I remember back to my first few years as a trainer….

I had no clue about nutrition.

And this from a guy who ended up playing pro soccer in spite of eating a typical North American diet.

I was “taught” from some very high-up professors and college textbooks that eating lots of grains and tons of protein was essential for an athlete…and anyone who works out regularly, for that matter.

Unfortunately, my total neglect for proper nutrition led to me down the path of developing an auto-immune condition at 17 years old, having less energy than a dead battery, and constantly struggling with eczema breakouts and asthmatic attacks.

Thank god those days are long gone!

But still, MILLIONS of health conscious people, perhaps even your clients, have been led to believe the same nutrition nonsense that had infested my mind.

So why is it so important that you and your clients have a solid handle on the complex relationship between food and human health?

It’s simple…

Diet is 80% of the equation when it comes to losing weight, having more energy, and living a longer healthier life.

Even in rehab settings, better nutrition leads to better quality tissues, which means less soreness and stiffness. Imagine, a foam roller session that actually didn’t make you (or your clients) cry!

Yes, working out and following properly prescribed exercises is critical for strength, rehab, and creating a lean body, but we ALL know that “you cannot out train a bad diet.”

Teaching People How to Fish

I commend individuals like you because you’re committed to not only treating people of what ails them but you’re also in the game of educating them on how to take greater responsibility for their health and body.

And that, my friend, is the true meaning of the word doctor – to be a TEACHER.

Your clients don’t win when you simply tell them to do something. They win in the long run when they are informed and truly understand how to prevent problems from happening in the first place, right?

“Why is my knee hurting?” says the patient.

“I’m not sure yet but take these pills or just do these exercises and you’ll feel better” responds the practitioner.

That’s an all too familiar scenario in the medical and health field that needs to end.

Thankfully, you don’t do that.

And the same thing happens in the world of food and nutrition.

Here are some familiar conversations…

“You want to lose weight? Ok then, you got to try this diet that helped my aunt lose 30 lbs diet. All she ate was brown rice and bananas!”

It’s ridiculousness like this that is keeping our population sicker and fatter than ever before.

You and your clients don’t need another diet. In fact, we need another diet like the US needs another debt crisis!

Your clients need to be informed about how food and their body interact and not just take a leap of faith on the latest fad diet without much understanding of what’s it doing to them.

The TRUTH About Nutrition

There are certain facts that most health care professionals and nutritionists agree on. These must be understood before someone even decides to go on a diet.

You see, once you are aware of these facts (and fundamental concepts), you can make intelligent decisions about any particular diet and the theory upon which it is based.

Although we live in a world of speed and convenience, someone who loses weight quickly will regain it just as fast, if they continue jumping from one diet to the next rather than applying the basic fundamentals to their daily diet.

No diet will ever fix you (or your clients) UNLESS you (they) fix their habits and have a much better understanding of what food is doing to them.

When that happens, you (they) are in control. And that is how life-long health is created.

After all, how many fitness professionals are sick, fat, and out of shape? Maybe a few, but the vast majority of us walk the talk – at least most of the time, right?

And that’s because we KNOW the power of being fit, healthy, and strong. We’ve experienced it firsthand. We understand how the body works. We can literally see beneath the flesh and comprehend the consequences of certain exercises and treatments.

Now, what if you (and your clients) had that same understanding of nutrition? What if most of your frustrating and confusing nutrition questions could be answered? What if you didn’t have to spend hours scouring the web or reading books or magazines or enrolling in expenses CEC courses to master this knowledge?

Wouldn’t that be incredible?

Now, YOU become a trusted resource for your clients with regards to helping them eat healthier. Just another tool in your toolbox to helping them reach their ultimate health goals.

Plus, they can have the knowledge (and thus power) to overlook stupid diet gimmicks and truly understand how to eat for maximum health and vitality.

That’s the dream.

But that can’t happen if we continue down the same path that has led 66% of the North American population to be overweight and sick. The US spends the most money on healthcare but has the 74^th ranked healthcare system in the world.

Obviously, it’s time for a change and that change is coming.

In order to really take your health to the next level, you need to rely on yourself – not someone else. Just like watching someone working out won’t make you strong, nor will following yet another diet get you any healthier.

Instead, what needs to be happen is for you (and your clients) to learn the fundamentals of nutrition. Once you understand how your body and food interact, then you will be able to make healthier and wiser choices.

Unfortunately, most of the information coming at us nowadays is superficial and conflicting at best. It leaves us confused, frustrated, and lost about what to do. Just look at how many people are still asking how much protein they should eat or whether fat is bad for us.

Millions of people are confused and it’s because they DON’T understand the basics.

Super Nutrition Academy is the only online nutrition course that solves this problem. In as little as 1 hour of learning per week, students can finally get the answers to their health and nutrition question in a “no B.S.”, science-backed, and easy to understand format.

No longer will you/they have to surf the web only to end up more confused than before. At last, the most pressing health and nutrition topics can be easily understood and mastered even for those who don’t have any formal education in health.

There is nothing like Super Nutrition Academy and that’s exactly why it was created – to empower the individual to become their own “health master” so they can finally be in control of their health!

Yuri Elkaim is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist, a Certified Kinesiologist, and the Strength & Conditioning Coach for men and women soccer program at the University of Toronto. He’s the best-selling author of Eating for Energy and the creator of the Total Wellness Cleanse.

As a former pro soccer player turned health and fitness leader, Yuri and his cutting-edge nutrition and fitness programs have helped more than 50,000 people around the world live healthier and fitter lives.

The “buzz word” of the day in the fitness industry is “finishers”.  But unfortunately, most people, including fitness professionals, go about them all wrong and they end up doing more harm than good.

What are Workout Finishers or Metabolic Finishers?

First, if you haven’t heard the phrase “workout finisher” or “metabolic finisher”, let me explain.  I like to call them “intervals on caffeine without cardio equipment”, but that’s just me.  By the way, why do I keep putting “quotations” on random “words”?  I have “no” idea.

How to Incorporate “Finishers” into your Clients’ Workouts?

Anyway, Rick asked me to give you some information on how to incorporate finishers with your clients or yourself with your current workout program.  That’s actually part of the beauty of a finisher – you can use them with just about any workout program.

The idea behind a finisher is to complement your efforts of your main program.  It’s like taking your workout and pouring awesome sauce on it.  The awesome sauce will help you burn more calories during your workout, but more importantly, after the workout (what the cool kids call, the “afterburn effect”).  Ha-ha, quotes.

A workout finisher typically takes 10 minutes or less, but the effects of them lasts for hours.  I’ve used metabolic finishers that last literally just one minute.  The variety of them can prevent boredom, plateaus, and most importantly avoid injuries.  I think Rick talks about avoiding and getting through injuries on this blog, but I’m not sure.  << Ha!  Good one, Whitfield.

That’s the key to using finishers with your program – avoiding injuries.  It’s especially important when you are using exercises with the abs.

That “Abs” Buzz Word

Abs – that’s another one of those buzz words.  99% of the time, that is what clients are looking for: to lose belly fat.  My coaching clients know that the simpler approach you can use to gain a goal, the more successful you will be in obtaining it.  But most people try to lose their gut by doing things that have very little return on investment (if any).  Some people even sabotage their efforts by doing these two common things:

• Long, steady state cardio as their main workout
• Crunches, sit-ups and other exercises that can actually strain your lower back and neck

The One-Two Punch for Losing Belly Fat SAFELY

Studies have shown that you can actually increase your appetite when doing long, steady-state cardio.  So, let’s say you burned 250 calories using cardio, but your appetite caused you to eat 350 more calories than usual due to your appetite.  That’s a surplus of 100 calories each day.

In my professional opinion – that’s NOT awesome sauce.

But there’s good news.  Studies have shown that intervals and/or finishers burn even more calories than steady-state cardio, without increasing your appetite.  So, by replacing your steady state cardio with a short ab-focused finisher like the following, you’ve established punch number one against belly fat (in case you didn’t get that – punch number one is using a finisher).

After your main workout, do the following circuit twice, resting for 20 seconds between circuits:

1. Lunge Jumps (6 ea)
2. Decline Push-ups (10)
3. Inverted Rows (8)
4. KB/DB Swings (20)
5. Cross-Body Mountain Climbers (8 ea)

As you can see, there are no crunches or sit-ups.  This is also better because you are spreading the effort between different muscle groups, unlike steady-state cardio or intervals.  If you are performing intervals on a bike, that’s much better than cardio, but your legs are doing all the work, with no effort from the upper body.  With a finisher like above, you’re using different muscle groups and you’re doing it in less time.  This allows you to burn fat with less risk for injury.  By using a strategic combination of conditioning moves and core exercises, along with incomplete recovery, you have set up your body to burn more fat, along with safely strengthening your core.  That brings me to punch number two.

Safe, but Effective Ab Exercises

With my clients (as well as myself), I use a variety of movements that challenge your core safely but effectively.  This includes a variety of planks, jackknifes, renegade rows, etc., etc.  Your abs were meant to work in unison.  By using crunches,  you’re just working the top layer of your abs, as well as possibly putting strain on your back and/or neck.  The risk for reward simply isn’t worth it.

But here is where it can be tricky.  You only have so much time.  If you want to work on your waistline, using the above moves simply won’t be enough.  Sure, your abs will get rock solid, but you will need to burn the layer of fat on top.  It would be like buying a really awesome t-shirt and telling your friends about it, but you wear it inside out.  Hhmmm, not really.  That actually doesn’t make any sense.  And now I’m making this even more awkward by pointing out the oddness of it.  I think I’m just going to start a new paragraph… kinda’ like a clean slate.

Wow, that was rough.  Anyway, you can actually combine the powerful effects of effective core work and a metabolic finisher at the same time.  The key is to use incomplete recovery, effective ab exercises and conditioning moves in a strategic combination to keep the heart rate up and to be able to manage fatigue.  In other words, doing a bunch of box jumps over and over can lead to injury as well as not being the most effective means to burn fat.

I would say the perfect ab finisher is when you feel your core being worked, you love/hate it at the same time, and you feel victorious at the end of your workout, but just before the defeated borderline   The idea is to finish strong, but not zap you so hard, that you find yourself not being able to recover between workouts.

Along with a solid nutrition program and a professionally designed resistance training program, finishers will help you to start seeing a difference in your abs and clothes in no time.  I use finishers all the time to help my clients jump-start their fat loss program or bust them through a weight loss plateau.  They are challenging, but they do work.

But if it was easy, wouldn’t everyone be doing them?  I have 105 reasons I use them with my training programs.

I Have Lost 105 lbs Myself

Finish strong and thanks for having me Rick!
Mike Whitfield, (AKA “Mikey”), CFNC, CTT

Mike has designed 33 Ab Finishers you can use yourself or with your clients right here:

CLICK HERE for Mike’s 33 Ab Finishers

Mike Whitfield, CFNC, CTT (known as “Mikey”) is a certified Turbulence Trainer who resides in Georgia.  After losing 105 lbs, his passion propelled him into the fitness industry.  His unique approach of using metabolic resistance training and metabolic workout finishers has helped thousands of people lose fat through his online and offline programs.  He is known across the fitness industry for his “finishers” and he is the author of the Workout Finishers and Ab Finishers programs. He has been seen on the Turbulence Training blog, Men’s Health Blog, and he has been featured in the AJC.  You can read his humor and fat loss advice at CrankTraining.com .
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Over the last few months, a common question has been appearing in my email box:

What if Exercise is Not Enough for Your Knee Injury?

I have been sitting on my hands, thinking of a reply and it finally hit me:

You Break the Knee Injury Rules

All of this came in a subtle way:

• clients asking what else they can do for their knee injury
• customers that ordered Knee Injury Solution
• registrants from past Exercise Rehabilitation of the Knee courses
• a family member asking for some help

I have purchased your knee injury solution product and many more.

They are great.

I have several clients though (I’m a Personal Trainer) that have knee injuries that are not going to go away.

For instance, the lady who has no meniscus left and damaged cartlidge and tendons throughout her knee but is told she’s too young for a knee replacement.

She wants to continue training, and she does, but she has no or very little stability in both knees and cannot perform any degree of squat or lunge without pain.

We therefore avoid these exercises, but there’s only so many hip bridges and rom deadlifts we can do.

We also do a bit of band work, but must be very careful about which plane we move in. She must sit for most things, even upper body work as some days just a bit of upper body movement is too much for her unstable knees.

Any ideas how I can further approach this?

On good days we can do boxing, battling ropes etc for cardio, cycling is no good-too much pain and definitely no running or even walking is out some days.

I have 3 clients in this same situation all due to being obese for years-all have reduced to healthy weight now and have endured knee operations that haven’t helped.

JB

This is the Knee Injury Solution program that JB was talking about:

Let me go through a few things that she can do.

I can easily just ramble off stuff that I know would help but I wanted to dig in the research and see what it had to say on what she and you can do about knee injuries.

#1 – Losing Some Weight can Eliminate the Need for a Knee Replacement

Let’s start here.

This is a huge statement.

We oftentimes do not want to start here with our clients but it is probably the biggest factor and if this is not dealt with, everything else won’t matter much.

A lot of the research refers to osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee and hip and what can be done to help each with management and recovery of knee injuries.

Let’s look at some research that came out last month from Anandacoomarasamy (WoW, that is a last name.).

It is well documented in the research that weight loss can reduce symptoms in the knee due to OA.

This should be enough to motivate people to lose some weight.

In the pager, researchers wanted to see the effect weight loss had on knee cartilage structure.  They had 111 obese adults in the study,  at a mean age of 51.7 and 32% had clinical knee OA.  They found that a 7% weight loss had a positive effect on the medial femoral compartment, not the lateral compartment.

In the paper, they made this powerful statement :

“Weight loss is associated with improvements in the quality (increased proteoglycan content) and quantity (reduced cartilage thickness losses) of medial articular cartilage.”

They ended with the statement that weight loss could be enough to “reduce need for total joint replacements.”  A very very very powerful statement.

To sum it up, your client might have to search out the best way for them to lose some  weight.  This might mean changing their exercise routine, having you clean out their kitchen, making a lifestyle change or medical weight loss.

This probably should be the first and most important step for one’s knee injury.

Where to get more information - Anandacoomarasamy A, Leibman S, Smith G, Caterson I, Giuffre B, Fransen M, Sambrook PN, March L. (2012). Weight loss in obese people has structure-modifying effects on medial but not on lateral knee articular cartilage. Ann Rheum Dis. 2012 Jan;71(1):26-32.

#2 – Stop Doing Upright Lunges

I have a feeling this statement is going to make the fitness technique police go crazy and a good chance a number of fitness educators will complain to the association that I am telling people to break the rules when it comes to the lunge.

The biomechanics of it is simple and the research backs it up.

Move from an upright lunge position to a trunk forward lunge position.  

This will decrease the stress on the knee and activate gluteus maximus which will make the exercise easier to do but help work gluteus maximus which most people with knee injuries need to work on.

Not sure what else to say other than try it.

Do a lunge that has been approved by the fitness gods.

Then do a lunge with your trunk forward.

• How does it feel on your knee?
• How do the muscles in your knee feel?
• How does your seat feel when you do it?

Okay, moving on.

Where to get more information - Farrokhi S, Pollard CD, Souza RB, Chen YJ, Reischl S, Powers CM. (2008). Trunk position influences the kinematics, kinetics, and muscle activity of the lead lower extremity during the forward lunge exercise. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther. 2008 Jul;38(7):403-9. Epub 2008 Apr 15.

#3 – Take Some Good Pills

I am not a big pill popping fan.

After being sick this week and feeling how quickly I started feeling better after taking the right pills, my view has started to change.

The evidence is good when it comes to glucosamine sulfate and chondroitin sulfate in order to interfere with the progression of OA in the knee and the hip.

Dose, frequency, brand, form, etc are things to consider.  I might dig in the research another time to see what it says about this.

If you’ve got a knee injury, look into GS and CS.

Before, I move on, pain may not be a good thing to look at when it relates to this stuff working.

Let me explain:

“This trial showed that glucosamine hydrochloride and chondroitin sulfate alone or in combination did not reduce pain effectively in the overall group of patients with OA of the knee. However, exploratory analyses suggest that the combination of glucosamine hydrochloride and chondroitin sulfate may be effective in the subgroup of patients with moderate-to-severe knee pain.”

Glucosamine sulfate and chondroitin sulfate have small to moderate effect on symptoms (pain being one of them) but may interfere with the progression of osteoarthrits (OA).

Where to get more information - Bruyere O, Reginster JY. (2007). Glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate as therapeutic agents for knee and hip osteoarthritis. Drugs Aging. 2007;24(7):573-80.

#4 – What You Are Eating is Making Your Knee Injury Worse

If we look at weight loss being important for a knee injury and most often times the cause of weight gain is diet.  Plus, if there are specific things we can eat that can help our knee injury, then there has to be specific things that we are eating now that can be making our knee injury worse.

The first person to highlight this to me was Dr. Peter Osbourne.

Above was an interview I did with him at a conference that we were at.  When he told me that, it got me thinking a lot about how what we eat can be slowing down our knee injury recovery.

I will be seeing him again next month so I will work on getting another interview for  you.

Plus Dr. Peter Osbourne has a great article on “Foods that Contain Gluten” which is eye opening.

The Last Word

I hope you enjoyed this article and got as much out of it as I did putting it together.

I think I have focused so much on exercise helping injuries and have not spent enough time looking at other things that will help with injury recovery.  I am always challenging what I am doing, learning new things, testing things out and sharing what has worked.

If you do have any feedback or insight, please do let me know.

Rick Kaselj, MS

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It has been a rough week.

I don’t remember the last time I was as sick as I was this week. It definitely throws you for a loop and gets you thinking. I will write more about it later.

Let me highlight a few of the things that have happened since getting sick on Sunday.

By the way, I am feeling a lot better. Thank you for everyone’s emails.

Still Helping People Overcome Injuries

“The Effective Plantar Fasciitis Exercise program looks AWESOME… exactly what I was looking for.

What exercises to do, how often, how to progress… I like having an action plan and this is going to help me for sure!!

Thanks so much Rick, you’ve given me hope that I might be running (at least part of it!) my Ironman in August instead of walking like I was starting to resign myself to!

BH

Very cool!

It is awesome to help people overcome their injury and get them back to doing what they want even when you are in bed sick.

That is More Than Other Companies

Hi Rick,

Thanks for the reply. That is more than I usually get from most forums, companies. Thank you.

I train for “life” since I currently sit behind a desk all day at work. It beats getting crippled by not moving. haha.

I train my oldest 17 y.o. son and one or two of his team mates for their high school varsity soccer team in the off season. They put on some muscle and got a LOT stronger in the seven months we trained last year. They made it to state, and had a good season. We will be starting to train again in a couple of weeks as I felt it would be good for them to just relax and be kids and do anything besides soccer or training for a month.

Thank you for the gift. I believe I will select the rotator cuff exercises program since I recently injured mine falling through the attic hole and catching myself in a bent elbow iron cross. Beat hitting the concrete floor. My PT has been working on it and it is doing OK. I still can’t do hand stand push ups, but I will get my party trick back with time. Patience.

Which program is it that you think will help my knee pain?

Your programs are good simple basic advice that will help the majority of people with their injuries.

I look forward to your response.

Best,

SR

SR,

I just sent you the rotator cuff program.

Great attitude on the “Training for Life”.

Very cool that you train your son. I hope I get that chance when my kids grow up.

When it comes to the knee program, I like what Bill Parravano talks about. I have an interview with him that I will put up soon.

Plus the article from Anthony Mychal on Cure Chronic Knee Pain has got a lot of good feedback.

Is this Good for Golfer’s Elbow?

Hi Rick,

The release of your new tennis elbow course is just in time for
me. However, my issue, which has come and gone and come again
over nearly four decades of lifting weights, is medial instead
of lateral epicondylitis. Will your new course help with that,
too? I’m hoping so! Otherwise, you need a golfer’s elbow course
now.

Best regards,
MT

I would have to say the Tennis Elbow Pain Solution would not help you with your medial epicondylitis or golfer’s elbow.

In the next few months, I will work on putting together an exercise program for golfer’s elbow.

As you know, this month’s Injury of the Month is shin splints.  The program will be coming out next week.  Then the next injury that I will focus in on will be frozen shoulder.

To Push or to Pull for Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome

Dear Rick Kaselj,

I am 32 years old from Israel (so sorry on my broken English). Anyway I’m
struggling/ suffering from patellofemoral pain syndrome more than 2 years..I tried almost everything although I had better times, so I am trying to get there again with a new rehabilitation program.

My question is about the squats on the study (*The effect of closed-kinetic chain exercises and open-kinetic chain exercise on the muscle activity of vastus medialis oblique and vastus lateralis. J Strength Cond Res. 2010 May;24(5):1256-62.)

On the study they perform a squat with a pillow between knees to work on the hip adduction too, but most of the programs include your Patellofemoral Syndrome Solution suggest to do the squats with band around the knees which mean the opposite ( hip lateral rotators group / obturator)

Can you tell me which one is better for patellofemoral pain syndrome?

Sincerely yours,

Best regards

SN

SN,

Thanks for emailing me.

Very cool that you have dug in the research to see what is best for yourself.

My suggestion would be to do the the tubing around the knees.

If you want more details, have a look at my articles:

• The Best Exercise for Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome
• What is New with Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome (PFPS)
• Can Gait Training Help with Running Mechanics with those with PFPS?
• Runners Knee Exercise Program

About Your Gluteus Medius Exercise Article

Hi Rick,

Wondering if you might like to look back at your superb research post on best glute medius exercises for hip replacements and look to do a video post on each of the selected, effective exercises.

As you know there are lots of ways to execute each of these individual exercises and we also sometimes call different exercises different names.

I think a lot of your readers would find this most useful and helpful in order to make sure that we are giving the correct exercise and that the exercise is done in the manor that the research shows was most effective.

I am still away on sabbatical touring North America and enjoying it immensely…will look forward to touching base with you in the spring when I am near Vancouver or in the summer when I return home, as I would like to purchase a few of your products. All the best to you…out for a dessert hike with the dogs…we are in southern Texas on the Mexico border…very desolate countryside, but beautiful. Thanks for considering my glute medius request.

CN

CN, great to hear from you.

Thanks for taking the time to contact me and give me some feedback.

A few people have mentioned this to me.  I will work on getting this done.

I looked over the gluteus medius exercise post and a few videos would have helped a lot.

(CN, rough life girl.)

Do You Have any Pre-Surgery Stuff?

Rick,

I have seen your website and saw your Spinal Fusion Exercise Program.
I am waiting to be called for spinal fusion surgery.
I have been on a specialist’s list for just over a year now, and I waited 14 months to get in to see him!

I see you have a lot of exercises for post surgery.
Do you have some specific exercises for pre-surgery?

I would appreciate hearing from you

thank you

M

Excellent point, M. At this time, I do not have any specific to pre-surgery.

A lot of what is covered the the post-surgery is what I would give someone for pre-surgery.

I would suggest you take a look at the Spinal Fusion Exercise Program.

The fitter you can have yourself enter the surgery, the faster your recovery will be.  That is one of the reasons why professional athletes have such fast recovery times compared the the regular population.

All the best M.

Rick Kaselj, MS

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Nothing is as scary or as debilitating as a knee injury. Yet everyone—athletes and fitness enthusiasts alike—constantly ignore chronic knee pain. And I was one of them. There came a point when walking up steps was a death sentence. But there was no way I was going to miss my squatting session, even if the pain reached a new high. I just thought it was the nature of the beast—that there was nothing I could do to fix it. So I saw it as a badge of honor. It was more like a badge of stupidity.

Sometime in 2009 I posted a rather gruesome video to YouTube. No, no heads were chopped off. And no, blood wasn’t spewing into the next county. It was just a close up of my knee being flexed and extended while all sorts of nasty clicks, pops, and cracks radiated from my patellar tendon. Although I knew it wasn’t exactly “healthy,” I knew that my knee—for all intents and purposes—was structurally sound. There were no torn ligaments. No mangled menisci. But my patellar tendon was on the fritz, and I had no idea why.

Instead of idly accepting a life of chronic knee pain, I made dramatic lifestyle changes. I didn’t want to struggle getting in and out of cars at the age 21. So, I experimented. About six months into my quest, I knew I had something. And one year later I collected and organized what I found into a grand theory and accompanying routine so that I could test it on others.

KNEE = ELBOW

One thing that sparked my interest—and paved my road of rehabilitation—was understanding that the lower limb shares a lot of similarities with the upper limb. The ankle and wrist are mobile yet fragile. The knee and elbow are facilitators—strong links in a connected chain. And the hip and shoulder are the complex, powerful, and responsible joints that connect the limbs to the body.

After being around the strength and health world for a while, you notice things. At that point I had done a boatload of interning and personal studies, so I was pretty in-tune with industry.

The elbow was (and still is) a hot spot for lifters. Golfer’s elbow became a frequent topic of discussion among general fitness trainees. 99% of the remedies for golfer’s elbow involved ditching the straight bar and moving something that allowed a hammer or neutral grip. This advice holds true to this day.

It took me a while to be able to step back far enough to conceptualize this, but this advice basically says that elbow health is determined by the position of the wrist. There were no super-secret rehab exercises. Just simply avoiding straight bars in an effort to stop putting the elbow in a compromised position.

I paralleled this with my knee rehab, which consisted of bunches of TKE’s, Petersen step ups, leg extensions, hamstring curls, hamstring stretches, and quad stretches—all things that focus directly on the knee.

But if the elbow didn’t need direct rehab, why would the knee? This made sense to me at the time because my knee was getting worse. And now that I’ve helped many people, I notice that TKE’s and like movements don’t work with more severe cases of tendonitis.

THE EQUATION OF LEGEND

In cases of chronic knee pain, from the crudest look, the patellar tendon hates life. It’s your job to find out why, and how to fix it. Most times, the answer isn’t to pound it with more dysfunctional movement. If your knee hurts when you squat, and you keep squatting through the pain, you’re never going to be healthy.

The knee can rotate somewhat and is a rather special joint, but when compared to the hip and shoulder it’s boring. (It’s funny how so much dysfunction can manifest itself in such a simple structure.) So I made a bold prediction, and one I still believe in: most chronic knee pain has nothing to do with the knee itself.

Overall movement of the knee depends on both the hip and ankle. Don’t believe me? Rotate your ankle and stand on the side of your foot (invert your ankle). Try to collapse your knee inward. It’s not going to happen. There are more examples, but the idea is that the knee—and the elbow—are facilitators when used in larger compound movements. They connect the powerhouse of the chain (hips and shoulders) to the distributors and manipulators of the chain (hands and feet).

So I created this mega fancy calculus like complicated equation to explain this Einstein like phenomenon, and it goes something like this:

FOOT + HIP = KNEE

While I’m sure this holds truth in most knee injuries—even the severe ones—this recipe is primarily targeted to chronic issues such as tendonitis, tendonosis (jumper’s knee), and even patellar tracking problems. They are all born from similar dysfunctions.

AN ATHLETE’S GUIDE TO CHRONIC KNEE PAIN

Suffering from tendonitis as a college basketball tryout, my 19 year old self wished there was a guide written specifically for athletes and debilitating chronic knee pain. Fast forward to now, I confidently hold the systematic and structured system I once wished I had.

There’s an abundance of knee information out there, but not much narrowing in on the chronic troubles that athletes face—the stuff that’s not serious enough for surgery, yet still bothersome in life and on the field. And let’s face it: recovery from a torn meniscus is going to be different than recovery from tendonitis. I wanted to focus on those nagging chronic knee issues that athletes face because I was once in their shoes.

Athlete’s Guide to Chronic Knee Pain: Theories and Solutions for Patellar Tendonitis, Jumper’s Knee, and Patellar Tracking begins with a small memoir so that readers can immediately tell whether or not they can benefit from the information. Followed are the theories and solutions for beating chronic knee pain, ending with an eight week rehabilitation program to follow.

It’s only a matter of time before this theory is widely accepted as the research is slowly emerging to support it. There are a lot of studies out there, but here’s a handful:

Chester, R, Smith, TO, Sweeting, J, Dixon, D, Wood, S, & Song, F. (2008). The relative timing of vmo and vl in the aetiology of anterior knee pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Musculoskelet Disord., 1(9), 64.

Dolak, KL, Silkman, C, McKeon, J, Hosey, RG, Lattermann, C, & Uhl, TL. (2011). Hip strengthening prior to functional exercises reduces pain sooner than quadriceps strengthening in females with patellofemoral pain syndrome: a randomized clinical trial. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther, 41(8), 560-70.

Karst, GM, & Willet, GM. (1995). Onset timing of electromyographic activity in the vastus medialis oblique and vastus lateralis muscles in subjects with and without patellofemoral pain syndrome. Phys Ther, 75(9), 813-23.

M¿lgaard, C, Rathleff, MS, & Simonsen, O. (2011). Patellofemoral pain syndrome and its association with hip, ankle, and foot function in 16- to 18-year-old high school students: a single-blind case-control study. J Am Podiatr Med Assoc, 101(3), 215-22.

Smith, TO, Bowyer, D, Dixon, J, Stephenson, R, Chester, R, & Donell, ST. (2009). Can vastus medialis oblique be preferentially activated? a systematic review of electromyographic studies. Physiother Theory Pract, 25(2), 69-98.

Sheehy, P, Burdett, RG, Irrgang, JJ, & VanSwearingen, J. (1998). An electromyographic study of vastus medialis oblique and vastus lateralis activity while ascending and descending steps. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther, 27(6), 423-9.

Willson, JD, Kernozek, TW, Arndt, RL, Reznichek, DA, & Straker, J. (2011). Gluteal muscle activation during running in females with and without patellofemoral pain syndrome.Clin Biomech (Bristol, Avon), 26(7), 735-40.

So if either you or one of your athletes is suffering from chronic knee pain, check out An Athlete’s Guide to Chronic Knee Pain. Or you can live with the regret of failing to reach your athletic peak, hating life every day, and slouching your way through pain. Just saying.

By Anthony Mychal

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Do you have clients who find it difficult to exercise because they have injuries?

Want to know how to work with them to recover and get them back to optimal performance?

One of the fitness industry’s foremost experts on injuries, Rick Kaselj, MS, is coming to Windsor on 28th April, for a full day workshop worth 4 Can Fit Pro PTS CEC’s!

This will be a hands-on workshop for Personal Trainers. The day will be split into 3 distinct sections, focusing on exercise rehabilitation for the shoulder, lower back and knee.

Trainers will walk away with an understanding of the following:

• Functional anatomy of the musculature and supporting structures of the shoulder, lower back and knees
• Evaluation of the shoulder joint, lower back and knee
• Common injuries for each region, key points of each injury and how to rehabilitate them
• Rehabilitative exercises using the stability ball, body weight, tubing and free weights

An understanding of these areas will allow trainers to benefit by:

• Helping their clients recover from injuries quicker
• Allowing Trainers to work closely with other injuries experts and get the client back to optimal performance as soon as possible
• Expanding their knowledge base to gain a better understanding of common injuries
• Marketing themselves as a Post Rehab Injuries Specialist
• Gaining an understanding of when clients should be referred to other therapists that work outside of a Personal Trainers scope of practice.

Date:  Saturday 28th April 2012 (9am-6pm)

Location:

CECs:  4 Can Fit Pro PTS CEC’s

Cost:

• Before 29th February – Early Bird Rate of $299 (&HST)
• After March 1, the price is $349 (&HST).

It is possible to pay for this in two instalments.

There will be no refunds after 15th March.

To Register:

To register, or ask any questions, please call Refine Fitness Studio on 519-253-9400. We look forward to working with you soon.

Rick Kaselj, MS

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As you know, last month’s Injury of the Month was tennis elbow.

It has been a few weeks and I am starting to get feedback on the program.  One person has been having issues with their tennis elbow pain and the program has made it worse.  She has asked me if I could help.  We have been emailing back and forth.  Here are some clips from our email conversation.

“I think my pain has increased a bit so I’m cutting back in intensity but I’m hoping that if I keep at it, it will eventually go away. Bursitis in my shoulder really flared up after starting the program. Not sure if it is related but that is the only thing different that I was doing.”

This brings up a number of points to remember about injuries.  They apply to tennis elbow but to all injuries when you are using exercise to help them recover.

4 Key Things to Remember when Exercising for an Injury

• Intensity – How aggressively you do the exercises has an effect on your injury recovery.  I always suggest to be conservative when staring an exercise program for an injury.  Go easy and light.  See how things feel after the exercises, a few hours after the exercises and the next day.  You should feel like you have done something but your symptoms should not increase.
• Resistance – Once again, the resistance you use will determine the stress put on the injured area.  We want to stress the injury but not irritate it.  It is a fine balance.  Once again, start off light and see how it feels.
• Cumulative Stress – If you are doing exercises for an injured area, you are adding more stress to that area.  If you do not decrease or eliminate other things you are doing that add stress to the injury, this will lead to more irritation and pain.  Make sure to look at things that are putting stress on your injured area and decrease or eliminate them.
• Pain Techniques – Do the pain techniques in the evening.  Doing the ice, stretching and self massage are most effective before you go to bed or a few hours before you go to bed.  It relaxes the tissues and then the tissues get a chance to heal while you are sleeping.
• Nutrition – Staying hydrated, properly fueled and focusing on inflammation lowering food is important as well.  This will help you in your injury recovery.

Now let’s get to the shoulder bursitis.

I am not sure what the cause is of the shoulder bursitis (inflammation of the bursa in the shoulder).  I would focus on shoulder position, rotator cuff exercises and scapular stabilization exercises.

When it come to tennis elbow pain exercises leading to shoulder pain, I cover this in the video presentation of Tennis Elbow Pain Solution but also Stasinopoulos 2011 says it well:

“If the affected arm is not supported, our experience has
shown that patients complain of pain in other anatomical
areas distant from elbow joint, such as the shoulder, neck,
and scapula.”

I would suggest you do the tennis elbow pain exercises with your arms supported.  You can look at the exercise descriptions and videos for Exercises 9b and 10b in the program.

“Regarding my bursitis – I took a break this past weekend from exercise and the tennis elbow program and it seemed to be less painful.

I am doing mostly stage 2 exercises but am sticking with a modification of scapular exercises #6.”

It has only been a week or two since you have got the program. You might not be ready for stage 2 exercises.

If you are getting elbow pain from the exercises, look in the exercise descriptions and I give you ideas of what you can do if you get pain from the exercises.  Here are a few things to remember:

• Conditioning – If you are getting elbow pain from doing the exercises, do exercise #3 for two to three weeks.  This will help work on the conditioning of your elbow muscles.  By being in stage 2 so early, you are getting pain because of the points that I covered at the top of this article.
• Posture – Look at your posture when you are doing the exercise. Make sure it is ideal which is ear-shoulder-hip in a straight line.  Being out of alignment puts greater stress on the shoulder.
• Technique – If an exercise is irritating, go back and make sure you are doing the exercise correctly.  Look at the exercise description and watch the video of the exercise.

“My left elbow and left shoulder are super tight. When I do the tennis elbow program my arm feels worse. Should I work on my shoulder first? Should I stop? Would be happy to have your feedback!”

Follow what I wrote above.

What caused what:  What I have seen in many people is a shoulder injury leads to your tennis elbow pain.

I know you have the Shoulder Pain Solved program of mine.  Make sure to the pain techniques that I talk about in that program for your shoulder but remember the key points that I talked about above.  They are very applicable to all injuries.

“Does my tennis elbow cause my shoulder pain or does my shoulder pain cause my tennis elbow? Is it possible to work on both at the same time or should I focus on one first and then the other? If so, which should I focus on first? Which program would be most helpful – tennis elbow, shoulder, scapula?”

From my experience, one injury often times leads to others.

I feel you can do both but follow what I said above in the article.

If what I said above does not help, go get your diagnosis confirmed by a qualified health professional and have them rule out that there is something else going on.  Then take the programs to someone that can help you with the program.  You can go to a fitness professional that focuses on injuries or another health professional.  The key thing is that they will spend the time with you to go through the exercises.

Remember the points that I said above.

These would be your priorities:

• Work on your scapular stabilizing exercises as this will provide stability for your shoulder and decrease the stress on your elbow.
• Work on improving your posture as this will decrease the stress on your shoulder and elbow.
• Work on the pain techniques in order to relax the muscles around the shoulder and elbows.
• Work on strengthening the shoulder and elbow as per the Shoulder Pain Solved and Tennis Elbow Pain Solution program.

Thank you for your question Chris, all the best.

Rick Kaselj, MS

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Today, I have some info on workout finishers.  Something new that trainers have been chatting about.

I went to the person that has started the workout finisher craze, Mike Whitfield.

How Workout Finishers Can Help Fitness Professionals Get Better Results with Their Clients

Rick: Let people know a little more about yourself

Mike: I am Mike Whitfield, a Certified Turbulence Trainer in Acworth, GA.  I specialize in fat loss using Turbulence Training style workouts and metabolic workout finishers.  The whole reason I got into fitness is because I have lost over 100 lbs, which helps me connect with my clients.  It also allows me to love what I do, because I can certainly share in the clients’ success.

Rick: What is a workout finisher and why is it important?

Mike: I have been experimenting with workout finishers for almost 3 years.  They are basically a way to replace interval training.  They are short, intense “mini-workouts” that can be done at the end of any workout program.  I found that my clients and campers enjoy them more than interval training.  They typically use all major muscle groups, which burns more calories.  We all know how interval training can help with fat loss.  I just wanted to take interval training to the next level.  They can be more “fun” than intervals, which helps you stay consistent.  I’m a big believer in consistency for fat loss.  One of my favorite finishers is the “Upper/Lower Countdown“:

Do the following superset resting only when needed.  In the first superset, you will perform 10 reps of each exercise.  In the next superset, you will perform 9 reps.  Continue in this fashion until you complete 1 rep of each exercise.

• 1A) Lunge Jumps (starting with 10 reps on each side)
• 1B) Push-ups (starting with 10 reps)

Good times.

Rick: Let’s go bac to when you were 100 lbs heavier. When you were that big, how did you start exercises?

Mike: I remember starting out, I was pretty conservative because I was nervous. I was also really out of shape.

I remember walking around the track at my old high school for one lap and being exhausted. But that’s why I started. I was sick of feeling that sluggish.

As for a finisher – I certainly wouldn’t do one like the one above. I would have substituted the lunge jumps for total body extensions, where you basically partially squat down, bring your arms behind you, then stand up and extend your arms over your head.

I also would probably start at 6 instead of 10.

For beginners, a kneeling or incline pushup could be used instead of normal pushups.

Finishers really came into play when I lost the last 30 lbs. We all know the pain of a plateau. I have found that finishers can fix that, helping me lose the 105 lbs all together.

BREAK TIME – I met Mike in Las Vegas at a fitness conference.  Here we are after one of the sessions:

Rick: Where did the idea of Workout Finishers come from?

Mike: It’s funny because I was actually “under pressure” to come up with finishers.

My clients were getting results from interval training, but one of two things were happening was:

1. The cardio equipment would be taken up and they couldn’t get to them for the interval training
2. They were looking for something to replace interval training because they wanted something different

That’s when I would put together a “mini-workout” to replace the intervals. I purposely put in a mix of exercises with short rest periods to mimic intervals. But the results were my clients getting leaner faster, and they would stick to doing finishers better then intervals. Then it hit me. Why not better results? We’re using more muscle, burning more calories. That’s when I started to implement finishers on a regular basis.

This is Mike and his son, Champ (Yes, Champ).

Rick: Do you need any equipment to do workout finishers?

Mike: Some finishers use simple things like dumbbells and stability balls, but many of them just use bodyweight.

Rick: How would you add Workout Finishers into a bootcamp?

Mike: I love incorporating workout finishers into my fitness camps.

But with my camps, I have a variety of fitness levels to work with.  So instead of using a specific rep scheme, I would use timed sets using a stopwatch or a gymboss.  I also like to offer substitution exercises.

For example, I would have some people perform Spiderman Push-ups for 30 seconds, while some are performing Kneeling Push-ups for the same amount of time.  That way, people of all fitness levels get the benefits from finishers.

Rick: How would you add a Workout Finisher to a personal training session?

Mike: Once they are done with their main workout, I’ll take my clients through a finisher based on their goals and fitness level.

If they are at the gym without me, they have one written down to follow – trust me (ha-ha).  It’s a staple in my clients’ programs and they expect it.  That’s why I wrote an easier version of each finisher in the program because I know everyone has different fitness levels.

Here is an example of Mike in action doing a Workout Finisher with John Rominello:

Rick: Can someone just do Workout Finishers if they do not have time to do a bootcamp class or a full workout?

Mike: Any exercise is better than no exercise.  If you’re really tight on time, you can look at this program or finishers as a fast workout.  But it’s certainly designed to complement a main workout and not replace one.

Rick: How can a Workout Finisher help you prevent injuries?

Mike: The way I look at it is this – let’s say you have someone that chooses treadmill intervals after their workouts.  All those repeated reps are done with the legs, which can lead to over-use injury.  But what if we did some bodyweight movements, including upper body moves like push-ups and inverted rows instead?  You use more muscle groups, burn more calories and take some work load away from the legs.

Rick: Where can people get more information about yourself?

Mike: They can get more info about workout finishers at www.workoutfinishers.com and my fat loss blog is at www.cranktraining.com

Thanks a lot Mike for the Q&A.

Rick Kaselj, MS

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Hey there…hope you are doing great. My name is Dan Go better known as The Fat Loss Ninja, plus the co-creator of Fat Loss Forever with John Rominello.

I am a personal trainer from Toronto, Ontario and I have applied the principles of Intermittent Fasting into my life and my client’s lives with great success.

Now I hope that when I said the term “Intermittent Fasting” I didn’t end up scaring you away from reading this article.

IF (intermittent fasting) is quickly becoming a hot topic in the world of fitness and fat loss and for good reason:

It works very effectively and it’s highly controversial.

What Is Intermittent Fasting?

IF is a period of time (from 14 to 36 hours) where you purposefully abstain from eating.

In my own experience Intermittent Fasting is the magic bullet I use t to help my training clients:

• easily shed weight
• extend their life cycles
• increase growth hormone production
• decrease their risk for diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease
• relieve their arthritic symptoms
• reduce overall inflammation in their bodies

The best part about IF is…it’s free to do, easy to implement and it works very very well.

Types of Intermittent Fasting

There are many ways to do Intermittent Fasting such as The Warrior Diet and The Fast 5 Diet but we won’t be covering those today.

The two types of IF diets that we cover today are the ones we employ on myself and a good number of our clients.

I’m not going to say these are the best…these types are the ones we have seen best results with in my test subjects…namely me, my female boot camp clients and my male beta testers:

• 24 Hour Fasting – These are 24 hours you choose to abstain from food. So if your last meal was at 6pm, your next meal would be 6pm the next day. We employ this once a week if our goal is fat loss. Brad Pilon employs this method in his book Eat Stop Eat which I still think is the definitive guide on IF.
• 16-8 Intermittent Fasting (IF) – These are are every day periods of having a 16 hour fast (including the time you sleep) and have a window of 8 hours in which you’ll eat 3-4 meals. Martin Berkhan does a terrific job of covering this on his blog Leangains.com

We employ 16-8 IF as the main method of eating at my boot camp workouts. 16-8 IF’ing is if your last meal was at 8pm, your next meal would be at 12pm the next day, second meal at 4pm and last meal at 8pm.

The Biggest Question I usually get at this point is…

If my clients abstain from eating won’t their metabolisms going to slow down due to low meal frequency and complete abstinence from food?

Answer: Periods of fasting (up to 48 hours) has actually been proven to help elevate metabolism.  This article covers it:

Zauner C, Schneeweiss B, Kranz A, Madl C, Ratheiser K, Kramer L, Roth E, Schneider B, Lenz K. (2000). Resting energy expenditure in short-term starvation is increased as a result of an increase in serum norepinephrine. Am J Clin Nutr. 2000 Jun;71(6):1511-5.

It has also been proven that meal frequency has little to no effect whatsoever on your metabolism. Needless to say…the whole “Eat 5 Meals A Day To Boost Metabolism Theory” has been a myth all along, this article highlights that:

Bellisle F, McDevitt R, Prentice AM. (1997). Meal frequency and energy balance. Br J Nutr. 1997 Apr;77 Suppl 1:S57-70.

More importantly, studies using whole-body calorimetry and doubly-labelled water to assess total 24 h energy expenditure find no difference between nibbling and gorging.

Finally, with the exception of a single study, there is no evidence that weight loss on hypoenergetic regimens is altered by meal frequency. We conclude that any effects of meal pattern on the regulation of body weight are likely to be mediated through effects on the food intake side of the energy balance equation.”

Let’s get one thing straight: A fast metabolism largely relies on which foods you put into your body and an effective weight training program that helps you build muscle.

Why your clients should integrate intermittent fasting into their lives?

IF is one of the simplest ways to restrict calories from ones diet and because it is so simple…it leads to better compliance from the client to stick to their diet plan.

There are also tons of side benefits that come along with Intermittent Fasting such as:

1. Reduced Glucose/Sugar Levels – During a fast your blood sugar levels slowly lowers itself. By fasting you could decrease your sugar input by anywhere from 15 – 30%.  This means that…
2. Decreased Insulin sensitivity – When you have more insulin sensitivity your body stores more fat as energy. Fasting drastically lowers your insulin sensitivity and also helps your lose more water retention. This means you will look leaner with less fat and less water on your body.
3. Increased lipolysis and fat oxidation – This means one thing and one thing only…YOU BURN MORE FAT.
4. Increased Glucagon – Glucagon is one of the dominant hormones in your body responsible for Fat burning. Fasting increases the amount of glucagon produced in your body. This means you have one more tool to burn more fat.
5. Increases Growth Hormones – Fasting Increases growth hormone which leads to increased fat loss and also slows down the aging process – You are able to produce Growth Hormone by up to 6x with short term fasting. Now Ladies do not be scared of growth hormone. It’s one of the hormones responsible for increased fat loss as well as looking younger.
6. Fastest way to eliminate waste from the body and lower inflammation – Short term fasting actually helps you eliminate waste in your body and can speed up the healing process. The research is too early to tell but there has been evidence to support short term fasting in prevention of asthma and cancer.
7. Easy to Integrate into One’s Life – The most important benefit to your clients’ lives when integrating IF is the the overall change of lifestyle they’ll experience. The average client works a 9-5, has a social life and also has family responsibilities.

With IF they no longer have to be handcuffed to the old model of eating 2-3 hours a day.

Intermittent Fasting gives them the flexibility to deal with life’s changes and have a sense of freedom when it comes to making smart food choices.

In closing

Intermittent Fasting has really changed my life as well as my clients lives. It has lead to better compliance with sticking to their nutrition plans because it is so easy.

The less we have our clients thinking about food the more compliant they’ll be on the nutrition plan.

It also leads to less cravings for foods. The less frequently we feed ourselves the less we will feel the hunger pangs that usually come with eating frequently (5-6 times a day).

What I would suggest for you is to try it out for yourself before recommending it to your clients. Give it a go for 3 weeks and see if it is something that corresponds with your lifestyle. You can use this guide as a starting point:

Thank you for reading this blog post. If you have any questions I’d be happy to answer them in the comments section below.

Talk soon,

Dan Go creator of Fat Loss Forever.

Thanks so much, Dan.

Rick Kaselj, MS

Here are a few more videos when it comes to intermittent fasting that I did with John and Dan, that may interest you:

Intermittent Fasting with Dan Go

Training and Nutrition with John Rominello

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Today, I have another interview for you and we are continuing on the theme of nutritional advice.

I interview Yuri Elkaim.

You know, Yuri.  You have seen him before on EFI.  I did an interview with Yuri while I was at a fitness conference in California.  We did a quick interview on Pre-habilitation Concept.

Importance of Doing Pre-habilitation Exercises

Yuri is a strength coach for the men’s soccer team at the University of Toronto and the creator of:

Plus Yuri is a cool guy to hang out with and chat.  I have been lucky to chat with him in Orange County, Las Vegas and San Diego.

Now to the interview that we just did on nutrition.

CLICK HERE to listen to the interview.

CLICK HERE to listen to the interview.

In the interview, Yuri Elkaim shares with you:

• Importance of understanding nutrition so you can educate and empower your clients with the right information
• Things that the pharmaceutical industry has done to the medical community in order to increase drug use
• The supplement industry wants you to believe you need to eat supplements in order to build muscle but what does the research say?
• Why training people is easier than giving nutrition advice
• How making little changes to his athletes’ eating habits has helped them out
• Is it good to eat six eggs a week?
• Importance of educating your client about nutrition so they can make better nutritional decisions
• Why it is important to balance what you experience with nutritional research
• He was training clients but was not helping them with nutrition since he was a poor example of nutrition
• He got an autoimmune disease, alopecia, and the medical community did not know what to do for it but he found out what worked
• How a broken leg changed his life
• Who is Yuri Elkaim?

CLICK HERE to listen to the interview.

Rick Kaselj, MS

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A few things you need to know about listening to the interview:

•  To listen to the interview, scroll down to the bottom of this page and click the play button symbol.  If you do not have time to listen to it right now, just click the “download” button and download it to your computer.  Then you can listen to it on your computer when you like.  Plus you can subscribe to the itunes podcast and get all the interviews when they are ready.  Enjoy!
• If you use Chrome as your web browser, at times, it can be funny at playing the interview.  I would suggest listening to the interview in another web browser (Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, etc.)
• Here is a video explaining how to download the interview recording

If you liked this interview and are looking for other fitness nutritional advice, check out this other articles, videos and interviews:

• Training and Nutrition Advice with John Romaniello
• Intermittent Fasting Diet with Dan Go
• Nutrition Interrogation with Brian St. Pierre

Standard Podcast Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

With the Super Bowl coming up, I got thinking about shoulder training and football.

I asked someone who works with football players and shoulders, every day.

I asked Jason Novak to share what he does working with in-season football players when it comes to shoulder training and health.

Enjoy!

Take it away Jason:

Training the shoulder is one of the tougher programming challenges we face with our players during the season.  Due to the nature of the sport and position specific demands, our primary objective in-season is to keep the training simple and be very consistent in doing it.

As a team, we train four times per week with each session lasting 30-45 minutes.  Each day begins with a functional warm up and mobility exercises that last 8-12 minutes and generally ramps up in intensity as it progresses and complements the workout for that day.

We utilize many tools during the warm up routines including jump ropes, suspension training devices, kettlebells, medicine balls, dumbbells and bodyweight  exercises to add variety to the routines and keep our athletes mentally in-tune with preparing for the training.

There are three phases of our In Season training broken down into training camp, early/mid-season, and late season/playoffs.

Training Camp (Phase #1)

Essentially, this phase is an extension of the off-season program.

We train fairly heavy during training camp due to the higher numbers on the roster and less reps our veteran players have to take in practice and games.

We try to balance out every “push” we do with a “pull” whether it be chest pressing or overhead pressing.

For “pulls” we use suspension trainer row variations, half-kneeling cable row variations and heavy, low rep single arm dumbbell rows along with pull-ups with various grips.

Our primary strength training for the shoulder during this phase comes from the Clean + Push Press.

We use bars, dumbbells and kettlebells for this activity depending on the athlete and any restrictions they may have.

Typically we follow this with one of three dumbbell complexes (reps will vary):

Example Training Day:

1. Clean + Press:    57.5-62.5% x 4 reps,    70-75% x 3 reps,     77.5-85% x 2 reps / 3-6 sets **
   **superset box jumps with top sets
2. Pullups :   Skill (WR, DB, RB) group x 30reps,  Middle group (DE, TE, LB, FB) x 25 reps, Linemen (OL/DT) x 15 reps
3. Turkish Getup x 4 on left and right side

Early/Mid-Season (Phase #2)

Once the regular season begins things change rather quickly and drastically with our training.

Due to the nature of this sport and roster size limitations etc…..our athletes play with quite a few injuries and through a tremendous amount of pain (especially in the shoulders).  A point of emphasis now becomes getting the training completed without causing further irritation to an existing injury or pain and hopefully aid in the healing process.

So, that leads you down a path of creativity to find a way for the athlete to get the work that they need done.

This is always one of the biggest challenges we face as strength and conditioning coaches.

We continue to do Olympic lifts throughout the entire season, keeping the percentages lower and emphasizing technique and speed of the bar.

It is also at this time that we begin to modify the exercises by using kettlebells and dumbbells for our Cleans, Clean + Presses and Snatches.

As the season wears on, many of our athletes prefer to use kettlebells in place of traditional Olympic bars for certain lifts because they tend to be easier on the shoulders and especially their wrists.

As for direct shoulder work like overhead pressing, we primarily stick to using dumbbells and kettlebells.

We do very little overhead work with straight bars unless it is a part of an Olympic lift like Clean+ Press or Snatch.

Our philosophy is to keep these exercises unilateral, so we typically only use one dumbbell or kettlebell at a time.  This keeps the total amount of weight a bit lighter and allows them to concentrate on form and technique.

Additionally, we perform most of our pushup variations and abdominal training using suspension devices such as TRX or rings with either our feet or hands elevated to require more postural and shoulder stability.

Two exercises that we use quite a bit during this time of year are the kettlebell windmill and the “half-version” of the Turkish Get Up which is made up of just the “ground” portion of the lift and not coming to a full standing upright position.  We introduce different implements during these exercises such as using dumbbells and bars instead of kettlebells.  This builds a great deal of stability in the shoulder and requires a tremendous amount of core strength to complete.

Mid-Season – Late/Post-Season (Phase #3)

During this time of year, our athletes are all dealing with some type of pain/injury, and their bodies have absorbed more punishment than seems possible.

Our goal is to help them maintain as much strength as possible, yet allow their bodies time to heal throughout the entire week.

We place a great deal of emphasis on incorporating chains and bands during the last half of the season.  This accommodating resistance works great for our athletes as it is easier on their joints due to the weight being lightest at the weakest angles and heaviest at the strongest angles.

The volume tends to be very low, but the relative intensity on the bar can actually be fairly high when accounting for the added resistance of the chains or bands.  At this point in the season, added volume is what has to be avoided.

For auxiliary shoulder work, we still incorporate mostly dumbbell complexes and continue with appropriate variations of the Windmill and Turkish Getup.

We tend to not eliminate anything from our training routine as the season progresses.  What we try to emphasize is rather than eliminating a movement, find a way to modify it so that it is still relevant and appropriate for the athlete.  Consistent training is crucial.  Once you stop using a movement pattern, you lose it.

Who Am I?

My name is Jason Novak.  I am the Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach for the Tennessee Titans.  This is my eighth year in the NFL, all with the Titans.  Previously, I was the Director of Strength and Conditioning at Yale University and the Head Strength Coach at Alabama State University.  I have a Master’s Degree in Sport Management from Baylor University and a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology from Stephen F. Austin State University.

Big thanks, Jason.

Great info, thank you for sharing.

Jason is a Muscle Imbalances Revealed – Upper Body Edition customer.  He email me and I saw what he did from the signature in his email.  After seeing that, I asked if he would share some info.

That is it for today.

Take care.

Rick Kaselj, MS

For products related to shoulder injuries and training, check out:

• Muscle Imbalances Revealed – Upper Body Edition
• Effective Rotator Cuff Exercises
• Scapular Stabilization Exercises

Here are some other shoulder injury and training articles that may interest you:

•  Injury free pull ups
•  Plank Exercises for Shoulder Injuries

.

Below is part of the report written by Elliott Hulse on Autonomic Nervous System.  If you want to download the full report, just go here:

How-to-Increase-Anabolic-Hormones-by-Balancing-the-Autonomic-Nervous-System-by-Elliott-Hulse

How to Increase Anabolic Hormones by Balancing the Autonomic Nervous System

Hey, Elliott Hulse here.

The very first thing I want to do today, guys, is I will admit to a horrific mistake that I had been making with regard to my training and lifestyle. And along with that admission, I’d like to apologize to you because me being in that state of imbalance has not afforded me the opportunity to serve you and to actually give you this information that I’ve been holding onto for so long. I just didn’t feel right teaching it to you if I wasn’t living it myself.

Now, the mistake that I made with my training was the fact that I was training way too hard. Now, I know that sounds ridiculous, sounds crazy, especially coming from a professional strong man, somebody who trains baseball players and football players, that I was training too hard. But, the fact is that the training that I was doing was imbalanced. My concern is that a lot of you may be doing the same thing. You may have been encouraged by me to do the same thing. And granted, you’ve received a ton of benefit from transcending the flesh and pushing through and persevering and breaking your ass to get the results that you want by working very, very, very hard in the gym and I’m still a proponent of hard work. But, what I want to teach you were today is how to balance that type of training, balance your hard work so that you will get faster, longer lasting, better results with less work. I’ll show you what I mean.

What we’re going to talk about here today is something called the autonomic nervous system. I like to think of the autonomic nervous system, and it’s a branch of your nervous system. If you understand your brain and your spinal cord and all the nerves that shoot out of it, it works as an operating system for your body. The autonomic nervous system I like to think of as our automatic nervous system. It’s subconscious. It totally runs on its own without you having to think about it.

So, the things like your heart beating or different metabolic reactions going on within yourselves, breathing, your hair growing, nails growing, skin, the building of muscle, the repair of tissue and organs, your digestion. You don’t have to think about these things. You don’t work out and then say to yourself, okay, I’ve got to remember to grow. It happens automatically based on the stimulus that you provide. When you’re sick, you don’t have to remind yourself, immune system, please kick-in. I need your help. Or, when you’re sleeping at night, you don’t have to remind your heart to beat. These are all things that happen automatically. They’re running in the background.

Now, an interesting thing about the autonomic nervous system is, it will also respond to outside stimulus. For example, if someone scares you, they jump out of a bush and yell at you, your heart rate skyrockets and your eyes are going to dilate and you’re going to start breathing really heavy. You didn’t have to think about doing that, but there was an outside stimulus that caused that reaction. That’s called the fight or flight reaction, just if you were wondering. What I just described is a reaction that’s provided by one of the branches – you’ve got two branches – of the autonomic nervous system, which is called your sympathetic branch. We’ll talk about that in a moment.

“The reason why the understanding of our autonomic nervous system is so important for building muscle, for having vibrant, vital health, for increasing our sex drive, for having mental focus and clarity, for building the strongest versions of ourselves all around it because we can determine and we can choose the type of outside stimulus to balance the autonomic nervous system ourselves. We have the choice. We can do these things.”

For example, you don’t have to go to a scary movie where things are popping up or jumping or they’re like gross, deformed images of people on a screen that’s going to stimulate a branch of the nervous system that’s probably already over-stimulated. You don’t have to watch the news that stimulates a part of the nervous system. These are all fear based things. You can chose not to do those things, and you can chose to partake of activities and thoughts and behaviors and exercises that stimulate the other set end of the spectrum that makes you feel good. I’m going to talk about that in a moment.

We need both branches of this nervous system. You’ve got your sympathetic like I just described in pretty good detail, and then you’ve got your parasympathetic branch of the nervous system. As you see here, it’s almost like a seesaw. Your body is going to choose based on your choices and the environment around you and what’s going on to either stimulate one end of the spectrum or the other. Two can’t be going at the same time. So, automatically you’re going to be either in a sympathetic mode or you’re going to be in parasympathetic mode.

Now, when you’re in sympathetic mode the good part of this is that it provides energy, it provides focus and concentration, real acute energies of the mind, survival, fight or flight. Like I told you before, if somebody walks in with a gun, you’re out of there or you’re fighting. You’re fighting or flighting. It’s catabolic. We tend to think cannibalism in the world of strength building and muscle building as a bad thing. But, the truth is, you want to be catabolic to a degree because it’s going to help stimulate the other end – and I’ll tell you what I mean in a moment – and also because it gives you energy.  Just click here to read the rest of the report on How-to-Increase-Anabolic-Hormones-by-Balancing-the-Autonomic-Nervous-System-by-Elliott-Hulse .

Rick Kaselj, MS

I get a lot of email.

Well who doesn’t.

I was digging through it and here were a few of the things that came in this week.

If you have emailed me a question, I am working on getting back to you and I will post some of them on the blog.

- rick

“Whole New Perspective”

“With Muscle Imbalances Revealed, I have learned to look at the way the body moves in a whole new perspective and learned some new great assessment tools.

I now have a greater understanding of how the body moves.”

Kristyn Mastroianni

Certified Personal Trainer

Coventry, CT

“I Will Use What I Learned for My Own Body First”

“I will use what I learned for my own body first and also share pointers and exercises with my class participants.

From Muscle Imbalances Revealed I have learned how much imbalance of muscles affect the function of the body, self care techniques for the shoulder and the fascia information was new and helpful.”

“Stop with All the Email”

“Stop with all the email.

 

I can’t keep up.

 

You keep sending me great articles, interviews and videos.  

 

Thanks for sharing such great information.  Keep the emails coming .”

 

Brenda Morgan

“Filled in A Lot of Knowledge Gaps”

“I’ve had scoliosis since age 11 and this is the first course/manual I’ve seen devoted specifically to scoliosis specific exercises.

Effective Exercises for Scoliosis filled in a lot of knowledge gaps about correct exercise prescription for scoliosis.”

Karen Plansinis

Dietician, Strength Coach and Personal Trainer

Kittanning, PA

“I Never Completely Understood the Shoulder Joint Until I Took This Course”

“I work with many seniors who have rotator cuff problems.

I found Effective Rotator Cuff Exercises provided a very good understanding regarding which exercises target certain muscle groups.

Effective Rotator Cuff Exercises was very thorough – I learned a lot. I never completely understood the shoulder joint until I took this course.”

Martha Andebon

Occupational Therapist / Registered Nurse

El Paso, Texas

 ”I had Tears Running Down My Face”

“Dear Rick,

Thank you so much for sharing your son’s dance moves with us. I had tears running down my face. How wonderful to be so uninhibited and full of joy.

I was laughing at you laughing.”

Brenda Champagne- Locken

If you missed the video, here it is again:

“I Turn to Rick for Injury Anaswers”

“I meet Rick 2 years ago at a fitness seminar.

I admired his passion and knowledge for helping people with injuries.

As a trainer my goal is to help people maximize their health and fitness.

Once in a while I get a client who gets a nagging injury. When this happens I turn to Rick and he has the answers that help my clients get back to maximizing their health and fitness.

If you want to get maximize your exercise plan and spend less time on the mend.

Check out Ricks injury prevention or rehab tips!”

Brian Stecker
Master trainer
Vancouver, Washington
BoomerFitness.com

“To find a Wealth of Knowledge like thins You Usually Have to got to a Fitness Conference”

“If you want to be like a fraction of the greats in this industry and separate yourself from the joe personal trainers. I highly recommend you buy Muscle Imbalances Revealed.

To find a wealth of knowledge like this you usually have to go to a fitness conference somewhere and for a owner/operator like myself this cuts down costs to a minimum because you can watch and learn on your computer!”

Scott Bisbee ACE-PT
Owner/Operator
Bisbee’s Fitness Experience Inc
www.bisbeefitness.com

“Stop Showing Me the Poppy Uppy Thingy!”

“Stop showing me the poppy uppy thingy!

It just won’t go away.

- Anonymous

Rick’s Answer – The Pop-up is a way of giving new people to my website, a piece of my best stuff.

It just takes 1 second to close the pop-up.  Just hit the “X” in the top right hand corner.  I show you here:

For some people there is no “x” to click.  You can try to refresh your web browser or view the page in a different web browser.

“Easily Digestible Product Based Around Current Evidence”

“Hi Rick

Thanks for the Tennis Elbow Pain Solution (TEPS), as always you’ve delivered an easily digestible product based around current evidence.”

Regards

Simon Tydd

Physical Therapist

Simon Tydd Physiotherapy

Tamworth NSW
Australia

“Impressed with the Wealth of Information Provided”

“Hi Rick, I have viewed the video presentation for the UTG for Cancer Survivors and can honestly say that I am impressed with the wealth of information provided.

Being a cancer survivor of 40 years this summer I can relate to many of the points made by the presenter. I’ve been there, done that, got the t-shirt – as they say! This program definitely affords a personal trainer the opportunity to better understand how a person with cancer would like to be treated and how to put together a suitable exercise program for his/her cancer client.

Also, the information on cancer, types of treatment, side effects, etc., are all very helpful in helping the trainer to better understand and prepare for the cancer client.

Again, great program!”

Kevin Garnier

Personal Trainer

Pasadena Fitness

Pasadena, NL, Canada

Thank you for all the kind words and negative ones.  If you ever want to get a hold of me, just email me at support(at)exercisesforinjuries.com .

Talk to you soon.

For some people in university, their favorite class was the nervous system. I can’t say that I was one of those people. I learned what I needed to learn and moved onto the next class. The class that I loved was the anatomy class that focused on bones and muscles.

After the interview with Elliott Hulse on thinking beyond the physical, it got me thinking about the nervous system a little more when it comes to injuries.

As usually, when I start thinking about injuries, I head over to the research to see what it has to say on the topic. I was not expecting to find very much on exercise and the autonomic nervous. To my surprise, there was a lot of great research on the topic.

Before I go into the research, let me bring Elliot back in here to explain the autonomic nervous system.

What Does the Autonomic Nervous System Do?

Brazilian Paper on ANS and Exercise

I could summarize the paper but let me take some key excerpts from the paper instead:

“The data of this review suggest that the beneficial effects of physical activity may be due, at least in part, to reductions in sympathetic nervous system activity. Conversely, with the recent association with physical inactivity and chronic disease, these data may also suggest that increased sympathetic nervous system activity contributes to the increased incidence of cardiovascular diseases associated with a sedentary lifestyle.”

“Sympathetic overactivity is common in many cardiovascular disease states and is related to a higher incidence of morbidity and mortality. Reductions in sympathetic outflow, whether at rest or during conditions that produce sympathoexcitation, may occur following exercise training. Alterations in the cardiovascular regions of the brain stem and other regions that are influenced by the levels of physical activity are likely to play a role in long-term cardiovascular health. Future studies will be important to further identify the central mechanisms involved in physical activity-dependent changes in the control of sympathetic nervous system activity.”

 Let me quickly summarize what they suggest:

• Exercise helps decrease sympathetic outflow
• An increase in sympathetic nervous system activity increases the risk of cardiovascular disease
• Higher sympathetic activity relates to higher incidence of morbidity and mortality

Where to get more information: Martins-Pinge MC. (2011). Cardiovascular and autonomic modulation by the central nervous system after aerobic exercise training. Braz J Med Biol Res. 2011 Sep;44(9):848-54. Epub 2011 Aug 19.

Lets go to one more research paper.

Exercise is Good For Turning Down the Activity of the Autonomic Nervous System

Let me go through the key highlights of the paper:

• Sympathetic nervous system overactivity is seen in hypertension and heart failure which are examples of cardiovascular disease.
•  Exercise has been shown to reduce hypertension and sympathetic nervous system activity.
• Exercise reduces resting blood pressure and sympathetic outflow.
• Exercise changes the central nervous system plasticity  which leads to an alteration of the regulation of sympathetic nervous system.

Very interesting stuff.  I know cardiovascular fitness has been getting bashed of late in the fat loss world but there are other benefits to it, other than just losing fat.

For more information: Mueller PJ. (2007). Exercise training and sympathetic nervous system activity: evidence for physical activity dependent neural plasticity. Clin Exp Pharmacol Physiol. 2007 Apr;34(4):377-84.

Spontaneous Movement in order to Balance out the Autonomic Nervous System

I got a great example for you on spontaneous exercise.

Even if you don’t care about this stuff (exercise and autonomic nervous system), I know this is going to put a smile on your face.

I was at my 4 year old son’s preschool party day, yesterday. This is when the kids sing a few songs for the parents. My son got into the song and then broke out into an impromptu dance solo (30 second mark of the video). I hurt my face from laughing and smiling so much.   Have a watch:

I can not take credit for this dance moves, I think he gets them from my wife.

Looking at the article above, I think the video of my son sums it up well.  If you want to have a balanced life, get moving, dance a little and smile a lot.  Your autonomic nervous system will be happy and so will the rest of your body.

Exercises to Decrease Sympathetic Activity

If you are looking for exercises that decrease sympathetic activity, check out Anabolic Energizers.

This is a little workout that Elliott Hulse put together.  I have been doing them during the week especially when I have been feeling stress.  If might be something that will help you or your clients out.

That is it.

Take care and have a great day.

Rick Kaselj, MS

.

Today let’s talk about back dysfunction.

To talk on that topic, here is John Izzo.

Here at EFI, we have chatted about John before. I did a review of his Lunging to Improve Performance a few months back.

A few weeks back we were chatting about back dysfunction.  It was based on what I learned from watching his Shatterproof Spine program.

I asked if he could expand on things and share what he had said with EFI readers.

Take it away, John.

In this day and age of technology, sedentary lifestyles, and poor posture—all trainers have their hands full trying to enforce optimal exercise execution. And I don’t simply mean “not swinging the arms” during biceps curls or “not going low enough on barbell squats”. I am referring to very small deviations in optimal performance.

Common Rookie Trainer Mistakes

Starting with advanced exercises is the most popular and most unknowing mistake made by exercisers in gyms today. This mistake is committed because users choose complex exercises or heavy loads without working with progressions first. An even bigger mistake committed by personal trainers is not assessing clients at all before beginning an exercise program. How do people in the gym commit this mistake? They lack proper instruction, coaching, and body awareness. Most novice exercisers don’t know how to “feel” a muscle during certain movements or drills. Their bodies are loaded with muscle imbalances and compensations that further exacerbate dysfunction without them even knowing. Trainers miss these subtle hints because most trainers do not perform movement assessments or they simply don’t have the keen eye to spot everything during a movement. That keen eye is polished with a competency in basic anatomy and exercise biomechanics.

Body Movement versus Machine Movement

Most trainers and exercisers assess capability with the “first set” of a loaded exercise. I’m sure you’ve seen it or experienced the “Express-Line” at your local commercial fitness facility. Most new exercisers are placed on strength machines consisting anywhere from 6-12 exercises. Trainers are instructed to orient new exercisers on these machines without a movement screening or basic assessment. Once a client is placed on a machine, a load is placed and there you have it: the trainer “no longer” pays attention to the mechanics of the body. They only focus on the proper “usage of the machine”.

Importance of the Keen Trainer Eye

Other trainers that do not place their clients on machines but try to incorporate “core” or free weight exercises usually miss important points. Clients will perform a squat with a shoulder press using dumbbells –because the trainer has informed them that it is “a great multi-joint exercise that utilizes a lot of muscles and therefore, burns a lot of calories”. However, without a proper assessment or keen eye for cueing, once a load is introduced such as body weight or dumbbells, and the movement has not been properly coached or assessed, the dysfunction is engraved in the nervous system. Check out this poorly executed glute extension. This is a perfect example of building on top of dysfunction:

The video shows a constant pelvic rotation without any proper alignment of the spine. Sure, her buttocks area is getting a great workout, but at the expense of the constant rotation at the lumbar spine. Recent research from Dr. Stuart McGill shows that rotating at the lumbar spine is contradictory in low back health.

5 Stage Approach to Exercise Program Design

Witnessing many of these unfortunate instances in the gym, and listening to tales of poor training programs used by my clients in the past, I began studying much of Dr. Stuart McGill’s work. Dr. McGill is a world renowned low back researcher based in Canada and has done a tremendous job of covering the back in his book, “Low Back Disorders”. Upon reading this research and implementing many of the protocols, I began to implement a 5 stage approach to exercise program design.

This 5 stage progression looks like this:

• Stage 1: Corrective Exercise
• Stage 2: Stability
• Stage 3: Endurance (training core with fatigue)
• Stage 4: Strength
• Stage 5: Power & Speed

These 5 stages are sometimes blended, modified, or executed in different order depending on the client’s fitness level and qualitative data I get from the movement screening and the initial assessment.

Furthermore,  the time it takes the client to progress from stage to stage depends a lot on frequency, exercise adherence, and present fitness level. My job is not to keep them in a “corrective state” if their goal is to lose body fat. More than likely, when excess body fat loss has occurred, most corrective measures tend to clean up themselves–helping me to concentrate on the next stage or combining modalities. Sounds meticulous? It’s really not. The end goal is to optimize movement AS BEST AS POSSIBLE. It may never be textbook, but it is important to improve the movement in the capacity for which it is contained. Here is an example of the quadruped glute bridge featured earlier in this post with better coaching and body awareness.

Some “fussy-ness” or “exact-ness’ is important when observing a client exercise.

Does it mean that you should try to correct every little thing?

Absolutely not. If you employ that idea, you will never progress. Culmination is the name of the game and once a client or exerciser sees results, you have achieved a majority of your mission.

The work of Stuart McGill is explained in simplistic terms and practiced in this new workshop video, Shatterproof Spine. The help of assessments will aid trainers and exercisers alike to better understand how an exercise is affecting the movement pattern and muscles involved. With this type of feedback, dysfunction can be minimized and function should be optimized.

John Izzo is a prolific fitness blogger, amazing trainer and cool guy.

===================

Thanks, John.

Great to have you here at EFI.  Thank you for sharing your knowledge, expertise and passion with us.

Rick Kaselj, MS

The question about tennis elbow pain is simple.

How do I know if I have Tennis Elbow Pain?

Then answer is simple. I put it in a video for you:

If you, one of your clients or if you know someone who has tennis elbow pain, this will help:

CLICK HERE to get more details on the Tennis Elbow Pain Solution

Rick Kaselj, MS

I was in Las Vegas a few weeks back and did a training and nutrition video with someone at the fitness conference.

The person I interviewed was John Romaniello.  John is a personal trainer based in New York and does a lot of online training plus the creator of Fat Loss Forever.  One thing that he is heavily involved in with his online clients is nutrition.

As you know, I have been exploring more when it comes to the nutrition side of things.  If you read EFI, you know I focus on the exercise side of things when it relates to injuries.  After doing more reading, talking with my clients and  fitness professionals, I am keeping myself open to nutritional concepts and how nutrition relates to aches, pains and injuries.  This is one more interview from that journey.

Now back to John.

I asked John if he could share some reasons why a fitness professionals must be involved in their client’s nutrition.

Why it is Important for Fitness Professionals to be Involved in the Nutrition of their Clients with John Romaniello:

In the above interview, John shares with you:

• Why training and nutrition are not separate things.
• Why a trainers is one of the best people to provide nutritional guidance for their training clients.
• What to do about the fear of providing nutritional advice to your clients.
• How to find out the boundaries that a fitness professional has when it relates to training and nutrition.
• Why the learning never ends for a fitness professional who wants to be the best.
• A few nutritional certifications that John recommends.
• Who John Romaniello is
• John’s take on the Paleo diet and intermittent fasting
• Lastly John talks about what is “Fat loss Forever”

Thanks John or as his friends call him, “Roman”.

Remember, earlier this week, I did another nutritional interview with Brian St. Pierre that may also interest you.

Rick Kaselj, MS

P.S. – Here is an interview that I did in the past with Dan Go on Intermittent Fasting, that may interest you as well:

One last thing, this is John’s program when it relates to nutrition:

Okay, nothing more to say.

Have a great day and talk to you soon.

Rick Kaselj, MS

.

One thing I have not done a good job about talking about on EFI is nutrition.

That all ends today.

Today, I start the day off with an amazing interview with Brian St. Pierre.  In our content-packed interview Brain brings the research and practical experience of many popular nutritional topics.

CLICK HERE to listen to the interview.

In the Nutritional Interrogation with Brian St. Pierre we share with you:

• What is the best eating frequency
• When is the best time to take supplements
• Important considerations when taking supplements
• The effect of time of day when it relates to fat loss
• What is the  intermittent fasting diet
• A history plus pros & cons of intermittent fasting
• What happens in the body during long bouts of intermittent fasting
• What is the good, bad and ugly about nutritional bars
• Recommendations for a really good nutritional bar
• Specific nutritional bar recommendations from Brian
• The pros and cons of coffee when it comes to nutritional benefit and fat loss
• Brian’s thoughts on breakfast cereals and what he thinks about the cereal that I had
• How does Brian manage being a dad and feeding good quality food to his child
• What kind of baby food does Brian recommend
• Environmental factors that affect ones cancer risk
• Who is Brian St. Pierre
• Brian’s best nutrition tip for real people

CLICK HERE to listen to the interview.

Brian St. Pierre is a nutritionist, coach, blogger, dad and the creator of the Nutrition Guide for Show and Go.

Rick Kaselj, MS

Here are some other articles that may interest you:

• Intermittent Fasting Diet with Dan Go
• The Ultimate Training Guide for Cancer Survivors Update
• Stress Free Diet Review with Kevin Yates
• Video on explaining how to download the interview recording

Nutrition Interrogation with Brian St. Pierre [ 30:03 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Here are some answers on knee pain when you lunge, plus checking in with a few answers from EFI readers.

Over the week, I received a bunch of questions from readers and I want to take some time to answer them.  I can’t answer them all but I will do my best to get back to everyone.  If you don’t hear back from me after a few days, just send me a reminder email.

Knee Pain When You Lunge

Rick,

I purchased your muscle imbalances revealed package on the weekend and I
just wanted to say I love it so far!! Extremely informative.

Just one question. I have a client right now whose left knee is really
bothering her. It makes cracking noises every time she flexes her knee. She
is alright for hip flexion exercises like squats but for lunges she cannot
perform anymore because of her knee.

I just watched the Maximizing Strength and Stability of the Knee and I am
curious if those exercises will work for her condition.

The doctor gave her exercises like the Bulgarian lunge on the bench but
that is putting too much pressure on her knee. I do not agree with that
exercise choice and I was wondering if you could help me.

My client is overweight so I’m thinking there is too much pressure on her
knee joints but how do I get around this? I have her do squats on the Bosu
ball and leg extensions on the TRX, to really focus on her knees to make
them stronger but are there other exercises that I could be doing?

Thank you for your time!

–
SB

SB,

I am so glad that Muscle Imbalances Revealed has been such a benefit to you.  It is a bit of a labour of love.  Glad it is helping you out.

Yes,  a lot of the exercises in the knee component will help out.  Many of the exercises are in my Knee Injury Solution program.  There are all kinds of levels of exericses plus videos and descriptions of the exercise in Knee Injury Solution.

Here are some videos that I have done that may help you.  You can see more on the YouTube channel.

Video #1

Video #2

Video #3

 The Bulgarian Squat is a good exercise but I would call it an advanced exercise that the average person cannot do.  It puts a lot of  load on one leg.  Often times the weakest point in the leg will give way and with most clients it will be their knees.  With the client being overweight, this makes the situation even worse.

I am a big fan of regressions.  The more you can modifiy an exercise, the happier the client will be.  The more regression exercises you have the more you can change things up to challenge them, keep them guessing, doing new things and keeping them pain free.

One quick thing you can do for knee pain when lunging is decrease the distance between the feet with the lunge and also move the trunk in a forward position.  This decreases the range of motion of the lunge which make the knees happy plus the forward trunk activates the gluteus maximus more which decreases the stress on the knee extensors.

When it comes to other exercises, try the modified lunge that I talked about above.  You can also try bilateral ball squats against the wall or unilateral ball squats.  This decreases the stress on the knees.  You can also try lunging onto a risor or a back lunge.

Let me know how this goes.

If you have something else to add, just leave a comment in the comment box below.

Here are details on my Knee Injury Solution program:

Thanks for the question, SB

Minimalist Shoes for Day to Day Use

Hi Rick,

Great article on minimalist shoes. I’ve seen them around but had no information as to their benefits. I just simply thought it was another fad shoe.

On that note, I was wondering if minimalist vs traditional shoes are good walking or work shoes (for nurses and/or massage therapists who work on their feet often).

Your insight is appreciated,

CI

I headed off to ask Curb, and this was his reply.

Take it away Curb:

I’d look at a couple of things for shoes that you use for standing in for long periods of time:

1. Wide toe-box.
2. A lower heel drop than regular shoes; you don’t need zero-drop (level heel and forefoot) though you can certainly try this but 4-8 mm is fine.
3. I would add a bit of cushioning and not go with a completely cushion-free sole.

Hope that helps!

Curb Ivanic, MS, CSCS

Thank you CI and Curb.

Tips for New Grads

When the spring comes, I always get asked about tips for new grads.  I will be doing an interview in the future about this.  I just got in touch with an old colleague of mine and he has agreed to do an interview on tips for those going through a human movement or exercise science degree.  Watch for it.

Exercises After Hysterectomy

Hi Rick,

Do you have anything for clients returning to exercise after abdominal
hysterectomy?

Best regards,
JE

Janice,

I do not have anything for that specific condition.

I often times start people off with the exercises in Core Stability of the Back ebook. You can check it out here.

Make sure the person has medical clearance to start an exercise program and the medical team supervising has provided you with exercise guidelines.

Heads Up – Live Courses and Internship

I am working on a bunch of live presentations and an internship.  I will have more details on them soon.

I will put them up here.

That is it for this week.

Have  a great weekend and stay injury free.

Rick Kaselj, MS

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If you read EFI (ExercisesForInjuries.com), you know I am a huge fan of self massage.

It is best to have a massage therapist or body worker do the massage, but if you can’t afford to see one, don’t have time to see one or do not have one living in your house, the second best thing is self massage.

I am going to go over some of what I do in this 2 hour workshop.

Hands-free Self Massage for Injury Prevention and Workout Recovery

Description:

Rest and stretching are the recommended methods of preventing injuries or getting our clients’ bodies ready for their next session.  In this practical and hands-on workshop you will learn new, safe techniques and exercises for yourself and your clients when it comes to fending off injury and to help the body get ready for the next session.  You will be shown ways of using common and inexpensive equipment found in a fitness centre to add to your programs.  We will be using tennis balls, medicine balls, foam rollers and a few other gym tools to help in injury prevention and recovery for the neck, hip, shoulder, back, knee and foot.  If you have nagging tight muscles or have a tough time recovering between workouts, you should make sure to attend this workshop.

 
What You Will Learn:

• Learn who should, but more importanly, who should not be doing self massage exercises
• Go through a list of movements and exercises to help foot, calf, knee, hip, back, shoulder and neck for injury prevention and recovery
• How to use the foam roller, medicine ball, tennis ball, plus a few other fitness tools in new and unique ways.
   
  Important Details
   
  Make sure to dress for an active and hands-on workshop.  That means no jeans, skirts, button up shirts or cute shoes.  What is recommended is yoga pants, athletic shirts and running shoes.

Location:  Live2Play Fitness Studio – Unit #200, 5858 176th Street, Surrey, BC  V3S 4E2

Date:  Saturday, February 18, 2012 from 2 pm to 4 pm

Continuing Education Credits:  2.0 BCRPA (Pending)

To Register:  Call Live2Play Fitness Studio at 604-579-0169

Due to equipment, this workshop is limited to 10 participants.

Please note, this will be the only time this workshop will be offered.