Think Critically and Don't Believe Everything You Hear. Example: "Forks Over Knives"
Recently, I decided to watch “Forks Over Knives,” since it’s on Netflix and I’d heard of this movie for a while (depending on who I ask, I’ve heard whisperings that it’s a “vegan propaganda” film or “the TRUTH!”. You can probably guess which group of people recounted which description.) Anyway, I wanted to watch it myself (without reading/seeking any other opinions) and see what all the fuss was about. Essentially, it was Dr. T. Collin Campbell and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn trying to persuade the public to renounce their meat-eating ways in favor of a plant-based diet.
Before I go further into my thoughts about the film, I do want to emphasize that I whole-heartedly agree with one of the main themes: DIET AFFECTS EVERYTHING! By loading our bodies with whole foods, including LOTS of vegetables and fruits, we can combat and prevent many “lifestyle” diseases (such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer to a degree.) Doctors and other medical professionals would do their patients a much greater service if they advocated lifestyle/diet changes before prescribing loads of medications. Nutritional education and adaptions are MUCH safer (no nasty side effects) and cheaper options ($500/bottle medication anyone?). That message, I can stand behind, and think that those of us in the fitness industry should also seek to educate our clients on the importance of whole food, vegetable-heavy diets.
I also have no intention at all to attack vegans. If veganism works, power to you! The point of this post is not to dissuade any vegans/vegetarians (because I doubt I will, just as they can’t dissuade me from eating eggs) nor do I have a malicious intent to tear down veganism. Our bodies a vastly different and I have no business telling someone who strives to eat the best they can for health that they’re wrong.
I do however, intend to demonstrate why trusting a movie such as “Forks Over Knives” as gospel is not a wise idea. There were a LOT of questions that popped up in my mind during my viewing. The studies sited in particular raised my eyebrows. From my experience in researching nutrition topics, I understand that many scientific studies are either a) flawed or poorly designed or b) the results can be misinterpreted or skewed. We see this daily in the “New Study!” that newscasters spew forth every other day, without actually reading the study. (that’s a whole other blog post of wrath)
Here were a couple of my queries:
1. The movie compares a “standard Western Diet,” which I mentioned before in posts and how it’s not-so-great, and a “plant based diet.”
Ok, I get it, but does that mean there’s nothing in between? Does the fact that I eat meat and eggs negate the following: I don’t eat processed or fried food (I even make my own ketchup), I rarely have refined sugar any more, I eat roughly 4lbs of kale a week (you can ask Steve) and a crap-ton (actual measurement) of vegetables every meal, and tend to be a vegetarian on the weekends? Why are people like me lumped into the same category of eating as folks who eat McDonalds and slurp Slurpees three times a day? It was either one or the other. The film makers didn’t even acknowledge that there, perhaps, are healthy people out there who also happen to eat meat.
2. Speaking of meat, the movie referenced “animal protein” a lot. (You could make it a game: ten pushups every time “animal protein” was mentioned. You’d be VERY sore the next day.) However, it didn’t seem to include fish. Only chicken, beef, pork (which were almost exclusively bacon icons in the illustrations. See point above and I don't even like bacon!), dairy, and eggs. Um, last time I checked, fish are animals. Why wasn’t fish demonized or even acknowledged?
3. Dr. Campbell sites a study he performed on rats in which he had two groups of rats, one being fed a diet of 5% casein and the other 20% casein. Each group was injected aflatoxin to see which group resisted liver tumors/cancer. Two questions: 1) the movie said that casein was the main protein found in milk… um, isn’t whey also found in milk (and has been found to have a plethora of health benefits)? 2) The results of the casein study was very sneakily extrapolated and applied to “animal protein.” Doesn’t casein act differently in the body than protein from beef or chicken? Casein generally is the protein most milk intolerant/allergic people react to yet often they have no trouble with whey (my husband is one of those). Isn’t that an indicator that perhaps other proteins should have been tested as well?
4. In addition to emphasizing a hefty vegetable diet, Drs. Campbell and Esselstyn recommend that whole grains should be included. While I’m not a paleo advocate, nor am I “anti-carb” or “anti-grain,” I couldn’t help but think back to various posts I’d read from other smart people about the not-so-awesome aspect of grains (note: this post by Mark Sisson has lots of links to studies in it, so if you want to skip through and find them, please do so), specifically gluten in wheat, which Stephen Guyenet has graciously provided. Again, I'm NOT PALEO, but I do know that grains, gluten specifically, can cause problems in some people. Just something to think about.
5. There were several testimonies from various people that were in dire health straits. (you could almost hear the melancholy chords of a violin in the background). Two women in particular stuck out to me, one woman who was diagnosed with diabetes claimed,
“My diet was pretty abominable. I thought the two principle food groups were caffeine and sugar.”
the other,
“I ate all the chocolate candy I could eat. Ate every donut I could get my hands on. Oh I just loved things like that. A lot of gravy.” (this was said by a woman who had 2 heart attacks by age 59.)
Ok, even my lowly strength coach brain knows that a diet like that will lead to diabetes and heart attacks. It’s no wonder a diet that was anything but what they had been eating was going to make them healthier. When you start at the bottom, the only way to go is up. Also, since when are caffeine and sugar animal protein?
Ok, that’s enough questions for now. I had more, which spurred me to research some of the claims and studies presented in the film. Thankfully, I didn’t have to search for long. Denise Minger wrote a fantastic, objective, and fact-filled review here. I highly suggest you read her post. Seriously, it’s fabulous. She provides links to the studies, can site stated information, and I appreciated that she made no claims she couldn’t back up. I will share my favorite part (this is in reference to the rat study mentioned above):
Don’t get distracted by those red letters! What we’re interested in is the sentence near the bottom, which the film’s producers apparently didn’t notice: "In all, 30 rats on the high-protein diet and 12 on the low-protein diet survived for more than a year.”
Let that sink in for a moment. Maybe it’ll hit a little harder if I told you that in the “high protein vs. low protein” experiments discussed in this paper, 10 low-protein rats died prematurely while all the high-protein rats stayed alive.In other words, the overall survival rate for the 20% casein group was much better than for the 5% casein group, despite the fact they had liver tumors. The low-protein rats were dying rapidly—just not from liver cancer. And as we’ll see later, the reason the non-dead, low-protein rats didn’t get tumors was partly because their liver cells were committing mass suicide.
AND
Although Campbell is trying to explain why his rat studies have relevance for humans, this statement actually highlights why they usually don’t. In Campbell’s experiments—as well as the Indian study that inspired him all those years ago—the rats received very high doses of aflatoxin to initiate cancer in the first place. Protein only appeared to work as a cancer promoter in his studies, not an independent carcinogen. And even though the range of protein was reasonable for a real-life situation, the amount of aflatoxin exposure would be really hard to replicate unless you had a death wish and a bottomless stomach. Quoting Chris Masterjohn’s “Curious Case” article again, to get the sort of aflatoxin exposure that caused even a “barely detectable” response in Campbell’s rats, you’d have to eat about 1,125,000 contaminated peanut butter* sandwiches over the course of four days. I don’t know about you, but I doubt I could eat a lick over 900,000. More than that is just gluttony!
Oh I love when the truth come into the light! The rats died! I couldn’t stop laughing in disbelief at the blatant disregard of the film producers to NOT include that little bit of information. That’s kinda important don’t you think? It sounds so promising, the low protein group had no cancer… oh wait, that’s because they were dead. Oh, and the surviving low-protein rats’ livers were killing themselves, cell by cell. Nor did they bother to mention the amount of aflatoxin was waaaaaaayyy above the normal amount of exposure.
So I’ve written a lot. I’m sorry if I disappointed any that I didn’t respond with research of my own (Denise did such a thorough job and I didn’t want to steal her thunder; nor could I hope to produce anything close to the level of awesome as that post). The main reason I wanted to write this post was to encourage all of you to think critically about any nutrition or exercise related information that you come across, either through blogs (including this one), movies, advertisements, etc. There is a LOT of misinformation out there and that definitely contributes to all the conflicting opinions out there when it comes to the fitness/strength field. It’s important to seek the facts yourself, seek the actual studies that are sited to see if the information presented is really what the study demonstrated. I know reading research is tedious and often difficult to understand, therefore, find a few sources that you KNOW are trustworthy at dissecting research papers. (like Denise Minger, Stephen Guyenet, Alan Aragon, Bret Contreras to name a few, do an internet search for them).
I’ll admit, towards the end of the movie, I was starting to wonder if a plant based diet really was the best way, mainly because I was emotionally invested in some of the testimonies. I was ecstatic for these people who were healthier, happier, and had a better quality of life. My emotions were starting to skew my logical side and what I knew to be true. This is why it’s terribly important to critically examine information.
My encouragement to you (can be applied to ALL aspects of life): Too often our emotions rule over our logic. Let us break this habit.
Tips For Training While Traveling
Today's post is brought to you by Mike Snowden, traveler extraordinaire. The summer is a wonderful time to get out and travel for some vacation time. If you’re like most of us here at SAPT, you hit the road or jet set with a bar, some plates, a few kettlebells and a prowler. For those of you who may have forgotten a few of these trip essentials while you were packing, you may have to get a little more creative to keep up with your training. Below we’ve put together a few short workout ideas based on what you may have available to you.
Level 3- A Loaded Hotel Gym
If you are lucky enough to find that your hotel gym is fully stocked like SAPT (sadly, without the amazing staff) get in there and take full advantage of it. To ensure you are not spending your entire vacation in the gym, take a couple of days to train the body as a whole. In a recent post, Kelsey spoke about training 5 movement patterns in the same workout. The order of these movements and the exercises can vary but focus on completing an exercise from each group:
1) Hinge- Ex: RDL, Kettlebell Deadlift
2) Squat- Ex: Goblet Squat, Step back Lunge
3) Press- Ex: Bench Press, Floor Press, Overhead Press
4) Pull- Ex: TRX Row, Pull Up, Chest Supported Row
5) Carry-Ex: Farmers Walk, Waiter Carry
Level 2- The Gym That Looked Better Online
If you arrived on site to find your hotel gym is a room with a flat stability ball and a few dumbbells don’t worry because things are still looking up. With the limited tools you can still focus on the same principles as the level 3 crowd. An important change to make here is pay more attention to the tempo of each reps. Now you can get creative and add some isometric holds. If you want to really have some fun, slow your repetitions down by taking 3-6 seconds to lower followed by 3-6 seconds to lift the weight.
Level 1- A Hill/ Stairs
This is level 1 but it’s still pretty awesome. Running a hill or hitting some stairs are great ways to expend some energy (Hello Lactate!!). One effective way to tackle this task would be to run to the top and walk back down as your recovery period. If you want to turn it up a notch knock out some PUPP work at the top and a mobility exercise like a Yogaplex at the bottom before your next run. Use this time to work on getting extra supple by doing some mobility and soft tissue work. A frozen water bottle (Smart Water has a nice shape) works great as an impromptu foam roller.
There you have it! A few ideas to keep you fit during the busy summer travel season. Happy lifting!
Off-Season Recommendations for Track & Field Athletes
Today's post is brought to you by the Goose-Man himself. As a collegiate decathlete, Goose knows a thing or two about off-season dos and don'ts. The principles dictated here can be extrapolated to most any field sport: soccer, lacrosse, football, etc.
Off-Season training for track athletes is a time to give the body a break from all the pounding it took during the season and prepare it for the punishment it’ll face during the upcoming season. This isn’t necessarily the time to work on explosiveness or power, but it is a perfect time to prepare your body to move fast. Here are 4 things you should focus on to reap the most benefits from your off-season training:
- Strength
- Body Awareness
- Posture
- Range of Motion
Strength
Regardless of event (sprints/hurdles/throws/jumps/distance) increases in muscular strength will decrease the chance of injury by preparing your body to deal with the stress of training. However, this doesn’t mean pick up the closest body building magazine and go to town on the hottest new workout for your beach muscles.
You don’t say!
When you run there are two chains, or groupings, of muscles doing work: the posterior chain - calves, hamstrings, glutes, and lower back - and the anterior chain - quads, abs, and hip flexors. The posterior chain muscles are the main movers when running; these muscle produce the force needed to move forward while sprinting and upward while jumping. The anterior chain muscles help stabilize the hips and ensure a smooth power transfer from your legs to the ground.
Field event athletes such as throwers and pole vaulters should also focus on increasing upper body strength. THIS DOES NOT MEAN BICEP CURLS AND TRICEP EXTENSIONS ALL SUMMER!!! Focus on strengthening the shoulders (think overhead pressing variations)and upper back muscles for they will be doing most of the work for throws or vaults.
Body Awareness
Improving your proprioception, the brain’s ability to sense the position and movement of all body parts through space and time, is something not many athletes think about but most would benefit from. Knowing where your body is in relation to it's surrounding is helpful when: performing rotational techniques while throwing, staying inside the lanes when sprinting, controlling your body over hurdles, maneuvering in mid-air when pole vaulting, and running in a tight pack during distance races. It can also help avoid injury by aiding in regulation of body biomechanics/movements while lifting or training.
One of the most efficient ways to improve proprioception is simply by focusing on your own movements. This may sound obvious but the fact is that the ability to focus is a skill, and like every other skill it needs to be practiced! Weight lifting and training should be as much a mental activity as they are a physical activity. Focusing on your movement throughout warm up routines, lifting sessions, and event practices will increase your proprioception to the point you’ll be able to “feel” when you do something wrong.
Posture
Another aspect of training often forgotten is posture. Distance runners and sprinters must maintain an upright posture with a neutral pelvis in order to maximize the power produced by their anterior chain and maintain a high forward knee drive. Throwers, whether they spin or glide, will have to maintain some type of event specific posture to maximize their efficiency through the power position on each throw. Most track and field athletes who suffer from bad posture exhibit either an excessive anterior pelvic tilt or a protracted shoulder girdle . In layman’s terms they often have an arched lower back or rounded shoulder.
Anterior pelvic tilt can hinder running performance by reducing the levers on the anterior chain muscles by placing the body in an awkward position. Specifically for sprinting, this affects stride length and power by allowing the legs to flail back too far after each step. The further back your legs go the harder it will be to cycle them back forward with a high knee drive, thus hindering the body’s ability to produce forward motion. This may result from weakness in the abdominal muscles, hamstrings, and/or glutes. Tightness in the hip flexors and spinal erectors can also contribute to this. Strengthening your core and anterior chain as well as incorporating flexibility work will help remedy this problem.
Protracted shoulder girdles will have detrimental effects on the health and performance of overhead athletes like throwers and pole vaulters. Rounded shoulders increase the risk of injury during activities where the elbows are over the shoulders or behind the shoulders such as shot putting, pole vaulting, or throwing the javelin. (note from Kelsey: since the shoulder blade can not glide properly, all kinds of pinching and fraying of tendons and ligaments can occur in the shoulder. Set your blades free!) This can also decrease shoulder range of motion which will hinder performance by decreasing the “pull” you can get on the javelin or shortening the “orbit” on your discus throw. This condition results from weakness in the scapular retractor muscles, like the trapezius and rhomboids, as well as tightness in the pectoralis minor. Strengthening the scapular retractors and diligent use of SMR techniques will help rid you of this problem.
Guuuuurrrrrl, look at his posture!
Range of Motion
Range of motion (ROM) refers to any joint’s ability to move through its full potential of movement in all three planes of motion. In layman’s terms a joint’s ability to move in all the ways it is supposed to move. Optimal range of motion requires both flexibility and stability. Flexibility deals with a muscle/tendon’s ability to stretch and allow limbs to go through the full range of motion of a joint. Stability deals with the muscles surrounding a joint and their ability to keep that joint in place while it moves. (Note from Kelsey: both these components MUST be present for safe and efficient movements.) Improving full body, all joints, ROM can be beneficial to all track athletes. It helps throwers hit a better power position, increases the length of a runner’s stride, improves the technique of hurdlers, and allows jumpers to more easily maneuver their bodies in the air. Please reference the SAPT Blog or YouTube Channel for articles and videos on exercise to help you on your quest for suppleness!
Spurs Seven Virtues
Today we have a fantastic guest post brought to you by mental coach, Brian Levenson. Brian is a phenomenal coach who has helped/is currently helping countless different people from all walks of life to improve their mental game. He primarily works with athletes ranging from the youth to the professional level, but he also mentors business owners and even Jedi Masters, too. I think you'll really enjoy his post for today.
Spurs Seven Virtues
It’s been a week since the San Antonio Spurs were crowned champions of the NBA. Since then, they have been celebrated as one of the best, most selfless teams in history. Personally, I have never cheered for a team whom I had no allegiance/ties to, like I did for the 2013-14 San Antonio Spurs. It wasn’t that I fell in love with the way one guy played, or marveled at the sheer talent of the players on the floor, instead I found myself grossly enamored with seven virtues that the team possessed. As I dissect each virtue, think about your organization and how you may benefit from the Spurs way.
Virtue #1: Can>Can’t
Of all the people in the Spurs organization, RC Buford may be the most underrated. Buford is the architect behind a roster chalk full of what ESPN analyst Jeff Van Gundy called “heart guys”. They are guys who are willing to dive on the floor for loose balls, take a charge, and be gritty enough to keep playing hard even when they are struggling. When selecting those “heart” players the Spurs choose to look at what guys can do rather than what they can’t do. As Buford reflects in this article about their draft process: “We get everybody in a room, and ask each other, ‘What can we do to help this player?’” This not only crystallizes their decision making process, as they better understand a player’s potential, but it also helps them create an action plan to give that player the best opportunity for success.
Take a player like Kawhi Leonard, the recent MVP of the NBA finals, who was passed up by all the teams in the lottery, selected by Indiana at 15, and then had his rights traded to the Spurs. The biggest knock on Leonard was that he couldn’t shoot.
From the well-respected NBA draft website, Draftexpress:
“Leonard is not only an average ball-handler, but he also struggles to make shots consistently from beyond the arc. His 0.743 points per shots on jumpers ranks 16th of 17 in the class, where he shot an abysmal 31% from the field. His struggles extend both to his catch and shoot jumpers (32%) and pull-ups (28%).”
But teams were forgetting one of the most important characteristics to acquire a new skill, Leonard was coachable; and the Spurs had just the coach to help him acquire the skill of shooting. Chip Engelland is considered one of the best shooting coaches in the NBA, and he happens to be an assistant coach with the Spurs. The Spurs paired Leonard with Engelland and the rest is history.
Spurs take can’t and turn it into can.
Virtue #2: Honesty
Each player on the Spurs knows their strengths and weaknesses. They are honest with who they are and are open to feedback from their lead general, Coach Pop. Pop’s brutal honesty led to him writing, “DNP-Old” last year to describe why Tim Duncan wasn’t playing, admitting that during timeouts sometimes “I’ll say I’ve got nothing” as his players look to him for answers, and is part of the reason that he has the most brief in-game interviews with side-line reporters.
The honesty that Pop displays leads to accountability, which enables each Spur to get the most out of their potential.
Virtue #3: Empowerment
The Spurs empower each of their players to step up and produce. This was most evident in last year’s NBA Finals when Tony Parker walked up to Pop during a timeout to interject his opinion. Pop gave Parker the keys to the timeout huddle and Parker started explaining to his teammates what he saw. That empowerment to step up and make a difference is a hallmark of every player on the Spurs.
Pop explained the interaction in a press conference, "That’s not a rarity. While the coaches are out talking on the court, we do that so that the players can communicate and talk to each other because most of the time they know more what's going on than we do. There will be times when Timmy will sit in that chair or Manu will sit there or Tony will sit there and they'll talk to the team if they have something they want to get across. That's just how we do things.”
Spurs don’t put people in their place; instead they empower each other.
Virtue #4: Share
San Antonio had 1771 passes in the NBA finals compared to Miami’s 1299. That’s 472 more passes, or about 95 more passes per game. Pretty remarkable. Pop constantly tells his guys that the ball can’t “stick”; meaning ball movement is paramount.
The players bought in to the sharing concept as well. As Manu Ginobili pointed out in this article, “I think it can potentially be a game-changer, for other teams that don’t have as much talent to give (an individual) the ball and let them create like Kobe or Durant or LeBron. It kind of showed the way in the sense … if you don’t have as much talent, you still can do it. You can move the ball and put a lot of pressure on the defense."
Then, there are the salaries that each player makes. The Spurs "big 3" all took less money to stay in San Antonio. Parker made 12.5 million, Duncan made 10.4 million, and Ginobili made 7 million. Those salaries combined are less than what Kobe Bryant’s salary was this year (30.5 million).
Sharing is a non-negotiable for Spurs.
Virtue #5: Process Focus
“When nothing seems to help, I go look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.” --Jacob Riis
That quote has been at the heart of the Spurs culture for years. “Pound the Rock” has become the rallying cry for one of the best organizations in sports. It’s become so popular that there is even a popular blog named after it (www.poundingtherock.com). It didn’t matter if they had lost game 2, or were down 22-6 in game 5, the Spurs were always focused on executing and playing the right way for 48 minutes.
Regardless of the score, Spurs continue to chisel away at their opponents until eventually they break.
Virtue #6: Something to Prove
The Spurs are filled with guys who have had something to prove throughout their career. They are an eclectic, diverse group, highlighted by 8 international players, which led the league in that category. Each player on the Spurs has had a different journey to the NBA, but only one of them (Duncan) was selected in the NBA Draft lottery. The rest of the team is filled with late 1st and 2nd round picks, guys who were passed over because of weaknesses. They are a resilient, gritty group of guys who constantly have to prove they belong.
Nothing has been given to the Spurs and that’s why so much has been earned.
Virtue #7: Best Friends
Teams often talk about how there needs to be a mutual respect amongst each other, but that they don’t have to be “best friends” with their teammates. Yet, as Patty Mills grabbed the microphone during the Spurs celebration ceremony, he introduced his teammates as his “best friends”. He went on to talk about each and every player and how they brought something unique to the team. He was genuine, funny, and comfortable talking about the guys he sweated with all year. He mentioned their quirks, how they were better people than players, and how much he loved each of them.
It’s not good enough to just be a teammate, Spurs must love each other like best friends.
The word “virtue” has many different definitions, but the one that sticks out is “a good or useful quality or thing.” When it comes to the 2014 NBA Champions there are plenty of good qualities to go around, and those champion qualities should be celebrated, admired, and duplicated by us all.
Off-Season Training: Overhead Athletes
Last week, we laid out some general guidelines for athletes heading into their off-seasons. You should read it, if you haven't already. Today, we'll delve into some specifics for overhead athletes (i.e. baseball, softball, javelin, shot put, swimmers (though it seems as if they never have an off-season), etc.). Shoulders are rather complicated and annoyingly fickle joints that can develop irritation easily which is why proper attention MUST be paid to shoulder mechanics and care during the off-season. There is nothing "natural" about throwing a heavy object (or a light one really, really fast) and shoulders can get all kinds of whacky over a long, repetitive season. I'm going to keep it sweet and simple.
1. Restore lost mobility and improve stability
- Hips: they get locked up, especially on athletes that travel a lot during the season (helloooo long bus rides). Restoring mobility will go a long way in preventing hip impingements, angry knees, and allow for freer movements in general. Locked up hips will prevent safe, powerful throws and batting, thus, now is the time, Padawans, to regain what was lost!
- Lats: Usually tighten up on the throwing side and create a lovely posture that flares the rib cage and makes breathing not-so-efficient. Loosen up these bad boys!
- Breathing patterns: Those need to be re-trained (or trained for the first time), too. Breathing affects EVERYTHING. Learning proper breathing mechanics will do a lot to restore mobility (T-spine, shoulder, and hips), increase stability (lower back and abdominal cavity), and create a more efficient athlete (more oxygen with less energy expended to get it). I've written about it before HERE.
- Pecs and biceps: These guys are gunky and fibrotic and nasty. Self-myofacial release is good, finding a good manual therapist would be even better, to help knead that junk out! One caveat: make sure that as you release these two bad boys, you also add stability back into the shoulder. This means activating lower and mid-traps and the rotator cuff muscles to retrain them to work well again. Why? Most likely, the pecs and biceps are doing a LOT of stabilization of the shoulder (which they shouldn't be doing so much) so if you take that away through releasing them, one of two things will happen: 1) injury will occur since there's nothing holding stuff in place, 2) no injury, but the pec and/or bicep will tighten right back up again as your body's way of producing stability. So, mobilize then stabilize!
2. Improve scapula movement and stability
Along the lines of restoring mobility everywhere, the scapula need particular attention in overhead athletes as they are responsible for pain-free, overhead movements. Below is a handy-dandy chart for understanding scapula movements:
Now, over the course of the season, an overhead athlete will often get stuck in downward rotation therefore at in the early off-season (and throughout really) we want to focus on upward rotation of the scapula. Exercises like forearm wallslides are fantastic for this.
Eric Cressey notes that the scapula stabilizers often fatigue more quickly than the rotator cuff muscles. This means the scapula doesn't glide how it should on the rib cage, which leads to a mechanical disadvantage for the rotator cuff muscles, which leads to impingements/pain/unstable shoulders.
As we increase the upward rotation exercises, we want to limit exercises that will pull the athlete back into downward rotation, i.e. holding heavy dumbbells at their sides, farmer walks with the weight at sides, even deadlifts.(whoa now, I'm not saying don't deadlift, but limit the volume on the heavy pulls for a few weeks, and like I said in the last post, training speed work will limit the amount of load yanking down on those blades.) Instead, athletes can lunge or farmer carry in the goblet position (aka, one bell at their chest).
There is more to be said, but let us move on, shall we?
3. Limit med ball work
At SAPT, we back off on aggressive med ball throwing variations for the first couple weeks post season as the athletes have been aggressively rotating all season. Instead, we'll sub in some drills that challenge the vestibular such as single-leg overhead medicine ball taps to the wall. (I don't have a video, sorry.)
Or, stability drills such as this:
If we do give them some low-intensity throws, we'll have them perform one less set on their throwing side than on the non-throwing side.
4. Limit reactive work
We don't usually program a lot of sprint work or jumps the first few weeks. If we do program jumps, we'll mitigate the deceleration component by adding band resistance:
5. Keep intensity on the lower end
As mentioned in the last post, instead of piling on weight, we enjoy utilizing isometric holds, slow negatives, and varying tempos to reap the most benefit from the least amount of weight. We also maintain lower volumes over all with total program.
There you have it! Tips to maximize the off-season and lay a strong, stable foundation for the following season!
Summer = Off Season = TRAINING!!!
Summer is nearly upon us, spring sports are over (or nearly so), school is winding down, and the sun is waking us all up quite a bit earlier. **DEEEEEP BREATH*** I love summer.
Not only is it fantastically warm and I finally sweat profusely during my workouts (contrast that to the winter to where I'm lucky to break a sweat, in my sweat pants...I get cold pretty easily) but it's the off-season for high school sports. I know some of you play your sport year-round in clubs and stuff (see my thoughts on that HERE), but seriously, the summer is a perfect time to start training and getting stronger for next year's season.
So, it's time to hit the weight room, right? Start smashing PRs and moving heavy iron bars around, right? Not so fast, cowboy.
A huge flub athletes commit in the beginning of the off-season is training too hard, too fast. Think about it, you just spent 3, 4, even 5 months in-season with practice after practice, games, and no-so-much lifting. Your body is probably weaker (even if you trained during the in-season, it still isn't PR shattering material) and you've been performing the same, repetitive motions to the point where you've probably developed at least one sort of wacky asymmetry. For overhead athletes, they've been throwing or hitting on the same side, soccer players kick with the same leg, track athletes have been running in the same curve (to the left), and lacrosse players have been whipping their upper bodies around the same direction. Show me an athlete coming out of the season that isn't crooked somewhere (that's the technical term) and I'll show you a One Direction fan that isn't a female teenager. Oh wait, they don't exist. (if you don't know who they are, keep it that way, it isn't worth your time.)
To keep it pretty general, as the two subsequent posts will deal more with specific sport recommendations, here are some thoughts on the first 3-4 weeks of off-season training:
1. Keep the volume down- You've pounded your body all season, high volume work will only stress it out more. Stick to 15-20 reps total of your main lifts (squat, deadlift, bench, etc.) and 24-30 reps of accessory work, total. There should only be 2-4 accessory lifts and 1 main lift per workout.
2. Keep the intensity reasonable-- I'm not advocating lifting 5 lb dumbbells for everything, but again, you've pounded your body for several months, starting at 60-75% of your maxes is not a dumb thing to do. Get some quality, speedy reps in of the main lifts. For you accessory work, move weight that will get your blood flowing, but leaves some gas in the tank (a lot of gas in the tank). If you really want to burn, adding negative reps or isometric holds can increase the intensity without overloading your joints. For example, we like Bulgarian split squats with a :06 negative, or pushups with a :05 isometric hold at the bottom.
3. Take a week away for the barbell-- It's just a week, calm down, but replacing barbell squats with some goblet squats or deadlifts with some swings are excellent ways to give your body a break and still train those movements.
4. Work on tissue quality- Foam roll, use a lacrosse ball, or better yet, go see a manual therapist to dig out the nasty, knotted tissue that resides in your body. Mobility drills for the tight bits and stability drills for the loose bits should be prevalent in your workout. For example: soccer player's hips will be pretty tight and gunky, so that requires some attention to tissue quality of the glutes, quads, and TFL and mobility work. Contrast that to a baseball player's anterior shoulder (front side) of his throwing arm, that this is probably much looser than it should be, so he'll need some stability work to pull his humerus into a more neutral position.
5. Sleep a lot and eat quality food-- I bet both of these have been in short supply over the course of the season, huh? Yes, these two are SUPER important for recovery purposes as well as muscle growth. Shoot for 7-9 hours of sleep per night and load up on the vegetables!
The sole goal of the first couple weeks after the season is to restore the poor, asymmetrical, beaten-up body and allow for some recovery time. Keep the volume and intensity low to moderate, work on tissue quality and mobility as needed, and sleep! Then, and only then, mind you, can you attack the rest of your off-season like the Hulk.
