Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Even though I’m sitting at my computer typing this right now, I’m going to pick on you about your computer habits.

You are on it too much.

You’re getting upper back and neck pain from it.

Your posture looks a bit hunchback–like in appearance.

Children are running away from you in the street.

OK, so the last one was a bit of a stretch but all that computering is not doing your upper body mechanics any good.

Unfortunately the world is run by computers, so to simply say stop all computer activity is bordering on the ridiculous.

What I will suggest though is to offset your computer time with some easy to implement training strategies.

If you’ve been to a gym in your life then you will all have performed a rowing exercise of some description. 

By training the upper back muscles you can offset the work of the muscles at the front (chest, shoulders) do while at work, driving etc.

The worse thing a computer head can do is to sit all day at their desk and then head to the gym and do 100 chest exercises.

You're simply feeding your already sub-par posture and making it worse and thus, harder, to get out of.

Weight training cements your posture which is great if you have great alignment because it trains the muscles to be strong enough to hold that new found optimal alignment.

Below is a video of a variety of rowing exercises to include in your training program. 

Be sure to use a lighter weight then you think you should use and hold the contraction point where the weight is right at your chest, for at least 1 second for each rep with 2 seconds being even better, with a very controlled tempo.

You can use bodyweight, cables, free weights or bands for these variations.

Cardio Warm Ups Suck!!

I’ll admit it.

Back in the mid 2000’s when I started in the personal training game, all my programs started with either of these:

5mins Treadmill

5mins Exercise Bike

5mins Cross Trainer

Sadly many people’s programs, and probably yours, still use this warm up protocol but why?

Does the treadmill warm up your bench pressing muscles? 

Does the bike warm up your bicep curling muscles? 

Not really, not even close.

A correctly programmed warm up will be specific, or near specific, to the session about to be completed.

In the studio we take the time at the start of a session to gradually increase body temperature, relax overactive muscles, activate inhibited muscles, improve joint mobility while moving from ground to standing based exercises and then we finish that off with a 2 – 3 minute burst of cardio to get a spike in heart rate.

This ensures that most, if not all, of the body has gone through some sort of range of motion before hitting any working sets.

Often we’ll also program the first exercise to be progressive in weight until a top set is reached, so the warm up is made even more specific to the focus lift of the day.

The warm up should also include any rehab or corrective exercise issues that need to be addressed, which will be highly individual.

That being said below is a video of some stability / mobility exercises that you can include in your warm up to make it more effective:

High Quality Fish Oil

 

I think we have all heard about the many benefits that fish oil can provide for us; but here is a reminder of the special properties of this simple supplement:

Fights Inflammation – when you have sore muscles then you’ll tend to skip or abbreviate your training which results in less output regardless of the goal.

Fish oil is a better option than aspirin or other over-the-counter inflammatories as it won’t cause any stomach issues and it helps the body fight the effects of physical and emotional stress.

A good dosage to start with is 5,000mg or 5 capsules of a high quality fish oil.

For fat loss, supplementing fish oil can have great effect at decreasing water weight which can lock itself in fatty tissue and is usually resistant to dietary measures.

The most important fatty acid in fish oil is DHA (very important brain component).  So it might be worthwhile looking out for a brand of fish oil with higher DHA levels even if it costs a little more.
As usual you get what you pay for.

What The AFL Grand Final Has in Common With Your Fitness

I love footy. I love footy finals. I especially love grand final day.

I'm a footy nut.

I'm almost 35 and still play senior grade footy with no retirement in sight.

To cap it all off my birthday is around the grand final every year with it actually falling on the grandest of days every 4 years or so!!

In my opinion, Aussie Rules Football is the most eclectic and demanding team sport on the earth. It covers just about any fitness quality you can think of and few more we don't even know exist yet!!

Each year 18 teams start planning for the coming season from September on-wards with some being even earlier if they don't make finals.

Training starts in November.

The pre-season (is this still on by the way?) starts in February.

The season proper starts in March.

The finals start and finish in September.

That's a full 10 months of doing everything they possibly can to reach the ultimate goal - to play in the grand final.

So what's your grand final?

Do you have one?

Maybe it's the spring carnival. Maybe it's the summer holiday.

Whatever it is have you left no stone un-turned in the lead up to your grand final to make sure you make the biggest impression you can?

Regardless of what your grand final is there's a saying I use quite a lot:

"Failing to Prepare Is Preparing to Fail"

If you've set your grand final then plan.

Plan your nutrition.

Plan your training.

Plan everything.

And plan it well in advanced with contingency plans for anything that may go wrong so that you cannot be derailed.

And go Dockers!!

What's Causing Your Lower Back Pain?

Any good personal trainer (and probably the bad one's) will know that the center of the body is where it all starts; and is the main reason why core training has been at the fore front of all things training for the last 10 years.

As important as having a strong core is -  it's role in being the magical cure for lower back pain has been somewhat overstated because it's only 1 part of the equation.

At FCF we pride ourselves on being able to determine causes of pain and dysfunction, not simply treat symptoms and pain spots.

Ask most people, personal trainer's and other treatment professional types and having a weak core is the biggest precursor for lower back pain.

The body works as a system with each joint being able to affect all the others in regards to joint integrity, alignment and level of function.


Below are 5 other reasons you have that nagging back pain:


1 - Your Hips are Out of Alignment


I love this picture! Everyone can see just what uneven hips can do to you from the head down to the foot. The main one specific to lower back pain is that your spine has to shift from it's anatomical position (i.e. a straight line).

This compromises stability because if it something is able to move freely then it isn't very stable.

Also have a look at what happens to the foot too which shows that shoe inserts are not much more then a band aid and probably just results in another shift of the pelvis to compensate again causing a other injury somewhere else

2 - You Move Too Much at the Lumbar Spine 

As mentioned above the lumbar spine is a joint that is built for stability meaning that for it to carryout it's correct duties (force transfer, resisting movement etc) then stability of the lumbar spine is paramount.

When stability is poor then movement occurs in activities such as squatting, lifting your knee up to your hips and rotation and will result in your lower back and hips tucking under you as you squat deeper or lift your knee higher.

3 - Poor Thoracic Spine Mobility

Your thoracic spine which runs from your mid back to your upper back is built for rotation where each segment can elicit 7 - 9 degrees of rotation. With 12 segments you can potentially rotate 108 degrees just from the thoracic spine alone and without movement from anywhere else.

Compare this to the lumbar spine where each segment can elicit a poultry 1 - 2 degrees of rotation per segment. With 5 segments you can only manage 10 degrees rotation at the lumbar spine.

This being said you actually need thoracic extension (lifting your arms above your head) before rotation so if you can't get your arms to 180 degrees without leaning back through your lower back, then work on this and then rotation later.

4 - Poor Ankle Mobility 

There is not many people alive who have ankles that are as mobile as they need to be. The implications of poor ankle mobility, especially in dorsi flexion (pushing your knee over your toes while keeping your heel on the ground), is poor knee and hip tracking, the development of mobility at the lumbar spine and even opposite side shoulder pain can become a problem.

The biggie when it comes to training is squatting. When you can't move your knees over your toes but you still want to keep your heels flat on the ground then to get more depth something else has to move. Yep you guessed it, the lower back and hips. If the brain doesn't let them move for a fear of injury (yes the brain can stop you doing stuff it perceives as a danger - future post idea!!) then your weight will shift forwards. 

Now regardless of where you have placed the load (on shoulders, in front of chest, down by sides), it has now been pushed forwards which puts more stress on your lower back because the load has been moved away further from the anchor (like hanging off the end of your clothesline when you were a kid and watching it bend).

                          

5 - Your Sleeping Position/s 

Let's keep this simple.

If you're a back sleeper then your lower back is probably being forced into extension (arching) so use a small lap cushion/pillow and place it under your hamstrings to flatten your lower back out a little.

If you're a side sleeper then to limit rotation of the lower back from your top knee resting your lower knee or the bed then use the cushion/pillow to place between the knees and/or between the bed and your top knee if the bottom leg is in a extended straight leg position.

This won't take your back pain away completely but it can alleviate stiffness upon waking and I do this each and every night. I even take my cushion with me when I go away!!

So there are 5 lower back savers, or helpers, that you can use today to alleviate some of that back pain.

Two easy steps to get you Running!

You can't run because you don't have the time.

You can't run because it hurts your knees from the impact.

You can't run because it hurts your back which is because you sit all day and your glutes haven't been in working order since Olivia Newton John told you to get physical.

The reality is, is that you CAN find time to run and you CAN avoid the pitfalls of running endless kilometres on unforgiving concrete.

How?

Hills.

Hills can cut your training time in half because the "cost" of hill running is a lot more then flat ground running meaning you don't need to do it for as long, much like sprinting vs jogging.

When running up an incline your front side mechanics (steps) are cut "short" so that there is far less impact then with full steps.

With shortened front side mechanics,  there is then a vast increase in backside mechanics (push off) which will hit those hard to reach area's like the glutes and hamstrings, taking a lot of the stress off the knees.

When starting out with hills follow these simple rules:

- the incline of the hill doesn't really matter, use what you have available

- the length of the hill also doesn't matter, again use what you have available and if it's too long only use part of the hill and work up to the full distance

- use the number of steps to gauge your volume starting at 100 each leg on your first session and increasing by 25 each successive session by adding sets or distance

I'm about to turn 35 this month and still play senior grade football and I'll be using a lot of hill sprints for my conditioning leading up to pre season training 2014.

So to recap:

Step 1 - Find a Hill

Step 2 - Run Up It

Breathe and Save Yourself the Headache

Test time.

With someone watching you, lie on your back and take a huge breath in through your nose and slowly release it out of your mouth.

Now ask the person watching if they saw your chest and shoulders rise up towards your ears. I bet you a dollar they say yes. 

This video of is of yours truly that demonstrates bad vs good breathing mechanics. What you are looking for is movement in your mid-drift only, you don't want to be shrugging your shoulders up and down.

Being a chest/shoulder breather is probably what is giving you all those headaches and all that neck pain from the muscles in the shoulder, chest and back complex constantly being active for every single breathe you take (about 20,000 a day).

You’ll also take very shallow breathes that barely reach your lungs resulting in poor oxygen delivery throughout the body.

Will massage help this? No way. Not unless you’re going to stop breathing!

Massage will only decrease the tension in those muscles but as soon as you breathe again then they'll tighten right back up.

By learning to use your diaphragm to breathe, only then can you decrease the activity of those muscles which will then give them a chance to actually chill out for a while helping to alleviate the nagging neck pain and headaches.

Improved oxygen circulation through the body can also help avoid the mid afternoon, dying for a nap sensation come 2pm when sitting at your desk at work. 

Do 10 big breathes twice a day, everyday, for the next month and notice the difference.