I have searched for years to find the perfect training shoe. When the Vibrams came out I thought they would be the shoe. Unfortunately, they did not have my size. I have tried Nike, Under Armour, etc. They all look good and feel good for awhile but I could tell something was missing.
I happen to be reading a post from Eric Cressey of Cressey Performance (www.cresseyperformance.com) talking about the New Balance Minimus shoe. I did not get my hopes up because I assumed they did not have a size 15. So, I decided to take a look at the website (www.newbalance.com) and I could not believe my eyes. They actually go up to a 17! I decided to go with the NB Minimus 20v3 in a size 15. The past 2 weeks have been just awesome.
I had some SI joint discomfort and it has gone away. My feet feel “open” and very functional. I honestly cannot remember when my feet have felt this good. I guess the 4MM heel works well for me. The training shoe makes a world of difference. I think everyone should try to find their “optimal” training shoe. Just a thought…
Everyone is concerned about the price they pay for products and services they use. Normally people assume the price they pay for something is directly related to the value received. If that is the case what is the cost of a product or service? Costs includes the development, manufacturing, and all expenditures associated with the product or service.
So, in regards to the price of fitness or the cost of fitness, you really want to examine the true costs of fitness. Here is why. If a gym membership price is $30 a month and personal training is another $250 per month, the numbers show a total of $280 a month as the price paid. Now the question is, how do you measure the cost of this monthly amount? It depends on your current age, goals, and health status. If you are overweight, have diabetes, arthritis, high cholesterol, or recovering from surgery the cost of not having fitness can be greater than you think long-term. Being proactive about your fitness levels can pay future dividends in your quality of life. In most definitions, this now could be called an investment.
When you are considering the price you pay for fitness or the cost of not having it, think about trying to retire without saving. You can do it, but at what cost. Just a thought…
Just starting to run? Running is a natural thing most of us learn to do as kids. Unfortunately, as we get older our bodies change and we have to prepare more for this basic exercise. After sitting at a desk all day or even waking up in the morning our bodies are not ready to just start running efficiently. Strength training is a very important component to your running success. It involves hip mobility, active and static stretching, upper and lower body strength exercises, and overall core strength. Training your posterior chain (calves, hamstrings, glutes, thoracic spine area, etc.) will help your stride length, foot strikes, and overall running mechanics. Your shoe choice is also very important! Some people pronate, some supinate, some are heel runners, some are toe runners, etc.. It may be best to consult a store or place to analyze your running before buying a shoe. When you get stronger and become more efficient your shoe needs may change. Find a local running club, coach, or trainer to help you with the process. All the best in your running and strength training!
What are Olympic lifts? Traditionally they are the snatch and the clean and jerk; some contemporary lifts include power clean, hand clean, muscle clean, etc.
Triple Extension
Some athletes prefer not to do Olympic lifts because they are not in the sport of Olympic lifting. Then there are some that feel like if they do not play football, hockey, or some other contact sport they do not have to do Olympic lifts. This mindset could diminish your output in your chosen sport and minimize your fitness levels. Here is why.
The Olympic lifts can be some of the most demanding, explosive, and dynamic displays of power by an athlete. I think they are thought to be too complicated this is why so many people avoid them. I have to give Crossfit credit for the resurgence of Olympic lifts and how they have made them seem “cool.”
A sport that spans over 100 years and originated in Europe had the same uses then, as it has now. They are to produce hypertrophy, improved strength, improved muscle fiber recruitment for greater force, and to increase force production at a high rate of speed. Some of you are like what does that all mean? In the simplest terms you may get bigger, stronger, faster, and create leaner muscle.
As an athlete or person in the general population, training in Olympic lifts with the right training regimen, you can yield greater results. For further information find a certified coach or go to http://www.teamusa.org/USA-Weightlifting.aspx
Fast twitch fibers, slow twitch fibers, intermediate fast twitch fibers. While we may have heard these terms before, we need to understand the practicality and applicability of them in regards to training for sport. In order to train the right muscle fibers, we need to first discuss what constitutes fast and slow twitch muscles.
We have over 600 muscles in our bodies, all made up of a mixture of fast twitch and slow twitch muscle fibers. We are going to start with the big picture, dive briefly into some physiology, and go back to big picture. This will help you to better understand fiber type training.
Within one motor unit (muscle), we can have anywhere from 10-1000 muscle fibers, depending on which muscle group we are talking about. The glutes, a large muscle group, are going to be on the higher end in terms of the amount of muscle fibers it has, while the orbicularis oculi (muscle around the eye) is going to have fewer fibers. While the actual ratio of fast:slow fibers depends on a variety of factors, let’s keep it simple and just know that every muscle has a both types of fibers. Now, within a motor unit, individual fibers contract when they are stimulated to do so. However, the type of fibers that contract are dependent on the stimuli, or type of contraction you are doing. Here is a quick description of the 3 pure fiber types.
Slow twitch type I– Smaller muscle fibers in size. High aerobic capacity and high resistance to fatigue. Anywhere from 10-180 of these fibers per motor unit. Generally, you would think of long distance runners as the athletes having a large percentage of slow twitch fibers.
Intermediate fast twitch, type IIa– Larger muscle fibers in size. Moderate aerobic capacity, higher (relative to type I) anaerobic capacity. These fibers fall somewhere in between the long distance runners and the high intensity, explosive athletes. You may consider these your strength/power endurance fibers.
Pure fast twitch, type IIx– Largest muscle fibers in size. Low aerobic capacity (fatigue quickly), high anaerobic capacity. Great at producing high force for short amounts of time. Football players are an example of an athletic population with a high percentage of fast twitch muscle fibers (plays generally last 5-10 seconds at most).
If you are training for a marathon, which places a high demand on your aerobic energy system, your type I fibers, how often should you be performing squat jumps?
In contrast, if you are a shot putter, do you think running 5 miles a day, or performing 20 rep bench press are going to help improve your max distance? Of course not!!!
You need to train the right fibers more often than the “wrong” ones! Every athlete needs to train all fibers, but some more-so than others depending on your goals. If your sport requires you to be fast, train fast. If you want to be powerful, then you must emphasize your fast twitch fibers, with the majority being type IIx. A volleyball player has no business running 3 miles at a submaximal pace (not often at least). Just as a cyclist should not be squatting heavy 3 days a week. When you do this, it is not only inhibiting the necessary energy systems from developing, but it is often counterproductive. Think about how effective an 18 wheeler would be with a 4 cylinder engine…
What about the athletes that need to be fast and explosive, but sustain that over long periods of time? These are your soccer, basketball, hockey players. The majority of their fiber training needs to be focused somewhere in the middle of the continuum, but more towards fast twitch. The intermediate fast twitch fibers are most effective for their sport. Eric Cressey, a highly respected performance coach, spoke in regards to off season training, saying that you have to learn to go fast PERIOD before you can sustain that speed for an entire game. Therefore, a basketball player needs to focus on fast twitch training and getting stronger more before he worries about his strength endurance.
Here is video of an exercise where the athlete starts out using mostly type IIx fiber (type I are always recruited first as we saw in the graph) , but starts relying more on his intermediate type IIa and type I fibers as fatigue begins to set in.
While fiber type training is extremely important to the principle of specificity, we still need to have an open-minded approach and train to be optimal. An optimal athlete, whether you are playing an aerobic or anaerobically demanding sport, has to train all fiber types by utilizing all energy systems. If a football player NEVER imrpoves his strength endurance, he will get beat in the 4th quarter when it counts. If an ultra-marathon runner NEVER lifts a heavy weight to strengthen fast twitch muscles (the largest muscle fibers in size as previously noted), it is impossible for them to be as fast as possible for as long as possible.
The take home message is to allocate your time spent training muscle fiber type according to the of the demand of your sport.
In regards to calorie expenditure and weight loss, fiber type training is king. Because muscular contraction yields energy expenditure, wouldn’t it make sense to contract as many muscle fibers as possible? If your body allows you to do so, and you have no functional limitations, it makes sense to train your muscles to experience fatigue so that you HAVE to recruit more muscle fibers.
Next time you hit the gym, consider your goals. Do you want to be fast and explosive? Enduring? Fast for a long period of time? Toned? Muscular? All of these goals can be attained if you adhere to the principles of fiber type training. But remember, to be optimal, a complete 360 degree circle, you need ALL 8 of the essentials…
I’d like to start this post out with a conversation I had about a week a go. The names are not important (John is a fictional character), however it is the ignorance and context of the conversation that inspired me to write this. I’ll pick up right around when it started getting interesting…
John: We are wasting “valuable” time in the gym doing these leg lifts (referring to a single leg supine bridge).
Me: The benefits of the supine bridge and strengthening our hamstrings is far more important than I think you realize.
John: Nobody cares about the back of our legs. Quad strength is where its at, not just for looks but on the field too. If you think about it, the only place you feel fatigued during sports is your quads anyway.
And that is where I stopped the conversation. It truly did not dawn on me until that conversation that a large number of people, whether it be the general population, athletes, weekend warriors, and so on, still do not understand that the hamstring muscles are more than just the posterior part of your thigh.
Knee pain…any of you ever had it? People often attribute knee pain solely to overuse, such as walking, running, jumping, or being “too” active. While overuse may be a contributing factor, I will make the argument that the majority of knee-pain will come from not training the posterior chain like it should be trained. And in particular, you guessed it, the hamstring group, composed of three important muscles: the semitendinosus, semimembranosus, and the bicep femoris. The general rule of thumb is to have a 2:1 quad to hamstring strength ratio. If this were the case and people trained there lower body this way, I assure you there would be less people who suffer from knee pain/injury.
In regards to athletic performance, the hamstrings are crucial. Evidently, based on my conversation with “John”, many still have the misconception that quad strength equals speed and power. All of the “Johns” out there could not be more mistaken. The potential speed and explosiveness that every athlete strives for is not being reached because the glutes and hamstrings and not focused on nearly as much as they should be!
Think about the hamstrings from a functional anatomy perspective…
Origin: ischial tuberosity (posterior side of pelvis–or the bone you sit on)
Insertion: tibia and fibula (bones that make up your lower leg)
What all that gibberish means?
Your hamstrings are extremely important in both flexing you knee and extending your hips. The applied functional significance of this is evident in EVERY sport.
Running: Two key players in optimizing your running form are your knee drive, and being able to put power to the ground. If we revisit the physiology of the hamstrings, we see what? A direct translation to running. Knee flexion–>knee drive Hip extension–>driving the ground away from you.
Jumping: An optimal jump is no more than squatting down and exploding into the air as quickly and forcefully as possible. Again you will see the physiology of the hamstrings translating perfectly to the jump. Knee and hip flexion–>loading phase of the jump Hip extension–>driving the ground away from you as you explode into the air.
These concepts may seem simple and monotonous, however I feel that if people have a basic anatomical and physiological understanding of what it is that the hamstrings do, then they will be more incline to train smarter and work there posterior chain.
You have seen that training the hamstrings are important not only to enhance athleticism and power, but for preventative maintenance as well. Now that you are more educated, its time for the implementation.
Work the Posterior Chain
The squat is perhaps the most renowned exercise known to man. But, until you have fully activated all three hamstring muscles, and in turn improved the flexibility in your hip flexors, the squat is going to continue to over-target your quads and minimize the important recruitment of the hamstring and glute muscles.
My suggestion is to begin with bodyweight hamstring exercises, such as the supine bridge. Laying on your back, flex your knees at a 90 degree angle. Keeping the heels of your feet in strong contact with the ground, raise your hips (push your butt up) as high as you can into the air. Perform this as an isometric hold, or with repetitions.
2. Work Unilaterally
Before your can walk, you must crawl. Starting out bilaterally, or with two legged exercises, may be necessary depending on your fitness level. However, once you master your bodyweight bilaterally, moving on to single leg work will further improve your hamstring strength. The single leg supine bridge can be performed the same way as the traditional bridge, but with one leg raised in the air.
3. Balance Strength with Suppleness
Muscles are meant to contract, but not to the point that they are contracted permanently. You want to equally stretch out your hamstrings as much as you strengthen them. Too much of one without the other will result in pain, injury, or sub-optimal performance in sports. Partner stretching is ideal, however stretching your hamstrings with a band can be just as effective.
Now that you know that what you are currently doing or not doing in the gym can be easily fixed or improved…what will be your next move? Will you continue to neglect one of the most vital muscles in your body? Or will you get out of your comfort zone, train your hamstrings like they should be trained, and reap the benefits that strong and supple hamstrings can provide you?
The choice is yours…make the decision to get better today!
This will be a two part post, with the second coming this weekend. Both parts are essentially complements of one another, so make sure to stay tuned for part II.
To begin part one, I want to start by saying our hips…suck. I will speak for the majority of people, athletes included, when I say that our hips are weak, immobile, and underutilized. Right now, I want you take one of your arms, and move it every way possible, up, down, side to side, across your body, around in circles, ect. (yes, this is directly relevant to this post).
Now, using your leg instead, try to perform the same exact movements as you did with your arm. Are you able to move that leg as freely as you moved your arm? Can you achieve the same range of motion? Are the same movements with your leg are intuitive to perform as they were with your arm? Most of us will answer no to all of these questions.
But why?
Well, the answer is quite simple, and does not require you to be anatomically inclined. We DO NOT use our hips the way they were designed to be used!
Our hip and shoulder complexes are the two ball and socket joints in our bodies. Just as the humerus (upper arm bone) fits into the glenoid cavity of our scapula (shoulder blade) like a ball and socket, the femur (upper leg bone) fits into the acetabulum of our pelvis the same way. Both the hip and shoulder are capable (capable does not mean regularly subjected to) of doing flexion, extension, abduction, adduction, horizontal flexion/extension, and rotation.
However, we all noticed from the exercise earlier that it is much easier to perform these movements with our arm than with our leg.
The majority of people, at best, will move linearly a couple of hours out of the day (in other words, walking). For those of us who have desk jobs, we are worse off then the majority. The moment you sit down, your muscles and tendons begin tightening. The longer you spend time in this body-wrenching position, the suppleness of your hip joint decreases dramatically and causes extreme atrophy (weakening) of the muscles making up your hip complex. Weak muscles lead to weak bones, leading to arthritis, osteopenia, osteoporosis, and possible hip replacements down the road. If you work 40+ hours a week in an office chair, I strongly suggest you read on…
There are 17 muscles that make up the hip joint. When we move only in a linear capacity (best case scenario for many) we are using a small number of those muscles. The point I am trying to get at is that whether or not we are an avid athlete, we NEED to take time out of our lives to work all of the dormant muscles of our hips!
I have posted a few reliable sites with great exercises to get started on to begin strengthening and lengthening the muscles of your hips. I challenge each and every one of you to do these exercises on a regular basis (everyday would be ideal!) and take notice to how much better you feel doing your everyday activities. The exercises may seem strange and feel uncomfortable at first, but will also make you aware of how little attention we pay to arguably the most important part of our body!
Your hips want you to do these exercise movements! When you do what your body wants and is designed to do, it collaborates with your central nervous system and will reward you with making you feel better!
Originally, I had planned not to do much of anything besides relax while on vacation this week, let alone make a post. However, it dawned on me that this idea in itself is part of the growing sedentary lifestyle problem our society continues to face.
Too many people are under the spell that makes them believe they work too hard to exercise. Well my friends, there is a harsh reality that these people will sooner or later realize and have to face…exercise is beneficial to YOUR life and YOUR health, not the lives of others around you. We have all heard the many, many, many benefits of training, or at least having an active lifestyle, which is why I will not be focusing on that in this post. Instead, I want to talk specifically about exercising while on vacation, and how is could possibly change your life.
“As you already know, exercising is a great way to improve your health and energy. The problem is that darn catch-twenty-two. You know what I mean. It’s finding the energy and motivation that you currently lack to ignite the spark to start your exercise journey”. ~Anonymous
First off, I know that many of you have either already or will at some point go on a week long vacation this summer. I know that many of you will indulge in the relaxation, cold beverages, and “sand between your toes” that often comes hand in hand with a week at the beach. Don’t get me wrong, those things are all fantastic and should be included in your week getaway…
BUT, my question is, how many of you will experience “down-time” outside of those things (pretend those three activities are high energy demanding)? How many of you will kick off the sandals in the ocean front condo and take multiple naps or watch a movie throughout the day?
Based on my experiences, everyone who reads this post should have there hand up, including myself!
Now, let’s look at the alternative (or complement)…exercise.
Yesterday morning, I woke up at 7 a.m and walked to the beach for a 20 minute run, expecting to have the sand to myself. However, the beach I had expected to walk onto had seemingly turned into a track event. It was to my surprise to see 20+ people either walking or running, rather than counting on coffee to stimulate their brain for the day. Not only did this motivate me to extend my 20 minute run, but motivated me to write this blog post as well! I knew some people went for an occasional run while on vacation, but to see this many people exercising at 7 in the morning really amazed me!
Waking the body and mind, burning calories, taking in the view of the sunrise over the water, and getting tan all at the same time…why wouldn’t you exercise at the beach? I even saw one guy stopping to do push-ups and sit-ups after every 100 yards or so of sand-sprinting…strength-cardio intervals with sand resistance! Talk about improving strength and burning calories!
Right now you are probably thinking, why would I go to the beach and spend my time and energy working out? That’s not what I am trying to get at with this post, at all…
How long does a free pass to any gym typically last? One week. How long does a vacation typically last? One week.
Intentional? No. Made to go hand-in-hand? No. But let’s give this concept a chance…
I have seen many people, friends and family included, choose to start there life-long lasting exercise program after just a week (some even just one day) of working out. Maybe it was a sudden epiphany…maybe it was an extreme motivational factor. Or maybe, it was the right week and the right atmosphere, paired with the right mind set, that propelled them to want to continue exercising!
I think that most of you will agree that your vacation is the one week above all that you most look forward to in a given year. And the atmosphere is ALWAYS right. If you can push yourself to get out on that beach for a walk/jog three or four days, or do a half hour of body-weight resistance exercises in your beach house on a few select days of that week, who’s to say you can’t have a great vacation AND change your life? You will never know what that week could bring unless you stop thinking and do…
“Movement is a medicine for creating change in a person’s physical, emotional, and mental states.”
~Carol Welch
So my challenge for you is to take a couple hours from the 168 hours of your week long vacation, and dedicate those to your cardiovascular and muscular health. I promise, there will still be PLENTY of time for the other recreational activities at the shore…
“No matter who you are, no matter what you do, you absolutely, positively do have the power to change.” ~ Bill Phillip
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