kettlebell toward the body before moving it away—makes maximum use of the power of fascial elasticity to help make and smooth out the movement.
What’s out:
Jerky Movements and Abrupt Changes of Direction. Imagine jumping rope but landing only on your heels. The stress on all your systems would be enormous, and you would not build elasticity into the fascial system.
Big Muscle Demand for Push-Off. Using the fascial elastic recoil lessens the demand for huge muscle effort during push-off, making movement more controllable, less arduous and less fuel-consumptive.
Finding #2: The fascial system responds better to variation than to a repetitive program.
The evidence suggests that the fascial system is better trained by a wide variety of vectors—in angle, tempo and load (Huijing 2007). Isolating muscles along one track (e.g., with an exercise machine) may be useful for those muscles but is less than useful for all the surrounding tissues. Loading the tissue one way all the time means it will be weaker when life—which is rarely repetitive—throws that part of the body a curve ball.
What's in:
Whole-Body Movements. Engaging long myofascial chains and whole-body movements is the better way to train the fascial system.
Proximal Initiation. It’s best to start movements with a dynamic pre-stretch (distal extension) but accompany this with a proximal initiation in the desired direction, letting the more distal parts of the body follow in sequence, like an elastic pendulum.
Adaptive Movement. Complex movement requiring adaptation, like parkour (see the beginning of the James Bond movie Casino Royale for a great example), beats repetitive exercise programs.
What's out:
Repetitive Movement. Machines (or minds) that require clients to work in the same line again and again do not build fascial resilience very well.
Always Practicing With Upper-Level Loads. Variable loads build different aspects of the fascia. Sticking with near-limit loads will strengthen some ligaments but weaken others. Varying the load is the better way.
Always Training in the Same Tempo. Likewise, varying the tempo of your training allows different fascial structures to build strength and elasticity.
Finding #3:The fascial system is far more innervated than muscle, so proprioception and kinesthesia are primarily fascial, not muscular.
This is a hard concept for many fitness professionals to get their heads around, but it is a fact: there are 10 times as many sensory receptors in your fascial tissues as there are in your muscles (Stillwell 1957). The muscles have spindles that measure length change (and over time, rate of length change) in the muscles. Even these spindles can be seen as fascial receptors, but let’s be kind and give them to the muscles (Van der Wal 2009). For each spindle, there are about 10 receptors in the surrounding fascia—in the surface epimysium, the tendon and attachment fascia, the nearby ligaments and the superficial layers. These receptors include the Golgi tendon organs that measure load (by measuring the stretch in the fibers), paciniform endings to measure pressure, Ruffini endings to inform the central nervous system of shear forces in the soft tissues, and ubiquitous small interstitial nerve endings that can report on all these plus, apparently, pain (Stecco et al. 2009; Taguchi et al. 2009).
So when you say you are feeling your muscles move, this is a bit of a misnomer. You are “listening” to your fascial tissues much more than to your muscles. Here are three interesting findings that go along with this basic eye-opener:
Ligaments are mostly arranged in series with the muscles, not in parallel (Van der Wal 2009). This means that when you tense a muscle, the ligaments are automatically tensed to stabilize the joint, no matter what its position. Our idea that the ligaments do not function until the joint is at its full extension or torsion is now outmoded; for example, ligaments function all through a preacher curl, not just at the ends of the movement.
Nerve endings arrange themselves according to the forces that commonly apply in that location in that individual, not according to a genetic plan, and definitely not according to the anatomical division we call a muscle. There is no representation of a “deltoid” inside your movement brain. That’s just a concept over in your cortex, not in your biological organization.
Apparently, sensors in and near the skin are more active in detecting and regulating movement than the joint ligament receptors (Yahia, Pigeon & DesRosiers 1993).
What's in:
Skin and Surface Tissue Stimulation to Enhance Proprioception. Rubbing and moving the skin and surface tissues is important to enhance fascial proprioception. One weightlifter is having good results scrubbing himself with a vegetable brush before going into competition.
Directing Clients to Feel Their Fascial Tissues. Taking attention—your own and your client’s—away from the muscles and putting it into the surrounding fascial tissues can help prevent injury and make the perception of kinesthesia more accurate and fully informed. Sensuous body activity coupled with a high level of kinesthetic acuity (think: cat) may prevent injury better than being tough.
What's out:
Isolated Muscle Orientation. Exercising a single muscle or muscle group is nearly impossible; every exercise is stimulating multiple nerves, involving multiple muscles and employing fascial tissues all around the site of effort, as well as “upstream” and “downstream” from it.
Joint-Receptor Emphasis. Given that the ligaments are often tensed by the muscles, the emphasis on joint receptors—while important—needs to be replaced with a more general attention to the whole area, from the skin on down.
This discussion has focused on biomechanical factors; it has omitted nutritional and humoral considerations, as well as constitutional differences in fascia, which have recently come up for study. A deeper understanding of the role of fascia in training changes your perspective, your work, your words and your effect. Fascia is not just cling wrap.
SIDEBAR: Muscle Isolation Vs. Fascial Integration
Most fitness professionals have studied muscle function in isolation. Essentially, Western kinesiological anatomy asks: What would the action of the biceps be if it were the only muscle on the skeleton? Left to itself, the biceps is a radio-ulnar supinator, an elbow flexor and some kind of weak diagonal flexor of the shoulder. When we have that down, we imagine we understand the biceps and what it does. That is one way of looking at it.
The only thing is, the biceps never works in isolation. Isolating muscles to study their function is the very opposite of integration and holism. What is the practical difference? Studying the muscle solo leaves out four vital fascial factors in daily muscle function:
1. The Effect From and on Neighboring Medial or Lateral Muscles. The biceps has force-transmitting fascial connections with the coracobrachialis, the brachialis and the supinator and even across the septa into the triceps. These fascial connections affect the functioning of the biceps and the arm (Huijing 2007).
2. The Effect From and on Muscles That Are Connected Proximally and Distally. The biceps has connections distally with the interosseous membrane and the fascia around the radius, as well as the bicipital aponeurosis into the flexors; and proximally with the pectoralis minor and supraspinatus via the short and long head respectively (see Figure 1) (Myers 2001, 2009).
3. The Effect Muscle Contraction Has on Local Ligaments. Contracting the biceps exerts a stabilizing influence on the ligaments of both the shoulder and the elbow. Our assumption that ligaments are arranged in parallel to the muscles is an incorrect one. Most ligaments are dynamically integrated with the muscles in series so that muscle contraction helps the ligaments stabilize the joint at all angles (Van der Wal 2009).
4. The Fact That Every Muscle Has to Be Supplied by Nerves and Blood Vessels. These “wires and tubes” arrive encased in a fascial sheath. If this sheath is twisted or impinged, or if it becomes too short through bad posture, muscle function is affected (Shacklock 2005)
SIDEBAR: Figure 1. Deep Front Arm Line
Anatomy Trains maps out fascial connections that link single muscles--like the isolated biceps shown in the sidebar--into functional wholes.
SIDEBAR: A Few Of The Many Forms Of Fascia
This article uses the generalized term fascia to denote the interconnected net of fibers and glue. A. Two muscles held together by “fuzz”—areolar tissue. B. The “strapping tape” nature of the fascia covering the quadriceps. C. (courtesy of Dr. J-C Guimbertau) The very delicate, gluey tissue that allows change and movement beneath our skin, between our muscles, and anywhere anatomical structures have to slide on each other.
SIDEBAR: Figure 2. Tensegrities
Once you understand the fascial system as a whole, rather than as a series of parts, the body presents itself as an animated version of a tensegrity (“tension-integrity”) (Fuller 1975). The struts are like the bones, pushing out, and the fascial net is like the strings or membranes, pulling in. The whole thing achieves a balance we call “shape.” It is now evident that our bodies work this way cellularly as well as on the macro level (Ingber 2008). Of course, our human tensegrity is animated by our nervous systems, and is very adjustable via the muscles, but exploring the properties of these structures in terms of our bodies is worthwhile.
by Thomas Myers
Research shows why taking a different approach to exercise and the movement brain is the wave of the future.
If you are interested in the role of fascia in fitness training, the following questions lead to new take-aways:
Most injuries are connective-tissue (fascial) injuries, not muscular injuries—so how do we best train to prevent and repair damage and build elasticity and resilience into the system?
There are 10 times more sensory nerve endings in your fascia than in your muscles; therefore, how do we aim proprioceptive stimulation at the fascia as well as the muscles?
Traditional anatomy texts of the muscles and fascia are inaccurate, based on a fundamental misunderstanding of our movement function—so how can we work with fascia as a whole, as the “organ system of stability”?
Consciously or unconsciously, you have been working with fascia for your whole movement career—it is unavoidable. Now, however, new research is reinforcing the importance of fascia and other connective tissue in functional training (Fascia Congress 2009). Fascia is much more than “plastic wrap around the muscles.” Fascia is the organ system of stability and mechano-regulation (Varela & Frenk 1987). Understanding this may revolutionize our ideas of “fitness.” Research into the fascial net upsets both our traditional beliefs and some of our new favorites as well. The evidence all points to a new consideration within overall fitness for life—hence the term fascial fitness. This article lays out the emerging picture of the fascial net as a whole and explores three of the many aspects of recent research that give us a better understanding of how best to train the fascial net.
The Neuromyofascial Web
Fascia is the Cinderella of body tissues—systematically ignored, dissected out and thrown away in bits (Schleip 2003). However, fascia forms the biological container and connector for every organ (including muscles). In dissection, fascia is literally a greasy mess (not at all like what the books show you) and so variable among individuals that its actual architecture is hard to delineate. For many reasons, fascia has not been seen as a whole system; therefore we have been ignorant of fascia’s overall role in biomechanics.
Thankfully, the integrating mechano-biological nature of the fascial web is becoming clearer. It turns out that it really is all one net with no separation from top to toe, from skin to core or from birth to death (Shultz & Feitis 1996). Every cell in your body is hooked into—and responds to—the tensional environment of the fascia (Ingber 1998). Alter your mechanics, and cells can change their function (Horwitz 1997). This is a radical new way of seeing personal training—stretching, strengthening and shape-shifting—as part of “spatial medicine” (Myers 1998).
Given the facts, many would prefer the term neuromyofascial web to the fascia-dissing musculoskeletal system (Schleip 2003). As accustomed as we are to identifying individual structures within the fascial web—plantar fascia, Achilles tendon, iliotibial band, thoracolumbar aponeurosis, nuchal ligament and so on—these are just convenient labels for areas within the singular fascial web. They might qualify as ZIP codes, but they are not separate structures (see the sidebar “Muscle Isolation vs. Fascial Integration”).
You can talk about the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Mediterranean oceans, but there is really only one interconnected ocean in the world. Fascia is the same. We talk about individual nerves, but we know the nervous system reacts as a whole. How does fascia webbing function as a system?
Magically extracted as a whole, the fascial web would show us all the shapes of the body, inside and out. It would be just one big net with muscles squirming in it like swimming fish. Organs would hang in it like jellyfish. Every system, every organ and even every cell lives embedded within the sea of a unitary fascial net.
This concept is important because we are so strongly inclined to name individual structures and think that way clinically: “Oh, you tore your biceps,” forgetting that “biceps” is our conception. Our common scientific nomenclature gives a false impression, while the New Age shibboleth is more literally true: the body—and the fascial net in particular—is a single connected unity in which the muscles and bones float.
You can tear this net in injury, cut it with a surgeon’s scalpel, feed and hydrate it well or clog it with high-fructose corn syrup. No matter how you treat it, it will eventually lose its elasticity. In your eye’s lens, for instance, the net stiffens in a very regular way, requiring you to use reading glasses at about age 50. In your skin, the net frays to cause wrinkles. Key elements like hip cartilage may fail you before you die, and need replacement, but when you finally breathe your last breath your fascial web will still be the same single net you started with.
It’s no small wonder that this system, like the nervous and circulatory systems, would develop complex signaling and homeostatic mechanisms (Langevin et al. 2006). The larger wonder is that we have not really seen or explored the connective-tissue system’s responses until now.
A Definition of Terms
In medicine, the term fascia designates tissues with specific topology and histology, as distinct from tendon, ligament or other specified tissues. In this article, however, we are using fascia as an overall name for this systemic net of connective tissue, because there is no generalized term (Huijing & Langevin 2009). Connective tissue includes the blood and blood cells, and other elements not part of the structural net we are examining. Perhaps the closest term would be extra-cellular matrix (ECM), which includes everything in your body that isn’t cellular (see Figure 3). The ECM has three main elements:
fibers: the strong pliable weave—consisting primarily of collagen (which has 12 types) and its cousins elastin and reticulin—that both separates compartments and binds them together
glue: the variable and colloidal gels like heparin, fibronectin and hyaluronic acid that accommodate change and provide the substrate for other cells like nerves and epithelia
water: the fluid that surrounds and permeates the cells as a medium of exchange; mixes with the glue to make materials of differing properties; and keeps the fibers wet and pliable
Though the ECM will be our topic just below, the term fascia as we define it also includes fibroblasts and mast cells, which give rise to the fibers and glue and then remodel them in response to the demands of injury, training and habit.
The principal structural element in the ECM comprises the fibers collagen, elastin and reticulin. Collagen is by far the most common of these, and by far the strongest. This is the white, sinewy stuff in meat. The collagen fiber is a triple helix; if it was a half-inch thick, it would be about a yard long and look like an old three-strand rope (Snyder 1975). Collagen fibers can be arranged in regular directional rows, as they are in tendons or ligaments (dense regular), or in random crisscross ways, like felt (dense or loose irregular).
The collagen fibers cannot actually stick to each other but are glued together by other proteins called glycoaminoglycans (GAGs), which are mucopolysaccharides, both of which are long words for snot. We are held together by mucous, a colloidal substance, which, by varying its chemistry slightly, can display a surprising array of properties, from thick and sticky to fluid and lubricating. The fernlike molecules of mucous open to absorb water (they are hydrophilic) or close and bind to themselves when water is absent. Depending on their chemistry, they either bind layers together or allow them to slide on each other (Grinnell 2008).
The phenomenon we call “stretch” or lengthening (and that scientists call “creep” or hysteresis) is a function not of the collagen fibers lengthening but of the fibers sliding along each other on the glue of the hydrated GAGs (Sbriccoli et al. 2005). Take the water out of the GAGs, and the result is tissue that is mightily reluctant to stretch (Schleip 2003).
Most injuries occur when connective tissue is stretched faster than it can respond. The less it is hydrated, the less elastic response it has in it.
The Body Electric?
Connective-tissue cells produce the fibers and the GAGs, and these materials are then altered to form a remarkable variety of building materials. If you were to try to recreate your structural body out of items you could buy at Home Depot®, what would you need? Wood or PVC for the bones, silicon rubber for the cartilage, lots of string, wire, tubing, plastic sheeting, rubber bands, cotton, nets, grease and oil—the list goes on. Would you try to build a body without duct tape?
Your body manufactures all these materials and many more by mixing together various proportions of the ECM’s fibers and glue and altering the chemistry in different ways (Snyder 1975). In bone, the fiber matrix is there—much like leather—but the mucousy ground substance has been systematically replaced with mineral salts. Cartilage has the same leathery substrate, but the glue has been dried into a tough but pliable “plastic” that permeates the fibrous leather. In ligament and tendon, almost all the glue has been squeezed out. In blood and joint fluid, the fiber exists only in a liquid form, until it hits the air, when it forms a scab. This manufactory in your body is fascinating: the dentin in your teeth, your gums, your heart valves, even the clear cornea of your eye—are all formed in this fashion.
Remodeling and Tensegrity
Your muscles may determine your shape in the training sense, but connective tissue determines your shape in the overall sense. It holds the bones together, pulling in on them as they press out (like a tensegrity system; see Figure 2).
The ECM is capable of remodeling itself in a variety of ways (Chen et al. 1997). Just as your muscles remodel themselves in response to training, the fascia remodels itself in response to direct signaling from the cells (Langevin et al. 2010); injury (Desmouli`ere, Chapponnier & Gabbiani 2005); long-held mechanical forces (Iatrides et al. 2003); use patterns (including emotional ones); gravity; and certain chemistry within your body (Grinnell & Petroll 2010). The complexities of remodeling are just now being explored in the lab; the details will be revealed over the coming decade.
The idea of tensegrity (tension and integrity) and the phenomenon of remodeling are the basis for structural therapy, including yoga and the forms of manual therapy commonly known as Rolfing® or Structural Integration and its deep-tissue relatives, including foam rolling. Change the demand—as we do in bodywork and personal training—and the fascial system responds to that new demand. This common theme points to a future where manual therapy and movement training combine to form a powerful method for
restoring natural settings for posture and function;
steering small problems away from developing into big ones later on;
easing the long-term consequences from injury; and
extending functional movement farther and farther up the age scale.
How to Train the Neuromyofascial Web
If the fascia is a singular space-organizing adjustable tensegrity that traverses the whole body and regulates—both locally and as a whole—the biomechanics of tension and compression, we can then ask: How can we train this system, in conjunction with our work on muscles and neural control, to prevent and repair injury and build resilience into the system?
The answer to this question is still developing—rapidly—both in the laboratory and on the training floor. Some research is confirming our images and practices as they have developed and are traditionally applied. Here we focus on a few surprising sets of findings that are (or soon will be) changing our ideas of how the neuromyofascial web really works and what role connective tissue plays in developing overall fitness for life. More of these results can be found at www.fascialftness.de or in the fascial fitness section of www.anatomytrains.com.
Finding #1:Specific training can enhance the fascial elasticity essential to systemic resilience.
Fascial elasticity has not been recognized until recently, and the mechanisms involved are still being studied (Chino et al. 2008). Nevertheless, applications to training are already evident. The basic news is that connective tissue—even dense tissues like tendons and aponeuroses—is much more significantly elastic than previously thought. The second essential part of that news is that fascial elasticity is stored and returned very quickly. In other words, it is more like a superball than a Nerf™ ball. Thus, fascial elasticity is a factor only when the motion is cyclic and quickly repeated, as in running, walking or bouncing, but not as in bicycling, in which the repetitive cycle is far too slow to take advantage of fascia’s elastic properties.
Measurements of calf lengthening during running have shown that much of the length required for dorsiflexion is coming from an elastic stretch of the fascia, while the muscle is contracting isometrically (Kubo et al. 2006). This contradicts our previous understanding that the tendon was nonelastic, and that the muscles were lengthening and shortening during these cyclic motions prior to and following footfall.
The runners who train for and employ more of this elasticity will be using less muscle power (read: less glucose) during their runs, as they are storing energy in the stretch and then getting it back during the release. Thus, they will be able to run longer with less fatigue.
Building in this elasticity is a matter of putting a demand on the tissues to act in this way. Doing this slowly (compared with muscle training) is a definite attribute of fascial training (it may take 6–24 months to build fascial elasticity).
What’s in:
Bouncing. When you land on the ball of your foot, you decelerate and accelerate in such a way that you not only make use of but actually build elasticity into the tendons and entire fascial system. The best training effect seems to follow the pleasure principle: feel for that sense of elegance, an ideal resonance with minimum effort and maximum ease.
Preparatory Countermovement. Preparing for a movement by making a countermovement—for example, flexing down before extending up to standing, winding up before a pitch, or moving the kettlebell toward the body before moving it away—makes maximum use of the power of fascial elasticity to help make and smooth out the movement.
What’s out:
Jerky Movements and Abrupt Changes of Direction. Imagine jumping rope but landing only on your heels. The stress on all your systems would be enormous, and you would not build elasticity into the fascial system.
Big Muscle Demand for Push-Off. Using the fascial elastic recoil lessens the demand for huge muscle effort during push-off, making movement more controllable, less arduous and less fuel-consumptive.
Finding #2: The fascial system responds better to variation than to a repetitive program.
The evidence suggests that the fascial system is better trained by a wide variety of vectors—in angle, tempo and load (Huijing 2007). Isolating muscles along one track (e.g., with an exercise machine) may be useful for those muscles but is less than useful for all the surrounding tissues. Loading the tissue one way all the time means it will be weaker when life—which is rarely repetitive—throws that part of the body a curve ball.
What's in:
Whole-Body Movements. Engaging long myofascial chains and whole-body movements is the better way to train the fascial system.
Proximal Initiation. It’s best to start movements with a dynamic pre-stretch (distal extension) but accompany this with a proximal initiation in the desired direction, letting the more distal parts of the body follow in sequence, like an elastic pendulum.
Adaptive Movement. Complex movement requiring adaptation, like parkour (see the beginning of the James Bond movie Casino Royale for a great example), beats repetitive exercise programs.
What's out:
Repetitive Movement. Machines (or minds) that require clients to work in the same line again and again do not build fascial resilience very well.
Always Practicing With Upper-Level Loads. Variable loads build different aspects of the fascia. Sticking with near-limit loads will strengthen some ligaments but weaken others. Varying the load is the better way.
Always Training in the Same Tempo. Likewise, varying the tempo of your training allows different fascial structures to build strength and elasticity.
Finding #3:The fascial system is far more innervated than muscle, so proprioception and kinesthesia are primarily fascial, not muscular.
This is a hard concept for many fitness professionals to get their heads around, but it is a fact: there are 10 times as many sensory receptors in your fascial tissues as there are in your muscles (Stillwell 1957). The muscles have spindles that measure length change (and over time, rate of length change) in the muscles. Even these spindles can be seen as fascial receptors, but let’s be kind and give them to the muscles (Van der Wal 2009). For each spindle, there are about 10 receptors in the surrounding fascia—in the surface epimysium, the tendon and attachment fascia, the nearby ligaments and the superficial layers. These receptors include the Golgi tendon organs that measure load (by measuring the stretch in the fibers), paciniform endings to measure pressure, Ruffini endings to inform the central nervous system of shear forces in the soft tissues, and ubiquitous small interstitial nerve endings that can report on all these plus, apparently, pain (Stecco et al. 2009; Taguchi et al. 2009).
So when you say you are feeling your muscles move, this is a bit of a misnomer. You are “listening” to your fascial tissues much more than to your muscles. Here are three interesting findings that go along with this basic eye-opener:
Ligaments are mostly arranged in series with the muscles, not in parallel (Van der Wal 2009). This means that when you tense a muscle, the ligaments are automatically tensed to stabilize the joint, no matter what its position. Our idea that the ligaments do not function until the joint is at its full extension or torsion is now outmoded; for example, ligaments function all through a preacher curl, not just at the ends of the movement.
Nerve endings arrange themselves according to the forces that commonly apply in that location in that individual, not according to a genetic plan, and definitely not according to the anatomical division we call a muscle. There is no representation of a “deltoid” inside your movement brain. That’s just a concept over in your cortex, not in your biological organization.
Apparently, sensors in and near the skin are more active in detecting and regulating movement than the joint ligament receptors (Yahia, Pigeon & DesRosiers 1993).
What's in:
Skin and Surface Tissue Stimulation to Enhance Proprioception. Rubbing and moving the skin and surface tissues is important to enhance fascial proprioception. One weightlifter is having good results scrubbing himself with a vegetable brush before going into competition.
Directing Clients to Feel Their Fascial Tissues. Taking attention—your own and your client’s—away from the muscles and putting it into the surrounding fascial tissues can help prevent injury and make the perception of kinesthesia more accurate and fully informed. Sensuous body activity coupled with a high level of kinesthetic acuity (think: cat) may prevent injury better than being tough.
What's out:
Isolated Muscle Orientation. Exercising a single muscle or muscle group is nearly impossible; every exercise is stimulating multiple nerves, involving multiple muscles and employing fascial tissues all around the site of effort, as well as “upstream” and “downstream” from it.
Joint-Receptor Emphasis. Given that the ligaments are often tensed by the muscles, the emphasis on joint receptors—while important—needs to be replaced with a more general attention to the whole area, from the skin on down.
This discussion has focused on biomechanical factors; it has omitted nutritional and humoral considerations, as well as constitutional differences in fascia, which have recently come up for study. A deeper understanding of the role of fascia in training changes your perspective, your work, your words and your effect. Fascia is not just cling wrap.
SIDEBAR: Muscle Isolation Vs. Fascial Integration
Most fitness professionals have studied muscle function in isolation. Essentially, Western kinesiological anatomy asks: What would the action of the biceps be if it were the only muscle on the skeleton? Left to itself, the biceps is a radio-ulnar supinator, an elbow flexor and some kind of weak diagonal flexor of the shoulder. When we have that down, we imagine we understand the biceps and what it does. That is one way of looking at it.
The only thing is, the biceps never works in isolation. Isolating muscles to study their function is the very opposite of integration and holism. What is the practical difference? Studying the muscle solo leaves out four vital fascial factors in daily muscle function:
1. The Effect From and on Neighboring Medial or Lateral Muscles. The biceps has force-transmitting fascial connections with the coracobrachialis, the brachialis and the supinator and even across the septa into the triceps. These fascial connections affect the functioning of the biceps and the arm (Huijing 2007).
2. The Effect From and on Muscles That Are Connected Proximally and Distally. The biceps has connections distally with the interosseous membrane and the fascia around the radius, as well as the bicipital aponeurosis into the flexors; and proximally with the pectoralis minor and supraspinatus via the short and long head respectively (see Figure 1) (Myers 2001, 2009).
3. The Effect Muscle Contraction Has on Local Ligaments. Contracting the biceps exerts a stabilizing influence on the ligaments of both the shoulder and the elbow. Our assumption that ligaments are arranged in parallel to the muscles is an incorrect one. Most ligaments are dynamically integrated with the muscles in series so that muscle contraction helps the ligaments stabilize the joint at all angles (Van der Wal 2009).
4. The Fact That Every Muscle Has to Be Supplied by Nerves and Blood Vessels. These “wires and tubes” arrive encased in a fascial sheath. If this sheath is twisted or impinged, or if it becomes too short through bad posture, muscle function is affected (Shacklock 2005)
SIDEBAR: Figure 1. Deep Front Arm Line
Anatomy Trains maps out fascial connections that link single muscles--like the isolated biceps shown in the sidebar--into functional wholes.
SIDEBAR: A Few Of The Many Forms Of Fascia
This article uses the generalized term fascia to denote the interconnected net of fibers and glue. A. Two muscles held together by “fuzz”—areolar tissue. B. The “strapping tape” nature of the fascia covering the quadriceps. C. (courtesy of Dr. J-C Guimbertau) The very delicate, gluey tissue that allows change and movement beneath our skin, between our muscles, and anywhere anatomical structures have to slide on each other.
SIDEBAR: Figure 2. Tensegrities
Once you understand the fascial system as a whole, rather than as a series of parts, the body presents itself as an animated version of a tensegrity (“tension-integrity”) (Fuller 1975). The struts are like the bones, pushing out, and the fascial net is like the strings or membranes, pulling in. The whole thing achieves a balance we call “shape.” It is now evident that our bodies work this way cellularly as well as on the macro level (Ingber 2008). Of course, our human tensegrity is animated by our nervous systems, and is very adjustable via the muscles, but exploring the properties of these structures in terms of our bodies is worthwhile.
Friday, January 13, 2012
How To Be More Interesting (In 10 Simple Steps)
1.Go exploring.
Explore ideas, places, and opinions. The inside of the echo chamber is where all the boring people hang out.
2. Share what you discover.
And be generous when you do. Not everybody went exploring with you. Let them live vicariously through your adventures.
3. Do something. Anything.
Dance. Talk. Build. Network. Play. Help. Create. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you’re doing it. Sitting around and complaining is not an acceptable form of ‘something,’ in case you were wondering.
4. Embrace your innate weirdness.
No one is normal. Everyone has quirks and insights unique to themselves. Don’t hide these things—they are what make you interesting.
5. Have a cause.
If you don’t give a damn about anything, no one will give a damn about you.
6. Minimize the swagger.
Egos get in the way of ideas. If your arrogance is more obvious than your expertise, you are someone other people avoid.
7. Give it a shot.
Try it out. Play around with a new idea. Do something strange. If you never leave your comfort zone, you won’t grow.
8. Hop off the bandwagon.
If everyone else is doing it, you’re already late to the party. Do your own thing, and others will hop onto the spiffy wagon you built yourself. Besides, it’s more fun to drive than it is to get pulled around.
9. Grow a pair.
Bravery is needed to have contrary opinions and to take unexpected paths. If you’re not courageous, you’re going to be hanging around the water cooler, talking about the guy who actually is.
10. Ignore the scolds.
Boring is safe, and you will be told to behave yourself. The scolds could have, would have, should have. But they didn’t. And they resent you for your adventures.
1.Go exploring.
Explore ideas, places, and opinions. The inside of the echo chamber is where all the boring people hang out.
2. Share what you discover.
And be generous when you do. Not everybody went exploring with you. Let them live vicariously through your adventures.
3. Do something. Anything.
Dance. Talk. Build. Network. Play. Help. Create. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you’re doing it. Sitting around and complaining is not an acceptable form of ‘something,’ in case you were wondering.
4. Embrace your innate weirdness.
No one is normal. Everyone has quirks and insights unique to themselves. Don’t hide these things—they are what make you interesting.
5. Have a cause.
If you don’t give a damn about anything, no one will give a damn about you.
6. Minimize the swagger.
Egos get in the way of ideas. If your arrogance is more obvious than your expertise, you are someone other people avoid.
7. Give it a shot.
Try it out. Play around with a new idea. Do something strange. If you never leave your comfort zone, you won’t grow.
8. Hop off the bandwagon.
If everyone else is doing it, you’re already late to the party. Do your own thing, and others will hop onto the spiffy wagon you built yourself. Besides, it’s more fun to drive than it is to get pulled around.
9. Grow a pair.
Bravery is needed to have contrary opinions and to take unexpected paths. If you’re not courageous, you’re going to be hanging around the water cooler, talking about the guy who actually is.
10. Ignore the scolds.
Boring is safe, and you will be told to behave yourself. The scolds could have, would have, should have. But they didn’t. And they resent you for your adventures.
Stillpower: The True Path to Flow, Clarity, and Responsiveness
Stillpower: The True Path to Flow, Clarity, and Responsiveness
by Jake Cook
Ted Williams is widely considered to be the greatest hitter to ever play baseball. As legend has it, Williams grasped his craft so thoroughly that he could tell the difference in a bat's weight down to a ½ ounce. But that doesn't mean he was forcing himself to slog through batting practice in pursuit of a greater goal. Says Williams, "It was always fun for me. I loved baseball so darn much. By the hours I practiced, you'd have to say that I was really working, but it was pretty much tireless fun."
Williams' approach wasn't about creating a grueling workout regime to achieve a particular goal. It was something simpler: he just enjoyed the ongoing process of mastering the nuances of hitting. And with this mindset, he was able to accomplish, over 19 seasons, what so many players before and since can only dream about.
While conventional wisdom would likely argue that Williams' work ethic was the distinguishing factor, sports guru and author Garret Kramer has a different theory about what separates great performers. Kramer believes that the classic "grind it out" mentality that we're taught at a young age actually prevents athletes from realizing their potential - and he's betting it's impacting your performance at work, too.
As a consultant to athletes ranging from high school amateurs to acclaimed Olympians, Kramer has counseled the best as they struggled and succeeded. Over 20 years, these insights led him to write the book Stillpower: The Inner Source of Athletic Excellence.
We sat down with Garret for a discussion about what athletics can teach us about getting in the zone, letting go of keeping score, and enjoying the journey.
From your experience, what makes for a great competitor?
I truly believe the finest competitors in every sport, or in life, play the game with what I call stillpower not with willpower. This understanding is key to success. What I mean is that despite the desire to win, these competitors remain open to all possible outcomes; win or lose, they know they'll be perfectly okay. What arises out of this is a level of consciousness that let's them excel. They see opportunities, follow their passions, and feel an ease in their day-to-day lives. They're simply following their instincts.
Is this the infamous "in the zone" state that we hear so much about?
Let's be clear about this. The zone is not about trying hard. You can't force it. The zone feels effortless because you're operating at a higher state of consciousness. Although athletes in the zone are incredibly locked in, their focus is never forced.
Same thing goes at work. You've never had to push hard to find a great insight. If you think on your best performances or purest experiences in life, were you trying to exert a force on it? Most of the athletes I work with tell me that when they find the zone they simply "let go" and just absorb themselves in the present moment. It's a selfless experience.
The zone is not about trying hard. You can't force it.
What do you tell them when they fall out of this state?
The answer will always be found in simplicity. The reason athletes (and all of us for that matter) struggle is that the quality of our thinking has declined. When that happens, we revert to the intellect for the answers and the intellect will always overcomplicate things.
Now, since we've been taught to grind it out, we force it. But, from this low state of mind, we're not capable of finding answers, so our quality of thought continues to drop down as we struggle. But what if we simply took our foot off the gas pedal? Our thoughts and mood would settle, and we would see the same challenges as opportunities. The insights start to flow again, so answers become obvious.
Once you grasp that fundamental concept you realize that willpower will not help you. You're not capable in the moment. The more we try to control our effort (or our thoughts about effort), the more we tend to get in our own way - and reduce our odds for success.
So I encourage my clients to step back and use a term I call "stillpower," which means don't push ahead but rather be still. The feelings that come will be of ease, clarity, and responsiveness.
It sounds crazy. I mean, do nothing? Yes. Do not make any decisions from a low mindset - just be still.
What if we simply took our foot off the gas pedal? Our thoughts and mood would settle, and we would see the same challenges as opportunities.
How do you help athletes handle negativity in their thinking?
Well, the worst thing we can do is try and fix the negative thought. Which, by the way, is a productive thing. It's just thought. There is no reality to it. Understand what really is happening. A thought produces a feeling which produces a mood. The feeling is a navigational instrument. It's telling us we're not seeing it clearly.
The worst thing is to wage war on this. It's normal to think negatively. That sign is there to guide you and if that was the right move to make you wouldn't be feeling that way. You would feel free. You would feel enthused. You would feel passion. You would feel determination.
So, a negative thought is a great thing. Why would you ever want to mess with your own mind's ability to direct you?
What about setting goals?
The worst thing an athlete can ever do is be focused. It shrinks the perceptual field and narrows options. Instead, we want awareness. Awareness expands possibilities. So, when someone sets a goal they've eliminated all sorts of possibilities for their growth. Their level of self-worth doesn't rise when they get to the goal either. Now, of course we all want to win but let's not intentionally limit our own awareness by narrowing in on a goal. It's totally unproductive for our lives.
That reminds of Steve Jobs' famous commencement address at Stanford, and how his life only made sense in the rearview mirror.
Yes. Such a great way to look at it. We don't notice true change until after it happens. True change isn't willful. It's so fluent and intuitive that we don't even realize it happened. That goes back to letting our feelings be our barometer and letting our passions and creativity guide us.
True change isn't willful. It's so fluent and intuitive that we don't even realize it happened.
Do you see any parallels with coaching and leadership?
Absolutely. To effectively engage someone, you must be operating from a higher level of consciousness than the other person at that moment. I often advise coaches that this understanding supersedes any other requirement if they are to provide enduring guidance, recommendations, or love.
The next time a coach or manager feels the urge to provide guidance or discipline, please understand that what comes out of their mouth is much less significant than the level of mental functioning from which the words are spoken.
The best coaches refuse to operate from ego or insecurity and instead are willing to consider that a player's perspective might indeed have some added value. Many fail to recognize that the most innovative teams (companies and societies as well) actually encourage individuals to express their views respectfully. Such teams have learned that personal ownership in the greater good will foster the free will that is paramount to success.
What message do you try and leave your athletes with?
No matter the circumstance, when fearful thoughts appear, remember: They are self-created and powerless on their own. Negativity (fear included) is just a sign to slow down; whatever you are thinking and feeling at that moment - whatever you see - it's not true. Keep your foot off the gas pedal and your state of mind will ascend on its own. Then, answers will become obvious - you will realize there is nothing "out there” to fear.
by Jake Cook
Ted Williams is widely considered to be the greatest hitter to ever play baseball. As legend has it, Williams grasped his craft so thoroughly that he could tell the difference in a bat's weight down to a ½ ounce. But that doesn't mean he was forcing himself to slog through batting practice in pursuit of a greater goal. Says Williams, "It was always fun for me. I loved baseball so darn much. By the hours I practiced, you'd have to say that I was really working, but it was pretty much tireless fun."
Williams' approach wasn't about creating a grueling workout regime to achieve a particular goal. It was something simpler: he just enjoyed the ongoing process of mastering the nuances of hitting. And with this mindset, he was able to accomplish, over 19 seasons, what so many players before and since can only dream about.
While conventional wisdom would likely argue that Williams' work ethic was the distinguishing factor, sports guru and author Garret Kramer has a different theory about what separates great performers. Kramer believes that the classic "grind it out" mentality that we're taught at a young age actually prevents athletes from realizing their potential - and he's betting it's impacting your performance at work, too.
As a consultant to athletes ranging from high school amateurs to acclaimed Olympians, Kramer has counseled the best as they struggled and succeeded. Over 20 years, these insights led him to write the book Stillpower: The Inner Source of Athletic Excellence.
We sat down with Garret for a discussion about what athletics can teach us about getting in the zone, letting go of keeping score, and enjoying the journey.
From your experience, what makes for a great competitor?
I truly believe the finest competitors in every sport, or in life, play the game with what I call stillpower not with willpower. This understanding is key to success. What I mean is that despite the desire to win, these competitors remain open to all possible outcomes; win or lose, they know they'll be perfectly okay. What arises out of this is a level of consciousness that let's them excel. They see opportunities, follow their passions, and feel an ease in their day-to-day lives. They're simply following their instincts.
Is this the infamous "in the zone" state that we hear so much about?
Let's be clear about this. The zone is not about trying hard. You can't force it. The zone feels effortless because you're operating at a higher state of consciousness. Although athletes in the zone are incredibly locked in, their focus is never forced.
Same thing goes at work. You've never had to push hard to find a great insight. If you think on your best performances or purest experiences in life, were you trying to exert a force on it? Most of the athletes I work with tell me that when they find the zone they simply "let go" and just absorb themselves in the present moment. It's a selfless experience.
The zone is not about trying hard. You can't force it.
What do you tell them when they fall out of this state?
The answer will always be found in simplicity. The reason athletes (and all of us for that matter) struggle is that the quality of our thinking has declined. When that happens, we revert to the intellect for the answers and the intellect will always overcomplicate things.
Now, since we've been taught to grind it out, we force it. But, from this low state of mind, we're not capable of finding answers, so our quality of thought continues to drop down as we struggle. But what if we simply took our foot off the gas pedal? Our thoughts and mood would settle, and we would see the same challenges as opportunities. The insights start to flow again, so answers become obvious.
Once you grasp that fundamental concept you realize that willpower will not help you. You're not capable in the moment. The more we try to control our effort (or our thoughts about effort), the more we tend to get in our own way - and reduce our odds for success.
So I encourage my clients to step back and use a term I call "stillpower," which means don't push ahead but rather be still. The feelings that come will be of ease, clarity, and responsiveness.
It sounds crazy. I mean, do nothing? Yes. Do not make any decisions from a low mindset - just be still.
What if we simply took our foot off the gas pedal? Our thoughts and mood would settle, and we would see the same challenges as opportunities.
How do you help athletes handle negativity in their thinking?
Well, the worst thing we can do is try and fix the negative thought. Which, by the way, is a productive thing. It's just thought. There is no reality to it. Understand what really is happening. A thought produces a feeling which produces a mood. The feeling is a navigational instrument. It's telling us we're not seeing it clearly.
The worst thing is to wage war on this. It's normal to think negatively. That sign is there to guide you and if that was the right move to make you wouldn't be feeling that way. You would feel free. You would feel enthused. You would feel passion. You would feel determination.
So, a negative thought is a great thing. Why would you ever want to mess with your own mind's ability to direct you?
What about setting goals?
The worst thing an athlete can ever do is be focused. It shrinks the perceptual field and narrows options. Instead, we want awareness. Awareness expands possibilities. So, when someone sets a goal they've eliminated all sorts of possibilities for their growth. Their level of self-worth doesn't rise when they get to the goal either. Now, of course we all want to win but let's not intentionally limit our own awareness by narrowing in on a goal. It's totally unproductive for our lives.
That reminds of Steve Jobs' famous commencement address at Stanford, and how his life only made sense in the rearview mirror.
Yes. Such a great way to look at it. We don't notice true change until after it happens. True change isn't willful. It's so fluent and intuitive that we don't even realize it happened. That goes back to letting our feelings be our barometer and letting our passions and creativity guide us.
True change isn't willful. It's so fluent and intuitive that we don't even realize it happened.
Do you see any parallels with coaching and leadership?
Absolutely. To effectively engage someone, you must be operating from a higher level of consciousness than the other person at that moment. I often advise coaches that this understanding supersedes any other requirement if they are to provide enduring guidance, recommendations, or love.
The next time a coach or manager feels the urge to provide guidance or discipline, please understand that what comes out of their mouth is much less significant than the level of mental functioning from which the words are spoken.
The best coaches refuse to operate from ego or insecurity and instead are willing to consider that a player's perspective might indeed have some added value. Many fail to recognize that the most innovative teams (companies and societies as well) actually encourage individuals to express their views respectfully. Such teams have learned that personal ownership in the greater good will foster the free will that is paramount to success.
What message do you try and leave your athletes with?
No matter the circumstance, when fearful thoughts appear, remember: They are self-created and powerless on their own. Negativity (fear included) is just a sign to slow down; whatever you are thinking and feeling at that moment - whatever you see - it's not true. Keep your foot off the gas pedal and your state of mind will ascend on its own. Then, answers will become obvious - you will realize there is nothing "out there” to fear.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
WOD 01-12-12
Run on lower deck and stairs 1 min x 30 seconds 8 rounds
Kettle-bell swings 2 rounds of 20 seconds with 40 lbs.
Bag work 5 min
Lateral and front raises
How To Eat Out Without Putting On The Pounds
How To Eat Out Without Putting On The Pounds
by ALLISON AUBREY
EnlargeiStockphoto.com
Eating slowly is one way to avoid overeating while dining out, a study found.
If your love of eating out is hampering your diet resolution, you're not alone.
We're a culture that loves to eat out. The typical American family spends 40 percent of its total food budget on foods prepared somewhere other than their own kitchen. (Some even prefer to eat out on Thanksgiving.)
But every time we choose to eat a snack or meal away from home, we add an average of 134 calories a day to our diets. Over the course of the year, these extra calories translate to a weight gain of about 2 pounds, according to an analysis from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service.
But there's hope, according to a study published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior. Researchers at the University of Texas, Austin found that women who enrolled in a six-week mindful eating program could learn to eat significantly less while dining out.
Gayle Timmerman, the study author, found that women were eating 297 fewer calories per day after completing the program. And they lost, on average, about 2.2 pounds.
"Slowing down was really key. You're paying attention to the texture [of each bite] and taste and smell," says Timmerman. "You're really kind of savoring it." Some women succeeded by eating less at home, and strategically saving the calories for dinner when they'd be dining out. Other women learned to eat less at each meal, whether home or in a restaurant.
The program used in the study was adapted from theMindfulness-Based Eating Awareness Training pioneered by clinical health psychologist Jean Kristeller. Mindfulness Training, or Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) has been found to be effective as a complementary treatment for a variety of chronic health conditions. In recent years, health providers and universities including Duke University Integrative Medicine have offered classes on mindful eating
If you're curious to know what mindful eating looks like in practice, here's one exercise, excerpted from a review written by Stephanie Vangsness of Brigham and Women's Hospital. She writes:
"Do this exercise with a friend. You will need one small slice of an apple for each person. One person reads the instructions listed below while the other person completes the exercise.
Take one bite of an apple slice and then close your eyes. Do not begin chewing yet.
Try not to pay attention to the ideas running through your mind, just focus on the apple.
Notice anything that comes to mind about taste, texture, temperature and sensation
going on in your mouth.
Begin chewing now. Chew slowly, just noticing what it feels like. It's normal that your
mind will want to wander off. If you notice you're paying more attention to your thinking
than to the chewing, just let go of the thought for the moment and come back to the
chewing. Notice each tiny movement of your jaw.
In these moments you may find yourself wanting to swallow the apple. See if you can
stay present and notice the subtle transition from chewing to swallowing.
As you prepare to swallow the apple, try to follow it moving toward the back of your
tongue and into your throat. Swallow the apple, following it until you can no longer feel
any sensation of the food remaining.
Take a deep breath and exhale."
by ALLISON AUBREY
EnlargeiStockphoto.com
Eating slowly is one way to avoid overeating while dining out, a study found.
If your love of eating out is hampering your diet resolution, you're not alone.
We're a culture that loves to eat out. The typical American family spends 40 percent of its total food budget on foods prepared somewhere other than their own kitchen. (Some even prefer to eat out on Thanksgiving.)
But every time we choose to eat a snack or meal away from home, we add an average of 134 calories a day to our diets. Over the course of the year, these extra calories translate to a weight gain of about 2 pounds, according to an analysis from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service.
But there's hope, according to a study published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior. Researchers at the University of Texas, Austin found that women who enrolled in a six-week mindful eating program could learn to eat significantly less while dining out.
Gayle Timmerman, the study author, found that women were eating 297 fewer calories per day after completing the program. And they lost, on average, about 2.2 pounds.
"Slowing down was really key. You're paying attention to the texture [of each bite] and taste and smell," says Timmerman. "You're really kind of savoring it." Some women succeeded by eating less at home, and strategically saving the calories for dinner when they'd be dining out. Other women learned to eat less at each meal, whether home or in a restaurant.
The program used in the study was adapted from theMindfulness-Based Eating Awareness Training pioneered by clinical health psychologist Jean Kristeller. Mindfulness Training, or Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) has been found to be effective as a complementary treatment for a variety of chronic health conditions. In recent years, health providers and universities including Duke University Integrative Medicine have offered classes on mindful eating
If you're curious to know what mindful eating looks like in practice, here's one exercise, excerpted from a review written by Stephanie Vangsness of Brigham and Women's Hospital. She writes:
"Do this exercise with a friend. You will need one small slice of an apple for each person. One person reads the instructions listed below while the other person completes the exercise.
Take one bite of an apple slice and then close your eyes. Do not begin chewing yet.
Try not to pay attention to the ideas running through your mind, just focus on the apple.
Notice anything that comes to mind about taste, texture, temperature and sensation
going on in your mouth.
Begin chewing now. Chew slowly, just noticing what it feels like. It's normal that your
mind will want to wander off. If you notice you're paying more attention to your thinking
than to the chewing, just let go of the thought for the moment and come back to the
chewing. Notice each tiny movement of your jaw.
In these moments you may find yourself wanting to swallow the apple. See if you can
stay present and notice the subtle transition from chewing to swallowing.
As you prepare to swallow the apple, try to follow it moving toward the back of your
tongue and into your throat. Swallow the apple, following it until you can no longer feel
any sensation of the food remaining.
Take a deep breath and exhale."
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
WOD 01-10-12
Body weight pistols
Deadlifts 5x5 with 220 lbs
Sissy squats with ball
Bulgarian split squats
Lateral and front raises
Foam roller work
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Tips from Olympians
Pillar 1: Set Clear Goals
Olympic gold? That's probably not in the cards. But a best-ever bench press, or completing a half marathon, or losing 20 pounds? Those could happen. Your first step, as it was for Usain Bolt, is to state your goal. Tell your wife, your training partner, your dentist—someone who will remember it and hold you accountable. And hold yourself accountable. Write your goal down and post it on your refrigerator. Going public with your goal creates the kind of contract that's hard (and embarrassing) to break.
The difference between a goal and a daydream is whether you take action to achieve it. So your second step is to give yourself a deadline and count backward from there to come up with incremental benchmarks. Or count forward from where you are now.
Third step: Create a program to achieve both the incremental goals and the grand prize. "My coach, Glen Mills, splits the season into cycles with specific goals," Bolt says. "Then he breaks down the cycles by the week and by the day, with each unit having its own goal. There is a purpose to everything we do. Each session we know what we want to accomplish."
It's an approach approved by Martin Rooney, P.T., C.S.C.S., creator of Training for Warriors. "I have every client write down goals. Your goals become your 'why,' and if that's powerful enough, you will figure out a 'how.' " Set monthly goals for body-fat percentage, strength, and performance, with weekly checkups to see how you're progressing.
Pillar 2: Upgrade Your Workout
You probably don't have a cadre of coaches armed with camcorders and calipers, stopwatches and syringes to analyze your every move. And luckily, you don't need that kind of prodding and poking to tell if your routine is working. Just take this quiz, formulated by MH's dream team: Craig Ballantyne, C.S.C.S., creator of Turbulence Training in Toronto; Joe Dowdell, C.S.C.S., founder of Peak Performance in New York City; and Nick Tumminello, a strength coach in Boca Raton, Florida.
Does your workout feel like forced labor?
NO, IT'S THE HIGHLIGHT OF MY DAY = 15
YES, BUT ISN'T THAT THE POINT? = 10
SOMETIMES = 5
You won't achieve your goals if you're averse to hard work. You don't have to love it, but you have to understand that it's a key to success. Not psyched to sweat? Make one of these adjustments.
CHANGE YOUR PROGRAM
Ask a buddy for his favorite workout. Or buy a book—we like MH's Huge in a Hurry—and follow the program for at least 3 months. You can also take a class to learn a new sport or to reach a higher level at something you enjoy.
CHANGE YOUR ENVIRONMENT
If you work out at home, join a gym. If you don't like your gym, join a different one. If you're indoors, try training outdoors.
COUNT YOUR WORKOUTS
Give yourself weekly, monthly, and quarterly goals for total number of workouts. Make the number ambitious and the totals nonnegotiable, with rewards for reaching them and penalties for falling short.
Does your warmup make you sweat?
YES = 10
A LITTLE = 5
ONLY IF THE A.C. IS DEAD =-5
Your warmup should take 10 to 20 minutes, progressing from slow, easy movements to drills that test your power, balance, coordination, and range of motion. You can start with a couple of minutes of foam rolling for your major muscles, focusing on areas where you're typically tight or frequently injured. Proceed to basic movements like body-weight squats, lunges, and pushups. Follow that with more ballistic movements, like forward and side-to-side hops and jumps, and then finish with power movements, like skips, shuttle runs, and box jumps.
Are your muscles sore the day after your workout?
ALMOST ALWAYS = 10
RARELY = 5
ONLY IF I DROP SOMETHING ON ONE OF THEM = 0
Technically, soreness just means you did something your muscles weren't prepared for. It's not directly linked to muscle growth or improved strength. But if you're pushing yourself, you're probably going to feel it the next day. A muscle might feel a little tender or maybe just a bit heavier than it did before the workout. If you're so sore it hurts to lie down in bed, you'll know you took it too far. And if the pain is in your joints rather than your muscles, you may have done something wrong.
How often do you change exercises, sets, and reps?
EVERY 3 TO 4 WEEKS = 15
WHEN IT STOPS WORKING = 10
ONCE EVERY PRESIDENTIAL ADMINISTRATION = 0
If you're a beginner, you can probably stick with the same workout for up to 8 weeks and continue to grow stronger while mastering the basic exercises. But once you're beyond that stage, you should change your workout every 3 to 4 weeks. That doesn't mean dropping one program and picking up another that may have been designed for a completely different purpose. You simply want to freshen up your routine by subbing in new exercises, changing the order, increasing or decreasing the total weight lifted, raising or lowering reps, or some combination of those four.
Are you nearing your goals?
YES = 20
NO = 0
GOALS? = *5
You need to identify benchmarks that prove you're making progress. If your goal is weight loss, you need to know two things. First, are you losing weight? The answer is easy if you weigh yourself at the same time every day. (First thing in the morning is best.) You also need to know you're losing fat and not muscle. Measure your waist at least once a week, and the circumference of your upper arms, thighs, and calves once a month. If your waist shrinks but your arms and legs stay the same, you're losing the right kind of weight.
How long can you hold a plank?
UNTIL TOMORROW = 20
30 TO 60 SECONDS = 10
LESS THAN 30 SECONDS = 0
Stability of your core muscles—a marker of their endurance, strength, and coordination—is crucial for maintaining good posture, training effectively, and remaining pain-free.
Score Your workout:
60+ = Rocks!
30–59 = Needs a tuneup!
<30 = Is junk!
Pillar 3: Eat to Win
At the Beijing Olympics, Ryan Lochte picked up a stomach bug. So to play it safe, he ate every subsequent meal at McDonald's. By the end of the Games, he'd gained 13 pounds of fat, despite burning 6,000-plus calories a day. If you ever needed proof that you can't outtrain a bad diet, this is it. "I watch what I eat much more closely now," Lochte says. "If my abs start to disappear, I tweak my diet."
Research shows that many of us overestimate the number of calories we burn during exercise. For instance, in a 2010 University of Ottawa study, people who walked briskly for 30 to 45 minutes thought they'd burned at least 825 calories—three to four times the actual amount. They subsequently overindulged by 300 to 350 calories.
The point of exercise, of course, is to end up with a net energy deficit. That is, you want to burn more calories over each 24-hour period than you consume. But a long list of hormones and metabolic processes make that surprisingly difficult to pull off. Hunger, to our everlasting frustration, is an unreliable guide to how much energy the human body really needs.
If weight control is an issue, use a three-step process to figure out how much you're eating, how much you should be eating, and which times and circumstances are the most likely for imbalances to occur.
Step 1 is easy to describe, but difficult to pull off: Keep track of everything you eat—seriously, every bite—for at least 3 days. To figure out total calories and tally your daily average, use an app (try Lose It!) or an online calculator (try fitday.com). This drill works only if it includes typical workout and nonworkout days.
Step 2 is to estimate the calories you actually need. MH nutrition advisor Alan Aragon recommends this formula.
Don't work out? Multiply your body weight by 10. If you weigh 200 pounds, that's 2,000 calories a day.
Work out once or twice a week? Multiply your weight by 12. That's 2,400 calories for a 200-pound person.
Work out three or four times a week? Multiply by 14. Now we're up to 2,800 calories.
Work out five or more times a week? Multiply by 16, bringing the daily feast up to 3,200 calories.
These are just estimates, Aragon says. Human metabolism is notoriously resistant to simple math. But we need to start somewhere, and Aragon's formula allows you to focus on how much you eat and burn in an average 24-hour day. This determines whether you end up with more body fat or less.
That brings us to Step 3: Figure out when, where, and how you can tweak your daily calories to create a bigger deficit.
The timing of your meals matters, but not for the reason you think. "Your nutrient timing should be personalized to whatever maximizes your training or doesn't hinder it," Aragon says. Training on an empty stomach might work for your buddy, but if hunger pangs derail your workout, you're better off with a light meal before hitting the gym.
That applies to postworkout nutrition as well. Aragon says that while short-term studies find that protein and carbs increase markers of muscle protein production, recent long-term research suggests that making sure you meet your daily needs for protein, fat, and carbs will benefit you more than a postworkout meal or protein shake. Of course, you can also do both!
Pillar 4: Target Weaknesses
"If you work only on what you're good at, you may get good," says Rooney. "But if you work on what you're not good at and make that good too, you can become great." This strategy improves performance and helps prevent injuries.
Exhibit A: Bolt. "I started working with Coach Mills in 2004, when I failed to qualify for the finals in the 200 meter at the Athens Olympics," Bolt says. "Glen rebuilt me from the ground up." Back then, Mills saw in Bolt a gifted but flawed athlete. Bolt's height, the attribute that now seems his greatest asset, was slowing him down. He was imbalanced, Mills observed, running behind his center of gravity. He also suffered frequent hamstring injuries. Mills realized that both problems could be addressed by building Bolt's strength, which helped him increase his stride length and maintain his maximum velocity. Longer strides would help him use his height advantage but only if his feet could hit and leave the ground as fast as his competitors'. The combination has made him unbeatable: At the 2009 world championships in Berlin, Bolt covered 100 meters in 41 strides, compared with 45 for his rivals—and set a new world record.
Exhibit B: Hardee. He excelled at sprinting and jumping in college, but struggled in the three throwing events of the decathlon: javelin, discus, and shot. Working with his coaches, he recalibrated his training. "It's a combo of core work and explosive movement-specific drills," Hardee says. "Plus, I was sharpening my technique for each throw and watching video." Two world championships later, it's safe to say it worked.
So how will you upgrade your own training? Rooney suggests making a list of your three weakest areas. These could be exercises, like deadlifts or pullups for a lifter, or sport-specific skills, like climbing for a cyclist. Or they could be overall fitness qualities like flexibility, or specific injury-prone muscles or joints. Seek guidance from a trainer to learn how to fix your weak areas, and track your progress with tests every 4 weeks.
If you find that a weak core is on your list of problems to fix, here's a solution, courtesy of Ballantyne: It's called 5-Minute Abs.
Do these exercises as a circuit; when you can complete three, your core is no longer a weakness.
1 Swiss-ball plank: (with your forearms on the ball) 30 seconds
2 Swiss-ball jackknife: (hands on the floor, shins on the ball; use your lower legs to roll the ball toward your torso while keeping your back flat) 20 reps
3 Swiss-ball rollout: (with forearms on the ball and feet on the floor, roll the ball forward as far as you can while keeping your body in a straight line) 12 reps
4 Side plank: 40 seconds a side
Pillar 5: Cross Train
Most Sunday afternoons in the off-season you'll find Lochte flipping tires and dragging a 450-pound chain with Matt DeLancey, the strength and conditioning coach for Olympic sports at the University of Florida. It might seem like an odd approach, but DeLancey says the strongman-inspired regimen gave Lochte the power to set a world record in the 200-meter individual medley in 2011. Our elites also mix it up: For instance, Hardee paddleboards, which improves both balance and core endurance.
Your strategies: Add an activity that mixes exercise with social contact so you're more motivated, says David Jack, performance coach and director for Teamworks Fitness in Acton, Massachusetts. He recommends hoops or flag football. "You'll boost your cardio, hone coordination, and make friends."
Sign up for a charity walk, run, or ride; it'll improve your fitness and contribute to a worthy cause.
Take a week off every 12 weeks and do yoga. You'll tune up your balance, flexibility, and core.
Pillar 6: Make Your Mojo
Before his final pole vault attempt in the 2008 Olympics, Hardee felt emotionally empty. He was in fourth place, with a chance to medal. He just needed to clear the bar. He didn't, leaving himself with a goose egg. He vowed never to be caught emotionally unprepared again. To elevate his mood, he listens to the same mix of songs by the Strokes while he's waiting to compete. He also visualizes each event.
Mental prep can help you, too. "Think of imagery as a skill, and practice every day for several minutes," says Robert S. Weinberg, Ph.D., a professor of kinesiology at Miami University in Ohio. "Focus on sounds, smell, and feel. The more senses, the better." Researchers believe imagery trains your muscle memory. When done before a specific movement, it prepares your body with small but beneficial neuromuscular adjustments. So there you have it: A mind-body plan to put yourself on top of the podium. Now, isn't that a great image?
Olympic gold? That's probably not in the cards. But a best-ever bench press, or completing a half marathon, or losing 20 pounds? Those could happen. Your first step, as it was for Usain Bolt, is to state your goal. Tell your wife, your training partner, your dentist—someone who will remember it and hold you accountable. And hold yourself accountable. Write your goal down and post it on your refrigerator. Going public with your goal creates the kind of contract that's hard (and embarrassing) to break.
The difference between a goal and a daydream is whether you take action to achieve it. So your second step is to give yourself a deadline and count backward from there to come up with incremental benchmarks. Or count forward from where you are now.
Third step: Create a program to achieve both the incremental goals and the grand prize. "My coach, Glen Mills, splits the season into cycles with specific goals," Bolt says. "Then he breaks down the cycles by the week and by the day, with each unit having its own goal. There is a purpose to everything we do. Each session we know what we want to accomplish."
It's an approach approved by Martin Rooney, P.T., C.S.C.S., creator of Training for Warriors. "I have every client write down goals. Your goals become your 'why,' and if that's powerful enough, you will figure out a 'how.' " Set monthly goals for body-fat percentage, strength, and performance, with weekly checkups to see how you're progressing.
Pillar 2: Upgrade Your Workout
You probably don't have a cadre of coaches armed with camcorders and calipers, stopwatches and syringes to analyze your every move. And luckily, you don't need that kind of prodding and poking to tell if your routine is working. Just take this quiz, formulated by MH's dream team: Craig Ballantyne, C.S.C.S., creator of Turbulence Training in Toronto; Joe Dowdell, C.S.C.S., founder of Peak Performance in New York City; and Nick Tumminello, a strength coach in Boca Raton, Florida.
Does your workout feel like forced labor?
NO, IT'S THE HIGHLIGHT OF MY DAY = 15
YES, BUT ISN'T THAT THE POINT? = 10
SOMETIMES = 5
You won't achieve your goals if you're averse to hard work. You don't have to love it, but you have to understand that it's a key to success. Not psyched to sweat? Make one of these adjustments.
CHANGE YOUR PROGRAM
Ask a buddy for his favorite workout. Or buy a book—we like MH's Huge in a Hurry—and follow the program for at least 3 months. You can also take a class to learn a new sport or to reach a higher level at something you enjoy.
CHANGE YOUR ENVIRONMENT
If you work out at home, join a gym. If you don't like your gym, join a different one. If you're indoors, try training outdoors.
COUNT YOUR WORKOUTS
Give yourself weekly, monthly, and quarterly goals for total number of workouts. Make the number ambitious and the totals nonnegotiable, with rewards for reaching them and penalties for falling short.
Does your warmup make you sweat?
YES = 10
A LITTLE = 5
ONLY IF THE A.C. IS DEAD =-5
Your warmup should take 10 to 20 minutes, progressing from slow, easy movements to drills that test your power, balance, coordination, and range of motion. You can start with a couple of minutes of foam rolling for your major muscles, focusing on areas where you're typically tight or frequently injured. Proceed to basic movements like body-weight squats, lunges, and pushups. Follow that with more ballistic movements, like forward and side-to-side hops and jumps, and then finish with power movements, like skips, shuttle runs, and box jumps.
Are your muscles sore the day after your workout?
ALMOST ALWAYS = 10
RARELY = 5
ONLY IF I DROP SOMETHING ON ONE OF THEM = 0
Technically, soreness just means you did something your muscles weren't prepared for. It's not directly linked to muscle growth or improved strength. But if you're pushing yourself, you're probably going to feel it the next day. A muscle might feel a little tender or maybe just a bit heavier than it did before the workout. If you're so sore it hurts to lie down in bed, you'll know you took it too far. And if the pain is in your joints rather than your muscles, you may have done something wrong.
How often do you change exercises, sets, and reps?
EVERY 3 TO 4 WEEKS = 15
WHEN IT STOPS WORKING = 10
ONCE EVERY PRESIDENTIAL ADMINISTRATION = 0
If you're a beginner, you can probably stick with the same workout for up to 8 weeks and continue to grow stronger while mastering the basic exercises. But once you're beyond that stage, you should change your workout every 3 to 4 weeks. That doesn't mean dropping one program and picking up another that may have been designed for a completely different purpose. You simply want to freshen up your routine by subbing in new exercises, changing the order, increasing or decreasing the total weight lifted, raising or lowering reps, or some combination of those four.
Are you nearing your goals?
YES = 20
NO = 0
GOALS? = *5
You need to identify benchmarks that prove you're making progress. If your goal is weight loss, you need to know two things. First, are you losing weight? The answer is easy if you weigh yourself at the same time every day. (First thing in the morning is best.) You also need to know you're losing fat and not muscle. Measure your waist at least once a week, and the circumference of your upper arms, thighs, and calves once a month. If your waist shrinks but your arms and legs stay the same, you're losing the right kind of weight.
How long can you hold a plank?
UNTIL TOMORROW = 20
30 TO 60 SECONDS = 10
LESS THAN 30 SECONDS = 0
Stability of your core muscles—a marker of their endurance, strength, and coordination—is crucial for maintaining good posture, training effectively, and remaining pain-free.
Score Your workout:
60+ = Rocks!
30–59 = Needs a tuneup!
<30 = Is junk!
Pillar 3: Eat to Win
At the Beijing Olympics, Ryan Lochte picked up a stomach bug. So to play it safe, he ate every subsequent meal at McDonald's. By the end of the Games, he'd gained 13 pounds of fat, despite burning 6,000-plus calories a day. If you ever needed proof that you can't outtrain a bad diet, this is it. "I watch what I eat much more closely now," Lochte says. "If my abs start to disappear, I tweak my diet."
Research shows that many of us overestimate the number of calories we burn during exercise. For instance, in a 2010 University of Ottawa study, people who walked briskly for 30 to 45 minutes thought they'd burned at least 825 calories—three to four times the actual amount. They subsequently overindulged by 300 to 350 calories.
The point of exercise, of course, is to end up with a net energy deficit. That is, you want to burn more calories over each 24-hour period than you consume. But a long list of hormones and metabolic processes make that surprisingly difficult to pull off. Hunger, to our everlasting frustration, is an unreliable guide to how much energy the human body really needs.
If weight control is an issue, use a three-step process to figure out how much you're eating, how much you should be eating, and which times and circumstances are the most likely for imbalances to occur.
Step 1 is easy to describe, but difficult to pull off: Keep track of everything you eat—seriously, every bite—for at least 3 days. To figure out total calories and tally your daily average, use an app (try Lose It!) or an online calculator (try fitday.com). This drill works only if it includes typical workout and nonworkout days.
Step 2 is to estimate the calories you actually need. MH nutrition advisor Alan Aragon recommends this formula.
Don't work out? Multiply your body weight by 10. If you weigh 200 pounds, that's 2,000 calories a day.
Work out once or twice a week? Multiply your weight by 12. That's 2,400 calories for a 200-pound person.
Work out three or four times a week? Multiply by 14. Now we're up to 2,800 calories.
Work out five or more times a week? Multiply by 16, bringing the daily feast up to 3,200 calories.
These are just estimates, Aragon says. Human metabolism is notoriously resistant to simple math. But we need to start somewhere, and Aragon's formula allows you to focus on how much you eat and burn in an average 24-hour day. This determines whether you end up with more body fat or less.
That brings us to Step 3: Figure out when, where, and how you can tweak your daily calories to create a bigger deficit.
The timing of your meals matters, but not for the reason you think. "Your nutrient timing should be personalized to whatever maximizes your training or doesn't hinder it," Aragon says. Training on an empty stomach might work for your buddy, but if hunger pangs derail your workout, you're better off with a light meal before hitting the gym.
That applies to postworkout nutrition as well. Aragon says that while short-term studies find that protein and carbs increase markers of muscle protein production, recent long-term research suggests that making sure you meet your daily needs for protein, fat, and carbs will benefit you more than a postworkout meal or protein shake. Of course, you can also do both!
Pillar 4: Target Weaknesses
"If you work only on what you're good at, you may get good," says Rooney. "But if you work on what you're not good at and make that good too, you can become great." This strategy improves performance and helps prevent injuries.
Exhibit A: Bolt. "I started working with Coach Mills in 2004, when I failed to qualify for the finals in the 200 meter at the Athens Olympics," Bolt says. "Glen rebuilt me from the ground up." Back then, Mills saw in Bolt a gifted but flawed athlete. Bolt's height, the attribute that now seems his greatest asset, was slowing him down. He was imbalanced, Mills observed, running behind his center of gravity. He also suffered frequent hamstring injuries. Mills realized that both problems could be addressed by building Bolt's strength, which helped him increase his stride length and maintain his maximum velocity. Longer strides would help him use his height advantage but only if his feet could hit and leave the ground as fast as his competitors'. The combination has made him unbeatable: At the 2009 world championships in Berlin, Bolt covered 100 meters in 41 strides, compared with 45 for his rivals—and set a new world record.
Exhibit B: Hardee. He excelled at sprinting and jumping in college, but struggled in the three throwing events of the decathlon: javelin, discus, and shot. Working with his coaches, he recalibrated his training. "It's a combo of core work and explosive movement-specific drills," Hardee says. "Plus, I was sharpening my technique for each throw and watching video." Two world championships later, it's safe to say it worked.
So how will you upgrade your own training? Rooney suggests making a list of your three weakest areas. These could be exercises, like deadlifts or pullups for a lifter, or sport-specific skills, like climbing for a cyclist. Or they could be overall fitness qualities like flexibility, or specific injury-prone muscles or joints. Seek guidance from a trainer to learn how to fix your weak areas, and track your progress with tests every 4 weeks.
If you find that a weak core is on your list of problems to fix, here's a solution, courtesy of Ballantyne: It's called 5-Minute Abs.
Do these exercises as a circuit; when you can complete three, your core is no longer a weakness.
1 Swiss-ball plank: (with your forearms on the ball) 30 seconds
2 Swiss-ball jackknife: (hands on the floor, shins on the ball; use your lower legs to roll the ball toward your torso while keeping your back flat) 20 reps
3 Swiss-ball rollout: (with forearms on the ball and feet on the floor, roll the ball forward as far as you can while keeping your body in a straight line) 12 reps
4 Side plank: 40 seconds a side
Pillar 5: Cross Train
Most Sunday afternoons in the off-season you'll find Lochte flipping tires and dragging a 450-pound chain with Matt DeLancey, the strength and conditioning coach for Olympic sports at the University of Florida. It might seem like an odd approach, but DeLancey says the strongman-inspired regimen gave Lochte the power to set a world record in the 200-meter individual medley in 2011. Our elites also mix it up: For instance, Hardee paddleboards, which improves both balance and core endurance.
Your strategies: Add an activity that mixes exercise with social contact so you're more motivated, says David Jack, performance coach and director for Teamworks Fitness in Acton, Massachusetts. He recommends hoops or flag football. "You'll boost your cardio, hone coordination, and make friends."
Sign up for a charity walk, run, or ride; it'll improve your fitness and contribute to a worthy cause.
Take a week off every 12 weeks and do yoga. You'll tune up your balance, flexibility, and core.
Pillar 6: Make Your Mojo
Before his final pole vault attempt in the 2008 Olympics, Hardee felt emotionally empty. He was in fourth place, with a chance to medal. He just needed to clear the bar. He didn't, leaving himself with a goose egg. He vowed never to be caught emotionally unprepared again. To elevate his mood, he listens to the same mix of songs by the Strokes while he's waiting to compete. He also visualizes each event.
Mental prep can help you, too. "Think of imagery as a skill, and practice every day for several minutes," says Robert S. Weinberg, Ph.D., a professor of kinesiology at Miami University in Ohio. "Focus on sounds, smell, and feel. The more senses, the better." Researchers believe imagery trains your muscle memory. When done before a specific movement, it prepares your body with small but beneficial neuromuscular adjustments. So there you have it: A mind-body plan to put yourself on top of the podium. Now, isn't that a great image?
Monday, January 9, 2012
WOD 01-09-12
Ring push ups and fly's (incline too)
Dumbbell floor press
Lateral and front raises
Cable triceps press downs
Foam roller work
WOD 01-08-12
Run on lower deck and stairs 1 min x 30 seconds 9 rounds
Bag work 10 min
Max HR - 160 BPM
Rested from lifting.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Friday, January 6, 2012
WOD 01-06-12
Run on lower deck and stairs 1 min x 30 seconds 8 rounds
Bag work 10 min
Foam roller work
Planks and core work
Front and lateral raises
Gym Boss is pissing me off.
http://www.gymboss.com/
WOD 01-05-12
Ring push ups and fly's (incline too)
Dumbbell floor press
Side lateral raises
Cable triceps press downs
Side bends with cable
Foam roller work
Thursday, January 5, 2012
More on Methyl Donors
METHYL DONORS
DEFINITIONS AND CLINICAL INDICATIONS OF NEED
by Ronald L. Myers, CNC
Do you want to slow the aging process…
Would you like to increase your mental capabilities…
Or prevent CAD…
Not interested in having cancer…
THEN LET’S TAKE THE MYSTERY OUT OF METHYL DONORS
By definition, a methyl donor is a substance capable of donating a methyl group (CH3), such as
methionine, betaine (bay‘ ta ine) or trimethylglycine ( according to the MERCK INDEX, these
are different names for the same substance), dimethylglycine or choline. Essential to the
transmethylation process are the coenzymatic forms of the vitamins folic acid (FH4) and B12.
Methyl donors are involved in a biochemical process known as methylation, the transfer of a
methyl group from a donor molecule (see above) to an acceptor molecule such as homocysteine.
Because of this, much research has been directed at the use of methyl donors to lower
homocysteine levels and prevent coronary artery disease (CAD). Thanks to the work of
McCully and Stampfer, elevated homocysteine is now recognized as a major risk factor for
CAD. But this is just the tip of the iceberg, enhancing the methylation process can not only
prevent an untimely death from a heart attack or stroke, it can contribute to our increased
creativity, productivity and overall enjoyment of a longer life. As the saying goes, not just more
years of life, but more life in those years!
Increased homocysteine has become an easily definable marker of inhibited or poor methylation.
RISK FACTORS FOR INCREASED HOMOCYSTEINE AND POOR METHYLATION
Persons who exercise less than three times a week?
Homocysteine is reduced during exercise. Why it is reduced during exercise is not known
A significant part of the diet is from a bag, box or can or fast food.
Processed foods contain a fraction of the critical vitamins, B-6, B-12, and folic acid. These
nutrients are required to lower homocysteine and prevent cardiovascular disease. eBytes Issue 14
Ronald L. Myers, CNC Copyright © 2004 All Rights Reserved
2
Family history of death from vascular disease.
This could be due to a family genetic weakness in the body's ability to lower homocysteine and
premature vascular disease. If parents, grandparents, aunts, or uncles suffered from strokes, heart
attack, angina, or any vascular disease, an increased risk for vascular disease exists even if all
standard risk factors are normal. The good news is, researchers have discovered that betaine
(TMG), combined with B-6, B12, and folic acid, can prevent much of the damage created by this
defect. (The original work by McCully was based on children with vascular disease. Increased
homocysteine [due to a genetic defect], not cholesterol, was shown to be the cause. McCully,
K.S. Vascular pathology of homocysteinemia: implications for the pathogenesis of
arteriosclerosis. American Journal of Pathology 56:111-128, 1969.)
High protein, few fruits and vegetables in diet
Research has shown that a high percentage of Americans have never heard the government’s
recommendation to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables each day.
Family history of depression, neurological disease or liver problems.
Person smokes or uses birth control pills.
Both smoking and birth controls pills elevate homocysteine levels and therefore inhibit
methylation.
For patients at risk, the good news is, through nutrition, homocysteine can be reduced and
methylation can be increased. Even people with previously diagnosed vascular disease have
survived dependent on their homocysteine levels.
METHYLATION--BEYOND HOMOCYSTEINE
Methylation is a process necessary for many biological functions aside from homocysteine
regulation. Methylation is involved in maintaining DNA integrity, processing fats, improving
neurological function, detoxifying the liver, and is connected to nearly every biochemical
process in the body. Several scientific peer-reviewed articles have demonstrated that this
methylation process degrades with age, and is associated with a large variety of age-related
diseases. Enhancing the methylation process with nutrition holds great promise for the future
with regard to reduction in age-related disease and the overall increased longevity of man.
Research is showing that the most effective method of enhancing methylation is through the use
of food supplements. Diet has not been shown to be an adequate means of providing the
nutrients required for methylation in the amounts needed. (van den Berg, M., et al. Combined
vitamin B6 plus folic acid therapy in young patients with arteriosclerosis and
hyperhomocysteinemia. Journal of Vascular Surgery, 20(6):933-40, 1994. Graham, I.M. et al.
Plasma homocysteine as a risk factor for vascular disease. Journal of the American Medical
Association, 277(22):1775-1781, 1997.) eBytes Issue 14
Ronald L. Myers, CNC Copyright © 2004 All Rights Reserved
3
SLOWING THE AGING PROCESS
There is strong evidence for the theory that impaired methylation is one of the key mechanisms
of aging. Just as long-lived animals have strong antioxidant defenses, they maintain methylation
much better than short-lived animals. If we were to envision a curve showing the inexorable rise
in homocysteine with aging it would depict the peripheral blood vessels clogging up first, then
we seem doomed to end up with homocysteine-related damage to the nervous system, bone
density, cataracts, gray hair--the very changes that define aging. The development of cataracts is
related to rising levels of homocysteine, and inadequate methylation. Graying of the hair has
been related to inhibition of the methylation process. As we age, is it possible to reduce
homocysteine levels and enhance methylation? The answer is YES! Elderly people were
supplemented with nutrients involved in methylation (folate, B12, B6, TMG), at the end of the
study they had homocysteine levels lower than usually seen in healthy 35 year olds. (Cooney,
C.A., Growth, Development and Aging, 57(4):261-73, 1993.) Since homocysteine levels are
currently being used as a marker of the efficacy of the methylation process the results of this
study seem significant.
METHYL DONORS AND THE BRAIN
The brain is insatiable in its demand for methyl donors. For the production of neurotransmitters
and maintaining the myelin sheath around nerve fibers, these nutrients are essential. Nutrients
involved in the methylation process have been found to be effective anti-depressants as well.
Interestingly enough, lack of response to Prozac goes hand in hand with reduced folate levels.
Alzheimer's disease has been associated with high homocysteine and low levels of folate and
B12. Improving methylation is probably one crucial way to protect ourselves against devastating
brain diseases and give us years of continued creativity and productivity. Multiple sclerosis
(MS) has symptoms that resemble those of folate or B12 deficiency. Since methylation is
essential for the formation of the myelin sheath that insulates nerve fibers, a combination of
methyl supplements and anti-inflammatory fatty acids could be used for the treatment of this
disease. (Cooney, C.A.)
ENHANCE CARDIOVASCULAR HEALTH
Research has shown that even moderately high levels of plasma homocysteine are associated
with subsequent risk of MI independent of other coronary risk factors. Because high levels can
be easily treated with vitamin supplements, homocysteine may be an independent modifiable risk
factor. Elevated homocysteine levels can often be normalized with modest doses of folate (1 - 5
mg/d). For cases that are resistant to this therapy, the addition betaine (TMG) is often effective.
These supplements at recommended doses have no side effects under most circumstances.
(Stampfer, Meir J., et al. A prospective study of plasma homocysteine and risk of myocardial
infarction in US physicians. Journal of the American Medical Association, 268(7):877-81,
1992.) This is significant because some researchers estimate that as much as 90% of CAD may
be due to increased homocysteine! A valid question at this point might be what is considered
increased when it comes to homocysteine. There seems to be some agreement that levels of 4 -
6 mmol are probably safe. This range may be lower than the "normal" range reported by your
laboratory. It is probably better to be safe than normal with a one out of three death rate from
CAD.
DEFINITIONS AND CLINICAL INDICATIONS OF NEED
by Ronald L. Myers, CNC
Do you want to slow the aging process…
Would you like to increase your mental capabilities…
Or prevent CAD…
Not interested in having cancer…
THEN LET’S TAKE THE MYSTERY OUT OF METHYL DONORS
By definition, a methyl donor is a substance capable of donating a methyl group (CH3), such as
methionine, betaine (bay‘ ta ine) or trimethylglycine ( according to the MERCK INDEX, these
are different names for the same substance), dimethylglycine or choline. Essential to the
transmethylation process are the coenzymatic forms of the vitamins folic acid (FH4) and B12.
Methyl donors are involved in a biochemical process known as methylation, the transfer of a
methyl group from a donor molecule (see above) to an acceptor molecule such as homocysteine.
Because of this, much research has been directed at the use of methyl donors to lower
homocysteine levels and prevent coronary artery disease (CAD). Thanks to the work of
McCully and Stampfer, elevated homocysteine is now recognized as a major risk factor for
CAD. But this is just the tip of the iceberg, enhancing the methylation process can not only
prevent an untimely death from a heart attack or stroke, it can contribute to our increased
creativity, productivity and overall enjoyment of a longer life. As the saying goes, not just more
years of life, but more life in those years!
Increased homocysteine has become an easily definable marker of inhibited or poor methylation.
RISK FACTORS FOR INCREASED HOMOCYSTEINE AND POOR METHYLATION
Persons who exercise less than three times a week?
Homocysteine is reduced during exercise. Why it is reduced during exercise is not known
A significant part of the diet is from a bag, box or can or fast food.
Processed foods contain a fraction of the critical vitamins, B-6, B-12, and folic acid. These
nutrients are required to lower homocysteine and prevent cardiovascular disease. eBytes Issue 14
Ronald L. Myers, CNC Copyright © 2004 All Rights Reserved
2
Family history of death from vascular disease.
This could be due to a family genetic weakness in the body's ability to lower homocysteine and
premature vascular disease. If parents, grandparents, aunts, or uncles suffered from strokes, heart
attack, angina, or any vascular disease, an increased risk for vascular disease exists even if all
standard risk factors are normal. The good news is, researchers have discovered that betaine
(TMG), combined with B-6, B12, and folic acid, can prevent much of the damage created by this
defect. (The original work by McCully was based on children with vascular disease. Increased
homocysteine [due to a genetic defect], not cholesterol, was shown to be the cause. McCully,
K.S. Vascular pathology of homocysteinemia: implications for the pathogenesis of
arteriosclerosis. American Journal of Pathology 56:111-128, 1969.)
High protein, few fruits and vegetables in diet
Research has shown that a high percentage of Americans have never heard the government’s
recommendation to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables each day.
Family history of depression, neurological disease or liver problems.
Person smokes or uses birth control pills.
Both smoking and birth controls pills elevate homocysteine levels and therefore inhibit
methylation.
For patients at risk, the good news is, through nutrition, homocysteine can be reduced and
methylation can be increased. Even people with previously diagnosed vascular disease have
survived dependent on their homocysteine levels.
METHYLATION--BEYOND HOMOCYSTEINE
Methylation is a process necessary for many biological functions aside from homocysteine
regulation. Methylation is involved in maintaining DNA integrity, processing fats, improving
neurological function, detoxifying the liver, and is connected to nearly every biochemical
process in the body. Several scientific peer-reviewed articles have demonstrated that this
methylation process degrades with age, and is associated with a large variety of age-related
diseases. Enhancing the methylation process with nutrition holds great promise for the future
with regard to reduction in age-related disease and the overall increased longevity of man.
Research is showing that the most effective method of enhancing methylation is through the use
of food supplements. Diet has not been shown to be an adequate means of providing the
nutrients required for methylation in the amounts needed. (van den Berg, M., et al. Combined
vitamin B6 plus folic acid therapy in young patients with arteriosclerosis and
hyperhomocysteinemia. Journal of Vascular Surgery, 20(6):933-40, 1994. Graham, I.M. et al.
Plasma homocysteine as a risk factor for vascular disease. Journal of the American Medical
Association, 277(22):1775-1781, 1997.) eBytes Issue 14
Ronald L. Myers, CNC Copyright © 2004 All Rights Reserved
3
SLOWING THE AGING PROCESS
There is strong evidence for the theory that impaired methylation is one of the key mechanisms
of aging. Just as long-lived animals have strong antioxidant defenses, they maintain methylation
much better than short-lived animals. If we were to envision a curve showing the inexorable rise
in homocysteine with aging it would depict the peripheral blood vessels clogging up first, then
we seem doomed to end up with homocysteine-related damage to the nervous system, bone
density, cataracts, gray hair--the very changes that define aging. The development of cataracts is
related to rising levels of homocysteine, and inadequate methylation. Graying of the hair has
been related to inhibition of the methylation process. As we age, is it possible to reduce
homocysteine levels and enhance methylation? The answer is YES! Elderly people were
supplemented with nutrients involved in methylation (folate, B12, B6, TMG), at the end of the
study they had homocysteine levels lower than usually seen in healthy 35 year olds. (Cooney,
C.A., Growth, Development and Aging, 57(4):261-73, 1993.) Since homocysteine levels are
currently being used as a marker of the efficacy of the methylation process the results of this
study seem significant.
METHYL DONORS AND THE BRAIN
The brain is insatiable in its demand for methyl donors. For the production of neurotransmitters
and maintaining the myelin sheath around nerve fibers, these nutrients are essential. Nutrients
involved in the methylation process have been found to be effective anti-depressants as well.
Interestingly enough, lack of response to Prozac goes hand in hand with reduced folate levels.
Alzheimer's disease has been associated with high homocysteine and low levels of folate and
B12. Improving methylation is probably one crucial way to protect ourselves against devastating
brain diseases and give us years of continued creativity and productivity. Multiple sclerosis
(MS) has symptoms that resemble those of folate or B12 deficiency. Since methylation is
essential for the formation of the myelin sheath that insulates nerve fibers, a combination of
methyl supplements and anti-inflammatory fatty acids could be used for the treatment of this
disease. (Cooney, C.A.)
ENHANCE CARDIOVASCULAR HEALTH
Research has shown that even moderately high levels of plasma homocysteine are associated
with subsequent risk of MI independent of other coronary risk factors. Because high levels can
be easily treated with vitamin supplements, homocysteine may be an independent modifiable risk
factor. Elevated homocysteine levels can often be normalized with modest doses of folate (1 - 5
mg/d). For cases that are resistant to this therapy, the addition betaine (TMG) is often effective.
These supplements at recommended doses have no side effects under most circumstances.
(Stampfer, Meir J., et al. A prospective study of plasma homocysteine and risk of myocardial
infarction in US physicians. Journal of the American Medical Association, 268(7):877-81,
1992.) This is significant because some researchers estimate that as much as 90% of CAD may
be due to increased homocysteine! A valid question at this point might be what is considered
increased when it comes to homocysteine. There seems to be some agreement that levels of 4 -
6 mmol are probably safe. This range may be lower than the "normal" range reported by your
laboratory. It is probably better to be safe than normal with a one out of three death rate from
CAD.
WOD 01-04-12
Run on lower deck and stairs 1 min x 30 seconds 8 rounds
Bag work 10 min
Foam roller work
Planks and core work
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
WOD 1-3-12
Chin-ups
Dumbbell and cable rows
Ring rows
Reverse and supine barbell curls
Posterior delt raises
WOD 01-02-12
Body weight pistols
Stiff leg Deadlifts 5x6 with 150 lbs
Glute ham raises
Bulgarian split squats
Lateral and front raises
Foam roller work
Stiff leg Deadlifts 5x6 with 150 lbs
Glute ham raises
Bulgarian split squats
Lateral and front raises
Foam roller work
Monday, January 2, 2012
A Half-Hour Walk Can Make a Big Difference, Even If It’s Your Only Activity
A Half-Hour Walk Can Make a Big Difference, Even If It’s Your Only Activity
Ideally, it would be easy to make sure we all got the exercise our bodies need every day, but in reality it can be difficult, what with competing demands and obligations at work and at home. If you're looking for a way to get started making a positive change for your health, this visual lecture explains why the one small change you can make with the most impact is to walk for a half-hour every day.
Dr. Mike Evans, the lecturer, is founder of the Health Design Lab at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, an Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of Toronto, and a staff physician at St. Michael's Hospital. His video speaks for itself, but some of the most important highlights are the fact that even if you're overweight or obese, the difference between being obese and getting no exercise and being obese and getting even some activity can be significant when it comes to reducing your risk factors for various illnesses. Plus, even some brief regular activity has been shown to reduce your risk for heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension, and has also been shown to alleviate symptoms of depression.
Best of all, starting with some regular activity, even if it's a half-hour walk every day, can lead to more exercise that can help you progress towards other health and weight loss goals. Sciencebase points out that a half-hour walk is good, but once you've reached that goal, you definitely shouldn't stop there. Ultimately, if you find a way to squeeze in a half-hour of activity when you currently get none, it gets easier from there. How do you make time to exercise? Share your suggestions in the comments below.
Just Do One Thing to Boost Your Health | Sciencebase
Ideally, it would be easy to make sure we all got the exercise our bodies need every day, but in reality it can be difficult, what with competing demands and obligations at work and at home. If you're looking for a way to get started making a positive change for your health, this visual lecture explains why the one small change you can make with the most impact is to walk for a half-hour every day.
Dr. Mike Evans, the lecturer, is founder of the Health Design Lab at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, an Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of Toronto, and a staff physician at St. Michael's Hospital. His video speaks for itself, but some of the most important highlights are the fact that even if you're overweight or obese, the difference between being obese and getting no exercise and being obese and getting even some activity can be significant when it comes to reducing your risk factors for various illnesses. Plus, even some brief regular activity has been shown to reduce your risk for heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension, and has also been shown to alleviate symptoms of depression.
Best of all, starting with some regular activity, even if it's a half-hour walk every day, can lead to more exercise that can help you progress towards other health and weight loss goals. Sciencebase points out that a half-hour walk is good, but once you've reached that goal, you definitely shouldn't stop there. Ultimately, if you find a way to squeeze in a half-hour of activity when you currently get none, it gets easier from there. How do you make time to exercise? Share your suggestions in the comments below.
Just Do One Thing to Boost Your Health | Sciencebase
WOD 01-01-12
Ring push ups
Floor dumbbell presses
Ball assisted ring fly's
Triceps cable press downs
Band presses
Lateral raises
Foam roller work
Sunday, January 1, 2012
WOD 12-31-11
Extended warm up
Bag work
8 rounds around stairs and lower deck 1 min x 30 sec
Tabata mountain climbers
Foam roller work
Front and side planks
Side and front laterals through out the day
Bag work
8 rounds around stairs and lower deck 1 min x 30 sec
Tabata mountain climbers
Foam roller work
Front and side planks
Side and front laterals through out the day
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