muscle balance Archives

Six Tips For Preventing Injuries and Staying Fit For Life

Len At Nearly Seventy

1. Periodize

Legitimate fitness programs are periodized. Periodization, quite simply, is change. Fitness programs must change to rotate stress. Continually stressing the same joints, muscles and physiology leads to injury. Make a plan that regularly changes your short-term goals, exercises, rest intervals, volume and intensity. Periodized exercise programs cannot be created haphazardly – too much change and you will lose sight of long-term goals.

2. Manage Your Posture and Muscular Balance

The foundation of musculoskeletal wellness is posture and muscular balance. A well aligned body with balanced strength will evenly distribute stress. This resilience is lost when the body shifts alignment to compensate for gravity. For example, when a load is held in front of the body the spine will curve toward the front. When a load is held to the right side of the body the spine will curve toward the right. A load to the left side of the body shifts the curve to the left. Finally, a load held behind the body results in the spine curving towards the rear. Spine movement is controlled by the coordinated action of muscles – some becoming tight while others relax. Unfortunately, shifts in alignment tend to persist causing a host of problems. Tight muscles become overused and injured. Uneven wear occurs on bony surfaces and joints become either too narrow or spread apart. A return to good alignment and muscular balance requires the introduction of corrective loads as well as a system of stretching tight muscles and activating relaxed muscles. Simple postural cuing (such as “keep your chest up with shoulders back”) will accomplish very little. Tarodo Gravity is the cutting-edge system for managing posture and muscular balance. Stay tuned to this website for seminars, videos and future articles.

3. Warm-up properly

The most effective warm-up rehearses target movements while activating weak muscles. For example, progressive squatting (multiple sets of squats which get incrementally heavier ) is the best way to prepare your body for high-intensity squatting. With each warm-up set, improve strain distribution by activating weak muscles (those that are specific to your posture). Warming up in this manner can turn a brutal squatting session into a workout that actually helps heal!

4. Eat Well

We all know eating well is essential for losing fat, gaining muscle and performing intensely. However, I believe many people fail to make the association between nutrition and injury prevention. A prudent diet should include quality whole-foods from both animal and vegetarian sources. Eat whole eggs, organic red meat, fish, dark greens and berries to ensure a vigorous quality of life! Specific foods and nutrients that have shown up in research regarding soreness and recovery include: tart cherry juice, caffeine, blue berries, curcumin and tomato. Cycle foods and nutrients into and out of your diet to discover which works best for you.

5. Find a Great Soft Tissue Practitioner

Not all soft tissue techniques are created equal and practitioner ability varies tremendously. Personally, I have found Active Release Techniques, as developed by Dr. Leahy, to be a great tool. Find a master of ART and stick with him/her. Combined with the concepts above, no soft tissue issue will be insurmountable!

6. Be Patient

Know when to delay striving for a goal in favour of rest and recovery. Value your longevity above all else. A planned short-term layoff is always better than an unplanned long-term layoff!

By taro

On The Path to The Most Effective Core Workout

No topic stirs more nit-picking than training the core. The trend of late is to cast as evil and purge from contemplation any exercise that causes the slightest degree of flexion or rotation of the spine. This intolerance is justified, say the pundits, in the name of spine safety. Yet, in sport and life, mega-spine flexion, extension and rotation occur frequently. Is there room for middle ground? A philosophical compromise? From my persepective, moments of spine motion and moments of spine stability should be alternated – the ratio depending upon individual circumstances. People need to pause for thought before reacting with derision and closed-mindedness. Lower back injuries are largely avoided with proper technique, astute program design and an understanding of spine health. With that said, here are seven MANDATORY elements required to have The Most Effective Core Workout:

1) A definition of “core”

The term “core” drives me nuts. It lacks precise meaning and suggests a muscular order of importance. What muscle or group of muscles deserves the title of core? The abs and obliques? What about the glutes and spinal erectors? Or the psoas? No muscle is universally more important than another. Functionally, peripheral muscles like the finger flexors and calf muscles can easily trump core muscles in many situations. For example, six-pack abs will be of no use to you on moving day if you drop your side of the couch (due to a weak grip). From a resiliency perspective, an injury to the periphery is just as disabling as an injury to the core. Why isn’t neck stability just as vaunted as “core stability”? Core is not a word which belongs in the vernacular of serious fitness folk!

2) DATA

How can you have your best core workout if you haven’t any idea what constitutes beating your previous best? Hard work alone never guarantees success. Fitness must be measured! Hard numbers guide us towards the path of success. Abdominal exercises and workouts are notoriously devoid of essential numbers. The Most Effective Core Workout must feature numbers indicating load, speed, distance and time!

3) Highly Effective Exercises

Most popular core workouts use runty exercises featuring meaningless movements and a lot of cheap “feel the burn” isometics. Effective exercises have common traits. These traits include:

The ability to generate incredible muscular tension at optimal muscle length
Ease of measurement (you can accurately monitor load, range of motion, moment arms etc.)
A lack of complex devices which corrupt muscle recruitment
A high degree of relevence to the goals of the athlete (ie kicking power, punching power, naked power)
Ease of learning. Tension on the target muscle is not lost due to instability and excessive skill.

Two examples of advanced, highly effective abdominal exercises:

Valslide Full Extension (Top Row) and Barbell Rollout (Bottom Row)

4) The Right Number of Sets and Reps

The most effective workouts match set and repetition schemes with the physiology of the musculature. The rectus abdominis, charged with moving major moment arms (the hips with extended legs or the torso with extended arms) is predominantly composed of muscle fibres capable of high force production. They respond best to low repetions, heavy loads and multiple sets. In general, advanced trainees seeking rapid abdominal devlopment should keep repetitions at six (or below) and sets per exercise at six (or above). Hit a muscle’s “adaptive niche”and your progress will soar beyond expectations.

5)Antagonist Management

No skeletal muscle in the human body will reach its potential if its opposing partner (in terms of location and function) is overly tight and hyperactive. Tight antagonists inhibit the activation of target muscles resulting in weakness and poor development. For example, if your spinal erectors are tight, they will shut off your abdominals and obliques (despite hard, isolated exercise). The short-term remedy is to stretch or release (using myofascial release techniques) the antagonists of target muscle just prior to your highest intensity sets. The long-term remedy is to improve muscular balance. Balanced strength distribution eliminates compensation (active muscles taking on the tasks of inactive muscles). Compensation is the primary cause of muscle tightness. Honestly, precise antagonist management is the most powerful tool currently available in the gym. Come to Tarodo seminars to fully harness its potential!

6) Emotional Management

Your greatest workouts will undoubtedly occur when you are riding the energy of unleashed fury. Proper “psyching-up”can easily boost performance fifty percent – far greater than any pre-workout supplement! Use visualization and music to turn repressed anger and aggression into increased repetitions. Proper venting of emotions will improve your workouts as well as the mood you present to your friends and family.

7) Anatomical Intelligence

Effective core workouts (regardless of definition), require a high degree of physical awareness. Learn to anteriorly and posteriorly tilt the pelvis as well as bend the spine in all three dimensions. High level exercise requires conscientious opening and closing of joints to maximally stretch and contract target muscle fibers. Anatomical intelligence ensures true muscular fatigue – eliminating reliance on the body’s elastic properties and momentum (two major reasons why so many people do so many repetitions with so little result).

Build your glute, abdominal, hip flexor or spinal extensor program on a foundation of knowledge, logic and open-mindedness. Define your goals. Stay objective. Use powerful and relevent exercises. Invest time in learning movement. Soon, you will find yourself On the Path to the Most Effective Core Workout!

By taro

Six Revelations About Neck Pain

A great scourge has descended upon the athletic and sedentary people of the land. Many people are being seen roaming the fields and streets with cockeyed posture. Closer inspection reveals the issue – the people cannot hold their heads high! At first, a widespread lack of self-esteem was blamed for this affliction. Now, after much fruitless introspection, it has become apparent the cause is physical. Men and women of all types are suffering from neck pain! The short-term solution economy is thriving on neck pain. Pain-killing pills, lotions and potions are selling at an all-time high. None address the root cause. Read the following revelations and take a (upright) step toward a neck pain solution.

1. Neck pain has a mechanical basis

The structure of the neck is formed by hard bone and elastic muscle. The alignment of bone and the state of muscle depends upon imposed physical demands. The neck will not change without mechanical stimuli! Drugs and other force-less therapies are not long-term solutions for neck pain. Stretching and other soft tissue mangement techniques combined with exercise are the best weapons available for battling neck pain.

2. Blame your balance!

The body alters bone alignment to keep its mass evenly distributed. If the head moves forward of the body’s centre of mass the thoracic spine moves back to compensate (causing characteristic rounding of the shoulders). Fat on the stomach also shifts weight ahead of the centre of mass. To balance itself, the body pushes the sacrum out towards the rear (causing the glutes to stick out or “duck butt”).

3. The curves tell the tale

Spinal curvature often dictates the health of bone and surrounding tissue. For example, the inside part of a curve (where the edges of the vertebrae are compressed together) can feature arthritis, pinched nerves and shortened (tight) muscles. The outside part of the curve (where the edges are spread apart) can feature inter-vertebral hernias, strained ligaments and lengthened muscles.

4. In general, you should be trying to reduce excessive spinal curvature

Keep in mind that the spine can bend front to back as well as sideways. When addressing pain, sideways curvature often takes priority! Curve management can be accomplished by strengthening lengthened muscle tissue and stretching shortened tissue. Also, balance your spine’s exposure to off-centre loads.

5. You can’t do the same thing on both sides of the body!

To straighten a bend the status quo must change! In simple terms, the inside of a bent spine must be stretched and the outside must be strengthened. Symmetical exercise won’t change anything! The most effective therapies treat the left and right side of the body differently.

6. Maintenance is required!

The body always gravitates toward the same tendencies. Lifetime pain management requires a lifetime committment to appropriate strength training and stretching. Luckily, this approach to pain management is painless, straightforward and devoid of the side effects of invasive therapies!

Neck pain can cause a lot of frustration and anxiety. Logical, anatomy-based solutions absolutely exist. If you want to learn more you must attend a tarodo seminar! The empowering effects of knowledge will have you holding your head high!