The Relationship Between Scars and Mobility
https://ift.tt/2yddIHq Chances are you probably have a scar somewhere on your body. Anyone can get a scar from just about anything. Perhaps you were goofing around as a child and fell off your bike or maybe you recently took a fall down the stairs and banged yourself up pretty well. Maybe you are an athlete who had a mishap on the field that resulted in an injury that required surgery.
Both new and old scars can affect your movement and mobility in everyday life, during sports, or workouts. Essentially, any form of movement, especially if your scar is located near a joint, can put a strain on your mobility. If you are someone who works out a lot, if you are an athlete, or if you have a job that requires a significant amount of movement, this can become a serious sore point in your life.
In this article, I will discuss how scars can affect mobility, what complications may arise if left untreated, and what the best treatments are if an old scar is causing you pain and improper mobility.
The most important thing to remember is you never have to live through pain or reduced mobility. If you can no longer ride a bike, play soccer, or even reach the top shelf in your kitchen, you can fix it and you can heal.
How Scars Affect MobilityThe human body is a complex structure. Every cell in your body plays a specific role and communicates with other areas of the body, even if they seem unrelated. This means that if you have a scar on your elbow from an old injury, other areas of your body can feel the effects.
You may have neck pain, back pain, and difficulty walking because the other side of your body is compensating for the pain or lack of mobility associated with your elbow. When this happens, movement becomes difficult and your quality of life begins to suffer.
But why is your scar from ten years ago affecting your mobility and movement now? You may have unexplained pain, or you might find your range of motion is off. The answer is both simple and complex in either case.
The most common type of scar that will affect your mobility is keloids. Keloids are raised above your normal healthy skin and spread farther than your injury alone. This means your scar may be bigger than the injury itself was. Keloids most commonly affect your mobility. These scars form due to certain types of cells overproducing during the healing process.
The scar and mobility connection stems from collagen as well. Scar tissue is created when a part of your body gets injured, which affects the normal collagen cells. Scar tissue can form from a knife cut, a surgery incision, or anything else that opens and damages the skin.
Collagen is located everywhere in your body—from tendons to muscles to ligaments. You will also find collagen in your bones and your skin. This is why supplementing with powdered collagen has become all the rage lately. Better skin, stronger bones, and shiner hair draw many people to collagen supplementation.
When your cut or other injury begins to heal, your body will send tons of new collagen cells and other cells to the affected area to form healthy tissue to close up the wound. But the issue lies in the fact the body cannot arrange these new healthy cells perfectly. Instead of getting perfectly smooth healed skin, you are left with new cells that have bunched and clumped together, hence a scar. These cells lose their flexibility and their structure is altered.
You also have to consider that any form of injury, both inside and outside the body, that results in a scar will affect the way your body functions in that area. Your skin, your muscles, and your fascia go through a physically taxing process and any significant change to the body affects the ways it works and moves.
As the scar tissue builds in the injured area, adhesions form, which are tiny bits of scar tissue that bind to healthy soft tissues. When this happens, the area can become stiff, less strong, and your range of motion is affected. The scar tissue in the affected location is much less flexible than normal healthy tissue and receives less circulation. Eventually, your muscles in the area shorten, weaken, and you are left with less range of motion.
Battle Your ScarsUnfortunately, you can never completely get rid of a scar or its effects, but there are things you can do to mitigate the effects of the scar. One of the best and easiest ways to improve mobility and scar tissue is to massage your scar.
Although it may sound a little funny, massage techniques on the affected area have a lot of benefits. Massaging the scar and tissue in the area helps with the remodeling process of the skin and tissue. Your wound should be fully healed before this process begins. The sooner you can safely begin massaging the area with the clearance of a professional, the better for the appearance of the scar and the physical effects as well.
Cross Friction MassageThis massage technique for scars is generally performed by a physical therapist and then also may be performed at home. You will use your fingers to massage in the direction that is perpendicular to your scar. This type of massage allows the new collagen fibers to align properly so the appearance of the scar looks better. This process will also help loosen up the area and make the scar tissue more flexible, which can lead to better movement and mobility in the location of the scar.
Myofascial ReleaseThis form of massage is used to help with scar tissue and adhesions. Your doctor, physical therapist, or other healthcare professional will use their hands to massage the skin, scar, and tissue under the skin. Massage is typically slow, controlled, and only uses light and comfortable pressure.
This type of scar massage is the most common and perhaps the most helpful for mobility. A professional can feel any tightness and restrictions in the skin and tissue by the scar and work to improve the movement and circulation in the affected area.
Stretching for ScarsBelieve it or not, stretching can also help heal scars and scar tissue and help increase mobility. Various stretching and flexibility exercises help to lengthen and stretch the impacted tissue near the scar. If your tissue is elongated and not as tight and rigid, you will have better mobility and less restriction.
The type of stretching your healthcare professional will do depends on the severity of your scar and where it is located on your body. They will likely do a few different types of stretches in the affected area to ensure the tissue stretches and releases well.
It is also probable that your doctor or physical therapist will use a combination of both massage and stretching techniques. The combination of the two is ideal for helping the visual appearance of the scar and making sure the tissue in the area is flexible, has no restrictions, and heals well.
Moving ForwardAfter an injury or surgery, part of the healing process involves your wounds, cuts, scrapes, and incisions developing scars and scar tissue. It is something that you cannot get around or avoid. This is your body’s way of making sure you get back to normal as quickly as possible and with the least amount of side effects as possible.
With that being said, your body is not perfect and more often than not, a major scar can create issues in the long-run, most notably mobility issues and potentially pain down the road. If you fear this may happen to you in a few years, or if you have found yourself in this position currently, you do have a few options for better recovery.
Scar massage and stretching are two common and effective ways of helping scar tissue release tension and improve flexibility. When the tissue and collagen cells are functioning more like regular skin and tissue, the less pain you will have and the more mobile you will be.
Speaking with a healthcare professional about your specific situation, concerns, and needs will help make sure you are getting the treatment you deserve.
Fitness via Breaking Muscle https://ift.tt/1hdUh1E July 25, 2019 at 12:04PM
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An Exercise In Stress Management
https://ift.tt/2Gp9elh Training comes down to stress management: it’s my job to determine how much and what kind of stress to apply, and it’s your job to get yourself ready to handle as much stress as possible.
I work as a trainer, both in person and online, specializing in getting former athletes back into game shape. A lot of the time this comes down to dudes in their 30s and 40s trading a few pounds of fat in for some more muscle. The tough part? Most of them are busier than ever, and certainly busier than they were when they felt their best.
The name of the game for us—and for you—is stress management. I want to to apply as much stress to your system as it can handle. The more we can apply, and the more you can handle, the better your results will be, and the faster they’ll come.
How does stress help someone lose fat or build muscle? What do I mean by stress management? And how can you apply some of these lessons to your own training? Let’s take a look.
Stress TypeThe first question I need to answer in regards to any client and stress is what type of stress do I need to expose them to? In some sense, stress is just stress, but when it comes to adaptation—more on that later—we need to get more specific.
Are we trying to improve aerobic capacity? Then we’ll need to drive capillary and mitochondrial density by starving working muscles of oxygen, and filling them with waste products—all in an effort to get your body to prevent that specific kind of badness from happening again in the future.
Wanna get jacked? We’re going to literally rip your muscles apart with heavy load (in a nice way, promise!) while creating such an acidic environment that it forces a cascade of hormones to be released, all in an effort to keep it from being so bad the next time around.
There’s a ton of detail here. Sets, reps, rest periods, training timing, and frequency. The good news for you is that that’s all on me.
The bad news? That’s only half of the equation, and the other half is up to you.
The Amount of Stress and ResponseThat second half of the equations is all about the amount of stress a client can tolerate. This isn’t about being tough, it’s about being prepared and being effective.
Before we go any further, it’s important we understand the stress response and what happens to us on a chemical and hormonal level when we’re subjected to stress.
At this point, it’s not important for us to differentiate between stressors—between, say, your Monday commute and your Friday workout—so instead we’ll try to get a basic understanding of the similarities. Let's take a look at how stress works in a simple but dramatic context.
The Zebra: A StoryIn his seminal book Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, Robert Sapolsky outlines the mammalian stress response, and how its intended effect has been subverted by modern realities. I’ll attempt to boil a few hundred pages written by of one of the world’s leading neuroendocrinologists down to a handful of bullet points (wish me luck!):
The Zebra: Some BiologyLet’s take another look at the zebra, this time through a slightly more scientific lens.
Stress drives three related shifts to occur within the zebra.
The first change that occurs is that the zebra’s autonomic (or unconscious) nervous system moves from a parasympathetic state to a sympathetic state. In plain English, his nervous system switches gears from neutral to overdrive. Colorfully put, he switches from a "rest and digest" focus to the famous "fight or flight" mode.
The second shift affects the zebra's cellular processes. The grazing zebra is in an anabolic state. All that this means is that his systems are largely devoted to building bigger molecules; turning glucose into glycogen or amino acids into proteins. The stressed zebra shifts—in a virtual instant—into a catabolic state. Larger molecules need to be broken down. Glycogen needs to turn back into glucose, and glucose into carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and water in order to fuel his escape.
The third way of examining the zebra's shift in priorities is from a hormonal standpoint. Hormones are the body's chemical signalers, and in the case of this particular exotic equine, the hormonal profile registers a shift away from the future and towards the present. Testosterone, growth hormone, and insulin are all anabolic, future-driven hormones. They ensure the propagation of our genetic lineage, take care of the wear and tear of daily life, and generally get us ready to face the next challenge.
The lion is that next challenge, and so things change. The future is mortgaged for the present, and the increased presence of hormones like cortisol, norepinephrine (adrenaline), and glucagon reflect that shift.
All of these changes work in concert to keep the zebra alive. Each supports and is supported by the others, and all reflect the general principle that the future isn't worth worrying about unless you get there.
The Drip of Stress HormonesWe face the occasional lion in our lives; a sudden, immediate, and overwhelming source of stress. You can feel the impact of these moments—suddenly swerving to avoid a car or pedestrian, rushing to grab your child before they hurt themselves—and that sensation is a reflection of the huge changes taking place internally to allow you to respond effectively. But these occurrences are rare for most of us.
Instead, we face an onslaught of low-level stress. A drip, drip, drip of stress hormones rather than a tsunami. We don't feel the rush of blood and narrowing of focus that accompanies an emergency, and so we have a tendency to ignore it, but it's still there, eating away at our ability to prepare for the future. Bigger muscles? Sorry, bad boss. Trimmer waistline? But what about traffic? Where the zebra ping pongs between two different states, we have an ineffective habit of living between them. And as a result, we're ill-equipped for both present and future.
Stress and TrainingWhat’s that all have to do with gaining muscle or building endurance? In many ways, your body has trouble distinguishing between stressors. Stress is stress. Your morning commute and leg day feel about the same on a biological level, driving similar hormones but with very different consequences. If we can’t keep the day to day chronic stress under control then we’ll be severely limited in how much acute training stress we can apply without doing more harm than good. Releasing just enough cortisol to help remodel muscle? That’s great! Releasing a constant stream of cortisol, resulting in a constant signal to break down rather than rebuild? Not so great.
Stress evolved to be a good thing: it literally fuels the zebra’s escape.
Stress can be a good thing for us—products of modern realities—but rarely in the immediate case of running for our lives. Instead, it gets its value from the subsequent recovery it triggers. We call this stress-induced recovery an adaptation.
The Role of AdaptationEverything you've ever done in the gym has been an attempt to drive adaptation. Bigger muscles? Adaptation. Better endurance? Less fat? Adaptations.
Here’s a simple experiment that nearly perfectly illustrates stress, recovery, and adaptation:
Find a carpeted floor and vigorously rub your palm on it for 5-10 seconds. You should feel heat, tingling, and maybe the start of an uncomfortable burning sensation. With me? Good. Now imagine two different scenarios.
The link between stress and adaptation lies in recovery, and recovery requires the removal of stress.
There's more to recovery than rest—nutrition, hydration, sleep and more are all tremendously important—but none of these are effective in the face of persistent stress.
Practical Strategies to Manage StressWe can't eliminate stressors from our lives. Quitting your job, abandoning social media, and moving to the middle of the woods to meditate isn't a very feasible option for most of us.
What we can do is try to minimize the influence of those chronic stressors in order to maximize the effect—via adaptation— of the acute stressor we can train.
Below are three practical strategies for mitigating stress and maximizing your gains.
1. Meditation You can call it froufrou or hokey, but there's some good solid research to support meditation's effect on both the mind and the body. I'm ill-equipped to give detailed advice on the minutiae of meditation, and it's an extremely personal practice, but I will say that habit, practice, and repetition go a long way. I use a guided meditation app called Headspace and aim for 10-15 minutes per day.
2. Sleep The importance of sleep is almost impossible to overstate—consider it a panacea and you're about right. It reduces the risk of cancer, heart disease, obesity, dementia, and more. We reconcile memory and emotion and restore hormonal balances during sleep, and even a few night of what's termed "short sleeping" have immediate detrimental effects. For a lot of us, stress can actually make sleep more difficult.
Reducing caffeine intake, exercising regularly, sticking to a consistent sleep schedule, and practicing sleep hygiene by ensuring a cool, dark room reserved for sleep and sex are good starting points for better sleep. I'd also recommend Matthew Walker's book Why We Sleep as a fascinating and helpful look at the details of sleep.
3. Social Support This one is the proverbial double edged sword. On the one hand, friends and family can add to our stress levels, while on the other these relationships can serve as an outlet and a balance for the stress of daily life. The bottom line here is that like the zebra, we have a hardwired need for positive social interactions, and even the most driven individual needs to get out of the gym and spend some time with people they care about.
Use Stress to Your AdvantageI ran into a great summary of exercise the other day:
“Exercise is just applying pain to the body until it’s immune to that kind of pain.”
Not exactly, but to be honest it's pretty damn close.
We develop immunity through exposure. If you had chickenpox then you developed antibodies that helped you develop a level of immunity to catching the disease in the future. The disease was the stressor, the antibodies the response, and immunity is the resulting adaptation.
Stress isn't bad. We started with the premise that I'd actually like to give you an awful lot of it in specific and calculated doses. The problem with stress is when it becomes ever-present, and understanding the stress response in general terms can help us understand how it limits our progress in the gym.
As fitness junkies we have a tendency to focus on the "hard" stuff—sets, reps, and macro counts—while ignoring the "soft" side of the equation. The problem with this approach is that human being may be the most complicated and integrated machinery in history. The soft stuff is the hard stuff. Mean people can impact your blood work. Meditation may just help build muscle. And while we may not yet—or ever—have a perfect understanding of the innumerable ways stress impacts the body, we can be sure that it does.
Fitness via Breaking Muscle https://ift.tt/1GxgPEe July 24, 2019 at 06:06PM
5 Simple Moves for Beach-Ready Abs
https://ift.tt/2SG8mxU Fitness via Muscle & Fitness https://ift.tt/2zjtGBz July 24, 2019 at 04:40PM
An Unlicensed "Health Coach" Is in Hot Water for Charging for Diet Advice
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Last week, a federal court upheld a Florida state law that states only licensed professionals can charge clients for dietary advice, the Associated Press reports. This comes after Florida-based "health coach" Heather Del Castillo challenged the law in court after she was issued a cease-and-desist order and a fine for practicing without a license back in 2017. She pushed back on the state's law, claiming that her advice to clients fell under her right to free speech. Del Castillo's case highlights the fact that different states have varied regulations when it comes to who's allowed to charge for nutrition tips. She was living in California when she started her business in 2015, and there was no issue because the Golden State does not require health coaches to have a license to charge clients for their services. When she moved to Florida, she fell into a different set of laws. Her business, Constitution Nutrition, sold six-month health and nutrition programs that included 13 in-home consultations. Twelve of the sessions cost $95 each, according to Ars Technica. But in Florida, she wasn't qualified to sell her guidance. A 1988 state law called the Dietetics and Nutrition Practice Act (DNPA) requires anyone offering health coaching in Florida to be a licensed professional (a registered dietitian nutritionist, for example). In a bid to prevent "experts" from giving out untrustworthy advice, qualifications include a college degree in an applicable field from an accredited school, a minimum of 900 hours of Board of Medicine-approved education or experience, and passing a state licensing exam. Del Castillo's sole qualification to give health advice is a certificate from the Institution for Integrated Nutrition, an unaccredited online school. But to be fair, at least that's something. The court clarified the law requires a license specifically for charging for personalized counseling or coaching, and that it's fine for Del Castillo to give out advice for free. For Del Castillo's part, she doesn't see why her lacking Florida's specific qualifications makes her less of a professional. She took to Instagram to share her insight and to ask that people who don't know her situation stop harassing her about it.
Whatever your stance is on Del Castillo's particular case, it's undeniable that certain qualifications prove a health and nutrition professional's knowledge of the field. Countless online "fitness experts" offer personalized diet and exercise programs, and plenty of people seek the help of exercise and nutrition experts outside of the internet's endless stream of fitness gurus. A surefire way to make sure your trainer or nutrition coach is legitimate is to check their licenses and certifications.
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Fitness via Muscle & Fitness https://ift.tt/2zjtGBz July 24, 2019 at 04:25PM
Spartan Racers Push for Obstacle Course Racing to Become an Olympic Sport
https://ift.tt/2ManUIL Could you imagine watching the Summer Olympics and seeing athletes drag themselves through mud, crawling under barbed wire, and jumping over walls in the pursuit of a gold medal? Sounds crazy, right? Maybe not too crazy, as the dedicated folks over at Spartan Race are pushing hard to make Obstacle Course Racing (OCR) an Olympic sport by 2028. In recent years, The International Olympic Committee has approved less mainstream sports for the summer Games, including skateboarding and sport climbing (an iteration of rock climbing) for Tokyo 2020. Also, breakdancing is highly likely to be part of Paris 2024. Joe De Sena, founder and CEO of Spartan Race, is at the forefront of getting OCR approved for the Games by Los Angeles 2028. “I don't see how it can't happen," De Sena told M&F on an episode of Muscle & Fitness’ Reps podcast. "There's so much interest in this space and I would think the Olympics wants to remain relevant and get eyeballs." It’s unclear what format the races would take, but we can’t imagine they’d be the 30-plus hour marathons De Sena sometimes puts competitors through. Athletes probably wouldn’t be asked to carry a raw egg (or eat it if it breaks), either. [RELATED1] Faye Stenning, the number five racer in the 2019 Spartan US National Series, agrees there would have to be some changes to the Spartan format, including toning down some of the challenges. “I think the first step is defining what is Obstacle Course Racing,” Stenning told M&F. “I definitely think with some more standardization and modification of the current Spartan venues, that it would be something that could fit into the Olympics.” Finding a TV-friendly format for OCR would be the last step in getting it approved for the Games by the IOC. Other requirements, including setting up an International Federation--The World OCR—and adopting the World Anti-Doping Agency’s code, have been met. De Sena said the road to the Games will be tough, but worth the effort. “It's going to be hard,” he said on Reps. “But what good happens in your life that isn't hard?” There are some obvious benefits to making OCR an Olympic sport: it would elevate the brand and would allow the millions of people who participate in it to compete at the highest level. But De Sena believes there’s a benefit to viewers, too: They would get to see the world’s best athletes in action. [RELATED2] In a recently released video on YouTube titled Better Humans, Spartan claimed to possess the most well-rounded athletes of any sport. “How do we know? We’ve got the NFL players that show up, we’ve got the Tour de France riders that show up, we’ve got the Olympians that show up,” De Sena says in Better Humans. “They can’t hold a candle to our athletes.” Check out the full video below: According to Stenning, football players and most other athletes specialize in a modality such as strength, speed, or endurance. Spartan racers, on the other hand, are a jack-of-all-trades. “It’s definitely not a sport where you fine-tune one skillset,” Stenning says. “You’re working on all aspects of fitness.” Strength is a big factor in OCRs, with Spartan including tasks such as atlas stone carries and tire flips. “You’re not going to win a race if you’re not strong,” Stenning said. When pressed to answer what type of athlete could succeed in OCR, Stenning said endurance pros like cross-country skiers, rowers, swimmers, and cyclists would be better off. “This sport, because it’s so long and you don’t have breaks, it’s purely an endurance sport,” she said. “I think Tom Brady would be terrible at a Spartan Race—any athlete that generally comes from anaerobic power background." Because of this, Spartan athletes take aerobic fitness very seriously—far beyond daily park jogs and treadmill runs. In Better Humans, Stenning is seen hooked up to the V02Max, which measures how much oxygen a person can utilize during intense exercise. [RELATED3] A top score for a woman Stenning's age is 49. She scored a 69, which the doctor in the video described as "incredible." Many OCR racers, according to Stenning, live and train in the mountains, where the elevation helps them improve their aerobic capacity. Since she lives in New York City, Stenning has to make up for it by running almost every day alongside professional marathoners in the morning and then strength training later in the day. While having OCR in the Olympic games is a ways away, Stenning has her sights set two other prized races: the North American Spartan Championship in August and the World Championships and the World Championship in 2019. “That’s when my season will stop, kind of,” she says, “I just enjoy Christmas, friends, family, get a little chubby, and hang out for a few months.” [RELATED4]
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Fitness via Muscle & Fitness https://ift.tt/2zjtGBz July 24, 2019 at 02:38PM
All Elite Wrestling Announces TV Debut
https://ift.tt/2Ydiijj It’s the news wrestling fans have been waiting for: All Elite Wrestling will make its TV debut on Oct. 2, 2019. A promo video released by the company shows some of AEW’s biggest stars in action, including Chris Jericho, Kenny Omega, Cody Rhodes, and Jon Moxley. It promises a wrestling company that hits harder and flies higher. Check it out here: Appropriately, AEW will be carried on TNT, home of WCW during the Monday Night Wars. It remains to be seen whether the promotion can challenge WWE’s monopoly on mainstream wrestling, but fans everywhere are excited to at least have another option. There have already been some heated exchanges, albeit subtle ones, between the two companies. Rhodes famously smashed a throne with a sledgehammer, the weapon of choice for WWE Executive Vice President Triple H, who calls himself “The King of Kings.” Triple H responded by saying he’s not focused on other promotions, but he also called AEW a “piss ant company” during the WWE’s Hall of Fame night in a jab at Billy Gunn, who works for AEW. There are sure to be more fireworks as October approaches. But before that, Jericho will face “Hangman” Adam Page on August 31 at "All Out" to crown the inaugural AEW champion.
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Fitness via Muscle & Fitness https://ift.tt/2zjtGBz July 24, 2019 at 01:34PM
Can You Train for Both Strength and Endurance in the Same Program?
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Getting stronger and building endurance are two very different goals that have long been considered conflicting, but is it actually unrealistic to work toward both within the same program? A recent study out of Australia’s James Cook University looked at how concurrent training, or endurance and resistance training done together, impacted development and performance. “Based on previous evidence, we suspect that if appropriate recovery is not accounted for between each training mode, it may impair endurance development,” said Kenji Doma, Ph.D., a professor at JCU’s College of Healthcare Sciences. In other words: make sure you've recovered from your run or your weight-training session before embarking on the other activity. What was less clear was exactly how much recovery time is really necessary between sessions. Most people, according to Doma, can fully recover from endurance training, like running or cycling, in about 24 hours. When it comes to lifting, however, his research showed that the physiological stress caused by just 40 to 60 minutes of resistance training could last for several days. That's where the isue lies, because sore muscles can impair performance, especially when it comes to long runs. [RELATED1] While concurrent training is a great way to burn calories and fat, if your goals are more performance-focused—like entering a powerlifting competition or running a half marathon—then it may not be for you. That's because strength training and endurance training tax your bodies in very different ways and trying to be competitive at one or the other requires full focus. If you do plan on concurrent training, Doma recommends tackling endurance work first whenever possible. Your chance of recovery before your strength session is greater than if you complete the workouts in the opposite order. He also suggests having at least nine hours of rest between training sessions, which, for most of us who don’t train twice a day, isn’t an issue. So what’s the takeaway? If you’re trying to squat a house or run a marathon, then stay in your training lane. Otherwise, feel free to run and lift to your heart's content as long as you give your body plenty of rest. [RELATED3] [RELATED2]
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Fitness via Muscle & Fitness https://ift.tt/2zjtGBz July 24, 2019 at 12:01PM
Bodybuilding and Olympic Weightlifting Aren't Mutually Exclusive
https://ift.tt/2GtQJwb "I’m chasing performance, not looks," seemed to be the narrative from the Olympic weightlifting community for a while. There appeared to be no room for time spent on focused, strategic muscle building. I was a part of the community. I heard many say it. But I was always confused as to why functional bodybuilding and training for performance in a sport had to be mutually exclusive. It had never been for me, although I must admit, I’ve often mistakenly not kept it as a priority.
My Erratic RoadWhen I first started lifting weights, I intended to build as much muscle as possible. At that time, there didn’t seem like there was anything else at which to aim. Bodybuilding workouts were all anyone knew or did. Yeah, we all wanted to be strong, but if you focused on building muscle, strength would, of course, come as a byproduct.
So my friends and I trained every body part individually with every possible exercise variation. Was it ridiculous and unnecessary? Sure it was, but we did build muscle, and we did get stronger. And while we didn’t understand what we were doing, we were making a base of training.
Although my weight training focused just on building muscle rather than explosive or maximal strength training, the more bodybuilding training I did, the better I felt when I participated in performance-based sports. Even exploring boxing and Olympic weightlifting seemed to benefit from this early training.
Then, I started powerlifting competitively. By then, I had already built a decent amount of muscle, but it wasn’t enough to perform how I wanted in this sport. Back then, the conversation of powerlifting prowess was synonymous with maximizing leverages. So for me, a somewhat taller, lankier type lifter, I understood that I had to get as big as possible. And big meant big by any means, not muscular.
So, I AteSo, I ate. I ate a considerable amount, and I ate whatever foods had the most calories in them, which usually meant it had some grease in it that isn’t wholly biodegradable. I was still building muscle, but not in the appropriate ration to my total weight gain. In my mind, weight was weight, and it didn’t matter what kind it was.
Increasing the general mass that I could put behind lifting weights worked for a while until it didn’t anymore. I became too convinced that my overall size was enough to keep lifting heavier weights. I stopped doing many of the exercises that I knew had always put and kept muscle where I needed it. Sure I was lifting some significant weight, but my training eventually became almost exclusively focused on stressing the significant powerlifting movements and variations without any room for body part exercises in areas that needed more muscle and general movement to prevent injury and improve function.
Handling the heavy-weight in the competitive movements, especially as frequently and as hard as I did, undoubtedly ensures the body is still very muscular. But most people won’t build muscle in equal proportion except for some elite lifters. That lack of bodybuilding work for me was a significant contributor to the stagnation and injuries I sustained that nagged me for a very long time.
Down a Bad RoadAfter I stopped competitive powerlifting and shifted back to Olympic weightlifting, I very intentionally shed most of the weight that I had built. I got leaner to be sure, but once again, I didn’t set out with a strategic plan, including focused bodybuilding work into my training.
I dropped just about one hundred pounds of body weight in a little over a year. And although I looked pretty lean and muscular at first, I didn’t retain as much muscle as I should have because of how quickly I took the weight off. I went to work training movements that I had not been practicing with similar intensity and frequency that I had been dedicating to powerlifting.
The problem was that the snatch and clean and jerk are not easy movements. I was doing them very inefficiently and so putting much more stress on my joints than I should have been. I was not only stiff from being such a big powerlifter for so long, but I was also using some of the leftover general strength that remained to pull heavier weights than my technique could support without causing harm to my body. I also didn’t have the mass behind me anymore to protect from training in such a stressful manner. So, I got hurt, and it lasted a while.
I did some self-rehabilitation and changed up training a bit, but the injuries kept up, and my body still hadn’t built up the elasticity and resilience specific to Olympic weightlifting. And yet I continued to focus my training just on the lifts themselves without an intelligent plan on how to incorporate bodybuilding work.
One day, I looked at myself and realized I was just skinny-fat, as the kids say. A lightbulb turned on. What if I just tried to build up the areas that I know get beat to hell in weightlifting training? And so I thought up a plan and executed it. Nine months to a year after that, my shoulders, knees, and back, had all been injured at some point, felt better. I had a noticeably better physique, and as my weightlifting technique improved my soft tissues were even more prepared for the work because there was muscle to support. These were revolutionary ideas to be sure.
What Kind of Bodybuilding?While coaches shy away from using the B-word with their clients who come to them for health or sports performance, I’d instead like to change the thoughts that come to mind. We are building the body up, and it should be thought of like this rather than labeling the work accessory and dismissing it as something that isn’t necessarily needed. Our minds shouldn’t immediately go to the thought of a muscle-bound guy in his twenties who would hurt himself if he swung a golf club when bodybuilding is brought up.
Bodybuilding work can be therapeutic, help aid in recovery, and used as a means to increase mobility, not limit it. There is no such thing as accidentally becoming muscle-bound. It is very, very hard to gain even a few pounds of pure muscle mass. If you think you gain muscle quickly, you’re mistaking weight change to corresponding increases in muscle.
Giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming you’re not overeating, which you probably are because everyone who says they gain muscle too quickly usually is when they increase volume of weight training, you may just be retaining fluid during the initial phase of hypertrophy which can be eliminated later if you don’t abandon ship.
What we should be discussing is not if more focused bodybuilding is for you or not, because it is, but instead what areas need to be built up to see your success. Maybe having a day dedicated toward making your arms bigger won’t directly improve your overhead position for a snatch, but building muscle on your rear delts and upper back, both of which directly support a barbell actively overhead, definitely will.
So what are the most critical areas to build up for Olympic weightlifting, and what are the exercises to get the most benefit? No one has time to do four extra bodybuilding exercises a day. Instead, let’s pick the three most important areas to build up and pick two exercises with the most significant benefit.
1. Upper BackHaving a strong upper-back is a prerequisite for keeping a globally extended spine and supporting weight overhead. Without this capacity, the snatch or clean and jerk cannot be done correctly-- Cut and dry.
2. Posterior ChainBuilding up the glutes and hamstrings, and I mean building up muscle, not only just doing low-level activation drills helps protect the knees, hips, and lower back.
3. ShouldersHere we’re talking specifically middle and rear delt. Olympic weightlifting will stress the front of the joint with all of the overhead work, but the middle and rear delt need some love to stabilize the shoulder and protect from injury.
Jesse competes in the sport of Olympic weightlifting, and he was also formerly a competitive powerlifter. He was featured in Main Strength and fitness publications. You can read more of his work on his website.
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Should You Be Lifting Overhead?
https://ift.tt/2JNEvRb In theory, we all generally embrace the idea of a safety-first motto.
But, when it comes to the reality of the gym, so many of us are tempted to say, "Eff you, safety! I want to press overhead. I want to jerk! I want to snatch!" (All the while ignoring the cues our bodies are giving us when we end up in positions we intuitively know aren’t helping us.)
The voice in our head—aka our ego—is strong. So, we continue to let it dictate our decisions. We keep pressing overhead with a barbell. We keep jerking. We keep snatching.
And then we find ourselves in pain or chronically injured.
Ready for a reality check? (Apologies in advance, this might hurt your ego.)
It’s time to discover if you’re really ready to be lifting overhead with a barbell.
The Simple Shoulder Flexion TestUse the following steps to determine far can you get your arm. This determines your readiness for overhead movements like barbell presses, jerks, and snatches.
The Scoring System: Green, Yellow, or Red Light?Red Light STOP, you’re not yet ready! You’re a red light if you cannot touch your thumb to the wall while maintaining the three points of contact (bum, back, head) on the wall and a straight arm.
Yellow Light Proceed with caution! You’re a yellow light if you can get your thumb to touch the wall while maintaining all points of contact with the wall and a perfectly straight arm.
Green Light Go! You have been cleared to lift overhead safely. You’re a green light if you can get the back of your wrist to touch the wall while maintaining the three points of contact and keeping a straight arm. If this is you, see if you can do it with both arms at once!
So what does all this mean?
I know what you’re thinking, "If I’m not allowed to press overhead with a barbell because I’m a yellow light (or a red light), what can I do?"
Below are two exercises for those of you who are yellow lights and red lights that get you continuing to press vertically, but in a safer, more appropriate way for your current mobility level.
Single Arm Dumbbell Press - Yellow LightsAs sexy as you have decided the barbell is, DBs are cool, too!
Isolating one arm at a time is a lot easier if your shoulder flexion isn’t yet a green light. It also helps you to keep a neutral spine if you do these in a seated or split position.
Landmine Press - Red LightsIf you don’t have an actual landmine contraption, you can do these by placing the barbell securely in a corner.
Landmine presses allow you to continue building strength through pressing vertically, but by deliberately reducing the range of motion overhead. This helps you avoid putting strain on your spine and your shoulder joint. Work one arm at a time, and just like the single DB press, you can also do these in a split position. Or you can try them in a half-kneeling lunge position.
Working Toward a Green LightFor those of you who are ready to humble down and embrace more acceptable movements for your current level of mobility, but still want to improve your shoulder flexion so you can eventually be a green light, below are three exercises for you to add to your warm-up to improve shoulder flexion.
Shoulder Flexion RepsRemember the red, yellow, green light test? You can turn this into a mobility drill, too.
Add 20 reps per arm—two seconds up, two seconds down—to your warm-up, either against the wall or on the floor. Focus on perfect posture and keep those points of contact with the wall (or floor).
It’s a great way to open up your shoulders while reiterating perfect posture. Over time, you should be able to get that arm a little closer to being a green light.
Prone Lift-OffsProne lift-offs are a good way to work on improving your active range of motion.
Lay on your stomach. Grab a dowel (narrowing hands will be harder, wider hands easier) and raise the dowel overhead with straight arms. Hold for two seconds at your end range. Then relax again. Keep your glutes and abs tight so your spine doesn’t extend.
Add 2 sets of 10-15 reps of these to your warm-up.
Supine RaisesLay on your back on a bench. Keep your entire spine glued into the bench (this probably means bending your knees to your chest). Then grab a dowel with 5-10lbs on it and slowly lower your arms as far as they can go into an overhead position while maintaining your points of contact with the bench. Then quickly pull the dowel back up to your starting position.
Add 2 sets of 10 to your warm-up.
When it comes to shoulder flexion, patience is key.
For best results adhere to your current level of mobility and stay the course.
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