Update

The orginal post Solid Foundations was about mobility and stability of different joints and areas of the body.

I haven’t nailed down all the details but here’s some things I’ve picked up:

-Scapula stability is essential for safe movement of the humerus.

-The lumbar spine gets nailed if the hip lacks range of motion.

-The poor knee is always the victim of the hip and ankle. it does what its told and gets tortured if either the hip or ankle are weak; it gets double teamed if both are weak.

-Proximal weakness often causes distal injury.

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One of the intended goals of this project was for it to grow itself, mostly in the matter of having more persons contribute to its dynamic. In this respect I have failed. This may or may not improve. For this project I’m choosing who I work with. I will be very selective; call it prudent if you want but I don’t want to work with people who don’t share similar ideals.

Hiatus

Plain and simple:

I haven’t contributed to this project in the past several months. No excuse. I haven’t been able to properly develope this project in a meaningful way or properly use the web as a medium.

I feel as though my views and philosophies are changing constantly. In that light I have deleted several posts. The remaining topics are so because I still think they hold value. Hopefully they do.

While I figure out how to properly develope this project I will carefully select topics to discuss. At some point I may disband the project entirely or create a different umbrella under which to develope; and try not to be overly dramatic.

Peace,

-gregory s kowal

What’s in it anyway?

At least we know what the blue pill is for.

Through one of my recent readings I became aware of some supplementation for certain sports. Mainly power/power endurance athletes but the supplements can apply to a range of sport applications.

One thing I would like to note is on antioxidants. Antioxidants help fight cell oxidation and breakdown. Antioxidants are readily found in fruits and vegetables. Blueberries are often packaged with a label saying how full of antioxidants they are, and a lot of people are all over the more recently popularized noni and acai berry. All of them are jam-packed. But what about supplements?

So, I learned that any antioxidant supplement should have at least the following:

Vitamin C

Vitamin E

Selenium

l-Glutathione

These four are the minimum that your body should be receiving. Most of the multi-vitamin or antioxidant supplements have 3 out of 4. Most stores are low in stock of l-Glutathione.

I did manage to find one brand that contains all four antioxidants. Windmill Health Products puts out a Antioxidant Protection Formula which also contains beta-carotine. At least that’s what the label says.

I found Windmill’s products at Wegman’s food stores. It is a “two tablets daily” supplement. One bottle is about a 15 day supply.

Check out what your body needs and make sure what you buy has what it should. Also keep in mind that most daily serving recommendations are for sedentary persons. If you’re active you might need a higher dose.

The more stress you endure the better your nutrition needs to be.

Gregory S. Kowal

Measuring Ability

Frontsquat 2x BW

When I first began to think about standards for training I started with the form in which some movements should be done. While this is important to help with a quantitative measure of work, I needed to think about the actual load/volume/intensity/etc.. these movements should be done with. In other words how much weight should a person be able to bench, squat, deadlift, etc.

There seems to be some common standards. ExRx.net has a few graphs give suggestions for the basic barbell exercises. The development of these standards are explained in Practical Programming for Strength Training by Mark Rippetoe and Lon Kilgore. I have the book in my library but haven’t read through it yet.

I’ve come across standards related to body weight referenced in some general fitness sources and a few websites. These standards come from Rob Shaul at mtnathlete.com:

2x body-weight dead lift

1.5x body-weight front squat and bench press

1.25x BW Power Clean

1x BW Military Press

20 Strict Pull-Ups

40 Strict Body Weight Dips

(Strict Means Full Range of Motion: No cheating/Kipping)

The standards for the barbell exercises seem to be widely considered, however could be manipulated to fit the programming at MountainAthlete. The pull ups and dips that Shaul prescribes may be more specific to his athletes.

I’ve also looked around into some more sport specific standards used in professional sports. Listed below are tests and the skill that it measures. The following tests are used in NFL combines to help scouts get some info on the athletes.

40-Yard Dash [Acceleration]

Bench-Press* [Max Reps @225# -Strength Endurance]

*Note: By the description of this test on the NFL combine site,  it seems like scouts use this test as more to describe an athletes character. They want to see how hard the athlete has worked before he has gotten to the combine and what his work ethic has been like in the several years before.

Vertical Jump [Lower-Body explosion and power]

Broad-Jump [Explosion and balance]

3-Cone Drill [Agility]

20-Yard Shuttle or the 5-10-5 drill [Lateral quickness and explosion in short areas]

60-Yard Shuttle [I don't know how NFL combines run this test and there's no description on the website. My quess is that it's the same as the 20-yard but longer. This way you add in a test of deceleration since the athlete will pick up speed on the longer distances]

These tests aren’t necessarily specific to the NFL, they can be used in any sport. The NFL uses them because they test the skills needed to be successful in the sport.

So to decide the standards tht should be carried by an individual the skills/abilities that indivudal needs should be assessed first. I also think that distinction between standard and tests should be made. A test is something that measures a skill/ability. The standard is the degree of skill/ability one has. In other words the bench press is the test and having a 1RM of 1.25x BW is the standard for that test.

Along with most of my other writings, this is jut the tip of the Iceburg.

What to Shoot For

Might as well set the bar high.

I’ve realized a critical error in training. I have not defined standards to perform by. I have at least several standards for several movements; mostly body weight:

1) Pullups: A legit rep is performed so the chest reaches the bar. Higher is better. Lower is unacceptable.

2) Pushups: The body is kept rigid and chest hits the floor. Any snaking or sagging and it doesn’t count.

3) Squats: At the bottom the hips are parallel or slightly below parallel with the knees. At the top the hips fully extend.

 The examples above are nothing new. They’ve been talked about and have evolved from other groups raising the bar,  I’ve accepted them as standards I train by. They’ve been proven to be superior movements and I’ve seen them pay off.

Despite these, I still have not defined strength standards for other movements (bench press, deadlift, back/front squat). Without these benchmarks I have no idea where my abilities stand. Even with the body weight examples I gave, I have no set max effort or max repetition for any of those movements.

I don’t currently play any sports nor was I ever involved with serious competition for a long term. I’ve never experienced formal physical fitness testing or program to improve physical abilities in any predetermined areas. Despite this I’ve still managed to progress my training with new methods and better structure. At some point each training program becomes stagnant and needs to be changed. The change I need to make right now is to train with some emphasis on standards.

Cause and Effect

 

I don't care what caused this. I'm going for the opposite.

Last week I wrote up some body weight circuits for a friend on the road. When I wrote up circuits I didn’t have any specific objectives in mind. My initial goal, and that of my friend, was to keep active upon traveling. The other day I got an email back from her. She had done some of the circuits with someone else, who is a professional rugby player.

 

 

 Apparently the workouts I put together were good enough to kick their ass. I didn’t really know how to take this. I was happy with the fact that one of my workouts gave a professional athlete a run for his money. On the other hand, finding out that played rugby professionally I began to wonder about specificity. Were the circuits hard because these athletes just weren’t used to the movements or were they hard because they really tested the athletic ability needed for such an intense sport.

After some thought I realized I probably don’t need to dig too deep. I should settle on the fact that the circuits were challenging and play around with the parameters to give them some specific effects (Don’t worry about sport specificity and change focus to biomotor abilities.) 

If I have 5 apples…

A few months back I started keeping tracks of rounds for certain workouts on the whiteboard at the gym. I did it so I wouldn’t lose track of what round people are working on during the session. For example, if the workout contained 5 rounds of a timed circuit (5 movements at a minute each) I would make a dash on the whiteboard during each rest period after the round.  This isn’t really something new or innovative but I noticed a certain effect it has on people. Those dashes counting  how many rounds have been completed and how many remain, are a motivator. Or, at least, a sustaining element to help keep work rate up.

“It’s psychological,” I was told (by someone out of breath in the 10th round) . It seems like it acts as a visual cue to help make “the concept” of what still needs to be done more tangible.

I still don’t fully understand it’s power and I probably shouldn’t try to analyze it. The only thing I can compare it to is the ticking clock during an infamous CrossFit workout. All I really know is that it works and when something works, you use it until it stops working or you find something better. I also know that if I don’t put the dash up on the board, people yell.

Putting things in order

I’ve noticed I’m better at coaching athletes through a workout session when I am more involved in the workout myself. When I know the objective, purpose of the movements used, and pacing ,I know (or at least have a better feeling) about  what cues I should use and when.

One part of today’s workout included 4 movements put together in a circuit:

-Lateral Cone Jumps

-Deep In and Outs

-Step Ups with a Hop

-Single leg Reaches [Not the best video. I like the pacing but he doesn't exaggerate the movement]

The workout, as originally designed, wasn’t in this order. Originally the single leg reaches were placed as the second movement in the circuit. That order didn’t make sense to me. Here’s why.

From what I’ve noticed people tend to speed through the single leg reaches. It seems like they want to keep their heart rate  (HR) up so they move too fast. In my opinion, single leg reaches are not a good movement for increasing HR but when you put it in a conditioning circuit people try and use it that way.

But by putting it at the end of the circuit I could instead use it as an active rest. As long as the other movements were done at a greater intensity your HR would be high enough by the time you got to the single leg reaches. My goal was to tire the athletes out with the first 3 movements (get through them fast and strong), then slow down at the reaches (take your time and catch your breath).

I think this worked. The athletes were able to keep moving and get ready for the next round. Nobody took any additional rests.

A side note on biomotor skills: This workout worked on agility and running mechanics. The cone jumps worked on change of direction. Step-ups and reaches exaggerated the running mechanics. Deep in and outs are in there to make things harder.

More Hip Stuff

Here’s some blog posts, articles, and other web sources on the hip.

Chriskolba had a guest PT write an article about a patient with hip pain.

Diesel Crew is always putting out stuff on rehab. Check here, and here.

Some examples of hip strengthening exercises posted on Cincinnati.com.

If your tired of describing the resistance given by certain therapeutic resistance bands/tubing by saying colors then click here.

Enjoy!

Hip Hip Hooray!!

Yesterday’s (4.13.09)  notes include:

A lot of big words on how the basal ganglia works with the cerebellum and cerebral cortex to influence movement and motor patterns; and how feedforward and feedback loops between these three areas change the motor patterns when an error is detected, or to increase accuracy and sufficiency.

Even more on wound care that I’d rather not get into.

Assessment of Hip Strength. The lab on the hip was meant to demonstrate how the hip is involved in gait and other motions. In stance and gait the hip abductors work to keep the hips level. Weak hip abductors [mainly the gluteus medius as focused on in the lab] will cause a hip drop on the contralateral [opposite] side. This also causes a valgus force [knocked-knee] on the knee and is commonly a cause of knee pain.

If a person has chronic hip abductor weakness, allowing them to use an assistive device while retraining the hip abductors will help them avoid an irregular gait pattern. The assistive device [walking cane] will decrease the role of the hip abductors until they are properly strengthened.

Weakness of the gluteus maximus can also cause gait deviations. If the the gluteus maximus is weak then a person will have some difficulty with hip extension. To maintain proper hip extension the glute needs to be recruited more. This can be done by abducting and externally rotating the hip [the gluteus maximus is involved in hip extension, abduction, and external rotation]. This altered hip position during gait will most likely cause the hip to move into adduction and internal rotation during the swing forward phase of gait, rather than using the hip flexors.

Another part of the lab had us analyze hip motion and phases of the vertical jump. This question had me step into the S&C world. The vertical jump works on the principle of the stretch-shortening cycle. There are 3 phases to this cycle. Phase 1: Eccentric. During this phase the muscles are lengthened and energy is stored. Phase 2: Amortization/ Transition. Receptors from the muscle sense it is being stretched and transmit a signal through a loop to go back to the muscle. Phase 3: Concentric. Elastic energy is released and the previously transmitted signal cause the muscle to contract [shorten].

Anyway, the purpose of analysing what happens during a vertical jump was to see what happens at the hip ; what is the hips position, what muscles are responsible for that position, and how are the muscles working?

Those were some of my notes for yesterday. I know the stretch-shortening cycle was sort of a tangent but I think it applies to gait patterns.

To end, here’s an awesome video from Diesel Crew [www.dieselcrew.com] to help with glute activation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY7_T7bOJyU. This video also applies to concepts written about in the post Like a Sponge, which goes over the knee.