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Exercise Physiology 101

In his book “Form and Function: The Anatomy of Motion, ” Evan Osar states, “research indicates many orthopedic injuries are related to weakness in the decelerators of the body or lack of eccentric control. Many injuries occur in the deceleration or slowing phase of motion.”

Before I go on, lets have a little review on exercise physiology. There are essentially three types of muscle contractions.

1. Isometric: contractions in which tension develops in the muscle but there is no change in muscle length (think pushing against a wall).

2. Concentric: contractions in which tension develops in the muscle causing the muscle to shorten (think arm curl where you lift the weight).

3. Eccentric: contractions in which tension develops in the muscle causing the muscle to elongate (think arm curl where you lower the weight).

In the realm of resistance training and/or rehabilitation, Osar notes that much of the focus is placed on force production or concentric contractions. Very little emphasis has been placed on force REDUCTION or the eccentric phase of motion.

During normal walking, the hamstrings function to decelerate extension of the knee during the swing phase. The quadriceps functions to decelerate flexion of the knee as the glute max functions to decelerate internal rotation of the knee during the loading phase (pronation). As you can see, lack of eccentric control can easily lead to knee as well as low back, hip and ankle dysfunction.

When all is said and done, many trainees (whether they’re athletes or soccer moms) would bode well by incorporating an equal amount of time to teaching force reduction (deceleration) and stabilization (isometric) as they relate to force production (acceleration).

A few general protocols I like to use with new clients are:

1. Low box jumps (learning proper landing mechanics, and hence deceleration). Teaching people how to land properly can go a long ways as far as preventing future injuries or kinetic dysfunctions. Essentially you take a low box or “stepper” and jump from the floor onto the box. For many, it’s easier said than done.

2. Split Squat Isometric Holds. These are great for beginners to teach stabilization. Basically you will stand in front of a bench and place one foot on the bench. From there you “squat” down with the other leg and hold that position for an allotted amount of time (usually 20+ seconds on each leg). You want to maintain an upright posture (shoulders back, chest high), and you want to make sure the knee is not caving in.

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Small Rant on Fat Loss

We all know that in order to burn body fat, we have to provide some sort of caloric deficit (calories in must be less than calories out) to do so. Despite what many people claim, they are not the lone exception in all of human history that defies the laws of thermodynamics. As I have stated before, “you’re not that special.” I often find it comical when someone will just assume that their lack of progress (as far as fat loss) is due to a “buggy” thyroid, when in fact, a closer look at their daily diet and/or activity level tells us a completely different story.

A few quick thoughts:

1. It stands to reason that you have probably heard or seen the mantra that in order to lose a lb of fat per week, you must provide a caloric deficit of 500 kcals per day. The rationale is that because one pound of fat equates to roughly a 3500 kcal surplus, reducing your caloric intake and/or increasing your caloric expenditure by 500 kcal per day will result in one pound of fat loss per week. Let it be known that I HATE this approach (for a plethora of reasons that I won’t get into here), but for the sake of argument I will use it since this is what most people are familiar with.

How do most people try to pull off a 500 calorie deficit? If you’re like me, you wrestle polar bears for fun or fight global warming by washing your clothes on your abs (you know, cause it saves water). Since everyone can’t be me, lets assume that most (read: not all) trainees will revert to copious amounts of steady state cardio. How long do you think it would take you to burn 500 calories walking/jogging on a treadmill? For most it will take anywhere from 45-60 minutes. From a time efficiency standpoint, that doesn’t make much sense. We could spend an hour on the treadmill everyday OR we could just not eat that piece of homemade apple pie or that bowl of cereal that has been calling our name. Either way we provide a 500 calorie deficit, however from a time efficiency standpoint, not eating the piece of pie or bowl of cereal makes much more sense.

2. I can’t stress enough how important one’s overall nutrition is in regards to fat loss. As I have stated on numerous occasions, you can’t out train a poor diet. However, if I had to choose, in the beginning, I’d much rather see trainees increase their activity level through exercise to provide a caloric deficit (preferably lifting weights) than reduce their caloric intake to levels that would make Keira Knightely think you’re crazy.

In a nutshell, exercise (again, preferably lifting weights) is a metabolism booster, while continually reducing calories for an extended period of time is a metabolism killer. Many trainees make the mistake of reducing calories too low for too long and then are perplexed why they haven’t made any progress for weeks on end.

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Plan Ahead

Over the weekend, my girlfriend and I were in Maine celebrating my birthday. Since my birthday is considered a state wide holiday up there, it was a weekend to remember. Lets just put it this way, if being awesome was like having the lamest line in Star Wars history (“Noooooooooooooooooooo!!”), then this past weekend would be Darth Vader.

Nonetheless, it was a spectacular weekend. While we did indulge ourselves with eating out at nice restaurants (desserts included), we didn’t use the entire weekend as an excuse to OVER indulge ourselves with two days worth of gluttony.

We made it a point to stay at a place we knew would have a kitchen in their units so that we could make our own meals when we wanted. Granted it’s a bit more expensive then staying in a regular hotel room, but in my opinion, it’s a cost that’s well worth it. In doing so we were able to stock our fridge with fresh fruit/veggies, cottage cheese, yogurt, mixed nuts, and eggs from the local grocery store. Matter of fact, grocery shopping was one of the first things we did when we arrived in Maine. As luck would have it, the store we were in was having a wine tasting that evening. Score!

We also made sure to scope out where the local gyms were located. Even though we were on “vacation,” we were still able to get one good training session in. Nothing spells “weekend getaway” then a heavy deadlift session on a Saturday morning.

Long story short, many people tend to use extended vacations or even short weekend getaways (like the one above) as an excuse to eat like crap and/or slack on their exercise routine. No one is saying that you can’t live a little and indulge a bit. In the grand scheme of things that’s what vacations are for. But I think it’s a major cop out when people try to make excuses and attempt to justify eating at the buffet three times per day because they didn’t plan ahead.