My inbox has been blowing up lately about a post coach Mike Boyle did entitled “Is Foam Rolling Bad For You?”

Mike Boyle

In it, coach Boyle referenced an article I wrote about 4 years ago about why I did not like the error erasing properties of the amazing foam roller.

“Don’t be fooled by internet writers looking to take a contrarian stance to get site hits. Focus on results.” –Coach Boyle

It seems I am the contrarian and not the results fitness guy now. I guess the following articles did not help my contrarian case.

Get Off the Corrective Exercise Bandwagon

Foam Rolling

Get Off the Treadmill

Static Stretching Still Sucks (The 4S Rule)

Intermittent Fasting for Fat Loss

Keep in mind that I have 567 entries on this blog alone, so by comparison the articles I have are not that many.  Hmmm, maybe I should have started  www.foamrollerssuck.com

Foam Rolling: The Early Years

However, I started out with quite the different view of each of those topics above.   When I ooked back at a program I wrote for a client in 2005, it started with foam rolling and treadmill work! Eeek.

Over time, while the foam roller seems to help in the session, it did not do anything long term to reduce his pain.  Each time he came back, I was having him roll his ITB.  He was yelping in pain and I would proclaim

“Ha! See, it is painful, so it must be good. That whole area is tight and needs to be rolled out.”

Hmmm, if that was so true, why was he still doing it with the EXACT same response 6 months later?

Broken To Better

It was around this time that I was so broken (by my own free will) that it took me almost an hour to lift anything in the gym!

I was foam rolling while thinking that all those other goons in the gym don’t know anything since they are not using this amazing piece of equipment and I know what is going on! Keep in mind this was around 2005 when I was much younger and knew everything.  Haha.

After foam rolling I would do some static stretching, dynamic mobility drills, joint mobility work and THEN start very light to progress on to my working sets over the next 20 minutes. Yep, almost 1.5 hours into a training session before I would do my first working set. Seems totally insane now, but at the time I thought this was the best it could get!

All of this to pull 345 lbs in competition and wake up with horrible pain so bad I could barely bend down to wash my face in the morning. It was a great tripod maneuver to spread my feet wide enough and slowly get my left hand on the counter so I could get my face about 3 feet from water. I don’t fault anyone for this, as I did it entirely to myself! I was foam rolling like white on rice, in the morning, in the evening and some times during the day. I even started to include dynamic and mobility drills then too.

My clients at the time (circa 2005) were getting stronger, but they still had nagging pains too.

The Breaking Point

All of it came to a head when I was at Z-Health certification in AZ that Fall. I remember taking a hot bath that night trying to get my back to relax, wondering what the hell I was doing to myself.

Was I really going to be the next Benni and deadlift over 1,000 pounds? Was Any Bolton laying in his warm bed in the UK all worried that I was going to come up from nowhere and steal his current world record in the deadlift at that time?

Benni Destroying Some Weight!

Andy Bolton’s World Record Deadlift in 2006

Hell no!

There was high school girls lifting more than I was I’m sure.

Why was I so bent on doing a certain number? Why did I not realize HOW I was doing it was the source of my issues?

Blame My Injuries

Sure, I could blame it on all sorts of past injuries from a completely ripped out right shoulder (broomball accident), grade 2 separated shoulder (AC joint), busted right ankle (snowboard accident), sprained wrists (windsurfing), pulled groin/hip flexors on both sides (deadlifts), misaligned thoracic spine (thoracotomy when I was 4.5 to repair a congenital atrial septal defect, ASD, in my heart), a misaligned right eye that causes my whole body to twist so I walk straight, blah blah blah.

The reality was that I was attempting to load a chassis that was screwed up. Dropping a V-8 into a pinto is not a good idea (er, in my case a V-6).

Laying there in hot water trying to fix my back so I could make it through 3 more days of the certification, I decided that I was going to destroy my ego before it destroyed me. In hindsight it was one of the best decisions I ever made. I called up my buddy Brad “No Relation” Nelson to get his help and vowed to do whatever it took. If that meant I did not even LOOK at a deadlift for 5 months, fine. If I could only use 135 pounds for months at a time, fine. At least 135 lbs was more than the 95 lbs I started at with deadlifts back in 1996, so that was improvement, right. I was sick and tired of being in pain.

Happy Ending?

Now I can deadlift without pain (although it is still not the best lift for me) and even on my worst day I can pull 345 lbs without any warm up (no, I don’t recommend you do that). My warm ups are about 5-10 minutes on my worst day.

My current goal for this year is to pull 600 lbs on my Dinnie Stone Trainers for a single deadlift and lift the Dinnies in Scotland 3 years from now. Most would say that is a screwed up lift since it is more of a heavy partial, done from a rotated spinal position, with an offset load (the load on the back hand below is about 75 lbs less), so the torque across your body gets pretty nuts. Stu McGill fans run in horror, but it does not bother me (then again I am not normal in any sense of the word).

Dinnie Stone Trainer Deadlift Recent PR

Foam Rollers?

My whole point with that part of the rant is that everyone’s person journey will change how they perceive events. If coach Boyle see success with his athletes (which he does, otherwise nobody would pay him and he would do something different), and he has them foam roll beforehand, his brain will associate foam rolling (to some degree) with success.

A Better Way?

Could there be even better success around the corner without foam rolling? I would say yes, but it would have to be tested.

Testing can be scary since you may not find what you WANT to find. It is hard to test all aspects of programming I know.

But what things are you willing to question?

Former Foam Roller Dealer

Perhaps I am a contrarian for fitness, but I did not start out that way. I used to even buy foam rollers for my clients to make sure they had one. I had them start on the treadmill, static stretch, eat their meals every 2-3 hours (going without protein for 5 hours was a huge sin), do their corrective exercise drills, but I was wise enough then to look at the results.

If the results did not match what I thought they could be, I would try something different and re-measure again. I would seek to understand why things should or should not work. If that did not match, I would really have to ask myself why I was still doing them?

After years of testing, I had them stop doing treadmill work, stop static stretching, get off the foam roller, do FEWER warm ups, employ intermittent fasting at times, and they got even BETTER results.

Of course they got results before. I would not stay in business if they did not get result, but they are now even better.

Contrarian or Results Fitness

Over time though, they got better and faster results by REMOVING things from the program instead of adding them.

“Maybe all the fitness people need to clean out their garage instead of adding more tools” –Adam Glass

I call it the “Adam Glass Corollary” the more certifications and information a trainer has, the worse then tend to perform over time.

At first, learning more dramatically helps. However, once you reach a base level, adding more knowledge by itself is not helpful. It starts to go the other way.

“More knowledge without action will lead to brain damage” –Frankie Faires

The reason is that you are starting to de couple knowledge + action. Too much knowledge and not enough action. Just like a fat kid on a sew saw, it is skewed too far one direction only.

Clean Out Your Fitness Garage

It is time to clean out your fitness garage.

Take each item, look at it, test it, keep ONLY what is useful.

Nothing is exempt.There is nothing scared. It is either making you (or your athletes/clients) better or worse. It is really that simple.

Are You Up To The Challenge?

Are you willing to do it? It is not easy. It is really really hard. Few do it.

I can guarantee that your results will be even better.

You owe it to yourself and your clients.

Summary (aka How To Still Love Your Foam Roller)

More knowledge is not the answer.

More action is better.

Applied knowledge is the key

Are you willing to question and test what you think you know?

This includes foam rollers. They are not exempt.

If you have tested them and can show they help performance, by all means keep doing it.

But if they do not help, are you willing to take them out?

In the end I would rather be known as the results guy instead of the contrarian fitness guy; but I will take whichever makes people better. I really like better.

I agree with coach Boyle when he says “Focus on results.” Since that is what matters and is why all of us are here.

Rock on

Mike T Nelson

PS—If you love results as much as I do, no matter how you exercise right now, you could have bigger, stronger muscles, go HERE : Video Training for More Muscle and Strength –FREE

Where You Hurt is Not What Hurts:  Pain, Performance, and Corrective Exercise

Pain is not this simple!

My buddy Brian is back with another article for you.

Brian’s article is below and here is my intro/thoughts on it.

I still get many questions on Z-Health and Brian decided to answer them in an article for all of you  below.

Nobody will ever agree 100% with someone else.   If I agree with someone on most things, I constantly ask myself if I am just agreeing with them to make them (or myself) happy or would I reach the same conclusions?

Truth be told, I currently I actually do very little “classical” Z-Health per say.  I do help people with movement issues during one off sessions (most only see me about 1-2 a month, if that for movement issues).   My main goal is to help them transform their body and do things that they never thought they could do again –  lift weights with their kids (and do better than them), play tennis, kiteboard (oh ya!!), ski/snowboard, run marathons, etc.  Many times this includes getting them to move better (and thus reduce pain).

I find having people test their movements (ala Grip and Rip) is normally enough to accomplish this.  If their shoulder hurts when they press, having them not press and do what tests the best will “fix” their shoulder normally in a few weeks to months.   Many times there are specific exercises that can be done to allow them to press in a much shorter  period of time too.

The common Z-Health approach is to start with small movements (joint mobility). I like to have people start with large (gross motor) movements and then only get as fine (individual joint mobility) as needed.

I do agree that most times where they have pain is NOT the source for chronic issues and surgery for these issues rarely is a long term fix.  The body has an amazing ability to heal itself and each person has the responsibility to take their health, movement and performance into their own hands (and get help if
needed).

Z-Health does a good job of targeting the nervous system and while that is very important, we must also look at tissue restrictions.  Adding load to exercises causes the body to change tissue (break it down and rebuild it).  Doing exercises with load that test well will address BOTH the  nervous system (contract the muscles in a specific pattern aka coordination) and the tissue (muscle, connective tissue, bone).  I feel that BOTH need to be address for optimal performance and better movement.  Performance and function are related.  As I have pointed out before, if everything you do makes you better, that it is all corrective!

See these posts for more info

Bench Pressing and Shoulder Pain Solutions Part 3

Corrective Exercise is Dead

Pain Makes You Stupid: Purposeful Joint mobility by Frankie Faires

No matter what I believe, the end RESULT is the MOST important thing.  Clients pay professionals like myself and Brian for results, period.  I value this over methodologies any day.  Results matter.

That is my take (since this is my blog, hehehe) and here is Brian’s take.

Where You Hurt Is NOT What Hurts

By Brian Copeland

The title may sound like a strange way of putting this issue of pain but it rings true none-the-less.??In this article we will learn why the site of pain is rarely the cause of pain and also why conventional methods for dealing with pain fall short and what to do instead.

Why The Site of Pain is Rarely the Cause of Pain

Countless people undergo dangerous surgery every year to fix a knee, hip, shoulder, etc. that has unexplainable pain. What most doctors won’t tell you is that surgery rarely ever gets rid of the pain and basically never fixes the cause of the pain.

Imagine you keep a thick fat wallet in your right back pocket and every time you sit down it forces your hip to rotate up on the right and down on the left which causes the joints in your lower back to jam together on the right side. For short periods this is no big deal but done for long enough this can cause some wear and tear on the joints in your lumbar spine.

Now you go to your doctor with pain, quite possibly in the lower back, if you see a general practice doctor (who are not trained to deal with musculo-skeletal pain by the way) you leave with a prescription for pain killers and muscle relaxers. Well you may feel better for a while since you are getting high all of the time but we haven’t really fixed the problem have we?

You go back to your doc and are referred to a specialist, perhaps an Orthopedic Surgeon. An X-ray is taken and they see some unnatural lateral curvature of your lumbar spine, or they take an MRI and see that the cartilage is getting worn on the right side.

OH NO! You better get surgery!

Well hold on a moment there sports fans… what I want you to ask your doctor is what caused the spine to curve or the cartilage to get worn on one side more than the other…

They will not have the answer, if they tell you they do they are lying or fooling themselves. But a smart doctor will ask you questions about your lifestyle and perhaps even notice the wallet in your back hip pocket and ask you how long you have been wearing it that way. A wise doc would then tell you to put that wallet in a different pocket, wait a couple of months and see if things get better.

But that is very rare to get this sort of advice. Typically surgery is scheduled (that’s what pays the mortgage after all) and now you are about to undergo a forever life-altering modification that you can’t take back… are you sure you are ready for this? Have you exhausted every other possibility?

Why Movement Dysfunction In One Area Causes Pain In Another Area

I offer another explanation for the low back pain… Something that you are doing in your daily life is causing it. It is incredibly rare for pain to exist for no reason, there are some neurological disorders but aside from that most pain is self-caused. Not self-caused in the sense of intentionally smashing your thumb with a hammer, although if you did that then you already know why your thumb hurts… but you have a wallet in your hip pocket, or you wear crappy shoes which change your walking pattern and place excessive stress on your knees or you eat crappy food and don’t exercise and wonder why you are stiff, weak and in pain… Not that hard to figure out really, treat your car like crap and it will run like crap, do you think your body is any different?

Even for those that treat their body pretty well the wallet in the back pocket syndrome will still come-a-calling sooner or later. Bad movement patterns will cause certain joints to get excessive wear and tear while other joints are on vacation.

You can now see how surgery will not fix low back pain that is caused by a simple wallet. If our surgery-bound individual with the wallet gets his surgery, does his rehab work and now goes back to his daily routine and the wallet goes right back in this right back pocket guess what? You are correct, he will once again be jamming some joints together as his right hip elevates from the wallet yet again. But maybe this time his lower 3 vertebrae are fused together so they don’t move… but the joints above or below do.

Now this person gets pain in their mid back or in their sacroiliac joints (below the spine around the belt level… I know many of you have pain here).

I heard Physical Therapist Gray Cook once give the example of two employees at work. Employee A is off taking excessive smoke brakes and being lazy while employee B is pulling double the work trying to get both of their work loads done. Who do you think will complain to the boss first, employee A or B?

That’s right, employee A won’t complain, they have the sweet life, employee B will complain. When you feel pain this is exactly how you should be thinking. Why does my knee hurt? Who isn’t doing their job? Foot joints? Hip joints? Time for you to be a good manager, because the last time I checked you were in charge of your own body, not the surgeon, not your doctor and sure as heck not me.

“He who treats the site of pain is lost.” – Professor Karel Lewit, M.D., DSc

How to Become a Good Manager of Your Body

So first off we need agreement that if you feel pain in your knee (back, shoulder, etc.) then that pain is the symptom and not the cause in itself. I will make an exception to this rule. If you look at your knee and see a knife stuck in it then I think we can safely assume that the knife is the source of the pain and you should probably have someone who specializes in knife removal take a look at it… perhaps 9-1-1?

We also need to agree that the body can and does heal itself. Bone and soft tissue remodel over time (Wolff’s Law and Davis’s Law), cartilage can regrow if you remove the bad movement pattern that keeps wearing it away in the first place.

Next you contact a professional who can teach you to be a better manager of your body, I recommend a certified Z-Health Performance Specialist as there are very few other movement-based rehabilitation systems out there and I’ve never seen one that works better than Z-Health… if there was something that worked better than Z-Health then I promise I would be doing that instead. Find a Trainer here.

Your Z-Health Specialist should take an in-depth history of your injuries, exercise habits, and perform some movement tests/screens on you. They will also also take note of bad movement patterns you have and teach you how to begin fixing them with some simple movement patterns that you can do on your own at home. You should see some instant changes in terms of strength, flexibility and a decrease in pain during your first session. While it is not uncommon for the pain to completely go away in a single session, I would rather set you up with the expectation that you should expect to feel a 20% decrease in pain and then as you perform the homework drills given to you that over the next several weeks the pain will continue to diminish gradually until it finally goes away.

Personally, prior to Z-Health I had low back issues where if I moved into certain positions I would be in intense pain and fall down on my knees instantly. I also had several tennis elbow at the same time. I had been getting treated with Chiropractic and massage for years, been doing “core strengthening” drills, stretching, foam rolling, trigger point release, ultrasound, electro-stim therapy, you name it… But in a single session with a Z-Health Specialist my low back pain was gone and my tennis elbow decreased by about 90%! Now understand, I had had back pain for around 8 years! Tennis elbow for about 2 years! I couldn’t believe it!!!! How could these slow controlled movements fix me when all of the intense hard-core stuff I had been doing for years only provide temporary, if that, relief? Needless to say, this got me interested in Z-Health and I enrolled in the Z-Health education program and began my training.

Whether you seek out a qualified Z-Health Specialist or not you should begin a daily regimen of quality movement as part of your overall fitness program. The best place to start is with the R-Phase DVD and manual which is the Level 1 consumer product for beginners to start with.

The R-Phase contains dynamic joint mobility movements for every joint in your body from your fingers to your toes and everything in-between. Doing these joint movements with precision can help to retrain bad movement patterns, remodel scar tissue, mobilize jammed joints (anti-wallet movements), restore pain-free range of motion and improve strength, balance and athleticism as well.

The movements on the R-Phase are subtle and precise; they contain the smoothness of Tai Chi, the body control of Yoga, the coordination of dance and the laser-like precision of Chiropractic. Done on a regular basis will change your life and how your body performs for the better.

Z-Health believes so strongly in their R-Phase product that they have a 100% satisfaction guarantee and they have never had to use it.

Conclusion

You are the manager of your body and you own your pain. If you feel pain then you need to do something different. You most likely will need to seek out someone educated in helping you learn to manage your body, Z-Health is the best I’ve ever found and believe you me, I have seen darn near everything under the sun before Z-Health got rid of my low back pain.  —Brian Copeland

Brian
Brian Copeland, Z-Health Level 4, RKC, PFS, is an Aurora, CO Exercise Therapy Specialist, strength & conditioning coach, kettlebell fitness instructor and combatives instructor. Brian works with law enforcement, military, regular Joes and Janes and even the blind.   Check out his website HERE!

Thanks again Brian for the article and allowing me to voice my opinion also.

Comments

What do you think?  Let me know on this one by placing a comment below.  Comments make me all warm and fuzzy.  Who do you think is right?  Which approach has worked better for you and your clients (if you are a trainer).  Post away!!

Rock on
Mike T Nelson

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Are Pain and Suffering Needed to Reach Your Fitness Goals?

The post yesterday got about half great reviews and about half  horrible reviews.  I got some really good hate mail for that one.  Here is a  tip, if you are not happy, please tell me how to fix it or atleast WHY.  Telling  me I am a jackass is not helpful.   I want to know WHY I am a jackass!

Interestingly enough I got some similar not-so-happy emails about 4 weeks ago  when I ran a post on a powerlifter lifting monster weights.

For some reason, a few people did not find the post motivational.   I got notes saying that I was encouraging people to hurt themselves by showing that.  Pleeeezzzee.

It should  be noted that 99.9% of you that read this blog has been nothing but exceptional  and I have learned a ton from all of your questions and interactions.  Seriously, I really do appreciate it more than you will ever know.

The post yesterday had references to “pain and suffering” and implied that it  was needed to reach you goals.

Is it?

This got me thinking.

For those who have read this blog, you know that I am not a fan of creating pain in the gym.    I am not a fan of hopping on the spiky foam roller or trying to  hump a baseball on the floor for “deep tissue work” before a lifting session.

If you want to create some pain before lifting, call me up and I will kick you  in the nuts really hard.  At least that is fun for ME!  Hahaa.

This never gets old to watch “The Nutty Buddy”

The Science Behind The Nutty Buddy

Now I am not exempt from this type of behaviour in the past and I have paid  large sums of money to trainers, guurs, coaches and massage therapists to create  pain FOR me.   I don’t fault them at all, I did if of my own free will with my  own hard earned money.

Do I recommend you do that? No.  Save your money for my upcoming serminar on  Metabolic Flexibility

instead (shameless I know, but hey, I pay the bills to keep the lights on around here).

This bring us ot the questions “Are their times in your life where pain and  suffering are neeeded?”

I think of them as side effects to certain goals.

Drugs

Let’s look at drugs for a second.

No, not those kinds of drugs you hippie!

Drugs, like pharmaceuticals.

In pharmacology, the term used is “therapeutic window.”

While I did a minor in Chemistry and took some high level pharmacokinetics  classes a few years ago again, I am not an expert; but here are the basics  (trust me, this will be short, so no drueling on your keyboard).

From Webster’s it states   (source therapeutic window)

1 : the range of dosage of a drug or of its concentration in a bodily system  that provides safe effective therapy <the narrow therapeutic window…the effect  may go from therapeutic to toxic with an increase of just 10 micrograms per  milliliter [in] blood concentration—Lisa Davis>

Many times this is also referred to as the Therapeutic Index.

“The therapeutic index (also known as therapeutic ratio), is a comparison of the  amount of a therapeutic agent that causes the therapeutic effect to the amount  that causes death.

Quantitatively, it is the ratio given by the lethal dose divided by the  therapeutic dose. A therapeutic index is the lethal dose of a drug for 50% of  the population (LD50) divided by the minimum effective dose for 50% of the  population (ED50).

A high therapeutic index is preferable to a low one: this corresponds to a  situation in which one would have to take a much higher dose of a drug to reach  the lethal threshold than the dose taken to elicit the therapeutic effect.”

Source Wikipedia : Therapeutic_index

For those that scrolled past all that chemistry crap, here is the recap

LD50 (lethal dose 50)  in addition to being the title of a CD by the band  Mudvyane is the lethal dose to kill 50%.   ED 50 (effective dose 50) is the effective dose for 50%

We want as much separation between these two as possible–a smaller ED and a  high LD.

Some drugs that have a very narrow window (or index) and are not very “user  friendly.”

TNT Time!

DNP (2,4-Dinitrophenol ) is one that comes to mind where some nutty bodybuilders  have used it to cut body fat in a short period of time.  It basically interrups  (uncouples) the cell’s ability to produce ATP (energy).

While is does not do this completely, it does it enough so that extra energy is  produced as heat, thus more calories are literally “burned off”.   Many years  ago it was used as a weight loss drug, but had some very bad side effects like cooking yoursel from the inside out.

While case studies are rare, there was one reported recently (Barlett et al, 2010)  that stated

“A 46-year-old man took a lethal dose of an agent called dinitrophenol (DNP). He  presented 11 h after ingestion with loin pain, diarrhoea and vomiting. He  rapidly deteriorated with profound hyperthermia, acute renal failure,  hyperkalaemia, metabolic acidosis and eventually haemodynamic instability.  Despite aggressive supportive measures and rapid sequence induction, he  deteriorated and died 21 h after ingestion.”

So, my point on this is that DNP has a very narrow therapeutic window.   A little bit may help you drop some pounds (although long term effects are unknown), just  a bit too much and you are dead.   Your arre more than playing with fire as  instead of getting burned you could end up dead.  Did I emphasize that point  enough yet?

Back To the Real World

Ok, so I think all decisions have a therepeutic window or a risk/reward to them.

I could lift this weight, but my low back is really hurting bad.

In my case last night, I could do some heavy band deaflifts, but the callous on my  left hand near my pink was not happy. I ended up not doing it past a few sets as  I felt like I was going to rip it open at any point.  The risk of ripping it off  was much higher than not doing the lift on that day.

Every decision have a risk/reward.

Lifting in pain has a high long term risk and in my opinion is not needed for  gains.

What About Life?

It has been said that only when you know the rules can you break the rules.

I try to follow the same rules in life that I do in the gym.   The goal is  performance, not how you “feel” afterwards.   I know Charles Staley has been  saying this for years.

“It’s better to use your performance as a gauge of what you’ve accomplished than  how much you hurt the next day. Numbers don’t lie; if your numbers are going up,  so is your progress. The reverse is not true however. I trashed my back a few  years ago doing something really stupid, and trust me, the fact that I couldn’t  tie my shoes for a while wasn’t a sign of progress!”

source Tmuscle: Pain Not Performance

I would agree.

Life can throw you curve ball though.

As you know, I’ve been in college going on about 16 years now.   No, that is not  a typo where I inadverntently slipped in a 1 in front of the 6.    I started in  1992 and did 7.5 years full time completing a BA, 2 years of post grad work and  a MS in Mechanical Engineering (Biomechanics), took about 1.5 years off where I  swore I was never going back and then was back in college again.    Even the  thought of it caused shivers up my spine and nauseau.

Fast forward to today where I am in the process of writing up 3 studies and a  literature review for my final defense to finish off my PhD.    Pretty much  every day I have thought of quitting.  Many days I did not want to look at  another research study or revision number 31 (not joking on that) of my study  that I am trying to submit, only to most likely get it rejected by the journal  since they like to publish high rejection rate to make themselves look good.

I had others that told me it would be a long road.  I figured that much.   I  planned on 5 years of full time work.  Wow, I never thought it would be this  long though.   Ugh.

The point of this is not a “poor me” story and “look at how much I struggle.” or  “hey, look at all this effort.”    I made the decision to do it.  Nobody put a  gun to my head and said “do a PhD crazy man or die.”    I made the decision and  therefor I also made the decision to accept any and all “side effects” that come  with it, just like the drug example above  You decide to take statins, you  accept both the benefit and the side effects.

All About Control

I can quit at any time.  That will make it all go away.  I have thought about it  many times.   I had times where I kept telling myself that I could “quit  tomorrow, but not today.”   I worked to find more efficient ways (read, less side effects) to get it done.   I soon learned that there are no shortcuts, not  even things that helped a bit.  Such is the windy path I have chosen.

The key turning point came when I was talking to a colleague and I asked him  “How did you make it out?”

His answer was, “I made the decision that I was going to finish it, no matter  how long it took, and that they were not going to break me in the process.”

I wanted to find a short cut or some better advice, but I soon realized this was  great advice and one that I adopted.   I took pride that in TIME, I would  graudate.   I had tried all other avenues and the only one left was to go  straight ahead and survive the process.

If that meant I had to scrap 11 months of work and start over, if that was the  only option, then so be it.   If I have to rewrite a paper 41 times and that is  the only way, then I will do it.

I can quit at any time, but I must accept the side effects too.  If I have to  accept them, I will do what I can to minimize their effects.   So if you are  taking statins, talk to your doc about taking ubiquinol which is the reduced and active form of Coenzyme Q10 (statins mess up this pathway and deplete your body  of it) to minmize the side effects or work to get of them entirely (Mabuchi H,et al.).

What have I become?
Thoughts like shadows swelling through my mind
What have I become?
Something else inside

-Demon Hunter

As I Lay Dying “Through Struggle” Video

only through struggle have i found rest
with a piece of me taken away
i begin to understand
hollow out this machine like chest
with its gears that turn to make me feel
and assembled thoughts that fade away

only through struggle have i found rest

-As I Lay Dying

Summary

Some times pain and suffer are the side effects we must endure to achieve our  goals.

If we want a certain goal, we must be prepared to endure everythign that comes  along with it.   We can stil work to reduce these side effects to as low as  possible however.

Comments

What do you think?  What times in your life have you accepted the risks/side  effects?   Let me know in the comments

Rock on

Mike T Nelson

REFERENCES

Tainter ML, Stockton AB, Cutting WC (1933). “Use of dinitrophenol in obesity and  related conditions: a progress report”. J Am Med Assoc 101: 1472–1475.

Bartlett J, Brunner M, Gough K (February 2010). “Deliberate poisoning with  dinitrophenol (DNP): an unlicensed weight loss pill”. Emerg Med J 27 (2): 159–60

Mabuchi H, Higashikata T, Kawashiri M, Katsuda S, Mizuno M, Nohara A, Inazu A,  Koizumi J, Kobayashi J. “Reduction of serum ubiquinol-10 and ubiquinone-10  levels by atorvastatin in hypercholesterolemic patients”. J Atheroscler Thromb.  2005;12(2):111-9.

Charles Staley,  Pain and Performance, Tmuscle, PUBLISHED 05-24-07 10:09  Accessed July 19,2010 source  Pain and Performance

New Exercises For Better Performance and Less Pain for Office Workers

Time to find out what your best exercises are for all the crazy office workers.

I unfortunately have been spending too much time lately behind the keyboard with blog writings, guest posts, an academic book chapter on “Protein Metabolism: Athlete Cases Studies”, dissertation writing on Monster Energy Drink, etc, so I know what you are going through.

• Do you have pain in your elbows, wrists, fingers?
• Are you afraid of carpal tunnel syndrome, low back pain and shoulder pain too?
• Do you spend lots of time at a desk or in front of a computer?

I find that the wrists do not want to go into extension very well (think of making a stop sign with your hand) from it adapting to being on a keyboard or draped over a mouse all day.

Is your hands starting to look like a computer mouse?

The thumbs of office workers tend to be weaker and they suffer from “dumb thumb.”   Getting the thumb strong and back up to par will pay off for lifting in the gym too as the thumb is the opposite of the 5 fingers in many grip positions.    For more on all things grip, see the Grip Series with Adam T Glass HERE

Is your thumb dumb?

Here are some suggestions to try.

This is not going to solve everyone’s issue, but I have found these 2 exercises to be quite effective. Test them and find out for yourself.

1) Plate Press from a split stance

How To Perform

• Hold a plate like a pizza or large tray and press it up
• It works to reverse the standard position your hands are in all day, especially you mouse hand
• Shout out to Adam Glass for this suggestion

Variations To Test

• Left side vs right side
• Split (lunge) stance. Play with right leg or left leg in front
• Torso Rotation: From a standard stance or split stance, rotate left or right

2) Plate Pinch

How To Perform

• Grab 2 plates and pinch them together
• A good starting point for most is two 10 lb plates or even two 5 lb plates
• Put the numbers and letters facing in, so the smooth sides are facing out
• Pinch them together and raise them up past your knees

Variations To Test

• Left hand vs right hand
• Different stances: deadlift position, split stance position

Movement and Mood

I am a happy dog!

How do you know when fido is sick?

Does fido talk to you or bark at you in morse code?
No, fido moves poorly; so you infer that fido feels bad.

How do you feel when you are sick and/or injuried and move worse?   Bad

So we know that movement and mood are related.

Move better and you will feel better.

Work on movement quality with tested movements (as shown in the video above and the Grip n Rip DVDs)

Summary

Two simple to try exercises that you can do with common gym equipment.

It is now your turn to try them out!

Comments

Try them out and let me know how they worked out for you.  Leave me some comment love on your thoughts on this one!

Rock on
Mike T Nelson

PS
The copies of the Grip n Rip DVD are going fast and only a few copies are left as of this posting. Check out the link below for 7 bonus items too, but act fast as I expect them to be gone by some time tomorrow (Saturday July 17) in the morning, if even that long!  Go to this link now

Move, Feel and Perform Better Today: Grip and Rip DVD Special Limited Time Offer

4 Stupid Fitness Things that Need To End

I have dream that the fitness world is under a revolution.   Time to stop living by all the rules of how to train based on their rules.

I WANNA LIVE IN A FEARLESS STATE
I WANNA LIVE WITHOUT THE HATE
I WANNA BE ABLE TO DECIDE MY FATE
I WANNA BREAK OUT OF THIS CAGE

LET’S TAKE IT BACK
WELCOME TO THE FUTURE

–Welcome to the Future by Left Spine Down

4 Stupid Fitness Things that Need To End

1) Seeking More Sensation During Training.

Trying to actively feel everything is a recipe for chronic pain.  I stole this idea from Frankie.   You don’t need to actively seek it.  If you screw up bad enough for your body, pain WILL find you.  Trust me on this.  I’ve done the experiments in my own lab.  If you don’t trust me, let me know if you find it not to be true.  I suggest you not test this one out.

Think of pain as an indicator light and your last line of defense.  If I don’t put oil in my car ever, and my Ford pinto burns oil like at the rate of sweat running off a fat man chasing a runaway M&M, I wil have damage.

You don’t listen to pain in your body, you too will have some damage.

When the oil light comes on, I better stop the car before I destroy it (unless someone hits me from behind and I blow up anyway)

No, I am still not convinced your body will lie to you.  If you can’t trust your own body, you are going to trust your body to someone else who does not trust their body either to tell you what is going on?  I am all for guidance and seeking help, but their goal is to help you interpret what is going on based on your feedback.

Ford Pinto: Source

2) Don’t Learn a New Exercise Until You Can Do It Correctly

Oh boy, don’t start those dangerous deadlifts since you may just suck at them since you have never done them.
Newsflash, of course you are going to suck, you have never done them!  With the exception of a few crazy athletes, you will NOT be very good at them on the first rep.

“The first rep is the worst rep!” -Frankie Faires

Did anyone not learn to play golf because they were afraid they were going to suck at it?   Or did you want to learn to play golf, took lessons, stuck with it and became pretty good (or at least better).

The first time I learned to kiteboard, I got my a$$ handed to me over and over and over, even during a lesson!  My buddy Rob had bruised his ribs earlier in the week and had to keep chasing the kite down as I floored it right into the ground.  After about 20 minutes of this I hear “You suck!”   The truth was I did suck, but over time, I got better.  I also got a free trip across the soccer fiedl on my butt, complete with sexy grass stains as the kite powered up.

If you want to learn to kiteboard, take a lesson, but don’t NOT try it.

Did I never start because I was afraid I would suck?  Nope.

Why would you not learn to do an exercise for fear you wil suck?  Stupid idea that has got to go the way of the DooDoo bird.

DooDoo bird: Source

For the new readers, I am NOT saying load a bar up to 400 lbs and go ape $hit crazy with it and send your spine across my gym.   I hate to clean up that kind of mess.

Test it, maybe you only do rack pulls. Maybe you can’t deadlift the standard way so you use a trap bar or even sumo style.  Work around it, test it (ala Grip n Rip) and get better.

My buddy Brad Nelson has the perfect line with new clients

Brad to client “Are you a perfectionist”
Client   “Yes”
Brad “Then today is not your day”

Love it.
Start today!

3) Perfect Nutrition 100% of the Time

How demotivating is that.  Sorry, you suck and you will have to eat chicken and broccoli the rest of your life, so start looking forward to that and please pay me more money so I can tell you how wonderful it is too.

I will then spend more time to tell you that broccoli has over 300 different phytonutritents and is really not the vile weed you think it is

Broccoli-A Vile Weed or Nutrient Powerhouse? Source

That is BS on a stick and you know it.

The goal of a long term program should be to eat as many “bad foods” as you can get away with WHILE keeping your body composition and health goals.

This gives the client some friggin hope.  Yes, it is going to suck for awhile as your metabolism changes, but we are working towards you enjoying food long term and not making anything off limits forever.

If 4 brownies on a Saturday afternoon destroys you for the rest of the week, there are some issues to fix.

Caveat.  I am not saying that you should mainline high fructose corn syrup, eat boxes of Twinkies for lunch and order more large slurpees with no ice from the 7-11 across the street that you rode your scooter to.

If your body composition and metabolism is a wreck, you have some work to do, but the body is amazingly adaptable and a vast majority of the time we can alters its ability to convert food into fuel with few “ill consequences”  Hint, you NEED to exercise.  This BS that exercise does not help obesity has got to stop also.    Studies has shown that with exercise we can change your metabolic flexibity in a rather short period of time (1), even those who are diabetic or borderline diabetic.

4) Isolated Exericse Cues

Why would I cue your lat muscle during a pressing movement?  Last time I checked, the lat pulls the humerous (upper arm) DOWN, which is the opposite of my goal to press the darn heavy weight up!  How about I cue you based on the movement I want you to do? Hmm, I see an experiment here.

Latissimus Dorsi Muscle: Source

Why can we cue isolated movement, but argue that compound movements are better?

This makes no sense.  Some rip on bodybuilders for doing “isolation work” (can we really isolate anything in the body?) and say compound movements are best; but in the same breath state that you need to work more on your VMO in your quads to stabilze your knee.

Or as above, you need to contract and pull your lat down while pressing.

How can you cue an isolated movement when you just stated isolation was bad?

How about we give ONE cue (yes ONE cue) at a time (no vomitting cues on them) on what movement we want the athlete to accomplish first.  Let’s start there and see how that goes.  Give their own brain a chance to fix it.  Their own brain is darn smart at running their own body (it has lots of reps).

How would you know the lat was the problem or maybe it was the lower trap since I just read an article that said the lower traps are really lazy bastards and don’t like to work.  Or maybe it is rhomboids, etc etc.  Or maybe we need more YTWLs and more corrective work.

If you are teaching better gross (large scale) movement, let’s start there by cueing gross movement.  Only get finer when needed.

Comments
What do you think on these?  Have I lost it completely?  Let me know either way!

Rock on
Mike T Nelson

Refernces
1) Diabetes. 2010 Mar;59(3):572-9. Epub 2009 Dec 22.
Restoration of muscle mitochondrial function and metabolic flexibility in type 2 diabetes by exercise training is paralleled by increased myocellular fat storage and improved insulin sensitivity.

Meex RC, Schrauwen-Hinderling VB, Moonen-Kornips E, Schaart G, Mensink M, Phielix E, van de Weijer T, Sels JP, Schrauwen P, Hesselink MK.

Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Mitochondrial dysfunction and fat accumulation in skeletal muscle (increased intramyocellular lipid [IMCL]) have been linked to development of type 2 diabetes. We examined whether exercise training could restore mitochondrial function and insulin sensitivity in patients with type 2 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: Eighteen male type 2 diabetic and 20 healthy male control subjects of comparable body weight, BMI, age, and VO2max participated in a 12-week combined progressive training program (three times per week and 45 min per session). In vivo mitochondrial function (assessed via magnetic resonance spectroscopy), insulin sensitivity (clamp), metabolic flexibility (indirect calorimetry), and IMCL content (histochemically) were measured before and after training. RESULTS: Mitochondrial function was lower in type 2 diabetic compared with control subjects (P = 0.03), improved by training in control subjects (28% increase; P = 0.02), and
restored to control values in type 2 diabetic subjects (48% increase; P < 0.01). Insulin sensitivity tended to improve in control subjects (delta Rd 8% increase; P = 0.08) and improved significantly in type 2 diabetic subjects (delta Rd 63% increase; P < 0.01). Suppression of insulin-stimulated endogenous glucose production improved in both groups (-64%; P < 0.01 in control subjects and -52% in diabetic subjects; P < 0.01). After training, metabolic flexibility in type 2 diabetic subjects was restored (delta respiratory exchange ratio 63% increase; P = 0.01) but was unchanged in control subjects (delta respiratory exchange ratio 7% increase; P = 0.22). Starting with comparable pretraining IMCL levels, training tended to increase IMCL content in type 2 diabetic subjects (27% increase; P = 0.10), especially in type 2 muscle fibers. CONCLUSIONS: Exercise training restored in vivo mitochondrial function in type 2 diabetic subjects. Insulin-mediated glucose
disposal and metabolic flexibility improved in type 2 diabetic subjects in the face of near-significantly increased IMCL content. This indicates that increased capacity to store IMCL and restoration of improved mitochondrial function contribute to improved muscle insulin sensitivity.

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