Categoriescontinuing education Nutrition

The Top 2 Mistakes Trainers Make With Nutrition and Recovery and How to Fix Them

It’s one thing to get a client on board with lifting heavy things on a somewhat regular basis and how it can have positive effects on their overall health and well-being.

It’s another thing altogether to get them to commit to the nutrition & recovery side of the equation and how that too plays a significant role in the grand scheme of things. I’ve often joked that I’d rather wash my face with broken glass than attempt to get a client to try some kale.

That being said, it behooves any trainer/coach/fitness professional to have a system in place to address their clients’ nutritional & recovery needs. My good friend, Dr. Mike T Nelson, has opened up his Flex Diet Certification to my readers only this week. It includes 30 hours of continuing education and covers anything and everything as it relates to nutrition coaching

You can click HERE to sign up for a FREE 1-hour webinar and to learn more about the certification and whether or not it’s a good fit for you.

(Ahem: you should also check out his guest post below)

👇👇👇👇👇

Copyright: lightwise / 123RF Stock Photo

Top 2 Mistakes Trainers Make With Nutrition & Recovery…and How to Fix Them

The old saying is true. . . at best you are only with a client for one hour a day and they have the other 23 hours to hose it all up.

This is reality.

You are not going to follow them around to their workplace and bat the doughnut that coworker Betty brought into work out of their hand.

What you do with clients in the gym and online for programming matters tons, but what are you providing them for the time when they are not with you?

Here are the top 2 mistakes I see trainers making in this area.  A big reason I know this is that I’ve made these two mistakes in the past and wish someone would have grabbed me by my undies, dragged me to the curb and showed me how to do it better.

Mistake #1: Prioritizing the Wrong Items

I know you.

You love to spend time working on getting better at your craft.  That is commendable and kudos to you.  The fitness world needs more people like you, and Tony G will even give you a virtual high five.

Note From TG: Better yet, I’ll toss over a “bearded Robert Redford playing a lumberjack (?)” head nod of approval.

via GIPHY

The downside is that everyone is pushing the latest and greatest nutrition/ recovery item you should have your clients do.

“No way Bro, you have to be doing keto esters between every meal to recover and get ripped.”

“What, you don’t need any veggies. Don’t you know they have these nasty ass compounds in them to prevent other animals from eating them, so they are bad for you.  Just eat more meat you, wimp.”

“You are missing out Bro-ette since this corset is what you really need to get toned in your abZ.”

You get the idea.

Much of what you read is walking BS on a stick and easy to spot. But even legitimate items can be overwhelming from veggie intake to protein to breathing techniques to sleep.

How do you know where to start with a client?

Here is where the concept of leverage can be helpful to figure out what interventions may be best for your clients.

You remember the concept of leverage from Physics class right? In case you slept through it, leverage allows you to amplify a small input for a much bigger output.  It was also a semi-ok now defunct TV series . . .

If you have a big enough lever, you can move huge amounts of load with less effort.

Think of the concept of the kingpin.

If you’ve ever looked at logs going down a river all jammed up. It looks like a mess, and you would need massive effort to get them flowing again. Then, suddenly some crazy ass lumberjack removes just one log and instead of being all jammed up, all of the logs seem to flow much better.

That one log had a lot more leverage than the other logs around it.

This concept can also be applied to when you’re working with clients to determine what kind of intervention should you do on the recovery side on nutrition and different aspects related to that.

In regards to your client’s other 23 hours, sleep is something that’s trending now, which is great, but most conversations about sleep with clients does not end well.

We know that sleep is an absolute requirement for survival. We know that if you don’t sleep for several days, you’re going to have a whole bunch of physiologic changes that are not going to be good, right?

All sorts of things that kind of go offline with sleep on the physiology side. I can make a huge argument that sleep may be near the top.

I did a lot of discussion about sleep and why I think they should get more sleep. And the short answer is, and again, if you’re a trainer, you’ve run into this, I absolutely guarantee it was excruciatingly hard to get clients to make large changes in sleep.

via MEME

Most client’s response when you tell them to sleep more

The reality is at the end of the day, having someone who only sleeps five to six hours and trying to get them up to maybe a seven to eight hours of sleep was very difficult.  I felt like I was beating my head against the wall because I had all this data, all this research to show how important sleep actually is.

But the mistake that I made was I was only rating that on the physiology.

And as you know, when you work with clients or even yourself, I rarely find that physiology is the main rate limiter. It’s definitely a factor for sure, but I find the psychological ability to change as the biggest thing that will limit your results.

I took my physiologic rankings, and I put them on just an arbitrary one to 10 scale, kind of based on the research and what I had found.

via MEME

Severe restriction is not the answer

Next, I took the same interventions, and I ranked them on the client’s ability to change (psychology). This was primarily based on my own experience, from talking to a lot of other trainers and polling trainers at seminars and education.

Coaching Leverage = Physiology Effect x Client’s Ability to Change

Back to topic of sleep, the psychologic ability to change with sleep is very low despite a very high physiologic effect; thus, our coaching leverage score for sleep turns out to be crazy low.

The concept of coaching leverage is a cool way to then rate all the different interventions that you can do.

When I set up the Flex Diet Cert, that’s exactly what I did . . . I ranked all eight possible interventions in order with the highest coaching leverage being the first one to focus on and the lowest one being last.

My recommendation is to start with the higher ranked items first.

Here is a clue, eating more dietary protein ranked as #1.

Rig the system in your client’s favor.

Allow them to see some change, some positive wins, and try to do the things that are easier for them to change and have an also bigger physiologic change.

This allows them to see results with less effort.

Mistake #2: Not Using a System

You use a system for training right?

What system do you use for the other 23 hours a day for your clients?

Many trainers don’t have a system and just lob 30-day challenges at clients with a dash of “hope and pray.”

There are lots of great systems out there, and of course I am biased to the one I created (cough… Flex Diet Cert…cough cough).

Heck, even if you opt to not use my system (you crazy person), please pick one and implement it. Your clients will get better results, which makes you look even better.

Summary

Above you have two mistakes that many trainers are making and two solutions to fix them.

To make your life even easier, I have opened up the Flex Diet Cert for only 7 days exclusively for fans of my buddy Tony G.

Go to the link below to learn more today and implement solutions to your clients other 23 hours a day for better results.

 Flex Diet Cert <— learn more

About the Author

Mike T. Nelson, PhD, MSME, CSCS, CISSN, is a research fanatic who specializes in metabolic flexibility and heart rate variability, as well as an online trainer, adjunct professor, faculty member at the Carrick Institute, presenter, creator of the Flex Diet Cert, kiteboarder, and (somewhat incongruously) heavy-metal enthusiast.

The techniques he’s developed, and the results Mike gets for his clients have been featured in international magazines, in scientific publications, and on websites across the globe.

In his free time, he enjoys spending time with his wife, lifting odd objects, reading research, and kiteboarding as much as possible.

 

 

Categoriespersonal training

5 Reasons You Aren’t Getting the Results You Want in the Gym

Today’s guest post comes courtesy of Syracuse, NY based personal trainer/strength coach, Ricky Kompf1

If you lift weights as your main mode of exercise you’re bound to experience ruts that can be frustrating, and there are many factors to consider. 

Ricky weighs in (<— see what I just did there?) on several things to consider on why you may not be seeing the fruits of your labor.

Enjoy!

Copyright: pressmaster / 123RF Stock Photo

5 Reasons You Aren’t Getting the Results You Want

This is a constant battle everyone interested in getting fitter or healthier deals with: You start working out a lot, you get a lot of initial gains in your strength, speed, power, endurance and overall performance, and you think “Wow this is awesome!”

You continue to work out the same way and over time you stop getting results. Or, at the very least, progress takes a major nose dive.

You’ve hit a plateau.

This is one of the hardest things to overcome. Many people give up, stop being as motivated, and try to work harder, but crash and burn, leaving a bad taste in their mouth because they aren’t getting the gains they were before.

Sound like you?

via GIPHY

Let’s be clear with one thing, reaching peak performance is a marathon not a sprint.

To get past sticking points in your program it will require you to look at your daily actions much more deeply. It will force you to painfully analyze the things you’re really not good at.  As long as you can approach this with an open mind of getting better you’ll be able to push through your plateaus.

What follows are the top 5 things I’ve found to be the leading reasons why most people fail at attaining the results they want. Read them over, ponder, let them marinate, and then let’s get to work.

1. You’re Training Too Hard

Believe it or not, there is a such thing as training too hard.

Not that it will always result in “overtraining” but it can and absolutely will result in diminishing rate of returns in the gym.

At a micro level your body can only recover from so much stress on a daily basis and if you consistently go above that threshold every day you’re not going to recover and become stronger. The stronger you become the more likely this can happen.

It’s called the Law of Supercompensation and it helps you to achieve the results that you want.

When you first workout your body becomes weaker, and after you eat, sleep and give you body time to recover you become stronger as an adaption to prevent damage to the body.

Your body literally adapts so you don’t die.

As you continue to ramp up the stimulus of training your body needs more time to recover, or it needs to optimize its ability to recover.

If you fail to allow either to happen the body will stop recovering to baseline and you’ll be in a constant state of fatigue.

Fatigue will mask your true fitness level.

Going into the weeds on this topic with a simple blog post is impossible, but the idea here is to champion RECOVERY. Your results in the gym are directly proportional to how well you allow yourself to recover.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can sit here and wax poetic on the importance of sleep, proper hydration, and ensuring ample calories to support your training but…

…zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Boring.

NOTE: All there are THE most important factors to consider when discussing recovery. I just know most people tend to black out or lose interest when anyone starts to discuss topics.

One of the best ways to ensure ample recovery and to prevent plateaus in the gym is to “lean into” the ebbs and flows of training volume. Some days/weeks should be hard, some days/weeks should be easy, some days/weeks should be right in the middle (what I like to call Goldilocks days), and then, yes, some days should absolutely make you hate your fucking life.

Here’s an excellent video via Chad Wesley Smith of Juggernaut Training outlining the concept:

 

2. You’re Not Training Hard Enough

This seems to be an obvious one but it’s very common for someone to get stuck into a routine doing the same thing every time they go to the gym, operate at the same level of intensity, and do the same weights every…single…day.

Your body is very good at adapting to what you do on a regular basis and if you continue to do the same thing day in and day out your body will become so efficient at it that, not only will you stop seeing results, but you actually may begin to regress.

Your body needs novel stimuli that it’s not used to, and you need to change the intensity of your workouts on a regular basis.

If you program calls for you to perform an exercise for eight repetitions and when you’re done you could have completed eight more, you’re not training hard enough…

…and you’re likely seeing sub-optimal results.

I always like to tell people you should leave 1-2 reps in the tank after each set. This tends to be a nice compromise because

  • You’ll ensure good technique with each rep.
  • You’ll still be lifting an appreciable amount of weight in order to elicit an adaptive response from the body
  • And lastly, to piggy back from above, you’ll ensure ample recovery between workouts

Figuring out how much weight you should be using can be a bit of a quagmire.

THIS post from Tony should help those of you who need a little direction.

3. You Have Too Many Daily Stressors

Your body recognizes all stressors as the same thing, and when you have too many stressors – good or bad – it will influence your recovery and results.

These stressors can include: working out, a lack of sleep, fighting ninjas, financial stress, friends and significant other, sick kid, your boss is an asshole, and everything and anything in between.

If it feels like the stress is piling up chances are you won’t be recovering very well either.

Maybe taking a day or two off from working out is what’s needed. However, I recognize that for a lot of people heading to the gym on a daily basis IS stress relief. To that end, maybe something like a Bloop, Bloop, Bloop workout is in the cards?

Meditation is lovely idea.

Or, I don’t know, maybe try some yoga.

Try Neghar Fonooni’s Wildfire Yoga (I.e., yoga for meatheads) which provides a plethora of quick 10-20 minutes “yoga flows” that’ll help declutter your mind but also loosen up that pesky piriformis that’s been nagging you for years.

The idea is that you don’t always need go full-boar, DEFCON 1, OMG-this-workout-was-so-awesome-I-can’t-feel-the-right-side-of-my-face.

If daily stress is high, temper your workouts accordingly.

4. You Need to Change the Focus of Your Program

Many people fall victim to this.

Humans are creature of habit and if something worked in the past, it stands to reason it’ll work today, tomorrow, next week, next year, next decade, you get the idea.

Whether it’s strength training, being a cardio bunny, or going on a bodybuilder body part split…

…everything works until it doesn’t work.

The answer to your past problems – when overdone – will be the source of your new issues. 

This is why having a basic understanding of periodization and focusing on different qualities of strength and fitness at different times is so important.

This means taking time to have phases where your main focus is strength, or Hypertrophy, or endurance, or power/speed, or just having better movement.

Change the focus of your program so you can be well rounded and avoid plateaus.

Progress feeds more progress.

5. Do More of What You Suck At

Stop always doing what you’re good at or what you’re familiar with.

If you write your own programs you’ll inevitably lean towards those exercises you’re comfortable with and good at. If you’ve always had a straight bar deadlift and a barbell back squat in your program, I have news for you…

…you don’t need either of them to be strong and get awesome results.

via GIPHY

The body doesn’t know what a deadlift or a squat is.

All that happens is a stimulus and an adaptation to the stimulus.

If the stimulus is the same all the time, the adaptation will be less and less significant. Change your variations, go from a straight bar deadlift to a trap bar deadlift, use specialty bars, use accommodating resistance with bands and chains, use eccentrics and isometrics in your training.

 

There’re so many things you can change or tweak in your program; the options are endless!

Here’s a list of things you can change to create a different stimulus and continue to allow your body to make adaptation:

  1. Use eccentric and isometrics to limit mechanical stress and master movement of your lifts
  2. Use chains and bands to overload the top of your lifts, mimic the strength curve, and teach acceleration in your lifts
  3. Use specialty bars to change the lift slightly and work on weaknesses
  4. Change your rest periods
  5. Use unilateral exercises as your main lift (ie, Bulgarian split squats, reverse lunges, single arm presses, etc)

About the Author

Ricky Kompf is the head coach/owner of Kompf Training Systems where we work primarily with team sport athletes like baseball, football, lacrosse and basketball.

He’s also a Head Trainer for a corporation for Bankers Heath Care.

You can give him a follow on Instagram HERE.

You can check him out on Twitter HERE.

CategoriesConditioning Program Design

Conditioning That Won’t Make You Hate Life *That Much*

Lets get right to the point.

Conditioning – how much to do?, how “hard” should it be?, what modalities are best? – can be a conundrum for many.

As with any question the appropriate answer is “it depends.”2

That said, the questions above are no different but are predicated on a number of things: one’s goal(s), injury history, current ability/fitness level, and whether or not they’re Bo Jackson.

Okay, that’s the epitome of “it depends.”

Even still, there’s no way a simple blog post can appropriately articulate the expansiveness of this topic and all the components at play.

However, I will say this:

  1. Conditioning as a means to AID RECOVERY is crucial.
  2. Conditioning is not more effective the harder you make it. I.e., it shouldn’t make you shit your spleen. If it does, you may want to head to the nearest hospital.

Conditioning That Won’t Make You Hate Life (That Much)

At the expense of making things a bit too over-simplistic, in my opinion, conditioning is more about helping to increase one’s work capacity (or ability to do more work in a given time).

Watering it down further and directing my train of thought to most of you reading: low(ish) intensity conditioning can help in the weight room and improve recovery and performance.

But if you prefer a more smarty-pants explanation, I like Alex Viada‘s say on the matter:

“If the goal is to improve work capacity (ability to do more work in a given time) it’s crucial to employ modalities that aid and promote general recovery which also create positive adaptations in durability, energy stores, cardiac output and cardiac perfusion, and other general components of overall endurance that essentially provide the foundation for an athlete to train and compete for longer while recovering better.”

The key, though, is not to be an asshat and turn something that’s supposed to, you know, help you recover…and turn it into loaded Prowler sprints paired with 400m handstand walks over broken glass for AMRAP.

Again, I can’t say this enough…

…AIDING RECOVERY IS THE GOAL.

Here are a handful of my favorite go to protocols.

1. You Haven’t Been An Athlete For 20+ Years So Lets Stop Pretending You Are One Movement Circuit

Sprinting, more often than not, will not be my first choice for most trainees.

It’s too aggressive and most people just aren’t prepared for it. Repeatedly stabbing themselves in the neck with a cactus would likely be more beneficial.

I keed, I keed.

At some point I may venture into opening things up and introducing some sprint work into the mix.  But in the meantime, for most people, a more down to Earth approach to movement training/conditioning would be to implement more basic calisthenics like skipping, side shuffling, and the like into the mix.

  • 20 yd Forward Skip
  • Walk/jog 20 yd
  • 20 yd Reverse Skip
  • Walk/jog 20 yd
  • 20 yd Lateral Skipping/direction
  • Walk/jog 20 yd
  • 20 yd Side Shuffle/direction
  • Walk/jog 20 yd
  • 20 yd Carioca/direction
  • Walk/jog 20 yd
  • Rest 1-2 Minutes
  • Repeat for 3-5 Total Rounds

2. Tempo “Sprints”

My expectation isn’t that everyone has to look like Tom Cruise sprinting from an alien in order to perform sprints:

 

However, there should be a “base” level of competence involved which is where coaching comes into fruition. That said, sprinting doesn’t always have to be an-all-out-holy-fucking-shit-that-skyscraper-is-going-to-collapse-on-my- head-if-I-don’t-high-tail-it-out-of-here endeavor.

Strength coach Mike Boyle has always championed “tempo runs/sprints” as a conditioning method for his athletes AND regular Joe’s and I agree wholeheartedly.

I think they’re fantastic.

Basically all you do is perform sprints at 60-75% effort with walking recovery.

A basic template would look like this:

  • Tempo Sprint 50 yd
  • 50 yd walk back
  • Repeat for “x” number of rounds

A good rule to follow is no more than a 10% increase in volume (distance or time) each week.

3. Add a Prowler

There are a thousand and one different ways to implement conditioning with Prowler Sled.

One that I like is this:

  • 20 yd (loaded) Prowler Sprint (or whatever is best suited for the person: loaded, un-loaded, sprint, walk, pants on, pants off, you’re the coach, figure it out)
  • 40 yd Jog
  • 80 yd Walk (recover)
  • Repeat 8-10 Rounds

4. Something I Stole From Chad Wesley Smith

Strength coach Chad Wesley Smith defines tempo as the following:

“Tempo activity is done at 60-75% of max intensity and while the duration will vary based upon the nature of the activity you’re performing and your requisite fitness levels, 15-45 seconds of work is a good guideline. These work intervals are interspersed with low intensity calisthenics like push-ups, ring rows, abs, or can just be rest periods.”

One of Chad’s favorite protocols (and one I stole from him) is as follows using a stationary bike:

  • 1st Rep: 30 seconds of riding (~110 rpm) followed by 10 push-ups, rest until heart rate returns to bottom aerobic development zone OR you can speak normally.
  • 2nd Rep: 3o seconds of riding (~110 rpm) followed by abs, rest until heart rate returns to bottom aerobic development zone OR you can speak normally.
  • 3rd Rep: 30 seconds of riding (~110 rpm) followed by 10 push-ups, rest until heart rate returns to bottom aerobic development zone OR you can speak normally.
  • 4th Rep: 3o seconds of riding (~110 rpm) followed by abs, rest until heart rate returns to bottom aerobic development zone OR you can speak normally.
  • 5th Rep: 30 seconds of riding (~110 rpm) followed by 10 push-ups, rest until heart rate returns to bottom aerobic development zone OR you can speak normally.
  • 6th Rep: 3o seconds of riding (~110 rpm) followed by abs, rest until heart rate returns to bottom aerobic development zone OR you can speak normally.

Rest 3-5 Minutes and begin Set 2.

Two sets of SIX is a good starting point and over a number of weeks build up to TWO sets of TEN and maintain there.

5. Juarez Push-Up Inverted Circuit

This is a doozy I stole from another strength coach, Josh Bryant, of Jailhouse Strong (which should give away where the name of this circuit came from).

  • Perform 10 Push-Ups
  • Get up, walk/jog 20 yds
  • Perform 1 Push-Up
  • Get up, walk/jog back 20 yds
  • Perform 9 Push-Ups
  • Get up, walk/jog 20 yds
  • Perform 2 Push-Ups
  • Get up, walk/jog back 20 yds
  • So on and so forth

Perform any of these conditioning workouts on “off” days between your regularly scheduled workouts and I am willing to bet you’re going to see some drastic improvements in your ability to recover and work harder in the gym.

CategoriesProgram Design Rehab/Prehab

All About Recovery

I always like to say the progress you make in the gym are the direct result of how well you allow yourself to recover.

As counterintuitive as it sounds you break muscle down in the gym, and it’s the time away from deadlifts, squats, and daily WODs that your body recovers and bounces back stronger than before.

Today’s guest post from TG.com regular, Dr. Nicholas Licameli, expounds on some of the best (and simplest) ways you can get a little more recovery in your life.

It’s not as easy as telling someone to “go to bed.”

Enjoy.

Copyright: lzflzf / 123RF Stock Photo

My Top Recovery Tips

As soon as a training session ends, the goal should be to start the recovery process.

In order for us to consistently make improvements in our bodies and our training, we need exercise that overloads our current tolerance AND adequate recovery. In other words, we need to challenge, break down, and fatigue our muscles as well as recover from that challenge, break down, and fatigue.

There are many ways to look at fatigue. One common breakdown is peripheral fatigue and central fatigue. Peripheral fatigue is simply the physical stress, break down, and depletion of glycogen that muscles experience during training. This decreases strength, power, and performance and causes muscle soreness.

Central fatigue is a bit different.

Without going too in depth (that’s for another article), I introduce the autonomic nervous system, made up of the sympathetic (SNS) and parasympathetic (PNS) nervous systems. The SNS controls our stress response, or “fight or flight.”

SNS controls our bodies when we come face to face with a grizzly bear. We’re going to sweat and our heart rate, blood pressure, and respiratory rate will increase. During this state, we are essentially mentally and physically breaking down our bodies.   The PNS controls the recovery response, or “rest, digest, and recover.” During this state, our blood pressure, heart rate, and respiratory rates all decrease.

It is in this state that we mentally and physically rebuild and recover.

Interestingly enough, the brain’s mechanism for learning works similarly to the mechanism by which muscles grow and become stronger.

Muscles do not grow in the gym.

Training causes muscles to be broken down. It is during recovery and sleep that muscles make adaptive changes.

Similarly, we do not learn while we attend a lecture.

via GIPHY

The lecture is like a training session because we do not make adaptive and lasting breakthroughs while in class. Our brains make new connections and truly absorb new knowledge during the rest, digest, and recover phase, which occurs after the lecture and usually during sleep.

I Sleep Every Night, Isn’t That Enough?

Not quite.

Imagine this sample day:

Alarm goes off (for the 5th time…thanks a lot snooze button) and you jump out of bed feeling like you’re running late. You go into the bathroom, get washed, get dressed, sprint down the stairs, grab some coffee and a quick to-go bite to eat, and you get into your car.

Some traffic, nasty drivers, and frantic lane changes later, you make it to the office a few minutes late. With no time to prepare, you dive right into your daily work duties.

After a stressful day at work (and getting yelled at by your boss for being late) and four cups of coffee, you rush to get home to pick up the kids from school. The commute home is no better than the morning, but you manage to get there on time. You make it home, give the kids a snack[/efn_note]As if I know anything about childcare. Sorry parents, this article is written by a young man without children…yet.3 and head out to the gym.

After taking a pre workout with enough caffeine to give heart palpitations to a Clydesdale horse, you manage to get psyched up for your workout. After a great workout, you jump in the car newly energized and ready to make dinner for the family and help the kids with homework. After collapsing on your bed and staring blankly at your Instagram feed until you can’t keep your eyes open, you manage to somehow fall asleep.

What’s the point of this example?

This is an entire day spent in a sympathetic state!

Remember, the sympathetic system is the fight, flight, and physical breakdown system. There is no time allotted to the parasympathetic system: rest, digest, and recover.

Things like stress, caffeine, and training are all highly sympathetic.

Here’s the good news!

A day like this can be easily changed for the good. All it takes is a few minutes of actively disconnecting from the grind. My favorite (and in my opinion, the simplest) way to accomplish this is simply breathing.

That’s right. Good ol’ breathing.

Inhale deeply and exhaling slowly. Let your shoulders drop down on the exhale. Redirect your mind away from the day-to-day and focus on your breathing (more on this below).

via GIPHY

In my office, we set an egg timer for one hour. When the timer goes off, everyone stops and takes a deep breath. It takes maybe 6 seconds and has had a significant impact on staff and patients alike. No egg timer? Every time you slip away for a bathroom break, try making it a point to take a deep breath. It may even be a good idea to bring along loved ones. What could be a better way to end the day than a couples breathing session in bed?

Actually, don’t answer that.

Note From TG: BOM, CHICKA BOM BOM

It seems logical that a proper recovery plan would target both types of fatigue. The following is a list of some recovery techniques that research has shown may be effective.

The techniques will target both types of fatigue and keep you on your way to achieving and surpassing your goals. Before we go on, it is important to note that no recovery technique, including the ones below, will be effective without proper sleep and nutrition. Getting your Z’s and eating properly to fuel and refuel our bodies are most important.

That being said, let’s get to it!

In an already packed schedule, it is not feasible to think you will be able to set aside time to do each technique, so I’ve numbered them from 1 (most important) to 4 (least important), in my opinion of course.

My opinion is based on the current research, effectiveness, convenience, and anecdotal experience both personally and professionally. It should be noted that although there is some research supporting the use of these techniques, many of the mechanisms and overall effectiveness still warrant further study.

For more information about specific parameters and references (and if you want to feel really insignificant about yourself and the quality of your own content), be sure to check out Chris Beardsley’s work at strengthandconditioningresearch.com right here.

1. Deep Breathing and Meditation

What Is It?

Using deep, controlled breathing and meditation to induce a state of physical and mental relaxation.

What Does It Do?

Deep breathing and meditation increases parasympathetic nervous system activity (rest, digest, recover) and decreases sympathetic nervous system activity (fight or flight).

How to Do It?

Choose a relaxing environment (an empty room, out in nature, etc.) and position yourself in a comfortable position (I prefer lying on my back with a pillow under my head and a pillow under my knees). Breathe in deeply through your nose and imagine the breath filling up and expanding your abdomen and lower back.

Hold for a few seconds and then exhale through your mouth in a controlled manner (don’t just blow the air out). With each exhale, imagine your body melting into the floor. Keep your mind focused on your breathing. “Is this an ‘in’ breath or an ‘out’ breath?” is the only thinking that should be happening.

If you hear a car horn and your attention goes to the car, redirect your mind back to your breathing. If your mind drifts to that report you have to write at work today, redirect your mind to your breathing. Some types of meditation actually involve allowing those intrusive thoughts in, and accepting their presence. If they are of significance, take moment to write them down.

If they are insignificant (be honest with yourself), push them away and redirect your mind to your breathing. Meditation takes practice, but as you train your brain to control intrusive thoughts and focus on the moment, you’ll see drastic changes in your recovery as well as your life.

2. Active Recovery

What Is It?

Active Recovery involves performing light resistance training or cardio either immediately following a workout or between workouts.

What Does It Do?

May reduce muscle soreness, limit strength losses, and even improve mood.

How to Do It?

Perform active recovery by using a light load (30% of 1 rep max) for about 20-50 reps for less than 60 minutes or using an active cool down such as a stationary bike for roughly 15 minutes.

Note From TG: Check out my Bloop, Bloop, Bloop Workout HERE which touches on the same idea a Nicholas describes and gives you some ideas on what to do.

3. Foam Rolling

(For an in depth look at foam rolling, be sure to check out my previous article here and my podcast here, which are much more comprehensive than what is described in this article.)

What Is It?

Foam rolling involves lying on a roller and using gravity to apply pressure to a muscle. The roller is pressed into the muscle belly and the user rolls up and down the length of the target muscle.

 

What Does It Do?

Like deep breathing and meditation, foam rolling can tap into the parasympathetic nervous system (rest, digest, recover) and reduce sympathetic nervous system activity (fight or flight) by inducing a global short-term decrease in muscle tone.

Muscle tone is the continuous passive contraction of a muscle controlled subconsciously by the brain. In other words, it’s a muscle’s resistance to passive stretch.

Tone is created by a constant subconscious message from the brain telling a muscle to contract. Many times the sensation of muscle “tightness” has more to do with tone and less to do with actual muscle length.

How to Do It?

1. View video above.

2. Or, if you learn better by reading:

Start off with a slow, steady roll covering the entire muscle group, scanning the area for tender spots. Think of scanning the area as a blind person would scan a new environment. Once you find a tender spot, pause and hold on that spot until a release is felt and the tenderness lessens. Add some deep breathing while holding on the tender spot to further assist in the release. Follow this up with another slow, steady roll over the entire muscle, just like how you started. It is true that foam rolling should be a bit painful, but too much pain will cause an increase in muscle tone, which, as previously mentioned, is exactly the opposite of what we want to do. More pain is not better.

Better quality is better.

4. Water Immersion

What Is It?

Water immersion is the use of ice baths or hot tubs.

What Does It Do?

May reduce muscle soreness and limit losses in performance.

How to Do It?

Use cold-water immersion (8-15°C/46°F-59°F) for 5-15 minutes or alternate 1-4 minute bouts of cold and hot water (38°C-42°C/100°F-108°F). Be sure to be submerged to shoulder height.

Where to Start?

A great place to start is with (1) deep breathing and meditation.

Start small.

Try devoting a few minutes each day to disconnecting and breathing. Work up to longer durations as you start to get the hang of it.

This will help in all aspects of life.

Once you’ve successfully made it a habit to disconnect and breathe for a few minutes each day, try adding in some (2) active recovery days.

After you have a solid daily breathing and meditation routine and you’ve managed to add in some active recovery to your week, consider using a foam roller combined with deep breathing for a few minutes after training and maybe even before bed. Once you have all these in place, feel free to give (4) water immersion a shot if you have the time and resources.

Use these techniques, along with proper sleep and nutrition, and you will soon reap the physical and mental benefits of proper recovery!

About the Author

Nicholas M. Licameli

Doctor of Physical Therapy / Pro Natural Bodybuilder

Youtube: HERE

Instagram: HERE

Facebook: HERE

Every single thing he does, Nick believes in giving himself to others in an attempt to make the world a happier, healthier, and more loving place. He wants to give people the power to change their lives. Bodybuilding and physical therapy serve as ways to carry out that cause. Nick graduated summa cum laude from Ramapo College of New Jersey with his bachelor’s degree in biology, furthered his education by completing his doctoral degree in physical therapy from Rutgers School of Biomedical and Health Sciences (previously the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey) at the age of 24, and has earned professional status in natural bodybuilding. His knowledge of sport and exercise biomechanics, movement quality, and the practical application of research combined with personal experience in bodybuilding and nutrition allows him to help people in truly unique ways. Love. Passion. Respect. Humility.   Never an expert. Always a student. Love your journey.

CategoriesRehab/Prehab Strength Training

Sleep and Training: The Ultimate Balancing Act

Whenever a client or athlete grows frustrated from their lack of progress in the gym it can almost always be attributed to sleep…or lack thereof.

I often say the best “supplement” you can invest in isn’t protein powder, pre-work energy drinks, or something like Acai Boost,4 but rather…

…a solid night’s sleep.

Today’s guest post by Baltimore based personal trainer/coach, Tim Hendren, reverberates my sentiments on the topic.

Which is….go to freakin bed.

Copyright: nilswey / 123RF Stock Photo

Sleep and Training: The Ultimate Balancing Act

At this point it’s common knowledge that the “experts” online have hijacked the attention of the public.

While conflicting and generally poor fitness advice has flooded the internet to confuse the public, one area that even sound coaches and trainers talk out of both sides of their mouths is the relationship between training and sleep.

On many occasions, I have heard live coaches (myself included) or coaches I follow online give the “wake up earlier to get the work done” speech and then five minutes later hit the same person with the “well you aren’t getting enough sleep” speech to explain lack of progress, chronic fatigue, or generally feeling like shit at the gym and beyond.

Most people can’t do both.

If a coach spews this advice at a parent of an infant or toddler or an accountant trying to meet a deadline during the peak of tax season, you can bet it’s going to fall on deaf ears.

Getting nine hours of uninterrupted sleep and getting up at 5am to get a workout in is about as likely as Tracy Anderson entering a powerlifting meet, it isn’t happening, and even if it does, that training session won’t be pretty.

Sleep is important, getting the work done is important. It takes balance. The best program ever written is a total waste of time if you can’t recover from it.

As usual, the answer is in the grey area. If you aren’t getting enough sleep, training needs to be scaled back in terms of volume, intensity, or frequency. If you are especially sleep deprived, dialing back two of those three variables may be necessary to optimize your results until you are able to get more shut-eye.

Even if you are getting the required nutrition to support your frequent and intense bouts of training, you WILL be stuck in neutral if you aren’t getting sufficient sleep.

The Importance of Sleep        

We know that as Americans, we simply don’t sleep enough. In fact, according to a Gallup poll from a few years back, 40% of Americans are sleeping less than 7 hours per night.

While busy lifestyles, work schedules, and raising kids contribute to this lack of ZZZs, two underrated factors may be:

  • The brilliant Netflix feature that rolls the end of an episode directly into the next one in 5 seconds.
  • The graphics, sound, and online capabilities of the Call of Duty franchise has gotten totally insane.

Regardless of the root of the issue, this lack of sleep will wreak havoc on your production in the gym especially if your training sessions are frequent and intense.

Sleep deprivation will not only sap energy from your lifts, it will negatively impact you on a hormonal level by decreasing the release of testosterone (1) and increasing cortisol (2), an especially nasty combo when trying to gain strength, muscle mass, or lose body fat and even worse for males interested in having sex past the age of 35.

Furthermore, if you add quality sleep, you’ll have a much better chance at performing optimally in the gym (3). We know we need more sleep, but how?

How Do We Sleep for More Muscle?

A general rule of thumb is getting 7-9 hours of sleep per night to recover from training and support your effort in the weight room.

It’s important to note, however, that not everyone is going to be able to follow that advice 100% of the time.

Sometimes you are simply in a period of life (new baby, starting a new business, etc.) that doesn’t lend itself to a lot of sleep. While training is still encouraged under these circumstances, going balls to the wall with exercise is going to end up wasting time, effort, or causing injury.

Want a more restful night of sleep? Try implementing a couple of these tips to take advantage of all the benefits a great night of rest can provide.

1. Go to Bed Earlier

Common sense? Absolutely.

It’s also the easiest tip to implement and will yield the best results. I bet if there were some snazzy Instagram videos of shredded guys and girls going to bed at 9:30 on a Friday night, it would be a more popular thing to do.

2. Put Down the Screens an Hour or Two Before Bed Time (but after you finish this article).

This includes TVs, phones, laptops, iPads, and video games. The blue light from these popular devices is used to keep us alert and engaged. Helpful when writing a thesis, not so much when scrolling social media directly prior to bed. Blue light at night will completely disrupt the human body’s natural circadian rhythm hampering our ability to get a good night’s sleep. Put devices down a few hours before bed (out of arms reach), dim the lights, and read an actual paper book or magazine. Yeah, those still exist.

3. Stay Away From Caffeine in the Afternoon

Caffeine is glorious.

Its awakening effect has helped mankind move mountains, part seas, and beat deadlines. If it’s ingested too late however, it may affect sleep. Caffeine can stay in our system for up to 6 hours (4) so nix the 3pm cup of coffee used to finish strong at work.

Be careful of sneaky caffeinated items such as chocolate, soda (diet or regular), and even decaf coffee.

4. Avoid Alcohol

While this tip won’t win me a popularity contest, it simply must be stated. That glass or four of wine in the evening may help you cope with the shitty day you had and help you fall asleep faster (read: pass out), but it isn’t doing anything for your quality of sleep .(5)

With alcohol on board, it’s a good bet that the later stages of sleep most crucial for recovery from tough training will be disrupted. As usual, alcohol and progress in the gym simply don’t mix, use sparingly.

5. Your Bed is For Humans

Maybe it’s cold-hearted but the cats and dogs need to get kicked out of your bed.

How many times have you been woken up by your pet?

Think about it this way, every single time they move or nudge you, waking you up, you’re starting at square one of the sleep cycle. How are you going to reach the restorative stages of sleep if every 20 minutes Fido shoves his ass in your face?

If that doesn’t get you to train your pet to sleep in their own designated bed, ask yourself this question: would you let your spouse walk around outside all day on their bare feet and then climb into your clean bed with no bath or shower?

Doubtful!

About the Author

Tim is an exercise science graduate and CSCS who has been training in Baltimore MD for over 14 years. While his specialty is body composition, he has extensive experience working with clients from young athletes to cardiac rehabilitation patients. Tim has been published in a variety of fitness publications and writes for his blog when he isn’t helping clients in person.

Being a former fat boy, Tim developed a deep seeded passion for training and nutrition in his teenage years after a major body transformation. This passion is what drives him to seek the best results for his clients and readers. Tim combines a knowledge base earned from years of practice in the field, research, and time spent under the bar with practical advice to get his clients to the next level.

You can find Tim on Instagram (HERE) or his blog (HERE).

CategoriesStuff to Read While You're Pretending to Work

Stuff To Read While You’re Pretending To Work: 2/2/18

It’s Friday. You know how I do.

Copyright: wamsler / 123RF Stock Photo

But First…(Speaking Engagements, Stuff I’ve Written, & Other Tidbits Curated To Showcase How Important I Am)

1) Happy Birthday Julian

I was terrified a year ago today.

I remember standing in a coffeeshop across the street from the hospital getting a little teary eyed thinking to myself “holy shit, Lisa and I are parents and in a few hours they’re sending us home. No more cafeteria, no room service, and no more team of nurses on standby to help.

We’ll be alone, with this crying, pooping, and please, for the love god stop crying thing.”

SPOILER ALERT: It’s a year later. Lisa and I survived; as does every other sleep-deprived parent.

Lisa and I are so thankful for Julian and for our family and friends who have helped to fill Julian’s love tank along the way.

2) Mark Fisher Fitness Presents: Motivate & Movement LAB

I’ve had the honor of presenting at two previous iterations of the Motivate & Movement LAB (the brainchild of MFF’s Harold Gibbons) and it’s unequivocally one of the most unique events in the fitness industry.

Think: TED Talk, but with deadlifts and lots of f-bombs.

Anyways, the next LAB is this coming February, and will feature myself, Dan John, Pete Dupuis, my wife (Dr. Lisa Lewis), and several of the MFF coaching staff including Brian Patrick Murphy and Amanda Wheeler.

3) The Fitness Summit

I had to take a break from The Fitness Summit last year for two reasons:

1. Eating way too many cookies.

2. But mostly because I succeeded in making a baby and my wife would have tossed me so much shade if I was all like “Hey Babe, going to KC for three days. Toodles.”

Well this year I’m back and excited to take part in a Fitness Summit first. Dean Somerset and I will be putting on a Pre-Conference day where we’ll spend a few hours test driving some new material as a follow-up to our Complete Shoulder & Hip Blueprint.

Tentatively titled The More Completer Hip & Shoulder Blueprint.

We’ll be taking deep dive into squat and deadlift technique: discussing ankle, foot, hip and upper extremity considerations in conjunction with regressions/progressions and programming. Whether you’re a coach or just someone who likes to lift heavy things you’ll undoubtedly learn something. And if not, cool, you still get to hang out with us for a few hours.

Registration is now open for returning and new attendees. Come experience one of the best fitness events of the year.

4) 5 Tiny Tweaks That Will Help You Bench Press More Weight

^^^ My latest article written for Men’s Health.

Stuff To Read While You’re Pretending To Work

12 Little Changes For Big Gains – T-Nation.com

12 coaches – including me – speak their mind on small things that make a big difference in helping you to get bigger, faster, and/or stronger.

12 Most Effective Ways to Spark the Recovery Process – JohnRusin.com

Yet another article I was fortunate enough to be asked to contribute to. 12 more coaches chime in, this time on their “go to” recovery strategies.

How I Use Kettlebells – David Dellanave

An older article, but it’s new to me.

Always like David’s perspective on things and this no different.

Social Media Shenanigans

Twitter

Instagram

My butt’s always trying to eat my pants. Nom nom nom.

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Categoriescoaching personal training Program Design

The Hardest Thing for Clients to Adopt: Rest Periods

When my wife and I first started dating there’s one thing I used to do that used to drive her crazy.

It didn’t involve placement of the toilet seat. I put that shit down like a champion. And it didn’t involve my use of colorful language; she’s equally as potty mouthy as me.

In hindsight this “thing” was borderline unforgivable, and, to be honest, I’m kind of embarrassed to admit this. Here goes:

My name is Tony Gentilcore and I used to order my steaks well-done.

Copyright: karandaev / 123RF Stock Photo

 

I was such an a-hole.

At the time I just didn’t know any better. Prior to meeting Lisa a romantic dinner out for me was hitting up Applebee’s on 2 for 1 entree night.5 So you can imagine the look of disdain on her face when we went to a fancy schmancy restaurant in the North End here in Boston on date #3 and I did what I did.

I might as well have belched the theme song to Fresh Price of Bel Air while being seated or, I don’t know, farted in her Caesar salad. Both would have been less egregious dinner etiquette snafus than ordering a steak well-done.

I mean, WTF?

She married me nonetheless. But not until we had a “talk” and she made me watch every season of Top Chef.

Speaking of “talks,” I posted this Tweet the other day and it sparked some good comments:

I’ve been coaching people for a little over 15 years now and the idea of rest periods – or, to be more specific – actually taking rest between sets – is the one thing I still have the hardest time getting many of my clients to adopt.

Whether it’s because they’ve taken one too many CrossFit classes or because of their supercharged Type A personality on steroids, the idea of taking rest between sets – let alone a rest day – doesn’t compute.

Half my battle with new(ish) clients is to get them to understand there’s a rationale and purpose for rest periods, that they’re good for them, will help them, and more importantly…that they won’t lose any points for Gryffindor for standing in place for more than 30 seconds without performing a burpee.

Don’t get me wrong: there’s a time and place for metabolic or circuit-based training that require diminished rest periods; especially if the goal is to increase conditioning and/or work capacity. However, I can’t tell you how many times someone has started with me, expressed an interest in getting stronger, and I have to do everything in my power to get them to chill out.

Day one/program one is always interesting. They’ll do a set and before I can offer any feedback they’re half-way through set #2.

Eight minutes later they’re done with their program and asking for more.

I can appreciate their willingness to get after it, but the “go go go” approach is almost always why 1) they haven’t seen any significant improvements in their lifts in eons and 2) they have an inane proclivity at being hurt all the time.

As strength coach, Mike Sheridan, wrote in THIS post on my site last year:

“Despite the ‘rest makes you weak’ mantra from aerobic instructors, or the ‘no pain no gain’ philosophy of many CrossFitters, we start training a different energy system when rest is too short.

We’re not trying to exhaust the muscle, we’re trying to strengthen and improve it. 

When we perform an endless number of muscle contractions (repetitions), we end up building muscular endurance as opposed to hypertrophy or strength.

And start training aerobically, instead of anaerobically.

Compromising our ability to build strength and muscle, and facilitating an overall loss in power and explosiveness. Whether it’s resistance training or not.

Even though shorter rest periods produce a larger hormonal response and more metabolic stress, while longer rest periods allow for more weight to be lifted on subsequent sets, there is still a minimum threshold for proper recovery.

If rest periods are too short, the number of reps declines, the weight lifted declines, and so does the total workout volume.”

Shorter rest periods do have a positive effect on metabolic stress, one of the factors that plays into improved hypertrophy (growth) of the muscle. However when strength is the goal it’s important to note that too short of rest, while great for increasing things like levels of testosterone, IGF-1, and gH, can be offset due to the decrease in mechanical tension and strength output, all of which stems from accumulated fatigue (due to lack of rest).

To keep things to a nice, short, and succinct stopping point I can’t state things any better than what Mike says here:

“We don’t want our rest period at a point where it’s difficult to perform as much ‘work’ as would be possible with slightly longer rest.  Which means keeping it high enough to maximize the number of successful reps over multiple sets, while still experiencing adequate metabolic stress to stimulate hypertrophy.”

The “sweet spot,” then, is 90-180 seconds of rest between sets.

This can seem like torture to some people, analogous to scratching nails on a chalkboard or worse, being forced to watch What the Health in a room full of vegetarians.6

To that end I find rest periods to be opportune time to take advantage of “filler” exercises. You know, exercises that activate or mobilize stuff that people are supposed to do in their warm-ups that they inevitable always skip.

If someone has poor T-spine rotation or extension I’ll have him or her perform some Side Lying Open Books in between sets of deadlifts:

Side Lying Open Book

 

Or maybe they need to work on a little adductor length and opening up their hips more. If that’s the case this drill works wonders in between sets of squats:

Happy Baby Stretch

 

NOTE: I mis-spoke and called this the “goalie stretch” in the video, but I also have a 5-month old at home and haven’t slept since January, so fuck off…;o)

Filler exercises can be anything: glute activation drills, scapular upward rotation drills, T-spine mobility drills, hip flexor mobilizations, a particular stretch, naming all the members of Wu-Tang Clan, anything. The idea is they’re low-grade, low-demand, easy, and address something that won’t sacrifice performance on subsequent sets of iron work.

Heck, if all else fails, if someone is still flying through things, this would be one of the rare instances where I’d encourage them to go peruse their Instagram feed or post a picture of their protein shake on Twitter.

There’s little room to be ambiguous. More times than not, if someone wants to make and see progress in the gym…getting them to respect rest periods is going to be an important conversation to have. It’s the easiest way to ensure one recovers and is able to sustain performance and high(er) outputs during their training sessions.

Having a discussion about “off-days” is a blog post for another day.

Categoriespsychology rant

Overcomplicating the Uncomplicated

The message conveyed in the following post is meant to come across as a little tongue-in-cheek and sarcastic.

But here it goes anyways:

We like to overcomplicate things.

To say this, of course, comes with a degree of subjectivity.

Given the current climate we live in with regards to politics, gun control, terrorism, climate change, Black Lives Matter, LGBT rights, not to mention the impending zombie apocalypse, it stands to reason some topics, indeed, are very complicated.

However, taking those things out of the discussion7 …for me, things like Mandarin, Tort Law, rocket science, beating Mike Tyson in Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out, and how to make an omelet without breaking it, is complicated.

For others those things are a walk in the park.

FML – I hate you random internet nerd because I am not you

That said, I’d make the case there’s no arena where we tend to overcomplicate things more so than in the health and fitness realm.

To quote Nia Shanks:

“If there’s an industry plagued with profuse amounts of bullshit, it’s health and fitness. Know what it is so you can avoid it and spend your time doing what actually works.”

Don’t get me wrong: there are, without question, certain aspects that require more analysis, deeper thought, and expertise.

Someone coming off a major injury and trying to return to a high-level of competition or fitness will require a more thorough, detailed approach compared to someone who’s just looking to “lose ten lbs.”

Working around a legitimate food allergy – and not some self-diagnosed gluten intolerance you learned about via your best friend’s, uncle’s, next door neighbor’s, milkman’s blog – requires more diligent planning and attention to detail.

Likewise, what it takes from a programming standpoint to take someone from a 500 lb deadlift to a 700 lb deadlift is more complicated than what’s required to coach a beginner on how to perform a basic hip hinge.

 

Extenuating circumstances aside, man-o-man do we like to overcomplicate things.

Take for example a conversation I had the other day with an athlete I work with. After his training session he asked my opinion on what the best recovery strategies were?

To his credit: he isn’t the type of guy looking for quick-fix answers, and we had a nice chuckle over my answer.

But I was serious.

I’ve had the same conversation with athletes/clients in the past and have been met with my fair share of quizzical looks.

As if the answer they were expecting to hear was:

“Okay, here’s what you need to do. Go home and perform contrast showers paired with Paleo x AMRAP.”

When in the reality the “best” approach is:

  • Go to bed.8
  • Do your best to stay hydrated.
  • Ensure ample calories between training sessions to promote and aid recovery.
  • Respect General Adaptation Syndrome, the concept of supercompensation, and how those correlate with managing training stress/recovery.

I’m sure if I perused all my behavioral economics books (or asked my wife who’s a psychologist) I’d find the technical term best used to describe why people tend to dismiss the simple answers and gravitate more towards the complicated, arduous ones.

It seems we’re like moths being drawn to the flame.

CategoriesCorrective Exercise Rehab/Prehab

Recovery Revisited: The March Madness Edition

Today’s guest post comes from certified personal trainer and massage therapist, Geoff Pritchard. Geoff actually wrote a fantastic guest post for me last year around this time (link below), and when he extended the offer to write a follow-up I accepted without any hesitation.

I know for some, the topic of recovery is about as exciting as watching NASCAR or an episode of Downton Abbey.

Ironically, it’s a topic that most people could benefit from reading more on, as it’s generally the one thing that people tend to gloss over on day-to-day basis.

That said, READ IT!!!!!!

A year ago I posted on Tony’s blog about some ideas and people who were shaping the fitness industry in terms of recovery and regeneration. I wrote that article to inspire you to spend more time working on tight muscle tissue. But I realized in my massage business that my athletes were still coming in broken from lack of focused recovery work. So, what advice did I give them? Let’s take a step back in time, revisit what I said before and continue the dialogue with some new action steps to save your soft tissue from harm!

My objectives (as stated in my previous post):

  • Review the foundational items you should do to achieve better performance
  • Evaluate the research and evidence based practice of fitness and bodywork professionals, and
  • Incorporate simple changes into your schedule

These objectives are the key components of what I tell my clients to do for maximum results.

The foundational items are still nutrition and sleep.  The body can only recover from the daily demands of stress from appropriate nutrient intake and adequate amounts of rest. If this foundation isn’t solid, then no matter how hard you try, your recovery steps will be severely compromised … and crumble quicker than the #1 ranked teams in men’s college basketball!

Research and Evidence Based Strategies

Last year I mentioned the names of Nick Grantham and Sue Hitzmann for their recovery strategies and products. Nick is continuing to mentor athletes and fitness professionals in England, while in recent weeks, Sue has published her book, The MELT Method (currently #3 on the New York Times bestseller list) and appeared on Dr Oz to describe the structure of fascia and how it relates to mobility and optimal movement.

Sue was even able to convince NBC to show Gil Hedley’s video of dissection on national TV. If you want a true “inside look” at our muscle and fascia – and have a few hours to be amazed – Gil has made these videos absolutely FREE on his YouTube channel. In my opinion, you need to check it out – it’s pretty freakin’ remarkable!

My 2013 Recommendations

So, which experts are making a huge impact on resolving soft tissue dysfunction and therefore helping to eliminate the long-term consequences of poor movement – chronic pain and muscle damage? My list comes from two sources:

Kelly Starrett

Ok, so this won’t be a new name to most people, but his recent two-day seminar hosted by creativeLive was probably the best all-encompassing workshop I’ve attended.

He spoke for over 12 hours on the mobility paradigm and methods he uses with all clients – and how it all relates to athletes and the general population.  In addition, he enlisted the help of his friends … Carl Paoli (GymnasticsWOD), Brian Mackenzie (CrossFit Endurance), Jim Kean (WellnessFX) and Jill Miller (Yoga TuneUp). This workshop should go right alongside your collection of Assess and Correct, Muscle Imbalances Revealed – Upper and Lower Body, and Training = Rehab, Rehab = Training.

While full access to the videos at creativeLive will cost you $99, most of the content can be filtered out through his blog and videos at MobilityWOD (which contains over 400 posts). Just search and go!

My Peers –Bringin’ It in Baltimore.

Fifteen months ago I moved away from one of the major hubs of fitness – Boston, MA – and home of Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning, Cressey Performance, and the kids of Harvard (where the Ancestral Health Symposium was held) to be living near family in Baltimore. It was a big transition for my family and my uprooted business – as well as my physical health – would be dependent on meeting great trainers and great bodyworkers.

[On a side note… it eases the transition when your Super Bowl success in New England (2002, 2004, 2005) follows you south and you watch the Ravens bring the trophy to Charm City … which I credit my son for doing, since only days before a Wild Card game with Indianapolis he got his first sports jersey J]

Fortunately for me, the local Baltimore community is outstanding. I have access to a wonderful network of people:

Not too shabby!! (And we even get to enjoy the local clothing scene from Under Armour, who just opened their first storefront)

So, how does this relate to recovery and restoration? What changes should you incorporate into your program? My suggestion is anything you HAVEN’T been doing. We get stuck in our ways pretty frequently – think Groundhog Day with Bill Murray – and forget to challenge our soft tissue in areas that need assistance.

One way to do this is to get an outside opinion. Here’s your A-ha moment … Contact someone from your network of local experts (who’s not your regular gym buddy) and ask them to assess and find your weak links! By fixing these areas of dysfunction and stagnant tissue, we restore better resting muscle length, alleviate unwanted fascial restrictions and improve our chances for optimum performance.

You can even utilize online coaching – it’s easy to access the best movement specialists around the world with an Internet connection and webcam. If you have the funds to pay for a couple sessions, then utilize those experts to get you moving, literally and figuratively, in the right direction.

After you know what to do (trigger point, soft-tissue work, and/or active stretching – AIS or PNF), then these restorative changes should be incorporated into your schedule for 15 minutes a day, every day until the change is permanent and integrated (this could mean between two and five trouble areas). And, don’t forget to move! If we don’t integrate the new patterns with movement, then we haven’t fully reset our neuromuscular motor control.

Be vigilant to complete those 15 minutes EVERY DAY! And be aggressive and focused – constantly remind yourself of the agonist / antagonist relationships and go deeper as long as you can control your breathing.

Need Any Help? Free Skype Consultation?

If you want suggestions on movements, leave a comment about what’s hampering your performance or recovery and I’ll reply with a couple ideas to get you started.  Whether it’s “gliding surfaces”, “hydration”, “breathing patterns”, “joint centration”, or “wow… how do Bikram Yoga teachers have such crazy mobility?”, search your favorite blogs and YouTube channels for ways to achieve better movement patterns.

I also want you to comment about local experts in YOUR city that are making a difference – and pushing the envelope against the barrage of magazine and TV mis-information – to educate and influence our understanding of recovery and regeneration.

BONUS… to show my love for Tony and his loyal audience – I’m offering a FREE Skype consultation to one person – chosen randomly – who posts a comment and/or question over the next two weeks.

Now, I’m off to practice my recovery and mobility routine: trunk rotation and extension using active isolated stretching and a couple internal hip rotation mobility exercises from Evan Osar.

Author’s Bio

 

Geoff Pritchard is an NSCA certified personal trainer and a licensed massage therapist. He has eight years of training experience at gyms, health clubs, and corporate wellness centers. He is passionate about using bodywork and exercise to help people move better. He recently relocated to Maryland and opened up Charm City Massage – Therapeutic Bodywork for Optimum Performance – in Lutherville-Timonium. If you want to contact him, please connect with Geoff on Facebook.