The Dieting Dilemma

No matter what your health and fitness goal, diet plays a major part in whether you will achieve your goals. This is true for muscle gain, fat loss or strength improvement. Over the years I have worked with 1000′s of clients and I have noticed that people are always looking for something to add to their diets.

This something that people are looking for often comes in the form of a new superfood, a wonder supplement, vitamin or herb. While this is all well and good, I feel it neglects doing something that is far more beneficial. What that something I feel people should be focusing on is what they can take away from their diet.

All the supplements in the world won’t help you if your diet is full of crap foods. If your cortisol is high, maybe you should stop drinking 5 coffees a day rather rather that taking adaptogenic herbs. Maybe if you have insulin issues, maybe you should stop eating ice cream after dinner each night rather than taking fenugreek and chromium. Maybe you should eliminate refined sugar and processed foods from your diet rather than taking a thermogenic fat burner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just say no!!!

 

 

 

 

 

If we focus on eliminating the bad from our diets we will find our health and body composition will improve far faster than if we simply add supplements and other foods.

 

5 Things I’ve Learnt

Over my years in the industry, my methods have changed somewhat drastically. Each year, my approach to training clients, exercise selection, nutrition and psychology have all developed and evolved. Here is a brief list of some things that have made a difference in what I do.

1. There is no single muscle that is important for core stability – Quite early on in my career, I was highly indoctrinated in the TVA philosophy. Every single exercise had to involve drawing in the umbilicus to activate the TVA and if a client had poor prone TVA function, there was to be no heavy lifting, just tons of TVA work until they could recruit it effectively. As I have studied more and worked with many more clients, I have seen many flaws in this approach. Core stability and in fact stability of any joint is a symphony of many different muscles, ligaments, tendons, fascia and neuromuscular factors. By broadening my approach and working with these factors I was able to get much better results at a faster rate. Also, some issues with this logic of drawing in became faulty to me. For example, when we perform a rowing motion, we know that prematurely adducting the scapula prior to the initiation of the pulling motion can lead to overuse and dysfunction in the scapulo-thoracic musculature. If this premeditated movement can cause dysfunction in the shoulder, why wouldn’t a pre-meditated movement in the core affect its function?

Old school strength!

2. Single leg strength is really important – Every one loves to get strong on leg presses, back squats and dead lifts. Maybe if they are a little bit adventurous, people like to get strong on front squats But who boasts about their strength in a rear leg elevated split squat? Or who can perform 10 body-weight pistol squats with ease? These exercises show strength combined with stability and we can all appreciate that nearly all sporting skills are performed on one leg. Also, the development and strength gains in your ab and adductor muscles are awesome.

3. Corrective exercises are important, but are not the most important thing – This was another viewpoint that was developed early on in my career. I believed that getting better and better at corrective exercises would lead to fantastic performance gains. Unfortunately, they didn’t. What I have found is that corrective exercises should only be used to correct issues that a client presents with and to support our performance and strength enhancing exercises. I will implement corrective exercises in nearly every program I write, but they will not make up a great deal of the program, particularly if the client is a healthy individual.

4. Unstable surface training is over-rated but not useless – I also used a lot of unstable surface training early in my career. I believed that by performing exercises on an unstable surface it would improve neuromuscular recruitment and lead to strength gains. Again, I found this wasn’t true. I found that unstable surface training was great for the upper body (rings for dips and chin ups) but sucked for the lower body (dura discs and BOSU balls). I also found that as training on unstable surfaces progressed it became more and more like a circus act. Standing on a swiss ball to do squats is one of the dumbest things you can do to improve athletic performance!

Not the best exercise ever done!!

5. If you eat for your metabolic type it doesn’t matter how much food you eat, you will reach your ideal body weight – This one is just plain wrong. It does not respect the laws of thermodynamics or all successful weight loss plans. I have also found that metabolic typing is a good system to use, but if most people ate healthy foods, they would naturally gravitate towards eating right for them. With weight loss, you simply need to eat less calories than you burn. It is as simple as that.

So there you go, here is 5 things I have learnt so far. Stay tuned next week, for another 5 things I’ve learnt

Training Principles #3

This is the third installment in this blog series about principles of successful training. Hopefully so far you have learnt something that you have been able to apply and improve your own training program!

Training Principle 3 – train multiple qualities

In training clients and ourselves, we need to look at training multiple qualities in a training session. Alwyn Cosgrove talks about this extensively in his program design lectures and seminars. With the vast majority of our clients, we have a limited time to train, at the most around 3 hours per week. This means each training session needs to be structured so multiple qualities can be looked at. Some of these include:

1. Dynamic Mobility and Flexibility – check out my previous post – http://paulmeldrumcoaching.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/training-principles/

2. Elasticity and Agility

3. Strength development

4. Energy Systems work

5. Soft tissue quality and flexibility

To name a few….

If we can successfully address these qualities in a training program we will find our clients will get the most value for their money. Stay tuned for the next training principle!

Random Friday Thoughts

Ok, I stole this idea from Eric Cressey at www.ericcressey.com, but so what, he has a great blog and I like it! Basically, every friday I will just be blogging about any random stuff that comes to mind that I believe is worth sharing, a rant I need to get off my chest or just plain funny!

1. Just had a client bring in a one page article from the Sydney Morning Herald about Pilates and core strengthening. It really irritates me when journalists with no training in exercise science write articles about it, such as the infamous Time magazine article that stated that exercise did not help weight loss. I mean WTF? But, not to digress, this article was actually well written and had some great resources such as physiotherapy researcher Paul Hodges. The information that Paul stated that I found interesting is that in back pain sufferers the areas of their brain that control movement actually undergo changes compared to non-back pain sufferers. I guess this means chalk one up for Kinesiology treatment as it focuses on the neurological control on muscles, not just the gross strength.

Another factor to consider with the abdominals and back pain that was mentioned in the article was that core muscles are used to support the spine. My contention to this is what abdominal muscles actually attach to the spine? The obliques attach to the ribs and the pelvis, the rectus attaches to the ribs and sternum and the pubic symphysis and the Transverses Abdominis attaches to the ribs, pelvis and pubic bone. No where do these muscles attach directly to the spine! The main muscles that connect directly to the spine are the psoas, quadratus lumborum, erector spinae and multifidus groups. The takeaway message here is that the abdominal muscles are not the be all of back pain training but need to be considered as part of a whole system. the pelvis is also vitally important and this is where the abdominal muscles really shine.

2. Great interview this week with Mike Boyle and Alwyn Cosgrove. These guys have been two of my biggest influences and this talk really has some great information that you should hear if you are involved at all in the fitness industry. Check it out @ http://www.thestateoffitness.com

3. Watching way too much family guy. That show is too funny! Check this out:

Well thats it for this week, got some great content for next week lined up so looking forward to sharing with you all soon!

Training Principles 2

The 2nd Principle – Progression towards Performance

With training programs, there is a fundamental misunderstanding when it comes to progression. The key cornerstone of any effective program is a systematic progression towards a more challenging stimulus. Most programs fall short on this by only progressing two variables – the weight on the bar and the number of reps. These two progressions are excellent but can reach a plateau fairly quickly. Here are some  methods that we have used effectively with our clients and the results you can hope to achieve.

1. Increase the repetitions performed – This method is ideal for increasing muscular hypertrophy. Your goal is to do more repetitions than the last time you performed the workout. You may progress from 5 reps, to 6 and so on.

2. Increase the sets performed – this is another method that is geared towards increasing muscle size. For example, if you lifted 10o kilograms for 3 sets of 10, you would have a total workload of 3000 kilograms. If you performed another set, you would then total 4000 kilograms which would force the body to adapt.

3. Decrease the rest period – this method is used in conditioning and weight loss programs. An example of this is reducing your rest period by 5 seconds each week. This would also have the benefit of improving hormonal output after a workout, in particular causing an increased release of growth hormone.

4. Speed progression – this method involves performing your required repetitions faster. This has the effect of increasing the tension developed within the muscle and can be useful for strength gains.

5. Increase the load – this is the easiest way to quantify progression in a program. It is useful both for strength and hypertrophy goals.

By focusing on performance goals we will not only achieve our physique goals faster, we will also have more success in the actual workout process. If each workout you achieve a goal in the form of progressing your training, you have earned a small victory. This is a huge psychological tool for improving exercise adherence and enjoyment. It really amazes me that people go to the the gym with the sole purpose of seeing how bad they can make themselves feel after a training session. Throwing up does not make for a good training session!

You should not feel like this after training!!

It would be far more productive if you went into the gym with the goal of setting a new PR on your 3RM front squat. Not only is it a quantifiable goal but it does not require you to kick your ass into the ground at the same time! Two great programs that do this are Charles Staley’s EDT system and Chad Waterbury’s Target Rep system.

My final note is that by improving your performance you will change your physique. It is the people who do the same exercise program day in and day out at the gym that never make any changes in their body. Why focus just on looking better if you can look better, get stronger, get faster, get more mobile and improve how you feel all at the same time?

See you soon with principle 3!

Training Principles

A great saying is ‘methods are many, principles are few’. Principles are the guiding force behind the methods we choose when designing training programs for our clients. In the following weeks, I will outline our principles of successful training programs and also nutrition and diet.

Training Principle 1 – Have a warm up strategy

This principle comes first for one main reason – it is the part of a training session that 99% of people neglect and do not do properly! Many trainee’s have a great training program, sound nutrition and many other factors but neglect a proper warm up! Some of the benefits of a good warm up include:

• reduced risk of injury
• better athletic performance
• increased range of motion
• better recovery

Our philosophy on warming up is an amalgamation of many different people including Eric Cressey, Mike Robertson, Alwyn Cosgrove, Scott Sonnon, Mike Boyle, Bill Hartman, Chad Waterbury, Gray Cook and Mark Verstegen. We have integrated all of these different perspectives to create a unified approach to warming up. How much work we do depends on the time available and training needs of the client. For example, if a client has orthopedic concerns and a current injury, more time is dedicated to specific joint mobility and muscle activation drills. However, if the clients main goal is weight loss, our warm up will be more metabolic in nature to create more of a training effect in the exercise to come.

This is the general order of our warm up system for a client with movement imbalance issues.

1. Restore total body joint mobility – We do this to ensure each joint has good lubrication and nutrition. All joints get restored to their natural ranges of motion in all directions. This also has the effect of limbering up the nervous system.

2. Foam roller and self myofascial release – This serves the function of removing muscular adhesions and trigger points. This will help with muscular strength and range of motion. It also improves the quality of the soft tissues, not just their extensibility.

3. Static stretching – Studies have shown that static stretching before exercise leads to a decrease in power and muscular strength in the muscles being stretched. This is ok, as we are trying to relax overactive muscles so our weaker muscles can function more effectively. Many coaches have totally eliminated static stretching from their programs, but I believe this is an over-reaction to the downsides of static stretching. It can be very useful in restoring the body to correct function and the decrease in performance is so slight that it only truly applies to elite level athletes.

4. Dynamic stretching, movement preparation and muscle activation exercises – These exercises are designed to improve range of motion deficits and also prepare the body for the specific training movements that are to follow. Activation exercises such as glute bridges to increase gluteal activation allow us to get more out of our exercise program.

5. Warm up sets: We will generally do one warm up set for every 20 kilograms of load we are planning to use for a given exercise.

Once we have completed that, the body is well and truly ready to train. In our next post, I will go over our next training principle, internal before external resistance.

A great program with a very comprehensive warm up system that is similar to ours. Check it out!