Is moderation a good idea?

Everyone in the world has heard the maxim, ‘everything in moderation.’ What I want to ask today is moderation a sensible idea in all contexts? When you are trying to achieve a goal, is moderation the fastest way to get there? Will moderation ever get you there? These are some questions that I will try to answer today and give you my perspective on moderation.

We can look at this idea in multiple contexts. Today we will look at it in regards to achieving training goals, body composition, athletic pursuits and excellence in any field of life.

When we look at training goals, a trainee can want to gain muscle, increase strength, lose fat, increase agility, learn the Olympic lifts, compete in kettlebells, learn to do the splits and a thousand others. What you can’t do however is achieve them all at the SAME time. The human body only has a limited capacity for adaption and cannot fully adapt to multiple stimuli and achieve excellence in all of them. This is one of the issues there is with crossfit. Crossfit is a great system if you want to have general all over fitness and as a general rule, crossfitters are a lot stronger than the general public. However if you want to excel in any training goal, you cannot perform that activity in moderation. You must dedicate yourself to that goal 100%. No one has ever reached elite level in powerlifting or master of sport in kettlebells lifting by training in every system. They focus on one system and achieve greatness in that area. Moderation is a total roadblock to achieving specific training goals.

When we apply moderation to body recomposition goals, we can see the benefits of moderation. Having a well balanced diet is something that I think everyone can agree on as being essential to health. However, no bodybuilder, figure athlete or model has gotten into stage or photo worthy shape by being moderate. I am not condoning some of the practices that are used to get into that shape (drugs, diuretics, tape worms!) but however, there are many people who have gotten into the best shape of their life by being dedicated to one overarching goal. For example it is hard to gain 10 kilograms of muscle while eating a moderate amount of food. It is also hard to get to 6% bodyfat by eating a moderate diet. You need to follow a plan that is anything but moderate.

Athletic pursuits are another area where moderation does not allow for greatness. There have been very few athletes who have excelled in more than one sport. One idea that backs this theory up is the 10 000 hour rule put forth by Malcolm Gladwell in his fantastic book Outliers. The central premise of this book is that to achieve mastery in any field is that you need at least 10 000 hours of practice to become great. When we look at some of the greatest athletes of all time, we can see that they have being single minded in their pursuit of greatness in one sport. Tiger Woods played golf from the age of 3, Sir Donald Bradman spent hours playing cricket in the backyard and Michael Jordan spent countless hours on the basketball court, being the first to show up to practice and the last to leave. Athletic greatness requires a single point of focus, and to achieve greatness moderation is again, an obstacle and not an ally.

Excellence in any field of life requires dedication, single mindedness, determination and will power. When we analyze the great achievers in any field, we will see that moderation was not a word in their vocabulary.

So what do we do from here? It is really quite simple. If you want to achieve greatness in a training pursuit, make that your training! If you want to be a powerlifter, train like one! Pick one goal and focus on that and do not stop until you achieve it. Until you achieve that goal do not start on a new goal. This means you will have to avoid useless training fads, training ADD and influence from well meaning observers. Pick a goal, g for it and forget moderation!

The functional movement screen

It’s been a really busy couple of months, which unfortunately has limited the amount of time I have had to devote to blogging. However, with my new iPad and changed work schedule, there is now no excuses!

Since my last post I have travelled to the states to do the Biosignature course with Charles poliquin, spent time with Charles in a private consultation, been certified as a level 2 kettlebell instructor, a level 1 Olympic weight lifting coach, been certified in the functional movement screen and resumed teaching duties in another state. Lots of fun and lots of hard work!

Over the next few weeks I will blog about my experiences at these different workshops and courses and how what I have learnt and taken away from these courses to improve my clients results. Today I will talk about the functional movement screen and it’s relevance to training.

“first move well, then move often”
Gray Cook

This mantra is behind the entire philosophy of the functional movement screen. It is not enough to go the the gym and train hard and expect to move well, with adequate mobility and injury free. We need to identify if we do have weak links, restrictions and movement pattern flaws and have a baseline to measure them against. If we are improving in our movement, then we will be more efficient, more powerful, healthier and get better results out of our training. Period.

A lot of people in the biofeedback school of though of training have shown a general sound of disapproval of the functional movement screen and are claiming that you don’t need to screen, you just need to test movement. If you move better, it is a good movement. That is the entire essence of the FMS! You test a movement, perform a corrective strategy and see if you move better. If it helps, keep doing it! The only difference with the FMS is it compares movement to a baseline, which allows for quantification of results.

A lot of people will argue with this that because they are getting stronger, they are moving better and do not need to screen movement. Bullshit. I’m stronger in the leg press compared to the overhead barbell squat. Which exercise challenges movement more?How do you know you are moving better if you have no baseline to compare it with? If you are getting stronger without increasing efficiency and quality of movement, you are basically adding strength to dysfunction, another thought provoking sentence first said by Gray Cook.

In my opinion the FMS is a great tool to use for a trainer in the screening process of a client to identify potential problems and to quantify what you are doing. If you can quantify what you are doing, you can prove what you are doing works. Will I use the FMS in my practice? Yes. Will I rely on it as my primary tool? No. The problem with the screen is some people believe it is the right thing to us for every problem. That is absolutely not true and the inventors of the screen will tell you the same thing. It is one tool of many tools that we will use at DC Health Performance. Everything has a place at a certain time.

I would personally like to thank the instructor, Dr Mark Cheng for sharing with us his expertise, time and encouraging manner. This was Dr. Cheng’s first time instructing the FMS solo but he did a great job. If he was nervous, it didn’t show!

Until next time, move well and then move often!

Why I do what I do

The life of a health practitioner/trainer/sports kinesiologist/small business owner is a career filled with many different challenges and obstacles. People often ask me where my drive and determination comes from to be at work from 6 am to 6 pm (or later) and still continuously study, train, eat well and maintain a loving relationship at home and still have energy to give.  Well to be brutally honest there are times when I wonder if it is all worth it, if maybe a regular job with normal hours is better than al the additional responsibility, if maybe this isn’t the right path for me to take and all the other concerns that every other person has when they evaluate their own lives.

I do what I do for a number of reasons. I think of these reasons everyday. This is not just my job or even my career. It is my vocation, my calling my purpose for this life. I don’t think of each new client as a chore or a task; I think of each new client as an opportunity. Everyday I get the opportunity to work with someone on the one thing they will have with them for their rest of their lives – their body. When I first really grasped this concept and its true meaning, it was a revelation. Every minute I am with someone is an opportunity to positively affect them for as long as they are alive. This is a gift.

The nature of my work draws me to study more and more fields and disciplines and relate them to the clients I have the opportunity to treat. This has led me to study (in no particular order) endocrinology, weight training, programming, periodization, rehab, biomechanics, kinesiology, counseling, eastern medicine, acupuncture theory, anatomy, physiology, naturopathic medicine, functional medicine, vibrational medicine and nutrition to name a few. Now the amazing thing about this is this is what I would do if I didn’t have to work! This stuff fascinated me and there is always so much more to learn. Every time you feel you are getting a solid grasp on a concept you will learn something new that will totally shift your viewpoint. According to Dr John Demartini when your vocation and your vacation are matched, you have mastered your life. I dare not say I have mastered my life (still a number of things to work on) but I must be getting close! 🙂

The clients I work with bring with them new experiences and perspectives from which I can learn and further grow as a person. I have recently had one of my most challenging clients with a case history  that would make most people give up. Yet this person was strong, determined and optimistic. People like this are a reason to come to work – they can inspire us to be better people and also to appreciate the gifts that we each have. I fell I have learnt so much from my clients that it is nearly unfair to make money from working with them!

I challenge you to look at your life and see if you can identify the reasons why you do what you do. If you look hard enough you will find there is an underlying reason that you are involves you in your work. If you really can’t see a reason maybe this will push you to be accountable, and hold yourself to a higher standard so you too can make your vocation your vacation.

What I’m excited about

In the fitness industry, you see a lot of blogs ranting about what is wrong in the industry, what needs to change etc etc. What I’m going to do today is miss that trend and blog about what I’m currently excited about in the world of health and fitness. We need more positive information in the fitness industry to combat the sea of negativity that is out there.

1. Biofeedback testing – This is a big one in the industry at the moment. It is polarising many people in the industry. Some very vocal supporters include Mike T Nelson and Adam T Glass (must have something to do with the middle T). my opinion on it is undecided but it definitely intrigues me. I have been using biofeedback testing in my clinical practice through Applied Kinesiology but have never used range of motion testing. I am still not totally sold on biofeedback testing for program design but have used it with exercise selection and workout duration. As of this moment I am not a convert but you could call me a biofeedback agnostic! Watch this space for more!

2. Magnesium Oil and DHEA optimisation – Many thanks to Mike Mahler for educating me about this through his facebook page. Looking at hormone optimisation is something I am very big on with my clients as I believe it is absolutely essential for optimal health and performance. I will be going to New York later this year to study Charles Poliquin’s Biosignature course to further my understanding of his approach to treating hormones. Anyway, back to DHEA, it is a super important hormone when it comes to repair. Anytime we are stressed, we release Cortisol to the detriment of DHEA. THink of DHEA as the Yin to Cortisols Yang. Using magnesium oil is a cheap and effective way to restore levels of this important hormone plus replenish magnesium, which has a whole host of other benefits

3. Functional Medicine – This in my opinion is the future of health. Using a combination of high tech lab testing, clinical reasoning, natural remedies and lifestyle modification it is the complete method of treating chronic illnesses. I have just started to study it and cannot wait to integrate it fully into my practice.

4. Kettlebell Sport – This is my new training pastime. It basically involves timed sets of ten minutes with three differnet lifts – the kettlebell snatch, the 2 arm kettlebell jerk and the 2 arm kettlebell long cycle clean and jerk. Absolutely brutal but awesome training!

5 Random thoughts

It has been a busy couple of days at DC Health this week. Plenty of training clients, breaking records, treating clients with kinesiology, writing nutritional programs it has been go go go! With this in mind, I decided it may be a good idea to get a blog out there with what is rattling around my brain at the moment. Hopefully this will inform you as well as provide me with some sanity!

1. Dead Letter Circus is my favorite band! Seriously these guys are so talented and this is their first album. Really looking forward to what they produce over the next couple of years

2. Kettlebell training is awesome!

Kettlebells are a great training tool. I love training with them and use them with a lot of my clients. I do believe they have been marketed incorrectly and are promoted as a tool for every goal. Kettlebells are best used to develop power endurance. They are not the best tool for hypertrophy and maximal strength gain. The best tool for that is a barbell. I also do not use them with all my clients. Doing high rep kettlebell snatches with a person with shoulder issues and a severe lack of thoracic mobility = malpractice. Adjust the tool you use for the body using it. Just because an exericse looks cool doesn’t mean you should, or can do it!

3. Programming is key

Trainers who don’t program don’t deserve to get paid. Honestly. Doing random exercises with no designated sets or reps and with no structure is not training, but entertaining. Seriously this pisses me off. 80 bucks an hour (or more) to supervise someone doing a workout? Thats what a training partner does! According to Alwyn Cosgrove it takes about 5% more skill to supervise a workout than it does to perform a workout. Your clients are paying you for your program design expertise! A good program should include:

Soft tissue work/mobility

Strength

Conditioning

Recovery/Regeneration

All of this needs to be put into context of the persons goals. Click here to find out if your program matches your goals.

4. You do not need to train bad movements

Even as I write this and read it back to myself the whole concept of training bad movements is ass backwards. A concept espoused by some in the industry is because we will perform biomechanically poor movements in every day life, we should train them. This is used by training things like deadlifts with a rounded back and other poor movements. This is like smashing your head into a wall in preparation for when you do. Boxers and other combat athletes do not (I hope!) put their gloves down and get punched in the face because it may happen in a fight. When we do these poor movements, we program our nervous system to use these poor movements as default programs for movement. This is giving bad information to your computer. It’s going to crash! Also, ligaments and other structures only have a limited capacity for stress. Once they lose their resilience, they break. This is what happens with non contact ACL injuries. Poor movement creates this. Why would we train this?

5. Metabolic flexibility is a good concept, but its implementation is of concern

Metabolic flexibility is the concept that our body should be metabolically flexible enough to break down fats or carbohydrates for food. This in theory is fantastic and requires a person to have good health to do this. Some people however are seeing your diet should be as BAD as possible while maintaining body composition and blood measures. This is to keep the bodies metabolic flexibility trained. This is probably the most irresponsible thing I have ever heard!

The breakdown of food as fuel is going to happen no matter what we eat. We can all agree on that. However, the quality and quantity of energy we get is going to depend on the quality of the food we eat. We can all agree that high quality healthy food is better for us than take away. And yes, I can understand that there are times where we can’t eat ideally and our bodies should be able to cope. But when we eat poor quality food we affect our endocrine, digestive, respiratory, immune, neural and all other systems! Is it really worth training our ability to use processed sugar as fuel if it suppresses our immune system for 8 hours, leaches minerals from our bodies to process it, depletes our valuable enzyme reserves and over stimulates our sympathetic nervous system leading to adrenaline resistance and insulin issues? Focus on getting healthy by eating high quality food as much as you can, exercise, drink water and maintain control over your life and your metabolic flexibility improves anyway!

Thats about all for today see you next time!

Training Questions to ask yourself

1. Am I training for a goal or entertainment?

2. Does my training program match my goals?

3. Do my behaviors match my goals?

4. Do I have a realistic, measurable goal set?

Many people train for health, performance, aesthetic enhancement and fun. All of these reasons for training are fantastic but I would bet that barely any people who train have asked themselves these four questions about their training. If you do ask yourself these questions, you will automatically put yourself ahead of 99% of all people who exercise and ahead of 98% of personal trainers.

1. Am I training for a goal or entertainment?

This question is the first one to answer to determine whether you are actually serious about your training. If you are just training for fun though, more power to you. You are still improving your health and a range of other factors. The answer to this first question however, is the key to answering the others. If you are just training for fun, you can stop reading now. For those who answer that they are training for a goal, read on!

2. Does my training program match my goals?

This is the most important question to ask yourself. Your training program needs to match your goals for you to have any likelihood of achieving them. This sounds incredibly obvious, but is neglected by nearly every trainee. For example, does your training program match your goal if your goal is fat loss and you are performing a bodybuilding body part split? I don’t think so! If you want to gain muscle, do you think doing bodyblade curls on a swiss ball will help? I don’t think so, you are not training, you are entertaining!

Hypertrophy training? Really?

3. Do my behaviors match my goals?

Training is a 24 hour a day dedication. Achieving your goals in the gym is a 24 hour a day task. You need to ensure as well as train hard you need to recover hard. this means eating right, drinking right, sleeping right, taking your supplements, using the foam roller, stretching or whatever behavior aligns with your goals. You want to lose weight but eat at fast food restaurants 3x a week? Not going to happen? Want to gain muscle but are up to 3am each night watching ESPN? Not going to happen! Quite often we will see that a trainee has a decent program and works hard but is undoing themselves in the other 23 hours a day they have available to them.

4. Do I have a realistic, measurable goal set?

This question, although last, tells you the likelihood of ever achieving your goal even f you are doing a good program and following it up with good behaviors. If your goal is to drop to 10% body fat from 15% in 6 months while increasing your dead lift 20 kilograms, that is a realistic and quantifiable goal. If you want to run a marathon, compete in kettlebell sport, gain 30 pounds of muscle and double your bench press in 3 months, it is not going to happen! Focus on setting smart goals and also only a limited number. There is only so many goals one person can achieve.

So remember to ask yourselves these questions in regards to your training and also stop bitching to people that you aren’t achieving your goals until you can answer all these questions with a truthful yes! The only person that is responsible is you!

Book Review: Theory and Application of Modern Strength and Power Methods

Christian Thibaudeau (Thibs from now on for ease of spell check!) is a prolific author for the training website T-Muscle. To be totally honest, i have not been too impressed by his recent offerings on T-Muscle as they are more geared towards bodybuilding rather than strength and conditioning. However I will never write anyone off and will read anything by anyone who has expertise. I find you can always learn at least one useful piece of information from any article or book that you read, even if it just confirms further what you already know. Anyhow in Thibs book, Theory and Application of Modern Strength and Power Methods, there was a lot to like and a lot to learn!

Most people who read my blog are probably aware that I am more interested in performance training than bodybuilding. I don’t have anything against bodybuilding and totally admire their dedication to their sport, I just have an issue with how bodybuilding techniques have infiltrated performance training. This book focuses entirely on methods to improve performance. It has some awesome information in it!

A recent focus of Thibs writing and in the strength world in general is a focus on the nervous system. Chad Waterbury has been fairly pivotal in bringing this to the world. Thibs expands on a lot of Waterbury’s concepts and also points out some inconsistencies (for example, the size principle of orderly motor unit recruitment does not apply for eccentric contractions, only for isometric and concentric contractions). This book focuses heavily on the CNS and other methods to develop strength.

The books chapters are

part 1: The science of strength
part 2: Specific applications of the methods
part 3: Training tools: weight releasers
part 4: Training tools: jumpstretch bands
part 5: Training tools: other effective training tools
part 6: The integrated training plan
part 7: Special Topic: EMS for sports
part 8: Special Topic: Explosive strength exercises
part 9: Special Topic: Women and strength training
part 10: Special Topic: Eccentric Quasi-Isometrics
part 11: Conclusion

Each of these chapters is well written, comprehensive and can easily be applied to current training routines. i would highly recommend this book to any trainer, coach or athlete interested in improving their strength and power in a sports specific environment.

Downsides to the book: Probably too many options. Even though Thibs addresses this do not be tempted to try all these methods at once! You will crash and burn quickly! Also, it would have been nice to have more examples of programs using the methods and an explanation of each program and how and what it is going to achieve. Overall though, it is a fantastic book for any training enthusiast to sit down and devour.

Overall rating 8.5 out of 10

Theory and Application of Modern Strength and Power Methods

Book Review: Born to Run

I will be honest with you. I am not a distance running animal. The idea of running a marathon has about as much appeal to me as chewing glass. However, this did not stop me from thoroughly enjoying the book “Born to Run” by Christopher McDougall.

I originally heard of the book through numerous blogs and websites talking about this book and it’s support of barefoot running. As I am a big believer in barefoot training I was immediately intrigued. I have also heard much about the almost superhuman feats of groups such as the Tarahumara and the Kalahari bushmen. When I stumbled upon the book at the Vibram Five Finger stand at the Fitness expo, I literally had to buy it!

I struggled to put this book down. It is that good. McDougall is a fantastic story teller and also has the ability to inform you as he writes. This book basically was written to answer McDougall’s own question which was, “why does it hurt when I run?’ This question led him all the way down to Mexico to run in a ultra-marathon through dangerous bush-land on an adventure with a crazy guide, a duo of hard drinking college students, a barefoot running aficionado and some elite ultra marathoners.

This book also presents some fantastic info on why we evolved to run and why running is good for us. To be honest, it has changed some of my pre-conceptions about running as a means of training. However, in the book it does mention the value of strength training for improving running performance (Mcdougall himself is put through training involving squats and lunges by his running coach to get him strong enought to run) and emphasizes differential practice (the Tarahumara practice a game which involves running, cutting, change of direction, lunging, jumping and other random activities to get ready for running)

All in all if this book does not make you want to do something you must be dead or at least halfway there! I highly recommend this book to everyone

Born to Run

Mental Toughness and training

Have you pushed your limits lately? Have you pushed your body to exhaustion and kept on going? This form of training done occasionally can be awesome for improving your mindset, physical capabilitites and mental toughness. Try this workout and really try to go beyond what you have ever done before.

Warm Up

Full foam roller routine

Dynamic Warm Up: Cat Camels, Glute bridges, spiderman walks, wall slides, lateral lunges and overhead squats – do 10 reps of each

Strength

A1 –  Barbell Dead Lift

A2 – Muscle Up/Wide Grip Pull Up

Perform 5 sets of 3 with 45 seconds rest in between

B1 – Chin up

B2 – Dips

B3 – Rear foot elevated split squats

B4 – Ab Wheel

4 sets of 8 reps with 30 seconds rest

Conditioning:

Sweet 16 Tabata protocol (Tabata is 20 seconds work, 10 seconds recovery for 8 rounds, totaling 4 minutes. Do this 4 times!)

Burpees

Mountain Climbers

Split Lunge Jumps

Squat Thrusts

You will want to quit doing this workout, but don’t! You can push yourself further than before! You are capable of more than you will ever know and hopefully this workout will help you realize some of your incredible potential!

Train Strong!

Functional Exercise – movement selection or movement outcome?

Functional exercise is a term used in the fitness industry to describe everything from heavy dead lifts to Extreme Crossfit workout of supersetting Body Blade deadlifts with Chakra twisting transverse abdomini pelvic engorgements contra-lateral bladder translateral conniptions (with respect to Charles Poliquin. Hilarious quote)!

While researching the other night I came across an interview with Gray Cook. Gray created the Functional Movement Screen, an easy to use assessment tool for trainers and coaches to use to identify movement dysfunction in their athletes and then correct it. One of Gray’s incredible abilities is his ability to describe complex concepts with extreme simplicity. In this interview he states that

‘it’s not what an exercise looks like that makes it functional, it’s what it produces’

This statement is absolutely essential to understanding functional exercise and proper exercise selection and programming. An exercise does not have to look like the activity you are training for, it is meant to make you a better athlete! An example of this is sprinting. We can try to hook up people with bands attached to their hips, waist, legs, arms and neck and get them to sprint against resistance to replicate the movement. However, this will alter the motor program significantly which will slow down sprinting speed. A dead lift on the other hand will improve strength in the extensor chain, create improved motor unit recruitment, increase inter-muscular co-ordination and improve posture and spinal stability. This will have much better carryover to becoming a faster sprinter.

Always remember to analyze your exercise selection and identify whether the exercise is actually helping you get better at what you do!