This past weekend, I was in San Diego at a fitness meeting.  We all went out for dinner and started chatting about the Shake Weight.

The Shake Weight is a common thing that fitness professionals talk about and how ridiculous it is even though it has helped more people than most of us ever will and the people behind it have built a big business with it.

But I ask, “Is the Shake Weight Bringing Down the Fitness Industry?”

It was a very animated and entertaining discussion on shake weights.  We tossed around all the workouts we could do with the Shake Weight, and all the different exercises we could do with the Shake Weight – but is the Shake Weight the problem?

Fitness Professionals Being Negative About the Fitness Industry is Bringing Down the Fitness Industry

I don’t think it is the Shake Weight that is the problem, but us.

When fitness professionals go out there and blast other aspects of the fitness industry it fragments the whole fitness industry.  It shows the industry is in chaos and confuses the consumer on what can help them reach their health and fitness goals.

The negative energy and talk repel customers away. Who wants to be in a negative chaotic environment like the fitness industry?

Diversity of Fitness Will Be Our Success or Failure

The fitness industry is incredible.

I don’t know of another industry that is so diverse with options and variety of specialization.  This adds to our strength, but it is also the key to our failure as different specializations within fitness fight each other in order to out shout the other on which specialization is the best – as opposed to focusing on helping clients reach their fitness goals in a rapid and safe way.

How Much Fitness Negative Noise Did You Have to Overcome?

I would have to say fitness is a continuum, very much like the life of an endurance athlete.

If you look at an endurance athlete, many times they will start off with running.  They will build up their running to a marathon.  Then continue on and move onto triathlons and build their way up to an Ironman triathlon.  They still have the drive to train and are looking for a new challenge.  They continue on into Adventure Racing and Tough Mudder events.

Fitness is no different.  A client might be 100 lbs overweight and not feel comfortable going to a gym.  They order the Shake Weight and this is the first step in the right direction to a new life.  They use the Shake Weight and start feeling better and then start making other changes in their life like eating better and trying to move around more.

The benefits continue and they look for something else.  They worry about being fit enough to be a part of a group so they take a workout magazine to the gym and build on their fitness.  This is fun and different for a while but then they are kind of getting bored and need some more excitement, encouragement and others to work out with so they look into the bootcamp.

They love the bootcamp as the instructor pushes, encourages, and supports.  Plus the other campers are great to be around but you reach a point where you are one of the fittest people in the class and are kind of getting bored of the same old thing.  You look for something new and find that Crossfit is something new, challenging, and kicks your butt.

That Crossfit thing was great but your joints start talking to you and you need to take a step back.  You are living your life in the fast lane.  From 4 am to 10 pm, you are going.  You need to slow down, relax and de-stress so you look to Yoga.  As you are doing Sun Salutation you think about your life changing journey and remind yourself it all started with the Shake Weight and you are so glad you ignored all of those negative fitness professionals that said it was crap and you wonder how many people did not start their fitness journey because others in the fitness industry did not let them in.

Hmmm, kind of a powerful story.

My Shake Weight Fitness Story

I look at my fitness journey and it is kind of like the above.  I was active in high school but when I hit university, I stopped.  After university, I found running.  The running lead to a marathon, then Ironman, then a 5 month hike, then a 2.5 month bike ride and now I run for fun, do resistance training to stay fit and do things like Yoga to relax.  I don’t know where I would have been if I listened to the people that said, “Running sucks”, and “Why run when you can drive?”

Think Before You Criticize

Maybe next time you want to put up a photo of Jillian Michaels and blast her kettlebell routine, look at what she is doing right.  She knows who she can help and is doing everything to help all those people.  She doesn’t have time to argue over perfect technique, especially when it happened in the 13 hour of shooting her DVDs that have gone out to help millions.

Another Great Reason to Get a Shake Weight

If you watch the Shake Weight commercials, they don’t mention how great of a shoulder rehabilitation device the Shake Weight is.

If you are looking for an affordable tool to help with perturbation training, try the Shake Weight.

You can have a read of this article to see why:

Day A, Taylor NF, Green RA. (2013). The stabilizing role of the rotator cuff at the shoulder-responses to external perturbations. Clin Biomech (Bristol, Avon). 2012 Mar 3. [Epub ahead of print]

It would be great to hear what you think about how we are repelling people from entering into the fitness industry and how the Shake Weight is a effective training and rehabilitation tool.

Rick Kaselj, MS

Today, I have an interview on a topic that in the past I did not care much about: yoga.

In the past I thought yoga was for people that liked to compete to see who is most flexible.  Kind of like guys in the gym, trying to see who can lift more.

Over the last two years, my thinking has changed when it relates to yoga and a few weeks back I came across a yoga program.

I decided to give the program a go and have been doing it once a week.  It is my Tuesday afternoon ritual.  I thought it would be a good idea to get the author of the program on the phone and do a little interview with her for you.

Enjoy the interview and let me know what you think.

CLICK HERE to listen to the interview with Kris Fondran.

CLICK HERE to listen to the interview with Kris Fondran.

In the Interview with Kris Fondran on Yoga and Injuries, she shares with you:

• Who is Kris Fondran
• How did she end up doing yoga
• What is yoga
• What are the common misconceptions people have about yoga
• What are the benefits of doing yoga
• How yoga can help to decrease emotional and mental stress
• Discusses the important steps to take in preparing your body for yoga
• What are her favorite places to do yoga
• What are the common mistakes people do when performing yoga
• How yoga can help runners increase their flexibility
• How a person can use yoga to prevent injuries

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.
• Also the interview is up on iTunes. You can listen to it here or 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 act up when 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 have a neat specialization or business information that would be of benefit for fitness professionals to know about, please do contact me. I would love to share it with the EFI world.

If you know of a fitness professional who may benefit from this interview, please forward it onto them.

Here is a little info on Kris.

Kris Fondran came to yoga for physical flexibility and to learn how to manage stress in her life.

In 2008, as a part of her Master’s Degree in Exercise Science at Cleveland State University she conducted a research study on the benefits of a 10 minute, twice daily, Sun Salutation practice. After only 6 weeks of practice, the participants showed a significant increase in upper body strength and hamstring flexibility.

You can learn more about Kris at her blog, Mobile Yoga Workout.

The main program that Kris has created is called Shape Shifter Yoga.

Take care.

Looking forward to getting your feedback on the interview.

Rick Kaselj, MS

P.S. – If you liked this kind of interview, here are some other articles that may interest you:

• Nutrition Interrogation
• Brain Injury Success Story

Yoga and Injuries with Kris Fondran [ 24:38 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This weekend, I am teaching Exercise Rehabilitation of the Lower Body courses.  This is where I talk about exercises for knee, hip, ankle and foot injuries.

Before heading to teach, I thought it would be a good idea to see what is new in the research when it relates to the lower body.

Here is a paper that stood out on injuries and exercises:

Hip Muscle Activation in 3 Hip Exercises in Runners

What The Researchers Looked At

It is thought that PFPS and ITBS is caused by weak proximal muscles leading to dynamic valgus of the knee.

Dynamic Valgus is defined as:

“..a malalignment characterized by pelvic drop, which is inferior movement of the contralateral side of the pelvis during single-legged stance; femoral adduction and internal rotation; genu valgum; tibial internal rotation; and hyperpronation, and it occurs when the hip muscles cannot overcome the external torque caused by gravity acting on the body’s center of mass.”

Very cool stuff – try repeating that five times.

The research they did was straight forward.  They used 20 distance runners from a local running club.  They looked at the EMG (electromyography – electrical recording of muscle activity) of gluteus maximus (GMax), gluteus medius (GMed), tensor fascia late (TFL) and anterior hip flexors (AHF) during these three exercises:

1. side-lying hip abduction
2. side-lying clam exercises – it is thought that it focuses on strengthening the abductors and external rotators of the hip
3. side-lying hip abduction with the leg externally rotated – it is thought this exercise targets GMax better than other exercises

Cool Stuff in the Introduction

As I have said before, I love reading the introduction to papers.  There are always great stats and nuggets of information in there.

• 19% to 79% of runners will sustain a lower extremity injury
• The knee, lower leg and foot are the most common running injury areas
• The most frequent injuries in runners is patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS) and iliotibial band syndrome (ITBS), injuries to the gluteus medius muscle (GMed), and greater trochanteric bursitis.
• TFL and GMed contribute to hip abduction but TFL also helps with hip flexion.
• VERY IMPORTANT ==> “authors of cadaver-based anatomical studies have demonstrated that beyond 40 degrees of hip flexion, the GMed no longer functions as a primary hip abductor.  In more than 40 degrees of hip flexion, the GMEd functions as an internal rotator, and hip abduction is performed by the deep external rotators.”
• VERY IMPORTANT ==> 40% of maximal voluntary isometric contraction (MVIC) is needed in order to obtain strength gains.

Exercise Set Up

Here are some exercise set up points that stood out:

• Tempo – 60 beats per minute with a metronome with 1 beat concentric, 1 beat eccentric and 4 beats rest.
• Hip Abduction – They limited people to 35 degrees of hip abduction.
• Pelvis Neutral – They prevented any pelvis movement by using a blood pressure device in the lower back area.
• Resistance – 5% of body weight.
• Clam Exercises – It was done with 45 degrees of hip flexion and 90 degrees of knee flexion.  The top leg was lifted to a point of 25 degrees to the horizontal.

The Results from the Research

1. Side-lying Hip Abduction – GMed (79.1% MVIC) was more active than TFL (54% MVIC), AHF, and GMax
2. Side-lying Clam Exercises – AHF (54.2% MVIC) was more active than GMed (32.6% MVIC), TFL, and GMax.
3. Side-lying Hip Abduction with the Leg Externally Rotated – TFL (70.9% MVIC) was more active than  GMax (31.7% MVIC), GMed, and AHF.

Rick’s Comment on Things

Also remember that there is a difference between body weight and resistance exercises.  This research showed that with resisted side-lying hip abduction, GMed had a 79.1% MVIC while other research showed when it was just body weight it had 46.06% MVIC.

The point about 40% MVIC in order to see strength gains is a key thing to remember as side-lying clam exercises and side-lying hip abduction with the leg external rotate did not meet these requirements when targeting GMed or Max.

Where to get more information: McBeth JM, Earl-Boehm JE, Cobb SC, Huddleston WE. (2012). Hip muscle activity during 3 side-lying hip-strengthening exercises in distance runners. J Athl Train. 2012;47(1):15-23.

Where Should You Put the Tubing Around Your Knees in Order to Target Gluteus Medius the Best?

What The Researchers Looked At

The researchers wanted to look at designing a progressive rehabilitation program based on muscle activation.

They looked at the “Monster Walks” and “Sumo Walk”.  Within each exercise they looked at tubing placement at the feet, ankles and knees.

They looked at 9 healthy male subjects and their muscle activation in the hip and torso.

The Results from the Research

• Tensor fascia latae (TFL) – demonstrated an increase in activation when you moved the band from the knees to the feet but there was no difference between the ankle and the foot.
• Gluteus medius – demonstrated an increase in activation as you move from the knees to the toes.
• Gluteus maximus – was only active when the tubing was wrapped around the feet.
• External Rotation of the Hip – when the tubing was wrapped around the ankles or feet, this lead to greater external rotation of the hip which lead to greater gluteus medius and maximus activation.

Rick’s Comment on Things

I was talking about this last weekend during the Exercise Rehabilitation of the Lower Body courses.  I am glad I dug this up and finally read this.

I think this info will help bootcamp instructors, personal trainers, senior fitness leaders and rehabilitation professionals.

Darn, I love research.

Where to get more information – Cambridge ED, Sidorkewicz N, Ikeda DM, McGill SM. (2012). Progressive hip rehabilitation: The effects of resistance band placement on gluteal activation during two common exercises. Clin Biomech (Bristol, Avon). 2012 Mar 29. [Epub ahead of print]

Here is a resource for gluteus medius exercises. It is the video presentation that I did on Core Stability of the Hip:

That is it, have a great day.

Rick Kaselj, MS

If you enjoyed the above article, here are some of my other research reviews:

• Tennis Elbow Exercise Mistakes
• Core Stability and Injuries Plus a Tennis Elbow Exercise
• Scapular Stabilization Exercises, Jumper’s Knee and Osteoarthritis

I have another interview for you with Dr. Dan Ritchie.

Last week, I had an interview with him on How to Attract and Not Repel Baby Boomer Clients to Your Fitness Business.

This week it is on balance training.  I am a huge fan of balance training when it comes to injuries (foot, ankle, knee, hip and back) as well as for the older adult.  After I heard that Dan had done his PhD on balance training and the older adult, I knew I had to talk with him about his research and how it could help fitness professionals.

Let’s get to the interview.

Enjoy!

Remember, if you do not have time to listen to the interview now, you can download it to your computer, phone or MP3 player.

CLICK HERE to listen to the interview with Dan.

CLICK HERE to listen to the interview with Dan

What Dan Shares in the Interview is:

• How do we classify the older adult in the research and why?
• What is the number 1 cause of death over the age of 65
• What is Balance Training?
• What systems we are working on when training for balance
• Highlights the importance of Balance Training for the older adult
• What are the advantages of doing Balance Training?
• How can fitness professionals integrate balance training into their workouts?
• Do you need all that fancy balance equipment to do balance training?
• Discusses the business opportunity in doing balance training program for fitness professionals
• How to set up a balance program in your facility during slow times
• What are the common mistakes that fitness professionals make when it comes to balance training?
• What are the balance training exercises that older people can do at home?

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.
• Also the interview is up on iTunes. You can listen to it here or 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 act up when 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 want to learn more about Dr. Dan Ritchie and see which balance screen and exercise program he uses, plus the business stuff he uses to attract baby boomer clients into this fitness business, you can check out Booming PT Profits.

A huge thank you to Dr. Dan Ritchie.  I learned a lot, as Ialways learn a lot from doing interviews.  I will add a number of the things he said into my Balance Training for the Rehab Client course.  Hope to see you at it.

If you have a neat specialization or business information that would be of benefit for fitness professionals to know about, please do contact me. I would love to share it with the EFI world.

If you know of a fitness professional that may benefit from this, please forward it onto them.

Take care.

Rick Kaselj, MS

P.S. – If you liked this kind of interview, here are some other articles that may interest you:

• How to Attract and Not Repel Baby Boomer Clients to Your Fitness Business
• How Life Coaching Can Help Your Personal Training Clients
• Why Fitness Professionals Should Be Giving Nutritional Advice

Dan Interview Apr 12 Part 2 Balance [ 23:00 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Any time someone sustains an injury it generally goes through three stages of tissue healing. In general, massage is very effective for treating many injuries in conjunction with exercise rehabilitation.

Massage therapists take a remedial exercise course during their study of massage therapy. This is great as it helps them work with fitness and strength training professionals for injury rehabilitation.

I will look at the benefits massage therapy provides for exercise for each stage of tissue healing.

As a reminder here are the three phases of tissue healing:

1. Acute (inflammatory reaction/protection phase)
2. Sub Acute (repair and modeling/controlled motion)
3. Chronic (maturation and remodeling/return to function).

The key here is to understand what is happening at the cellular level in order to provide the proper massage techniques followed by the appropriate exercise.

Acute Stage – #1

In the acute phase the inflammatory reaction occurs. Typical signs and symptoms of this stage may be remembered by the acronym S.H.A.R.P.  This stands for swelling, heat, altered function, redness and pain.

On a functional level there is pain before tissue resistance. This usually occurs at the beginning of range of motion. Chances are your client does not want to move that injured area at all. And if they do it will be very limited.

The most common approach at this stage is RICE:

• rest
• ice
• compression
• elevation

Massage therapy helps to maintain and increase blood and lymph circulation thereby decreasing the amount of swelling. This allows for clearing of the waste products caused by the inflammatory process.

Massage will also help to decrease the tension in any compensating muscles in that area or on the opposite limb. This makes it easier for you to give exercises in the acute stage. Furthermore, massage therapy also provides a psychological boost to the tissue healing process.

You can perform pain-free passive range of motion and muscle setting, or low intensity isometric resistance exercises to help maintain current range of motion and strength.

Pain-free grade one or two joint play may be performed as well. This is important because you want to maintain the movement between joints to allow for full range of motion later in the healing process.

As a friendly reminder, caution must be taken to avoid any sharp pain as this indicates tissue damage. The last thing you need is for your client to have a longer than anticipated recovery from injury.

Sub Acute Stage – #2

The next stage is the repair and healing stage. The key in this stage is to promote healing and develop mobile scar.  As there is collagen formation, the tissue is fragile and easily injured.

Massage therapy is very effective in this stage for promoting circulation to the affected area, providing the appropriate nutrients for tissue healing. Massage is also beneficial for treating compensating muscles, increasing range of motion and decreasing pain.

Again massage is effective for treating the areas above and below the injury.

Massage prepares the muscles in this stage for open and closed chain exercises as well as muscular endurance exercises.

These exercises can progress in intensity and range. Again both range of motion and resistance exercises must be done pain- free.

Joint play is effective for working within a pain-free range. It is important to remember that if the joint is “stuck”, building strength through a full range will be challenging and you will also be setting your client up for another injury.

In this stage pain occurs simultaneously with tissue resistance.

It is also a “grey” area for treatment and exercise. If both the massage and the exercise are too aggressive your client may end up back in the inflammatory stage.

It is fine for your clients to work with a little discomfort. I draw the line with sharp pain.

If the massage and exercise are not adequate, there will be an increase in misaligned scar tissue leading to a decrease in range of motion and delay in tissue healing.

Generally any type of massage technique must be pain-free. Effectiveness of the massage treatment is dependent on the communication between client and therapist.

At the beginning of this stage you can start with sub maximal multi-angle resistance isolation exercises and assisted range of motion, and progress to full body resistance exercise and self-stretches.

Simple static proprioceptive and balance exercises may be included in this stage, leading to more dynamic and functionally integrated exercises towards the end of this stage, and finally leading to return to function.

Chronic Stage – #3

Next, in the chronic or return to function stage there is maturation of connective tissue, contracture of scar tissue and remodeling of the scar.

Massage is extremely beneficial both before and after exercise.

Generally there is an absence of inflammation and pain occurs after resistance.

Massage therapy is an effective tool at this time to help the individual reach full range of motion.

Massage prepares the body for any type of intense rehab/training

At this stage in the tissue healing process, the massage therapy techniques tend to be deeper and more aggressive. Techniques such as transverse friction, grade 3 or 4 joint play, muscle stripping and myofascial release manipulate the quality of tissue to prepare for  more comprehensive exercises for tissue healing.

These techniques help with aligning collagen fibers and developing functional independence, and to improve the tissue quality.

Pre-exercise massage may be included as part of the warm up.

Resistance exercises progress from sub maximal multi-angle isometrics to concentric, eccentric and plyometric.

Total body, functional or activity related exercises are appropriate in this phase of injury recovery.

Post exercise massage is effective for recovery. I would recommend post massage one to two hours post exercise.

The benefits of post massage are:

• Improved circulation
• Muscular relaxation
• Separation of muscle from connective tissue
• Formation of healthy scar tissue and connective tissue normalization
• Deactivation of trigger points

In closing, injuries go through three stages of tissue healing in which a combination of massage and exercise is extremely beneficial for a quick recovery.

Treatment and exercises start with isolation and gradually progress from isolation to total body or functional integration.

As a fitness or strength training professional it is always great have contacts in the field of massage therapy as both your clients and you can benefit personally and professionally.

———————————————————————————————————

Mike Grafstein B.Ph.Ed, CAT©, RMT

Mike has certification as an Athletic Therapist in Canada and registration as a Massage Therapist in the province of Ontario.

He has held the position of Head Therapist for the Ontario Soccer Association, Soccer Academy Alliance of Canada (SAAC) and Bryst International.

He has traveled internationally with soccer performing treatments in many different foreign settings.

Currently he is a senior instructor and clinic supervisor at Bryan College – North York Campus faculty of Massage Therapy and Hydrotherapy where teaches physiology and remedial exercise.

He practices massage therapy at Upper Canada Sports Medicine in Newmarket, Ontario.

.

Today I have some great information on Challenge Workouts.

The interview is with Shawna Kaminski.

She has been on the blog before and I have her back talking about her challenge workouts.

Enjoy the interview!

CLICK HERE to listen to the interview with Shawna Kaminski on Inside Challenge Workouts.

CLICK HERE to listen to the interview with Shawna Kaminski on Inside Challenge Workouts.

What Shawna Kaminski Goes Through in the Interview on Challenge Workouts:

• Common injuries that her community gets when they push themselves
• Few tips on how to avoid injuries when doing workouts where you push yourself
• An essential tool that Shawna uses in all of her Challenge Workouts
• Shawna’s favorite Challenge Workout
• What Shawna did before fitness
• Why she decided to take what she loves on-line
• Who Shawna Kaminski is
• Where the idea of Challenge Workouts started
• The philosophy of Challenge Workout
• What are Challenge Workouts for

If you have not got it yet, Shawna put together a free ebook on How to do a Pull Up – Injury Free.  You can click here to download it.

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 act up when 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

A Few Words About Shawna

Shawna Kaminski is in her late 40′s but she can kick most 20 year olds’ butts when it comes to pull ups, push-ups and human flag. In order to help people improve their pull ups, she put together a program that helps improve your pull up, gets you to perform your first pull up and improve your push up. You can check out her Challenge Workouts here.

If you looking to challenge yourself in your workouts, make sure to take a look at Shawna’s Challenge Workout Program:

If you have a neat specialization that would be of benefit for fitness professionals to know about, please do contact me and I would love to share it with the EFI world.

If you know of a fitness professional that may benefit from this, please forward it onto them.

Take care.

Rick Kaselj, MS

P.S. – If you liked this fitness training interview, here are some other articles that may interest you:

• How to Have Your Bootcamp Start Off as a Success and Not a Failure
• Grip Strength and Injuries with Jedd Johnson
• How Life Coaching Can Help Your Personal Training Clients

Inside Challenge Workouts with Shawna Kaminski [ 16:07 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I often get asked how to do a pull-up.

Let me help you do your first pull-up or improve the number of pull-ups you can do. Here are a few exercises that will help:

Exercise #1 to Help with Your Pull-Up

I like to do single DB rows so I can address muscle imbalances.

NOTE: I always train my weak side first since you’ll always have a strong and weak side. With continued training you’ll lessen the gap of strength differences.

It’s imperative with this movement that you protect the lower back and learn to isolate the latissimus dorsi. Support one knee and one hand on a bench and flatten the back so that your chest is parallel to the floor. If you’re too upright, you’ll work the upper trap, an area that usually needs less development than the lat, the lower trap and rhomboid muscles. Imagine what the pull of gravity is: basically a straight line from the DB to the floor. Allow the DB to hang to the floor while maintaining this flat back position. Bring the DB to the ribs and bring the scapula, or shoulder blade, in towards the spine. Return the DB to the full hanging position and allow the shoulder blade to slide away from the spine.

A common error is using the muscles of the arms exclusively to pull the DB into the ribs; this is the same mistake that folks make when trying to do a pull-up. You need to find the back muscles and engage them in pulling the DB towards the body. Then allow the DB to extend towards the floor with the arm fully extended.

Exercise #2 to Help with Your Pull-Up

I’m a big fan of my suspension trainer. It basically uses body weight as resistance. You can increase or decrease the amount of resistance by changing the angle of pull with your foot position. It’s really a brilliant idea. Another benefit of the suspension trainer is the need for core stability with its use.

The suspended back row is a very basic row, and is helpful in strengthening the back and improving your pull-ups. One thing to keep in mind is to maintain a long neck, keep the shoulders down and don’t let them creep up to the ears. Many people elevate the shoulders unconsciously.

A second pointer is ensure that you drop the hips slightly; don’t lead with the hips and arch the back. You’ll feel more through the middle back, and less through the arms if you have a slight hip flexion.

Exercise #3 to Help with Your Pull-Up

Not surprisingly, core strength is helpful to increase your pull up prowess. A strong core helps maintain the proper body alignment in order for you to engage your back muscles.

A good way to train the core and at the same time increase grip and back strength is to do hanging leg raises. Many people tend to just work their hip flexors when doing leg raises. The point of the leg raise is to contract the abdominal wall and allow the hips to roll. It’s a matter of pressing the belly button in towards the spine to contract the core and not just lift the legs up.

Last Key Ingredient to Pull-Ups

The last component I’d like to address is rest. I’m my own worst enemy at times where this is concerned, once I get a goal in mind. For example, my elbows ached for a few weeks after I worked the human flag daily.

Umm, not a good idea.

The same goes for you and your pull-ups.

Your body needs rest and recovery. If your muscles are still sore and you have a workout planned, you may want to postpone the training of the sore muscles until you feel recovered. I’m not giving you permission to slack off, I’m reminding you that an important part of your training is allowing your body to recover fully. You need to listen and know when you’re just slacking off and when you really need an extra day to recover. Maybe you’ll do a HIIT (high intensity interval training) workout or a workout finisher, something different than strictly strength work and pull-ups.

The pull-up is clearly one of the most impressive body weight movements that can be done. With proper training and a mind towards injury prevention, you’ll be more likely to succeed at increasing your pull-up power and not your aches and pains. You can check out Shawna’s pull-up program here.

About Shawna Kaminski

Shawna Kaminski is in her late 40′s but she can kick most 20 year old’s butts when it comes to pull-ups, push-ups and human flag. In order to help people improve their pull-ups, she put together a program that helps improve your pull-up, gets you to perform your first pull-up and improve your push-up. You can check out her Challenge Workouts here.

As a massage therapist who works every day on clients who are in chronic pain and dysfunction, I love to continually study the body and understand HOW and WHY the body responds the way it does to pain.

Through intense study with the “masters of massage”, I have come to understand the complex nature of the body, and its magical healing components. I come from an IT background, so I love the fact that the body is logical – it does what it needs to do to maintain balance and harmony.

Pain – Spasm – Pain Cycle

One of the first things we teach relating to pain treatment is something called the “Pain – Spasm – Pain Cycle” which looks like this:

Basically, “something” injures the client – whether trauma related, or sleeping funky.  It doesn’t matter what it is – the client has pain, which causes them to guard and protect the area.  Lack of movement causes lack of blood flow and a local chemical build-up in the area (trigger point), resulting in more pain and spasm.

This vicious cycle will continue until there is an intervention of some sort to stop the pain cycle from repeating.  It’s important to note that this cycle could continue for years – even from a whiplash from a car accident 20 years ago.

Scar Tissue

Scar tissue – or as I like to call it, “muscle enemy #1” – results where there was injury and this fibrous tissue has replaced the normal tissue.  Scar tissue is a natural part of the healing process and it should be noted that scar tissue is weaker than the original tissue it replaces.

Scar tissue can bind up many layers of muscle and connective tissue, causing varying degrees of limited movement and pain.  Think of scar tissue like a snag in a sweater – it pulls fibers around it causing the snag to grow.  Scar tissue in the body is very invasive; it pulls from the area around it and restricts movement of the joint.

The symptom picture of scar tissue looks like this:

• Impaired range of motion
• Circulation problems
• Nerve impediment
• Pain

The Laws of Posturology

Like I said earlier, I am passionate about understanding HOW and WHY the body responds to pain.  Once you grasp the laws, it’s easy to see the how and why.  This area of research is called Posturology – which is the “science of human balance in every physiological condition.”

Righting Reflex

The coolest law of all the laws is called the “Righting Reflex” – which dictates our ability to remain upright to maintain a sense of balance.  Basically, this law describes how your head will adjust (by tilt or rotations) so that the eyes can remain even with the horizon.  Whether from a collapsed foot arch, leg rotations, increased hip flexion, anatomical leg length inequality, etc., the body will over time adjust to meet the Righting Reflex law so that the eyes can attempt to be even on the horizon.

Now, because of the Righting Reflex, there are physical forces applied on the body which CAUSE the pain response – and these physical forces will always do it’s thing because of gravity:

Now, let’s put this into terms that you might be more comfortable with:

• Compressions cause wear and tear injuries – such as disk bulges, SI Joint problems, hip degradation and pain.  You’ll feel “compressed.”
• Torques – think of it like a wet towel being squeezed for years – over time, torque wears down the discs causing Degenerative disc disease
• Shearing causes facet problems, spinal cord pinching, derangement of discs.

Perhaps you’ve been to a doctor and he tells you that you have a bulging disc between L4-L5 and that perhaps surgery is the only option.  I look at the bulging disc as a symptom and NOT the problem.  As a body worker, I look at the posture of my clients and work at getting them back in order and we find that, in most cases, the pain problems resolve.

All of these posture patterns lead to something I call “Structural Sickness” – which manifest in all kinds of syndromes, including:

• Physical pain
• Nerve impingement syndromes
• Visceral (organ) pain and dysfunction
• Hormonal imbalances

Now, you can imagine how sitting at a desk job and doing the same thing over and over for years without thought of your posture can cause you to develop patterns that will ultimately develop into a pain response in the body.  Because of the gravitational forces that are ever present, we cannot escape poor posture and the body’s attempt to fix things.

You can eat well, exercise frequently, be emotionally open and so forth, but sometimes it’s not enough. Sometimes structures of the body get so out of place that the only way to get you back is to physically pull it back.

My kids make fun of me for always looking at people’s posture.  I can’t help myself.  I am a student that always studies…  So, straighten up – someone’s watching!

Shari Aldrich, LMP, owns the highly successful Integrative Health Clinic in Olympia, WA, which includes massage and chiropractic care.  She is also the owner of Bodymechanics School of Myotherapy & Massage, and Olympia Fit Body Boot Camp.  Shari believes that educating her clients about their pain is the most important aspect of her job – and is currently writing 2 books on the subject.  For more information, please visit her blog at www.shari-fit-touch.com or e-mail her at aldrich.shari@gmail.com

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Have you ever left your business to be run by your employees only and then come back to chaos? Or just as bad, had phone call after phone call about simple things that have been carried out before by your employees, or at least don’t take YOU too much brain power to work out?

Well if that’s happened to you, your business is very much how my business USED to be. I was in exactly the same boat…one time I went away from my business for a day to help prepare for my sister’s wedding…and I forgot my phone. I came back to find 15 emails and 6 voicemails…All from my employees!

As you can imagine I was pretty worried by this and was well prepared to return to a business burnt to the ground or at least on its way to bankruptcy…As it turned out the desperate and “hugely important problems” that I had phone calls for were as follows:

• “You left your phone.” (they thought I would check my voicemails remotely apparently)

• Someone called interested in what we had to offer……It turned out that NO phone number, email,  or even name were taken (as “I didn’t think to”) so I couldn’t call back.

• “Where is the paper for the printer?”

• “The toilet towels need changing.”

• “I’m finished for the day.”

• “Oh, forgot to say someone came in, interested in what we have to offer.” By now you know they didn’t get any details from them. “But it’s O.K., they said they would probably come back in to see us.”

And don’t even get me started about the emails!!

As you can imagine this didn’t put me in the best of moods. In fact I vowed never to leave my phone anywhere again!

This wasn’t by any means an isolated incident……I went a whole year and a  half without taking more than 3 consecutive days away from my “business”, for two main reasons:

1 – I didn’t trust my employee (I only had one at the time) to be able to handle everything without me. So I figured I would be better off not leaving him too long than have the stress of worrying and/or getting phone calls from him the whole time.

2 – I wouldn’t be making any money! This was the most persuasive factor for me not to leave my business for long. If I wasn’t there, I wouldn’t be earning any money, was my opinion. “No one else can do the technical aspect of my business…I’m the best at it.”

Being tied to my business and not being able to go anywhere further than a few hours’ drive was obviously not ideal for my relationship with my girlfriend of the time. I say “of the time” as it turned out that it was too much for our burgeoning relationship to handle…Apparently she understood I loved my business and was desperate for it to be successful, but not being able to spend any quality time – even when we were together as I tended to be stuck frantically answering emails or phone calls – was too much.

Back then I thought she was being unreasonable and all entrepreneurs and small business owners would have to be in the same position.

It was a few months after that break up that I spoke to a business owner at a networking event, who was happily married and had started his relationship with his wife and his business at pretty much the same time as me!!

There were a few glaring differences between his life and mine at the time, despite us having started our relationship and business at the same time…

1 – His relationship lasted, obviously.

2 – His business was twice my size in the same amount of time despite starting with exactly the same…just ourselves.

3 – He had taken two 3 week breaks in the last year and a half.

4 – I was the one that had to be rude and leave the conversation in mid-flow to answer an “important” phone call from my employee. It turned out to be about a task that he had done a hundred times.

5 – He had a lot more hair!!

As I discussed our respective differences I kept hearing the word “systems” pop out of his mouth…Not wanting to appear ignorant and a lesser business man (despite the fact that I now realize I was), I didn’t ask him what he meant by the word “systems”.

At any rate they seemed important to him as he must have mentioned them a hundred times. So when I got home I was intrigued enough (more by the guy’s apparent calmness about his business, his ability to holiday whenever he wanted and the fact that his business was double the size!) to try and look up the word, “systems”.

The best I could come up with was the Wikipedia definition which is as follows:

“Most systems share common characteristics, including:

▪   Systems have structure, defined by components/elements and their composition;

▪   Systems have behavior, which involves inputs, processing and outputs of material, energy, information, or data;

▪   Systems have interconnectivity: the various parts of a system have functional as well as structural relationships to each other.

Systems may have some functions or groups of functions.”

If this makes no “real world” sense to you then you are exactly like I was… In fact it made so little sense that I left it at that and made a whole load of “reasons” why my business was different to the guy’s at the networking event and how “systems” weren’t actually right for my business.

I didn’t let the fact that I didn’t know what these so called systems actually were bother me.

One thing that I did remember was a book title that the guy had mentioned a couple of times… “The E-myth”…Well, at the time I was always keen to buy a book from Amazon and have it sit next to my bed looking brand new. (Books rarely ever got opened as by the time I did get to bed I was too tired from running my business to be able to read anything… There was definitely no point in trying to find time to read during the day!)

So I carried on with my every day business tasks (which by then I could do with my eyes closed as I’d had to do them everyday for the last year and a half, which made it harder for me to understand how my one employee had to ask so many questions for most tasks despite the general having been done every day for the last 90 days).

The business seemed to stay the same which was fine as “we are in a recession, don’t you know, so its good to actually be staying the same and not shrinking.” I wouldn’t say I was happy with my business but I had come to terms with it and had managed to forget about the guy from the networking meeting.

That was until we met again…this time at a charity auction (where he bid on and won a holiday to Las Vegas, I may add). We got talking again about our businesses and this time I didn’t try and hide behind any bravado and I actually asked him this exact question:

“I know you seem to think systems are important and have allowed you freedom and for your business to grow very fast…and I started to read that book you told me about. But I still don’t actually know what a system is and where to start…and actually I don’t have the time!”

This turned out to be the most important question I’d ever asked as it encouraged James to take pity on me and take me under his wing. He allowed me to see totally inside his business and learn exactly what he meant by systems and what they can do for your business life and as clearly your personal life as well.

Following this “education” from James I was able to completely change my business around. I went from having just one employee and doing all the technical work that I thought only I could do to having 5 employees and not having to do any of the technical work. Oh and I’ve also taken two 3 week holidays, and I now live with my girlfriend (the same one who dumped me for “not having any time for her at all”… All this after just over a year.

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Why it works

James, my original mentor and teacher, was very impressed with my progress with completely systemizing my business. I’d managed to actually achieve it quicker than he had, and now my business is actually more successful than his.

I put the speed with which I was able to achieve it (once I knew what I was doing) down to the system that I was actually able to work out and apply to my business.

I believed that the approach with which I systemized my business and allowed myself to step away from the day to day running of things and concentrate on the stuff that was going to grow my business exponentially was unique to me and my business.

HOW WRONG WAS I?! In fact that couldn’t have been further from the truth… It turns out my approach to the systemization and automation of my business allowed it to work with any business!

It isn’t specific to certain types of industries or businesses with one person or 4…It’s suitable for all shapes and sizes of small businesses!

I first worked this out when my good friend, Sarah, asked me to help free up her time. Sarah owns a small beauty salon which she originally started out as a lifestyle type of business, i.e to provide her with a decent income and lots of free time doing something that she loves.

Well due to a few marketing systems that I encouraged her to implement, her salon went from 50% empt, to her becoming more and more stressed at the number of phone calls and voicemails from people asking for appointments!

So one of the first things I got Sarah to do was to change her answer phone message saying that she would only respond to text messages!

You’re probably thinking the same thing she did……I CAN’T DO THAT, YOU’RE CRAZY! AND ANYWAY, THEN I’LL JUST HAVE LOADS OF TEXT MESSAGES INSTEAD!

The long and short of it is I taught her how to write a system in 10 minutes that allowed her to handle her texts every day in 10 minute blocks twice a day. And in fact now she has one of the junior beauticians handle it for her. So her diary is handled for her!

About Stephen and Mark Gray,

Owners of The Systems Solution

The Gray twins are committed to a healthy lifestyle having played professional rugby for Bedford and most recently fitness modeling for national magazines.

They carry this strong belief into their two training studios where their knowledge of systems has enabled them to have these businesses work for them.

You can check out their Systems Solution for done for you Systems that run your business at www.thesystemssolution.com

Going to Orange County and attending a very unconventional fitness business conference called “Fitness Business Summit” was very refreshing compared to most conferences that I go to.

Sad to say, most fitness conferences these days are organized by fitness association and run by fitness equipment companies.  This has taken away from the quality of information that fitness professionals get and just ends up being a fitness equipment expo/circus.

I attended Fitness Business Summit last year and I was back this year.  Last year I was an attendee and this year I was one of the presenters.

Even though I am a presenter, I make sure to attend as many of the sessions as I can.  Let me highlight some of the lessons that I learned at Fitness Business Summit 2012 (FBS12).

From Pizza Driver to Mr. Olympia

I am not much into body building and don’t quite get it but I know it is something that takes a lot of work, focus and dedication, especially if you become Mr. Olympia.

FBS12 started off with Ronnie Coleman who was Mr. Olympia 8 times.  WoW!

(Ronnie Coleman and Me – I know, his biceps are as big a my thigh)

Ronnie went up on stage and told his story.  He talked about how he was a pizza driver after college and fell into body building.  After a while of being a pizza driver, he got tired of it and became a police officer.  (I would not want to cross that police officer.) He continued being a police officer until he won his 3rd Mr. Olympian.

The most powerful thing he said was, “Be the best at what you do.”

He did this when he played college football, during his schooling, when he was a pizza driver, as a police officer and being a body builder.  An important lesson for us all.

Smart Dude but Dumb Business Owner

Up first was Dan Ritchie.  I should have started off with Dr. Dan, who has a PhD in balance training and the older adult. (I will interview him very soon on EFI). What I have seen with other very educated people is they think their intelligence in one area carries over to business.  Sad to say, this is often a huge mistake.

Dan Ritchie, fellow presenter Rebecca Tabbert and Me/I (Rick Kaselj)

Dan is one of the smart guys that did not make this mistake.  He spent a period of time getting his PhD in college and now he is in the real world getting his PhD in Real World Business.  He is applying what he has learned from other successful fitness owners to his business and is doing amazing.

From Dan, this was the big lesson that I learned: you might be smart in one area but you can’t be smart in all.  If you want to get better in another area you need to learn, apply, get experience and network with others that have done it or are where you want to be.

How to Go from Eating Two Year Old Microwave Dinners to Changing Your Industry

Michael Parrella, Just WoW-ing the Crowd

I would not want to meet Michael Parrella in a dark back alley but I am happy to know him and know he has my back.

Michael’s story is crazy.  He went from being so broke he ate two year old TV microwave dinners that his best friend’s mom had hoarded at her house to now helping thousands of people get introduced to karate and helping hundreds of karate studios grow their business and reach their dreams.

I have been lucky to know Michael since last September and he has always been so open and helpful with my business.

During our first conversation, I asked him what was his plan “B” if his business failed.  He replied:

“Success was my plan “A” and I was not going to stop until I got there.”

Awesome advice.

3 States, 2 Countries and a Province

This article has gone a few miles. It did not take me long to write but I have been working on it for a few thousand miles.

A Favorite Spot of Mine

I first started it in Blaine, Washington, USA which is about 30 minutes from my house and is in another country and province (Surrey, British Columbia, Canada).

If I have to travel to the USA, I do what I can to leave a little earlier and visit Blaine. It is only about 30 to 60 minutes from Vancouver, Canada but it feels like a world away. It is a sleepy sea-side town and has a few of my favorite places there.

My favorite place is this coffee shop which looks over the Pacific Ocean and is in an old train caboose.  It very much reminds me of when I was a kid and had birthday parties at the old McDonald’s caboose.  Where have those things gone?  I like sitting on the deck, beside the caboose, looking over the ocean and doing a little writing – like this article.

Sadly, on this trip, the caboose was closed. I hope it is a temporary thing, but I had a plan “B”.

I headed off to the other coffee shop in town which is in the old heritage house. I was hoping I would be lucky and I would be able to get the table beside the front window which looks over to city hall and is right beside the coffee shop fireplace.

The coffee shop was abuzz this morning, which always makes writing easier.

While in the coffee shop, I worked on my presentation that I was doing this weekend in Orange County, California. It is always fun molding a presentation. It is amazing to take an idea, shape it and carve it into a specific message. I know people will learn a little and have a good chuckle.

Learning at 10,000 Feet

Next it was off to the Blaine airport and a flight down to Orange County.

This is such a cool photo but don’t know how to have it face up. Ugh.

What I have been doing of late when flying is using the time to learn. I will load up my iPhone with video presentations that I have, plus I will bring a few research articles (going through a great one on frozen shoulder.)

Let me share with you a few of the nuggets of information that I got from the 3 presentations that I viewed (I have a tough time watching one thing so I bounce around between a few).

Shatterproof Spine by John Izzo

• John when through an example with an Oreo cookie that was priceless. Everyone talks about the discs of the spine being a jelly donut but John had a great example on how it was like an Oreo cookie.
• John never highlighted this but he has done a lot of training with golfers and in his presentation he has a lot of great information relating to golfers and back injuries.
• In one part of the presentation he talked about compression, rotational and shear/bending stress in golfers. He said the shear/bending stress in amateur golfers is 80% greater compared to the professional. In a traditional golf swing, there is 8 times the stress of body weight when it relates to compression stress. The greatest rotational stress in the golf swing is the transition from back swing to down swing. Very fascinating! All of these points are a great explanation of why golfers have so much lower back issues.

Post Rehab Essentials by Dean Somerset

• Dean had a great slide on the thoracic and lumbar spine mobility which highlighted how much movement is in each of the areas of the spine.
• He highlighted the importance of an individual’s hydration level, which can have an effect on disc space height in the spine. (Another great reason to stay hydrated).

Complete Core Training by Mike Robertson

• Let me start off with this. I wonder how Mike sounds when he is angry? Every time I have a talk with him or watch one of his presentations, he is as calm as can be. During his presentations, he is the same way but is if full of great information.
• He made a side comment during his presentation but I thought it was interesting. He talked about how to improve hip mobility. He suggested you work on 4 things in order to improve your hip mobility: foam roll your hip flexors, perform dynamic stretching warm ups, take your hips through full range of motion (based on your ability) when it comes to lifting (squats, dead-lifts, lunges, etc), and perform static stretching at night.
• Mike also talked about the movement in the spine, especially rotation. He highlighted the rotation that the lumbar spine has is 10 to 15 degrees while the thoracic spine has about 70 degrees. If your client needs to improve spinal rotation, it is best to work on the thoracic spine and not the lumbar spine for rotational improvement.

There was a lot more in each of the presentations but those are a few things that stood out.

After about three hours, I was in Cali.

I was sad to have the learning end but happy to be able to squeeze out between two of the worst airplane passengers (Ms. Grumpy and Mr. Bumper).

I learned a lot on that flight and can’t wait for the flight back.

I think that is it.

It looks like my presentation time has changed and I will be talking Friday afternoon so I have to get working on it.

Have a great Friday and we will talk to you next week.

Rick Kaselj, MS

Imagine this scenario…

You are a performance trainer specializing in injury prevention and athletic development for youth and teen athletes.  One of your existing clients refers you to work with one of his teammates.

You present your program to him and his parents and being the great closer that you are, of course, you close the contract.

You work with the kid for 3 months in the off-season.  He is the classic overachiever.  Pretty skilled in his sport, but not the most explosive or very fluid in his movement.

The kid works his butt off and you see a huge improvement in his athletic ability.  And even better, when he goes back to work with his team as the season approaches, his coach notices the changes and asks, “What did you do this off-season, kid?”

The kid raves about your off-season training program, so the coach grabs your contact info and reaches out to set up a meeting

This is a huge opportunity because if you play it right, you will go from making $75-$150 per hour doing personal or small group training, to $300-$400 per hour in a team setting.

But now you run into three issues:

1. Your training program is designed for a one-on-one or small group setting.  You don’t have enough equipment for 30-50 kids.
2. Not only do you have no equipment to work with, you also have no facility, except the field or court to work with.
3. And on top of all that, you only have 30-60 minutes per week to work with the team.

I ran into the same issues as I learned to leverage my time and took my training progressions from individual to team settings.  I also wanted to stay true to my injury prevention progressions and not cheat any of the athletes, parents, or coaches.

But before I present you my solution to this problem, allow me to introduce myself…

My name is C.J. Easter and if you follow college football, I was best known as Stanford Football #12 before Andrew Luck.  I am currently the CEO of the Performance Science Training Institute and am now known as the Stanford Speed, Agility, and Injury Prevention Expert.

My company contracts with youth sport organizations and high school athletic programs to implement speed, agility, and injury prevention programs on a mass scale.

You can find out more about the system that I use at Performance Science Training Institute.

Ok, enough of me and back to your dilemma… How do you stay true to your progressions and not “sell out” for the financial opportunity of working with a large group?

I’m going to take you from a micro-variable level all the way to the macro level of the concepts behind our team-training program.

Feel free to swipe these concepts and use them to truly leverage your time and win your first big team training program.

So here’s a quick glimpse of how we break down our progressions as well as a completely done-for-you training session:

We break down athletic movements into 8 categories, based on the dominant joint.  We call these the “stem cells” of athletic movements because all other athletic movements are derived from these patterns.

Here are our “Easy Eight”:

• Ankle Flexion
• Ankle Extension
• Bilateral Knee Dominant
• Unilateral Knee Dominant (F/B)
• Unilateral Knee Dominant (L/R)
• Bilateral Hip Dominant
• Unilateral Hip Dominant
• Core Stability

Now that we have a base set of movements, let’s look at how we progress our athletes through these movements:

• Isometric: To develop muscle memory of proper movement mechanics and to build strength at the point at which the body is at the greatest mechanical disadvantage

• Repetition: To develop the strength through the full range of motion to repeatedly recreate proper movement patterns

• Dynamic: To develop the ability to create proper movement patterns on the move and prepare the body to create force on the move

• Explosive: To develop the ability create and absorb maximal force with proper movement mechanics

These progressions must complement and supplement the team’s skill development and game schedule, so we break our progressions up into four types of sessions:

• Development Session:  This is a session in which we are looking to make some athletic gains with our athletes.  We can push your athletes in these sessions because you don’t have to worry about a little soreness the next day affecting their game performance.  For example, let’s say they play a game on a Saturday and they don’t play again until the next Thursday, a Development Session fits well on a Monday or Tuesday of that week.

• Pre-Game Session:  This type of training session is to be scheduled the day before a game.  The goal is to work out any tightness or soreness to prepare the legs to be fresh and explosive the next day.  This movement progression remains constant throughout the program to allow the athlete to develop a focused routine going into game day.

• Game Day:  This is go-time!  We want to increase the internal temperature (“warm-up”), wake up the proper neuromuscular movement patterns that we’ve been training, and prepare the body to be explosive and compete.  This movement progression remains constant throughout the program.

• Post-Game Session:  This is a recovery day.  The muscles break down after the intensity of competition, so we want to increase blood flow to the muscles to aid in recovery and maintain strength.

And each of these sessions are a part of a larger phase.  Here’s how we approach Phase 1:

Phase 1- Pre-Season ≈ 2 Weeks

Goal:

• To prevent injury by progressively preparing the body for competition
• To establish a foundation of strength, flexibility, and speed and agility mechanics to build upon for the rest of the season

Volume:

• Assuming a lighter schedule for this phase and more general prep than game-planning
• 2 Development Days, Pre-Game, Post Game, Game Day
• (Assuming 1 game per week in this phase) 50 mins/week of strength and flexibility development, 40 mins/week of speed and agility development, 30 mins/week of cardiovascular base conditioning*
• Assuming 4 practices/week at about 2 hours per practice, Phase 1 takes up approximately 25% of the week

Below is a completely done-for-you Development Session that you can use right away to train a team.

Phase 1, Week 1, Development Day 1

Beginning of Practice

Athletic Movement Fundamentals- 10 mins
(Stationary, team all together)
(Assuming this is your athletes’ first time performing these movements, we allow 30 seconds in between each movement to explain the next one)

Set 1
Calf Raise Reps- 15 seconds
Rest- 30 seconds

Set 2
Same movements as above with only 15 seconds rest in between

Speed Mechanics- 7.5 mins
(Again assuming this is your athletes’ first time performing these movements, we allow 30 seconds in between each movement to explain the next one)

Hey, I hope this article opened up your eyes a bit.

I will be back again with another article for you.

Later.

CJ

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Thanks a bunch CJ, that was great.

Rick Kaselj, MS

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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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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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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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

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

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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.

There has been more talk about doing pull ups of late and I have been seeing more people give them a go in the gym.

What I have seen has kind of scared me.  People jumping off stability balls, using other people’s backs or just crashing to the floor when trying one.

I asked my friend, Shawna Kaminski, who has created a very cool pull up program to give us some tips on how to do a pull up injury free.  Take it away Shawna.

Pulls Ups and Injuries

You can’t deny the power of the pull up; a beautiful physique can be sculpted with the simple pull up. It broadens and strengthens the back, while sculpting the waist in one fluid easy to understand (but difficult to do) maneuver.

The prime mover for the pull up is the latissimus dorsi. Surprisingly, the pull up engages the core a great deal. The secondary movers and stabilizers for the pull up include the trapezius, rhomboids, biceps, serratus anterior, transverse abdominus and the obliques. You can see how the pull up is a compound movement and can effectively train the core.

As with any movement, it’s imperative to ensure that proper form is used to prevent injury.

Pull Up Body Position

I once made the mistake of overzealous training when training to do the human flag and my elbows and I weren’t on speaking terms for several weeks.

(Shawna asked me about her sore elbows and this is what I suggested to her:)

The pull up is no different. There are a few things that can be done to prevent injury, specifically overuse injury when doing the pull up.

First of all, you need to get your mind focused on the correct muscles in order to get your first pull up. Rather than using the back muscles, many people will try to lift with their arms, chest, shoulders, anything to get their body to move. This will get you NOWHERE FAST.

When doing an assisted pull up, you need to be in the correct position.

You need to get your body UNDER the bar like this:

You need to position yourself so that you’re looking up and you’re ready to engage the BACK muscles, NOT just the muscles of the arms. Your legs will be used to help you but they need to be directly UNDER your hips, not in front of you. If you’re legs are in front too much, it will cause you to lay back and get out from under the bar.

Place the legs directly under your hips for the assisted pull like this:

Using a bench or box directly under you is the most helpful.

It may seem like I’m splitting hairs with the correct position for the assisted pull up. I am.

This is the KEY in order to be successful.

A simple exercise that anyone can do in order for you to FIND the back muscles is to do a simple hang from a suspended bar.

As you hang, look up and think about inwardly rotating your scapula, or squeezing your shoulder blades together. This will cause you to press the chest forward. You should start to feel a slight elevation of your body, even if you can’t move your entire body up to the bar yet.

This improved body position will address the common error of inwardly rotating the shoulders to pull the body up. The back is much stronger and everyone will be more successful when they engage the muscles of the back when doing a pull up.

Pull Up Grip

Another area to be concerned with is the grip. Your grip can lead to some elbow pain and strain. Even though you’re actually ‘hanging on for dear life’ when doing a pull up, try not to use this ‘power grip’ as it actually radiates up the arm and can effect the elbow. Hold the pull up bar more loosely and this will alleviate or prevent elbow pain.

In addition, when you come to a full hang position, you will put strain on the elbow joint. If you’re going to be doing a copious amount of pull ups, it’s best to not fully extend the arm in the hanging position. By keeping a slight bend at the elbow in the extended position, you will work the bicep more and strain the joint less.

One of the best things about the pull up is the variety of ways you can do them. You can constantly change your grip from shoulder width, to narrow grip, palms facing each other or parallel. Every workout you do can be different just by changing up the grip. This helps with overuse injuries as you’ll put stress on different areas of the shoulder/back as well as the elbow/arm.

Pull Up and Eccentric Training

The key to learning how to do a pull up is to work the ‘eccentric’ contraction. The eccentric, or lengthening portion of any movement, is the strengthening phase; this is opposite to what most think.  There are a variety of ways that you can work the eccentric contraction when doing a pull up. You can do assisted pull ups, jump pull ups, suspended pull ups, inverted rows, weighted pull ups (all of these are discussed in my program, by the way).

A caution when training eccentrically: the lengthening phase is the portion of the movement that causes the most muscle soreness. You need to be careful when doing eccentric contractions as you will cause more delayed onset muscle soreness and due to fatigue, there is a greater incident of injury where you strain the muscle excessively. While eccentric training is a great way to start to build up the strength to be able to do a pull up or increase the number of pull ups you can do, caution is necessary to prevent injury.

The pull up is clearly one of the most impressive bodyweight movements that can be done. With proper training with a mind towards injury prevention, you’ll be more likely to succeed at increasing your pull up power and not your aches and pains. You can check out Shawna’s pull up program here.

About Shawna

Shawna Kaminski is in her late 40′s but she can kick most 20 year old’s butt when it comes to pull ups, push ups and human flag.  In order to help people improve their pull ups, she put together a program that helps improve your pull up, gets you to perform your first pull up and improve your push up.  You can check out her Challenge Workouts here.

Shawna is a retired schoolteacher of 20 years who’s found her passion in the fitness industry. She’s been a competitive athlete all her life and has competed nationally in three sports. She’s parlayed her ability to teach and her love of training into programs that you can directly benefit from. Shawna is in her late forties, is a mother of two teenagers and understands how busy life can be. Her workouts are short and intense and often can be done anywhere. She’s always up for a challenge and shares her fitness challenges with you. Currently she runs her own fitness boot camps and coaches clients in person and online with her amazing result getting programs.

 Rick Kaselj, MS

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