Friday, July 15, 2011
Mick Wilkinson Part I: Why Barefoot Running (in shoes) Is not barefoot running
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There's a young term in the market: barefoot running. The irony of this term, of course, is that it's used to sell shoes. Kind of an oxymoron there. But for many of us who have grokked the value of getting out of squishy or stiff shoes that don't pass a twist test, fewer of us have actually done the full monty, ditched the shoes and hit the streets unshod.
The same reasons that people have said they fear running in this soles - glass, harshness of surface and which those of us who run slightly shod have learned to smile understandingly about and say "no biggie for me" - are the same reasons most of us fear running without anything between us and the pavement.
But researcher Dr. Mick Wilkinson of the Northumbria University has a similarly compassionate smile for the fears of the slightly shod, and many more reasons to show that even those 4mm between us and the planet can really screw up our stride. For him, a truly barefoot runner for over 4 years, barefoot means barefoot, and the distinction is pretty critical.
Mick is readily identified by his colleagues with the epitaph "you can't miss him; he's always barefoot" Wilkinson is an avid runner, competitive squash plater and senior lecturer in Sport and Exercise Science at Northumbria in Newcastle, UK. And yup, when i literally ran into Mick at Northumbria, he was indeed truly barefoot. I must admit it's the first time i felt overdressed in VFF Bikila's
What follows is a four part discussion of several rationales for barefoot running - one of the most compelling of which is just how the surface of our foot is wired. And once you've heard this, you may be hard pressed not to want to get your shoes off your feet as fast as you can.
Part I of the b2d interview with Soleful covers Mick Wilkinson on his journey to barefootness and the mechanics of the foot in running. In part II we'll look more at the role of the sole, in part III some comparisons with other running approaches, and part IV a wee clinic on tuning up the adaptation of running truly unshod.
If you enjoy this series, please consider sponsoring Mick on his barefoot Great North Run.
Yes, it was before it all hit the headlines and became a bit of a movement, particularly in the states. I'm not sure it even has become a movement here in the UK. That said, I quickly and easily found Ken Bob Saxton's web site www.therunningbarefoot.com which has been going since 1997 and still is a fantastic resource for those interested in barefooting.
That is correct. I have always run, mainly just for fitness but when I was a undergraduate student at university I also did a few cross country and road races though I was never a serious competitive runner.
I mostly used running as a stress release, particularly during exam periods where I ran everyday twice a day. I also took up squash while studying and used running as a form of training for squash (before I knew better about specificity of training!!). I began to suffer from calf / soleus / Achilles problems that recurred with monotonously regularity despite trying physiotherapy, recommended stretches, shoe inserts, different shoes, acupuncture and chiropractic. I largely gave up on running and continued with squash which didn't seem to cause me as many problems.
Some ten years later when work and family commitments made it difficult to play squash, I started to try running again but the old issues returned so I again gave up. In 2007 my father in law wanted to race in the Great North Run half marathon and asked me to join him. I started trying to train again but after only four weeks my Achilles and calves gave out again. At this point I began to think that maybe it was the way I was running that was causing the issues and explored Pose running and Chi running without much success.
I then happened on a book called Master the Art of Running
by Malcolm Balk - a teacher of the Alexander Technique.
I had never heard of the AT until then, but it made much sense to me that misuse
i.e. bad movement habits / unnecessary tension leads to illness and injury over time as the body is not being used as it has evolved to be used. I sought out a local AT teacher and booked a lesson.
AT teachers don't address symptoms of misuse directly but rather seek to improve overall use and coordination by helping student first become aware of harmful habits of movement, then learn to inhibit them and replace them with better patterns that result in free and easy movement.
It is essentially about NOT DOING, about stripping movements down to the bare necessary essentials and above all, not interfering with natural forces and the abundant stretch-shortening cycle postural reflexes that evolved to make movement free and easy - watch young children to see movement without interference with natural postural reflexes. Awareness of how you move while you move is key to the AT and my teacher suggested I try to get a little more in touch with how I moved when I ran by taking off my shoes and getting more information from my bare feet about how I was landing, balancing, pushing off when running.
I was bit nervous first time out but, without exaggeration, there was an instant change to my running style. After a couple of painful strides where I landed on my heels, something I had not known I did until then, my stride automatically shortened and quickened so I landed instead more on the whole sole with perhaps the mid foot touching down fractionally first. I was still a bit tense but as I carried on, I used some of my AT training to release some of that unnecessary tension. As I released into it, my poise altered and I ran much more upright with (without sounding obvious) my head balancing on top of my neck, my torso balancing on my hips and freer hip, knee and ankles.
The change in balance made it far easier to land with my feet beneath me, hence landing more on the mid foot and considerably eased tension in my back that, I realised had been because I had been leaning forward which in turn had encouraged the heel strike as the foot was planted out in front of me to prevent me from falling flat on my face.
It all made sense and after only about half a mile felt very comfortable. I was careful to build up time and distance very gradually. I waited for the old problems to resurface, but they never did. Over time I moved onto grass, increased my distances and after about a year I decided to venture onto the pavement - something I wished I had done much earlier.
Ken Bob Saxton suggested that you learn far more quickly about how to stand, walk and run lightly and comfortably when you get more feedback from rougher surfaces. That mirrored my first experience on the pavement. Until then I had thought I was running quite lightly. I was wrong! But, as with my first barefoot run on the beach, my technique altered quickly in response to the discomfort I felt through my bare soles and soon I was landing more lightly and gently and correspondingly more comfortably.
That first pavement run also taught me something else. I had a blister between the ball of my foot and big toe. I consulted Ken Bob's pages where he has excellent and very detailed instructions on technique from his years of experience. The cause of my blister it seemed was pushing backwards with my foot to drive me forward, the resulting friction leading to the blister. I quickly learned to simply lift my feet up after contact with the ground, to not actively push off, but instead to move forward by releasing my ankles and allowing my vertical torso to fall forward over my supporting foot.
The parallels with AT were always apparent to me: the less I actively did and the more I simply allowed the muscles in my legs and feet to respond to the lengthening / stretching forces imposed by gravity, and to recoil automatically with their stretch reflexes and in built elasticity, the better, more lightly and gently I ran.
Don't get me wrong, I am still learning and still finding tension to let go of and parts of my movement
that I interfere with, but the more feedback I can get through my soles from rougher surfaces, the easier it is to make refinements that result in lighter and more gentle contact with the ground. I ran poorly for decades in shoes but have managed to undo lots of those bad habits in just a two or three years - all of which have been injury free.
o Science/Mechanics
The feet and legs are full of elastic tendons and connective tissues. The foot has many articulating joints and an intricate network of muscles, ligaments and tendons whose purpose is to provide an intrinsic support and cushioning system that responds instantly to variations in balance, pressure and comfort / discomfort with each and every part of every step. The mid foot has a thick pad of fat that also aids in cushioning, the heel does not and its purpose is simply to aid balance in standing and improve the lever characteristics around the ankle.
The sole of the foot also has a higher density of muscle spindles than anywhere else in the body
with the exception of muscles in the back of the neck. These are the organs that sense change and rate of change in muscle length and through the stretch-shortening reflex, ensure that muscle resist stretch with only exactly the right amount of force to counteract it. This reflex also results in storage of stretch energy in tendons and other connective tissues that can be returned thus reducing the energy cost of a given movement. Mechanical studies of the foot have also shown that as much as 17% of the energy a foot strike can be stored and returned by the longitudinal arch of the bare foot (Ker et al., 1987).
In order to store energy, the arch is deformed by a rolling action of the foot that begins on with ground contact at the outside mid foot and progress across the middle of the foot. This pronation is entirely natural and flatten the arch which subsequently springs back assisting in propulsive forces to move the body forward.
From this view, it seems ridiculous to think that an arch needs a 'support' as seems to be the thinking of manufacturers of modern elevated heel cushioned running shoes. Gallilieo himself marvelled at the arch as a structure and saw its benefits as a supporting structure that is now common place in engineering (bridges etc.) an arched bridge for example actually becomes
stronger under pressure as its parts mesh more closely together. The sure-fire way to weaken an arch and destroy an arch bridge is to apply pressure from underneath!
The elastic properties of the arch are also found in the Achilles tendon which is really just a large elastic band.
The purpose of the Achilles tendon is also to store and return energy only in running. It is remarkable that species that do not run or are very poor runners (non cursors), an Achilles tendon is absent.
Obviously, an elastic structure is only useful when it is stretched. An elevated-heel shoe shortens the Achilles tendon reducing any stretch placed on it during the running cycle. Comparisons of barefoot to shod running have shown greater peak ankle dorsi-flexion angle (that would stretch the Achilles further) in barefoot running.
This is, in my opinion, another example of shoe designers not having an understanding of or respect for the structures and functioning of the human leg and foot that evolved over 2 million years to make homo sapiens the unsurpassed distance running mammal on the planet.
------------------------
That's it for this part on why getting squishy souls out of the way may be a good idea - and why if we stopped here we may think vff's do the trick. But that bit about blisters is important, too.
In Part II of this series with Mick, we'll look at the Sensitive Sole of barefoot running, and why that plantar surface - and getting it into direct contact with the ground is a Big Deal.
Before then, want to give some real ground a try? Believe me, it will put the above and the rest of this series in a whole new context...
Till next time,
And oh yes, if you're finding this series interesting, please do consider sponsoring Mick on his
Great North Run in his bare feet at:
http://www.justgiving.com/Michael-Wilkinson0
Related b2d posts
 |
| Dr. Mick Wilkinson, in from a run, and being stopped from getting to the showers by yers truly |
But researcher Dr. Mick Wilkinson of the Northumbria University has a similarly compassionate smile for the fears of the slightly shod, and many more reasons to show that even those 4mm between us and the planet can really screw up our stride. For him, a truly barefoot runner for over 4 years, barefoot means barefoot, and the distinction is pretty critical.
Mick is readily identified by his colleagues with the epitaph "you can't miss him; he's always barefoot" Wilkinson is an avid runner, competitive squash plater and senior lecturer in Sport and Exercise Science at Northumbria in Newcastle, UK. And yup, when i literally ran into Mick at Northumbria, he was indeed truly barefoot. I must admit it's the first time i felt overdressed in VFF Bikila's
What follows is a four part discussion of several rationales for barefoot running - one of the most compelling of which is just how the surface of our foot is wired. And once you've heard this, you may be hard pressed not to want to get your shoes off your feet as fast as you can.
Part I of the b2d interview with Soleful covers Mick Wilkinson on his journey to barefootness and the mechanics of the foot in running. In part II we'll look more at the role of the sole, in part III some comparisons with other running approaches, and part IV a wee clinic on tuning up the adaptation of running truly unshod.
If you enjoy this series, please consider sponsoring Mick on his barefoot Great North Run.
Mick, if i recall right, you said you started exploring barefooting about 4
years ago now? That's pretty ahead of the barefoot running curve.
Yes, it was before it all hit the headlines and became a bit of a movement, particularly in the states. I'm not sure it even has become a movement here in the UK. That said, I quickly and easily found Ken Bob Saxton's web site www.therunningbarefoot.com which has been going since 1997 and still is a fantastic resource for those interested in barefooting.
You were telling me that what lead you to barefooting was a suggestion by
your alexander movement coach to check out running in bare feet as a way to
interrogate your own movement since you were having recurrent injuries?
Maybe you'd tell us a bit about your running history, how you connected
with your coach, and your process of dipping a toe into barefooting.
That is correct. I have always run, mainly just for fitness but when I was a undergraduate student at university I also did a few cross country and road races though I was never a serious competitive runner.
I mostly used running as a stress release, particularly during exam periods where I ran everyday twice a day. I also took up squash while studying and used running as a form of training for squash (before I knew better about specificity of training!!). I began to suffer from calf / soleus / Achilles problems that recurred with monotonously regularity despite trying physiotherapy, recommended stretches, shoe inserts, different shoes, acupuncture and chiropractic. I largely gave up on running and continued with squash which didn't seem to cause me as many problems.
Some ten years later when work and family commitments made it difficult to play squash, I started to try running again but the old issues returned so I again gave up. In 2007 my father in law wanted to race in the Great North Run half marathon and asked me to join him. I started trying to train again but after only four weeks my Achilles and calves gave out again. At this point I began to think that maybe it was the way I was running that was causing the issues and explored Pose running and Chi running without much success.
I then happened on a book called Master the Art of Running
by Malcolm Balk - a teacher of the Alexander Technique. I had never heard of the AT until then, but it made much sense to me that misuse
i.e. bad movement habits / unnecessary tension leads to illness and injury over time as the body is not being used as it has evolved to be used. I sought out a local AT teacher and booked a lesson. AT teachers don't address symptoms of misuse directly but rather seek to improve overall use and coordination by helping student first become aware of harmful habits of movement, then learn to inhibit them and replace them with better patterns that result in free and easy movement.
It is essentially about NOT DOING, about stripping movements down to the bare necessary essentials and above all, not interfering with natural forces and the abundant stretch-shortening cycle postural reflexes that evolved to make movement free and easy - watch young children to see movement without interference with natural postural reflexes. Awareness of how you move while you move is key to the AT and my teacher suggested I try to get a little more in touch with how I moved when I ran by taking off my shoes and getting more information from my bare feet about how I was landing, balancing, pushing off when running.
Very cool. What was it like going from that first time shod to barefoot for a run? You
did this on a beach?
I was bit nervous first time out but, without exaggeration, there was an instant change to my running style. After a couple of painful strides where I landed on my heels, something I had not known I did until then, my stride automatically shortened and quickened so I landed instead more on the whole sole with perhaps the mid foot touching down fractionally first. I was still a bit tense but as I carried on, I used some of my AT training to release some of that unnecessary tension. As I released into it, my poise altered and I ran much more upright with (without sounding obvious) my head balancing on top of my neck, my torso balancing on my hips and freer hip, knee and ankles.
The change in balance made it far easier to land with my feet beneath me, hence landing more on the mid foot and considerably eased tension in my back that, I realised had been because I had been leaning forward which in turn had encouraged the heel strike as the foot was planted out in front of me to prevent me from falling flat on my face.
It all made sense and after only about half a mile felt very comfortable. I was careful to build up time and distance very gradually. I waited for the old problems to resurface, but they never did. Over time I moved onto grass, increased my distances and after about a year I decided to venture onto the pavement - something I wished I had done much earlier.
You were saying that someone in this space suggested start rather with the
rougher type surfaces and you agreed. Who was that and why?
Ken Bob Saxton suggested that you learn far more quickly about how to stand, walk and run lightly and comfortably when you get more feedback from rougher surfaces. That mirrored my first experience on the pavement. Until then I had thought I was running quite lightly. I was wrong! But, as with my first barefoot run on the beach, my technique altered quickly in response to the discomfort I felt through my bare soles and soon I was landing more lightly and gently and correspondingly more comfortably.
That first pavement run also taught me something else. I had a blister between the ball of my foot and big toe. I consulted Ken Bob's pages where he has excellent and very detailed instructions on technique from his years of experience. The cause of my blister it seemed was pushing backwards with my foot to drive me forward, the resulting friction leading to the blister. I quickly learned to simply lift my feet up after contact with the ground, to not actively push off, but instead to move forward by releasing my ankles and allowing my vertical torso to fall forward over my supporting foot.
The parallels with AT were always apparent to me: the less I actively did and the more I simply allowed the muscles in my legs and feet to respond to the lengthening / stretching forces imposed by gravity, and to recoil automatically with their stretch reflexes and in built elasticity, the better, more lightly and gently I ran.
Don't get me wrong, I am still learning and still finding tension to let go of and parts of my movement
that I interfere with, but the more feedback I can get through my soles from rougher surfaces, the easier it is to make refinements that result in lighter and more gentle contact with the ground. I ran poorly for decades in shoes but have managed to undo lots of those bad habits in just a two or three years - all of which have been injury free. o Science/Mechanics
So since we're now talking position,
Just to review, before talking about the foot's unmediated contact with the ground, let's review a few of the important reasons biomechanically around going barefoot: the action of the arch and the work of the achilles tendon.
Just to review, before talking about the foot's unmediated contact with the ground, let's review a few of the important reasons biomechanically around going barefoot: the action of the arch and the work of the achilles tendon.
Please:
The feet and legs are full of elastic tendons and connective tissues. The foot has many articulating joints and an intricate network of muscles, ligaments and tendons whose purpose is to provide an intrinsic support and cushioning system that responds instantly to variations in balance, pressure and comfort / discomfort with each and every part of every step. The mid foot has a thick pad of fat that also aids in cushioning, the heel does not and its purpose is simply to aid balance in standing and improve the lever characteristics around the ankle.
The sole of the foot also has a higher density of muscle spindles than anywhere else in the body
 |
| tendons of the lower leg that operate the foot: like the flexors that attach on the shin: lot of muscle spindle and fine tuned movement responses |
In order to store energy, the arch is deformed by a rolling action of the foot that begins on with ground contact at the outside mid foot and progress across the middle of the foot. This pronation is entirely natural and flatten the arch which subsequently springs back assisting in propulsive forces to move the body forward.
From this view, it seems ridiculous to think that an arch needs a 'support' as seems to be the thinking of manufacturers of modern elevated heel cushioned running shoes. Gallilieo himself marvelled at the arch as a structure and saw its benefits as a supporting structure that is now common place in engineering (bridges etc.) an arched bridge for example actually becomes |
| and another layer of muscles directly within the foot, and more fine tuning of movement |
The elastic properties of the arch are also found in the Achilles tendon which is really just a large elastic band.
The purpose of the Achilles tendon is also to store and return energy only in running. It is remarkable that species that do not run or are very poor runners (non cursors), an Achilles tendon is absent.
Obviously, an elastic structure is only useful when it is stretched. An elevated-heel shoe shortens the Achilles tendon reducing any stretch placed on it during the running cycle. Comparisons of barefoot to shod running have shown greater peak ankle dorsi-flexion angle (that would stretch the Achilles further) in barefoot running.
 |
| running in heels? killing the job of the achiles tendon |
------------------------
That's it for this part on why getting squishy souls out of the way may be a good idea - and why if we stopped here we may think vff's do the trick. But that bit about blisters is important, too.
In Part II of this series with Mick, we'll look at the Sensitive Sole of barefoot running, and why that plantar surface - and getting it into direct contact with the ground is a Big Deal.
Before then, want to give some real ground a try? Believe me, it will put the above and the rest of this series in a whole new context...
Till next time,
And oh yes, if you're finding this series interesting, please do consider sponsoring Mick on his
Great North Run in his bare feet at:
http://www.justgiving.com/Michael-Wilkinson0
Related b2d posts
- do your shoes pass the twist test
- training for the sprain
- ankle taping - what the ??
- icing to play?
- move or die
- running shoes as single factor thinking
- does running shoe type reduce injury? how bout no
- what's a movement assessment and why have one?
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Thursday, July 14, 2011
Ken Froese: Triple Double Beast Press Practice with a little z-health, some return of the kettlebell and Spite
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At a recent RKC II kettlebell certification course, Ken Froese did something it doesn't seem like any other RKC of any level has done: he cleaned then pressed two 48kg kettlebells (one in each hand) for a double. Shown below a few weeks before, he does a triple. Guess he was taking it easy at the RKC.
Just to be clear, 48kg is 106 pounds. It's known as "the Beast" in the RKC. That's a big ball o' iron gripped and pulling against the wrist. That's more than half a lot of guys' body weight. Pressing ONE beast once is one third of what's known as the Beast Challenge. So in this context, even a single double beast press is what may reasonably be construed as a Big Deal.
Ken and i first got chatting about two years ago on the RKC instructors forum and met in person at a z-health cert. Having now had the pleasure to be on a year long course with Ken and hear him talk about his plans to do this double press of a beast for a single for this RKC II recert, it seemed a cool thing now to be able to ask him to reflect on the process of how he got from there to here.
By way of context, Ken Froese of Kettlebell Evolution (his shop) is a quiet guy. The quiet big guy type that looks like he could crush a beer can just kinda by looking at it sideways. If he saw Chuck Norris he'd be all polite and nice and everything, maybe check his sphenoid to help him with that big side kick, all the while you kinda know he could probably crush old chuck like a bug. In the nicest possible way. If you've heard of the story of Milo - the guy who got stronger and bigger every day by lifting a bull from its first day as a calf to its full grown-ness, that's how i kinda think of Ken.
Ken's also a Z-Health master trainer, an RKC II kettlebell instructor, previously set up his own shop in NY doing tree cutting (the type of cutting where one has to shinny up big trees and chain saw them down in pieces), is an ice and rock climber, independent business owner, home builder, knowledge seeker, and surprisingly witty guy. Why surprising? It's that quiet thing. Imagine the smart shy kid at the back of the class that every once in awhile speaks, and when he does, it's hilarious. Until recently, Ken was also known by his long locks (think owen wilson), but has moved to another Look stage (think ben stiller). So you have the picture: medium tall guy, lots of muscle mass, business like, quiet, witty.
Oh ya, and ken was also part of the team coaching Fabricio Werdum in kb's prior to his upset win over Fedor Emelianenko this past year.
And so we begin:
Ken, a year ago you'd had a plan to press double beasts at the RKC II recert. Just for context, a beast is an rkc nickname for the 48kg kettlebell. Pressing ONE beast is a third of the "beast challenge" - pressing, pulling up and pistoling a beast.
And now the technical aspects of the approach to the T, as it were. You did one clean and then the two presses: why the clean just at the start rather than before each press?
So, now let's do a little Ken Back Story for context to this goal.
You've been doing kbs for about four years. What kind of training did you do if any before that? What I'm trying to get at is what kind of experience has gone into you feeling comfy to tune a program and go by seeming feel to guide your double press work.
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Just to be clear, 48kg is 106 pounds. It's known as "the Beast" in the RKC. That's a big ball o' iron gripped and pulling against the wrist. That's more than half a lot of guys' body weight. Pressing ONE beast once is one third of what's known as the Beast Challenge. So in this context, even a single double beast press is what may reasonably be construed as a Big Deal.
Ken and i first got chatting about two years ago on the RKC instructors forum and met in person at a z-health cert. Having now had the pleasure to be on a year long course with Ken and hear him talk about his plans to do this double press of a beast for a single for this RKC II recert, it seemed a cool thing now to be able to ask him to reflect on the process of how he got from there to here.
Ken's also a Z-Health master trainer, an RKC II kettlebell instructor, previously set up his own shop in NY doing tree cutting (the type of cutting where one has to shinny up big trees and chain saw them down in pieces), is an ice and rock climber, independent business owner, home builder, knowledge seeker, and surprisingly witty guy. Why surprising? It's that quiet thing. Imagine the smart shy kid at the back of the class that every once in awhile speaks, and when he does, it's hilarious. Until recently, Ken was also known by his long locks (think owen wilson), but has moved to another Look stage (think ben stiller). So you have the picture: medium tall guy, lots of muscle mass, business like, quiet, witty.
Oh ya, and ken was also part of the team coaching Fabricio Werdum in kb's prior to his upset win over Fedor Emelianenko this past year.
And so we begin:
Ken, a year ago you'd had a plan to press double beasts at the RKC II recert. Just for context, a beast is an rkc nickname for the 48kg kettlebell. Pressing ONE beast is a third of the "beast challenge" - pressing, pulling up and pistoling a beast.
The RKC II recert just happened, and you doubled the beast press: cleaned, and followed with two good presses. We have video of you not much previously getting in a triple.Why was getting in a planned single rep of a double beast press so important?
So this seems a nice feat of strength.
We all use different strategies to motivate ourselves to accomplish goals in our life. Often the best way to motivate someone is to tell them they can't do something. For me it was Spite. Have you ever seen the Seinfeld where Jerry tried to return a jacket and when the sales girl asked why, his reply was for spite (youtube clip).I hope folks look at that clip of seinfeld and spite. Very witty, sir. You have done many of us a service. Cuz now we just say "really?" with a picture of you attached to it. I can see the t-shirt now: black shirt, outline of you with the beasts in lockout, quote at the top "zhealth makes you weak" and the big Really underneath. Nicely done. Mind you, i kinda think that rumour's run it's course, eh? We've all grown and learned and re-bonded and no longer say such unfounded things, right?
In May of 2010 I began the Z-Health master trainer program. Around the same time there was some blog posts and conversations on different forums where people were saying that "Z-health makes you weak."
I could never understand how a system that is all about assess and re-asssess could be making someone weak. What were they missing?
So I took it on as my own personal challenge to strict military press Double beasts. So whenever I hear people say Z makes you weak, I can say Really??
And now the technical aspects of the approach to the T, as it were. You did one clean and then the two presses: why the clean just at the start rather than before each press?
Re-cleaning the bells before a press is a great teaching tool to set up for a press. If the clean is bad, they will never make the press.
Even this past weekend at the RKC2 I was surprised to see a lot of what I would call relaxed cleans on those that failed their 1/2 BW press. When The weights get heavy, I can usually tell if the press will be made just by watching the clean.
Or they would start to yield under the weight letting form break down instead of missing with integrity or as Pavel calls missing like a profesional.
Here's Master RKC Mark Reifkind making this point with you (when you had hair, and were weaker, so Sampson model plainly doesn't apply. Myth busted...):
This weekend Mark Toomey spoke about approaching the bells. Do you always set up the same way, do you always know where you feet are? Are you mentally prepared for the lift?
Pavel has spoken about a powerlifter that had a different grunt for each of his three power lifts to help him mentally prepare.
Back to the clean question.........
I first started lifting bells in early 07 and when pressing heavy I always re-cleaned the bells between reps to set up my pressing.
When I started to follow RTK (Return of the Kettlebell, overview here) I began learning to press without the re-clean, as the bells are Dbl snatched over head and the presses are begun from the top position. But my pressing strength grew beyond what I could safely double snatch.
In Z-Health we talk about the mark of a true professional is the ability to go from relaxed to tight in a split second. This weekend at the RKC 2 Pavel told a little story: if you took a picture at 10 frames a second of a fight throwing a punch. The beginner would be tight in the first frame. The intermadiate guy would be tight by frame 5 and the professional would be tight at the very end of the 10th frame.What's very cool is that you started practicing for this at least a year in advance. What made you think about this as something you'd want the year to do? Where were you at in your pressing when you came up with this goal?
So about 6 months ago it kind of dawned on me that learning to press from the rack without re-cleaning would help me learn the skill of going from relaxed to tight at a split second, instead of wasting energy holding tension for a longer period of time. Besides, recleaning a pair of 48s is a lot of work :)
When I picked pressing dbl beasts I wanted to pick a goal that not a lot of people in the RKC community can do or have done. If you go through videos on youtube there is a few videos of people pressing pressing dbl beasts, but they are mostly push presses. Nothing I would really call a strict press. I apoligise in advance if there are videos out there that I have missed. The only person that I had heard of doing the Dbl Beast press was Shaun Cairns.
Back in 09 I had wanted to train for the beast challenge. I was struggling with the press, i could not get past the 44kg and my pullups were stalled with body weight + 90lbs. As I would try and drop weight to help my pull-up my pressing strength would go down.
So I got frustrated and started with Pavel's RTK program. I enjoyed the program and liked working with doubles. My body just felt better working with double bells over a single bell.
Eventually I tweaked the program a little so on my heavy day I was recleaning the bells instead of dbl snatching them. I worked up to 5 ladders of 4 with dbl 40s. Then on a medium day i decided to press the 48 and see what kind of carry over all the dbl kb work had. I cleaned the 48 pressed it, hmmmm that was easy, recleaned it pressed it again, hmmm, recleaned it pressed it again.
That was the first time I tried pressing the 48 in almost a year and it went up for a triple, so double work had great carry over for me.
This was also around the time that the "Z makes you weak" rumours started floating around. So the goal of a dbl beast press was formed.Anything other than Spite?
I then figured what better place to do it than at the RKC2 in MSP. So as soon as the RKC2 for 2011 was announced I signed up to re-cert as an RKC2.
A lot of friends were asking why I was re taking the course instead of trying to assist and my typical response was , "For Spite"
I also really enjoy Pavel's coaching as he has an incredible eye for detail. The rest of the seniors and master rkcs who were leading the teams also bring a lot of coaching experience to the table.Totally agreed. Why i did RKC II, really.
As in any quality system things are always changing / evolving for the better. Pavel added some different progressions for pullups and hanging leg raises that I never saw before. Dave Whitley gave a great progression for the bent press. Dan John gave some great tips for coaching Jerks.THere was a break point in your practice with this lift - what happened, and how did you recover?
I also always have a good time and a lot of laughs hanging around like minded people.
I also think Z-Health and RKC principles work very well together. Sometimes we just need to tweak things a little for the individual. That is where a coach with a good eye is important. When we get married to our ideas and say there is only one way to do anything, then we get ourselves and or our clients into trouble.
In Dec of 2010 I was pushing hard hoping to get the dbl 48s for Festivus party held at a friend's gym, Dogtown Crossfit, where all the members perform a feat of strength that they have been working on.
Around the biginning of Dec I was up to about 10 singles with dbl 44s. I attempted pressing dbl 48s, but as soon as I cleaned them I knew I did not have a chance.
Then I ended up getting the flu and It was crunch time for the Z health MT cert. I had to prepare 2 45 min presentations as well as study for 6 days of live training at the Z health head quarters in PHX AZ, so my training got put on the back burner.
Once I started to ramp up again I began trying to get comfortable cleaning double 48s. The hardest part for me was cleaning them off the floor. Once they were in the rack I was able to clean them for reps, so I just practiced cleaning them for singles and dumping them onto the floor and jumping out of the way. More like an Olympic lifter dumps the bar from over head to avoid the eccentric, so he can get more training in.
Has your weight changed much between when you first got this idea to press big and now?
Do we really need to ask that question? Remember that time I asked [question deleted...], and that look you gave me :). Lets just say I ate my way through the sticking points.
When I started on this goal I was close to 250lbs, When I weighed in at the RKC2 I was 271. (I still made the pull-up throat to bar with a 16kg bell on my foot and performed a pistol at that weight). I only started training pull ups 2 months before the level 2 and pistols 3 weeks out.
Do you think you needed to put on the weight to get the press?
Thats tough to say...... For myself it is so much easier to get stronger when I put weight on. If I did not have a goal date in mind then maybe I could have watched my weight a better, but to be honest, I was not that concerned. I picked a goal and I made it happen.
So simple. So elegant. Picked a goal and made it happen. One of the things that's stood out for me is that you picked this goal like a YEAR in advance, stuck with it for a YEAR and delivered. Not a particularly short term plan. And it seems like you hit it about three weeks to the day. And were able to keep it up - so not even just a PR on the day. That is very very sweet to see. You had gas in the tank.
Ok, now that's done and dusted; you've recerted and all.
What are you going to do now in terms of training and your weight/leanness approach? Are you going to attempt to maintain this press while you lean out? - Not that you have to or need to lean out; just that i remember you talking about wanting to do this.
I want to start dropping the weight. A few months back my daughter and I were camping at joshua tree and we had a great time scrambling / climbing over rocks for a few days. But i remember saying to myself, this would be so much more fun if I was 50 lbs lighter.what's on your plate for where you want to focus your practice now, then?
I moved out to Santa Monica 2 1/2 years ago and I would like to start surfing. I also used to do some ice climbing when I lived on the east coast and have done some mountaineering trips to Equador, peru and alaska. I still want to climb Denali with a group of Z trainers.
I'm still undecided if I want to maintain the press or not. Because of the sheer size of KBs above 48kg I feel you may as well go to a barbell to train heavier. I am seriously considering chasing some numbers in long cycle as that is a lift I really enjoy.
If I don't have fun and enjoy my training then what is the point?
I also may start training Krav Maga, as I train out of a gym run by John Whitman who is a 4th degree black belt. So it would be silly of me to not take advantage of his skills.
Beside my wife is upset that I no longer fit into the John Varvatos jackets she bought me. :)
I want to work on dropping the weight and spend time working on the nuances of S-Phase and learn good sprinting technique. I just want to pursue some more athletic avenues that doing all of my training standing in one spot. I guess as I'm getting older, I question the point of training if I do not do anything with it.AH yes, we hear that one in z-health a lot: training as its own sport. Indeed. Just to go back a wee bit how did you feel? I seem to recall you talking about being a bit achey early on with putting on the weight? How did you address that?
Years ago…… People trained to get better at their sport, now exercise has become its own sport.
Back to the weight huh? [deleted question ...]Heh dude, you started with the descriptions at one of the courses about feeling the pain here related to putting on the pounds, and i was asking you then about what kind of choices are you making to hit a specific time goal and how to deal with that trade off. So ya, we're coming back
Yeah I definitely am not moving as well carrying all this extra weight. But I still get out and skateboard with my daughter and practice my Z health.
While we were working on Jerks at the RKC2 someone commented on how good my shoulder and thoracic mobility was. I spend a lot of time practicing it.
Ok, cool. So, one of the things you told me when we discussed the first time you repp' ed with the beasts is that movement drills were really important - how so and which ones?
I'll try and make a video of a few of my pet drills.
One can get away with a lot of compensations when pressing a single bell. But in a double press they all kind of show them selves.
If you can not comfortably stand with 2 bells locked out over head and feel like that is a rest position, then you should not be doing Dbl KB work.
I did most of my shoulder mobility work with bands.
Ken does terminal flicks for shoulder ROM
approach promoted by legend Bob Gajda in Total Body Training
(i personally did a lot of this kind of work to rehab my shoulder this year -mc)
(i personally did a lot of this kind of work to rehab my shoulder this year -mc)
Is there anything you'd do differently if you were starting this process from scratch again? and if so, why those things?
People often think of Z as a mobility system , but I only practiced long (long being 30-45Min) Mobility sessions about 3x a week. I just constantly practice small drills though out the day. Z is a performance system.
At the RKC2 There was a girl that was having an issue hitting her pull - up, she was close but needed a few more inches. I began by trying mobility drills, but it was not helping. Finally what did it was a neuro-mechanic drill [also taught at z, in particular in the T-phase course] at a sight of a previous injury. One of the tag lines we use when teaching Z is "You do not have to be right [the first time], you just have to be persistent." If that did not work there was still a lot of different avenues to look at.
Not really as what I did worked. I picked a goal and worked towards it. Performing it at a lighter BW would be more impressive but that was never my main concern.Other folks are surely going to be inspired by this performance: what are three key things you think would be important for them to consider in pursuing a similar goal?
Make sure you have the required mobility to press Dbl bells
Listen to your body: I used the light med heavy approach training 3 days a week. But on the days I felt good [I did more] and on some days I did less. Everything happens in waves. There was times I went to the gym and the presses felt heavy so i just did a bunch of band work and went home or to In and Out burger.
Keep healthly, If you have aches and pains, Fix them, do not push through them or you will just wind up loosing training time.------
Super duper Ken.
And lest anyone think that triple or double was a one off? how bout a bunch in the same period:
So, now let's do a little Ken Back Story for context to this goal.
You've been doing kbs for about four years. What kind of training did you do if any before that? What I'm trying to get at is what kind of experience has gone into you feeling comfy to tune a program and go by seeming feel to guide your double press work.
The Young Ken. I first started training in the 8th grade as I wanted to play high school football. My freshman year I weighed 150lbs, my senior year I was 250. There is no such thing as a Hard gainer, just under eaters.
Basement Gyms. The first "gym" I ever trained in was a basement. You paid 20.00 a month to train there. I remember taking public transportation from Staten Island NY up to the Bronx to purchase weights and carrying them back. It was different then…… I never knew there was such a thing as "personal trainers", people just lifted and the older guys helped the younger guys out and it was all cool.
I guess that is why I love training out of Crossfit gyms. The bare bones feel reminds me of Basement gyms.
Getting into KBs Eventually I got into KBs And I trained out of my house in upstate ny. I joined a local gym, where the owner just gave you a key to let yourself in. I kept my KBs there and trained a mix of KBs and barbell work….. Eventually I moved into Manhattan and imagine my surprise when I set foot into my first Globo gym and saw all the machines, swiss balls and bosu work. I thought I stepped into another dimension.
Z-Health and the RKC. I guess that is why I embrace the RKC and Z health, it helped me make sense of it. Some months back I was in NY and went by a gym I used to work at to train. As I looked around it was the same clients with the same trainers lifting the same weights. I remember shaking my head. If you are not making progress, what are you doing? This is strength training after all isn't it?
Pavel's programs give a pretty clear cut progression and Z-Health gave me a lens , principles and tools to evaluate my training. If something is not working fix it.
Loaded Mobility. A lot of people have seen the the R-Phase manual and DVD, [but] in the strength and suppleness course we go into loaded mobility where to use use bands to load all of the exercises as some mechnorecetors only fire under certain speeds and certain loads.There ya have it. And so just to wrap this up, we close with The Joy of Press:
The UnStretch. I am also not a big fan of passive stretching ( wow I said that in a Politicly correct manner). Most people use bands to pull themselves in ROM they are trying to find. I use very light bands in the opposite manner, and pull into the ROM i'm trying to find, so it becomes more of an achieve exercise. [video]
The UnWarmUp. I also do not warm up much when I train……… at the RKC2 I did a neural warm up before I left the hotel. When it came time to test the press, I did 5 reps each arm with a 12 KG I did a few nerve glides and pressed a pair of 36s for 3-4 reps then set up a pair of 48s and hit a dbl.
Related Articles
- The Return of the Kettlebell Cycle - from mc's b2d experience
- Interview with RKC II asha wagner and her experience with the Women's Beast Challenge
- Dan John talking up his love of the Press
- The Perfect Rep Quest series
- Fatigue Testing
- One Less Rep - it's ok.
- Visual, Vestibular and proprioceptive Training
- Review of the S-phase DVD: the complete athlete Vol. 1
- right shoulder rehab
- the amazing engineering that is the shoulder
Thursday, June 9, 2011
The irritation of the "I want you to..." coaching cue - and alternatives
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"I want you to..." How often is that about the first thing we hear coming at us working with a trainer? or coming from us if we train folks? "I want you to..." This post is a wee meditation on a pet peeve: how the words we use working with others can have a profound effect on building or not building rapport.
Rapport of Domination?
I've worked with a lot of coaches in training and teachers in training - folks who are already practicing their professional craft. If there's one phrase that occurs more than anything else, as the most constant training cue when the coach wants the athlete to do something, it's: "I want you to..."
How do you feel, if someone you have no rapport with yet, have no trust with yet, where this is perhaps your first time working together says to you "i want you to do..." whatever it is they want you to do? Do you feel willing? Do you feel inspired? Or do you feel a little threatened, a little defensive, irritated, even? Me, i'm annoyed. If this session is about me, why am i doing what you want? So, right there, i'll ask: "Why?" Why should i do this thing you ask me to do? And why should i do it for you?
More often than not, that question is a wrench in the wheel. The coach can't really explain either why i should do the thing, or they are flustered that they are being called on their authority. Or they could explain it, but they're not prepared to do so right at that moment, so flustered again. And for me to come back with "why" can be heard as pretty confrontational. And sometimes, they don't get it: they don't understand what i'm asking. And there's a great rapport problem right there.
Why the Irritant?
More often than not, coaches (and teachers) are thrown because they don't realize that this trope "I want you to..." that is constructed of words that have real meaning has become a space filler in inter-personal communication that has no meaning other than as something that sounds seemingly nicer than the more blunt "bend your leg" or "do ten push ups." But i think it's other than just space filler.
I think it's sloppy. Thoughtless. It means we've taken our communication for granted, and i don't think we can do that when our role is a coach. Let's consider the client perspective.
Whose session is this anyway?
My time with a coach is not about me working FOR that (unknown quantity) coach. I am not there to fulfill that coach's desire of "I want you to..." I am not extrinsicly motivated, nor do i wish to be so. As a teacher, i get freaked out when occaisionally a student says "i had to get this in on time; i was really worried about disappointing you." Oh wow. That one really makes me nervous.
As a supervisor, as a coach, i'm *just* the facilitator here; i've got some skills to pass on and some work we can do, and there's a cycle here in terms of a student learning from me till i start learning from them, and there's an agreement around practice and consequences of either party not sticking to the terms of that agreement (like getting something in on time for assessment; getting something back on time assessed; making a scheduled appointment; being ready for the client), but this rapport is not personal. It's not about whether or not i care. Yes, I will do the best i can for my students to create opportunities for success for them - that is what i see as part of my job: training of highly skilled personel. But it's not personal, and their session is not about me.
Who cares what I want? What's received?
If someone wants to become a professional researcher, super. I know how to do that and can help someone develop the skills to do that really well. If someone wants to become better in their sport, super. I can help with that. If someone wants to move out of pain and perform better in life, super, i can help with that. But that goal has nothing to do with me. Dosen't mean i don't care about how someone does - and whether or not they are getting what they need, and thriving.
Indeed, in my heart or aloud i am saying "my fond hope is that you will succeed, excel, and do way better than i have." But it does mean i'm not the focus of the process. And you know what? I'm pretty reluctant about expressing my personal wishes at all when working with folks - whether grad students or athletes. Personally, i try to present things in terms of what THEY should be able to get from a session - you know, goals/objectives for them. I mean, wouldn't it be weird if you picked up a text book and instead of the goals for the chapter, we saw "what i really want you to go away with from this unit is a deep passion for the field of anatomy"? Really? My student goals are since this chapter covers joints, preferably to learn about joints? How 'bout that? Will this material do that or not?
So i don't want to use a language with folks that goes anywhere near engendering an extrinsically focused and largely amorphous practice of "do this because it's what "i want" " rather than try this because, as best we can judge, it fits with what we're trying to accomplish together that are YOUR goals.
Language is a Virus
There's pretty good evidence that the language we use has a strong impact on how we create our realities.
If every client i see i say "i want you to..." what do those words mean? What am i telling myself all day? what am i telling them? That my desire is primary in working with others rather than secondary to their needs?
Also, the word suggests i'm not very successful: want describes a lack. To have a want is to be deficient. I want you to do this: i have a personal emptiness or insufficiency of your doing this. No, i don't. My life is surely complete without someone doing a lunge. Do i *want* to reinforce a lack? Build a dependency?
In z-health, we talk about the SAID principle all the time: that we adapt always and exactly to what we practice. Is practicing want, and i want, an adaptation i want/lack/desire? big N.O. there.
So what are "I want you to..." alternatives?
It really is pretty easy to get out of the "I want you to..." mode. Here's a couple examples i've found work well:
If the goal is to help someone learn how to do a movement, why not coach the movement? For example,
Now some folks may say "i hate 'we' like 'how are we doing today'" - i understand - i get that. So the above example could be easily broken into a me/you framinging too:
Off the "I" and onto the "Why"
On the client side, some folks may never notice the "i want you to..." or care. Or they may be fine with their coach saying "i want you to hold your foot here" or their teacher in a lecture saying "tonight i want you to read..." And sure, if there's sufficient rapport and trust that's been built up, one may be ok with the "I want you to..." But at that point, my bet is that it's just as easy to say "For this move, go like this" or "to get this concept, read the following." Simple phrases take the focus of the I and put it on the WHY. I think practicing that Why rather than I as a coach is important to rep.
Maybe it's because i have a background in words, and theories of wordage that i get a little insistent that words we use have meaning. And when they're spoken, i take them seriously (maybe it's a Jesuit upbringing...). They are part of that SAID specific adaptation to an asserted/imposed demand
And if that's the case, and we work together, i'd rather demonstrate in everything i do, including my words, that you're the star of the show; i'm there for you, on the terms we've agreed: times, payment, notice of change, all that mutual respect stuff. And that anything in that session is there to support your goals not my desires, gosh dang it.
ok? ok.
Thanks for listening.
I'm better now.
How are you?
Related posts
Tweet Follow @begin2dig
I've worked with a lot of coaches in training and teachers in training - folks who are already practicing their professional craft. If there's one phrase that occurs more than anything else, as the most constant training cue when the coach wants the athlete to do something, it's: "I want you to..."
How do you feel, if someone you have no rapport with yet, have no trust with yet, where this is perhaps your first time working together says to you "i want you to do..." whatever it is they want you to do? Do you feel willing? Do you feel inspired? Or do you feel a little threatened, a little defensive, irritated, even? Me, i'm annoyed. If this session is about me, why am i doing what you want? So, right there, i'll ask: "Why?" Why should i do this thing you ask me to do? And why should i do it for you?
Why the Irritant?
More often than not, coaches (and teachers) are thrown because they don't realize that this trope "I want you to..." that is constructed of words that have real meaning has become a space filler in inter-personal communication that has no meaning other than as something that sounds seemingly nicer than the more blunt "bend your leg" or "do ten push ups." But i think it's other than just space filler.
I think it's sloppy. Thoughtless. It means we've taken our communication for granted, and i don't think we can do that when our role is a coach. Let's consider the client perspective.
Whose session is this anyway?
My time with a coach is not about me working FOR that (unknown quantity) coach. I am not there to fulfill that coach's desire of "I want you to..." I am not extrinsicly motivated, nor do i wish to be so. As a teacher, i get freaked out when occaisionally a student says "i had to get this in on time; i was really worried about disappointing you." Oh wow. That one really makes me nervous.
As a supervisor, as a coach, i'm *just* the facilitator here; i've got some skills to pass on and some work we can do, and there's a cycle here in terms of a student learning from me till i start learning from them, and there's an agreement around practice and consequences of either party not sticking to the terms of that agreement (like getting something in on time for assessment; getting something back on time assessed; making a scheduled appointment; being ready for the client), but this rapport is not personal. It's not about whether or not i care. Yes, I will do the best i can for my students to create opportunities for success for them - that is what i see as part of my job: training of highly skilled personel. But it's not personal, and their session is not about me.
Who cares what I want? What's received?
If someone wants to become a professional researcher, super. I know how to do that and can help someone develop the skills to do that really well. If someone wants to become better in their sport, super. I can help with that. If someone wants to move out of pain and perform better in life, super, i can help with that. But that goal has nothing to do with me. Dosen't mean i don't care about how someone does - and whether or not they are getting what they need, and thriving.
Indeed, in my heart or aloud i am saying "my fond hope is that you will succeed, excel, and do way better than i have." But it does mean i'm not the focus of the process. And you know what? I'm pretty reluctant about expressing my personal wishes at all when working with folks - whether grad students or athletes. Personally, i try to present things in terms of what THEY should be able to get from a session - you know, goals/objectives for them. I mean, wouldn't it be weird if you picked up a text book and instead of the goals for the chapter, we saw "what i really want you to go away with from this unit is a deep passion for the field of anatomy"? Really? My student goals are since this chapter covers joints, preferably to learn about joints? How 'bout that? Will this material do that or not?
So i don't want to use a language with folks that goes anywhere near engendering an extrinsically focused and largely amorphous practice of "do this because it's what "i want" " rather than try this because, as best we can judge, it fits with what we're trying to accomplish together that are YOUR goals.
Language is a Virus
There's pretty good evidence that the language we use has a strong impact on how we create our realities.
If every client i see i say "i want you to..." what do those words mean? What am i telling myself all day? what am i telling them? That my desire is primary in working with others rather than secondary to their needs?
Also, the word suggests i'm not very successful: want describes a lack. To have a want is to be deficient. I want you to do this: i have a personal emptiness or insufficiency of your doing this. No, i don't. My life is surely complete without someone doing a lunge. Do i *want* to reinforce a lack? Build a dependency?
In z-health, we talk about the SAID principle all the time: that we adapt always and exactly to what we practice. Is practicing want, and i want, an adaptation i want/lack/desire? big N.O. there.
So what are "I want you to..." alternatives?
It really is pretty easy to get out of the "I want you to..." mode. Here's a couple examples i've found work well:
If the goal is to help someone learn how to do a movement, why not coach the movement? For example,
"So movement X will support this part of your goal to do Y, so let me model it, and then you follow with me: from the forward lunge position, internally rotate the back foot like so...."If working through a part of a set, why not make the set relevant to the goal?
"Since we've said we're focusing on this part of your stroke, we can build up this part of the stroke with some loaded mobility here, and for that, we need to get some fatigue happening, so let's go for 5 reps with a 10rep load for a set - what is that for you? ok, great, and do X amount of recovery between sets, and we'll go till fatigue starts to show- i'll watch you for that. Ok? let's go.
Now some folks may say "i hate 'we' like 'how are we doing today'" - i understand - i get that. So the above example could be easily broken into a me/you framinging too:
We (cuz it is an agreement) have said we're focusing on X and a technique to do that is Y. And since to get there, a certain adaptation is required that's best induced by partial recovery, an option is to use shorter set rests, and appropriate load. So pick a weight that you could do ten reps with; the sets will go for five, and will have 30sec breaks between them. Ok? I'll keep an eye out for fatigue signs while you work. Let's begin.Something like that. The differences are, it seems to me, that by getting forced out of "i want you to" we need to think about why we're asking someone to do something. Can we communicate why/how this makes sense in terms of a target. If we can't is there some deficiency in our knowledge? That can be fixed. Or is there a lack of a target? That too can be addressed. Or we feel awkward trying to explain stuff? There are strategies to develop skills for that too. If we don't want to develop those skills, what does that tell us about the focus of our coaching?
Off the "I" and onto the "Why"
On the client side, some folks may never notice the "i want you to..." or care. Or they may be fine with their coach saying "i want you to hold your foot here" or their teacher in a lecture saying "tonight i want you to read..." And sure, if there's sufficient rapport and trust that's been built up, one may be ok with the "I want you to..." But at that point, my bet is that it's just as easy to say "For this move, go like this" or "to get this concept, read the following." Simple phrases take the focus of the I and put it on the WHY. I think practicing that Why rather than I as a coach is important to rep.
 |
| mc with recent MIT PhD grad just after his defence. Yes, very happy for Max's success. It's *his* success, and has been great to be part of that process. |
And if that's the case, and we work together, i'd rather demonstrate in everything i do, including my words, that you're the star of the show; i'm there for you, on the terms we've agreed: times, payment, notice of change, all that mutual respect stuff. And that anything in that session is there to support your goals not my desires, gosh dang it.
ok? ok.
Thanks for listening.
I'm better now.
How are you?
Related posts
Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Fat Tea: like guiness but tea (Including a descant on fat types like coconut oil)
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There's an old saw about Guiness - it's the beer that drinks like a meal. That can certainly be true. But if one's passion is less for beer, and say, more towards tea, and let's also say we're keen to get our protein and fats in, and also want to enhance our satiety, and maybe improve our energy expenditure, i may have a drink for you. To the best of my knowledge, i think i've concocted this, and call it Fat Tea.
Fat Tea consists of
Oh wow, that's intensely satisfying: protein, fat, very low carbs, a bit of caffeine and other good things associated with tea.
But wait, you may be saying, isn't Fat tea, well, rather fat?
Let's see: 2 grams of cocunut oil is 18kcals of medium chain triglycerides. 2 ozs (i like a lot of milk in my tea) of whole milk is 37.5kcals, so yup, total cals are 55.5. Compared with black tea on its own (zero kcals) or with two ozs of skim milk (21.5kcals) or two oz's of 2% (31.25) - well ya, there's more fat, so sure; more calories than black tea.
The Skinny on Fat Tea Fats
So let's talk about the Fat for a sec, the coconut oil fat and the whole milk fat, and why you may want to choose these 56kcals in happy fat tea once a day (i like mine in the evening), rather than say a cookie or some starchy carby thing.
Fat Profile - reminder: fat is good.
Fat is Amazing and Good - not evil. We need fat; it's our primary source of fuel for our bodies (i've written about this before), and it serves a TON of roles in our bodies - not just for fuel, but as the wrappers of EACH AND EVERY cell in our bodies. It's the insulation on the white matter of our brains; it's the wrapping of our viscera; it's the mylenation that suports our nervous system learning; it's building blocks for hormones we need to function well.
And on top of all this, it is the primary energy system for our bodies. I read a page awhile ago that said that fat is a back up energy system when we run out of blood sugar. That's really misleading. That sounds like blood sugar is our primary fuel. Nope. It's not. Fat is our primary fuel. You sitting reading this on the couch: you're oxidising PRIMARILY fat. We'll talk about glucose some other day. Main thing: FAT is good - there are - like proteins - essential fats too (you know, the omega's).
If you're doing Dairy, Whole Milk Can be Fun
On a pure taste level, a whole fat milk is generally sweeter (it's the milk sugars in the lactose, as i understand it). The texture is also creamier. That's all from the Fat.
Fat Variety in Milk
There are all sorts of fats that we need in our diet. Milk has an intriguing range of fats, including saturated, polyunsaturated, monounsaturated - and a mix of short and long chain fats, too. And milk has about one of the only instances of a type of trans fat, CLA, that's good for us. Transfats are generally considered evil (like margarine), but CLA in milk fats is a keeper. So it's not a bad place to get some of the fats we want. Including (in organic sources especially) Omerga 3's and the very currently trendy ALA (alpha lipoic acid - popular as a fat burner ingredient). Grass feed = apparently good for Omega 3 upping.
Indeed, organic milk is one of the most studied organic products on the planet, apparently, and studies seem to keep showing that organic milk does better with omega 3s overall than non-organic - up to 67% more omega 3's. This result has been found in several studies in the UK over several years now (Ellis 06, Butler 11)
Organic Note In the UK, organic also means lots of grass feeding and free ranging. It also means no crap (here's a listing).
More Fat types
As we've seen above, milk has a mix of fat types, saturated being about 2/3s of the fat profile of milk. But is that in and of itself a problem? Well, those cell walls of each cell in our body? They're largely made up of saturated fat. So we need saturated fats for dietary, cellular, hormonal, everything'ish function. SO why are we constantly told to get the saturated fats out of our diet? Sometimes it's easier to try the Big Hammer approach then deal with subtlety and complexity of the subtly and complexity that is Us.
And as we'll see shortly, the biggies in all of these "must nots" are RATIOS and balance. As i've said repeatedly at b2d, we're complex systems. Single factor thinking like"kill all fat" or "kill this type of fat" or "eliminate fat" - is not an answer. Balance balance balance. Balance.
Indeed, in the saturated fats of milk, are these short chain fatty acids. They're apparently anti-microbial; they stimulate some of the same pathways that the vitamin B part that's niacin does, so may help on the HDL front, too. This doesn't mean O.D. on saturated fats; but it does mean there is a role for them. WHich brings us to the other fat in Fat Tea
Coconut Oil
I am so late to the Coconut Oil party (overview of coconut oil here). Coconut oil has been getting a big nod because it's a Medium Chain Triglyceride saturated fat, and that's actually supposed to be a good way to help burn fat (and more). The idea of the chain length is that the short chain means the fat can be metabolized (converted into fuel) faster/easier, which means it's not getting deposited into adipose tissue and potentially increases satiety. One of the key early articles in this space by St Ong and Jones from 2003 is available free online, too (Ong03); St-Ong and Bosarage did a longer study in 2008 and showed again that MCTs, while not a miracle fat burner, contributed to energy expenditure and body comp improvements more so than olive oil in the same amounts (Ong08).
An excellent research review from 2010 by Clegg covers both the advantages and some of the challenges of using MCT's for fat burning. Seems the main studies have been with normal weight rather than obese folks, too, and there are gender effects.
In an interesting study sited by Clegg from 2001, Van Wymelbeke and colleagues found that satiety - the feeling of fullness was improved in the meal AFTER the one where MCTs were eaten.
All that sounds great, doesn't it? And you'll find camps that will say all vegetable oils are evil and should be replaced by butter or coconut oil, or in third place, olive oil (see the Perfect Health Diet
as an reference-rich example).
THere are others - some key folks in the American Dietetic Association - who go the other way, and say vegetable oils rock; coconut oil is problematic. We want only PUFAs (polyunsaturated fats) not SaFA (saturated fats) (overview of debate by Zelman 2011).
Tempest in a Tea Pot
I saw one study that looked at replacing dairy with just coconut oil (Choo10) to make a new ice cream. So if you don't care for doing dairy for whatever reason, you may want to try Fat Tea with only coconut oil. I'm keen to try Green Fat Tea, too. Get all those egcgs working with the MCT's. oh my.
The thing is, we need fat; different kinds of fats are good for us, essential even. And sometimes, a little bit of fat can go a long way to do good things.
As in most things with us, trying to say x or y is unequivocally bad is hard to do. With fat, the biggie seems to be ratios: getting the LDL and HDL RATIO right; getting the omega 6 to omega 3 ratio right (closer to 1:1 is better; 4:1 is kinda the outside).
The same thing with ratios of food types. Hence getting a variety of foods on the plate, and especially a variety of colors on the plate. If it's all browns/yellows, there's a potential issue.
For me, for the end of the day, i love me some Fat Tea.
For the amount of fat i eat otherwise, i'm willing to splurge. That there may be some health benefits and especially that triggered satiety so i'm actually less hungry later, i kinda like too. I also like a square of lindt 85% or higher dark chocolate to go with.
So i'm just saying - if you want to treat yourself to something yummy, you could do worse than Fat Tea.
TASTE: A quick note: some coconut oil i've found tastes more or less like coconut oil. The coconoil organic i get in the UK is very coconutty. The organic i picked up at whole foods last time i was in the states is very neutral. So if you're not a fan of the coconut taste, you can still do coconut oil, it seems.
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to Zachariah Salazar for turning me onto coconut oil.
References
Ps - this was supposed to be a really short article - just the recipe. Dang. Apologies.
Related Posts:
There's an old saw about Guiness - it's the beer that drinks like a meal. That can certainly be true. But if one's passion is less for beer, and say, more towards tea, and let's also say we're keen to get our protein and fats in, and also want to enhance our satiety, and maybe improve our energy expenditure, i may have a drink for you. To the best of my knowledge, i think i've concocted this, and call it Fat Tea.Fat Tea consists of
 |
| The makings of Fat Tea: black tea, organic whole milk, ginger and organic coconut oil |
- steeped Yorkshire Gold Tea (i really enjoy the taste of this bagged UK tea)
- Whole Organic Milk (from happy cows - where i live that's usually a brand called Duchy) to taste 1-2 oz.
- Fresh Ginger (steeped with tea to taste)
- - le piéce de resistance - Organic Coconut Oil (like a gram or so per cup or mug of tea) - in the uk i get coconoil by mail order.
Oh wow, that's intensely satisfying: protein, fat, very low carbs, a bit of caffeine and other good things associated with tea.
But wait, you may be saying, isn't Fat tea, well, rather fat?
Let's see: 2 grams of cocunut oil is 18kcals of medium chain triglycerides. 2 ozs (i like a lot of milk in my tea) of whole milk is 37.5kcals, so yup, total cals are 55.5. Compared with black tea on its own (zero kcals) or with two ozs of skim milk (21.5kcals) or two oz's of 2% (31.25) - well ya, there's more fat, so sure; more calories than black tea.
The Skinny on Fat Tea Fats
So let's talk about the Fat for a sec, the coconut oil fat and the whole milk fat, and why you may want to choose these 56kcals in happy fat tea once a day (i like mine in the evening), rather than say a cookie or some starchy carby thing.
Fat Profile - reminder: fat is good.
Fat is Amazing and Good - not evil. We need fat; it's our primary source of fuel for our bodies (i've written about this before), and it serves a TON of roles in our bodies - not just for fuel, but as the wrappers of EACH AND EVERY cell in our bodies. It's the insulation on the white matter of our brains; it's the wrapping of our viscera; it's the mylenation that suports our nervous system learning; it's building blocks for hormones we need to function well.
And on top of all this, it is the primary energy system for our bodies. I read a page awhile ago that said that fat is a back up energy system when we run out of blood sugar. That's really misleading. That sounds like blood sugar is our primary fuel. Nope. It's not. Fat is our primary fuel. You sitting reading this on the couch: you're oxidising PRIMARILY fat. We'll talk about glucose some other day. Main thing: FAT is good - there are - like proteins - essential fats too (you know, the omega's).
If you're doing Dairy, Whole Milk Can be Fun
On a pure taste level, a whole fat milk is generally sweeter (it's the milk sugars in the lactose, as i understand it). The texture is also creamier. That's all from the Fat.
Fat Variety in Milk
There are all sorts of fats that we need in our diet. Milk has an intriguing range of fats, including saturated, polyunsaturated, monounsaturated - and a mix of short and long chain fats, too. And milk has about one of the only instances of a type of trans fat, CLA, that's good for us. Transfats are generally considered evil (like margarine), but CLA in milk fats is a keeper. So it's not a bad place to get some of the fats we want. Including (in organic sources especially) Omerga 3's and the very currently trendy ALA (alpha lipoic acid - popular as a fat burner ingredient). Grass feed = apparently good for Omega 3 upping.
Indeed, organic milk is one of the most studied organic products on the planet, apparently, and studies seem to keep showing that organic milk does better with omega 3s overall than non-organic - up to 67% more omega 3's. This result has been found in several studies in the UK over several years now (Ellis 06, Butler 11)
Organic Note In the UK, organic also means lots of grass feeding and free ranging. It also means no crap (here's a listing).
More Fat types
As we've seen above, milk has a mix of fat types, saturated being about 2/3s of the fat profile of milk. But is that in and of itself a problem? Well, those cell walls of each cell in our body? They're largely made up of saturated fat. So we need saturated fats for dietary, cellular, hormonal, everything'ish function. SO why are we constantly told to get the saturated fats out of our diet? Sometimes it's easier to try the Big Hammer approach then deal with subtlety and complexity of the subtly and complexity that is Us.
And as we'll see shortly, the biggies in all of these "must nots" are RATIOS and balance. As i've said repeatedly at b2d, we're complex systems. Single factor thinking like"kill all fat" or "kill this type of fat" or "eliminate fat" - is not an answer. Balance balance balance. Balance.
Indeed, in the saturated fats of milk, are these short chain fatty acids. They're apparently anti-microbial; they stimulate some of the same pathways that the vitamin B part that's niacin does, so may help on the HDL front, too. This doesn't mean O.D. on saturated fats; but it does mean there is a role for them. WHich brings us to the other fat in Fat Tea
Coconut Oil
I am so late to the Coconut Oil party (overview of coconut oil here). Coconut oil has been getting a big nod because it's a Medium Chain Triglyceride saturated fat, and that's actually supposed to be a good way to help burn fat (and more). The idea of the chain length is that the short chain means the fat can be metabolized (converted into fuel) faster/easier, which means it's not getting deposited into adipose tissue and potentially increases satiety. One of the key early articles in this space by St Ong and Jones from 2003 is available free online, too (Ong03); St-Ong and Bosarage did a longer study in 2008 and showed again that MCTs, while not a miracle fat burner, contributed to energy expenditure and body comp improvements more so than olive oil in the same amounts (Ong08).
An excellent research review from 2010 by Clegg covers both the advantages and some of the challenges of using MCT's for fat burning. Seems the main studies have been with normal weight rather than obese folks, too, and there are gender effects.
In an interesting study sited by Clegg from 2001, Van Wymelbeke and colleagues found that satiety - the feeling of fullness was improved in the meal AFTER the one where MCTs were eaten.
All that sounds great, doesn't it? And you'll find camps that will say all vegetable oils are evil and should be replaced by butter or coconut oil, or in third place, olive oil (see the Perfect Health Diet
as an reference-rich example).THere are others - some key folks in the American Dietetic Association - who go the other way, and say vegetable oils rock; coconut oil is problematic. We want only PUFAs (polyunsaturated fats) not SaFA (saturated fats) (overview of debate by Zelman 2011).
Tempest in a Tea Pot
I saw one study that looked at replacing dairy with just coconut oil (Choo10) to make a new ice cream. So if you don't care for doing dairy for whatever reason, you may want to try Fat Tea with only coconut oil. I'm keen to try Green Fat Tea, too. Get all those egcgs working with the MCT's. oh my.
The thing is, we need fat; different kinds of fats are good for us, essential even. And sometimes, a little bit of fat can go a long way to do good things.
As in most things with us, trying to say x or y is unequivocally bad is hard to do. With fat, the biggie seems to be ratios: getting the LDL and HDL RATIO right; getting the omega 6 to omega 3 ratio right (closer to 1:1 is better; 4:1 is kinda the outside).
The same thing with ratios of food types. Hence getting a variety of foods on the plate, and especially a variety of colors on the plate. If it's all browns/yellows, there's a potential issue.
For me, for the end of the day, i love me some Fat Tea.
For the amount of fat i eat otherwise, i'm willing to splurge. That there may be some health benefits and especially that triggered satiety so i'm actually less hungry later, i kinda like too. I also like a square of lindt 85% or higher dark chocolate to go with.
So i'm just saying - if you want to treat yourself to something yummy, you could do worse than Fat Tea.
TASTE: A quick note: some coconut oil i've found tastes more or less like coconut oil. The coconoil organic i get in the UK is very coconutty. The organic i picked up at whole foods last time i was in the states is very neutral. So if you're not a fan of the coconut taste, you can still do coconut oil, it seems.
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to Zachariah Salazar for turning me onto coconut oil.
References
Butler G, Stergiadis S, Seal C, Eyre M, & Leifert C (2011). Fat composition of organic and conventional retail milk in northeast England. Journal of dairy science, 94 (1), 24-36 PMID: 21183013
Clegg ME (2010). Medium-chain triglycerides are advantageous in promoting weight loss although not beneficial to exercise performance. International journal of food sciences and nutrition, 61 (7), 653-79 PMID: 20367215
Choo SY, Leong SK, & Henna Lu FS (2010). Physicochemical and sensory properties of ice-cream formulated with virgin coconut oil. Food science and technology international = Ciencia y tecnologia de los alimentos internacional, 16 (6), 531-41 PMID: 21339169
Ellis KA, Innocent G, Grove-White D, Cripps P, McLean WG, Howard CV, & Mihm M (2006). Comparing the fatty acid composition of organic and conventional milk. Journal of dairy science, 89 (6), 1938-50 PMID: 16702257
St-Onge MP, Ross R, Parsons WD, & Jones PJ (2003). Medium-chain triglycerides increase energy expenditure and decrease adiposity in overweight men. Obesity research, 11 (3), 395-402 PMID: 12634436
Marie-Pierre St-Onge and Aubrey Bosarge (2008).
Weight-loss diet that includes consumption of medium-chain triacylglycerol oil leads to a greater rate of weight and fat mass loss than does olive oil American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 87 (3), 621-626 Other: NIHMS201761
Van Wymelbeke V, Louis-Sylvestre J, & Fantino M (2001). Substrate oxidation and control of food intake in men after a fat-substitute meal compared with meals supplemented with an isoenergetic load of carbohydrate, long-chain triacylglycerols, or medium-chain triacylglycerols. The American journal of clinical nutrition, 74 (5), 620-30 PMID: 11684530
Zelman K (2011). The great fat debate: a closer look at the controversy-questioning the validity of age-old dietary guidance. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 111 (5), 655-8 PMID: 21515106
Ps - this was supposed to be a really short article - just the recipe. Dang. Apologies.
Related Posts:
- a coffee replacement drink
- b2d Nutrition Index
- Protein Goodness
- Set Point Theory is Crap
- whole foods; whole proteins
- Respect the Fat
- Brown Fat?
Saturday, May 21, 2011
"It's tight" - what does that mean anyway and what can we do about it?
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Have you ever worked out with someone - or said this yourself perhaps - "ya my hamstrings are tight" or my ITB is tight or my achilles is tight or god knows what but it's tight? Then a whole lot of warm up or stretching or foam rolling ensues? And for awhile the "it's tight" lets go a bit, but only to return before the next workout? Recognize any of this? Ok so what's that about? What does it mean when we say something is tight?
As has often been said before here at b2d, we're complex systems, so there isn't a single all powerful answer to this question of "what's tightness anyway" - but there may be an approach shot. So let's try to unpack the tightness concept a wee bit.
Tightness - this is usually experienced as a muscle that feels tight to touch. Intriguingly, we generally experience tightness not in the muscle per se, but around how that muscle acts on/crosses a joint: we note that our range of motion is compromised: the lunge is not getting deep, the heels are up for a squat, we can't touch our toes or fully flex our shoulder with a locked elbow. Whatever "it's tight"
Muscle tightness is not a bad thing. That contraction of muscle fibers lets us lift stuff up or put stuff down. And that's what that's called: contraction. Voluntarily shortening the muscle fibers.
Involuntary Contractions: There are two types of involuntary contractions that we don't generally enjoy. One is a spasm or cramp (what we've discussed over here about muscle cramps when running, and how that's not about electrolyte balance but strength). The other type is contracture - that's the involuntary contraction of a muscle too.
EMG. The technical difference between spasm and contracture is electrical activity in the muscle. In spasms, its elevated. And it's more intense. You've heard perhaps about electrical impulses - shock - stimulating intense muscle contraction such that it can break a limb? In contracture, there isn't this continual EMG elevation across the muscle - but there can be a bit of increased EMG at what are often refered to as trigger points. To be brief a contracture may occur at one spot (or several) in a muscle, where that part of the muscle just can't seem to un-contract.
Contracture - So contracture - the involuntary contraction of some fibers (not all) within a muscle is pretty much what we talk about as "tight" - perceived tightness in a muscle; restriction in range of motion across a joint.
Knotty Problem? The approach to this sensitive bundle of neurons that is contracting and holding a whole lot of a little section of muscle fiber is often to apply a roll of hard foam rubber. Why? supposedly to force the knot to cry uncle and "let go."
Now i suppose if i was tense and freaked and someone hit me with a brick bat, i'd suddenly relax too, but, i gotta aks, is that approach optimal? I mean is that the best way to help a person to relax? Or is it just radically dealing with the symptoms rather than any part of a cause?
So why the contracture? Maybe if we get at some of that, we'll have some other options to help reduce or release the contracture.
Direction of Contracture: Protect the Squishy Bits
The interesting effect of contraction here is that it seems most of the time to reduce our range of motion which reduces our perfromance, which actually reduces our risk. If we can't bend as deeply, we can't pick something up as heavy as otherwise. If we can't flex our ankles well, it's hard to go as fast to drive the sprint; if we can't lift our sturnum, and extend our thoracic spine, it's harder to press a big weight over head. More contracture means less wieght, less load, less speed, less risk to us.
Startle. This kind of performance reducing contracture is pretty similar to a reflexive response known as startle (see above). In adults, when we see/hear something that is sudden and perceived as a threat, we involuntarily move to protect our squishy bits. Threat response.
If we understand contracture as a threat response - a bit more lasting than typical startle - that suggests that there may be SOMETHING happening in our environment that our nervous system (the nerves control the muscles) perceives as Not Right with the World.
So perhaps the knott or tightness or reduced range of motion is only a symptom, so attacking the symptom is like throwing oil into the engine all the time rather than finding and fixing the leak. Both solutions work, but one is less optimal and more costly than the other.
Finding the Leak
The tricky part about a threat response - a muscle contraction to keep us under performing in the presence of threat for our own protection - is that it may not be a muscular issue. It may not be that we haven't stretched enough, aren't warmed up enough. It may be that we have the wrong glasses, or are not getting enough sleep, or have a balance issue. It may be that our feet - which have a whopping 24% of the joints in our bodies - are not moving very well so out bod feels less stable than it ought.
Movement. So finding the oil leak, finding what may be causing the contracture, may be a rich process of analysis and assessment, something that a movement specialist can help to check visual, vestibular and proprioceptive systems. In the meantime, what can help usually and immediately is a bit of movement.
Ah, you say, but with contracture one's movement is restricted, yes? Yes, exactly. But, one can pick a joint and focus very deliberately on making quality movements at that joint: the ankle, a finger, the neck, a knee. Go ahead, give it a go. If you feel you have something that's "tight" try moving a not tight joint through range of motion that is as perfect and lovely as possible, and then try the movement again. Any difference?
Why does a movement work? The nervous system is about the whole body, not about a joint. It seems that feeling quality movement anywhere helps soothe the threat response for the whole system. Safer system means less need for contracture to protect system. We've seen this before in the example of the arthrokinetic reflex. Something that effects one part of the system is experienced on some level in the rest of the system; something that improves performance at one part of the system helps the rest of the system. Isn't that wild?
And yet it makes sense: everything is just signals turning on and off in the brain. Everything looks the same in the brain, so something that makes part of the body happy, it tells the brain and may just feed back to tell the rest of the body we're doing fine-r? Why not?
Alternative to the foam roller? Towards cause and away from Symptom.
So that foam roller may seem like a fast (and cheap) solution to a problem, but is it a last(ing) solution? Why not give our brains a chance to work with the rest of us? a great way to do that is with movement to get to nerves to get to the brain to get back to the body.
If you'd like to learn more about movement to help with that nasty contracture problem, there are at least three options:
Bottom Line:
Those contractures are speaking to us. They're trying to tell us something about how we're doing. We can try to silence them by knocking them out till they pass out and give out (ie, squish them into shock release with a tennis ball), or we might try to find a way to improve our performance so that the contractures don't need to warn us we're in threat.
Related Posts
, Vol 1, 2nd Ed. 
As has often been said before here at b2d, we're complex systems, so there isn't a single all powerful answer to this question of "what's tightness anyway" - but there may be an approach shot. So let's try to unpack the tightness concept a wee bit.Tightness - this is usually experienced as a muscle that feels tight to touch. Intriguingly, we generally experience tightness not in the muscle per se, but around how that muscle acts on/crosses a joint: we note that our range of motion is compromised: the lunge is not getting deep, the heels are up for a squat, we can't touch our toes or fully flex our shoulder with a locked elbow. Whatever "it's tight"
Muscle tightness is not a bad thing. That contraction of muscle fibers lets us lift stuff up or put stuff down. And that's what that's called: contraction. Voluntarily shortening the muscle fibers.
 | |||||
| pvc laced foam roller: not quite as sensitive as human touch? |
Contracture - So contracture - the involuntary contraction of some fibers (not all) within a muscle is pretty much what we talk about as "tight" - perceived tightness in a muscle; restriction in range of motion across a joint.
Knotty Problem? The approach to this sensitive bundle of neurons that is contracting and holding a whole lot of a little section of muscle fiber is often to apply a roll of hard foam rubber. Why? supposedly to force the knot to cry uncle and "let go."
 |
| Hitting one into unconsciousness with a stick; foam rolling: do you see a difference? |
So why the contracture? Maybe if we get at some of that, we'll have some other options to help reduce or release the contracture.
Direction of Contracture: Protect the Squishy Bits
The interesting effect of contraction here is that it seems most of the time to reduce our range of motion which reduces our perfromance, which actually reduces our risk. If we can't bend as deeply, we can't pick something up as heavy as otherwise. If we can't flex our ankles well, it's hard to go as fast to drive the sprint; if we can't lift our sturnum, and extend our thoracic spine, it's harder to press a big weight over head. More contracture means less wieght, less load, less speed, less risk to us.
 |
| Startle reflex in action. And perhaps beer, too. |
If we understand contracture as a threat response - a bit more lasting than typical startle - that suggests that there may be SOMETHING happening in our environment that our nervous system (the nerves control the muscles) perceives as Not Right with the World.
So perhaps the knott or tightness or reduced range of motion is only a symptom, so attacking the symptom is like throwing oil into the engine all the time rather than finding and fixing the leak. Both solutions work, but one is less optimal and more costly than the other.
Finding the Leak
Movement. So finding the oil leak, finding what may be causing the contracture, may be a rich process of analysis and assessment, something that a movement specialist can help to check visual, vestibular and proprioceptive systems. In the meantime, what can help usually and immediately is a bit of movement.
Ah, you say, but with contracture one's movement is restricted, yes? Yes, exactly. But, one can pick a joint and focus very deliberately on making quality movements at that joint: the ankle, a finger, the neck, a knee. Go ahead, give it a go. If you feel you have something that's "tight" try moving a not tight joint through range of motion that is as perfect and lovely as possible, and then try the movement again. Any difference?
Why does a movement work? The nervous system is about the whole body, not about a joint. It seems that feeling quality movement anywhere helps soothe the threat response for the whole system. Safer system means less need for contracture to protect system. We've seen this before in the example of the arthrokinetic reflex. Something that effects one part of the system is experienced on some level in the rest of the system; something that improves performance at one part of the system helps the rest of the system. Isn't that wild?And yet it makes sense: everything is just signals turning on and off in the brain. Everything looks the same in the brain, so something that makes part of the body happy, it tells the brain and may just feed back to tell the rest of the body we're doing fine-r? Why not?
Alternative to the foam roller? Towards cause and away from Symptom.
So that foam roller may seem like a fast (and cheap) solution to a problem, but is it a last(ing) solution? Why not give our brains a chance to work with the rest of us? a great way to do that is with movement to get to nerves to get to the brain to get back to the body.
If you'd like to learn more about movement to help with that nasty contracture problem, there are at least three options:
- see a movement coach who's up on visual, vestibular and proprioceptive systems
- develop a movement practice - i recommend starting with R-Phase (more on why and differences with other mobility approaches)
- get more into the theory and self-assessment (like fatigue testing) by working through the Essentials of Elite Performance mini course DVD - or actual event. Let them know mc recommended you.
Bottom Line:
Those contractures are speaking to us. They're trying to tell us something about how we're doing. We can try to silence them by knocking them out till they pass out and give out (ie, squish them into shock release with a tennis ball), or we might try to find a way to improve our performance so that the contractures don't need to warn us we're in threat.
Related Posts
- What is z-health anyway?
- How train for the Sprain?
- Free foot massage with vibram five fingers
, Vol 1, 2nd Ed.
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