Training Around Shoulder Pain: International Chest Day Tip

As we all know, Monday is International Chest Day. But if you've been celebrating for a few years, you've probably experienced shoulder pain at one time or another.

Today's quick tip video offers some options with training with shoulder pain (or to prevent it) so you can still pump up zee pecs. 

Main points:

1. If you're really in a lot of pain*, step away from the barbell for a few weeks -gasp!- and try dumbbells with a neutral grip (palms facing each other). This will open up the shoulder space and allow you to still press will minimizing the risk of pinching and causing more irritation. 

2. Switch from open-chain exercises to closed-chained exercises. For example, swap out the barbell or dumbbell presses for pushups. (You'll have to watch the video for an explanation on the differences.) 

3. Increase the total volume of rowing. Often niggling shoulder pain can be dealt with by strengthening the upper back and balancing out front/back bits of the shoulder (those are the technical terms...). We like to press and we don't like to row; therefore, we ought to row more. 

Go forth and press!  

*If you have structural damage, these tips will only go so far. If you're in a lot of pain, you should go to a doctor to get a diagnosis or ensure nothing major is wrong. Make sure you follow the rule: if it hurts, don't do it. 

Flaxseed Bread- Keep it Real, Keep it Regular

Flaxseed is one of those healthy foods that is a nutritional gold star to our daily intake. Rightly so, flaxseed contains omega-3s (the healthy kinds of fats that our brains love), plenty of fiber (which our gut loves and keeps us regular, if you know what I mean), and when utilized well, can help keep us full and prevent blood sugar crashes. I've written about fiber's lovely effects HERE.

I have a li’l recipe for you all today that is quite tasty and incorporates our lovely friend, flaxseed. All credit goes to Leanne Vogul over at healthfulpursuit.com for her pretty delectable bread that she created. Here is the link to the original post.

The recipe is as follows:

2 cups roughly ground flaxseed (I get ours at Trader Joe’s)

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 tablespoon Italian herb mix

1 teaspoon sea salt

5 large eggs

½ cup water

⅓ cup olive oil

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F and line a 13x9 baking pan with parchment paper draped over the sides. (Trust me, you want parchment paper or one of those silicone baking mats. Your life will be much better for it.) Set aside.

Throw the  flax seed with baking powder, herb mix, and sea salt in a large bowl. Whisk to combine fully and set aside.

Add eggs, water, and oil to a bowl and beat with a fork or whisk until pretty frothy.

Transfer liquid mixture to the bowl with the flaxseed mixture. Stir with a spatula, just until incorporated. The mixture will be very fluffy. Once incorporated, allow to sit for 3 minutes. It will get thick and goopy over the next couple of minutes- that’s normal.

Drop mixture into prepared baking pan. Smooth with the back of the spatula and transfer the pan to the preheated oven.

Bake bread for 20-ish minutes, until top is golden. Remove from the oven and lift bread (from the parchment paper sides) to a cooling rack. Peel the parchment paper from the bottom of the bread and allow the bread to cool on the cooling rack for an hour.

Cut into 12 pieces.

Bread can be toasted or frozen. Keeps in the fridge for 3-4 days and in the freezer for up to 3 months.

If you want another bowel-movement related post, check out this one about the benefits of squatting.

Get your air! Breathing and Bracing for Powerful Lifts and Injury Prevention

Why do you need to brace your core?

First, let’s define “bracing.”

To brace your midsection in the context of lifting is simply creating 360 degree (circumferential for you intellectual types) intra-abdominal pressure. This will stabilize the spine and protect it from shear stress.

It is NOT sucking in your belly button towards your spine, as some trainers out there will say. That does not actually create nor maintain enough intra-abdominal (the core) pressure and not only will you experience power leaks, but it puts you at a greater risk of injury.

So, why do we brace?

1. Efficient power/force transfer- for example during a squat or deadlift your lower body applies force to the ground and that transfers to your upper body and thus the bar moves up (hopefully…). In athletics, your body will naturally brace during high-power activities such as sprinting or jumping. Learning how to brace and do it well in a slow setting, i.e. lifting, will transfer beautifully to the “faster” movements such as sprinting and thus, you have much more efficient movement (aka, you run faster).

2. Prevents power leaks- part 2 of creating a system for efficient force transfer is preventing leaks in that system. For instance, I see a lot of people’s upper backs (or lower backs…) round during a deadlift. This not only increases risk for injury (see next point) but it’s also a power leak. Some of that force that the lower body is applying to the ground is lost which limits the amount of weight a person can lift. It’s like watering grass in the middle of a hot day- some water still gets down in the ground but a lot of it is lost to evaporation and doesn’t actually benefit the lawn. The same thing applies here: there still force being applied to the barbell, but some of the power is lost in that leak.

3. Injury prevention- A stable spine is a happy spine. The intra-abdominal pressure created during bracing supports the spine while it’s under load/stress, such as during a back squat or the landing of a broad jump. Usually the reason why people hurt their backs is because they don't brace properly.

Bracing involves taking a big ol’ breath (but not just any ol’ breath as you’ll see below) and then clamping down on that air, squeezing all your midsection, and holding it throughout the lift (like you’re about to get punched or constipated). The holding part is usually not the problem, I’ve found, but the actual intake of breath.

Below is a video where I get a little more detailed on how to actually breathe in prior to bracing.

So there you have it! Breathe in to fill both your belly and rib cage, crush it, and hoist your barbell. If you want to read a slight more in-depth article, click HERE.

Deadlift Fine Tuning: The Setup

Here is a little before and after troubleshooting I did on an athlete's deadlift this evening. Check it out:

Your Fitness Questions Answered

Instead of typing out a super long blog that will take longer than I have time for, I figured I would just plunk all that information in one video for you viewing pleasure.

Highlights:

There are no hard and fast rules in the fitness world, the answer “It depends,” is totally valid.

If someone claims that it’s a “100% guarantee” they are either a) selling you something or b) ignorant of the vast differences in individual responses.

Individual physiology (i.e. body mechanics, muscle insertion points, how one handles physical and emotional stress) and biochemistry (i.e. absorbing and metabolizing nutrients), and outside factors (environmental stressors, sleep, job requirements, etc.) all affect how a person will react to various training and nutrition strategies.

The more we learn about nutrition and physiology the more we realize how much we don’t know.

Maintaining a healthy body composition is like a multi-tiered wedding cake: nutrition makes up the largest part, followed by strength, then cardiovascular work, and then, the icing, is your daily movement.

**I forgot to mention this in the video- rest and recovery are also key. Cake is good, but you can’t eat the whole thing every day. Space out your cake.**

General principles that we know work: eat lots of vegetables, pick up heavy things, run around, and move daily. The details of what that looks like for you will be completely unique to you.

Maximizing Performance: The Perfect Push-up

Ahh, the push-up. An exercise that is sorely under-appreciated and misunderstood.

What is the push-up? A bodyweight exercise known to dominate military bootcamps and a way for coaches to layer "punishment" onto their teams? Hardly.

If you want to learn more about the insane benefits of the perfect push-up, please look no further than here. You could consider this SAPT's definitive guide to the push-up.

In the meantime, check out this athlete's mastery of the movement: