Using Exercise to Expose Weakness: Part I

A general sort of concept is on my mind and it’s been expressed by several experts that I look up to. In his book Movement, Gray Cook says “True champions will spend more time bringing up weaknesses than demonstrating strength.” The great powerlifting coach Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell says, “The Westside program is all about finding where you are weak and making it strong.” Your weaknesses will hold you back.” Kelly Starrett discusses the idea of “making the invisible visible.” With this statement he suggests we can use exercise to expose movement problems. (He talks about this concept here,here and here.) What does all this mean?

All these guys are telling us that rather than going to the gym and doing fun stuff that we’re already good at and simply making our strengths stronger (taking the easy route, really) rather we should find our weaknesses and work like hell to bring them up to speed.

A slightly different paradigm

I think most of us have an equation in our head regarding exercise. It might look like this:

I exercise → I get stronger.

(BTW, the word “strong” doesn’t just mean muscular strength. We can get stronger at swimming, biking, driving a golf ball, carrying bags of mulch, etc. “Stronger” means to improve an ability.)

There might be a few more dots to connect between those statements though. With regard to the earlier statements about weaknesses and making the invisible visible (i.e. make hidden weaknesses visible), we might see the equation thus:

I exercise → I expose weaknesses/pain/poor movement → I correct/improve my weaknesses and poor movement →I get stronger.

What often happens is that we find an exercise that we enjoy doing and at which we’re very strong. We really like that exercise! We do it and we demonstrate to ourselves (and let’s face it, others in the gym) how strong and able we are. Therefore our already well-developed ability gets stronger.

In contrast, I think a lot of us have discovered exercises that we don’t like. The movement pattern feels awkward, painful or somehow asymmetrical or unbalanced. We have a poor ability to execute the exercise. We may tack it on at the end of a workout if we feel like it–and we rarely feel like it. In other words, we’re weak at this particular movement. We don’t do it well and we know it so we avoid it. Thus we rarely if ever explore this particular exercise. What happens? We probably get weaker and weaker at it.

So while something we’re already fairly good at gets better, a glaring weakness gets weaker. And what do we know about chains and weak links? At some point that weak link (poor movement pattern) is going to cause us a problem if it isn’t already. We may not even know how strong we could be if we fixed our weakness.

My rule of thumb is: “If it’s really difficult to do and you don’t like doing it, then you probably need to do a whole lot of it.”

My experience

A lot of my clients have movement problems and various aches and pains. Their weaknesses are often rooted in a forgotten ability to move properly and maintain their joints in proper position. We frequently need to dial back the exercise intensity and simply work on slow, proper, mindful movement. Sometimes this requires a frustrating level of concentration. It gets difficult. It isn’t always fun. This frustration may lead a client to say ” I just want to work out! I don’t want to think!” In other words, he or she want to revert to their hold habits, ignore their movement shortcomings and do what they’re already good at.

This is an important fork in the road. If a client chooses to continue to focus and do the hard work of correcting bad habits–to improve their true weaknesses–then he or she will almost certainly start to see lasting improvement in the near future. This client and I will likely have a long, productive and happy relationship. On the other hand, we have another type of client. He or she balks at the first sign of difficulty, ignores and avoids weaknesses, and in essence chooses to tread water and only marginally strengthen their limited strengths. He or she has picked an easy but limited route. In this case, our relationship is thankfully short.

The big picture

I’m going to go into some specifics in the next post, but for now I’d like you to consider the idea that the real way to get stronger is to seek out and wallow in your pathetic weaknesses. If you think you don’t have any, then add weight, reps, range of motion and/or speed to see if things start to come apart. Recognize where you start to fail and dedicate yourself to working on those weaknesses.

Where's your weak link?

One big concept is on my mind and it’s been expressed by several experts that I look up to. In his book Movement, Gray Cook says “True champions will spend more time bringing up weaknesses than demonstrating strength.” The great powerlifting coach Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell says, “The Westside program is all about finding where you are weak and making it strong. Your weaknesses will hold you back. Kelly Starrett discusses the idea of “making the invisible visible.” With this statement he suggests we can use exercise to expose movement problems. (He talks about this concept here, here and here.) What does all this mean?

A slightly different paradigm

I think most of us have an equation in our head regarding exercise. It might look like this:

I exercise → I get stronger.

I exercise → I expose weaknesses/pain/poor movement → I correct/improve my weaknesses and poor movement →I get stronger.

What often happens is that we find an exercise that we really like and at which we’re very strong. We really like that exercise! We do it and we demonstrate to ourselves (and let’s face it, others in the gym) how strong and able we are. Therefore our already well-developed ability gets stronger.

In contrast, I think a lot of us have discovered exercises that we really don’t like. The movement pattern feels awkward, painful or somehow asymmetrical or unbalanced. We have a poor ability to execute the exercise. In other words, we’re weak at this particular movement. We don’t do it well and we know it. Thus we rarely if ever explore this particular exercise. What happens? We probably get weaker and weaker at it.

My rule of thumb is: “If it’s really difficult to do and you don’t like doing it, then you probably need to do a whole lot of it.”

My experience

The big picture

Things to Read: Taking on Dr. Oz, Don’t Take Your Vitamins, Questions About Barefoot Running,

There are several interesting things out there to check out. Here are a few:

The New Yorker on Dr. Oz

Scientists often argue that, if alternative medicine proves effective through experimental research, it should no longer be considered alternative; at that point, it becomes medicine. By freely mixing alternatives with proven therapies, Dr. Oz makes it nearly impossible for the viewer of his show to assess the impact of either; the process just diminishes the value of science.
– the New Yorker

Dr. Mehmet Oz is hugely popular. I don’t know how many people watch his show but it’s a lot. We all know who he is. He’s a Harvard- and University of Pennsylvania-trained heart surgeon and he directs Columbia Hospital’s Cardiovascular Institute and Integrative Medicine Program. He knows a few things. An article in the New Yorker titled The Operator: Is the most trusted doctor in America doing more harm than good? takes Dr. Oz to task for perhaps crossing a line from science and good doctoring to entertainment.

I agree with a lot of what the article suggests. He seems to veer from scientific-based factual information into entertaining yet scientifically questionable material. He’s had psychics on his show and he often discusses “miracle cures,” and “breakthrough fat-burning this-and-that.” I haven’t seen much of him but what I do see and hear sounds very sensational. He seems to promise miracles to desperate people. Sounds a little kooky to me. From the article:

“The Dr. Oz Show” frequently focuses on essential health issues: the proper ways to eat, relax, exercise, and sleep, and how to maintain a healthy heart. Much of the advice Oz offers is sensible, and is rooted solidly in scientific literature. That is why the rest of what he does is so hard to understand. Oz is an experienced surgeon, yet almost daily he employs words that serious scientists shun, like “startling,” “breakthrough,” “radical,” “revolutionary,” and “miracle.” There are miracle drinks and miracle meal plans and miracles to stop aging and miracles to fight fat. Last year, Oz broadcast a show on whether it was possible to “repair” gay people (“From Gay to Straight? The Controversial Therapy”), despite the fact that Robert L. Spitzer, the doctor who is best known for a study of gay-reparation therapy, had recanted. (Spitzer last year apologized to “any gay person who wasted time and energy” on what he conceded were “unproven claims.”) Oz introduced a show on the safety of genetically modified foods by saying, “A new report claims they can damage your health and even cause cancer.” He also broadcast an episode on whether the apple juice consumed daily by millions of American children contains dangerous levels of arsenic. “Some of the best-known brands in America have arsenic in their apple juice,” he said at the outset, “and today we are naming names.” In each of those instances, and in many others, Oz has been criticized by scientists for relying on flimsy or incomplete data, distorting the results, and wielding his vast influence in ways that threaten the health of anyone who watches the show. Last year, almost as soon as that G.M.O. report was published, in France, it was thoroughly discredited by scores of researchers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Dr. Eric Rose was interviewed for the article. Rose is a professor of surgery at the Mount Sinai medical school. Rose and Oz worked together, most notably on Frank Torre’s 1996 heart transplant. (Frank Torre is the brother of former Yankee manager Joe Torre.) He said this:

“I want to stress that Mehmet is a fine surgeon,” Rose said, as he did more than once during our conversation. “He is intellectually unbelievably gifted. But I think if there is any criticism you can apply to some of the stuff he talks about it is that there is no hierarchy of evidence. There rarely is with the alternatives. They have acquired a market, and that drives so much. At times, I think Mehmet does feed into that.”

I asked if he would place his confidence in a heart surgeon, no matter how gifted, who operated just once a week, as Oz does. “Well,” he replied, “in general you want a surgeon who lives and breathes his job, somebody who is above all devoted to that.” Again he mentioned Oz’s experience, but when I asked if he would send a patient to Oz for an operation, he looked uncomfortable. “No,” he said. “I wouldn’t. In many respects, Mehmet is now an entertainer. And he’s great at it. People learn a lot, and it can be meaningful in their lives. But that is a different job. In medicine, your baseline need has to be for a level of evidence that can lead to your conclusions. I don’t know how else you do it. Sometimes Mehmet will entertain wacky ideas—particularly if they are wacky and have entertainment value.”

And there is this observation from researcher Eric Topol:

“Mehmet is a kind of modern evangelist,” Eric Topol said when I called him at the Scripps Research Institute, where he is a professor of genomics and the director of the Translational Science Institute. Topol, one of the nation’s most prominent cardiologists, founded the medical school at the Cleveland Clinic and led its department of cardiovascular medicine. “He is keenly intelligent and charismatic,” Topol said. “Mehmet was always unique, but now he has morphed into a mega-brand. When he tells people the number of sexual encounters they need each year to improve their lives in a specific way, or how to lose weight in three days—this is simply lunacy. The problem is that he is eloquent and talented, and some of what he says clearly provides a service we need. But how are consumers to know what is real and what is magic? Because Mehmet offers both as if they were one.”

Dr. Oz seems like the latest in a long line of American snake-oil salesmen. The best ones mix truth with fantasy and it sounds like Dr. Oz is doing just that. On the positive side, the article tells us that Dr. Oz is pro-vaccine. Read the full article on the cult doctor here.

The New York Times: Don’t Take Your Vitamins

The likely explanation is that free radicals aren’t as evil as advertised. (In fact, people need them to kill bacteria and eliminate new cancer cells.) And when people take large doses of antioxidants in the form of supplemental vitamins, the balance between free radical production and destruction might tip too much in one direction, causing an unnatural state where the immune system is less able to kill harmful invaders.
– the New York Times

I’ve discussed various questions about supplements. Now, a recent opinion piece called Don’t Take Your Vitamins is in the New York Times and it goes into more information on the topic. Here’s a bit:

“Antioxidation vs. oxidation has been billed as a contest between good and evil. It takes place in cellular organelles called mitochondria, where the body converts food to energy — a process that requires oxygen (oxidation). One consequence of oxidation is the generation of atomic scavengers called free radicals (evil). Free radicals can damage DNA, cell membranes and the lining of arteries; not surprisingly, they’ve been linked to aging, cancer and heart disease.

To neutralize free radicals, the body makes antioxidants (good). Antioxidants can also be found in fruits and vegetables, specifically in selenium, beta carotene and vitamins A, C and E. Some studies have shown that people who eat more fruits and vegetables have a lower incidence of cancer and heart disease and live longer. The logic is obvious. If fruits and vegetables contain antioxidants, and people who eat fruits and vegetables are healthier, then people who take supplemental antioxidants should also be healthier. It hasn’t worked out that way.

The likely explanation is that free radicals aren’t as evil as advertised. (In fact, people need them to kill bacteria and eliminate new cancer cells.) And when people take large doses of antioxidants in the form of supplemental vitamins, the balance between free radical production and destruction might tip too much in one direction, causing an unnatural state where the immune system is less able to kill harmful invaders. Researchers call this the antioxidant paradox.

Because studies of large doses of supplemental antioxidants haven’t clearly supported their use, respected organizations responsible for the public’s health do not recommend them for otherwise healthy people.

So why don’t we know about this? Why haven’t Food and Drug Administration officials made sure we are aware of the dangers? The answer is, they can’t.”

The article goes into how the supplement makers have tied the hands of the FDA. Seems this sort of thing happens in many different arenas from food and drugs to environmental regulations. It seems over and over again we’re shown that we should get our nutrition from real food, not pills and powders.

The New York Times: Is Barefoot-Style Running Best? New Studies Cast Doubt.

(Somehow all these article came from the great city of New York. Wasn’t really intentional but… there it is anyway.) I’m a big fan of minimalist or barefoot-style running. I believe in my case it has helped me regain proper mobility and strength, and has helped me overcome pain and regain my running ability. That said, simply donning a pair of Vibram 5-Fingers and hitting the road WAS NOT a cure-all for me. A lot more work went into my efforts to fix my running. The New York Times discusses things in this direction in this recent post in the Well Blog section.

The article discusses research from the Journal of Applied Physiology that looked at forefoot vs. heel striking in runners. (Advocates of barefoot-style running suggest that barefoot running promotes forefoot striking which is suggested by some to reduce injuries.) The pertinent findings are these:

In the end, this data showed that heel-striking was the more physiologically economical running form, by a considerable margin. Heel strikers used less oxygen to run at the same pace as forefoot strikers, and many of the forefoot strikers used less oxygen — meaning they were more economical — when they switched form to land first with their heels.

Most of the runners also burned fewer carbohydrates as a percentage of their energy expenditure when they struck first with their heels. Their bodies turned to fats and other fuel sources, “sparing” the more limited stores of carbohydrates, says Allison Gruber, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who led the study. Because depleting carbohydrates results in “hitting the wall,” or abruptly sagging with fatigue, “these results tell us that people will hit the wall faster if they are running with a forefoot pattern versus a rear-foot pattern,” Dr. Gruber says.

That covers running efficiency of two different foot-strike styles. The article says this about injuries:

The news on injury prevention and barefoot-style running is likewise sobering. Although many barefoot-style runners believe that wearing lightweight shoes or none at all toughens foot muscles, lessening the likelihood of foot-related running injuries, researchers at Brigham Young University did not find evidence of that desirable change. If foot muscles become tauter and firmer, the scientists say, people’s arches should consequently grow higher. But in a study also presented at the sports medicine meeting, they found no changes in arch height among a group of runners who donned minimalist shoes for 10 weeks.

Other researchers who presented at the meeting had simply asked a group of 566 runners if they had tried barefoot-style shoes and, if so, whether they liked them. Almost a third of the runners said they had experimented with the minimalist shoes, but 32 percent of those said that they had suffered injuries that they attributed to the new footwear, and many had switched back to their previous shoes.

This isn’t terribly surprising considering that from a biomechanics standpoint, running is a complicated task. There are numerous joints and muscles involved in the kinetic chain. If any part of that chain isn’t functioning properly then we may get a problem. If we’re conditioned to running in one type of shoe then abruptly change to another shoe, then conditions are very different under our feet and thus the way we run will be altered.

Minmal shoes have been a component of my overcoming various chronic aches and pains–which I should say were acquired while running in conventional “good” running shoes. I initially simply running in my old, bad style in my new minimal shoes. It didn’t work! I had to regain competency in my feet, hips, and torso to fix my running issues. Minimal shoes allowed me to become more aware of my feet and more aware of how I land on the ground. So again, I think minmal shoes can be a very good idea so long as they’re not looked to as a be-all-end-all cure to running injuries.

Got food? Nope.

Back in May I discussed Michael Mosley and his PBS special called Eat, Fast, and Live Longer. It motivated me to try out fasting. This is an update.

Fasting can take on various different forms. We often think of fasts in terms of total abstinence of food and drink but that’s not the only way to fast. Fasts may be undertaken for several days at a time, for 24

hrs, or during part of a day. Reasons to fast include medical instruction, weight loss and other health benefits, or religious devotion. I’ve employed two types of fasting for weight loss and the various other health benefits discussed in the previous post and below.

Types of fasts

– Intermittent Fasting: Intermittent fasting has days of fasting alternated with days of non-fasting. I’m not doing a full-on fast but rather I’m extending my nighttime fast and reducing my calories on these days. This pattern has been popularized by Michael Mosley’s FastDiet aka the 5:2 Diet. (As I’ve said, I find Mosley’s work compelling, but to be fair, the Wiki entry on the 5:2 diet mentions a lack of evidence for its efficacy. Make your own decision.) I typically take two rest days throughout the week on Wednesday and either Monday or Friday. These have been my fasting days.

The strict version of intermittent fasting has men consuming about 600 calories on the fast days, women about 500 calories. That ain’t much! I’m training for some athletic events so this isn’t necessarily the ideal time to fast as I need all sorts of nutrients, fuel, and protein in order to engage in and recover from workouts. My modification simply has me waiting to eat (more on that right below) and generally trying to consume fewer calories. I actually sort of look forward to trying this very low-calorie fast though. When I’m ready…

– Restricted Feeding Window: This process is the other component of my fasting project. Essentially, this has you restricting the time during which you eat. Typical suggestions are to eat only during an 8-hr. time period of the day and to fast the other 16 hrs. Eating programs such as the Perfect Health Diet and the Warrior Diet advocate the restricted eating window.

Research in mice has indicated favorable benefits of the restricted-feeding window. The Salk Institute for Biological Studies released a study last year in which a researcher said:

“It’s a dogma that a high-fat diet leads to obesity and that we should eat frequently when we are awake,” says Satchidananda Panda, an associate professor in the Regulatory Biology Laboratory and senior author of the paper. “Our findings, however, suggest that regular eating times and fasting for a significant number of hours a day might be beneficial to our health.”

Further, an article by Brownen in Ageing Research Reviews discusses evidence that both caloric restriction and intermittent fasting may have potential to combat age related illnesses such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. This type of information supports my efforts.

My early experience

I’ve combined intermittent fasting with the restricted feeding window for about a month now. I reduce my calories two days per week and I take in very few calories (about 230) in the morning. This comes from the coconut oil and grass-fed butter in my version of Bulletproof coffee. The idea is to prolong the overnight fast. Then sometime around noon or later I start eating. I typically do this on Wednesday and Friday which are my rest days. I’ve fasted on Mondays as well.

Besides the likely health benefits of fasting, I’d also like to lose some weight and get down to 195 lbs. I’m training for both the Triple Bypass bike ride and the Continental Divide Trail Run and both of those efforts would be a little easier if I were a little lighter. Therefore I’m tracking my caloric intake and expenditure with My Fitness Pal (Myfitnesspal.com). It’s a fantastic tool for anyone wanting to lose weight. (If you want to lose weight then you must track your food intake. If you’re not willing to track your food then you’re not serious about losing weight–and that’s OK. It’s just not going to happen unless you decide to do it.) I started using it in conjunction with fasting. It seems to be a very good combination. I’ve consistently weighed anywhere from 202 lbs. to about 207. Now, I’m consistently weighing anywhere from 195 lbs. to 198 lbs. My body composition has improved as well from about 18% to about 15%. These changes came about very quickly

My Fitness Pal has you filling out a profile that includes such data as age, sex and activity level. You then enter in how much weight you’d like to lose and how quickly you’d like to lose it–1 lb. per week for example. I started off using My Fitness Pal by only tracking my calories and not tracking my exercise expenditure. At times it was really tough to keep my calories within the prescribed range. Once I started entering my exercise data My Fitness Pal adjusted my caloric intake and allowed me to consume quite a bit more which was very helpful. It looks like my rapid weight loss was probably due to my adhering to the recommended caloric intake of a sedentary person. This while I was exercising quite vigorously and staying below the recommended calories on my fasting days. Quick weight loss indeed.

More information

If you’re interested in learning more about fasting, I’ve listed some resources below. I’m new to this and there’s a lot more you can learn.

Depriving yourself: The real benefits of fasting – This comes from the Chicago Tribune. The evidence of the benefits of fasting are discussed:

“When it comes to treating cancer, Valter (cq) Longo, director of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California, thinks that short-term complete fasts maximize the benefits. He’s found that a 48-hour total fast slowed the growth of five of eight types of cancer in mice, the effect tending to be more pronounced the more fasts the animals undertook (Science Translational Medicine).

Fasting is harder on cancer cells than on normal cells, he says. That’s because the mutations that cause cancer lead to rapid growth under the physiological conditions in which they arose, but they can be at a disadvantage when conditions changes. This could also explain why fasting combined with conventional cancer treatment provides a double whammy.

Clinical trials assessing the impact of fasting in people with cancer are ongoing. Early results are promising, says Longo, and patients in the advanced stages of cancer, who cannot wait for the results, might find it worth discussing fasting with their oncologist.

Could fasting prevent cancers developing in the first place? Evidence is scant but there are ‘very good reasons’ why it should, says Longo. He points out that high levels of IGF-1 and glucose in the blood, and being overweight are all risk factors for cancer, and they can all be improved by fasting. Another risk factor is insulin, says Michelle Harvie at the University of Manchester, UK.

Studying women whose family history puts them at high risk of developing breast cancer, she put half of them on a diet that involved cutting calories by about 25 percent, and half on a 5:2 fast. After six months, both groups showed a reduction in blood insulin levels, but this was greater in the fasting group. Harvie’s team is now analyzing breast biopsies to see whether this translates to fewer of the genetic changes associated with increased cancer risk.

High insulin is also associated with type 2 diabetes, so perhaps it is no surprise that fasting shows promise here, too.”

Ready, Set, Fast: How Strategic Meal-Skipping Can Help You Lose Fat, Gain Muscle and Get Healthier – Dr. John Berardi of Precision Nutrition wrote this for The Art of Manliness. It’s his account of his own fasting experiment. He gives a good rundown of fasting basics, different types of fasts, links to fasting research, and his take on how to get started.

The UK’s Hot New 5:2 Diet Craze Hits The U.S. – Weight Loss Miracle? – We haven’t discussed the drawbacks of fasting. This article from Forbes discusses several aspects of fasting including intermittent fasting which the 5:2 Diet is based on. Some of the downsides of fasting are mentioned here too.

“The main drawback of intermittent fasting that has drawn many vocal critics is that it’s really, really hard to do. There’s no question, you’re going to be pretty hungry – and pretty grumpy – on your fasting days. And when dieting is miserable, people tend not to stick to it. And when they don’t stick to it, they get discouraged, often eating even more once they give up. Other than that, experts cite side effects including dehydration, irritability, anxiety, sleep problems, and bad breath.

Like many fad diets, intermittent fasting is likely to work really well for some people, discourage many more. But you won’t know which group you fall into until you try. So get ready to start coordinating your fast days with family and friends; the 5:2 FastDiet is going to be around for awhile.”

The writer makes a good point. Fasting isn’t all that easy or fun. But neither is cancer, diabetes or being overweight. What’s your health worth to you?

Get to know your QL.

Recently I’ve been investigating and working on my quadratus lumborum or the “QL.” This muscle attaches to

the top of the hip bone (illiac crest), the 12th rib, and parts of the lumbar spine. For a long time I’ve had a bit of pain (ranging from a lot of pain to just a pinch) in the neighborhood of my right low back. At one point in time I was also told I have a right leg-length discrepancy. (Most leg-length discrepancies are functional rather than structural. That is, the discrepancy is typically due to contracted muscles pulling the leg up rather than one leg bone being longer than the other.)

A gimpy QL can cause various problems including low-back pain, shoulder dysfunction, breathing problems and balance problems. Problems in the QL can affect hip position, ribcage position, spine position–all kinds of things. A tight QL can contribute to pinched nerves in the back, the symptoms of which I’ve had sporadically.

I’ve been digging around my low back with a Rumble Roller, the Stick and a lacrosse ball; and I’ve been working to lengthen the QL. I’ve also been directly working the QL via side bends, side bridges, and 1-arm farmer walks. I’m liking the results. If you’ve got back pain you may want to work on your QL.

Here’s a link to a fairly good QL stretch and further information on the QL.

Below are some videos discussing and demonstrating ways to address the QL. The first video is a very thorough rundown of what the QL is, what it does, and common symptoms of QL dysfunction. The next two videos are from Kelly Starrett at MobilityWOD. He discusses some ways to address a tight, gunked-up QL. Next comes a video from chiropractor Dr. Craig Liebenson and strength coach Chad Waterbury. They present a way to test your QLs and then present a nice progression of strength exercises. I’ve just started using this process with myself and some clients. Finally, there’s a very brief QL stretch. I like to use a stretch like this to test each QL and see if one is tighter than the other. There are lots of ways to stretch the QL. This is just one.

I personally have had some good, quick success in playing around with some of these strategies. I make no guarantees but maybe some of this stuff will help you too.

An FMS Discussion Part II

The corrective strategy

Test. Apply a corrective exercise. Re-test. This concept is HUGE. The test/re-test process is just massively important in any situation (technology, medicine, cooking, and yes, human movement) if you want to know if a particular intervention works. Dr. Eric Cobb of Z-Health first introduced the importance of the test & re-test to me. The concept is equally important in the FMS. What does it mean and what does it look like?

We can test all sorts of things. We can test a movement pattern for pain or tightness. As it pertains to the FMS, we want to at some point test and re-test the seven different movement patterns. Beyond that, I could use stepping up and down stairs to test for knee pain. We could bend forward or backward to test for back pain. I could go into a hip flexor stretch on each leg to compare tightness in each thigh. I could stand on one leg to test balance. If you’ve got some sort of difficulty with a particular exercise then that’s a test. So we test something. Then we apply some sort of corrective. Then we re-test.

We might foam roll and/or stretch to increase mobility of a joint. Then we could re-test. Did anything change? We might then employ a stabilization exercise. Then we re-test. Did things improve or not? We could move from static stabilization to dynamic stabilization, that is, we can look at stabilizing a joint while moving other joints. If we see improvement and it holds, then we should practice our new and improved movement. A phrase I heard at the FMS is “Move well then move often.” We want to ingrain these new, good movement patterns. We want to make them habitual. If we load the movement pattern with weights then we look to get stronger in these new movement patterns. We can continue to re-test over the course of time to ensure we haven’t regressed back to poor movement.

My strategy: addressing the ankle, knee and hip

Some of my years-long issues regarding my low back, my right knee and left heel/Achilles are still lingering. These issues aren’t terrible and they hardly limit me but I still would like to clean them up a bit. My right hip tends to be tight. I have intermittent moderate right lateral knee pain. My left calf tends to be tight. I’ve got some impingement in my right ankle. Fortunately, my FMS score is a solid 18 out of a possible 21 which means that it’s safe to exercise and work out vigorously.

Mobility restoration

I’ve employed several tools to restore lost mobility and overcome some movement restrictions. I mentioned in a previous post that I’ve had some dry needling done to my right thigh and hip flexor area. (I’ve since had some done on my right shoulder as well.) This has done a very nice job of relaxing some muscles that were in spasm, thus enabling a greater range of hip extension. I’ve also been using a foam roller, lacrosse ball, and a barbell to get into the gunked up areas of my quads, calves and low-back/quadratus lumborum area. As I mentioned, my right hip and low back are troubled areas, so I’ve spent more time working there than on my left side. (Kelly Starrett of MobilityWOD has some great ideas on addressing restricted tissue. Check out pages 34-37 of his new book Becoming a Supple Leopard for a variety of ways to smash the quad and un-glue matted-down tissues. I’ve been doing a lot of this stuff to great effect.)

A lacrosse ball has been especially useful in getting into my glute minimus and tensor fasciae latae (TFL). I’ve also been using the Stick on my calves and posterior tibialis. You can really experiment with a variety of objects, angles and positions when going after these tight, sore areas. With regard to the test/re-test scheme, it’s a good idea to mash out one side of your body–your right glute for instance– then mash out the other side. How do they compare? Is one side more beat-up than the other? If so, spend more time working there. See if over time you can even them out.

Once I’ve spent a few minutes going after soft-tissue restrictions, I go into some joint mobility drills. Here are some examples:

3D ankle mobility

Hip flexor stretch, pigeon stretch, hip slide

Stability restoration

half-kneeling with rotation

chop & lift

half-loaded lunge

Reactive neuromuscular training:

The only way to do it right is to do it at all. There is often a bit of frustration or struggle with this process–but that’s good! Here, we actually help facilitate bad form–we “feed the mistake” in other words. In this way the unconscious movement fault is made conscious. Now we have a chance to correct the thing. What does this look like? (squat w/band around knees, split squat w/tube)

Diabolical Junk Food Science and Pharmaceutical Subterfuge

Science and it’s use by industry are the topics of two recent articles. One story looks at the food industry’s use of science to hook us on their products. Another article shows us how the pharmaceutical industry does its best to hide science from us to… well… hook us on their products.

Junk Science

“With production costs trimmed and profits coming in, the next question was how to expand the franchise, which they did by turning to one of the cardinal rules in processed food: When in doubt, add sugar.”

– The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food, NY Times

If you haven’t read it yet then I highly recommend you check out a recent article from the New York Times Magazine titled The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food. It’s a little long but well worth the read. Lest anyone think

Thank you science.

that giving up junk food is all about willpower, this article might change your mind.

We get an in-depth look at the very determined scientific efforts by processed food companies (General Mills, Frito-Lay, Cadbury Schweppes for example) to create food that stimulates us to an unbelievable degree. The motive of course is to get us to buy and consume what most of us know to be poison filth. The writer has interviewed hundreds of current or former food scientists, marketers and CEOs to get an inside look at how all this works.

These companies’ efforts include laboratory research into such things as “mouth feel” or how a snack feels in our mouths. Based on the replies of focus groups, food engineers may manipulate a snack in a myriad of ways. Degree of crunch, softness, creaminess, thickness, puffiness, smoothness, gumminess–all sorts of sensations and combinations of sensations are carefully manipulated to help create the ultimate user experience.

Closely associated to mouth feel is the “bliss point.” Just what is a bliss point? It’s sort of a holy grail for junk food. It’s a concept that arose from the observation that very strong flavors may be enjoyable but quickly help tell our brain to stop eating. Meanwhile bland food may be unexciting but we can eat loads of it without feeling the need to stop. The bliss point is the fine combination of the two that leads to a snack that tastes amazing but also manages to sidestep our brain’s wiring so that we’ll eat more and more. From the article:

This contradiction is known as “sensory-specific satiety.” In lay terms, it is the tendency for big, distinct flavors to overwhelm the brain, which responds by depressing your desire to have more. Sensory-specific satiety also became a guiding principle for the processed-food industry. The biggest hits — be they Coca-Cola or Doritos — owe their success to complex formulas that pique the taste buds enough to be alluring but don’t have a distinct, overriding single flavor that tells the brain to stop eating.

Thirty-two years after he began experimenting with the bliss point, Moskowitz got the call from Cadbury Schweppes asking him to create a good line extension for Dr Pepper. I spent an afternoon in his White Plains offices as he and his vice president for research, Michele Reisner, walked me through the Dr Pepper campaign. Cadbury wanted its new flavor to have cherry and vanilla on top of the basic Dr Pepper taste. Thus, there were three main components to play with. A sweet cherry flavoring, a sweet vanilla flavoring and a sweet syrup known as “Dr Pepper flavoring.”

Finding the bliss point required the preparation of 61 subtly distinct formulas — 31 for the regular version and 30 for diet. The formulas were then subjected to 3,904 tastings organized in Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago and Philadelphia. The Dr Pepper tasters began working through their samples, resting five minutes between each sip to restore their taste buds. After each sample, they gave numerically ranked answers to a set of questions: How much did they like it overall? How strong is the taste? How do they feel about the taste? How would they describe the quality of this product? How likely would they be to purchase this product?

All this is outrageous in terms of the lengths to which food companies go to sell us garbage. It shouldn’t be surprising though. Food companies are in a high-stakes game. They need to sell stuff. Fortunately, because of information like this, these companies and their products may come under the same scrutiny the tobacco industry experienced a few years ago. What else can I say? I think all this is highly fascinating. Read up!

The medical wool over our eyes

So the junk-food industry loves science because it helps them create products that we love to death. In sort of the opposite direction, the pharmaceutical industry isn’t quite so interested in paying attention to science. Truth About Your Medicine: Ben Goldacre on How to Reform the Pharmaceutical Industry comes form the Daily Beast. In it, Ben Goldacre tells us how the drug companies choose to ignore, diminish or squash unflattering research into their products. He writes:

“The systematic review evidence on missing results shows that, for the treatments we use today, our best estimate is that half of all trials haven’t been published; trials with flattering results are twice as likely to be shared. This is an issue with academic trials, as well as industry sponsored research.”

So what he’s saying is that much of the evidence and scientific analysis of drugs isn’t available for anyone to read. It hasn’t been published. He further states:

“This presents such huge problems for informed decision making, which are obvious to even the most casual observer, and the issue of missing trials could not possibly survive informed public scrutiny. This is why a battle has been waged to pretend that the problem doesn’t exist, helped along by a series of “fake fixes” that have delivered little more than false reassurance.”

The article also links to the transcript of a recent live chat with Goldacre on this topic.

Ben Goldacre is a fairly interesting guy. I wrote about his previous book Bad Science. He makes laudable efforts to both demystify science and call on the carpet questionable industries such as complimentary/alternative medicine to the drug companies. His new book is Bad Pharma. Sounds interesting.

Check out Kinetic Revolution

If you’re a runner, or triathlete or if you’re a therapist or trainer who works with runners and or triathletes, then you should have a look at Kinetic Revolution. It’s an English site run Neil Scholes and James Dunne. Between them they have fairly impressive credentials as both athletes, coaches and rehab specialists.

For a fee, Kinetic Revolution offers coaching on running technique, flexibility, strength and other topics. Online courses on running technique and strength are also available.

I’ve been digging through the blog recently and I’ve found a lot of thoughtful, informative stuff. Most recently I read through ITB or Not ITB… That is the Question. As you might guess it’s about IT band syndrome. I like the discussion on why the foam roller probably won’t help you get over IT band troubles. To that point the article discusses that in fact your IT band pain probably isn’t an IT band problem, but rather is a problem with some of the muscles that attach to or near the IT band. For more good information, check out the lively comments following the article.

The big picture here is that if you’re a runner/triathlete and/or you’re geekily into reading about this stuff like me, you’ll find a lot of great information at Kinetic Revolution.

Health & Fitness News: Sit-to-stand test predicts mortality, Kids who walk or ride bikes to school concentrate better, Further evidence against gluten

Getting up off the floor predicts mortality

Several stories may be worth your reading. First there’s an interesting test that seems to fairly strongly predict mortality risk. It involves getting up from the floor using a minimal amount of assistance and support. A Simple Test Assessing Ability to Sit Up From the Floor Predicts Mortality come from Medical News Today. It discusses research from Brazil published in the European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention. Here’s the pertinent information:

“They told the participants to try and sit up with the least amount of support that they believe necessary, and not worry about their speed. They scored the participants’ ability to both sit and rise out of 5. For each time the participants used support from their hand, knee or other part of their body the researchers would subtract a point. A total composite score out of 10 was assigned to them which would determine which category or group they belonged to (C1, 0-3; C2, 3.5-5.5; C3, 6-7.5; and C4, 8-10).

A total of 159 people died (a 7.9% mortality rate) at the end of the study, with significantly more deaths occurring among people with low test scores. They found that the rates of mortality between the four groups differed by quite a great deal, even when controlled for gender, age and body mass index (BMI). Those belonging to group C1, which had the lowest score range, were 5-6 times at higher risk of death than those in group C4. This difference suggests that the sitting score is good predictor of all-cause mortality.

Participants with scores below 8 had mortality rates 2 to 5 times higher than those with scores ranging from 8-10. The authors noted: “‘a 1-point increment in the [sitting-rising] score was related to a 21% reduction in mortality.'”

Watch the video below to see an explanation of the sit-to-stand process. Try it out. What’s your score?

Kids who walk or bike to school concentrate better

An article in the Atlantic tells us a) kids who move around more think better and by extension, b) there really is no division between the mind and the body. The Link Between Kids Who Walk or Bike to School and Concentration discusses Dutch research that indicates the following:

“The survey looked at nearly 20,000 Danish kids between the ages of 5 and 19. It found that kids who cycled or walked to school, rather than traveling by car or public transportation, performed measurably better on tasks demanding concentration, such as solving puzzles, and that the effects lasted for up to four hours after they got to school.”

Niels Egelund is the researcher who conducted the research. I love what he says about moving and sitting (emphasis is mine).

“I believe that deep down we were naturally and originally not designed to sit still,” Egelund said. “We learn through our head and by moving. Something happens within the body when we move, and this allows us to be better equipped afterwards to work on the cognitive side.”

I’m going to go way out on a crazy limb and say that if movement is good for cognition in kids, it’s probably just as good for adult cognition. And we see here that the concept of a division of the mind and the body simply doesn’t exist. The health of one depends on the health of the other. The evidence shows that the French philosopher Descartes got it wrong with his idea of dualism.

More on gluten

Going gluten-free is probably the biggest, most discussed issue in nutrition these days. By eliminating gluten, are we improving our health or are we just following the latest fad? The jury is out. Certainly if someone has celiac disease then it’s vital that gluten be eliminated for good health. But it’s unclear if everyone else will benefit from avoiding gluten.

There is a lot of anecdotal evidence out there to support the health benefits of cutting gluten, but anecdotal evidence isn’t terribly powerful evidence. Gluten-free whether you need it or not comes from the New York Times Well Blog. The article discusses all of these details. It doesn’t come down firmly on any side but it provides evidence that perhaps the anecdotal evidence supporting gluten avoidance is worth further investigation:

“Crucial in the evolving understanding of gluten were the findings, published in 2011, in The American Journal of Gastroenterology, of an experiment in Australia. In the double-blind study, people who suffered from irritable bowel syndrome, did not have celiac and were on a gluten-free diet were given bread and muffins to eat for up to six weeks. Some of them were given gluten-free baked goods; the others got muffins and bread with gluten. Thirty-four patients completed the study. Those who ate gluten reported they felt significantly worse.

That influenced many experts to acknowledge that the disease was not just in the heads of patients. ‘It’s not just a placebo effect,’ said Dr. Marios Hadjivassiliou, a neurologist and celiac expert at the University of Sheffield in England.”

Something else caught my eye in the article. Experts who caution against everyone going gluten-free have suggested the following:

“They also worried that people could end up eating less healthfully. A gluten-free muffin generally contains less fiber than a wheat-based one and still offers the same nutritional dangers — fat and sugar. Gluten-free foods are also less likely to be fortified with vitamins.”

Okay, here’s the big revelation: EAT FEWER MUFFINS! Anyone worried that gluten-free muffins don’t offer the same nutritional benefits of wheat-based muffins is looking at gluten-free grains of sand on the beach and ignoring larger issues. To me, the big picture is still one in which we’ll have better health if we reduce processed food consumption. Eat less stuff that comes out of boxes, bags and cartons. That includes all kinds of stuff that contains gluten: bread, crackers, chips, cereal, etc. Eat more plants.

Reverse Patterning the Squat

I’ve gotten some great ideas from reading Gray Cook’s Movement and Athletic Body in Balance. (I’ve written several times recently about the information in these books. I don’t want to sound like I’ve joined the latest UFO cult or anything, but it’s what I’m into right now. I’m seeing very interesting results, so that’s what I’m talking about.) One concept in particular I’m finding very useful and exciting. It’s known as reverse patterning. Reverse patterning is discussed in chapter 14 of Movement. Though it’s not called “reverse patterning” in Athletic Body in Balance, a very similar process is explored in chapter 6 of that book.

I’ve applied this concept to the squat and I think I’ve discovered a much better way to teach the squat. It’s simple to teach, safe, and similar to the half-kneeling position, there’s pretty much only one way to do it correctly, that is the only way to do it in any form is to do it correctly. If you do it wrong you basically won’t go anywhere at all.

Problems with teaching the squat

Most of us teach and learn the squat from the top down. That means we start in the standing position, lower ourselves down low in a sitting-type of maneuver, then we stand back up. It’s a fairly complex movement. Coordinated movement must occur at the ankles, knees and hips. Meanwhile stability must occur through all these structures plus the spine. All the while the squatter must stay balanced. Teaching this process can be quite challenging.

Very often a client has no idea at all how to do this: Their knees shoot forward, heels pop up, knees cave in, spine rounds forward, pelvis tucks way under–all kinds of movement faults occur. Then I have to teach this funny movement by using all sorts of language and cues that may or may not resonate with the client. So now it’s almost like learning to juggle, ride a bike and recite the Gettysburg Address all at once. Sometimes it goes very well. Sometimes it can be a real hair-pulling sort of event for both parties.

(The funny thing is, if you watch any number of young children, you can see superb squat technique done over and over and over. No one taught them. They figured it out for themselves! How did they figure this out? Must be some simpler way to do this, no?)

Squatting from the bottom up

Gray Cook talks about primitive patterns. These are movement patterns such as crawling, rolling, squatting and other movements that precede activities like walking and running. These are fundamental patterns to humans. (Modern living tends to rob us of these patterns. We sit too much. We hunch over keyboards and steering wheels too much. We don’t get down on the ground and move in funny ways enough.) In the case of the squat, we all did our very first squat a long time ago. I don’t remember my first squat and neither do you. That first squat actually started at ground level as we were trying to emulate the people around us who were standing and walking. At some point probably after several attempts, we stood up.

Typically when teaching the squat the difficulty comes from our trying to get to the bottom of the thing. As I said previously, we often do it all wrong and it takes a bunch of work to do it right. So instead of making it difficult to get down, why not make it as easy as possible to get into the bottom of the squat position? This is very easy to do. Watch the video to see the process.

Denver Fitness Journal

All Things Health and Fitness by Kyle Norman, MS, CSCS, FMS, RRCA Running Coach

Observations