My Top 5 Exercises

As you know by now, I think that moving weight is an important part of health and longevity. Strength is one of the most important factors in how capable we are in our everyday life regardless of age, and if you stay strong, your golden years might actually live up to the name. If you are not lifting weights, or regularly participating in an activity where you have to pick up heavy objects, then I highly recommend getting involved. 

There are a few exercises that I place at the top of the list, and I wanted to share some of them with you. Now as a disclaimer, not all of these are appropriate for all people, and if you have never done them before, find someone that can show you the correct technique! So here are my top 5 exercises, I hope that you will try out at least one the next time you are at the gym!

The Turkish Get Up

This is the ultimate total body movement, and what is best, you don’t even need weight to make it a great move! I would recommend starting with no weight, and make sure you have perfect technique before adding on the 4kg Kettlebell. If the full get up is too much, start with the Half Get Up and work from there.

Single Leg Deadlift

I had a hard time finding a video that gave decent instructions on this one, so I will walk you through it. Start with the weight in hand, held at your side. Keeping one leg almost straight (let the knee stay relaxed), bend at the waist and press your other food back. You should be keeping your abs and butt tight during this move as to protect your back. Try to keep your hips and shoulders level so that one side is not higher than the other. Bend until just before your back can no longer be held straight, then squeeze your butt and extend your hip. Remember to stay in control, and if you need to, have a wall close by for balance.

NOTE: If you have not done standard deadlifts before, start there. Deadlifting variations are some of the best exercise you can do for overall strength, while also training the much neglected posterior chain (back, butt, hamstrings). For those of you that know the deadlift, try out the single leg as it will challenge your knee stabilizers and core to a greater extent.

TRX Row

In our society, we spend most of our lives in a seated, slouched position. This exercise can help undo the rounded shoulder look, while helping to strengthen the back and working to prevent shoulder injuries. If you do not have a TRX, you can use a barbell on a rack to do inverted rows, or use a dumbbell for bent over rows. 

TRX BodySaw

This is one of the best core exercise I have found, though I usually do not include the pike. This is an advanced exercise, so if you are still a beginner, try out a TRX Roll Out first, and work your way up.

Kettlebell Swing

The Kettlebell swing is both a power and metabolic move, meaning that it will help to increase your strength, power and core, while also increasing your cardiovascular capacity…what more could you want! Add this to your warm-up or to your conditioning and you will see instant improvements.

I hope you will try these exercises or at least their regressions—they are some of the best movements you can add to your routine. Have fun with your exercise, keep playing around and try new things. The brain likes to be challenged, so it is important to mix up your work and not let yourself get stuck in the same old routines. Good luck and happy training!




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Calories-In/Calories-Out: If Only It Was That Simple

It has long been thought that if you want to lose weight, all you need to do is move more and eat less. While a caloric deficit can have an effect on weight, there are a few things that we must consider before we jump on board with this theory. First, do you really want to lose weight? Isn’t the goal really to lose fat? If fat loss is the goal, then the mantra should really be, eat right and move better. This is because when it comes to fat loss, we are in need of a specific adaptation that results from specific stimuli. These stimuli must then work synergistically to produce the proper hormonal balance to allow such adaptation.


The other factor that must be considered is how healthy the individual is to begin with. The more overweight someone is, the sicker they are, and the more likely they are to have metabolic, digestive, and glandular problems. These factors should be the main focus when dealing with fat loss, but are impossible to address from a simple calories-in/calories-out framework. I believe that this is why a recent study found that sustained periods of binge eating can cause difficulty with weight loss down the road.

Binge Eating May Increase Difficulty in Long Term

In 2004 Morgan Spurlock released a film called "Super Size Me," which documented his personal 30-day case study in which he consumed only fast food. The documentary was an attempt to enlighten the public of the dangers associated with an energy dense diet that was high in fat, sugar and salt. If Mr. Spurlock had only known then what researchers have recently discovered he might have thought twice about his experiment.


Swedish researchers recently reported that people who overeat and stop exercising for a period of 4 weeks could have long-term difficulty in losing and/or maintaining their pre-binge weight.


Eighteen participants between age 20 and 30 were asked to increase their daily caloric intake by 70% and reduce their physical activity level to the sedentary threshold, or 5000 steps per day for a period of 4-weeks. Body fat and weight were assessed and compared at 6, 12, and 30 months post-intervention.


During the month-long experiment, participants consumed over 5,700 calories per day on average. This resulted in an average weight gain of ~ 14 lbs., and a 4% increase in body fat.
Although most of the weight had been lost 6-months after completing the study, participants had gained nearly 3 lbs. on average at 1 year. Even more striking was the finding that participants had gained nearly 7 lbs. by the 30-month point compared to the control group who had experienced no change.


Based on this study it appears that even a brief period of overeating coupled with a severe reduction in physical activity could result in long term metabolic consequences.


Ernersson, A. et al (2010) Long-term increase of fat mass after a four-week intervention with fast food based hyper-alimentation and limitation of physical activity. Nutrition and Metabolism 7:68doi:10.1186/1743-7075-7-68

This study is not surprising when you look at weight/fat loss through the lens of metabolic dysfunction. These people spent a month basically tearing down their metabolic system, ruining their digestion, and throwing their hormonal profile totally out of balance. It’s no wonder it is hard for them to lose the weight, and they only had an extra 14 lbs!

Now imagine they had done this for months, or even years on end, and you are looking at what the average American is dealing with. 25, 50, 100 lbs of weight could be added on over the course of a few years when eating high quantities of low quality food while sitting at a desk all day, driving to and from work, sitting on the coach at home, and never getting out to the gym.

What we must begin to understand is that the old calories-in/calories-out just won’t cut it anymore, and if we truly want to be healthy and live our lives to the fullest, we must start thinking quality not quantity.

So where should you start?

1) Look at your diet: Are you eating protein at every meal (dense protein like meat, eggs, or if vegetarian, tofu/tempeh)? Are you eating veggies at every meal? Is your fat intake balanced? Do you drink enough water?

2) Look at your lifestyle: Do you sleep 8-9 hours per night? Are you actually asleep the whole night? Are you stressed all the time? Do you take the time to de-stress and reset the system? Are you happy with your job, relationships, family life? Do you have a goal in life?

3) Look at your exercise: Are you moving every day? Is you exercise varied? Do you lift weights (strength training is one of the most beneficial forms of exercise)? How often do you stretch? Do you ever get a massage (professional or just from a loved one)?

These are all pieces of the puzzle, but we can all think of at least one thing that we know we should be working on right now. If fat loss is your goal, then it is time to start focusing on that one thing and start making changes. At least you don’t have to starve yourself to get where you want to be, though some people find that model to be easier. Unfortunately, as with all things in life, the truth is often more complicated than it first appears. So start today, figure out what that first step will be and take action!

Jack Lalanne - Sugarholics

Please enjoy this wonderfully simple but powerful advice from a man that has done more for the fitness and health industry than any other.

Here are the take aways points that I want you to focus on.

1) Sugar is addicting.

2) Sugar leads to fat gain / limits muscle growth.

3) The more sugar you eat, the less energy you have.

4) Cereal is not food (not exactly what he said, but between the sugar and lack of protein, it doesn't have a lot going for it).

5) Each animal protein (meat or eggs) and vegetables at every meal!

This video is from Jack's TV show that ran for 33 years, the longest running health and fitness program ever. Take his advice to heart, it will save your life!

Buy Fresh, Buy Local, Buy Organic

http://www.fullcirclesunnyvale.org/


I just found out about an extraordinary opportunity to buy produce in Santa Clara County. I am a big supporter of farmer's markets, but if I am not around on the weekend, it is hard to get to one during the week and I end up missing the opportunity to buy the best food possible. What I have now discovered (how did I not know of this before!?) is Full Circle Farm, a small, organic farm right in the heart of Sunnyvale. They have three days per week that you can go pick up food, and because it does not get any more local than this, all of you that are in Santa Clara County will only be eating those foods that are most appropriate for the given time of year. Check out their web page for the location and times.

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The Most Important Piece

One of the most important steps toward health, longevity, and happiness is not what most people focus on. There are people in all types of health and wellness professions that live their lives teaching about nutrition, disease, exercise, movement, sleep, stress, and more, but this information means nothing without one other piece. There is a key ingredient that must be acknowledged and embraced FIRST so that goals can be achieved and health can be sustained.

The missing piece is purpose. It is the why? It is the reason that you get up in the morning, and the reason behind everything you do in the day. More often than not, when I sit down with a client, they have a vague and impassionate understanding of why they want to change. They say they want to be healthy, lose weight, or lower their cholesterol, but generally have not thought about the deeper meaning of these goals. Without purpose, all the knowledge in the world will not result in change. Change must come from within, and only through reflection can we find the strength to succeed. Health and longevity is not something that is attained with 30 minutes a day of moderate activity (though this doesn’t hurt). It is a product of the life you lead, which includes everything from the food you eat, to the place you work, to the relationships you hold, to the hobbies in which you participate. There must be purpose behind the changes you want to make, otherwise, why go through all that work?

What it comes down to is finding that emotional connection to your goals and then keeping that in front of you at all times. If you want to lose weight, start thinking about all those things in your life that will be better because of it. Write it down. Look at it every day.

Start with the basics: “I will feel better”, “I will be out of pain”, “I will have more energy”. Next, think about what that will allow for: “If I have more energy, I will be able to spend more quality time with my children.” Now we have a reason to fight; now we have a reason to change. If the underlying purpose is connected to your children, spouse, work, or some other area you are passionate about, you will have a reason to make the changes that are needed.

This is by no means an overnight process. We can spend our whole lives looking for purpose, but if we never start thinking about it, we will never find it. And I believe that it is only once we find purpose that we can truly achieve health, longevity and happiness. So start today and write down what you want to achieve and why it is important. Look at it every day and don’t stop working toward your goals until they are achieved!

Tall Tales, Truth and My Twitter Diet - NYTimes.com

Tall Tales, Truth and My Twitter Diet - NYTimes.com

What I like about this article is that it touches on one of the most important steps in achieving any goal. Making it public. The more people that you can tell about your goals, the more likely you will succeed. 

This works for two reasons: first, you are now accountable to everyone you know to do what you said you would do. Second, all of the people you tell will now be on your team and help you to succeed. Just think how hard it is to lose weight if no one knows you are trying. Your coworkers keep offering you doughnuts, your friend keep asking you if want them to pick something up from Taco Bell, and at every family gathering, your Mom keeps telling you to go get seconds!

The more people you can tell, the better. So if you have a goal, tell someone and start moving in the right direction today!

Colin

In Related News: Why You Can't Lose Those Last 10 Pounds

Why You Can't Lose Those Last 10 Pounds on Shine

Great article that highlights the importance of food quality. I have recently been spending much of my time researching nutrition and optimal health, and what I have come to believe is that food quality is all that matters when it comes to health and longevity. This is born out of a paradigm shift from thinking that it's all about calories to the more appropriate view that it is all about how your body reacts to those calories. This means that calories are NOT all created equal. Depending on the quality of our food, issues surrounding digestion, hormonal balance, sleep, inflammation and stress can all either be made worse or better.

As mentioned in the article, part of food quality is knowing when to buy organic. Part of it is finding meats that have been fed food that they naturally eat i.e. grass-fed beef. Part of it is to stop eating food that is packaged/processed! And part of it is finding a way to drink quality water. These are not all the factors involved, but they are a great place to start if this is all new to you. The good news about this is that may of the foods that we have been told are "bad" do not turn out to have the negative effect we once thought. Red meat is a great example of a food item that has a rather nasty reputation, but we are finding that if you just eat red meat from grass-fed sources, it is actually very healthy for you!

If this is all difficult to take in, or flies in the face of your beliefs, I encourage you to do your own research and discover your own truth. Enjoy the article, and happy living!

Colin

In Related News: The Importance of Sleep

As I have talked about before, and will surely talk about again, sleep is one of the most important factors when it comes to all things health related. Getting more (and better quality) sleep can help with weight loss, depression, mood management, immune system functioning, hormonal balance, and can even diminish cravings for sugary foods! Sleep, and recovery in general, is one of the least respected aspects of health even though it could literally be the only difference between perfect health and terminal illness. The following article does a nice job of talking about the importance of sleep, so I hope you enjoy the read, but most importantly, I hope you take to heart the implications are of losing sleep. One of my favorite lectures often says that you should sleep as much as you can without getting fired, and I couldn't agree more! People usually do not even realize they are sleep deprived because they have been deprived for so long. As it says in the article, it could take two nights of 10 hours+ of sleep to help return you to normal, and if you have been deprived for a long time, I think that it could take more! So sleep as much as you can and you will truly see a difference in all aspects of your life.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/18/the-surprising-toll-of-sleep-deprivation.html

Good luck and sweet dreams!

Colin

Treating the Cause

It seems that almost every client I work with comes to me with some sort of medical concern for which they are currently taking medication. It could be for high cholesterol, thyroid dysfunction, high blood pressure, insulin issues, migraines, or any number of other factors. My question is, was medication the last resort or the initial recommendation? 

Unfortunately, more often than not, it is the latter. Why is it that as soon as we tell a doctor that something is wrong, we are given pills to take to take care of the problem? What is missed in this equation is the why. Why is something wrong in the first place? We do not become obese, have high cholesterol, have high blood pressure because we are unlucky…we have them because our lifestyle is unhealthy! These are symptoms, not causes, and 9 times out of 10, the cause of a health problem can be linked to sleep, diet and exercise (in that order of importance).

America is one of the unhealthiest countries in the world in spite of our resources and advances in medical and pharmaceutical technologies. Regardless of the advances we make, if we do not come to terms with what our bodies need to survive, then we will never live up to our full potential. If you want to have energy, give your body the rest it needs (sleep and down time in the day). If you want to be without disease or dysfunction, give your body the nutrients it needs (lots of meat, lots of veggies, and plenty of fat). If you want to be strong and without joint pain, give you body the movement it needs (lift weights, work hard). If your body is not getting what it needs, it will shut down…and no operation, 5 Hour Energy, or medication will keep that from happening.

If you are in need of help, search out someone that is going to look at your body as a whole and prescribe a lifestyle change that will increase longevity, not temporarily change the numbers of some test. The world of health and fitness is taking a turn for the better (I think), and there is more opportunity to find these people than ever before. If you are in need of a doctor, look for someone that really wants to know you and know your body (and someone that knows that diet and lifestyle can solve 90% of the issues most people face). If you need a dietitian, find someone that knows the chemistry behind the foods they are recommending, because calories in/calories out just isn’t going to cut it anymore. If you are looking for a trainer, make sure they are making you lift weight! I cannot tell you how many people I see in the gym (with their “trainer”) holding 2lb dumbbells on a half stability ball doing curls. Your body only responds to working hard, so find someone that can coach you on good technique, help you to move better, and then help you to become stronger.

If nothing else, please start questioning what health professionals tell you. Just because they have letters after their name does not mean they know what they are talking about or have helped people get lasting results. I know it can be hard to figure out what is right or wrong, but there is nothing wrong with doing a little self educating before you talk to the doctor—you might learn something that they missed! So remember, if there is something going on in your body that is not right, look at the pain/illness/dysfunction and ask why? It is the why that will lead you to the cause, and the cause is the only thing that matters.

Thanks for your continued support; sorry for not posting in a while, it has been a crazy couple of months. Good luck and happy healing!

Colin

How to Get the Best Steak

How to Get the Best Steak - WSJ.com

This is a great article discussing the gradual decline in meat quality in the US and how to get back on the right track! It is no questions that corn/grain fed animals are less healthy, but they also just don't taste as good! So let's start getting the bulk of our nutrients from meat sources that are wild/grass-fed and have not been pumped full of hormones, antibiotics and corn. Our bodies, minds and taste buds will thanks us. Happy eating!

Colin

In Related News: How Different Groups Spend Their Day

How Different Groups Spend Their Day - Interactive Graphic - NYTimes.com

This is a great visualization of how Americans spend their days. From a health standpoint, it is telling to see that while most Americans spend over two and a half hours watching TV, they spend 24 minutes preparing meals and 16 minutes relaxing and thinking (other factors are also interesting to look at). This worries me when so many of us battle stress, poor nutrition, and lack of exercise, and think that we do not have the time to change this. TV is not the only thing that we can get consumed with that has little added value for our lives, and when you only have so much time in a day, it is important to really know why you dedicate time to each of your activities.

Time is the most valuable resource we have, and if we utilize our time, we can truly achieve anything. The quality of any area of our lives is a direct result of the time we spend on it. Health, fitness, relationships, career, family, sleep, inner peace. The more time we spend nurturing these areas, the more success and happiness we will find. Think about what is important to you and see if you are really giving these areas enough attention, or are less important activities getting in the way? If they are, then that's a good thing, because now you know a perfect way to free up more time to help make your life better!

Enjoy the chart and keep up all the good work, health and fitness is a lifelong journey, so enjoy the ride!

Colin

Going Barefoot: The Greatest Invention since the Running Shoe

If you have ever decided to run for exercise, fun, or sport, you more than likely didn’t think twice before lacing up your shoes and heading out. Unfortunately, you probably also didn’t think twice about the significance of those shoes when you got back home and had to perform your post exercise ritual of stretch/massage/ice/roll/heat/ice again.

 For years the running shoe industry has worked to make a softer, more absorbing pairs of sneakers, hiking the price with each new shock absorbing air bubble they added. The problem: it doesn’t seem that any of this new technology has helped. It turns out, our painful relationship with running is not that our shoes are lacking in support or cushioning, rather, it is that they have fundamentally changed the way our feet function. Let’s take the stride for example. In populations where barefoot running (or barefoot living!) is the norm, they would never think to reach out with their leg and land on the heel with each stride, it would be too painful. With the invention of the running shoe (big soft heel) the heel strike was invented and the modern runner was born: very dedicated, but chronically plagued by injury.

Now, the training style for endurance sports is a topic that should be saved for another day—another contributing factor to the injury cycle of endurance athletes—but today we will focus on the shoe.

So back to the heel strike, what’s the big deal? The big deal is the shock wave of force that your body has to absorb each time you take a stride. As shown by Daniel E. Lieberman, professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University, this force is upwards of 2x your body weight and is demonstrated in a series of clips on his webpage:

http://www.barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu/4BiomechanicsofFootStrike.html

With each stride (roughly 1500 per mile) you are not only enduring a violent force with each leg, but you are also dissipating that force primarily through your bone structure (heel bone’s connected to the ankle bone, connected to the shin bone, connected to the knee bone, etc.) Now look at the clips of the forefoot strike (as is natural when barefoot). As you can see, there are two key differences. First, the force wave is much smoother with no initial jolt at impact, and second, now your leg is in an optimal position to dissipate force through the lengthening of muscles & tendons in the calf and thigh.

So hopefully we can tell that heel strike is not the best thing for us, but as you can see, shoes do not make you heel strike (though they do encourage it with the shape of the sole). Plus, shoes are not just for running in, they are for walking too. So are shoes always a bad thing? Well no, but I do believe that the less the better. While there has not been much research on the general use of athletic shoes, I have some of my own theories why they might not be very good no matter what the activity.

 There was a great quote that I once read about the foot and how the author found it funny that people we often so concerned about arch support in their shoes. This is something that I hear all the time when I talk with people about spending most of their time either without shoes, or in very thin soled shoes. In his view, this argument did not make sense because in the world of architecture, there is no structure more beautiful or structurally sound than the arch. We rely on them every day as arches are invariably helping to hold up our homes, offices and overpasses. I think the most revealing structure to think about is the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. The beauty of an arch is that as more pressure is pressed down on it, the stronger it gets. So let’s now think of our foot as that Gateway Arch. What would happen if we “supported” the arch by placing force from the bottom? It would fall apart! And that is what I believe is a key factor in many of the problems people face in their feet. Fallen arches, flat feet, plantar fasciitis, all have to do with the muscles and tendons in the feet not functioning properly because they are too weak. Well (in my opinion), of course they are weak!  We spend our whole lives putting upward supportive pressure on a structure that was designed to thrive on its own. The more I research and the more I experience barefoot activity in my own life, as well as the in the lives around me, the more I believe in the ability of the foot to do better on its own than with a piece of equipment attached.

But don’t take my word for it, try it out! That is the best part about going barefoot, it’s free! Now I would start slow and find a nice grass field to do some walking/jogging around, but try not to do too much because your feet and calves will not be happy! If you really get into it and want a little extra protection, I would recommend Vibram FiveFingers. They are a little quirky, but at least you can blend in a little more than if you were just walking around barefoot all the time!

I would also like to say that a big part of my inspiration in researching this topic was brought on by the book “Born to Run” by Christopher McDougall. I have a link to it in my continuing education sidebar and I highly encourage all of you to read it. Even if you do not agree with barefoot running, it is a great read that is exciting, thought-provoking, and inspirational.

Please let me know if you try out barefoot activities and what changes you feel in your life and your feet! Thanks and happy running.

Colin 

Summertime Workout Plan

As the sun keeps playing tricks on us we at least know that spring is here and summer is on its way. I had a request for an article for what kind of workout would be good for in the pool, so I decided to talk about that as well as other activities you may want to go out and try this summer. Health and fitness is all about variety and keeping it fun so don’t feel like you have to be cooped up in a gym all day to get a good workout. I would recommend that you get as many of your “workouts” or activities outdoors so that you can enjoy the sun, get a tan, and start producing some vitamin D while you’re at it! So here are the outdoor activities that I like during the summer, but anything that keeps you moving and having fun is great.

Swimming:

The reason I didn’t want to focus a whole article on swimming is because there really isn’t too much to know. As with all exercise, you should decide each day whether you are going to have an “all-out” day or a “enjoy the roses” day. This should be based on how your feeling that day so that you keep your workouts in tune with your body’s ability. If you are feeling great, go for it, but if you are not 100%, go ahead and take it easy. The movement will still be good for you, but you won’t burn yourself out.

When it comes to swimming, it is up to you which style you want to use. You could do one workout with just backstroke and then the next freestyle. Or you could even change every other lap. Whatever you decide, keep it fun and interesting.

For the “all-out” days, you will want to do intervals of 25 or 50 meters. Start with a 10 lap (250m) warm up to get the blood flowing, and then go for 5-15 intervals. These should be 100% efforts, so your first time out, see if 25 or 50 meters is more suited for your fitness level. Each time, try to do one more interval than the last time, and if you are so inclined, keep your times and see if you can maintain your efforts. If you notice that you start slowing down, it might be time to start the cool down. Rest time should not be more than 90 seconds, and once you can do 15 intervals, start decreasing the rest time. Keep track of how well you maintain though, and make sure you are resting long enough after each interval to produce similar results on the subsequent laps.

For the easy days, just go out and mess around. Backstroke is nice for these days because you can just glide through the water with each stroke. Get together with friends and play some pool basketball or volleyball. Whatever it is, don’t worry about the work and worry more about being relaxed and having fun.

Beach Days:

The beach is a great place to exercise, not only for the diversity of activity but also the fact that you can jump in the cool (or freezing cold, if you’re in Santa Cruz) water after you’re done. Some of my favorite activates are soccer (hardest thing ever on the soft sand), volleyball, jogging, or going in the water for swimming, body boarding, surfing, or any other sport you can think of. That’s what makes the beach great—it lends itself to fun, sun, and moving.

If you want to have a more tradition workout, the beach is a great place to get in some sprint work. Again, we focus on intervals, and we shoot for 15 seconds of all out work followed by 90 seconds or less of recovery time.

Honestly though, unless you live right near the beach, I like using this time more for play and relaxation. You could even meditate or do yoga, so it’s up to how you feel and what your motivations are that should drive your beach workout.

Hiking:

What a great activity. You’re outside, you’re on all types of terrain, and you can decide just how much work you want to put in. If you want to just go out have a nice picnic hike, go for it and your body will thank you (just make sure pack some fruits and veggies!). If you want to train a little harder, what better way to give you body variety than to go trail running. It’s nature’s own interval training course, just run the hills, jog the flats, and walk the downhill’s (though running downhill can be a lot of fun too, and will still act as recovery). If your goal is to go hard though, I don’t want you to think about sets, times, rest, or any other exercise factors. All you should be worried about is going as hard as you can for as long as you can and then resting as you need to. Trails usually work themselves out as with every up there must be a down, so have some fun with it and vary your pace as you go. As for those of you just out to enjoy nature, I still recommend finding a trail that gives you lots of elevation changes as it will still do the body good and those trails just tend to have more to see (and good lookout points).

Other:

Some other random ideas for people that are a little more adventurous include:

Kayaking - great upper body work and will take you places that you would never see otherwise.

Skating - Strap on those old rollerblades and cruise the coastline. Skateboarding is fun too.

Whitewater Rafting - Great way to get a group of friends together and enjoy the fury of your nearby river!

Rock Climbing - This one takes a little more training, but fun nevertheless!

If you have any of your own favorite activities I would love to hear about them. Now get out there are start making the most of this beautiful weather!

Colin

Dealing with Injury

I recently saw a comment on my post, “Training with Injuries & Disabilities”, that I thought should be answered through another blog article. The question was about training on a sprained ankle which is probably something we have all dealt with and should all know more about. When you sprain your ankle or have any muscle/tendon/ligament injury, the most important thing is to decrease inflammation.  To remember the treatment needed, just remember the acronym PRICE: Protection, Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation.

Protection:

The first thing you need to do is make sure you are not in danger of exacerbating the injury by putting more stress on the area. If it is an ankle sprain, you should find some help in moving to a place you can sit so that you do not have to put weight on that ankle.

Rest:

The area will need sufficient rest after an injury to allow for the quickest recovery time. If you continue to put stress on the area, the area will get worse and the healing process will only take longer and may not heal as fully as it would otherwise. For minor injuries like an ankle sprain, 48-72 hours is usually enough time to allow for adequate recovery before you begin using it again.

Ice:

Ice should be applied as soon as you can after the injury. Do not use heat on any area of your body that is in pain. This goes for acute or chronic injuries; even if you feel better after using heat, it will only increase the inflammation and make the pain worse in the long run. Whenever there is pain, ice is the way to go. You generally want to have 20 minutes of icing as soon as possible and then repeat every hour for the rest of the day. Depending on the severity you may have to spend the follow 1-5 days continuing the ice cycle to help speed up recovery.

Compression:

Compression of the area should be immediate after the injury occurs and should be kept in place for 72 hours after the injury. For an ankle sprain, this will usually be an elastic wrap. Both compression and Ice are highly important for reducing the swelling that will occur, aiding in recovery time.

Elevation:

For the first 72 hours, elevation will also be important to control the swelling as it will reduce the amount of blood flow that can reach the area. For the ankle sprain, you would try to elevate the foot as high as possible to allow for the greatest reduction in swelling while also helping the area to drain any fluid that has built up.

If you follow these five steps, then you will dramatically decrease the time of recovery for any muscle/tendon/ligament injury. More appropriately, you will remove any factors that would prolong recovery. Any injury will take time to heal, so the best thing you can do is give it the support it needs to heal.

To address the question more specifically, the woman asked what to do in terms of exercise. Well as we can now see, for the first 72 hours, there should be little to no movement or pressure put on the area. Once the swelling has gone down, walking will be the first step, though this will need to be built up slowly. I would walk for a week, increasing the time a little each day, then the second week see how a jog feels. If at any time the ankle hurts or gets worse, stop and go back to walking. You would also want to ice it after any exercise for that first week and then any time that it feels pain again. There is nothing worse the prolonging recovery time so be careful, make sure to get your rest and get back to your normal routine as soon as possible! Thanks for the question on ankle sprains—I hope this helps!

Colin

The Importance of SAID

I was talking to a client the other day and she brought up a point that is fundamental to the understanding of the body and how the body adapts to exercise. She came to me concerned about her level of overall fitness because while she felt that she was in good shape, when she went for a bike ride the previous day, she felt herself getting winded and her muscles becoming tired much quicker than she would have hoped. She had been putting in time not only strengthening her legs but also on the treadmill to increase her cardiovascular capacity, yet it seemed that none of this mattered when she was on the bike.

This is when I realized that many people do not fully understand just what happens as we exercise. There is a principle that is fundamental to how our body reacts to the work we do known as SAID. This stands for “Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands” and explains why you could spend hours on the treadmill and still become winded on the bike. As the SAID principle spells out, we adapt to the specific demand that we place on the body. Biking and running are two different movements, so the body will not have carry-over from one to another. This is why Lance Armstrong, one of the greatest cyclists of all time, had over 800 people finish in front of him in the Boston Marathon. It did not matter that he had great leg strength and endurance or that his lungs are some of the most capable in the world, because this just wasn’t an activity that his body was accustomed to.

Now, that brings up another point that goes right along with this principle. Many people think of cardiovascular ability as being synonymous with lung capacity. While the lungs do have a role, it is actually your muscles ability to utilize oxygen that will result in one’s ability to sustain activity. When you move your muscles, they require more oxygen, but if you are not used to using those muscles in a certain pattern, then they will not be efficient at using the oxygen they are receiving. This can be discouraging for anyone who, after all their training, finds that they are still winded after certain activities. But this is only your body telling you that you are doing something new!

The point is, we must train in ways that are going to get us to our goals the quickest. If you are a runner, you should spend most of your endurance training time with running (intervals I might add). If you are a swimmer, do the same. If you just want to lose weight, then the most important thing is actually weight training because we utilize the most muscle units and produce the greatest demand on the body when we move weight. So remember be specific and your body will adapt to those activities! Good luck and happy training!

Colin

In Related News: 3/24/10

Study: Women need to work out an hour every day to fend off flab as they age - San Jose Mercury News

This article ran in the San Jose Mercury News today, and while I agree that consistent exercise is important, I am actually not totally in favor of what the article is saying. Basically what it says is if you do some sort of moderate activity (hiking, biking, jogging, yoga, etc.) for an hour a day you can maintain weight. That is fine if A) you are happy with your weight and B) if you have 7 hours a week to dedicate to exercise, but that is rarely a reality! Now if you have read this blog before, you will know that I am fully an advocate for healthy lifestyles and integrating movement into everyday life, but that is only a piece of the whole picture. Before exercise comes diet.

The first thing they state in this article is that 60 minutes a day is needed if women do not want to change their diet. Unfortunately, diet is the MOST important part if you want to have a healthy lifestyle. I would rather someone worked out 2 hours a week and ate right than work out 7+ hours a week and kept eating the way most Americans do. Now, ongoing moderate exercise (especially when social) has many positive mental effects which is why I am all for doing a little bit every day and building it into your life. However, if you want your body to perform at its best and you are overweight, then this is not going to cut it.

The one thing I did like about this article was actually before I even opened the link. There was an alternate link to a poll asking what people would have to give up to have time for exercise. This was a great question because it is one of the most important steps toward reaching any fitness goals (or any life goals for that matter) that you set for yourself. Many people fail to achieve their fitness goals simply because they did not have a clear idea of what it would take to succeed. They know they need to start eating right and exercising, but after the first week, they begin to realize that their life gets in the way. Before setting up a program, it is important to think first about the obstacles and then choosing how to work around them. If you do not have the time to cook your own meals, how are you going to make time? If you need to work out, what are you going to have to give up to make that happen? These are important questions to answer before you start, or at least to be aware of.

In summary, do try to be consistent but 7+ hours a week is probably going to be hard. Focus on diet first and integrating movement into your life (using the stairs, parking far away from work, take 5-10 minute work breaks to walk and stretch) and save your time at the gym for weight training that will actually produce results. Good luck and as always, happy fitness.

Colin

Is Aerobic Training a Waste of Time?

For many years, aerobic training was considered the staple of any exercise program, especially if weight loss was the goal. Aerobic training usually means running, though other activates can also be aerobic (biking or swimming). Aerobic just means that you are using oxygen to maintain your activity for a long period of time, so these types of activates are also known as endurance training.

There are many reasons people engage in aerobic activity, and if you just love running, by all means keep going. But for those of you that only do it because you have heard that it is healthy, it’s time to start thinking about alternatives. For both cardiovascular health and body composition (percent body fat), aerobic training is at best a slow way to get there. At worst, it is a total waste of time! This goes more for body fat, though when you consider how many hours people put into endurance training, even the cardiovascular benefits begin looking a little weak.

The problem is that there has never really been any data to back up the fat loss benefits of aerobic training. In a study looking at two groups of obese women, the researchers found that adding 45 minutes of aerobic training 5 days a week for 12 weeks had NO EFFECT over dieting alone. That is 4.5 hour a week of running that did nothing!

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9738131

Even in a study looking at a six month period where the participants were running for 50 minutes, 5 times per week, the results came out poorly. After over 100 hours of exercise, there was no additional effect on weight or body fat levels. I would not be happy if I put that much time into something that resulting is such little progress.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17200169

So what when wrong? Why were people so sure that this is the way fat loss occurs?

It all comes from the myth of the fat burning zone. It’s not so much a myth as it is a misguided understanding of fat loss. The fat burning zone is the zone in which your body is using fat as its main source of energy. The way the body works is to utilize fat more at lower intensities and utilize carbs more at higher intensities. So the logic runs that if you are burning a high percentage from fat, then you will be able to burn more fat calories overall! There are two flaws in this argument. First, by this logic, sitting on your couch would actually burn the most fat because you are at rest! The problem is that you are not burning very many calories total, so the percentage doesn’t matter. The second, and more important factor is that this only takes into account what happens during the workout. There is no recognition of the recovery period after exercise. If you were only look at what happens in the body during a workout you would notice similar levels of fat burned for a given amount of exercise, regardless of intensity. The missing factor in all of this is what happens in the 48 hours after you leave the gym.
Your body is always looking to restore equilibrium, and the further your push it away from your resting state, the harder it has to work to get back. So when you have a long slow training session, you may burn some calories during the workout, but your body doesn’t have to work very hard to restore itself after. The more intense the workout, the more work you body has to recover.

In a study comparing a 20-week endurance training program with a 15-week high intensity interval training program, the researchers found that the endurance group burned over 28000 calories while the interval group only burned around 13500 calories. Despite burning only half the calories, the interval training group actually showed a NINE TIMES greater reduction in subcutaneous fat (this is important because this is the fat that lies under the skin and can give the dimpled cellulite look).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8028502

The truth is, exercise is not about what happens at the gym, but it is what your body does in response to that exercise during the recovery period. So start thinking about how you can push yourself at the gym to make sure your body will be in need of rest. I don’t recommend going to the gym and killing yourself, you need to build up. So start incorporating weight training and interval training into your routine and see the difference it makes. If time is limited, weight training is always better due to the large requirements it places on your muscles. Interval training is a good supplement to weight training but should not replace it. Good luck and start hitting those weights!

If you want to know more, check out the other “weight loss” tags where I have written further on training and dieting to help you lose weight.

Colin

Training with Injury or Disability

My personal training career actually started in a physical therapy setting. Since then, I have learned a tremendous amount about the human body, health and fitness, and wanted to relate it back to my past experiences.

Movement is truly the expression of life and without it our bodies can quickly fall into a state of dysfunction, depression, and sickness. The body is made to move, and move a lot, so the first thing to understand is that the more you move, the better. This can be any movement, from swimming to stretching to working on machines to using a handrail to help take a few steps. When we move, our muscles are required to contract, which requires our nervous system to wake up and our brain to start transmitting messages. Our blood begins to flow and our heart rate elevates, increasing the oxygen usage in the body. All of this means that toxins are more readily removed, nutrients are delivered to our cells and our brain, and our nervous system is forced to figure out how to coordinate our movement, creating energy and adaptation within the body. This process is what the body thrives on! No matter what our limitation, movement is the answer.

Obviously injury and disability are different topics, but they both deal with limitations, so I wanted to talk about them in the same piece. With injury, the focus is to let the area heal while still engaging the rest of the body, and as soon as possible, to restore movement to the injury area. Let’s take a leg injury for example. It would be important to do whatever necessary to reduce inflammation and support healing, but during the rest and recovery period, training the healthy leg will be key. There is energy, neuromuscular connections and strength that will transfer over from the training of the healthy leg, and as mentioned before, the increased blood flow from any activity will help keep the time of recovery to a minimum. I would also like to add that it is always important to determine why there was an injury in the first place, because often, injury is more a result of poor movement patterns or asymmetries in the body than a blunt force or random occurrence. This will be important to discuss with a physical therapist or trainer, but you want to make sure that you are not cleared as recovered just because there is no more pain.

When it comes to training with disabilities, there are two goals to keep in mind. First we must work around the disability and then we must try to work through it. While those with disabilities may never fully gain movement, there has been promising work done by Emilie Conrad who has used her philosophy of continuum movement in working with spinal cord injury patients. The patients can have little to no movement at all, but by working slowly and consistently, she helps them gain back some of their movement by focusing on the smallest of movement and working up from there. So in terms of working around the disability, this would involve doing whatever movements your body will allow. If you’re recovering from a stroke and your left leg and arm do not work, use your right side to actively engage in as much movement as possible. For working through the disability, it is all about working every day to develop movement. I remember working with a stroke patient that could barely walk, but we used parallel bars so that he could balance himself with his right side and then work every day to keep his left side active. We would work on the small movements, but over time, those movements got bigger. It was slow, but that is what the body needs.

For those of you with injuries or disabilities, I hope that you have a good support system and knowledgeable therapists to give you the guidance you need. If you are interested in more specifically what you should do for exercise, please check out my other posts on exercise and modify them to your situation. There are obviously many different situations that people are in, but in the end, movement is always a good thing. Good luck and keep moving!

Colin

The Key to Longevity

When looking at the various aspects of the health and fitness industry, one topic that they can all really be linked to is longevity: living a long, but more importantly, health and happy life. This article and video have uncovered some of the most basic need that humans have. While we may all know innately that these things are good for us, it is interesting to see them all together and looked at as a group. I hope you all can take something from the video, I think it ties in nicely with my last post, expanding on what it really means to be healthy and happy. Enjoy!

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/01/26/buettner.long.life/index.html?hpt=Sbin

Only One Body

I received an e-mail this morning from one of the top strength coaches in the industry, Mike Boyle. He sent this out to all the members of his website, strengthcoach.com, and I thought it was a wonderful analogy to help people start thinking in a different way about their health and fitness. Here is a copy of the e-mail, I hope you take as much from this as I did.

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Imagine you are sixteen years old and your parents give you your first car. They also give you simple instructions. There is one small hitch, you only get one car, you can never get another. Never. No trade-ins, no trade-ups. Nothing

Ask yourself how would you maintain that car? My guess is you would be meticulous. Frequent oil changes, proper fuel, etc. Now imagine if your parents also told you that none of the replacement parts for this car would ever work as well as the original parts. Not only that, the replacement parts would be expensive to install and cause you to have decreased use of your car for the rest of the cars useful life? In other words, the car would continue to run but, not at the same speed and with the efficiency you were used to.

Wow, now would we ever put a lot of time and effort into maintenance if that were the case.

After reading the above example, ask yourself another question. Why is the human body different? Why do we act as if we don’t care about the one body we were given. Same deal. You only get one body. No returns or trade-ins. Sure, we can replace parts but boy it’s a lot of work and it hurts. Besides, the stuff they put in never works as well as the original “factory” parts. The replacement knee or hip doesn’t give you the same feel and performance as the original part.

Think about it. One body. You determine the mileage? You set the maintenance plan?

No refunds, no warranties, no do-overs?

How about this perspective? One of my clients is a very successful businessman. He often is asked to speak to various groups. One thing he tells every group is that you are going to spend time and money on your health. The truth is the process can be a proactive one or a reactive one. Money spent on your health can take the form of a personal trainer, massage therapist and a gym membership or, it can be money spent on cardiologists, anesthesiologists, and plastic surgeons. Either way, you will spend money.

Same goes for time. You can go to the gym or, to the doctor’s office. It’s up to you. Either way, you will spend time. Some people say things like “I hate to work out”. Try sitting in the emergency room for a few hours and then get back to me. Working out may not seem so bad. Much like a car, a little preventative maintenance can go a long way. However, in so many ways the body is better than a car. With some good hard work you can turn back the odometer on the body. I wrote an article a while back (Strength Training- The Fountain of Youth) that discussed a study done by McMaster University which showed that muscle tissue of older subjects actually changed at the cellular level and looked more like the younger control subjects after strength training.

Do me a favor, spend some time on preventative maintenance, it beats the heck out of the alternative. Just remember, you will spend both time and money.

Mike Boyle