Thursday, November 5, 2009
Vibrams FiveFingers Update: Airports and Running up that Hill - in winter?
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Well, after months of successful walkthroughs through security at international airports in VFF's with no footwear removal requests, i finally hit an airport - Phoenix Arizona - where the staff said "those are classified as shoes; take them off" Is there no end to the in(s)anity? Is it ridiculous to see thin-soled foot wear as possible explosive material? is there a rationale for this? or have these folks jumped the shark? So just to note, at least one airport is catching wise to VFF's. Drat. What's your experience been? On the plus side more positive running experiences:
Of late i've been trying to gate my runs to be able to maintain breathing in through my nose throughout. I dunno, but they sure feel less stressful, easier, when this becomes the limiter for
just transport runs (getting from a to b). Anyone else tried this? The pattern seems to go so well with the forefoot touch of VFF running
And what about hills and running up them? The VFF barefoot run pattern also seems to make hills less obdurate, smoother. I know that VFF is just enabling this style; it's not because of the shoes. I know i know. But. Without these i'd nay have discovered these changes.
As to those changes no doubt most of you have seen this comparison video on an evil treadmill, but in case not, here goes again.
Winter Wet and VFF Strategy?
I have a question as well: what are VFF faithful going to do for footwear when winter hits? Whether that's winter in Seattle/UK where the rain it raineth every day (and of personal interest), or in the Great White North where it's just dam cold (at least there are rubber footed snowshoe boots that can be brought to bear on city streets - effectively cheap moccasins with some tread). But what are you all doing? Post a comment and please let me know.
thanks
mc
ps
Thanks to birthdayshoes.com Justin for the early alert about women's KSO Trek's making it to The Rest of Us in early 2010. If any gals have experience fitting the boys Treks, please share.
Related Posts
Well, after months of successful walkthroughs through security at international airports in VFF's with no footwear removal requests, i finally hit an airport - Phoenix Arizona - where the staff said "those are classified as shoes; take them off" Is there no end to the in(s)anity? Is it ridiculous to see thin-soled foot wear as possible explosive material? is there a rationale for this? or have these folks jumped the shark? So just to note, at least one airport is catching wise to VFF's. Drat. What's your experience been? On the plus side more positive running experiences:Of late i've been trying to gate my runs to be able to maintain breathing in through my nose throughout. I dunno, but they sure feel less stressful, easier, when this becomes the limiter for
just transport runs (getting from a to b). Anyone else tried this? The pattern seems to go so well with the forefoot touch of VFF runningAnd what about hills and running up them? The VFF barefoot run pattern also seems to make hills less obdurate, smoother. I know that VFF is just enabling this style; it's not because of the shoes. I know i know. But. Without these i'd nay have discovered these changes.
As to those changes no doubt most of you have seen this comparison video on an evil treadmill, but in case not, here goes again.
Winter Wet and VFF Strategy?
I have a question as well: what are VFF faithful going to do for footwear when winter hits? Whether that's winter in Seattle/UK where the rain it raineth every day (and of personal interest), or in the Great White North where it's just dam cold (at least there are rubber footed snowshoe boots that can be brought to bear on city streets - effectively cheap moccasins with some tread). But what are you all doing? Post a comment and please let me know.
thanks
mc
ps
Thanks to birthdayshoes.com Justin for the early alert about women's KSO Trek's making it to The Rest of Us in early 2010. If any gals have experience fitting the boys Treks, please share.
Related Posts
- the entire B2D VFF article index
- and of course birthdayshoes.com
PDF
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Why Not "Train Through Pain"?
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Lately i've had the opportunity to listen to a lot of athletes talk about various injuries, ongoing problems, and how many of them have tried to "train through the pain." Probably we've all done it (do it). The way our nervous systems are wired, however, that's a sub-optimal response to pain that can often lead to more problems. This post is meant to be a quick look at some strategies on how to respond to a pain cue to get back in the game.
Who needs to "work through the pain"?
In a life and death situation, a person may need to work through the pain. The price of staying alive might be worth the potential long term cost of whatever damage is sustained.
A workout in a gym is not the same (is it?) Getting in a few extra reps so as not to spoil a set and "working through the pain" may have untold consequences for no benefit. Seriously.
Apparently we just don't know what the consequences of even a seemingly trivial injury can be for cascading through our systems and causing other issues. Knowing that there may be significant consequences when we break ourselves, we may need to ask ourselves: when there's pain, why not just stop and figure it out? why put our bodies at risk just to finish a set? who cares really, ultimately, if we get in 10 reps rather than 8? or 2?
I think a lot of this just-work-through-it comes from most of us not knowing what pain really is or not having tools specifically to respond to it appropriately. So i'd like to offer a little bit about what pain is, and some simple but effective pain response strategies.
Background A lot of the work i'm summarizing stems from pain research. Books like David Butler's Explain Pain, and the Blakeslee's the Body has a Mind of It's Own are super general references in this space. I was introduced to the following models/work on pain by Eric Cobb at the first Z-Health certification. When we focus on the nervous system, as Z-Heath does, and get that Pain is an action signal from the brain manifesting through the nervous sytem, we have a whole lot more tools to deal with pain as events.
Pain is in the brain, first and foremost, and it means Threat is caused by what we're doing. So CHANGE.
Pain is not what happens at the site of pain - like the ache in the wrist or the sharp pain in the back coming up from a poor lift. It's a kind of summation of a lot of information. We've all had experiences where a paper cut means nothing we ignore it and get on with our day, and other days where the same paper cut really HURTS and demands attention. This is because pain is not about the thing itself (the injury); it's about the whole system context of how our entire system is doing at that moment, including perceived threat. Yup, we can feel pain in response to the anticipation of something occurring.
Pain is not isolated; Pain takes place in the brain. It is an action signal; it's an event that is telling the body that something, somewhere is wrong (ie under threat) and to deal with it. We ignore it at our peril, and working through the pain like an ache in a rep is actually being stupid in a non life threatening situation.
Here's part of why.
In a tissue injury, nociceptors (things that detect noxious stimulus in the body, and that live particularly around joints and in muscle) get fired up and a whole chemical soup gets going around the site of trauma to deal with it. Incredibly, that response in and of itself can be pretty varied and doesn't mean there's PAIN yet. Based on whatever else is going on in the body, signals go up to the brain, and based on that context, the brain decides whether to signal or even surpress a pain event.
If the brain says this is pain, however, it means, for whatever reason, we need to attend to it.
Pain is a Threat Response - real or perceived. The nervous system is always on; it only checks a single binary condition: threat or no threat. The response to threat to the body is to respond to the area where there is threat. Often that's a kind of shut down sequence.
Consider what happens dramatically if we have an inflamed finger. The range of motion is restricted, right? Or sore quads from DOMS - range of motion and also power can often be restricted. We are being held back from injuring ourselves further in the current circumstances.
Pain becomes a clear action signal not necessarily to stop what we're doing but to change what we're doing (which sometimes does mean "stop" - temporarily)
If we decide to go ahead with that lift anyway, when the body is pulling muscular firing power away from the site and sending up pain events to say this is not a happy thing, then we're stressing our bodies out further which cranks up stressor chemicals, cortisol can get going and well, we're well far away from an ideal environment for performance, right?
It's a feedback loop for more shutdown, more pain: by working against ourselves we start setting up the body to act more to defend itself, while we're taxing it further and potentially injuring ourselves more.
I've spoken with experts about what's going on with people who say they trained through the pain and after awhile it went away. The consensus seems to be that in those cases (a) the person is actually most likely developing new movement patterns away from the site of pain (b) doing so sub-optimally at a potential cost to overly sensitizing those sites to future pain/trauma events. Similar people who "work through" pain will often also talk about the same kind of pain showing up months/years later as a now more persistent ache, or have other physical issues.
The costs of risking "breaking" ourselves in some way by working through pain are potentially complex. We really have no idea what might be the one seemingly trivial thing that can set up a cascade of events in our nervous system that will have repercussions. So even though we're very robust, and will adapt to almost anything, to ensure the robustness of the system it's really easy just to learn some strategies to respond to a pain/threat event.
Here's an analogy with stress. Stress or anxiety like we might feel before having to get up in front of a group of people and give a talk is an example of a threat response. Chemicals start to get released from the brain to get us ready for fight or flight. Often people who are stressed are encouraged to go for a walk or move and they report feeling better: we effectively start to use those chemicals for the purpose they've been stirred up - to move. The same chemicals (catecholamines) pretty much get fired up every time we work out and get our heart rate up. So they're not bad, they're just physical, and there is a physical response available. If we become aware of "getting stressed" - note the breathing responses etc and respond, we can quickly get back to normal performance.
Pain is a similar kind of response to threat - perceived or actual - and is an action signal. Again, often (not 100% of the time, but often) movement can likewise help both diagnosis that there's an issue and check if there's a good response to the action signal.
The right mobility can be an optimal response to the pain action signal
So, with all the athletes i work with, i recommend that at a minimum they consider making mobility practice a regular part of their daily routine. If you're interested in more of the details of why, here's an article. Likewise, if you haven't and especially if you're concerned about your performance goals, consider getting your movement in general and your specific ahtletic form checked by a movement specialist to make sure you're repping in good patterns.
Scenario of Pain Event Listening
SO let's say you're doing something that fires up a pain signal in the elbow or forearm.
You check your shoulder range of motion.
You can only get your arm up to the start of your ear - usually you're behind it. Something's wrong.
You do some opposing joint drills and recheck - your arm mobility is back to normal. awesome.
You recheck your form for whatever was hurting, remember your form: tall spine, good breathing, focus on open form, pain is gone, life is good again.
Yes it can happen that fast. The nervous system mechanoreceptors fire at 300mph. And with the SAID principle, we respond exactly and immediately to what we're doing.
Now there may be instances where the ROM does not come back; where the pain is acute when doing ANY ROM of the given move. That may be time to bag it. Rule no. 1: never move through pain because of all the above: upping threat, further shut down, more threat response chemical events etc. Related strategies are, when and as possible: reduce the range of motion of a movement that causes pain so you work outside the pain zone; reduce the load that brings on pain in any ROM.
An intriguing benefit of regular mobility practice is that, by practicing regular and better movement, better information is getting to the nervous system about where we are and what our options are, so there is a decreased incidence of injury and in no small part increased performance as well. Why? Mobility work helps us achieve the Perfect Rep - or at least efficient movement (discussed mid article here), which is the least likely to result in problems, because it also enables the best ROM from which to respond to the unexpected.
An example of mobility and connecting up nervous system communication we've talked about at b2d before is with the arthrokinetic reflex - a powerful example of what happens (1) with a threat response in the nervous system - when it senses even the slightest impingement - and how to fix that with self-mobilization and (2) how performance improves when connecting the neuro-reflexes in the body: here connecting eye movement with hip movement.
So why shouldn't we train though Pain, in brief?
We really don't know the extent to which a pain event can screw ourselves up for right now, or for some event in the future. Like a stress fracture in metal, it may be fine for some time, but it becomes a progressive site of deterioration until suddenly there's a potentially catastrophic break. By not stopping to deal with the pain, we set up a cascade effect of progressive responses in the body to get us to attend to the ever amping up signal. These further events have further costs on our performance. A way the body may deal with unattended pain is to bring on a compensation that will lead to other/new pains. Likewise, ignoring pain can also set up various sensitizations to pain that can trip the pain from a single acute incident to something that gets would up into our nervous system and goes chronic, also potentially harder to address. All in all, it's not nice.
Bottom line?
Who needs to "work through the pain"?
In a life and death situation, a person may need to work through the pain. The price of staying alive might be worth the potential long term cost of whatever damage is sustained.
A workout in a gym is not the same (is it?) Getting in a few extra reps so as not to spoil a set and "working through the pain" may have untold consequences for no benefit. Seriously.Apparently we just don't know what the consequences of even a seemingly trivial injury can be for cascading through our systems and causing other issues. Knowing that there may be significant consequences when we break ourselves, we may need to ask ourselves: when there's pain, why not just stop and figure it out? why put our bodies at risk just to finish a set? who cares really, ultimately, if we get in 10 reps rather than 8? or 2?
I think a lot of this just-work-through-it comes from most of us not knowing what pain really is or not having tools specifically to respond to it appropriately. So i'd like to offer a little bit about what pain is, and some simple but effective pain response strategies.
Background A lot of the work i'm summarizing stems from pain research. Books like David Butler's Explain Pain, and the Blakeslee's the Body has a Mind of It's Own are super general references in this space. I was introduced to the following models/work on pain by Eric Cobb at the first Z-Health certification. When we focus on the nervous system, as Z-Heath does, and get that Pain is an action signal from the brain manifesting through the nervous sytem, we have a whole lot more tools to deal with pain as events.
Pain is in the brain, first and foremost, and it means Threat is caused by what we're doing. So CHANGE.
Pain is not what happens at the site of pain - like the ache in the wrist or the sharp pain in the back coming up from a poor lift. It's a kind of summation of a lot of information. We've all had experiences where a paper cut means nothing we ignore it and get on with our day, and other days where the same paper cut really HURTS and demands attention. This is because pain is not about the thing itself (the injury); it's about the whole system context of how our entire system is doing at that moment, including perceived threat. Yup, we can feel pain in response to the anticipation of something occurring.
Pain is not isolated; Pain takes place in the brain. It is an action signal; it's an event that is telling the body that something, somewhere is wrong (ie under threat) and to deal with it. We ignore it at our peril, and working through the pain like an ache in a rep is actually being stupid in a non life threatening situation.
Here's part of why.
In a tissue injury, nociceptors (things that detect noxious stimulus in the body, and that live particularly around joints and in muscle) get fired up and a whole chemical soup gets going around the site of trauma to deal with it. Incredibly, that response in and of itself can be pretty varied and doesn't mean there's PAIN yet. Based on whatever else is going on in the body, signals go up to the brain, and based on that context, the brain decides whether to signal or even surpress a pain event.If the brain says this is pain, however, it means, for whatever reason, we need to attend to it.
Pain is a Threat Response - real or perceived. The nervous system is always on; it only checks a single binary condition: threat or no threat. The response to threat to the body is to respond to the area where there is threat. Often that's a kind of shut down sequence.
Consider what happens dramatically if we have an inflamed finger. The range of motion is restricted, right? Or sore quads from DOMS - range of motion and also power can often be restricted. We are being held back from injuring ourselves further in the current circumstances.
Pain becomes a clear action signal not necessarily to stop what we're doing but to change what we're doing (which sometimes does mean "stop" - temporarily)
If we decide to go ahead with that lift anyway, when the body is pulling muscular firing power away from the site and sending up pain events to say this is not a happy thing, then we're stressing our bodies out further which cranks up stressor chemicals, cortisol can get going and well, we're well far away from an ideal environment for performance, right?
It's a feedback loop for more shutdown, more pain: by working against ourselves we start setting up the body to act more to defend itself, while we're taxing it further and potentially injuring ourselves more.I've spoken with experts about what's going on with people who say they trained through the pain and after awhile it went away. The consensus seems to be that in those cases (a) the person is actually most likely developing new movement patterns away from the site of pain (b) doing so sub-optimally at a potential cost to overly sensitizing those sites to future pain/trauma events. Similar people who "work through" pain will often also talk about the same kind of pain showing up months/years later as a now more persistent ache, or have other physical issues.
The costs of risking "breaking" ourselves in some way by working through pain are potentially complex. We really have no idea what might be the one seemingly trivial thing that can set up a cascade of events in our nervous system that will have repercussions. So even though we're very robust, and will adapt to almost anything, to ensure the robustness of the system it's really easy just to learn some strategies to respond to a pain/threat event.
Here's an analogy with stress. Stress or anxiety like we might feel before having to get up in front of a group of people and give a talk is an example of a threat response. Chemicals start to get released from the brain to get us ready for fight or flight. Often people who are stressed are encouraged to go for a walk or move and they report feeling better: we effectively start to use those chemicals for the purpose they've been stirred up - to move. The same chemicals (catecholamines) pretty much get fired up every time we work out and get our heart rate up. So they're not bad, they're just physical, and there is a physical response available. If we become aware of "getting stressed" - note the breathing responses etc and respond, we can quickly get back to normal performance.
Pain is a similar kind of response to threat - perceived or actual - and is an action signal. Again, often (not 100% of the time, but often) movement can likewise help both diagnosis that there's an issue and check if there's a good response to the action signal.
The right mobility can be an optimal response to the pain action signal
- So first things first: never move through pain. If pain happens, stop and check. That stopping is a movement response.
- Next, pending severity we can quickly check where the mobility around the joints where the pain occurs may be restricted. So sore elbow - how's the shoulder movement, wrist movement, elbow movement without load (it helps also to learn what the ROM of these joints is for yourself). If there's pain through everything, just frickin' stop.
- Knowing some mobility work for the related joints, going through them where there's no pain, and rechecking range of motion - better worse no change - is again a great fast way to see how things are going. If things are improved awesome, you may want to try - gently - to see if the original move is ok, and if the load has to be reduced to move through the ROM without pain
- Recheck regularly to see where the threat is
- Move a bit as soon as you can without ever moving into pain.
So, with all the athletes i work with, i recommend that at a minimum they consider making mobility practice a regular part of their daily routine. If you're interested in more of the details of why, here's an article. Likewise, if you haven't and especially if you're concerned about your performance goals, consider getting your movement in general and your specific ahtletic form checked by a movement specialist to make sure you're repping in good patterns.
Scenario of Pain Event Listening
SO let's say you're doing something that fires up a pain signal in the elbow or forearm.You check your shoulder range of motion.
You can only get your arm up to the start of your ear - usually you're behind it. Something's wrong.
You do some opposing joint drills and recheck - your arm mobility is back to normal. awesome.
You recheck your form for whatever was hurting, remember your form: tall spine, good breathing, focus on open form, pain is gone, life is good again.
Yes it can happen that fast. The nervous system mechanoreceptors fire at 300mph. And with the SAID principle, we respond exactly and immediately to what we're doing.
Now there may be instances where the ROM does not come back; where the pain is acute when doing ANY ROM of the given move. That may be time to bag it. Rule no. 1: never move through pain because of all the above: upping threat, further shut down, more threat response chemical events etc. Related strategies are, when and as possible: reduce the range of motion of a movement that causes pain so you work outside the pain zone; reduce the load that brings on pain in any ROM.
An intriguing benefit of regular mobility practice is that, by practicing regular and better movement, better information is getting to the nervous system about where we are and what our options are, so there is a decreased incidence of injury and in no small part increased performance as well. Why? Mobility work helps us achieve the Perfect Rep - or at least efficient movement (discussed mid article here), which is the least likely to result in problems, because it also enables the best ROM from which to respond to the unexpected.
An example of mobility and connecting up nervous system communication we've talked about at b2d before is with the arthrokinetic reflex - a powerful example of what happens (1) with a threat response in the nervous system - when it senses even the slightest impingement - and how to fix that with self-mobilization and (2) how performance improves when connecting the neuro-reflexes in the body: here connecting eye movement with hip movement.
So why shouldn't we train though Pain, in brief?
We really don't know the extent to which a pain event can screw ourselves up for right now, or for some event in the future. Like a stress fracture in metal, it may be fine for some time, but it becomes a progressive site of deterioration until suddenly there's a potentially catastrophic break. By not stopping to deal with the pain, we set up a cascade effect of progressive responses in the body to get us to attend to the ever amping up signal. These further events have further costs on our performance. A way the body may deal with unattended pain is to bring on a compensation that will lead to other/new pains. Likewise, ignoring pain can also set up various sensitizations to pain that can trip the pain from a single acute incident to something that gets would up into our nervous system and goes chronic, also potentially harder to address. All in all, it's not nice.
Bottom line?
- A pain event is non-trivial. It means something. So it's a good idea to listen to that signal.
- At a minimum, never move into pain: reduce range of motion/load/speed as necessary (for awhile this may mean non-movement, but getting to possible movement is a good idea)
- Mobility work like z-health rphase/iphase is a fabulous tool kit to be able to self-assess to respond to that pain event and get back to practice asap.
- lots of articles about the z-health approach to movement/mobility
- Mike T Nelson's great exercise approach to Tendonitis/Tendonosis
- mike t nelson presents a new study on pain/performance.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Enhancing the Viking Push Press with Bone Rhythm: more Progress with Return of the Kettlebell
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While the Hard Style approach teaches tension as strength, it is also concerned with movement efficiency. One of the best and most simple techniques to bring efficiency and power into a movement is to harmonize the timing and forces of the joints used in the move. Eric Cobb in z-health refers to this as Bone Rhythm. In this article on my continuing experience with the double kettlebell work of Return of the Kettlebell, i take a look at refining the efficiency, speed and power of my Viking Push Press with attention to Bone Rythmn.
Return of the Kettlebell (RTK) (early review here) provides a formal introduction to the Viking Push Press (VPP), a move that used to be taught only at the RKC II certification. One of the things this means is that the move has been field tested a lot before being introduced to a general kettlebell practice situation, and so has been found to have therefore no small benefit in practice.
In RTK, the Viking Push Press is used to kick off the explosive blocks that include the double kettlebell long cycle clean and jerk. It is well described in RTK so just a quick review is that
Connecting Bone Rhythm with the VPP
Bone Rhythm is a concept that's taught first in the R-Phase certification in Z-Health (review), then again at S-Phase and is now also available in the fabulous Z-Health Vol. 1 of the Complete Athlete (reviewed in detail here). I've discussed it here, too, in this presentation of the KB front squat. and here as well in the context of powerful, efficient movement.
Effectively, the idea of bone rhythmn is to get the timing of the joints to happen together. So for instance, in the squat, the movement of the knee finishes at the same time as the hip, both in going down and in coming up. It's well worth practicing this timing. For example, i could get BR happening in my squat really well going fast. Slowing it down, the knee always finished before the hips. I recently had the opportunity to work with Z-Health Master Trainer Katie Bigelow who had me sorted on slow control of BR in about 20 mins. I am now strong like ox. No kidding. BR = simple physics. If both ends of a lever work together, the movement around the joints at the fulcra is that much more efficient.
The opposite of bone rythmn is what happens on a sea saw if the heavier kid decides not to cooperate when the lighter kid is trying to come down: the lighter kid is whaling away to get her end down and the other kid - isn't pushing up at the same time, so a lot of energy is just spent refee'ing. Once they get in sync, momentum takes care of the rest. Effortless movement; less force needed to keep the movement happening.
SO where/how can we apply this concept in the VPP? here's what i found and you might want to play around with this, too. I'd suggest starting unloaded/naked/no weight.
Gating the Knee Dip. If the arm is up and locked out in the starting position, as the arm
comes down into the rack (somewhat different than the clean rack so good to watch Kenneth Jay demo this on the RTK video), dip the knees. Two things to connect:
Your mileage may vary, but i found that when the arm and knees sync'd up, the feel of the dip was that goldilocks "just right."
Speed of the Push into the Press. In the VPP, there's no pause in the rack; it's an explosive
push back up once the arm comes down into the rack. From there it's straight back up, using the extension of the knees from the dip to help drive up the bell into lock out.
Here's where unloaded practice can help give you the feel for this next part. In this part, the goal is to have the elbow lock out at the same time as the knees finish. Let me repeat: it's much easier to get the feel of this connection without a weight. Knees and arms finish together.
Single Once you have the feel of this unloaded, take the light bell you'd use for double VPP work, and work on a few singles to keep that coordinated knee extension with arm extension. The arms are traveling further, so they're going to be a bit faster than the knees.
When you have the feel of that, time to go for double kb's - and in this case, i'd encourage you to check a mirror just for your outline - you want to check how synced you are.
Double Now as soon as you go double, you may find that your arms lag behind your knees in terms of which finishes first. Ok. But what you'll start to get is that the main part of the coordination, the power of the knees to drive with the elbows past the sticking point is the main timing connection. You'll feel the rhythm look in - especially if you have the rack and up position right. Coordinating the push of these repetitive reps will go from wearing to smooth and powerful.
The Rhythm of Life is a Powerful Thing
It is very much a rhythm that just feels sweet, and really does make the difference between moving through 5 ladders of these things fresh and strong or feeling sluggish and blick. I'm pretty sure if you spend a little time playing around with bone rhythm and the rack position you'll feel like you could go for ages on the VPP, and really get those eccentrics popping with clean good feeling reps.
Related Posts
Return of the Kettlebell (RTK) (early review here) provides a formal introduction to the Viking Push Press (VPP), a move that used to be taught only at the RKC II certification. One of the things this means is that the move has been field tested a lot before being introduced to a general kettlebell practice situation, and so has been found to have therefore no small benefit in practice.In RTK, the Viking Push Press is used to kick off the explosive blocks that include the double kettlebell long cycle clean and jerk. It is well described in RTK so just a quick review is that
- a) unlike it's cousin the regular push press, it begins in an overhead lock out position
- b) lighter weights can be used to build up reps at speed for lots of volume, so it situates as a potential overspeed eccentric practice for training that stretch cycle for speed/power
- c) there are no pauses in the rack.
Connecting Bone Rhythm with the VPP
Bone Rhythm is a concept that's taught first in the R-Phase certification in Z-Health (review), then again at S-Phase and is now also available in the fabulous Z-Health Vol. 1 of the Complete Athlete (reviewed in detail here). I've discussed it here, too, in this presentation of the KB front squat. and here as well in the context of powerful, efficient movement.
Effectively, the idea of bone rhythmn is to get the timing of the joints to happen together. So for instance, in the squat, the movement of the knee finishes at the same time as the hip, both in going down and in coming up. It's well worth practicing this timing. For example, i could get BR happening in my squat really well going fast. Slowing it down, the knee always finished before the hips. I recently had the opportunity to work with Z-Health Master Trainer Katie Bigelow who had me sorted on slow control of BR in about 20 mins. I am now strong like ox. No kidding. BR = simple physics. If both ends of a lever work together, the movement around the joints at the fulcra is that much more efficient.
The opposite of bone rythmn is what happens on a sea saw if the heavier kid decides not to cooperate when the lighter kid is trying to come down: the lighter kid is whaling away to get her end down and the other kid - isn't pushing up at the same time, so a lot of energy is just spent refee'ing. Once they get in sync, momentum takes care of the rest. Effortless movement; less force needed to keep the movement happening.SO where/how can we apply this concept in the VPP? here's what i found and you might want to play around with this, too. I'd suggest starting unloaded/naked/no weight.
Gating the Knee Dip. If the arm is up and locked out in the starting position, as the arm
comes down into the rack (somewhat different than the clean rack so good to watch Kenneth Jay demo this on the RTK video), dip the knees. Two things to connect:- get the speed of the arm coming down into the rack to meet the speed of the knees bending. sync these up.
- get the knee dip to keep going only until the arm comes down into the rack, so the arm and the knees finish their movement together.
Your mileage may vary, but i found that when the arm and knees sync'd up, the feel of the dip was that goldilocks "just right."
Speed of the Push into the Press. In the VPP, there's no pause in the rack; it's an explosive
push back up once the arm comes down into the rack. From there it's straight back up, using the extension of the knees from the dip to help drive up the bell into lock out.Here's where unloaded practice can help give you the feel for this next part. In this part, the goal is to have the elbow lock out at the same time as the knees finish. Let me repeat: it's much easier to get the feel of this connection without a weight. Knees and arms finish together.
Single Once you have the feel of this unloaded, take the light bell you'd use for double VPP work, and work on a few singles to keep that coordinated knee extension with arm extension. The arms are traveling further, so they're going to be a bit faster than the knees.
When you have the feel of that, time to go for double kb's - and in this case, i'd encourage you to check a mirror just for your outline - you want to check how synced you are.
Double Now as soon as you go double, you may find that your arms lag behind your knees in terms of which finishes first. Ok. But what you'll start to get is that the main part of the coordination, the power of the knees to drive with the elbows past the sticking point is the main timing connection. You'll feel the rhythm look in - especially if you have the rack and up position right. Coordinating the push of these repetitive reps will go from wearing to smooth and powerful.
The Rhythm of Life is a Powerful Thing
It is very much a rhythm that just feels sweet, and really does make the difference between moving through 5 ladders of these things fresh and strong or feeling sluggish and blick. I'm pretty sure if you spend a little time playing around with bone rhythm and the rack position you'll feel like you could go for ages on the VPP, and really get those eccentrics popping with clean good feeling reps.
Related Posts
- b2d kettlebell article index - including previous posts on progressing through RTK (warning, they're not all pretty) as well as other KB related articles.
- movement index - articles in the movement/neurology space from warm ups to stretches to all things Z-health.
- if you'd like hands on help with BR and other mobility concepts: Next ZKB workshop: Nov 29, Edinburgh
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Move or Die? Movement as Optimal Path to Strength and Well Being, Part 1
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This post is an intro to why *good* movement is a big frikin' panacea to most of what ails us. No kidding. Move well; be well. In this series, we're going to look at different attributes of movement - joints, muscles, skin, lymph everything - but first, let's start with an overview of what movement seems to mean to our governing system - the "always on" part of our bodies that monitors and messages about every process in our bodies, our nervous system - and then consisder a pretty direct route to cuing up those happy messages to it via dynamic joint mobility.
Movement = well being. We are designed to move. And apparently to move at speed: our bodies are apparently designed to support running more so than even walking. Perhaps not surprisingly, Use it or Lose it for humans could be redefined potentially as Move It or Lose It.
Our physiology works on a move it or lose it principle: by Woolf's Law and Davis' Law, we get to keep only what we use, and use is determined by - yes - movement. Don't move our muscles, function degrades; don't use our bones, bones degrade, don't move the joints, joints degrade. Movement means strength, fitness, digestion, respiration, skin tone, joint health, heart health, everything health. Could it be that simple?
Everything about our beings responds best to movement: movement therefore seems to
mean a big neurological thumbs up. If we are able to move, we're good to go, to flee, to hunt or to gather.
On the other hand, if our nervous system either perceives or receives a threat of any kind, movement is what pays: sore shoulder means reduced range of motion; shoes too tight so joints are compressed and less able to function as designed means less muscle power for a deadlift. Loosen up those shoes (or get rid of them), do some foot mobilization work (ankle circles; toe waves) and power is restored to the system. We react *that* quickly, as reflected in the SAID principle.
SAID stands for "specific adaptation to imposed demand." Eric Cobb, DC, c0-founder of Z-Health adds "exactly and immediately" to the SAID mix. In other words, our bodies respond exactly and immediately to what we're doing.
We see evidence of this immediacy all the time. Go to pick something up, our muscles don't wait to turn on to support that position; they do so right away, courtesy of the nervous system. We are about to go on stage to give a talk, and our heart rate accelerates right at that moment pumping more blood to our peripheral limbs; likewise hormones are released to prepare for flight to deal with the perceived threat of our anxiety. That response happens as soon as we perceive the moment of threat - which may be long before, right before or during the event.
A huge part of that immediate adaptation is the speed at which information travels through the nervous system. Most fibers are sending info at 300miles per hour. That's fast. One might almost say immediate.
Not moving = We have a Problem, Houston. Movement is so basic, so fundamental an indicator of well being, that *not* moving is, on a gross scale, a sign of illness or duress. Our movement is reduced seemingly in proportion to the degree of perceived or actual threat to the system. Our movement is reduced if we have: a broken limb, a gut ache, a head ache, if we feel depressed. Likewise, we think of aging as a process of movement deterioration: the aged are often slower, less mobile, suffer from movement debilitations - or are entirely bed ridden, just like the acutely ill.
Irony. We are, despite our awesome craniums, embodied beings. Our modern lives, however, have moved us to a place where, to our nervous system we generally operate, if ya think about it, from postures of illness: we don't move; we sit at desks; we sit in cars, trains and planes. We are more sedentary than ambulatory.
Likewise those postures
often closely resemble what's know as threat response or startle positions: hunched shoulders, head lowered, legs raised towards chest (from sitting) - if our legs and hands were pushed up a bit more we'd be in total fetal posture. And the rolling up into a ball is the big threat protection posture: cover the internal organs, protect the head, eyes and ears. That's a little, er, sick, isn't it?
Response to Modern Life:
Dynamic Joint Mobility as a first step, or movement.
If we tell our bodies that we are non mobile, our bodies also respond immediately to this - as we have seen - with Wolff's Law and Davis's Law: we are rebuilding tissue ALL the time. If we continually sit slumped, the body will work to maintain that position - go to get out of it, we feel stiff. Over a long enough time, the bones remodel to better maintain that position.
A painless and effective way to counteract less mobility is to move: move every joint in the body through its range of motion - that is - through the degree of motion we can voluntarily control. Another name for moving each joint in the body in a focused way is dynamic joint mobility work.
There are lots of joint mobility systems out there; the one i prefer, practice and teach is z-health. I've written lots about why (article index) and here's Z-Health's FAQ, but the main reason is that the movements in the R, I and S continuum are designed to move each joint
Range of motion is a great way to see how our nervous system may be doing with our body. We may feel fine but if we go to raise our arm in front of us to beside our ear and it usually gets to beside our ear but today it's only going to beside our cheek something's up. We might not perceive what it is clearly, but our nervous system does.
Doing a few joint mobility drills will often improve that range of motion. Some joints, like the wee bones in the feet and hands don't have a great deal of motion - but they do move. They're joints for a reason - if there wasn't a need for a joint, there'd be a bone, as Cobb puts it.
So smaller joint motions mean smaller range of motion, but still movements - and precise movements at that for optimal efficiency (more on efficient movement here). How to hit the target and what those targets are are important to maximize benefit of this joint librating work.
Repetition Only One Way: Bad; All ways, good. Other joints, like the wrist, pretty big obvious range of motion as we bend the hands back and forth at the wrists. But also therefore important to move those joints through those ranges of motion. Carpal Tunnel or RSI is not usually the result of too many reps, but too many reps in only ONE direction of a possible set of motions. Like typing on a keyboard - flexion flexion flexion, no extension; same with musicians. And here's one: elbows have fabulous movement possibilities but do you know some ways to move them through their complete ranges of motion in multiple directions/speeds? How often do lifters in the gym complain of tennis elbow? More than 9 times out of ten, this is the similar problem as the typing desk jockey: too many reps in one direction, exacerbated by potentially poor form with load, or just overuse.
If i could talk to the Animals - or the Nervous System...
Simple concept of why joint mobility work, like doing ZHealth R-Phase and I-Phase is so important: mechanorecption and nociception.
Mechanoreceptors populate the muscles and the tendons around joints. The give our brain information, through the nervous system of where we are in space and how fast we're moving. The other big proprioceptor around the joints are nocicpetors - nerves that react to noxious stimulus, like a cut or a kick or an impingement. If limbs are not moving well, the number of mechanoreceptors fired are way less than if they do move. Significantly. Nociceptors, which are far fewer in ratio to most mechanorecpetors are free to fire. And 1 is always louder than zero.
Signal Processing. Pain is something the brain says about a signal through the nervous system. A nociceptor may fire, but if the signal from the mechanorecptors is louder because more of these are firing, the brain mayn't interpret the action as something that needs to fire up as pain. If however the nociceptor is the only thing talking because the other mechanorecpetors in the area are inhibited from lack of mobility, then that pain signal may just get amplified.
Oh, Canada! Here's a way you might model this signal processing concept. At a recent mobility seminar, i started to sing O Canada - large room but everyone heard me. No one else was speaking. I then asked participants in the room to sing - at a normal volume not shouting or anything - God save the queen - while i sang O Canada while someone at the door listened in. What song do you think the person listening heard?
Movement Sings. So movement, on one simple level - movement through the fullest possible range of motion - helps to send positive "all clear" signals to the nervous system.
Practicing movement helps the joints learn to move through their full range of motion. Here's an example. When i started doing R-Phase in Z-Health, i looked with amazement on the thoracic circles - moving *just* the upper spine in a circle - of a fellow RKC. Me doing thoracic glides just front at back: ok i'm doing them! And there was no movement. Practicing them even though it felt like nothing was happening eventually caused rather a lot to happen, to the point the other day where a master trainer said "well you have such excellent thoracic mobility this isn't a problem for you; most people need...."
One gets joint mobility the same way one gets to carnegie hall it seems: practice practice practice.
Healing off the Table: Doing it For Ourselves:
Self movement more so than manual work (being worked on by others or having limbs moved passively) engages motor learning. That self-initiated action to control a motion fires up way more of the nervous system, building new patterns of movement with each rep. This is fabulous for self-care. Practically, the number of athletes i work with and whom colleagues work with who come in complaining of shoulder pain, elbow pain or back pain, generally speaking
It's that simple. And while we've focused on the benefit of moving joints for the nervous system due to mechanorecptors around the joints, in future we can look at movement of the skin, fascia, lymph and gut that also comes into play - how mobilty assists these other movements to feel better and perform better.
In the meantime, i hope this for me unusually brief overview helps get a handle on why mobilty work may be a good practice to consider if it's not already part of your daily practice. And here's an example of controlled movement:
Next Time: threat, pain and threat modulation.
Related Posts
Movement = well being. We are designed to move. And apparently to move at speed: our bodies are apparently designed to support running more so than even walking. Perhaps not surprisingly, Use it or Lose it for humans could be redefined potentially as Move It or Lose It.Our physiology works on a move it or lose it principle: by Woolf's Law and Davis' Law, we get to keep only what we use, and use is determined by - yes - movement. Don't move our muscles, function degrades; don't use our bones, bones degrade, don't move the joints, joints degrade. Movement means strength, fitness, digestion, respiration, skin tone, joint health, heart health, everything health. Could it be that simple?
Everything about our beings responds best to movement: movement therefore seems to
mean a big neurological thumbs up. If we are able to move, we're good to go, to flee, to hunt or to gather.On the other hand, if our nervous system either perceives or receives a threat of any kind, movement is what pays: sore shoulder means reduced range of motion; shoes too tight so joints are compressed and less able to function as designed means less muscle power for a deadlift. Loosen up those shoes (or get rid of them), do some foot mobilization work (ankle circles; toe waves) and power is restored to the system. We react *that* quickly, as reflected in the SAID principle.
SAID stands for "specific adaptation to imposed demand." Eric Cobb, DC, c0-founder of Z-Health adds "exactly and immediately" to the SAID mix. In other words, our bodies respond exactly and immediately to what we're doing.
We see evidence of this immediacy all the time. Go to pick something up, our muscles don't wait to turn on to support that position; they do so right away, courtesy of the nervous system. We are about to go on stage to give a talk, and our heart rate accelerates right at that moment pumping more blood to our peripheral limbs; likewise hormones are released to prepare for flight to deal with the perceived threat of our anxiety. That response happens as soon as we perceive the moment of threat - which may be long before, right before or during the event.
A huge part of that immediate adaptation is the speed at which information travels through the nervous system. Most fibers are sending info at 300miles per hour. That's fast. One might almost say immediate.
Not moving = We have a Problem, Houston. Movement is so basic, so fundamental an indicator of well being, that *not* moving is, on a gross scale, a sign of illness or duress. Our movement is reduced seemingly in proportion to the degree of perceived or actual threat to the system. Our movement is reduced if we have: a broken limb, a gut ache, a head ache, if we feel depressed. Likewise, we think of aging as a process of movement deterioration: the aged are often slower, less mobile, suffer from movement debilitations - or are entirely bed ridden, just like the acutely ill.
Irony. We are, despite our awesome craniums, embodied beings. Our modern lives, however, have moved us to a place where, to our nervous system we generally operate, if ya think about it, from postures of illness: we don't move; we sit at desks; we sit in cars, trains and planes. We are more sedentary than ambulatory.Likewise those postures
often closely resemble what's know as threat response or startle positions: hunched shoulders, head lowered, legs raised towards chest (from sitting) - if our legs and hands were pushed up a bit more we'd be in total fetal posture. And the rolling up into a ball is the big threat protection posture: cover the internal organs, protect the head, eyes and ears. That's a little, er, sick, isn't it?Response to Modern Life:
Dynamic Joint Mobility as a first step, or movement.
If we tell our bodies that we are non mobile, our bodies also respond immediately to this - as we have seen - with Wolff's Law and Davis's Law: we are rebuilding tissue ALL the time. If we continually sit slumped, the body will work to maintain that position - go to get out of it, we feel stiff. Over a long enough time, the bones remodel to better maintain that position.
A painless and effective way to counteract less mobility is to move: move every joint in the body through its range of motion - that is - through the degree of motion we can voluntarily control. Another name for moving each joint in the body in a focused way is dynamic joint mobility work.
There are lots of joint mobility systems out there; the one i prefer, practice and teach is z-health. I've written lots about why (article index) and here's Z-Health's FAQ, but the main reason is that the movements in the R, I and S continuum are designed to move each joint
- really: each joint, from head to foot, precisely
- through as many positions as possible
- as many speeds as possible
- with varying loads
Range of motion is a great way to see how our nervous system may be doing with our body. We may feel fine but if we go to raise our arm in front of us to beside our ear and it usually gets to beside our ear but today it's only going to beside our cheek something's up. We might not perceive what it is clearly, but our nervous system does.
Doing a few joint mobility drills will often improve that range of motion. Some joints, like the wee bones in the feet and hands don't have a great deal of motion - but they do move. They're joints for a reason - if there wasn't a need for a joint, there'd be a bone, as Cobb puts it.
So smaller joint motions mean smaller range of motion, but still movements - and precise movements at that for optimal efficiency (more on efficient movement here). How to hit the target and what those targets are are important to maximize benefit of this joint librating work.
Repetition Only One Way: Bad; All ways, good. Other joints, like the wrist, pretty big obvious range of motion as we bend the hands back and forth at the wrists. But also therefore important to move those joints through those ranges of motion. Carpal Tunnel or RSI is not usually the result of too many reps, but too many reps in only ONE direction of a possible set of motions. Like typing on a keyboard - flexion flexion flexion, no extension; same with musicians. And here's one: elbows have fabulous movement possibilities but do you know some ways to move them through their complete ranges of motion in multiple directions/speeds? How often do lifters in the gym complain of tennis elbow? More than 9 times out of ten, this is the similar problem as the typing desk jockey: too many reps in one direction, exacerbated by potentially poor form with load, or just overuse.
If i could talk to the Animals - or the Nervous System...
Simple concept of why joint mobility work, like doing ZHealth R-Phase and I-Phase is so important: mechanorecption and nociception.
Mechanoreceptors populate the muscles and the tendons around joints. The give our brain information, through the nervous system of where we are in space and how fast we're moving. The other big proprioceptor around the joints are nocicpetors - nerves that react to noxious stimulus, like a cut or a kick or an impingement. If limbs are not moving well, the number of mechanoreceptors fired are way less than if they do move. Significantly. Nociceptors, which are far fewer in ratio to most mechanorecpetors are free to fire. And 1 is always louder than zero.
Signal Processing. Pain is something the brain says about a signal through the nervous system. A nociceptor may fire, but if the signal from the mechanorecptors is louder because more of these are firing, the brain mayn't interpret the action as something that needs to fire up as pain. If however the nociceptor is the only thing talking because the other mechanorecpetors in the area are inhibited from lack of mobility, then that pain signal may just get amplified.
Oh, Canada! Here's a way you might model this signal processing concept. At a recent mobility seminar, i started to sing O Canada - large room but everyone heard me. No one else was speaking. I then asked participants in the room to sing - at a normal volume not shouting or anything - God save the queen - while i sang O Canada while someone at the door listened in. What song do you think the person listening heard?
Movement Sings. So movement, on one simple level - movement through the fullest possible range of motion - helps to send positive "all clear" signals to the nervous system.
Practicing movement helps the joints learn to move through their full range of motion. Here's an example. When i started doing R-Phase in Z-Health, i looked with amazement on the thoracic circles - moving *just* the upper spine in a circle - of a fellow RKC. Me doing thoracic glides just front at back: ok i'm doing them! And there was no movement. Practicing them even though it felt like nothing was happening eventually caused rather a lot to happen, to the point the other day where a master trainer said "well you have such excellent thoracic mobility this isn't a problem for you; most people need...."
One gets joint mobility the same way one gets to carnegie hall it seems: practice practice practice.
Healing off the Table: Doing it For Ourselves:
Self movement more so than manual work (being worked on by others or having limbs moved passively) engages motor learning. That self-initiated action to control a motion fires up way more of the nervous system, building new patterns of movement with each rep. This is fabulous for self-care. Practically, the number of athletes i work with and whom colleagues work with who come in complaining of shoulder pain, elbow pain or back pain, generally speaking
- a) get their pain significantly lessened if not eliminated in a single session by getting at a movement pattern that is not firing correctly so good mobility is inhibited
- b) are able to take care of themselves afterwards because they know and have the tools on how to reduce the problem by the mobility work, so they can get on with their strength or health or life practices
- c) as their mobility improves, they have fewer flare ups
It's that simple. And while we've focused on the benefit of moving joints for the nervous system due to mechanorecptors around the joints, in future we can look at movement of the skin, fascia, lymph and gut that also comes into play - how mobilty assists these other movements to feel better and perform better.
In the meantime, i hope this for me unusually brief overview helps get a handle on why mobilty work may be a good practice to consider if it's not already part of your daily practice. And here's an example of controlled movement:
Full Motion: Herman Cornejo executes a seeming impossible
double tours en l’air as part of David Michalek's slow dancing project.
double tours en l’air as part of David Michalek's slow dancing project.
Next Time: threat, pain and threat modulation.
Related Posts
- can be found at the z-health article index
- Mobility vs Flexibility: is there a difference?
Algae Oil vs Fish Oil & Tips to Destress
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Here's just a couple of pointers for b2d'ers.
Ryan D Andrews, RD, over at Precision Nutrition has written a nice summary of why we m
ight want to consider algae oil in lieu of the fish stock depleting fish oil.
If you can't see the whole thing, the take aways are that fish stocks are being depleted at an alarming rate - some of this due to the 3000% raise in sales of fish oil since the start of the decade (according to the book Bottom Feeders).
Apparently the DHA/EPA levels in algae oil are great for humans - higher DHA from which EPA can be generated if we need more of it.
Various studies have looked at algae oil in many of the same contexts as fishoil:
So there are some alternatives for fish oil. Including of course being, as Andrews puts it "karma lite"
De-Stress. And in celebration of the uk's National Stress Awareness week starting Nov 4, here's my 10 tips for geeks on how to de-stress. You may want to share with the geeks you love.
best
mc Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Ryan D Andrews, RD, over at Precision Nutrition has written a nice summary of why we m
ight want to consider algae oil in lieu of the fish stock depleting fish oil.If you can't see the whole thing, the take aways are that fish stocks are being depleted at an alarming rate - some of this due to the 3000% raise in sales of fish oil since the start of the decade (according to the book Bottom Feeders).
Apparently the DHA/EPA levels in algae oil are great for humans - higher DHA from which EPA can be generated if we need more of it.
Various studies have looked at algae oil in many of the same contexts as fishoil:
The essential fats from algae may improve fatty acid balance and:
- Cardiovascular function
- Nervous system function
- Immunity
- Memory & concentration
- Mood
- Neurotransmission
- Insulin sensitivity & nutrient partitioning
- Body composition
So there are some alternatives for fish oil. Including of course being, as Andrews puts it "karma lite"
De-Stress. And in celebration of the uk's National Stress Awareness week starting Nov 4, here's my 10 tips for geeks on how to de-stress. You may want to share with the geeks you love.
best
mc Tweet Follow @begin2dig
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