Tuesday, March 15, 2011
shoulder rehab - a very (very) active approach - a journey log, pt 1
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Shoulder injuries suck. Getting one on one side after months of rehabbing the other side sucks even more. One may also imagine a revision to Oscar Wilde - To injure one shoulder may be regraded as a misfortune; to injure both looks like carelessness. And perhaps it was. So, can the knowledge gained in rehabbing one shoulder over months be applied to the other to rehab it in weeks?
The following posts are a few notes on my journey to take lessons learned about the shoulder from an injury last spring - 10 months ago'ish now - and applying them to my right shoulder. The result seems to be a surprisingly accelerated recovery occurring on the right.
I offer these notes not as a "here's what to do if this sounds like you" but just some observations on what i've found useful in my own rehab.
Cut to the Chase: main rehab strategy
If you want to cut to the chase, the biggest therapeutic work right now seems to be loaded mobility work exploring the edge of range of motion limits - where those limits are pretty clearly communicated by an edge of pain.
I am fascinated by how quickly this work into the edge of the limit seems to be having rapid restorative effects. I'll discuss the approach in more detail as we move on.
Background
Last spring not long after getting back from the amazing RKC II weekend in San Jose, Feb 2010, i somehow woke up one morning and my left shoulder was in significant pain. Reaching behind me to put on my coat was the most awful experience.
6 weeks or so after the initial pain, went to see the doc as things seemed to be getting worse. The doc suggested "painful arc syndrome" which meant rotator cuff issue and take some NSAIDs to bring down the inflammation. As i've written about before, the drugs really did bring down the pain, but my pressing goals got shot. I learned that a sore left side can screw up a functioning right side: i just could not press with as much vigour without inducing a pain response on the left. Yuck.
Where did this come from? What was it?
I learned a lot about repetitive strain injuries, and about resarch into eccentrics for healing these kinds of issues. I learned about the differences between itis or osis, and why most up on current practice medicos and resaerchers just talk about opathies instead. Eccentric training was not doing it for me. Physio not so much. Secrets of the shoulder - awseome stuff but wasn't giving me a breakthrough.
Mid October *finally* got some work done with me on finding a path into the shoulder; turned out, no not really a shoulder thing per se (the source of pain may not be the site of pain, i seem to recall hearing some where), more a biceps thing - got a super path to start rebuilding there. If you'd like to explore the detail of that analysis and the specific rehab for what was happening, that story is linked here.
More Recently
Finally, a little more than a month ago, as i wrote recently, i got back into my double KB work via Return of the Kettlebell. It was hard to deal with how much ground i'd lost, where i was doing three ladders rather than five; max on left was a 12 for reps not the 16, but there were also some definite wins. It only took about a week of effort to be able to press the 16 on the left again for singles; two weeks to get three reps. That's a far cry from doing three - four sets of five ladders - or 15 reps - but there was progress. All good. I was starting to snatch again - with just the 12 on the left, but it's a start.
And then it happened: on heavy day of the RTK pressing cycle, third ladder in with the 16 on the right, and something felt really not good. As far as i could tell, my form had been ok; i didn't feel anything go, but that was it. And there was pain.
My immediate response was to try some neural dynamic/ mechanic work to get at the nerves that innervate the shoulder and the biceps. The shoulder work was fine; the supraspinatus work, not so much; musculo-cutaneous (biceps nerve) not great.
Emotional Experience More debilitating than Injury?
Perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of an injury is the emotional game: here i was just a month off one injury that happened to unhinge my passion - pressing a 24 - and now my *best* shoulder was hit. It can be challenging to find a way to stay up with one's practice.
Suffice it to say i think that i did not want this right shoulder to unhinge me again. But what to do? Just lifting the covers off me in the morning was let's say a more sharply wakeful experience than an alarm; trying to reach my head to wash my hair, little own put any pressure on my head was not a good thing either. Big back away signals.
Strategy for come back
So what to do? Use what ya know; test it; refine it.
Over the past year i'd been training for my zhealth master trainer designation (the plaque just came the other day. cool. new wall gets started). Part of that training is a whole lot of anatomy, with a major focus on nerves and spinal sections related to joint movement. Cool stuff to get that something happening in one's neck is manifest in one's fingers, and that working with the source at the neck can affect the peripheral manifestation.
Walk the Walk; Eat one's own Dog FoodThere are a lot of expressions regarding integrity of practice: does one walk the walk or just talk the talk; does one eat one's own dog food - i.e. the products that one produces for a particular task.
My own injury has given me a chance to explore the techniques i know and the skills i've developed for investigating new (to me) approaches.
Coming Up
So here's a bit of a path i'll discuss in the upcoming posts:
In the coming discussion, i will make no claims that what i've done, what i'm doing in my rehab is great for everyone - or for that matter anyone else. What i will say is that the protocol i've learned with my colleagues going through the Master Trainer progressions is test and reassess everything. We have a lot of tools; they're not total; i've learned a bunch outside that program as well, but the thing i've found has been working for me is this simple concept of test and reassess. Try anything: just have a way to evaluate if it's having an effect, and if that effect is positive.
Principled Hack. Something else i've learned in the process is that there is great value - at least for myself - in having learned something of our fundamental mechanics, but almost even more so, of our fundamental wiring. Knowing something about our inner organisation has given me a more principled way to approach at least to picking a starting point: i think i have a better model about why i might see an effect or not.
At times i'm still stunned by these connections: working with a young gal with arthritis with really high pain and limited range of motion. We tried a drill to work the nerves involved firing the painful muscles; nothing. So we then engaged that spinal segment of where the nerve starts along with the drill, and wow, the range of motion went up; pain went down. I get a little verklempt every time i think of that. It's not an isolated example. What it means tho, is that by having a better model of us - how muscles, joints, nerves, guts connect, that helps me apply the tools i have better. Makes sense, doesn't it? Sounds obvious, but initially i didn't get that as clearly as i have of late able to add these models to practice.
In computing sometimes one might refer to a hack in code as a fast fix for a problem. Hacks are great. They are like the coding equivalent of duck tape. And about as robust. A principled hack will be something more robust, but no one is claiming that it's the absolute optimal solution to the problem. I guess i feel like i'm a bit further down the road where my approach to what i do is more principled. In many cases it's exactly the same, but perhaps more refined and efficient. Hence this test on myself.
Motivation to Learn: Load is a Great Teacher. One other thing i've found with respect to learning is that there is one thing that will accelerate learning: if one has to teach the material. Anyone who's had to teach at any level will know what it's like to be asked to teach a new course or fill in for a colleague. One has to get up to speed fast.
I'm finding that something else that drives one to learn, to develop new solutions is an injury. Perhaps with my left shoulder learning, the folks i've had the pleasure to work with on their pain/performance, and the fact that i have some great colleagues who are there to draw on for their experience, i have greater confidence to say i'm going to have a go at this myself; i'm going to treat myself as the client and see what i can do.
Progress. So far, i've been surprised (and occaisionally stunned) by the seeming rapidity of the results. It's too early to sign off on this injury: i'm in the middle of rehabbing, and i tell myself well maybe this is a way less intense injury than the left side was etc etc, but so what? i'll take it: it seems to be coming together much faster. I could lift the covers off me this morning without stiffling a yelp, and could almost put full pressure on my head when shampooing. Two days ago, i could not.
Gonzo Healing.
So why talk about this? I learned last night that what i had thought was gonzo journalism - no holds barred, deep risky reporting - was not right at all. Gonzo, it turns out, is more the destruction of the idea of journalistic objectivity; of being willing to put oneself explicitly in the story, rather than try to pretend one is an objective tape recorder.
So let's call this gonzo healing or healing practice: i'm in the middle of a process now; it may all end in tears; it may be great. Either way, it may be interesting to reflect on the process as it's happening.
Thanks for joining the investigation.
Other Posts in this Series
Related Stories
Shoulder injuries suck. Getting one on one side after months of rehabbing the other side sucks even more. One may also imagine a revision to Oscar Wilde - To injure one shoulder may be regraded as a misfortune; to injure both looks like carelessness. And perhaps it was. So, can the knowledge gained in rehabbing one shoulder over months be applied to the other to rehab it in weeks?
The following posts are a few notes on my journey to take lessons learned about the shoulder from an injury last spring - 10 months ago'ish now - and applying them to my right shoulder. The result seems to be a surprisingly accelerated recovery occurring on the right.
I offer these notes not as a "here's what to do if this sounds like you" but just some observations on what i've found useful in my own rehab.
Cut to the Chase: main rehab strategy
If you want to cut to the chase, the biggest therapeutic work right now seems to be loaded mobility work exploring the edge of range of motion limits - where those limits are pretty clearly communicated by an edge of pain.
I am fascinated by how quickly this work into the edge of the limit seems to be having rapid restorative effects. I'll discuss the approach in more detail as we move on.
Background
 |
| Pondering rehab at the office. see the RKC II cert? |
6 weeks or so after the initial pain, went to see the doc as things seemed to be getting worse. The doc suggested "painful arc syndrome" which meant rotator cuff issue and take some NSAIDs to bring down the inflammation. As i've written about before, the drugs really did bring down the pain, but my pressing goals got shot. I learned that a sore left side can screw up a functioning right side: i just could not press with as much vigour without inducing a pain response on the left. Yuck.
Where did this come from? What was it?
I learned a lot about repetitive strain injuries, and about resarch into eccentrics for healing these kinds of issues. I learned about the differences between itis or osis, and why most up on current practice medicos and resaerchers just talk about opathies instead. Eccentric training was not doing it for me. Physio not so much. Secrets of the shoulder - awseome stuff but wasn't giving me a breakthrough.
Mid October *finally* got some work done with me on finding a path into the shoulder; turned out, no not really a shoulder thing per se (the source of pain may not be the site of pain, i seem to recall hearing some where), more a biceps thing - got a super path to start rebuilding there. If you'd like to explore the detail of that analysis and the specific rehab for what was happening, that story is linked here.
More Recently
And then it happened: on heavy day of the RTK pressing cycle, third ladder in with the 16 on the right, and something felt really not good. As far as i could tell, my form had been ok; i didn't feel anything go, but that was it. And there was pain.
My immediate response was to try some neural dynamic/ mechanic work to get at the nerves that innervate the shoulder and the biceps. The shoulder work was fine; the supraspinatus work, not so much; musculo-cutaneous (biceps nerve) not great.
Emotional Experience More debilitating than Injury?
 |
| office kb pile |
Suffice it to say i think that i did not want this right shoulder to unhinge me again. But what to do? Just lifting the covers off me in the morning was let's say a more sharply wakeful experience than an alarm; trying to reach my head to wash my hair, little own put any pressure on my head was not a good thing either. Big back away signals.
Strategy for come back
So what to do? Use what ya know; test it; refine it.
Over the past year i'd been training for my zhealth master trainer designation (the plaque just came the other day. cool. new wall gets started). Part of that training is a whole lot of anatomy, with a major focus on nerves and spinal sections related to joint movement. Cool stuff to get that something happening in one's neck is manifest in one's fingers, and that working with the source at the neck can affect the peripheral manifestation.
 |
| new plaque, functional side of office |
My own injury has given me a chance to explore the techniques i know and the skills i've developed for investigating new (to me) approaches.
Coming Up
So here's a bit of a path i'll discuss in the upcoming posts:
- looking at the new injury with the findings of the previous one: wrist extensors, brachioradialis and the tendon on the long head of the biceps
- mapping out some key nerve-joint-breath connexions towards relief.
- looking at the right shoulder/liver connection
- exploring end range of motion, terminal flicking and isometrics
- tuning the lat; locking the pelvis
- the pleasures of rubber bands, anytime, anywhere: load to learn.
- the importance of time: time to make an assessment and test and readjust
"I am not young enough to know everything"
attributed to Oscar Wilde
In the coming discussion, i will make no claims that what i've done, what i'm doing in my rehab is great for everyone - or for that matter anyone else. What i will say is that the protocol i've learned with my colleagues going through the Master Trainer progressions is test and reassess everything. We have a lot of tools; they're not total; i've learned a bunch outside that program as well, but the thing i've found has been working for me is this simple concept of test and reassess. Try anything: just have a way to evaluate if it's having an effect, and if that effect is positive.
Principled Hack. Something else i've learned in the process is that there is great value - at least for myself - in having learned something of our fundamental mechanics, but almost even more so, of our fundamental wiring. Knowing something about our inner organisation has given me a more principled way to approach at least to picking a starting point: i think i have a better model about why i might see an effect or not.
At times i'm still stunned by these connections: working with a young gal with arthritis with really high pain and limited range of motion. We tried a drill to work the nerves involved firing the painful muscles; nothing. So we then engaged that spinal segment of where the nerve starts along with the drill, and wow, the range of motion went up; pain went down. I get a little verklempt every time i think of that. It's not an isolated example. What it means tho, is that by having a better model of us - how muscles, joints, nerves, guts connect, that helps me apply the tools i have better. Makes sense, doesn't it? Sounds obvious, but initially i didn't get that as clearly as i have of late able to add these models to practice.
In computing sometimes one might refer to a hack in code as a fast fix for a problem. Hacks are great. They are like the coding equivalent of duck tape. And about as robust. A principled hack will be something more robust, but no one is claiming that it's the absolute optimal solution to the problem. I guess i feel like i'm a bit further down the road where my approach to what i do is more principled. In many cases it's exactly the same, but perhaps more refined and efficient. Hence this test on myself.
Motivation to Learn: Load is a Great Teacher. One other thing i've found with respect to learning is that there is one thing that will accelerate learning: if one has to teach the material. Anyone who's had to teach at any level will know what it's like to be asked to teach a new course or fill in for a colleague. One has to get up to speed fast.
I'm finding that something else that drives one to learn, to develop new solutions is an injury. Perhaps with my left shoulder learning, the folks i've had the pleasure to work with on their pain/performance, and the fact that i have some great colleagues who are there to draw on for their experience, i have greater confidence to say i'm going to have a go at this myself; i'm going to treat myself as the client and see what i can do.
Progress. So far, i've been surprised (and occaisionally stunned) by the seeming rapidity of the results. It's too early to sign off on this injury: i'm in the middle of rehabbing, and i tell myself well maybe this is a way less intense injury than the left side was etc etc, but so what? i'll take it: it seems to be coming together much faster. I could lift the covers off me this morning without stiffling a yelp, and could almost put full pressure on my head when shampooing. Two days ago, i could not.
Gonzo Healing.
So why talk about this? I learned last night that what i had thought was gonzo journalism - no holds barred, deep risky reporting - was not right at all. Gonzo, it turns out, is more the destruction of the idea of journalistic objectivity; of being willing to put oneself explicitly in the story, rather than try to pretend one is an objective tape recorder.
So let's call this gonzo healing or healing practice: i'm in the middle of a process now; it may all end in tears; it may be great. Either way, it may be interesting to reflect on the process as it's happening.
Thanks for joining the investigation.
Other Posts in this Series
- PART II of this shoulder journal: liver/shoulder connection
- Part III: skin/fascia movement and shoulder rehab.
Related Stories
- The Shoulder: Part I - scapula world
- The shoulder: Part II - g/h joint
- tendon - opathies and eccentric contractions for repair
- The Biceps - not the shoulder - after all.
- Fish oil and being anti-inflammatory.
- One less rep: the differnece between injury and success?
- What's a movement assessment?
- Pressing Matters: a wee chat with Dan John.
PDF
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Different Speeds have Different Meanings in our Bodies' Performance in Pain
Follow @mcphoo
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Every little thing in the complex systems that are us seems to impact every other thing - or at least a whole lot of other things. Take speed. Have you ever tried to do a familiar movement either really fast or really slow? Say whipping an egg in a bowl, making a shoulder circle, lifting a knee up and down. Speed changes performance, doesn't it? Something else we've seen change performance is pain: pain will change even what muscles get recruited,when, performing an action (Cools; Ferguson). Recent research has put pain and speed together to see what happens in normal walking mechanics.
I'm fascinated by the study because of how it reinforces how quickly we see systemic adapatations to the new demands of a change in the system: in this case, two changes: pain and various speeds.
The researchers used a standard protocol to induce DOMS at the knee. Perhaps not surprisingly, they found that with the DOMS effect up, different speeds showed different kinds of compromise.
Here's the abstract:
In the Discussion section of the article, the authors speculate about what might be happening at say the hip or knee or ankle such that the gait changes in different parts of the gait cycle, and even what may be happening with pain messaging.
Just for context, here's a look at the walking gait cycle:
Main thing: the cycle has two phases: stance and swing. Swing phase is where the action is: toes are cleared; limbs move forward.
Some Observations by the Authors:
Less knee flexion in the swing phase was observed in slow speeds. The authors speculate that this is as a result of less desire to call upon the hamstrings to work to pull up the knee/clear the foot due to pain. At faster speeds though, the ankle goes wonky - destabilizing at the ankle. THe authors wonder if fear of falling from walking fast on a narrow treadmill is why this is happening. In other words, the knees look "normal" at faster speeds, but the ankles pay for it.
Also, hip flexion is shrunk as speed goes up: greater hip flexion means more involvement of the quads and they're sore: so compensation is more steps; tinier range of motion. Another compensation here is that to keep the stride length more or less up (tho compromised), without involving the hip flexors, the authors suggest a kind of psuedo hip extension by getting anterior pelvic tilt to compensate for missing hip flexion. Indeed, the authors note, there's a well observed pattern of positive correlation from other studies between reduced hip extension and anterior pelvic tilt. So a little bit of DOMS brings on a variety of gait pattern changes and systemic effects depending on speed.
It's just the Knee muscles? And that's screwing up Ankle Flexion, hip flexion and pelivic tilt?One of the things that really strikes me about this is that the only muscles worked into the DOMS state were the knee extensors and flexors (we talked about these when we discussed the ottoman pistol: extensors; flexors). In other words, all these effects from giving one DOMS in the knees.
To induce the muscle damage and hence DOMS, the resaerchers have the participants do finely set up leg extensions from 100 degrees to 0 degrees (knee fully extended, getting the quads) and then knee flexions of 0 to 100 degrees (getting the hamstrings). 5 sets 15 reps each set; 3 min break btwn sets on an isokinetic dynamometer. As hard as possible with the dyno set at 60o/s. (If you're really intrigued, here's a video of the cybex; if you'd like to learn about active dynomometry and overview is here).
From here, at different times after these exercises, a standard set of muscle damage / doms tests were run via bloodwork and other measures. They were really thorough (review of doms measuring here).
The researchers pre and post tested the participants using a treadmill set at different speeds, including letting participants choose their own comfortable walking speeds/transition speeds.
Pain changes everything?
Perhaps it's not novel at all to suggest that pain changes everything when it comes to movement.
I guess why this study is so striking to me is that it looked in a very controlled way at inducing and measuring a particular level of actual damage and correlated pain and muscular limitations to investigate specifically what pain does to problably our most basic movement pattern, walking. It focued on typical measures of lower body involvement in the gait cylce, and saw that especially when changing speed, gait mechanics change, but even when not changing speed, spatio-temporal movements changed: widened base of support, different tempo of gait. None of these changes is positive. More anterior pelvic tilt is not a happy compensation for reduced hip ROM as anyone with chronic low back pain may attest.
Speed of Adaptation/Compensation: It's Immediate. Look at how quickly the body begins to compensate to this single joint pain: Compensations are seen at the hip, pelvis ankle and the knees as well. They're different at different speeds. This study only looked at gait; it would be interesting to have seen shoulder and head involvement in these altered patterns as well.
What happens when we move from an acute pain bout to something more chronic, and those adaptations become more chronic too? Those adaptations are going to stick around and cause their own compensations.
Training at Speeds: High Payoff Future Proofing.
The authors conclude pretty much that pain impacts performance across gait at all speeds, but how particularly it effects mechanics depends on speeds.
One of the things wer're taught in z-health starting at R-Phase (overview of R here) is to practice mobility drills to "own" them at all speeds, and four speeds are spec'd from super slow to athletic. Pain is pain, but i wonder from this if practicing movement at different speeds, which means at different loads, too, would see one able to recover good form faster, better? Maybe keep more of that form?
We seem to see such recovery in folks who practice mobility work regularly, and who have strategies for understanding and working with the movement of their bodies.
Indeed, consider the authors' hypothesis that ankle flexion may be compromised post the muscle damaging exercise because there's a fear of being able to keep stable on a narrow track going at higher speeds, so we get weird dorsiflexion and gate.
This hypothesis reminds me of work that has been done with athletes to future proof them from ankle sprains by doing deliberate mobility work with them to improve balance and proprioception. This kind of loaded future proofing is a big part of z-health's i-phase work (follows r-phase): once the core mobility work is owned, start getting it into sport/life specific positions. An overview of i-phase: loading for the real is here.
Take Aways:
Addeda - Personal Testimony; where to start: i tend to recommend z health for pain/performance because i've found it works for myself and for the folks i have the pleasure to coach.
Optimal place to start? with a zhealth coach / master trainer for a movement assessment and introduction to zhealth drills. If that assessment doesn't feel possible right now, dig in with R-phase for mobility drill learnin', or with the Essentials of Eliter Performance, if you'd like more of a workshop style theory + practice overview. Tons of z discussions at the movement index on b2d.
By all means leave questions in the comments, below.
Citations
Related Posts
Every little thing in the complex systems that are us seems to impact every other thing - or at least a whole lot of other things. Take speed. Have you ever tried to do a familiar movement either really fast or really slow? Say whipping an egg in a bowl, making a shoulder circle, lifting a knee up and down. Speed changes performance, doesn't it? Something else we've seen change performance is pain: pain will change even what muscles get recruited,when, performing an action (Cools; Ferguson). Recent research has put pain and speed together to see what happens in normal walking mechanics.I'm fascinated by the study because of how it reinforces how quickly we see systemic adapatations to the new demands of a change in the system: in this case, two changes: pain and various speeds.
The researchers used a standard protocol to induce DOMS at the knee. Perhaps not surprisingly, they found that with the DOMS effect up, different speeds showed different kinds of compromise.
Here's the abstract:
Eur J Appl Physiol. 2010 Nov;110(5):977-88. Epub 2010 Jul 29.In other words, different speeds, but especially punching up the tempo in a walk a wee bit seriously effected ankle joint ROM (it decreased) knee joint flexion (bigger), hip extension (leg going back) got smaller, pelvic tilt (more strain on the lower back) also increased, and just general tempo was also buggered up: participants were taking a wider stance while walking.
The effects of muscle damage on walking biomechanics are speed-dependent.
Tsatalas T, Giakas G, Spyropoulos G, Paschalis V, Nikolaidis MG, Tsaopoulos DE, Theodorou AA, Jamurtas AZ, Koutedakis Y.
Institute of Human Performance and Rehabilitation, Center for Research and Technology, Trikala, Thessaly, Greece.
Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of muscle damage on walking biomechanics at different speeds. Seventeen young women completed a muscle damage protocol of 5 × 15 maximal eccentric actions of the knee extensors and flexors of both legs at 60°/s. Lower body kinematics and swing-phase kinetics were assessed on a horizontal treadmill pre- and 48 h post-muscle damaging exercise at four walking speeds. Evaluated muscle damage indices included isometric torque, delayed onset muscle soreness, and serum creatine kinase. All muscle damage indices changed significantly after exercise, indicating muscle injury. Kinematic results indicated that post-exercise knee joint was significantly more flexed (31-260%) during stance-phase and knee range of motion was reduced at certain phases of the gait cycle at all speeds. Walking post-exercise at the two lower speeds revealed a more extended knee joint (3.1-3.6%) during the swing-phase, but no differences were found between pre- and post-exercise conditions at the two higher speeds. As speed increased, maximum dorsiflexion angle during stance-phase significantly decreased pre-exercise (5.7-11.8%), but remained unaltered post-exercise across all speeds (p > 0.05). Moreover, post-exercise maximum hip extension decreased (3.6-18.8%), pelvic tilt increased (5.5-10.6%), and tempo-spatial differences were found across all speeds (p < 0.05). Limited effects of muscle damage were observed regarding swing-phase kinetics. In conclusion, walking biomechanics following muscle damage are affected differently at relatively higher walking speeds, especially with respect to knee and ankle joint motion. The importance of speed in evaluating walking biomechanics following muscle damage is highlighted.
In the Discussion section of the article, the authors speculate about what might be happening at say the hip or knee or ankle such that the gait changes in different parts of the gait cycle, and even what may be happening with pain messaging.
Just for context, here's a look at the walking gait cycle:
Some Observations by the Authors:
Less knee flexion in the swing phase was observed in slow speeds. The authors speculate that this is as a result of less desire to call upon the hamstrings to work to pull up the knee/clear the foot due to pain. At faster speeds though, the ankle goes wonky - destabilizing at the ankle. THe authors wonder if fear of falling from walking fast on a narrow treadmill is why this is happening. In other words, the knees look "normal" at faster speeds, but the ankles pay for it.
Also, hip flexion is shrunk as speed goes up: greater hip flexion means more involvement of the quads and they're sore: so compensation is more steps; tinier range of motion. Another compensation here is that to keep the stride length more or less up (tho compromised), without involving the hip flexors, the authors suggest a kind of psuedo hip extension by getting anterior pelvic tilt to compensate for missing hip flexion. Indeed, the authors note, there's a well observed pattern of positive correlation from other studies between reduced hip extension and anterior pelvic tilt. So a little bit of DOMS brings on a variety of gait pattern changes and systemic effects depending on speed.
It's just the Knee muscles? And that's screwing up Ankle Flexion, hip flexion and pelivic tilt?One of the things that really strikes me about this is that the only muscles worked into the DOMS state were the knee extensors and flexors (we talked about these when we discussed the ottoman pistol: extensors; flexors). In other words, all these effects from giving one DOMS in the knees.
To induce the muscle damage and hence DOMS, the resaerchers have the participants do finely set up leg extensions from 100 degrees to 0 degrees (knee fully extended, getting the quads) and then knee flexions of 0 to 100 degrees (getting the hamstrings). 5 sets 15 reps each set; 3 min break btwn sets on an isokinetic dynamometer. As hard as possible with the dyno set at 60o/s. (If you're really intrigued, here's a video of the cybex; if you'd like to learn about active dynomometry and overview is here).From here, at different times after these exercises, a standard set of muscle damage / doms tests were run via bloodwork and other measures. They were really thorough (review of doms measuring here).
The researchers pre and post tested the participants using a treadmill set at different speeds, including letting participants choose their own comfortable walking speeds/transition speeds.
Pain changes everything?
Perhaps it's not novel at all to suggest that pain changes everything when it comes to movement.
I guess why this study is so striking to me is that it looked in a very controlled way at inducing and measuring a particular level of actual damage and correlated pain and muscular limitations to investigate specifically what pain does to problably our most basic movement pattern, walking. It focued on typical measures of lower body involvement in the gait cylce, and saw that especially when changing speed, gait mechanics change, but even when not changing speed, spatio-temporal movements changed: widened base of support, different tempo of gait. None of these changes is positive. More anterior pelvic tilt is not a happy compensation for reduced hip ROM as anyone with chronic low back pain may attest.
Speed of Adaptation/Compensation: It's Immediate. Look at how quickly the body begins to compensate to this single joint pain: Compensations are seen at the hip, pelvis ankle and the knees as well. They're different at different speeds. This study only looked at gait; it would be interesting to have seen shoulder and head involvement in these altered patterns as well.
What happens when we move from an acute pain bout to something more chronic, and those adaptations become more chronic too? Those adaptations are going to stick around and cause their own compensations.
Training at Speeds: High Payoff Future Proofing.
The authors conclude pretty much that pain impacts performance across gait at all speeds, but how particularly it effects mechanics depends on speeds.
One of the things wer're taught in z-health starting at R-Phase (overview of R here) is to practice mobility drills to "own" them at all speeds, and four speeds are spec'd from super slow to athletic. Pain is pain, but i wonder from this if practicing movement at different speeds, which means at different loads, too, would see one able to recover good form faster, better? Maybe keep more of that form? We seem to see such recovery in folks who practice mobility work regularly, and who have strategies for understanding and working with the movement of their bodies.
Indeed, consider the authors' hypothesis that ankle flexion may be compromised post the muscle damaging exercise because there's a fear of being able to keep stable on a narrow track going at higher speeds, so we get weird dorsiflexion and gate.
This hypothesis reminds me of work that has been done with athletes to future proof them from ankle sprains by doing deliberate mobility work with them to improve balance and proprioception. This kind of loaded future proofing is a big part of z-health's i-phase work (follows r-phase): once the core mobility work is owned, start getting it into sport/life specific positions. An overview of i-phase: loading for the real is here.
Take Aways:
- Pain changes movement, immediately, causing perterpations in range of motion and engagement of joints
- Pain's particular changes are often speed dependent - from slower through to faster.
- Better, praciticed mobility at various speeds, loads and ranges of motion strongly seems to help recovery of optimal motion and thus pain reduction (see related discussion on pain).
- Z-Health (overview) is a great way to learn and practice some of this movement self-awareness
Addeda - Personal Testimony; where to start: i tend to recommend z health for pain/performance because i've found it works for myself and for the folks i have the pleasure to coach.
Optimal place to start? with a zhealth coach / master trainer for a movement assessment and introduction to zhealth drills. If that assessment doesn't feel possible right now, dig in with R-phase for mobility drill learnin', or with the Essentials of Eliter Performance, if you'd like more of a workshop style theory + practice overview. Tons of z discussions at the movement index on b2d.
By all means leave questions in the comments, below.
Citations
Tsatalas, T., Giakas, G., Spyropoulos, G., Paschalis, V., Nikolaidis, M., Tsaopoulos, D., Theodorou, A., Jamurtas, A., & Koutedakis, Y. (2010). The effects of muscle damage on walking biomechanics are speed-dependent European Journal of Applied Physiology, 110 (5), 977-988 DOI: 10.1007/s00421-010-1589-1
Ferguson SA, Marras WS, Burr DL, Davis KG, & Gupta P (2004). Differences in motor recruitment and resulting kinematics between low back pain patients and asymptomatic participants during lifting exertions. Clinical biomechanics (Bristol, Avon), 19 (10), 992-9 PMID: 15531048
Cools AM, Witvrouw EE, Declercq GA, Danneels LA, & Cambier DC (2003). Scapular muscle recruitment patterns: trapezius muscle latency with and without impingement symptoms. The American journal of sports medicine, 31 (4), 542-9 PMID: 12860542
Related Posts
- Overview of DOMS pt 1 - what it is
- Overview of DOMS pt 2 - some things that work
- coaching model: the multifacetted person needs a multifacetted support system
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Talent = opportunity + deliberate practice and lots of both: a review of 4 books riffing on K. Anders Ericcson's research
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Over the past few years there have been an intriguing number of books orbiting around the concept of practice vs talent for developing excellence in a given practice. The main ones are Outliers
, Bounce
, Talent is Overrated
, the Talent Code. Each of them touch on K. Anders Ericcson's research around building expertise in thousands of hours of "deliberate practice" as an unassailable ingredient for achieving excellence or at least expertise in one's field of endeavour (pdf overview by Ericcson).
It's the mistakes, Stupid.
Goeff Colvin may have been the first person to popularize what has become known as the "ten thousand hour rule" for developing expertise.
In October 2006, Colvin, an editor-at-large for Fortune magazine, wrote an article called "what it takes to be great." He asked the question - what makes Tiger Woods great? Raw talent? Nope. Starting with Erricson's work from 1993 and working forward, the evidence keeps coming: it's hard work, combined with 'deliberate practice' - that is lots of focused work learning in particular from mistakes. In 2009, Colvin had developed this article into a book focusing on the same themes.
In Talent is Overrated
, Colvin develops deliberate practice with multiple examples and case studies to explore not only how this kind of practice can be seen in sports, chess and music - ericcson's main domains of study - but how it might be applied to one's own environment at work. He emphasises that great practice is the focus on the errors, the mistakes, and learning from these by moving into a kind of personal uncomfort zone (i feel that way working through math problems, and yes working and working my uncomfort zone is the only way through. dang). Error work becomes more effective than rote repetition without errors.
Conencting the Spark with the Drive: The Talent Code
In 2009, another book riffing on Ericcson's work came out. In the Talent Code
, Coyle begins by covering much of the same territory as Colvin. He renames deliberate practice deep practice. From here, Coyle's questions take a slightly different spin. Coyle's curiousity is to explore where greats got their reps: where did they find the spaces that let them get all that deep practice? His second focus is to try to zero in on what's happening to us when such repetitions are undertaken. A thrid focus is to look at how one can get fired up to take on deep practice - a concept that he calls "ignition." Related to ignition is "master coaching:" what are the traits of great coaches that can set the spark and direct all those reps.
So while Colvin first brought the ten thousand hour rule to the popular press, Coyle may be most associated with mylenation:
where fat is laid down around axons in neural connections of particular pathways to privilege those pathways for particular skills acquisition. The better a path is mylenated, so the research seems to read now, the faster/more efficiently we can access those pathways for that particular skill. Coyle is the hero of mylentation.
Outliers: Basic Sociology Undercutting the Myth of the Self-Made "MAN"
While the stories of reps, coaching strategies and the grittiness of high-rep environments are in the Talent Code, for the most part, Coyle just looks for the environments that have fostered great performances in sport and music and chess. Coyle doesn't spend much time considering for instance the economic backgrounds of some of the athletes vs some of the musicians. Malcolm Gladwell's 2008 Outliers
is less neutral about these environments. Gladwell gets right into that space to push on what informs the success of those who seem in some spheres to rise above the rest - the myth of the Talented Sports hero or of the Super Successful Business Leader.
Right Place at the Right Time. What Gladwell does is pull together basic sociology research on social position in particular, and stats relating to these findings to look at: who gest access to what kind of 10thousand hours of deliberate practice. What one gets, Gladwell concludes, has a lot to do with being in the right place at the right time, mapping location, to situation, to moment in time to affluence to birthdays to get the right ten thousand hours or not.
One of the most salutary effects of Gladwell's work is to show, right from page 1, how much of that access is down to luck. To make this case, Outliers
features people we tend to think of as amazing and extra special who must be extraordinary people. Instead Gladwell makes the cast that, what is extraordinary has been the perfect storms of their opportunities. Bill Gates is a prime example of someone with the nascent smarts and tenacity but also with the right early affluent access to computers at the right time: when they were rare to get the reps in - before anyone else did or could in order to have that special competitive edge.
Gladwell points to clusters of people with similar opportunities for different industries and different times. Bill Gates and Bill Joy are two in computing. The page 1 example in Gladwell? The chance of birth in the hockey/football systems that means boys born in one part of the year have a significantly greater chance of success in their sport than boys born at another - just because of the way the selection system works. And the way it works means that those kids born outside that annual period will have vanishingly smaller chances of getting in those precious reps in the time frame necessary to advance. Outliers for some is not an easy story to here: it doesn't say that anyone can do anything; instead it shows how really often indeed the stars must align to provide the right opportunity at the right time to get in all those reps. Luck, accidents of birth to put us in the right place at the right time - it seems have way more baring than genes.
Bounce: Practice rather than Genetics Makes Exceptional Approachable
In 2010's Bounce Matthew Syed likewise highlights the role of particular factors that just accumulate to create the exact conditions to support championship reps building. This focus is one of the attributes that sets Syed's book apart: he's not one of the creatures in the bell jar of other authors looking on at a phenomena: he is in the bell jar; that has been his world; he is that expert.
He talks about his own career as a national table tennis champ, and how many table tennis champs of various rankings in the UK came from not just his town but his neighborhood and not just his neighborhood but more or less his street. He traces the influence of one teacher in one school that had the effect on one area to develop a nations' champions in a sport. The existance of a given garage with a table tennis table in it didn't hurt either.
Here, an interest in a game plus some cheap equipment combined with excellent guidance for tons of reps in a regular brit neighborhood turned into just the right mix for a sport. With Bill Gates and Bill Joy (of Sun Microsystems), the access to gear and opportunites was a little more rarified, more social class dependent. Or date of birth dependent if we talk about hockey players or football players.
Enough with Racial Superiority Myths. One of the most compelling parts of Bounce is the final section on the supposed "must be genetic" superiority of "African" runners - whether marathoners or 
sprinters - as what is surely demonstrated by "their" dominance in sprinting and marathon events.
First, the book shows that yes, champion sprinters at the olympics and related events have largely been from West Africa and that the Marathoner champs are largely from Kenya, but, as Steb shows, not just anywhere in Kenya, but Nandi, a particular area within Kenya. He then shows the research that took apart the claims that This Must Be A Race/Genetic Thing leading to all these wins. Instead, the research looking at the genes of champion runners over decades is that, far from having a special genetic profile, the Nandians for example share more genes in common with other (white) europeans than anything particular within themselves, and second, as for sprinters, a gene that is supposed to assist in sprinting is more often than not found in distance runners -- not sprinters.
Syed goes on to show that what Nadi does have is a need for kids to run sometimes up to 20km a day to get to school and back such that by the time they're 11, they've got the VO2 max capacity of an experienced marathoner.
Talent? Well ya maybe whatever that is, but what's unequivocable is the hours - and they're not countless; they're countable: there are thousands - that go into making each champ a champ. For every population where we might be tempted to say "that person is "gifted"" or it's in their genes, we miss the greater reality that above and beyond anything else, as Colvin shows from Ericcson, and as Syed's reviews of genetic research shows, it's practice - and tons of it - that makes perfect.
To get to that practice, however, as Gladwell's reviews of the sociology literature and interviews with these researchers show, it's also the opportunities to get those reps - right place, time, affluence, birth, connexions - that play a substantial role in the making of the exceptional.
We love to believe that we make our own opportunities; we hate to think of them as constrained by something as arbitrary as chance of a birthdate. And while perhaps nothing's impossible the research shows that far more relevant than talent is the complex of luck with the graft of deliberate practice.
Now to go do some of that graft with the math books...blick. And i guess that blick feeling is exactly right for success. Love your blick. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
, Bounce, Talent is Overrated, the Talent Code. Each of them touch on K. Anders Ericcson's research around building expertise in thousands of hours of "deliberate practice" as an unassailable ingredient for achieving excellence or at least expertise in one's field of endeavour (pdf overview by Ericcson).It's the mistakes, Stupid.Goeff Colvin may have been the first person to popularize what has become known as the "ten thousand hour rule" for developing expertise.
In October 2006, Colvin, an editor-at-large for Fortune magazine, wrote an article called "what it takes to be great." He asked the question - what makes Tiger Woods great? Raw talent? Nope. Starting with Erricson's work from 1993 and working forward, the evidence keeps coming: it's hard work, combined with 'deliberate practice' - that is lots of focused work learning in particular from mistakes. In 2009, Colvin had developed this article into a book focusing on the same themes.
In Talent is Overrated
, Colvin develops deliberate practice with multiple examples and case studies to explore not only how this kind of practice can be seen in sports, chess and music - ericcson's main domains of study - but how it might be applied to one's own environment at work. He emphasises that great practice is the focus on the errors, the mistakes, and learning from these by moving into a kind of personal uncomfort zone (i feel that way working through math problems, and yes working and working my uncomfort zone is the only way through. dang). Error work becomes more effective than rote repetition without errors.Conencting the Spark with the Drive: The Talent Code
In 2009, another book riffing on Ericcson's work came out. In the Talent Code, Coyle begins by covering much of the same territory as Colvin. He renames deliberate practice deep practice. From here, Coyle's questions take a slightly different spin. Coyle's curiousity is to explore where greats got their reps: where did they find the spaces that let them get all that deep practice? His second focus is to try to zero in on what's happening to us when such repetitions are undertaken. A thrid focus is to look at how one can get fired up to take on deep practice - a concept that he calls "ignition." Related to ignition is "master coaching:" what are the traits of great coaches that can set the spark and direct all those reps.So while Colvin first brought the ten thousand hour rule to the popular press, Coyle may be most associated with mylenation:
 |
| mylenation of an axon: repping in perfect reps |
Outliers: Basic Sociology Undercutting the Myth of the Self-Made "MAN"
While the stories of reps, coaching strategies and the grittiness of high-rep environments are in the Talent Code, for the most part, Coyle just looks for the environments that have fostered great performances in sport and music and chess. Coyle doesn't spend much time considering for instance the economic backgrounds of some of the athletes vs some of the musicians. Malcolm Gladwell's 2008 Outliers
is less neutral about these environments. Gladwell gets right into that space to push on what informs the success of those who seem in some spheres to rise above the rest - the myth of the Talented Sports hero or of the Super Successful Business Leader. Right Place at the Right Time. What Gladwell does is pull together basic sociology research on social position in particular, and stats relating to these findings to look at: who gest access to what kind of 10thousand hours of deliberate practice. What one gets, Gladwell concludes, has a lot to do with being in the right place at the right time, mapping location, to situation, to moment in time to affluence to birthdays to get the right ten thousand hours or not.One of the most salutary effects of Gladwell's work is to show, right from page 1, how much of that access is down to luck. To make this case, Outliers
features people we tend to think of as amazing and extra special who must be extraordinary people. Instead Gladwell makes the cast that, what is extraordinary has been the perfect storms of their opportunities. Bill Gates is a prime example of someone with the nascent smarts and tenacity but also with the right early affluent access to computers at the right time: when they were rare to get the reps in - before anyone else did or could in order to have that special competitive edge.Gladwell points to clusters of people with similar opportunities for different industries and different times. Bill Gates and Bill Joy are two in computing. The page 1 example in Gladwell? The chance of birth in the hockey/football systems that means boys born in one part of the year have a significantly greater chance of success in their sport than boys born at another - just because of the way the selection system works. And the way it works means that those kids born outside that annual period will have vanishingly smaller chances of getting in those precious reps in the time frame necessary to advance. Outliers for some is not an easy story to here: it doesn't say that anyone can do anything; instead it shows how really often indeed the stars must align to provide the right opportunity at the right time to get in all those reps. Luck, accidents of birth to put us in the right place at the right time - it seems have way more baring than genes.
Bounce: Practice rather than Genetics Makes Exceptional Approachable In 2010's Bounce
Matthew Syed likewise highlights the role of particular factors that just accumulate to create the exact conditions to support championship reps building. This focus is one of the attributes that sets Syed's book apart: he's not one of the creatures in the bell jar of other authors looking on at a phenomena: he is in the bell jar; that has been his world; he is that expert.He talks about his own career as a national table tennis champ, and how many table tennis champs of various rankings in the UK came from not just his town but his neighborhood and not just his neighborhood but more or less his street. He traces the influence of one teacher in one school that had the effect on one area to develop a nations' champions in a sport. The existance of a given garage with a table tennis table in it didn't hurt either.
Here, an interest in a game plus some cheap equipment combined with excellent guidance for tons of reps in a regular brit neighborhood turned into just the right mix for a sport. With Bill Gates and Bill Joy (of Sun Microsystems), the access to gear and opportunites was a little more rarified, more social class dependent. Or date of birth dependent if we talk about hockey players or football players.
Enough with Racial Superiority Myths. One of the most compelling parts of Bounce
is the final section on the supposed "must be genetic" superiority of "African" runners - whether marathoners or sprinters - as what is surely demonstrated by "their" dominance in sprinting and marathon events.First, the book shows that yes, champion sprinters at the olympics and related events have largely been from West Africa and that the Marathoner champs are largely from Kenya, but, as Steb shows, not just anywhere in Kenya, but Nandi, a particular area within Kenya. He then shows the research that took apart the claims that This Must Be A Race/Genetic Thing leading to all these wins. Instead, the research looking at the genes of champion runners over decades is that, far from having a special genetic profile, the Nandians for example share more genes in common with other (white) europeans than anything particular within themselves, and second, as for sprinters, a gene that is supposed to assist in sprinting is more often than not found in distance runners -- not sprinters.
Syed goes on to show that what Nadi does have is a need for kids to run sometimes up to 20km a day to get to school and back such that by the time they're 11, they've got the VO2 max capacity of an experienced marathoner.
Robert Cheruiyot of Kenya, left, and Teyba Erkesso of Ethiopia,
winners of the 2010 Boston Marathon
And in Jamaica for instance, there is an entire culture around the Sprinter, with a fabulous infrastructure set up for the same effect.winners of the 2010 Boston Marathon
Usain Bolt on the way to 9.58, 100m
Talent? Well ya maybe whatever that is, but what's unequivocable is the hours - and they're not countless; they're countable: there are thousands - that go into making each champ a champ. For every population where we might be tempted to say "that person is "gifted"" or it's in their genes, we miss the greater reality that above and beyond anything else, as Colvin shows from Ericcson, and as Syed's reviews of genetic research shows, it's practice - and tons of it - that makes perfect.
To get to that practice, however, as Gladwell's reviews of the sociology literature and interviews with these researchers show, it's also the opportunities to get those reps - right place, time, affluence, birth, connexions - that play a substantial role in the making of the exceptional.
We love to believe that we make our own opportunities; we hate to think of them as constrained by something as arbitrary as chance of a birthdate. And while perhaps nothing's impossible the research shows that far more relevant than talent is the complex of luck with the graft of deliberate practice.
Now to go do some of that graft with the math books...blick. And i guess that blick feeling is exactly right for success. Love your blick. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Rehab Strength with FOCUSED Eccentrics (and Fat Gripz)
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Tweet
Lower loads and higher reps can rebuild strength. Doing those loads with (a) focus on quality eccentrics (b) tempo and (c) a simple grip element like Fat Gripz seems to help accelerate recovery.
I should say also that i've had fat gripz in my bag for awhile. Simple Strength Monk of the North Rannoch Donald first brought them to my attention, and lots of folks testify to their awesomeness, so i've been waiting till i could find a b2d angle for 'em for those of us who mayn't be using the Big Bars all the time. And i think i have. Here's what i've found.
Background
(Just skip this section if you want to get to the How To, below) Some of you may be aware i tweaked my shoulder awhile ago which rather put my usual shoulder activities, like single or double kettlebell work, out of action. Quel Drag. Even pull ups were not such the Happy Place. Finally, though, my shoulder's been feeling ready to explore some load. So i've been coming back into Pavel's Return of the Kettlebell - a lovely protocol for double kettlebell work.
Of course i'm having to swallow that the place i'm starting from is further behind where i was at just over a year ago now, when i'd finished up 6 months of RTK with the RKC II certification in San Jose. Happy times.
Gently Gently
One of the things i enjoyed doing the first time through RTK was based on a combination of suggestions
from coach Roland Fisher and Chad Waterbury's Huge in a Hurry
. It's the idea of tempo to stimulate hypertrophy. To reiterate Roland's version of the hypertrophy protocol:
I've written abit the value of tempo beyond hypertrophy before, too: tempo stimulates different muscle patterns. Lighter let's one go faster, too. Speed is important even for big lifts. To know speed we must practice speed. Etc etc.
Lower Loads with Higher Volume not only give speed, but build strength. I've written about this going light to get heavy (inspired by Asha Wagner's conquering the Beast Challenge); dan john talks about this approach, and preaches it as part of Pavel's even easier strength (40 days of low load AND low volume, done every day).
The When
Right now, as said, i'm working on Pavel's RTK protocol which means being pretty humble with my strength work limitations on bringing back my left shoulder. So the low load work i'm describing is as an arm + light shoulder finisher. I have *not* done the following as a stand alone routine.
A little more Background
Originally when i ran this finisher post RTK, i'd just grab a couple of powerblocks, and do sets of biceps curls, overhead triceps curls, and shoulder raises. The ritual was just to keep up a crisp tempo, dropping the load about five pounds each set to keep the tempo. I wasn't too focused on anything other than getting the weight up quickly, and keeping the tempo; quitting the set if the tempo dropped before i got to the goal number.
And then, Something happened: well two things happened. First
on the overhead triceps curls, i was finding that my usual load for the left side, just couldn't happen at speed with good form. Bummer. How go that much lighter and still get work? Second: i found my eccentric. Somehow - and this may sound like "duh" to many of you - i started contracting on the eccentric. And found "the money" - at least for me.
Focused Eccentrics
What i mean is, that, while keeping the tempo of the speed up especially for the curl in, rather than just rushing the arms down (overspeed the eccentric, as it were), i focused on keeping on a contraction while going into what feels like more of a forced eccentric. And my GOSH that's WORK. oh wow. IT's even work *without* load - it's like turning isometrics into movement.
Now, "focused eccentrics" may be just basic to some of you, but i have to say, i haven't come across work that has said focus on holding the contraction in the eccentic. I have heard about "lower slowly" - you know, rip the bar up fast, but slow it down coming down.
I've done all that. Lots of us have played with that. But that slow lowering - for me anyway - has never resulted in the same effect or feeling as visualizing the muscle and focusing on *it* staying contracted and feeling that contraction throughout the lowering of the weigth - and certainly not when doing this at any kind of speed/tempo. In other words, rather than thinking "keep the bar going down for a three count" it's "feel the biceps contract at the top and keep that feeling while prying the joint open - fast - but keep the muscle ON for the whole movement" For me the mental focus has had a really intereting effect.
And just to put the icing on the cake: adding fat gripz to the lighter load means working the grip - working the extensors in the arm, the brachioradialis, it's wild - really, you can get fried with just some focus. Here's how...
The How To: Focused Eccentrics and Fat Gripz
Remember, i'm doing the following AFTER i've done a whole workout of double kettlebell presses, squats and deadlifts. So my grip's been working and so have my arms. And i just want to get a little bit more.
The fat gripz ensure that *while gripping* which is a flexor movement, we can't close our hands in such a small grip, so with the fingers open a bit more, we're actually drawing on the extensors, the antagonist muscles to the flexors (same as triceps are antagonists to biceps).
This wider grip work offers, one might be tempted to say, a more balanced approach to grip work since it hits agonist/antagonist at the same time (if not exactly to the same degree - it's still a work out), and that's a Good Thing - especially is one does a lot of typing/knowledge work stuff during the day, too.
DO Try this at Home
If y'all want to try this experiment for yourself,
And as said, if you like this movement, and want to make it even sweeter, git yourself some Fat Gripz, and take your whole arm/shoulder to the next level.
Summary: Enhanced Muscle Activation/Strength from FOCUSED Extension - with Fat Gripz can be achieved with tempo, low loads and some volume. That focused eccentric CONRTACTION into extension is the money. Add the fat gripz, seems pretty golden. Visualize the muscle holding the contration while extending.
Please let me know if you give either the focused eccentric or focused eccentric + fat gripz a try and what you find.
Related:
I should say also that i've had fat gripz in my bag for awhile. Simple Strength Monk of the North Rannoch Donald first brought them to my attention, and lots of folks testify to their awesomeness, so i've been waiting till i could find a b2d angle for 'em for those of us who mayn't be using the Big Bars all the time. And i think i have. Here's what i've found.
Background
Of course i'm having to swallow that the place i'm starting from is further behind where i was at just over a year ago now, when i'd finished up 6 months of RTK with the RKC II certification in San Jose. Happy times.
Gently Gently
One of the things i enjoyed doing the first time through RTK was based on a combination of suggestions
from coach Roland Fisher and Chad Waterbury's Huge in a Hurry. It's the idea of tempo to stimulate hypertrophy. To reiterate Roland's version of the hypertrophy protocol:- go for loads that allow 20 reps per set
- keep the tempo the same
- drop the load each set as necessary to keep the tempo
- keep going till down to about nil load.
I've written abit the value of tempo beyond hypertrophy before, too: tempo stimulates different muscle patterns. Lighter let's one go faster, too. Speed is important even for big lifts. To know speed we must practice speed. Etc etc.Lower Loads with Higher Volume not only give speed, but build strength. I've written about this going light to get heavy (inspired by Asha Wagner's conquering the Beast Challenge); dan john talks about this approach, and preaches it as part of Pavel's even easier strength (40 days of low load AND low volume, done every day).
The When
Right now, as said, i'm working on Pavel's RTK protocol which means being pretty humble with my strength work limitations on bringing back my left shoulder. So the low load work i'm describing is as an arm + light shoulder finisher. I have *not* done the following as a stand alone routine.
A little more Background
Originally when i ran this finisher post RTK, i'd just grab a couple of powerblocks, and do sets of biceps curls, overhead triceps curls, and shoulder raises. The ritual was just to keep up a crisp tempo, dropping the load about five pounds each set to keep the tempo. I wasn't too focused on anything other than getting the weight up quickly, and keeping the tempo; quitting the set if the tempo dropped before i got to the goal number.
And then, Something happened: well two things happened. First
on the overhead triceps curls, i was finding that my usual load for the left side, just couldn't happen at speed with good form. Bummer. How go that much lighter and still get work? Second: i found my eccentric. Somehow - and this may sound like "duh" to many of you - i started contracting on the eccentric. And found "the money" - at least for me.
Focused Eccentrics
What i mean is, that, while keeping the tempo of the speed up especially for the curl in, rather than just rushing the arms down (overspeed the eccentric, as it were), i focused on keeping on a contraction while going into what feels like more of a forced eccentric. And my GOSH that's WORK. oh wow. IT's even work *without* load - it's like turning isometrics into movement.
Now, "focused eccentrics" may be just basic to some of you, but i have to say, i haven't come across work that has said focus on holding the contraction in the eccentic. I have heard about "lower slowly" - you know, rip the bar up fast, but slow it down coming down.
I've done all that. Lots of us have played with that. But that slow lowering - for me anyway - has never resulted in the same effect or feeling as visualizing the muscle and focusing on *it* staying contracted and feeling that contraction throughout the lowering of the weigth - and certainly not when doing this at any kind of speed/tempo. In other words, rather than thinking "keep the bar going down for a three count" it's "feel the biceps contract at the top and keep that feeling while prying the joint open - fast - but keep the muscle ON for the whole movement" For me the mental focus has had a really intereting effect.
And just to put the icing on the cake: adding fat gripz to the lighter load means working the grip - working the extensors in the arm, the brachioradialis, it's wild - really, you can get fried with just some focus. Here's how...
The How To: Focused Eccentrics and Fat Gripz
Remember, i'm doing the following AFTER i've done a whole workout of double kettlebell presses, squats and deadlifts. So my grip's been working and so have my arms. And i just want to get a little bit more.
 |
| humble 5lb dumbbell made Mean Machine with Fat Gripz sleeve and Focused Eccentric |
- I start with a weight where i can do 20 reps at a pretty good clip and maintain that tempo throughout the set.
- I squeeze the contraction of the agonist muscle at the top
- NEW BIT: hold that contraction while pulling down the load - so pulling against myself is what it feels like. Mentally, i'm focusing on feeling that muscle contraction through the whole eccentric. So let's just call these "focused eccentrics."
- Drop the load whenever i can't complete the 20 at that pace. For me that's just about each set i'm dropping five pounds.
- Fat GRIPZ. When i'm down to five pounds - where i have a pair of five pound db's, i have the fat gripz on these (pictured) - makes 'em look a little more serious, eh? Here's the fun part: just try keeping that contraction in the eccentric with the fat gripz on the five (or whatever load you'd like for your light 'bell(s).
 |
| Extensor Muscles in the forearm. Get your Fat Gripz on. |
The fat gripz ensure that *while gripping* which is a flexor movement, we can't close our hands in such a small grip, so with the fingers open a bit more, we're actually drawing on the extensors, the antagonist muscles to the flexors (same as triceps are antagonists to biceps).
This wider grip work offers, one might be tempted to say, a more balanced approach to grip work since it hits agonist/antagonist at the same time (if not exactly to the same degree - it's still a work out), and that's a Good Thing - especially is one does a lot of typing/knowledge work stuff during the day, too.
DO Try this at Home
If y'all want to try this experiment for yourself,
- grab a pair of dumbells that lets you do 20 reps - and just about only 20 perfect reps - at a nice tempo.
- At the top of the rep (in the curl), do what strength coaches have recommended for ages: give a squeeze - just don't let go of the squeeze as you extend your arm: keep the squeeze on during the eccentric contraction of the muscle (while the arm is extending).
And as said, if you like this movement, and want to make it even sweeter, git yourself some Fat Gripz, and take your whole arm/shoulder to the next level.
Summary: Enhanced Muscle Activation/Strength from FOCUSED Extension - with Fat Gripz can be achieved with tempo, low loads and some volume. That focused eccentric CONRTACTION into extension is the money. Add the fat gripz, seems pretty golden. Visualize the muscle holding the contration while extending.
Pump Bonus? Ok i confess: i also measured my arms before and after doing a few of these sets. For those folks who like the Pump (overviewed here), i was not displeased with the effect. If fact i was kinda surprised on the difference between (a) first focused eccentric vs just tempo and (b) focused eccentric + fat gripz vs focused eccentric alone. In other words: bigger with focused eccentric; even bigger with fat gripz + focused eccentric.
Why FG's? I'm also happy to recommend Fat Gripz because in my experience of the company, they really care about customer satisfaction. As in, they will work to make sure you are satisfied with service and product. For folks in the UK, nice thingtoo? they have distributors here, so no outrageous markup on shipping.
Please let me know if you give either the focused eccentric or focused eccentric + fat gripz a try and what you find.
Related:
- the fine art of the nudge: more with less
- Pressing Matters: a wee chat with Dan John
- Fatigue Testing
- Occlusion and Hypertrophy: what we know
- Should i do this next rep?
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Body Weight Work with Dennis Frisch Part II - sample bw program
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Welcome to Part II of the b2d interview with physical culturist and trainer Dennis Frisch of Denmark. In Part 1, Dennis talked about not only what draws him to bodyweight work, but why/how this approach has become his main training program. Dennis also offered some insights into getting started thinking about a bodyweight approach. Two of the things from that interview that struck me is that bodyweight work is skills based, and that one give themselves time (months and years) to develop that skills base.
In this post, Dennis covers three things: a sample bodyweight program, a way to think about developing a one arm push up, and a few additional bodyweight resources. Enjoy.
Dennis, in the last segment, you mentioned that you use bands [eg like iron woodies ]with your bodyweight work. Could you say a little more about that?
The One Arm Push Up
The Dennis Frisch Tao in Movement
Any gals starting a one arm push up quest? please post below, too. How's it going? whatcha been doing?
Also Dennis says as he gets some time, he'll try to get some vids done - as he does, we'll post 'em here.
best
mc
Related Posts
Welcome to Part II of the b2d interview with physical culturist and trainer Dennis Frisch of Denmark. In Part 1, Dennis talked about not only what draws him to bodyweight work, but why/how this approach has become his main training program. Dennis also offered some insights into getting started thinking about a bodyweight approach. Two of the things from that interview that struck me is that bodyweight work is skills based, and that one give themselves time (months and years) to develop that skills base.In this post, Dennis covers three things: a sample bodyweight program, a way to think about developing a one arm push up, and a few additional bodyweight resources. Enjoy.
I use bands in a variety of different ways.Super cool. So let's get applied. Let's kick it up to what folks are keen to get into: what are ways that folks might get started with a bodyweight program?
1) Loading mobility exercises, esp. end range of motion [as per the 9S strength & suppleness course (discussed here) -mc]
2) Horisontal loading for compound exercises; think of peg board [a z-health i-phase drill - mc], judo throws, punches etc.
3) Taking load of bodyweight exercises, i.e. one arm chins, levers etc.
4) Adding load to bodyweight exercises like pushups, dips, squats etc. - This is really cool since they add the most load in the strongest ranges of motion
5) Loading micro-exercises, i.e. when I am working on the one arm chin I will take a very light band a use it to load different positions of the motion. This is a nice low threat way to practice challenging exercises.
A "program" might be something like this:
2-3 times a week skill/strength training:
Pressing movements:
5-6 sets of handstands (hold for time or do reps)
5-6 sets of pushups (choose a variant that is challenging but doable)
Pullup movements:
5-6 sets of pullups
Leg movements:
5-6 sets of squats
5-6 sets of lunges
Wave the load so that you familiarize yourself with heavy singles and doubles as well as strength-endurance work in the range of 15-25 repetitions.
+
2-3 times a week "energy system development" aka intervals.
Combine this with a dynamic mobility protocol and you are good to go [one might think about Z-Health Neural Warm Up 1 (discussed here) as such a mobility protocol -mc ] Use it as a morning recharge, a warm up or just practice your mobility through the day.Are there other resources in bodyweight skills you'd recommend?
So bottom line I guess is that bodyweight skill/strength building doesn't have to be all that different from regular strength training.
Another approach would be a less "digital" program, where you choose your skills and play with them as often as you like for as long as you like. From a motivational/habitual standpoint that is probably a more challenging approach, but when you are used to training daily and you enjoy playing with movement it gets addictive.
www.beastskills.com Awesome site with tons of progressions
www.drillsandskills.com Cool inspiration for different skill sets
www.rosstraining.com Really cool blog and forum with tons of ideas on how to train using a minimalist/garage gym approach
The One Arm Push Up
With the one arm push up a lot has to do with the set up. Placing your hand in the right spot and getting the right amount of stability.
Progressions would be to simply practice a one handed plank isometrically.
Then simply practicing lowering yourself slowly to the ground.
Then practice isometric holds throughout the range of motion. Then maybe try and do push ups in a limited range, start by unlocking and unlocking your elbow, and expanding from there.
I find that the one arm push up is more of a kinaesthetic exercise than merely adding as much tension as possible.
The Dennis Frisch Tao in Movement
Thank you again, Dennis, for taking the time and sharing the knowledge.As with the behavioural side of training, I generally try to help people realize that what they are really after isn't a skill, feat or attribute as much as it is a way of life.
So maybe you want to loose a few pounds or learn how to do a hand stand, but why do you want those things and how will it affect how you and others perceive you. Spending a couple of weeks to learn a cool skill is great and fun, it just makes it a lot more fun and worthwhile if that goal is just the beginning of something much greater; a life long exploration of physical living.
I have two poorly updated websites:www.dennisfrisch.com
www.dennisfrisch.dk
And you can contact me for private coaching, seminars and the like using dennisfrisch at gmail.com.
Any gals starting a one arm push up quest? please post below, too. How's it going? whatcha been doing?
Also Dennis says as he gets some time, he'll try to get some vids done - as he does, we'll post 'em here.
best
mc
Related Posts
- What is a movement assessment?
- What is z-health, really?
- what is delayed onset muscle soreness
- the ottoman pistol series
- pull ups 101
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