Working out is a good way to become physically fit, but there are different types of workout sins that you are doing. Read this article to know the three shocking workout sins.
Hey, it’s Rick.
Today, I got a guest blog post from Dan Go. Dan is a trainer I have known for a few years, and he shares with you a few sins he sees in the gym.
Enjoy!
~ Rick
So often hit the gym and find people mistakenly doing the same sins to start their workouts. They either hit the treadmills or do some light stretching and *think* they are ready to go.
These people don’t know that they are taking one step forward in looking good but taking two steps back in actually feeling good.
The following sins must be avoided at all costs the next time you hit up a workout at your gym. If not, they will leave your body injured, broken, and weaker.
With each sin you learn about, you’ll also discover a solid solution to replace them in your workouts and get a quick glimpse into the Peak Performance Formula.
It is a 3 Step Sequence that will enhance your body in ways you would not have imagined, and most importantly, it will heal your old injuries while bulletproofing your body from new ones.
The side benefit of doing the Peak Performance Formula before your workouts are that you’ll also move and feel ten years younger.
Sound good? Alright, let’s go.
SHOCKING Workout Sin 1:
Your Fascial Tissue Needs MAJOR Repair
It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been working out or how active you think you are. If you are not giving your fascial tissue a quick massage before your workout sins, you might as well not even bother working out.
What is The Fascia?
Fascia (pronounced Fa-sha) is an embryologic tissue that re-organizes along the lines of tension imposed on your body, supporting any misalignment and contracting to protect you from further trauma (real or imagined).
Its tough connective tissue spreads throughout the body in a three-dimensional web from head to foot functionally without interruption.
Muscle strands slipping out of place cause loose bodies in your hip joint.
Knowing this kind gives you a better idea of its function’s importance.
Fascia covers the muscles, bones, nerves, organs, and vessels down to the cellular level.
Thus, if there is a system malfunction due to sitting or bad posture, and you compound that problem with intense workouts, it will affect how the fascia operates.
One thing you must know is that your fascial tissue has the potential to alter organ and tissue physiology significantly.
Strains in your fascial tissue caused by the abovementioned problems will slowly tighten your body, causing it to lose its overall physical capacity to perform under stress.
99% of the Population is Suffering From Poor Facial Tissue
Sadly 99% of people in Western society are operating with very poorly functioning fascial tissue due to their jobs and the fact that they sit on average for more than 9 hours a day.
In other words, their bad posture leads to their fascial tissue restrictions.
These “fascial restrictions” are so revolutionary that they begin to pull the body out of its three-dimensional alignment. In other words, it throws your body out of balance, aka bad posture. One study has found that pain felt in specific body areas can be frequently related to having actual adhesions in the fascial tissue.
Things get even worse when they go to the gym in their poorly functioning bodies and put through 45 minutes to an hour of intense workouts.
An extremely high percentage of people suffer through pain and loss of motion due to poorly functioning fascial tissue and the workouts they do on top of them.
Now you might think that getting a masseuse to work on you right before a workout will be expensive.
Well, I’m here to tell you that you don’t need one.
This can be easily remedied by applying the first principle of the Peak Performance Formula:
Peak Performance Principle 1. Get Your Self Myofascial Release on!
The most effective way of improving the quality of your fascial tissue is through massage, aka Self Myofascial release (SMR) or what others call Self Massage.
Most people think that the only way to get a massage is by paying $75/session to your local massage therapist, but we recommend something much cheaper and 10x more effective.
When you apply SMR to your body, you are essentially fixing your current postural issues, healing old adhesions and dysfunctions in the muscle, thus helping your body operate in an optimal state.
When this happens, you have MORE strength, speed, flexibility, and energy than ever before because your body will be free from the constricting effects of its fascial tissue.
What is SMR?
SMR is the most potent way of locating your fascial restrictions, changing your posture, and effectively improving the way your body’s biomechanical movement.
By implementing the SMR routine, you will not only enhance your body’s ability to move, but you’ll also increase its proprioception or its awareness of itself.
Think of Self Myofascial Release as putting a BRAND NEW engine in your body’s chassis.
Or, if you’re like me, think of the effect of Self Myofascial Release as going from driving a Toyota Corolla to tearing down the roads in a brand new Lamborghini.
By smoothing out the restrictions in your fascial tissue, you’ll allow your muscle to contract with FULL FORCE and move with the freedom of an adolescent child.
I love to do Self Myofascial Release by using a Lacrosse Ball.
Through testing, we’ve found that it is an incredible tool to get deep into where the true dysfunction of your body is located (hips, glutes, posterior delts, lats, and adductors)
SHOCKING Workout Sin 2:
You Do the WRONG Warm-Up Before Physical Activity
Or even worse, you SKIP out on the warm-up entirely.
A lot of people discredit the warm-up as just a waste of time when it’s, in fact, one of the most IMPORTANT aspects of your workout.
It’s like taking a car sitting in the dead of winter for 8 hours, turning on the ignition, and immediately taking it to drag racing.
These days your average joe is waking up, going to work, sitting on their butts staring at a computer (while killing their posture), and then hitting the gym for a seriously intense one-hour workout without effectively warming up their bodies. A recent study by Arthritis Research UK and the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy asked 2,583 adults and 1,022 children across the UK about their physical activity levels over the previous week.
Just one in five active people said they ‘always’ warm up and cool down when exercising. Some 24 percent said they ‘never do.’ 28% said they don’t warm up because they can’t be bothered, and 27% said it’s unimportant. Three-quarters (74%) of people who never warm up have not been shown how to do it.
The same study said that many people in the UK might increase their risk of injury and joint problems like osteoarthritis in later life by not starting their exercises with a proper warm-up.
Proper Warm- up
A proper warm-up before any physical activity does several useful things, such as preventing injury, improving performance, raising the core temperature, reducing muscle stiffness, and allowing the heart rate to get to a workable rate.
But primarily, its main purpose is to wake up your central nervous system to be ready for any strenuous activity. It’s an ESSENTIAL part of everyone’s workout, and it doesn’t have to be boring, either.
Peak Performance Principle 2 – Enter the Neuromuscular Activator
What’s a Neuromuscular Activator, aka NMA’s?
NMA’s are exercises that only require your body weight and wake up your entire nervous system.
Most generic warm-up routines involve cardio machines such as the treadmill, stair stepper, or stationary bicycle. These only address one part of the body, usually the lower body.
Neuromuscular activators are full-body exercises that warm you up while waking up your nervous system for the workout ahead.
Think of them like a shot of espresso for your body.
The purpose is simple: We want to warm up your body and transport proper fluids to the right areas while effectively waking up your nervous system.
NMA’s do another job for your body: Lubrication.
NMA’s release synovial fluids into your body, lubricating your joints, essentially making them pliable for the physical task ahead. You’ll notice that the warmer you hit a workout, you (and your joints) will be “ready” for the physical task.
This is the second principle of the Peak Performance Formula and a key aspect in getting your body to perform at its best.
But the Neuromuscular Activator would not be useful if you’re still doing the next SHOCKING Workout Sin…
SHOCKING Workout Sin 3:
STOP Doing Static Stretches
A static stretch was a very popular method used to warm up a body and has been *thought* to be useful in preventing injuries.
Many people have the common misconception that they should start their exercise routines with some stretching on the spot, hoping it will loosen them up for their workout and prevent injuries.
But after combing through hundreds of research papers, I found that static stretching had little to NO effect on injury prevention.
Static Stretching
Static stretching before exercise is not just counterproductive but potentially harmful.
It is like extending a rubber band to its limit. When people stretch to the maximum, they are more likely to pull a muscle.
They increase the range of motion you can attain but not your ability to stabilize in these new positions.
Doing this will limit your performance in any physical activity you choose to perform.
Even the New York Times did an article titled, “Reasons Not to Stretch.”
The article stated:
“One, a study published this month in The Journal Of Strength and Conditioning Research concluded that if you stretch before you lift weights, you may feel weaker and wobblier than you expect during your workout.
Those findings join another new study from Croatia, a bogglingly comprehensive reanalysis of data from earlier experiments published in The Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports.
The studies augment a growing scientific consensus that pre-exercise stretching is generally unnecessary and likely counterproductive.”
With growing research, it’s not hard to see why static stretching is getting a bad rap these days.
Traditional stretches, like when people bend over to touch their toes or stretch their legs on a fence, often cause the muscles to tighten rather than relax — exactly the opposite of what is needed for physical activity.
It is like extending a rubber band to its limit. When people stretch to the maximum, they are more likely to pull a muscle.
They *may* increase the range of motion you can attain, but not your ability to stabilize in these new positions. Doing this will limit your performance in any physical activity you choose to perform.
It’s like getting in your car and putting on a seatbelt that doesn’t function: You think you’re protected, but you’re not.
Only true fitness experts agree that if you still choose static stretch before any physical activity, you’re probably better off not doing it.
Peak Performance Principle 3. Do Short Burst Dynamic Mobility Stretches
Rather than long and passive stretches, Dynamic Mobility-based exercises should get your entire body active and dynamic.
Dynamic Mobility exercises are short stretches and muscle activation techniques whose main function is to give your body a full range of motion and activate the muscles that have become dormant due to the passive nature of today’s workplace.
This is not to say that doing them will make you look younger.
By anti-aging, I mean that by doing them, you’ll reverse the aging process of movement.
Years of corporate and family life will slowly inhibit your ability to move freely by creating poor posture.
The effect of movement aging is the soreness you feel after waking up or the pain in your shoulders when you work out. It’s that fear of injuring your lower back when bending down to pick up a heavy box.
What is Dynamic Exercises Reverse?
Dynamic Mobility Exercises reverse this aging process and enhance every aspect of your physical abilities (speed, strength, power, vertical jump, endurance, energy) while keeping you fully protected from major injuries.
The authors performed the study on 30 cadets in the US military to test the effectiveness of mobility, static stretching, or no warm-up on their performance.
We tested the shuttle run, underhand med ball throw, and five steps long jump.
Out of each mode of warming up, dynamic mobility exercises helped the subjects perform better on every test.
There were no increases from either the no warm-up or static stretching group.
The test proved that exercise-related mobility drills enhanced every aspect of their athletic performance.
Another study by the University of Wyoming published in the “Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research” in June 2008 strongly supports the use of dynamic mobility exercises before a workout.
They wanted to see whether introducing dynamic mobility into a four-week training program of 24 high-level college athletes would have a positive impact on the following performance factors:
- Power
- Speed
- Agility
- Flexibility
- Endurance
- Strength
The athletes were divided into two groups. One group used static stretching, and the other used mobility exercises before daily practice sessions. The groups were tested for four weeks, and measures were taken before and after the training session.
So what did they find in both groups? The research showed that the static group found NO improvements and some decreases in the above performance factors.
While the dynamic group showed some significant results to help performance.
This group showed improvements in Enhanced Muscular Strength, including increases of:
- Leg strength by 11%
- Throws by 4%
- Push-ups by 3%
- Sit-ups by 11%
- Endurance – time to complete a 700m run was reduced by 2.4%
- Agility – jump time increased by 4%
- Anaerobic capacity – time for 300 shuttle tests reduced by 2%
Just by employing one month of mobility exercises in their workout programs, these subjects increased their strength by up to 11% and their speed by up to 2.4% !!
After only one month of applying mobility exercises to their bodies, every marker of athletic performance improved.
You need to do full-body Dynamic Mobility drills frequently throughout the week as the short stretches give your body full range of motion and, along with Self Myofascial Release, they even have a hand in bringing your body back into proper posture.
As you can see, it’s ALL strategy, and every single piece of the puzzle makes a huge difference. It takes ONLY 6 minutes to complete or just about the time you take to brush your teeth in the morning.
I have put together a program called 6 Minute Superhuman. It is scientifically proven to increase your strength, speed, flexibility, vertical jump power, endurance, and energy while bulletproofing your body from injuries forever.
Dan Go CPT, NWS
Schleip R et al., “ligament sub failure injuries lead to muscle control dysfunction” (M. Panjabi). European Spine Journal 2007; 16: 1733-1735