There has been an increasing amount of publicity and attention being drawn to the concept of functional training. Whilst the ideas behind this is well founded I feel it is promoting a concept that doesnt actually exist.
The idea is that certain exercises are functional and others are not. For example a bench press is non-functional whereas lying on a ball doing a press with dumbells is functional or doing a sit-up is non functional whereas holding onto a medicine ball and twisting your body from side to side is.
The problem with this is that there is no clarification of what functional is. What does functional mean? Some people may reply that functional means more real life movements - the type of movements we do in our day to day life but when did you last hold onto a weight and rapidly rotate from side to side in your day to day life?
Functional training does not exist, it is merely a label given to a group of exercises. Whether or not they are functional depends on what a persons function is.
Now hang on you might be thinking , isnt that how I promote myself? Well yes and I'm going to stop doing that from now on, the whole concept of functional training has been taken over by people who dont understand the true meaning behind the concept.
Functional Training is better defined as training for function. By that I mean using exercises that will improve a specific function. So for example if you are a tennis player and want to work on your backhand then some rotational type exercises would be of great benefit but if you were a golfer even though you still rotate as part of your swing, your arms move through a different plane and your feet are in a different position so your exercises would be different to that of a tennis player. If you need to get off the ground quickly after being tackled in a game of rugby then a situp might be beneficial, if you are recovering from back surgery a situp would be avoided.
The benefits of exercise are specific to the joint position, body position, speed of movement, weight, repetitions, rest between sets and several other variables. If these variable dont match closely the conditions of your action or sport then the benefits you gain from one exercise wont translate to the other.
For example if you want stronger legs for hiking then sitting on a leg extension machine will have very little benefit for you. When you hike you have one foot on the ground, you involve your feet, hips, spine as well as your knee whereas on a leg extension machine your feet, hips and spine have no role to play at all.
If you want to improve the way you perform a certain action or movement than make sure your exercises mimic the action.
Training for function involves assessing what every joint in your body does during a particular action then looking for any restrictions, weaknesses or compensations in any joints or muscles. These can then be addressed which leads to a more efficient means of performing that action. Strength, endurance, speed and power can now be developed to improve the ability of the body to perform that action under load.
Read more!
Sunday 24 October 2010
Wednesday 22 September 2010
Crunch your way to a weaker core
So you’ve been told you need to strengthen your core and someone has shown you or suggested to you, or you’ve read on the net or in a magazine that crunches are a good exercise to achieve this. They will strengthen your core and help your bad back, preventing further back pain and giving your a great set of stomach muscles.
It sounds great in theory , a simple exercise that will give you great looking abs and strengthen your back. Unfortunately it is completely wrong. I know what you are thinking, “every magazine, fitness article, fitness instructor and many Personal Trainers recommend crunches as a means of strengthening your core, how can they all be wrong?”
Unfortunately many of these experts use information that is severely outdated. Our knowledge of the human body is evolving at a rapid rate and those who don’t make the effort to keep up with the latest knowledge will be using outdated and often wrong information.
Remember when the experts said that marathon was too demanding an event for women to compete in (1984 was the first Womens marathon in the Olympics). Research has know shown that women can compete against the men in endurance events and in some ultramarathons the winner has been female.
Static stretching was a must do before exercise. Research has shown that you are more likely to become injured if you static stretch before exercise than if you did nothing at all. Despite this you still see people stretching before going for a run!
A while ago people did sit ups with their feet held by either a machine or person. We then discovered that this would use the hip flexor muscles more which create more shearing force in the lower back and increase back pain , not reduce it. They also worked the abdominal muscles less.
There’s just three examples of how knowledge has changed the way we approach exercise.
Those people recommending crunches to help strengthen your core and/or help your lower back don’t understand how the body really works and they are quite possibly weakening your core and making you more susceptible to injury.
Bear with me whilst I explain
What is the core?
When we talk about strengthening the core we need to understand that the core is not simply a group of abdominal muscles that work together to support your back. It is made up of all the muscles that attach to the pelvis; the abdominals, spinal muscles, pelvic floor muscles, deep hip muscles, scapula and shoulder girdle muscles. These muscles are not one big group of muscles that all activate as “the core”. They act interdependently depending on the load placed on them.
Core strength – for what?
If we want to strengthen the core the first question we need to ask is, for what? The strength gained from an exercise is specific to the movement, load and speed of the exercise.
If we struggle to sit ourselves up when we get out of bed in the morning then crunches may be a very useful exercise. But when was the last time you went to get up in the morning and found you couldn’t lift your upper body up, you tried to but could barely lift your upper body off the bed?
Typical daily activities that we could benefit from a stronger core would be walking, bending down to pick up a child or shopping bags, gardening, sweeping, walking up and down stairs, playing with children or pets and playing sport.
How many of those activities involve lying on your back and raising yourself half way up using your stomach muscles? I know what you are thinking – “ Ok you may have a point but when I do crunches I feel my abs work and I want to have good looking abs so they cant hurt can they?”
The short answer is yes doing crunches can make your core worse and if you want good looking abs there are far better ways than doing crunches.
How can crunches possibly weaken your core?
Crunches teach the rectus abdominus ( the 6-pack muscle) to work together with the external oblique’s (and to a lesser degree the internal oblique’s) to perform a partial sit up. During this exercise relatively few other muscles such as your hip muscles are involved since you are lying on your back. The more you do of them the more the brain becomes adept at contracting these muscles without any other muscles working.
Now when we actually go to perform a useful activity such as playing with our kids or playing sport where we need our abdominal muscles to co-ordinate with our hips, lower back, middle back and shoulder blade muscles the brain doesn’t know how to perform this as it is used to activating the abdominals with no other muscles working.
It would be like a musician in an orchestra who has never practised with anybody else suddenly asked to play at the Royal Albert Hall with an entire orchestra. The musician would lack the skills to co-ordinate their playing along with the other members of the orchestra. No amount of practising by themselves will ever prepare them to play in an orchestra. In fact the more they practice by themselves the more bad habits they will fall into making it harder to become adept at playing with an orchestra.
Now think of the orchestra as the human body with all its muscles, tendons and ligaments all working together to produce effective movement. If we train just a few of these muscles in a way that doesn’t teach them to integrate with the rest of the body then we are making our core WORSE.
Can crunches improve my posture?
The more you perform an exercise the more the muscles adapt. Have you ever noticed some of the big guys in the gym who walk around with their arms half bent because they have dome so much bicep work their biceps wont allow them to extend their arms fully? The same can happen with your stomach muscles. If you perform lots of crunches without balancing it up with lots of middle back extension work your posture will become more rounded , I’m guessing the hunchback look is probably not the one you are after!
What about just getting great looking abs?
Lets ignore everything I’ve just said and pretend you don’t care that doing crunches will make you more susceptible to injury , will increase the chances of back injury, worsen your posture and make you less able to integrate your core with the rest of your body. Lets say the only thing you care about is getting a six pack. Surely crunches must help that?
As you can probably guess, no. I have never met a client or person who wouldn’t have a six pack if it wasn’t covered with a layer of fat. Almost everybody could have a six pack if they managed to lower their body fat to under 10% for males and 20% for females ( approx). So if lowering body fat is the key to getting a six pack how much effect do you think lying on the ground ( or ball) performing crunches will have compared to another set of squats or push ups?
Big compound exercises that get your heart rate up and high intensity interval training is the key to a six pack.
Just an interesting aside – did you know you core works more during a squat than it does crunching?
Crunches – are they any good at all?
For most people they will weaken your core leading to more chance of back pain. If you play a sport or do an activity that involves sitting up from the ground (I cant think of any but there may be some) then crunches may be a good exercise.
SO if you want to weaken your core , waste your time, increase the chance of injury , worsen your posture then crunch away. If however you want to improve your core strength, improve your posture, become better able to handle your daily activities and have great looking abs then have a look at this Yes its targeted to runners but it will give you a much better understanding of what you should do to work your core now that you know what you shouldn’t do.
I will endeavour to write an article on some core exercises for every day activities soon.
Read more!
It sounds great in theory , a simple exercise that will give you great looking abs and strengthen your back. Unfortunately it is completely wrong. I know what you are thinking, “every magazine, fitness article, fitness instructor and many Personal Trainers recommend crunches as a means of strengthening your core, how can they all be wrong?”
Unfortunately many of these experts use information that is severely outdated. Our knowledge of the human body is evolving at a rapid rate and those who don’t make the effort to keep up with the latest knowledge will be using outdated and often wrong information.
Remember when the experts said that marathon was too demanding an event for women to compete in (1984 was the first Womens marathon in the Olympics). Research has know shown that women can compete against the men in endurance events and in some ultramarathons the winner has been female.
Static stretching was a must do before exercise. Research has shown that you are more likely to become injured if you static stretch before exercise than if you did nothing at all. Despite this you still see people stretching before going for a run!
A while ago people did sit ups with their feet held by either a machine or person. We then discovered that this would use the hip flexor muscles more which create more shearing force in the lower back and increase back pain , not reduce it. They also worked the abdominal muscles less.
There’s just three examples of how knowledge has changed the way we approach exercise.
Those people recommending crunches to help strengthen your core and/or help your lower back don’t understand how the body really works and they are quite possibly weakening your core and making you more susceptible to injury.
Bear with me whilst I explain
What is the core?
When we talk about strengthening the core we need to understand that the core is not simply a group of abdominal muscles that work together to support your back. It is made up of all the muscles that attach to the pelvis; the abdominals, spinal muscles, pelvic floor muscles, deep hip muscles, scapula and shoulder girdle muscles. These muscles are not one big group of muscles that all activate as “the core”. They act interdependently depending on the load placed on them.
Core strength – for what?
If we want to strengthen the core the first question we need to ask is, for what? The strength gained from an exercise is specific to the movement, load and speed of the exercise.
If we struggle to sit ourselves up when we get out of bed in the morning then crunches may be a very useful exercise. But when was the last time you went to get up in the morning and found you couldn’t lift your upper body up, you tried to but could barely lift your upper body off the bed?
Typical daily activities that we could benefit from a stronger core would be walking, bending down to pick up a child or shopping bags, gardening, sweeping, walking up and down stairs, playing with children or pets and playing sport.
How many of those activities involve lying on your back and raising yourself half way up using your stomach muscles? I know what you are thinking – “ Ok you may have a point but when I do crunches I feel my abs work and I want to have good looking abs so they cant hurt can they?”
The short answer is yes doing crunches can make your core worse and if you want good looking abs there are far better ways than doing crunches.
How can crunches possibly weaken your core?
Crunches teach the rectus abdominus ( the 6-pack muscle) to work together with the external oblique’s (and to a lesser degree the internal oblique’s) to perform a partial sit up. During this exercise relatively few other muscles such as your hip muscles are involved since you are lying on your back. The more you do of them the more the brain becomes adept at contracting these muscles without any other muscles working.
Now when we actually go to perform a useful activity such as playing with our kids or playing sport where we need our abdominal muscles to co-ordinate with our hips, lower back, middle back and shoulder blade muscles the brain doesn’t know how to perform this as it is used to activating the abdominals with no other muscles working.
It would be like a musician in an orchestra who has never practised with anybody else suddenly asked to play at the Royal Albert Hall with an entire orchestra. The musician would lack the skills to co-ordinate their playing along with the other members of the orchestra. No amount of practising by themselves will ever prepare them to play in an orchestra. In fact the more they practice by themselves the more bad habits they will fall into making it harder to become adept at playing with an orchestra.
Now think of the orchestra as the human body with all its muscles, tendons and ligaments all working together to produce effective movement. If we train just a few of these muscles in a way that doesn’t teach them to integrate with the rest of the body then we are making our core WORSE.
Can crunches improve my posture?
The more you perform an exercise the more the muscles adapt. Have you ever noticed some of the big guys in the gym who walk around with their arms half bent because they have dome so much bicep work their biceps wont allow them to extend their arms fully? The same can happen with your stomach muscles. If you perform lots of crunches without balancing it up with lots of middle back extension work your posture will become more rounded , I’m guessing the hunchback look is probably not the one you are after!
What about just getting great looking abs?
Lets ignore everything I’ve just said and pretend you don’t care that doing crunches will make you more susceptible to injury , will increase the chances of back injury, worsen your posture and make you less able to integrate your core with the rest of your body. Lets say the only thing you care about is getting a six pack. Surely crunches must help that?
As you can probably guess, no. I have never met a client or person who wouldn’t have a six pack if it wasn’t covered with a layer of fat. Almost everybody could have a six pack if they managed to lower their body fat to under 10% for males and 20% for females ( approx). So if lowering body fat is the key to getting a six pack how much effect do you think lying on the ground ( or ball) performing crunches will have compared to another set of squats or push ups?
Big compound exercises that get your heart rate up and high intensity interval training is the key to a six pack.
Just an interesting aside – did you know you core works more during a squat than it does crunching?
Crunches – are they any good at all?
For most people they will weaken your core leading to more chance of back pain. If you play a sport or do an activity that involves sitting up from the ground (I cant think of any but there may be some) then crunches may be a good exercise.
SO if you want to weaken your core , waste your time, increase the chance of injury , worsen your posture then crunch away. If however you want to improve your core strength, improve your posture, become better able to handle your daily activities and have great looking abs then have a look at this Yes its targeted to runners but it will give you a much better understanding of what you should do to work your core now that you know what you shouldn’t do.
I will endeavour to write an article on some core exercises for every day activities soon.
Read more!
Sunday 14 March 2010
Too busy to fit exercise into your lifestlye?
One of the most common excuses I hear for missing exercise sessions is lack of time.
In my ten plus years of training clients I have met only one person who genuinely didn't have time in her day to exercise.
There are two issues here , first of all how much time do you actually have to set aside for exercise and secondly finding that time.
There is good news on the first issue, studies have shown that 20-30 minutes of high intensity interval training performed 3 times per week can be as effective and sometimes more effective than one hour of exercise performed five times per week. So the excuse that you need to spend hours and hours exercising to see any results doesnt hold water.
The bad news is you still have to find time to do it.
So what is high intensity interval training?
Simply put it is a combination of short intense efforts of activity followed by periods of recovery. The key words here and INTENSE activity. The more intense the more the benefits.
A good example is 10 repeats of 1 minute hard followed by 1 min easy recovery. This could be performed on any type of cardiovascular equipment, running, running up stairs, stepping up and down a step to name a few.
This is obviously targeting your cardiovascular system. If you want to work on muscle conditioning the same principle can be applied. Simply select a number of full body exercises and do as many repetitions as you can in the allotted time period. For example you could do lunges,push ups,squats and dips. There are thousands of different full body exercises you could do and if you arent sure see a fitness professional and get them to show you.
A common way to do this is to do 20 seconds of an exercise then have 10 seconds rest and then perform another exercise for 20 seconds and then repeat this four times through. Making a total of 4 minutes.
Just this four minute period of work done at high intensity will boost your metabolism significantly for a few hours.
If you have more time choose another two exercises and repeat.
A combination of the cardiovascular intervals and the conditioning intervals will have a big impact of fitness,fat loss and toning.
How often?
How often you perform these sessions depends on what kind of results you want but as a minimum you should aim for two cardiovascular interval sessions and around 20 four minute conditioning intervals . Did I say twenty - surely he's made a typo you are thinking. Well lets look at what I've asked - two cardiovascular conditioning sessions at 20-30 minutes each and twenty four minute intervals totalling 80 minutes. Sum total of 160-180 minutes or around 3 hours per week. Thats 25 minutes per day.
Finding the time
No how many of you can honestly say that you cant find 25 minutes a day to exercise?
Surely finding time to exercise is a high priority on your day. Isn't it? No?
Isn't having a fit and healthy body that gives you the energy and capability to cope with all the things you want to do in your day important to you?
Adding five, ten fifteen good quality years to your life would be a good thing wouldn't it?
Saving thousands of pounds on your own health care would help the bank balance wouldn't it?
Being fit and active would make sure retirement so much more enjoyable wouldnt it?
Looking in the mirror and seeing a body you are happy with would do wonders for your confidence and self esteem wouldn't it?
Being fit and healthy would set a good example to your kids and help them towards a fit an healthy lifestyle wouldn't it?
Maybe not.
Maybe sleeping in an extra 20 minutes is more important.
Maybe it is better to keep eating junk and being lazy and die at 60. Old age is overrated anyway.
Maybe you aren't worried if your kids follow your inactive lifestlye and end up overweight before they even leave school
Maybe the thought of a triple bypass surgery and the horrible scar on your chest doesnt phase you much.
Maybe running out of breath after playing with your grandkids for 5 minutes is considered the norm.
Maybe having self confidence is overated, if you wear baggy clothing no-one will notice anyway ( except you of course)
Maybe you are too busy now to fit in exercise but you are getting things sorted and soon you'll have time to fit it in. Except wasnt that what you said last year?
Maybe being sick regularly isn't such a big deal. Being on tablets to control your blood pressure or blood sugar for the rest of your life is no big deal really.
Maybe I'm being blunt but you see my point.
Exercising regularly should be considered the norm not the exception.
As human beings our bodies are designed to exercise. There have been some articles and programs in the media saying we have naturally evolved to eat fatty foods and this is true. The reason for this is that it taught the body to seek food that it could store easily so when food was scarce it had reserves to fall back on. There is no scarcity of food these days. There is however a complete lack of exercise.
The solution
Performing the cardiovascular and conditioning intervals I have described above requires little equipment and can be done at home , in the park , in a gym almost anywhere.
You can even do just one four minute conditioning interval at a time, so if you only have 5 minutes to exercise you cant make excuses!
Make a promise to yourself that you'll make time to exercise and you'll stick with it forever. Yes forever. Exercise is not a short term solution , it is a long term lifestyle.
Read more!
In my ten plus years of training clients I have met only one person who genuinely didn't have time in her day to exercise.
There are two issues here , first of all how much time do you actually have to set aside for exercise and secondly finding that time.
There is good news on the first issue, studies have shown that 20-30 minutes of high intensity interval training performed 3 times per week can be as effective and sometimes more effective than one hour of exercise performed five times per week. So the excuse that you need to spend hours and hours exercising to see any results doesnt hold water.
The bad news is you still have to find time to do it.
So what is high intensity interval training?
Simply put it is a combination of short intense efforts of activity followed by periods of recovery. The key words here and INTENSE activity. The more intense the more the benefits.
A good example is 10 repeats of 1 minute hard followed by 1 min easy recovery. This could be performed on any type of cardiovascular equipment, running, running up stairs, stepping up and down a step to name a few.
This is obviously targeting your cardiovascular system. If you want to work on muscle conditioning the same principle can be applied. Simply select a number of full body exercises and do as many repetitions as you can in the allotted time period. For example you could do lunges,push ups,squats and dips. There are thousands of different full body exercises you could do and if you arent sure see a fitness professional and get them to show you.
A common way to do this is to do 20 seconds of an exercise then have 10 seconds rest and then perform another exercise for 20 seconds and then repeat this four times through. Making a total of 4 minutes.
Just this four minute period of work done at high intensity will boost your metabolism significantly for a few hours.
If you have more time choose another two exercises and repeat.
A combination of the cardiovascular intervals and the conditioning intervals will have a big impact of fitness,fat loss and toning.
How often?
How often you perform these sessions depends on what kind of results you want but as a minimum you should aim for two cardiovascular interval sessions and around 20 four minute conditioning intervals . Did I say twenty - surely he's made a typo you are thinking. Well lets look at what I've asked - two cardiovascular conditioning sessions at 20-30 minutes each and twenty four minute intervals totalling 80 minutes. Sum total of 160-180 minutes or around 3 hours per week. Thats 25 minutes per day.
Finding the time
No how many of you can honestly say that you cant find 25 minutes a day to exercise?
Surely finding time to exercise is a high priority on your day. Isn't it? No?
Isn't having a fit and healthy body that gives you the energy and capability to cope with all the things you want to do in your day important to you?
Adding five, ten fifteen good quality years to your life would be a good thing wouldn't it?
Saving thousands of pounds on your own health care would help the bank balance wouldn't it?
Being fit and active would make sure retirement so much more enjoyable wouldnt it?
Looking in the mirror and seeing a body you are happy with would do wonders for your confidence and self esteem wouldn't it?
Being fit and healthy would set a good example to your kids and help them towards a fit an healthy lifestyle wouldn't it?
Maybe not.
Maybe sleeping in an extra 20 minutes is more important.
Maybe it is better to keep eating junk and being lazy and die at 60. Old age is overrated anyway.
Maybe you aren't worried if your kids follow your inactive lifestlye and end up overweight before they even leave school
Maybe the thought of a triple bypass surgery and the horrible scar on your chest doesnt phase you much.
Maybe running out of breath after playing with your grandkids for 5 minutes is considered the norm.
Maybe having self confidence is overated, if you wear baggy clothing no-one will notice anyway ( except you of course)
Maybe you are too busy now to fit in exercise but you are getting things sorted and soon you'll have time to fit it in. Except wasnt that what you said last year?
Maybe being sick regularly isn't such a big deal. Being on tablets to control your blood pressure or blood sugar for the rest of your life is no big deal really.
Maybe I'm being blunt but you see my point.
Exercising regularly should be considered the norm not the exception.
As human beings our bodies are designed to exercise. There have been some articles and programs in the media saying we have naturally evolved to eat fatty foods and this is true. The reason for this is that it taught the body to seek food that it could store easily so when food was scarce it had reserves to fall back on. There is no scarcity of food these days. There is however a complete lack of exercise.
The solution
Performing the cardiovascular and conditioning intervals I have described above requires little equipment and can be done at home , in the park , in a gym almost anywhere.
You can even do just one four minute conditioning interval at a time, so if you only have 5 minutes to exercise you cant make excuses!
Make a promise to yourself that you'll make time to exercise and you'll stick with it forever. Yes forever. Exercise is not a short term solution , it is a long term lifestyle.
Read more!
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