STRESS = PAIN = STRESS = PAIN/ PART 6: WHAT IS PAIN?

The body’s tissue only experiences sensations and contains danger receptors, not actual pain receptors. 

This is important to know because when a sensation is experienced within the tissue, than all the information attained from that specific experience is sent to the brain and added to every other sensation stimulus you’ve ever encountered that is similar to this very one.

Pain correlates with danger, not injury.

If you suffer a dreaded paper cut injury, then you bleed which would initially send a dangerous signal to the brain.

The brain processes all the new information against the current information and as it’s seen this before and it knows that it isn’t an actual danger, then the pain signals aren’t sent out. 

You apply some pressure with a tissue and go about your day.

On the other hand of you slice your finger off chopping up the onions, then brain receives the same information but as you probably haven’t cut your finger off before, the information is skewed towards danger and a pain signal is now sent.

The end result is a pain experience.

Exercise of the Week - SPRINTING!

I've got Olympic fever and yesterday's 100 and 400m sprint finals were unbelievable, with the 200 and relays still to come!

If you're like me and have caught the fever then you're in for a treat with this weeks exercise of the week - sprinting!

No where enough people actually sprint which is a shame considering how good sprinters look and perform!

Most people will try and replicate sprinting through interval workouts that in reality is as far from sprinting as you can almost get as the speed you're going at is no where near top speed and that is what sprinting is all about.

Olympic sprinters are known for using what is called the high/low system which means they either train at 95 - 100% for high days or at 50 - 60% for low days.

They do not train "in the middle" which unfortunately is where everyone else in the world trains which is odd when you think about because if it was so good wouldn't they be doing it?

OK, what I'm going to GIVE you is a 6 week sprinting plan that you'll do 2/week and with the weather fining up, that shouldn't be a problem.

You'll have 12 sessions to complete preferably 3 - 4 days apart and I'll also include an introductory week that you do to prep for the work ahead. If you're hesitant then you can do this week twice.

Our measurements are going to go by counting our steps so you can do this workout without equipment. So each foot strike is 1 so count to 10, 20 or 30 (depending on the set), walk back slowly and repeat when you're breath has come back to pretty much normal.

You might be a bit short of breathe immediately after some of the hill sets but you should be able to complete each sprint with high quality so rest as needed to achieve this.

You're going to need to find 3 separate sprinting spots - a steep hill, a moderate hill and a flat surface.

A pretty good spot for this is Como Park that has hills around the Alexander Parade side of the oval that varies in distance as well as the killer hill on the other Toorak Road side.

A good idea is to time your 20m sprint sets in the 2nd prep session and we'll use that to see how much we improve after the 6 - 8 weeks which I think will be substantial - remember that .5sec of a huge improvement in the field of sprinting!

You'll want to measure out the testing sets so measure your feet with your running shoes on and divide 2000 by your foot length in cms (2000 / 35 for example) then simply step it out toe to heel style,

To time your sprints simply video it on your phone and pop it through this free app and follow the steps from here which is based on jumping but it's still the same thing:

http://aussierulestraining.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/measuring-vertical-leap-with-vstopwatch.html

Alternatively contact me via the Facebook page and you can send it to me and I can do it for you!

IMPORTANT - make sure you perform a thorough warm up prior to each sprinting session. Do a little jog for 400m or so to increase body temp, then ease into some 10 and 20m run-throughs increasing the pace of each set slightly for 4 - 6 total warm up. Skip this at your peril!

Prep Week
Session 1 Steep Hill: 4 x 10 steps + 2 x 20 steps + 1 x 30 steps
Session 2 Flat Surface: 4 x 10 steps + 2 x 20 steps (time these sets) + 1 x 30 steps

Here's the full 12 session, 6 week workout:

Week 1
Session 1 Steep Hill: 5 x 10 steps + 2 x 20 steps + 1 x 30 steps
Session 2 Steep Hill: 6 x 10 steps + 3 x 20 steps + 1 x 30 steps

Week 2
Session 1 Steep Hill: 7 x 10 steps + 4 x 20 steps + 1 x 30 steps
Session 2 Steep Hill: 5 x 10 steps + 2 x 20 steps + 2 x 30 steps

Week 3
Session 1 Moderate Hill: 5 x 10 steps + 2 x 20 steps + 1 x 30 steps
Session 2 Moderate Hill: 6 x 10 steps + 3 x 20 steps + 1 x 30 steps

Week 4
Session 1 Moderate Hill: 7 x 10 steps + 4 x 20 steps + 1 x 30 steps
Session 2 Moderate Hill: 5 x 10 steps + 2 x 20 steps + 2 x 30 steps

Week 5
Session 1 Flat Surface: 5 x 10 steps + 2 x 20 steps + 1 x 30 steps
Session 2 Flat Surface: 6 x 10 steps + 3 x 20 steps + 1 x 30 steps

Week 6
Session 1 Flat Surface: 7 x 10 steps + 4 x 20 steps + 1 x 30 steps
Session 2 Flat Surface: 5 x 10 steps + 2 x 20 steps + 2 x 30 steps

After 4 - 5 days off do this session:

Testing Session; 5 x 10 steps + 2 - 3 x 20 steps (timing all sets)

Let me know any questions you have on this, otherwise good luck!

STRESS = PAIN = STRESS= PAIN PART 5: BE ACTIVATED TECHNIQUE

The Be Activated (BA) muscle treatment protocol is a little something I came across about 2 years ago and is the brain child of a South African ex-pysio Doug Heel.

The goal of these treatments is to undo everything that stress does to you by recalibrating the body to do the 2 most important functions it can do - breathing and walking.

Breathing should be a primary function of the diaphragm. 

Initial movement is generated via the psoas through hip flexion (knee lift).

The diaphragm and psoas actually attach so they are directly affected by one another so when one has dysfunction, then they both will. 

The glute is the reciprocal muscle to the psoas (hip extension = leg going back behind the body) so it’s a hugely important muscle.

There are 3 zones in the BA treatment with zone 1 being the diaphragm, psoas and glutes. 

There are also zones 2 and 3 that go further out from the body but we'll worry about them another day.

Problems in zones 2 and 3 originate in zone 1 as zones 2 and 3 are compensation patterns from a pooprly functioning zone 1.

By activating zone 1, you’ll be able to achieve optimal breathing and movement efficiency and you'll also find that your chronic pain spots and stiff area's free up considerably.

Here's a video of performing a manual treatment on myself but it's a thousand times better when someone else does it so hit me up if you ant a treatment.

STRESS = PAIN = STRESS = PAIN PART 4: DIAPHRAGMATIC BREATHING

Lie down on your back.

Take some deep breathes in your nose and breathe out through your mouth.

Film yourself doing this.

Go. I’ll wait...

....

Play that video back – what do you see?

Do you see your chest rising with each breath?

Do you see some stomach action but nowhere near as much as your chest?

How long does each breath take you to complete?

Here's what it might have looked like:

When you’re under stress the CNS gauges this stress and perceives it a something negative. In times of negative stress the body will go into conservation mode and down regulate whatever it can if it can find a more efficient way to do so.

The easiest way to alter your breathing rate is to shift the focus from long and full belly/diaphragmatic breathing to short and shallow shoulder/chest/neck breathing.

When you do this for long enough then your body becomes accustomed to this form of breathing and eventually makes it your dominant breathing pattern. This decreases the work of the diaphragm, weakening it and compromising oxygen delivery throughout the entire body which results in tiredness, poor blood flow which can result in high anxiety.

Loud sounds and bright lights/screens also feed sympathetic dominance which is why screen time needs to be decreased around bed time and is why you find it so hard to get to sleep even when you’re tired.

Short and shallow breathes is an indication of sympathetic nervous system activation which is what we need to use in times of stress. What can happen in this situation is that the brain goes into full protection mode which means it wants to decrease energy output which it can do by shutting off main muscle groups and altering posture by moving to a ‘fetus” like posture with rounded shoulders, collapsed rib cage and slumped spine.

Poor breathing can also drive us into a state of constant inhalation which again increases sympathetic NS activation.

Pain, pain killers and anxiety all feed sympathetic dominance as well.

Do you constantly feel like you’re movement is restricted?

Do you sleep poorly?

Are you a busy, A type personality?

Do you have a lot of health issues?

Have you worked on your posture but to no avail?

Poor posture can be a symptom of a tired body which is a symptom of high stress.

Shifting from sympathetic to parasympathetic dominance will result in faster recovery from times of stress, greater immunity, less chronic pain and the ensuring happiness!

Lastly, an overexcited/tired CNS can also overreact to small stressors.

STRESS = PAIN = STRESS = PAIN PART 3: THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM

We’ve all heard of the central nervous system but I don’t think we all know that it’s the efficiency of the CNS that’s decides what we do, when we do it and how hard we do it.

It is also affected greatly by fatigue, especially when using intense and/or high fatigue training models.

FYI, training intensity refers to the % of your maximum that you are training at.

Fatigue refers to how much energy resources you use to complete a set task. 

Lifting 3 reps at 90% of your maximum is intense, it’s 10% off your max obviously.

Training to the point that you cannot walk is actually work performed at a moderate intensity repeatedly.

Intensity of a session should never be determined by how tired a workout made you feel during and after it.

If you have induced a relative high amount of fatigue through moderate intensity but high volume and incomplete rest, then that will take far more time to recover from high intensity, low volume training.

Intense but short duration activities will also cause great stress on the CNS but it spares the metabolic cost that comes with high fatigue training.

Looking at the image above and you can see that induced stress will result in a sympathetic response through all of those actions in the list. Staying in this state constantly as a lot of us do in the world of work culture can mean you never enter a parasympathetic state and therefore never give the body a chance for recuperation.

This can fill your stress cup up quite quickly and throw your personal stress on top of that, and you’re overflowing like a fat man’s undies.

Again this can lead to sickness or injury as you’re working way harder than your body can handle at that given time.

Next Week: Diaphragmatic Breathing

STRESS + PAIN = STRESS = PAIN PART 2: STRESS CULTURE

STRESS CULTURE

There are 2 main types of stress the body undertakes.

Every little thing you do PHYSICALLY stresses the body in some way. Walking to the letterbox induces little stress so it requires little time and resources to recovery from. 

Going for a 5km run induces a moderate amount of stress in most cases, and requires some time and (energy) resources, to recover from. 

An interval sprint training session with short to moderate rest will induce huge amounts of fatigue and will take plenty of time (48 – 72hrs) and resources to recover from. 

We have fallen into a fatigue based training model these days with Crossfit-type training facilities opening up on every corner. 

Fatigue is required to make progress but only as much fatigue as you can recover from.

Every time a decision has to be made, it can induce MENTAL stress. 

Like physical stress, the level of decision, or the consequences of that decision if it isn’t the right one, can affect your mind and body on different levels.  

These days work is akin to the fatigue model of training above – it’s all about how much work you can complete and how many hours you can put it and it’s actually frowned upon to not think like that.

So if you’re putting in 80hrs of work a week, making huge decisions with huge implications and following a high fatigue model of training to boot, then your stress level will be ridonckulous! 

The “immediateness” age we live in, with instant connection and access to information and people around the world, means we never really have time to rest and recuperate like the old days.

The body doesn’t really recognise what type of stress you’re under (mental or physical), but it does tale a lot of notice of the amount of stress you're under.

Once your stress cup fills up then something has to give and the more stress you keep adding without recuperation, the further away you move from homeostasis which is your “personal baseline.”

The brain perceives this high stress as a threat to the body and thus puts some interventions in to try and conserve energy, such as shutting off muscle groups and altering posture to make locomotion more energy efficient. 

It also activates your sympathetic nervous system which is the fight side of your fight or flight mechanism. 

The sympathetic nervous system gets activates in times of stress by increasing alertness, heart/breathing rate etc.

So if your resting heart rate is 50 beats per minute and your blood pressure is 120/70 at rest, then in times of stress you might be starting your day at 55 beats per minute and a blood pressure reading of 125/75, so your starting point is slightly higher which leaves you with less wiggle room when you do not recuperate.

This all leaves you working much harder then you should be for daily tasks using less than stellar posture and movement efficiency, which can result in pain, injury and the dreaded “threw my back out picking up a pencil” syndrome.

Stress pretty much is the root of all evil and it’s not that you shouldn’t induce stress, but once you do then you need recuperate from it before adding more stress into your cup.

The biggest issue with this is that stress negatively effects immunity and once you’re sick then everything listed above is amplified.

 Everything you do requires more energy to complete, pain spots re-emerge from nowhere, this induces more stress and again you’re pushed further away from your homeostasis point.

Coming Up: Part 3 - Central Nervous System

STRESS = PAIN = STRESS = PAIN AND IT NEVER ENDS...OR DOES IT?

Does this sound like you?

You get up in the dark.

You do work before duties/emails before you even leave the house.

Even though you’re up and already “working’ while it’s still dark, you still feel the need to get to work early to “get a jump on the day.”

Once at work you bounce from meetings to returning emails to conference calls to more emails to another late meeting while in between having a quick bite to eat “on the run.”

You leave work in the same way you got there (in the dark), fight your way through traffic or public transport and fall in the front door.

You organise a quick but sub-par dinner while again catching up on all the work you actually missed doing when you were at work!

Not long after midnight, and still thinking about work, you hit the sack but you’re brain won’t stop thinking about the presentation you gotta finish up tomorrow that you barely started.

After what seems like 5mins, you’re alarm goes off and it all starts again.

Every event that happens to you throughout the day induces some form of stress.

As you’ll soon read, stress can be positive or negative but make no mistake about it, it is there.

All the time.

Stress is incurred mentally (think going through a divorce) and physically (think high work load) but all the body knows is stress and how much of it there is, regardless of its form.

The implications of carrying too much stress is HUGE, as you’ll soon find out. And the trail of destruction it can leave can cause long term issues.

If you know of, or you are someone with a chronic illness or in chronic pain, then I want you to think back through your life and the amount of stress you’ve been under.

I haven’t ran the studies on this but chances are you could pin point certain times of your life that caused great stress and that stress can stay with you long after the event, or issues, has been resolved.

Long term this can decrease immunity and feed pain signals so your body stays under this high amount of stress and when it all compounds, you’ll eventually break down.

Over the next few weeks we’re going to cover the big issues at play here and their implications:
- Stress Culture
- Central Nervous System
- Diaphragmatic Breathing

We’ll also dive a little into some other aspects that can affect your quality of life as well some interventions you can implement to keep you stress free for longer.
- Be Activated
- Pain Science
- Heart Rate Variation
- Spoons Analogy

This will be a 10 - 12 part series which was I originally put together as a book but I feel everyone needs to be aware of this stuff so I'm giving it away!

Please feel free to comment if any of this resonates with you and please share around to your friends that could also be assisted by reading this.