Thursday, July 22, 2010
Hormones - what are they really? upper level managers for the body's state.
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What do you think of when someone says Hormones? Maybe muscle oriented folks think about testosterone. Women tending towards a certain age think about estrogen. Athletes may think about adrenelein. Diet conscious may think about Insulin. Someone totally stressed may not know what to think about but that's epinepherine and cortisol. In the sesame street way of what goes together, all of these are hormones. But what does that mean?
If we pull up from the particular view of what an individual hormone does, it seems the big picture on hormones is that they are messengers or signals for the body - or some part of the body - that something has happened to it or part of it that has induced a state change. They are, in effect, state change managers.
Food enters the gut, hormones are released to tell the gut to get certain enzymes going to start breaking up the food, tearing it apart to do something with it - put it away, actually. Everything in its place and a place for everything. Different hormones take care of different parts of the change process. Carbs are broken down and are ready to enter the blood stream, insulin shows up to say "right this way" to ensure the glucose is used. Heck, even being hungry is perceived as a state change (check out ghrelin) where hormones are released to get an action happening (eg, feed me. feed me now).
Women are intimately familiar with hormonal changes that occur on a monthly basis to handle all the state changes that menses sets off. But that's what's happening: a change in our homeoSTASIS triggers these little do gooders - our hormones - to make sure that our bodies have an optimal response to that change for our survival.
Injury. Getting the blood to act in particular ways to clot - not something it does when its just pumping through our veins - is the response of our bodies to a pretty specific state change. And so what's the body doing? Providing an optimal response to survive by taking energy to get into the inflammation and healing process (whether we register the injury as pain or not depends on the richer context of what's going on with our body and mind at the time. We also have hormones to self-medicate, making opiates for us).
Need to sleep? Great big survival state change? Melatonin regulates that, too.
And last example, if we get startled or stressed, that is likewise a signal to the nervous system for a state change, in this case, prepare to flee. And its one most of us get triggered to some degree daily.
From a bang going off behind us, to having to give a public speech, to anticipating a bill we can't pay, our very physical being interprets these experiences as threat (or startle in some literature). At this threat signal, a slurry of different hormones are released to optimize our system to survive and get us away from tiger tiger burning bright.
One set of hormones (epinephrine or adrenaline) accelerates heart rate and inspiration to get the peripheral system (our limbs) ready to move fast. Other catecholamines are released to mobilize fat from storage into free fatty acid to be right ready to be used as fuel for the long run away from the predator. Cortisol kicks in to shut down digestion: we really don't want to burn precious ATP for digestion when we'll need it for motoring. If we survive we can digest later. Testosterone (tarzan's chest beating, for instance) actually gets turned on in these situations to help reduce the fear response and "man up" as it were so we don't go totally fetal. Intriguingly, estrogen also seems to have similar calming effects to startle (at least in rats). Gender - in rats - is a player, too, it seems in whether testosterone or estrogen reduces either accoustic verses light based startle too. Isn't that wild? Indeed there's a great quote in that source that says "testosterone skulpts the male brain [of the rat]"
Anyway, suffice it to say - there's a lot of hormones released in stress to deal with a lot of the systems in
Similar Profiles: stress and exercise
What is quite cool is that exercise has just about the same profile as stress in terms of hormonal responses. Catecholamines, which are great for fat mobilization, are triggered as soon as we get moving at a clip. The greater the intensity, the greater the release. So HIIT does get more fatty acids mobilized that slower steady state, as we discussed looking at Trapp's work over in this piece on different HIIT modes.
SO it seems even if we're not in startle or threat, the fact that we're moving requires similar hormonal responses: energy to the limbs rather than digestion, fat mobilization to keep going. Even the speed of hypertrophy occurring is as we know, an adaptation to demand. It seems in some cases where the environment is also perceived by the nervous system to be a potential threat, the adaptation (hypertrophy and strength) is accelerated. We saw awhile ago in Get Huge or Die that resistance workouts in a reduced oxygen chamber also caused faster hypertrophy - and that the hormanal cascade in that case seemed greater than the normal air environment: survive and get bigger to be better adapted to survive that again. Maybe.
Connecting Stress and Exercise: move it move it
Fact is, we can see two things from this understanding of hormones as state change managers (upper level management to be sure).
First, exercise is a state change (from stasis to motion) that sends hormones to optimize our body for that movement. When we move with those hormones in an exercise state, we usually feel pretty good. The hormones do their job: support movement. We derive benefits.
Second, stress has pretty much the same hormonal profile as exercise type movement - getting the heart rate up being the main observable factor. So, if we're having hormones released to say "i've just had a signal for you to get going: here come the chemicals to turn your body into a mean moving machine" and then we DON'T move, what happens?
Let's see, we feel like crap, we don't sleep, we gain weight, our skin can get funny, we are more susceptible to disease. Why?
In part because our body will keep trying to pull us out of the fire the only way it knows how. It seems to assume if we don't respond we must be deaf and so it amps up the signal.
Use it or ... Break It
As proposed, our hormones are signals responding to state change requests (startle or fear or stress are all requests to our nervous system to get us somewhere safe), if we do not respond to the message to change, it seems that the message gets louder: more hormones will get poured on the fire.
That is, our bodies are trying to tell us to use what thoes hormones have evolved to do: optimize getting away, that's movement, and if we don't listen to them, they get louder and louder until we finally break.
Like pain is a signal to change that gets louder until either we finally do something about it, or we become incapacitated, likewise these other hormones. Stress goes up. Digestion goes down. Sleep degrades.
We see this kind of signaling to support change not just in stress but in digestion: the in rush of fast digesting starchy carbs to our system is seen as a state change. That triggers insulin to get the sugar into the blood cells for conversion to energy. When we overeat regularly - put in more fuel than is required for a state change (we don't need the energy to do something), we can develop insulin resistance - the cells that usually respond to insulin knocking at the door to pop in some fuel for energy say bugger off. Or go deaf. So what does the body do? "you're not listening to me: let me amp up the signal" - more insulin to say "knock knock I AM HERE, CELL, WITH A DELIVERY" - and what can't be used by those cells gets moved to fat.
Eventually there's a viscous cycle in highly restistant (and often overweight or obese) folks, where even when they're eating well, the body is so resistant to insulin's effects, they are effectively starving while gaining more fat.
AT this point as well someone may be on insulin injections because the pancrease cannot produce enough volume on its own for these now-deaf cells literally to GET the message. And as you can image, large folks who aren't getting energy from their food are going to feel too pooped to get mobile. When we break, we really break.
Intriguingly (at least i think so) - movement can once again help accelerate the repair process because we are so plastic and adaptable. If we move we can redevelop insulin sensitivity. Strength training is fabulous for this. Dave Barr has a nice piece explaining this process. In other words get insulin levels to where they need to be to process the food into energy for the cells, get nutrition under control, and then get moving to develop greater sensitivity again - and we do see many people backing way off in type 2 diabetes from their shots: their messengers have been heard, the system realigns. Homeostatis and safety once again.
Move it Move it, Walk it Off.
So what do we see?
With both stress and eating, it seems the simple way to deal with the hormonal pattern we recognise as stress is to move: we thereby use the hormonal signals for what they were designed to support: physical action. Kill it or run away. Mission accomplished, back to calmer state. And from that calmer, stabler place, we can can look for strategies to help us deal effectively with whatever is freaking us out.
Before we get to calmer state is the run away or kill it process to blow off the physiological effects of the hormal cascade. Literally. Indeed, breathing, as we've talked about before, is a huge part of movement to rebalance our carbon dioxide and oxygen in our bodies, which helps send signals that ah ha yes we're dealing with the threatening situation; it's over; our system is going back to homeostasis thank you very much.
Something we rarely do when we're feeling our hormonal cascade for fight of flight kick in at a work place is to go for a walk. With my students, i'll do a coach and stroll from time to time. Walking has many great benefits from mirroring what the other person is doing to this physical use of these signals to DO something physical. We both calm down and engage better. One of my colleagues is also a dancer. He paces frequently when we're working together. That's a good thing, again for many reasons, but processing hormones that are signalling MOVE is a good thing.
No wonder archimedes flew out of his tub and ran when he discovered density - the excitement set his adrenaline going and he blew it off by running. Hopefully the later realization of his nekked butt in public didn't cause a stress cascade to ratchet up.
Vent the Hormonal Soup Pot: Feel Good with the Body where it Wants to Be - in Balance
We hear all the time that people feel so much better when they start an exercise program. We usually focus on the feeling better as down to body comp change, so improved self image, aerobic health (heart and lungs), energy up'd.
All great and true, but we kinda tend to miss, don't we, the fact that perhaps we're feeling less stressed and sleeping better because we are also venting the steam from the soup pot of hormonal build up we get when (a) we live in a stressful environment and (b) it's generally pretty sedentary.
We are physical beings rather than brains with annoying bodies. We're wired to move in response to an awful lot of our hormonal signals.
Summary
In this likely grossly oversimplified view of hormones, we could say there's a hormone to support any state change to the body. Whether the state change is from a threat, ingestion of food (or toxin), an injury, sex, anything that causes the body's state to change, there's a hormone that deals with optimizing whatever the body needs to do to stay safe - protecting itself for survival. That goes for fuel use, run away and hide, procreate, whatever is triggered.
We've seen that not listening to these hormonal messengers can cause the signals to keep coming, get louder. Their getting louder if not attended to often causes that part of the system to break, which will have incapacitating effects for us.
We've also seen that the pattern of many of these cascades seems to be addressed by movement: from large movements like going for a walk and getting the heart rate up (which induces harder breathing automatically) or smaller movements like self-induced deeper breathing.
We have not discussed that some of the signalling can be trained based on behaviour - like the cues to get hungry - but we have seen that we can often restore function to an overtaxed signalling system - like insulin resistance - by getting moving. Walking is great, breathing is great. Mobility drills, also effective. As we have seen before in Move or Die all this movement also sends lots of proprioceptive information to say "we're fine; we're in use; we're moving." All good.
So micro summary?
By the way, if you're a trainer, and are interested in how to integrate understanding this hormonal cascade with training/coaching your clients, the topic (among a lot of others - see overview here) is covered in the z-health r-phase certification. If you go for the cert, please let 'em know mc recommended you: we don't get cash for referrals - we get credit towards our continuing zed-ed. Thank you. -mc
refs
What do you think of when someone says Hormones? Maybe muscle oriented folks think about testosterone. Women tending towards a certain age think about estrogen. Athletes may think about adrenelein. Diet conscious may think about Insulin. Someone totally stressed may not know what to think about but that's epinepherine and cortisol. In the sesame street way of what goes together, all of these are hormones. But what does that mean?
If we pull up from the particular view of what an individual hormone does, it seems the big picture on hormones is that they are messengers or signals for the body - or some part of the body - that something has happened to it or part of it that has induced a state change. They are, in effect, state change managers.
Endocrine system: the generators of hormones
Women are intimately familiar with hormonal changes that occur on a monthly basis to handle all the state changes that menses sets off. But that's what's happening: a change in our homeoSTASIS triggers these little do gooders - our hormones - to make sure that our bodies have an optimal response to that change for our survival.
Injury. Getting the blood to act in particular ways to clot - not something it does when its just pumping through our veins - is the response of our bodies to a pretty specific state change. And so what's the body doing? Providing an optimal response to survive by taking energy to get into the inflammation and healing process (whether we register the injury as pain or not depends on the richer context of what's going on with our body and mind at the time. We also have hormones to self-medicate, making opiates for us).
Need to sleep? Great big survival state change? Melatonin regulates that, too.
And last example, if we get startled or stressed, that is likewise a signal to the nervous system for a state change, in this case, prepare to flee. And its one most of us get triggered to some degree daily.
From a bang going off behind us, to having to give a public speech, to anticipating a bill we can't pay, our very physical being interprets these experiences as threat (or startle in some literature). At this threat signal, a slurry of different hormones are released to optimize our system to survive and get us away from tiger tiger burning bright.
One set of hormones (epinephrine or adrenaline) accelerates heart rate and inspiration to get the peripheral system (our limbs) ready to move fast. Other catecholamines are released to mobilize fat from storage into free fatty acid to be right ready to be used as fuel for the long run away from the predator. Cortisol kicks in to shut down digestion: we really don't want to burn precious ATP for digestion when we'll need it for motoring. If we survive we can digest later. Testosterone (tarzan's chest beating, for instance) actually gets turned on in these situations to help reduce the fear response and "man up" as it were so we don't go totally fetal. Intriguingly, estrogen also seems to have similar calming effects to startle (at least in rats). Gender - in rats - is a player, too, it seems in whether testosterone or estrogen reduces either accoustic verses light based startle too. Isn't that wild? Indeed there's a great quote in that source that says "testosterone skulpts the male brain [of the rat]"
Anyway, suffice it to say - there's a lot of hormones released in stress to deal with a lot of the systems in
Similar Profiles: stress and exercise
What is quite cool is that exercise has just about the same profile as stress in terms of hormonal responses. Catecholamines, which are great for fat mobilization, are triggered as soon as we get moving at a clip. The greater the intensity, the greater the release. So HIIT does get more fatty acids mobilized that slower steady state, as we discussed looking at Trapp's work over in this piece on different HIIT modes.
SO it seems even if we're not in startle or threat, the fact that we're moving requires similar hormonal responses: energy to the limbs rather than digestion, fat mobilization to keep going. Even the speed of hypertrophy occurring is as we know, an adaptation to demand. It seems in some cases where the environment is also perceived by the nervous system to be a potential threat, the adaptation (hypertrophy and strength) is accelerated. We saw awhile ago in Get Huge or Die that resistance workouts in a reduced oxygen chamber also caused faster hypertrophy - and that the hormanal cascade in that case seemed greater than the normal air environment: survive and get bigger to be better adapted to survive that again. Maybe.
Connecting Stress and Exercise: move it move it
Fact is, we can see two things from this understanding of hormones as state change managers (upper level management to be sure).
First, exercise is a state change (from stasis to motion) that sends hormones to optimize our body for that movement. When we move with those hormones in an exercise state, we usually feel pretty good. The hormones do their job: support movement. We derive benefits.
Second, stress has pretty much the same hormonal profile as exercise type movement - getting the heart rate up being the main observable factor. So, if we're having hormones released to say "i've just had a signal for you to get going: here come the chemicals to turn your body into a mean moving machine" and then we DON'T move, what happens?
Let's see, we feel like crap, we don't sleep, we gain weight, our skin can get funny, we are more susceptible to disease. Why?
In part because our body will keep trying to pull us out of the fire the only way it knows how. It seems to assume if we don't respond we must be deaf and so it amps up the signal.
Use it or ... Break It
As proposed, our hormones are signals responding to state change requests (startle or fear or stress are all requests to our nervous system to get us somewhere safe), if we do not respond to the message to change, it seems that the message gets louder: more hormones will get poured on the fire.
That is, our bodies are trying to tell us to use what thoes hormones have evolved to do: optimize getting away, that's movement, and if we don't listen to them, they get louder and louder until we finally break.
Like pain is a signal to change that gets louder until either we finally do something about it, or we become incapacitated, likewise these other hormones. Stress goes up. Digestion goes down. Sleep degrades.
We see this kind of signaling to support change not just in stress but in digestion: the in rush of fast digesting starchy carbs to our system is seen as a state change. That triggers insulin to get the sugar into the blood cells for conversion to energy. When we overeat regularly - put in more fuel than is required for a state change (we don't need the energy to do something), we can develop insulin resistance - the cells that usually respond to insulin knocking at the door to pop in some fuel for energy say bugger off. Or go deaf. So what does the body do? "you're not listening to me: let me amp up the signal" - more insulin to say "knock knock I AM HERE, CELL, WITH A DELIVERY" - and what can't be used by those cells gets moved to fat.
Eventually there's a viscous cycle in highly restistant (and often overweight or obese) folks, where even when they're eating well, the body is so resistant to insulin's effects, they are effectively starving while gaining more fat.
AT this point as well someone may be on insulin injections because the pancrease cannot produce enough volume on its own for these now-deaf cells literally to GET the message. And as you can image, large folks who aren't getting energy from their food are going to feel too pooped to get mobile. When we break, we really break.
Intriguingly (at least i think so) - movement can once again help accelerate the repair process because we are so plastic and adaptable. If we move we can redevelop insulin sensitivity. Strength training is fabulous for this. Dave Barr has a nice piece explaining this process. In other words get insulin levels to where they need to be to process the food into energy for the cells, get nutrition under control, and then get moving to develop greater sensitivity again - and we do see many people backing way off in type 2 diabetes from their shots: their messengers have been heard, the system realigns. Homeostatis and safety once again.
Move it Move it, Walk it Off.
So what do we see?
With both stress and eating, it seems the simple way to deal with the hormonal pattern we recognise as stress is to move: we thereby use the hormonal signals for what they were designed to support: physical action. Kill it or run away. Mission accomplished, back to calmer state. And from that calmer, stabler place, we can can look for strategies to help us deal effectively with whatever is freaking us out.
Before we get to calmer state is the run away or kill it process to blow off the physiological effects of the hormal cascade. Literally. Indeed, breathing, as we've talked about before, is a huge part of movement to rebalance our carbon dioxide and oxygen in our bodies, which helps send signals that ah ha yes we're dealing with the threatening situation; it's over; our system is going back to homeostasis thank you very much.
Something we rarely do when we're feeling our hormonal cascade for fight of flight kick in at a work place is to go for a walk. With my students, i'll do a coach and stroll from time to time. Walking has many great benefits from mirroring what the other person is doing to this physical use of these signals to DO something physical. We both calm down and engage better. One of my colleagues is also a dancer. He paces frequently when we're working together. That's a good thing, again for many reasons, but processing hormones that are signalling MOVE is a good thing.
No wonder archimedes flew out of his tub and ran when he discovered density - the excitement set his adrenaline going and he blew it off by running. Hopefully the later realization of his nekked butt in public didn't cause a stress cascade to ratchet up.
Vent the Hormonal Soup Pot: Feel Good with the Body where it Wants to Be - in Balance
We hear all the time that people feel so much better when they start an exercise program. We usually focus on the feeling better as down to body comp change, so improved self image, aerobic health (heart and lungs), energy up'd.
All great and true, but we kinda tend to miss, don't we, the fact that perhaps we're feeling less stressed and sleeping better because we are also venting the steam from the soup pot of hormonal build up we get when (a) we live in a stressful environment and (b) it's generally pretty sedentary.
We are physical beings rather than brains with annoying bodies. We're wired to move in response to an awful lot of our hormonal signals.
Summary
In this likely grossly oversimplified view of hormones, we could say there's a hormone to support any state change to the body. Whether the state change is from a threat, ingestion of food (or toxin), an injury, sex, anything that causes the body's state to change, there's a hormone that deals with optimizing whatever the body needs to do to stay safe - protecting itself for survival. That goes for fuel use, run away and hide, procreate, whatever is triggered.
We've seen that not listening to these hormonal messengers can cause the signals to keep coming, get louder. Their getting louder if not attended to often causes that part of the system to break, which will have incapacitating effects for us.
We've also seen that the pattern of many of these cascades seems to be addressed by movement: from large movements like going for a walk and getting the heart rate up (which induces harder breathing automatically) or smaller movements like self-induced deeper breathing.
We have not discussed that some of the signalling can be trained based on behaviour - like the cues to get hungry - but we have seen that we can often restore function to an overtaxed signalling system - like insulin resistance - by getting moving. Walking is great, breathing is great. Mobility drills, also effective. As we have seen before in Move or Die all this movement also sends lots of proprioceptive information to say "we're fine; we're in use; we're moving." All good.
So micro summary?
- hormones are state change managers
- a lot of their messages are about movement
- when we don't respond to those messages by moving they amp up the signal
- if they keep amping up the signal, we break
- getting back to movement can help restore even pretty broken systems
- best: find a way to move first to deal with the signals
- so that the space can be found to get other strategies not to be quite so triggered by those stimuli, or to reduce the requirements for those off-setting stimuli.
- be kind to yourself if in that state: it's not optimal for lifting heavy or learning new skills - walk, mobility work - all can help restore function
By the way, if you're a trainer, and are interested in how to integrate understanding this hormonal cascade with training/coaching your clients, the topic (among a lot of others - see overview here) is covered in the z-health r-phase certification. If you go for the cert, please let 'em know mc recommended you: we don't get cash for referrals - we get credit towards our continuing zed-ed. Thank you. -mcrefs
HERMANS, E., PUTMAN, P., BAAS, J., KOPPESCHAAR, H., & VANHONK, J. (2006). A Single Administration of Testosterone Reduces Fear-Potentiated Startle in Humans Biological Psychiatry, 59 (9), 872-874 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2005.11.015Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Van den Buuse, M. (2001). Estrogen increases prepulse inhibition of acoustic startle in rats European Journal of Pharmacology, 425 (1), 33-41 DOI: 10.1016/S0014-2999(01)01139-6
Toufexis, D. (2005). Sex Differences in Hormonal Modulation of Anxiety Measured with Light-Enhanced Startle: Possible Role for Arginine Vasopressin in the Male Journal of Neuroscience, 25 (39), 9010-9016 DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0127-05.2005
Zouhal, H., Jacob, C., Delamarche, P., & Gratas-Delamarche, A. (2008). Catecholamines and the Effects of Exercise, Training and Gender Sports Medicine, 38 (5), 401-423 DOI: 10.2165/00007256-200838050-00004
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Wednesday, July 21, 2010
How get strong if (part of) our muscles aren't actually on?
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So that seems like a dumb question, doesn't it: how do we get strong if our muscles aren't actually on? After all, we work out; we get lots of reps in - we seem to get stronger, and then someone says about that plateau we're hitting "maybe the reason you're not getting that press is that you're weak." Excuse me? You talking to me?
That happened to me today. As some of you know i'm trying to get the 24kg KB press - hence the wee recent chat with Dan John about pressing. But today, at the 9S strength and suppleness course, one of the components was getting some muscles checked to see if they were firing on demand. Eg, anterior delt. Pretty important in pressing. What did i learn? It wasn't staying on through a good part of the range of motion possible of that muscle. Let me clarify - part of the muscle wasn't staying on through the ROM. In my case, close up to the origin was having a hard time. Just part. Consequence? Sucky press progress.
So we looked at ways to help a person (a) learn the range of motion of the muscle with respect to its action on a joint and (b) how to cue the person to get that part of that muscle to come on in that range of motion. Gotta tell you there were a lot of "Oh so that's what that muscle feels like when it's working" comments.
The big deal here is that we're talking about parts of the whole muscle - not the big "my glute med isn't firing" but "this part of my glute med at this ROM is not firing."
Why would we Care to get More Muscle going?
Contractions: Muscle fibers are wee wee things making up the body of a muscle. Motor units - nerves going to the bundles of muscles - don't all come on at once. But they also don't come on part way. THere's no dimmer switch to a muscle. They're either on or off. The strength of a contraction is relative to the number of motor units that come on. Another cool point is that the ratio of motor units to fibers changes depending on body parts. Hands, feet and eyes have for instance way way higher rations of motor unit to fibers than say the legs or the forearms. There's also issues around the squencing of motor units firing in a contraction, but we'll set that aside for the moment
So the potential to see the effect of motor unit shut down may be greater in the bigger muscles with fewer individual motor units per fiber.
Main point: If a bunch of motor units are not being recruited, or they turn off part way through a motion, we get squishy bits or what feels like dead zones in the body of the muscle.
Conversely, the more motor units firing, the more fibers get triggered, the more force can be produced, the more easily we lift - or the more load we lift and the smoother the lift that can keep the muscle on throughout the action. THis is likely a gross oversimplification that does not take into account recruitment patterns and wind speed etc, but it seems to work as a general model.
Example I had the pleasure to work with a great guy and super coach, big guy too, muscle wise, who said that he had trouble with his squat - his DL overtook it completely. By comparison his shoulders are beautiful. So let's see if those massive delts may also be associated with sans squishy recruitment.
WHen muscle testing his shoulders - the delts and the teres major in particular - everything was solid throughout the range of motion. No squishy bits (unlike mine). Wow. When we tested the quads it was quads be gone. They were just a sea of squishy bits. Wow.
Now, obviously this guy could squat me on his back all day long no problem, so he's not "weak" in the 99lb sand kicked in his face kinda way. But it's plain that he could be stronger and faster if more of the muscle was willing to come on.
Aside: Nervous System Perspective. Everything's connected.
In many cases that weekend, we worked on muscles, helped folks get squishy bits to come on more fully, and tested that yup performance was going up. And in some cases pain was going down at the same time.
With super coach's quads, we did not get so much action back in the legs. A bit of history revealed that super coach's biggest issue is plantar fascitis right now and that's his priority. It may be that in his case, his nervous system is not willing to pour more juice into his quads to let him go heavier if his base is in pain. Poor feet feeling, not so safe for adding greater load. Could be. So wisely super coach is focusing on what his bod is telling him to do.
In other cases, helping one muscle to fire better, helped an entire system to opening up and got people to a whole new level of happy.
Plugging in Muscle Work.
Learning to feel what a muscle feels like - what it's role is in a movement is an interesting exercise.
Here's where some kinesiology can help
- by knowing what muscle is reponsible for what action in a movement, we can see if it's doing its job to support that movement.
This approach to performance checking is another reason why we all need a knowledgeable coach. If progress is stalling it may be that it can be addressed more rapidly by a quick anatomy function check to see if something needs a little attention to be brought to it to come to the party than looking at 20 different lift variations to see if that's the ticket. It's not to say that those lift variations aren't key plateau busters, but for them to function optimally, it would be better for them to be situated on an optimally functioning base, no? Accelerate progress.
A coach can cue our awareness of the muscle, it's ROM and check when it's coming off and help us practice attention to keep that part of a muscle on.
Tuning
Muscle work like this, it seems to me, is tuning. It's not the single factor foundation thing in itself that will solve all ills or create training shortcuts. It's a refinement on top of good movement quality to begin with and *then* tuning the muscles within this quality foundation.
It's polishing part of the global picture. But goodness what a big difference a little bit of polish, a little bit of tuning can make: the image is clearer; the music more harmonious - the effect more enlivening.
Muscle tuning in this way therefore seems to make great sense as part of a whole package of coaching/tuning for performance and well being: start with cleaning up whole movement (i like z-health r-phase for this); then dial it in even more with a coach who can offer muscle tuning (and more - like working in the wonderful world of ligaments - no kidding - but that's for another time).
Related Posts
That happened to me today. As some of you know i'm trying to get the 24kg KB press - hence the wee recent chat with Dan John about pressing. But today, at the 9S strength and suppleness course, one of the components was getting some muscles checked to see if they were firing on demand. Eg, anterior delt. Pretty important in pressing. What did i learn? It wasn't staying on through a good part of the range of motion possible of that muscle. Let me clarify - part of the muscle wasn't staying on through the ROM. In my case, close up to the origin was having a hard time. Just part. Consequence? Sucky press progress.
So we looked at ways to help a person (a) learn the range of motion of the muscle with respect to its action on a joint and (b) how to cue the person to get that part of that muscle to come on in that range of motion. Gotta tell you there were a lot of "Oh so that's what that muscle feels like when it's working" comments.
The big deal here is that we're talking about parts of the whole muscle - not the big "my glute med isn't firing" but "this part of my glute med at this ROM is not firing."
Why would we Care to get More Muscle going?
Contractions: Muscle fibers are wee wee things making up the body of a muscle. Motor units - nerves going to the bundles of muscles - don't all come on at once. But they also don't come on part way. THere's no dimmer switch to a muscle. They're either on or off. The strength of a contraction is relative to the number of motor units that come on. Another cool point is that the ratio of motor units to fibers changes depending on body parts. Hands, feet and eyes have for instance way way higher rations of motor unit to fibers than say the legs or the forearms. There's also issues around the squencing of motor units firing in a contraction, but we'll set that aside for the moment
So the potential to see the effect of motor unit shut down may be greater in the bigger muscles with fewer individual motor units per fiber.
Main point: If a bunch of motor units are not being recruited, or they turn off part way through a motion, we get squishy bits or what feels like dead zones in the body of the muscle.
Conversely, the more motor units firing, the more fibers get triggered, the more force can be produced, the more easily we lift - or the more load we lift and the smoother the lift that can keep the muscle on throughout the action. THis is likely a gross oversimplification that does not take into account recruitment patterns and wind speed etc, but it seems to work as a general model.
Example I had the pleasure to work with a great guy and super coach, big guy too, muscle wise, who said that he had trouble with his squat - his DL overtook it completely. By comparison his shoulders are beautiful. So let's see if those massive delts may also be associated with sans squishy recruitment.
WHen muscle testing his shoulders - the delts and the teres major in particular - everything was solid throughout the range of motion. No squishy bits (unlike mine). Wow. When we tested the quads it was quads be gone. They were just a sea of squishy bits. Wow.
Now, obviously this guy could squat me on his back all day long no problem, so he's not "weak" in the 99lb sand kicked in his face kinda way. But it's plain that he could be stronger and faster if more of the muscle was willing to come on.
Aside: Nervous System Perspective. Everything's connected.
In many cases that weekend, we worked on muscles, helped folks get squishy bits to come on more fully, and tested that yup performance was going up. And in some cases pain was going down at the same time.
With super coach's quads, we did not get so much action back in the legs. A bit of history revealed that super coach's biggest issue is plantar fascitis right now and that's his priority. It may be that in his case, his nervous system is not willing to pour more juice into his quads to let him go heavier if his base is in pain. Poor feet feeling, not so safe for adding greater load. Could be. So wisely super coach is focusing on what his bod is telling him to do.
In other cases, helping one muscle to fire better, helped an entire system to opening up and got people to a whole new level of happy.
Plugging in Muscle Work.
Learning to feel what a muscle feels like - what it's role is in a movement is an interesting exercise.
Here's where some kinesiology can help - by knowing what muscle is reponsible for what action in a movement, we can see if it's doing its job to support that movement.This approach to performance checking is another reason why we all need a knowledgeable coach. If progress is stalling it may be that it can be addressed more rapidly by a quick anatomy function check to see if something needs a little attention to be brought to it to come to the party than looking at 20 different lift variations to see if that's the ticket. It's not to say that those lift variations aren't key plateau busters, but for them to function optimally, it would be better for them to be situated on an optimally functioning base, no? Accelerate progress.
A coach can cue our awareness of the muscle, it's ROM and check when it's coming off and help us practice attention to keep that part of a muscle on.
Tuning
Muscle work like this, it seems to me, is tuning. It's not the single factor foundation thing in itself that will solve all ills or create training shortcuts. It's a refinement on top of good movement quality to begin with and *then* tuning the muscles within this quality foundation.
It's polishing part of the global picture. But goodness what a big difference a little bit of polish, a little bit of tuning can make: the image is clearer; the music more harmonious - the effect more enlivening.
Muscle tuning in this way therefore seems to make great sense as part of a whole package of coaching/tuning for performance and well being: start with cleaning up whole movement (i like z-health r-phase for this); then dial it in even more with a coach who can offer muscle tuning (and more - like working in the wonderful world of ligaments - no kidding - but that's for another time). Related Posts
- What is z-health
- Pelvis Power - working hip opening in the press.
- the other side of the gym: sensory motor work
- Fatigue testing: is the next rep one too many
Friday, July 16, 2010
Vibram FiveFingers Bikila: Learning about the Name behind the Name & Fast Shoe Look
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Abebe Bikila was a two time olympic marathon winner. In 1960, he ran barefoot - the way he had trained - when the shoe sponsor Adidas didn't have shoes that he liked. Cool is that (a) he won (b) he broke the record (c) it's the first gold medal for Africa in Olympic history. He won gold in the 64 olympics, too. What's amazing is that he died young, at 41, four years after a tragic car accident that left him a parapalegic.
Vibram has a new shoe out designed specifically for runners and for running. They could have called their new shoe anything. They've called it Bikila. When you know something about Abebe Bikila's remarkable story, Vibram picked a pretty potent person to honor. As such, however, the shoe has a lot to live up to to be worthy of the name.
This is a first post quick look at this new shoe that was initiated at the 2010 Boston Marathon.
First point - to me, and chatting with birthdayshoes Justin - they fit more like the classic than the kso with slightly more shallow toe pockets. At least one other reviewer finds them more like a "second skin" than his other VFF's. Not sure there. They are the same size no. for me as the KSO - but i'm going to check a size smaller just to confirm this is right (see what i mean by prelimnary review?)
The shoes are also stiffer in the foot bed and more contoured than other VFF's and the inner thickness of the foot bed is more Flow like than KSO. The lining is very nice. very comfy. The tread is also intriguing with additional little tread bits for traction. The uppers are designed to look like the uppers of the kso, but they're actually one piece of soft silky like material.
Another unique to this model feature is the strap in: there is one strap across the top, that pulls to the inside rather than the outside, but there is no strap running to the back. So these need to wrap around the foot like a stiff sock to stay on. And it seems to work. Everything is smooth and seemingly seamless.
Initially these were the hardest vff's to put on, but after a few attempts, they do respond to the usual toes first, rock 'em in, pull up the heal. They're pretty, too. And that's not bad.
Feel. They definitely feel like there's more shoe there than in the other VFF's - even the flow. And that may be from the stiffness of the shoe and the extra tread bits - stiffness is not a bad thing.
The buzz in the commnity about the bikila's is that they're rocking runners. That will be for a follow up post. But for now,
while i worry about sizing, i'm just thinking about Abebe Bikila from Ethiopia. Keen to learn more about not just a great athlete but a great spirit, too. May be one of the best things that VFF has done is getting more of us to learn about the inspiration for their shoe's name-sake.
(quick update on sizing here - take away: stick with kso sizing)
Related Resources
Abebe Bikila was a two time olympic marathon winner. In 1960, he ran barefoot - the way he had trained - when the shoe sponsor Adidas didn't have shoes that he liked. Cool is that (a) he won (b) he broke the record (c) it's the first gold medal for Africa in Olympic history. He won gold in the 64 olympics, too. What's amazing is that he died young, at 41, four years after a tragic car accident that left him a parapalegic.
Vibram has a new shoe out designed specifically for runners and for running. They could have called their new shoe anything. They've called it Bikila. When you know something about Abebe Bikila's remarkable story, Vibram picked a pretty potent person to honor. As such, however, the shoe has a lot to live up to to be worthy of the name.This is a first post quick look at this new shoe that was initiated at the 2010 Boston Marathon.
First point - to me, and chatting with birthdayshoes Justin - they fit more like the classic than the kso with slightly more shallow toe pockets. At least one other reviewer finds them more like a "second skin" than his other VFF's. Not sure there. They are the same size no. for me as the KSO - but i'm going to check a size smaller just to confirm this is right (see what i mean by prelimnary review?)
The shoes are also stiffer in the foot bed and more contoured than other VFF's and the inner thickness of the foot bed is more Flow like than KSO. The lining is very nice. very comfy. The tread is also intriguing with additional little tread bits for traction. The uppers are designed to look like the uppers of the kso, but they're actually one piece of soft silky like material.
Another unique to this model feature is the strap in: there is one strap across the top, that pulls to the inside rather than the outside, but there is no strap running to the back. So these need to wrap around the foot like a stiff sock to stay on. And it seems to work. Everything is smooth and seemingly seamless.
Initially these were the hardest vff's to put on, but after a few attempts, they do respond to the usual toes first, rock 'em in, pull up the heal. They're pretty, too. And that's not bad.Feel. They definitely feel like there's more shoe there than in the other VFF's - even the flow. And that may be from the stiffness of the shoe and the extra tread bits - stiffness is not a bad thing.
The buzz in the commnity about the bikila's is that they're rocking runners. That will be for a follow up post. But for now,
while i worry about sizing, i'm just thinking about Abebe Bikila from Ethiopia. Keen to learn more about not just a great athlete but a great spirit, too. May be one of the best things that VFF has done is getting more of us to learn about the inspiration for their shoe's name-sake.(quick update on sizing here - take away: stick with kso sizing)
Related Resources
- VFF article index
- Solving Calve issues when first running in VFF's
- How to Fit VFF's
- Running Barefoot vs Shoes: videos
- Running Shoes as Single Factor THinking
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Weights, TRX and Brad Pilon's Anabolic Again - fascia-listic
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There's a theory that stretching the fascia is a way to support hypertrophy. It's sort of loaded stretching with opening up the wrapping around our bod that helps keep things together under the skin. Now, i don't know what the evidence is to support this theory, but i think i've experienced it. Feels kinda good. How'd this happen? By a happy side effect of enjoying a good e-book.
Brad Pilon (eat stop eat guy) got himself an Elite Fitness Rack and a stack of books to figure out how to beat his "i'm an experienced lifter and have anabolic slowdown" plateau with his "anabolic again" program. Now me, i got the book initially just for the research value cuz i like Brad's brain. And the theory of the approach is really sweet. As i started looking through the weekly programs i thought heck, i know i'll get stronger, this is different, and seems cool and safe.
So what the heck? i'm coming back from a shoulder tweak, have a long history of craving hypertrophy, and Brad's thesis is, in part, that you don't have to super eat to gain mass, and even a bit of mass makes a big difference (let's see the photo of that 1 pound steak again, brad?)
Now here's what really turned me onto this program, and it's not obvious. It's that the workouts move between the big bar and straps. A lot of the moves are standard things like bench presses and curls in the upper body work. But then there's strap rows. And many things to do with straps. I don't have straps. I don't have a rack on which to put straps. BUT i do have a TRX. And i like my TRX, but i have never blended a TRX with a weight workout.
I am SO SORE. in a good way. and ya, i really get that DOMS is not a sign of anything other than lack of familiarity with the move or load (which could be construed as a bad thing like heh loser why is this triggering you?) But here's the thing: moving between weight work that's compound moves but really stable, and then going and doing strap/TRX work that is not stable - requires more other little muscles to stay stable - and heh if you're doing tricep extensions by straightening out your arms while lying forward into said straps -well, my abs are sore over the full sheet - i feel like not only did i hit the abs, but the saranwrap of the body - the fascia - has been profoundly changed.
Seriously, getting at the fascia with a loaded stretch (as per left in these strap chest flies) is a kind of hypertrophic technique in itself. This belt work with the weights could be a potent factor. We'll see.
Is this an experience that everyone has with a TRX? for me this is new - and i do like going from stable to sensible not quite so stable, and i gotta say i feel sore in ways i haven't felt sore before - which suggests that muscles are getting worked in unfamiliar ways. And that's interesting.
So, so far (like one week) i really am digging Brad's program, and here's to blending strap work with weights. Solids and curves. Nice. Core without thinking about it. And lots of implicit plank work in there too.
If you give Brad's Anabolic Again program a go, leave a comment please. If you mix weights with straps/TRX's, lemme know. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Brad Pilon (eat stop eat guy) got himself an Elite Fitness Rack and a stack of books to figure out how to beat his "i'm an experienced lifter and have anabolic slowdown" plateau with his "anabolic again" program. Now me, i got the book initially just for the research value cuz i like Brad's brain. And the theory of the approach is really sweet. As i started looking through the weekly programs i thought heck, i know i'll get stronger, this is different, and seems cool and safe.
So what the heck? i'm coming back from a shoulder tweak, have a long history of craving hypertrophy, and Brad's thesis is, in part, that you don't have to super eat to gain mass, and even a bit of mass makes a big difference (let's see the photo of that 1 pound steak again, brad?)Now here's what really turned me onto this program, and it's not obvious. It's that the workouts move between the big bar and straps. A lot of the moves are standard things like bench presses and curls in the upper body work. But then there's strap rows. And many things to do with straps. I don't have straps. I don't have a rack on which to put straps. BUT i do have a TRX. And i like my TRX, but i have never blended a TRX with a weight workout.
I am SO SORE. in a good way. and ya, i really get that DOMS is not a sign of anything other than lack of familiarity with the move or load (which could be construed as a bad thing like heh loser why is this triggering you?) But here's the thing: moving between weight work that's compound moves but really stable, and then going and doing strap/TRX work that is not stable - requires more other little muscles to stay stable - and heh if you're doing tricep extensions by straightening out your arms while lying forward into said straps -well, my abs are sore over the full sheet - i feel like not only did i hit the abs, but the saranwrap of the body - the fascia - has been profoundly changed.
Seriously, getting at the fascia with a loaded stretch (as per left in these strap chest flies) is a kind of hypertrophic technique in itself. This belt work with the weights could be a potent factor. We'll see. Is this an experience that everyone has with a TRX? for me this is new - and i do like going from stable to sensible not quite so stable, and i gotta say i feel sore in ways i haven't felt sore before - which suggests that muscles are getting worked in unfamiliar ways. And that's interesting.
So, so far (like one week) i really am digging Brad's program, and here's to blending strap work with weights. Solids and curves. Nice. Core without thinking about it. And lots of implicit plank work in there too.
If you give Brad's Anabolic Again program a go, leave a comment please. If you mix weights with straps/TRX's, lemme know. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Monday, July 5, 2010
Pressing Matters, Part II: Dan John's Overhead Press Template (for Gals especially) for a Bigger Press
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Last week, in Part I of Pressing Matters, we had an interview with Dan John about the Overhead Press (and related). This week, since Dan's said i can share the pressing template he gave me with y'all, that's what's presented below. By way of context, Dan John is a champion athlete in numerous disciplines, coach and author of Never Let Go
, and will be co-presenting a one-time-only workshop with Pavel Tsatsouline this Sept, founded on their forth-coming book. The workshop is called Scientific Strength Secrets of Extreme Performance.
Dan's growing intrigue with the role of the overhead press is well summed up from the interview here:
In the interview, Dan said that his training for women does not change much from what he does with guys. But he does say that "women should press probably every day, doing something in a pressing movement"
And so to that end:
Thank you, Dan John, for a groovy template. When i was tree planting up a clear cut in BC one summer, another plantar, joking through the fatigue said over lunch looking out over the sweeps of burns "To plant a tree, you must LOOOVE the tree." Likewise here, to press the kettle (as Jason Dolby's bud Milosh might say) you must love the kettle" And, for a gal, that means press it a little every day.
For me, coming back to this template from a shoulder tweak has been really interesting in terms of finding the right groove to make progress and not overdoing it, as i have been wont to do.
Models for me here are folks like Asha Wagner
(pictured left, with yours truly in the background) with her 24 pistol, pull up and press, who get great heavy results from volume+lighter loads.
If you do work with this protocol, please come on back and let me (and b2d readers) know how it goes.
Update July 20 - Here's some thoughts from Asha Wagner about part 1 and 2 of this coach john chat.
Related Resources
, and will be co-presenting a one-time-only workshop with Pavel Tsatsouline this Sept, founded on their forth-coming book. The workshop is called Scientific Strength Secrets of Extreme Performance. 
Dan's growing intrigue with the role of the overhead press is well summed up from the interview here:The overhead press would be along with the deadlift as the two most important lifts that most people should do. Yes, you should do a squatting movement every day, for the same reasons toss in a hinge, a walk, and joint mobility work, but for loading, you want the press (maybe even first and foremost in my thinking now) and the deadlift....If can overhead press it, you can bench it. The more you press overhead, the more stable you become overall. Also, for whatever reason, call it what you want, but pressing overhead seems to apply to sport and general badassary.A focus of the interview was the issue of women working to put up heavier presses - and heavier kb's in particular. I own it: i'm struggling to get from the 20 to the 24kg - which largely motivated these questions.
In the interview, Dan said that his training for women does not change much from what he does with guys. But he does say that "women should press probably every day, doing something in a pressing movement"
And so to that end:
Dan John's Pressing Template for Gals
to Increase Their Heavy (KB) Press
to Increase Their Heavy (KB) Press
Rule One: Press daily.
Rule Two: Mix up the presses as much as possible.
Rule Three: Going heavy and getting scorched will not help you.
Typical week, add anything else you like on top of it:
Day One: One arm press ladders of 2-3-5, left right, for up to to ten sets (lots of volume, lots of time here, so cut back on everything else. I suggest going L 2, R 3, L 5, R 2, L 3, R 5, and just wave up. It is amazingly refreshing even though it is a ton of volume
Day Two: SeeSaw Press, a few sets, maybe walking SeeSaw Pressing as part of the warm up, nothing serious.
Day Three: Heavy work with one arm presses, several sets of 1-2, 1-2, 1-2, with near max weights. Clean the goal bell and hold the rack for about five sets of two at the end.
Day Four: SeeSaw Press and Windmills.
Aside, Here's how i do SeaSaw Press and Windmills as a workout, to which Dan commented:
"That combination is very interesting indeed. The upside of not giving someone every detail is that "what you think I said" and "what I meant" merge into a brilliant little workout like this.
I have this nagging feeling that some women are good at the Windmill for all the wrong reasons, so when you mix the presses with windmills you are forcing yourself to double up on the lockouts work and the tension work. I often have to have my female athletes do all their standing presses on one foot (doesn't matter how you do it) simply to teach tension (and, sadly but honestly, to get them to shut up. The social dimension is tough for me to deal with in the weightroom).
mc, that is a lot of volume. For most people, I would tell them to ratchet it in a little, but if you choose your bell wisely, that could really help you. "
Just FYI - i've been pretty loose on the sets for this one - playing around with 7-10 rather than always going for 100 WM reps - pending what else i'm doing. And if i'm concerned i'm not being sufficiently attentive, i do a fatigue check (described here) as a reality check.
Also Dan's notes on the role of the windmill in last week's interview: importantee.
Day Five: 1-2-3 ladders with a medium bell, like the Enter the Kettlebell Program. If you can do 1-2-3-4-5 great...but the work of the week has been put in.
Days Six and Seven: Either Rest or just work some tension stuff into your training.
Keep the workouts in this order in the week, but feel free to rest any day you like. I have always liked resting on Sunday and Thursday, so plug those days in there. (M-1, T-2, W-3, Th-Rest (Days six and seven), F-4, Sat-5 and Sun Rest or whatever (Days 6 and 7). Things always come up which is why I leave the open days open. You can lift five to 14 days in a row without taking a break, but it seems to hit you hard at Day 15.
Just an idea, keep the concept and tweak it, but this is the general outline...
Aside: A few notes from Dan's interview can blend into this mix as well, such as pressing on one foot.
Thank you, Dan John, for a groovy template. When i was tree planting up a clear cut in BC one summer, another plantar, joking through the fatigue said over lunch looking out over the sweeps of burns "To plant a tree, you must LOOOVE the tree." Likewise here, to press the kettle (as Jason Dolby's bud Milosh might say) you must love the kettle" And, for a gal, that means press it a little every day.For me, coming back to this template from a shoulder tweak has been really interesting in terms of finding the right groove to make progress and not overdoing it, as i have been wont to do.
Models for me here are folks like Asha Wagner
(pictured left, with yours truly in the background) with her 24 pistol, pull up and press, who get great heavy results from volume+lighter loads.
If you do work with this protocol, please come on back and let me (and b2d readers) know how it goes.
Update July 20 - Here's some thoughts from Asha Wagner about part 1 and 2 of this coach john chat.
Related Resources
- Part I of Pressing Matters: interview with Dan John
- Kettlebell Articel Index at b2d
- It's Ok NOT to do that last rep
- Fatigue Testing: is your nervous system too pooped for the next set
- Volume and Lighter Loads for Going Heavy
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