Train For Life

My first article titled “Thin Ice-part 1″ involved a very basic overview of the nervous system, the two autonomic branches, their functions,  dominance of one or the other, and how they affect your health. It also included some very simple strategies to get you into a more parasympathetic state more often.

Part 2 will be about the muscular system. 

So if you recall I was walking the dogs, slipped on some ice and the fear of falling on my ass stirred up some ideas.  Funny how falling on my ass evokes thoughts…tells you where most of my brains are, huh? 

So, we’ve all had to walk on ice at some point.  You know that feeling?  You’re walking very slow and controlled and you feel all your muscles tighten up to control your body so you don’t go down.  You’ll usually feel your legs tighten up first, then maybe your stomach and low back, you walk very rigid, etc.

This is a great example of something that usually leads to many joint/orthopedic issues.  We have all sorts of muscles and they are all designed for specific purposes, usually more than one purpose depending on body position and other factors.

We have large more superficial muscles like the quads, hamstrings, glutes, chest muscles (pec major), abdominals(6 pack), shoulder muscles (delts) to name a few.  They are all highly visible and their main functions are to act as prime movers, and secondary functions  are  to help with stabilization of the joint(s) they cross.  The position of the joints also plays a role in whether they act more as stabilizers or movers.  They are generally responsible for providing the force to move an arm or leg, etc.  Since they are the largest and most visible, they get the most attention during people’s workouts.  There is a second group of muscles that lie deep to the superficial muscles.  they aren’t visible on the beach so they often get ignored.  They are sometimes referred to as inner unit muscles, joint stabilizers, or the “small smart” muscles (as opposed to the big dumb muscles mentioned previously).  Their job focus is to provide joint stiffness and stability so the large muscles have a solid, well anchored, sound joint to move around.  

To give you a better example of what a joint stabilizer should do lets take a door hinge for example.  The hinge itself is the joint, the door is the bone, and the screws of the hinge are the stabilizing muscles, and tendons.  If those screws are not in tight when you go to open the door it is going to affect how well the door moves, opens and closes, and how much force is required to open and close the door.  The damage that will incur as a result of this can happen in many different places but the sole cause will be that the screws stabilizing the hinge (joint) are not screwed in tight.   There may be damage to the hinge (joint, tendons, etc), the door frame on either side or the door knob (surrounding joints).  You may have damage at the door knob but that isn’t where the problem really lies. 

You’ve probably heard of the rotator cuff muscles?  These small muscles lie around, on top, and underneath the shoulder blade. Their job is not only to rotate the shoulder.  It is also to make sure the head of your humerus is nice and snug in the joint so when the deltoids, traps, lats, or pecs move the arm it has a well functioning, mechanically sound joint to rotate around, just like the door hinge.

 Now if these muscles aren’t working up to par then you’re body will try and use the prime movers as stabilizers.  This usually doesnt’ work out so well.  The next time your walking on ice, notice how your hamstrings feel.  They should feel pretty tight and this is because they are trying to help stabilize you so you don’t fall and control your movement at the same time.  That’s why walking on ice is tiring for the legs, it’s not natural mechanics. They are trying to provide more stabilizing forces than they usually do along with acting like a prime mover.  The problem is that many of us don’t have to be walking on ice for this to be happening to some degree, especially if you’re being active by running or lifting weights. 

If the deep hip stabilizers/rotators are not working correctly for whatever reason then your hamstrings, quads, inner thighs, or trunk muscles will try and take on the additional job.  If their job is to help provide the force to move, how can they do that if they are simultaneously trying to exert more force than usual to stabilize the joint.  They are trying to do two somewhat opposing actions at once.  A muscle can not effectively fully stabilize a joint and also be the main source of force to produce movement of that joint.  So you will either move and potentially damage the joint or surrounding tissues over time, or you will just not be able to move well.  This can sometimes lead to that feeling of being “locked up”. 

The same can happen in any other joint areas.  If the low back hurts, it may because your deeper abdominal/spinal stabilizers (transverse abdominus, multifidus, psoas, QL, etc.) are not working in concert with your abs and obliques.   Stabilizers must fire before prime movers, not vice versa.

Bottom line, if you have issues with your joints whether it’s joint pain, tendon pain, or muscle painor strain, it may because your deeper muscles aren’t functioning as well as they should be.   Get strong from the inside out.

While I was walking my dogs today I hit some black ice and almost fell and broke my ass.  Fortunately I didn’t fall but I had that feeling of my heart rate skyrocketing, taking a quick gasp of air, and my entire body tightening up to prevent falling.  These three actions provide two good topics to write about.  One regarding your nervous system, and one regarding your muscular system.

First, I would like to discuss a few things regarding the nervous system.   You have two branches of your peripheral nervous system.  The autonomic and somatic systems.  The somatic is responsible for voluntary movement.  The autonomic system is responsible for the involuntary control of many bodily functions like breathing, digesting, etc.  The autonomic has two branches of its own as well.  They are the sympathetic branch and parasympathetic branch.  They manage your body in two different ways.  The sympathetic branch is also known as the fight or flight branch.  It’s responsible for helping you to perform actions that may  keep you alive, for example if you’re getting chased by a 100lb German shepherd. It is responsible for increasing heart rate, releasing adrenaline, diverting blood away from your organs and to your muscles, releasing glucose from your liver for fuel, etc.  You get the picture.  It’s the same system that causes that rush when you’re driving over the speed limit and you just noticed the cop car just off the road 50 feet in front of you.  

The parasympathetic does just the opposite.  It’s known as the rest and digest, or the feed and breed system.     When this branch is dominant, it results in more activation of smooth muscle of the GI tract to help with digestion, a reduction in heart rate, dilated  blood vessels, and generally brings your body into a more “relaxed” state.

When I slipped on the ice my sympathetic system took over, jacked up my heart rate, caused me to take a deep breath of oxygen, and activated all my muscles because I was essentially “in danger”.  In todays world many of us are sort of “stuck” in the “fight or flight” branch which isn’t necessarily a great thing for our health if you think about it.  We’re constantly revved up, trying to get more done in less time, taking less time to rest, eat well, basically spending more time to “get shit done”.  It’s great for productivity but not great when you consider that it leaves your body less time to recover, digest food properly, and use those nutrients to repair especially while you sleep.   It’s kind of like just keeping you car in 3rd or 4th gear when you get on the highway.  Your still driving, still moving along but you’re wearing down the engine and wasting gas.  At some point the car is going to breakdown and the repairs will be expensive.  Fortunately you can always repair or buy a new car.  That’s not always the case with your body, and remember you only get one body per lifetime.  Basically what I’m saying is that you have to get yourself out of the fight or flight mode and into the rest and digest mode if you don’t want to burnout.  Now my explanation above is very simple because I don’t know enough about it to go into great detail but I do know of a couple very simple strategies you can use to help nudge you back into the right mode. 

First, stop polluting yourself with caffeine, sugar, and other stimulants.  I am a coffee lover to say the least, so I know how hard this may be, but reducing stimulants is a simple way to bring it down a notch and give your adrenal glands and other organs a break.

Second, learn how to breath properly.  Breathe in your nose and out your mouth. Your nose has what’s called “turbinates” which are responsible for a few important things.  They heat and humidify the air to the right levels for your body, they provide resistance to regulate how much air enters the lungs so you get the proper amount lung expansion to accommodate your current needs.   We know how important oxygen is and how important it is that we get proper levels so systems can function correctly.   This will help nudge your nervous system in the right direction.  While I’m here, stop reading and take a deep breath.  Notice what happens.  Did you raise your shoulders?  If you did, and I’m willing to bet you did, you are not breathing correctly.  You are using neck and shoulder muscles to do something they weren’t meant to do.  Think about how many breaths you take a day, thousands upon thousands, and you’re doing it wrong.  What if you came into the gym and I told you to perform an exercise incorrectly and I wanted 20,000 reps before the day was over!  That is essentially what you’re doing with those shoulder and neck muscles.  And we wonder why there are so many tense shoulders and sore, stiff necks!  Use your diaphragm, use your turbinates!  Breathe in through your nose, fill up your belly first, and then let your chest expand outward, exhale through your mouth.  Get a nice circular breathing pattern.   Look up “belly breathing” if you want to know more.  If you take yoga, you’re probably familiar with this already.

An effective third method is static stretching.  The best time to perform static stretching is after a workout or before bed.  It helps you and your nervous system wind down.  By the way, static stretching before a workout or right when you get out of bed in the morning isn’t a good idea.  Static stretching before a workout is kind of counter productive for two reasons.  First, it will help relax your body and nerves leading you toward a more parasympathetic state.  If you are going to exercise you want to have “workout” energy, so you want your body to release glucose for your muscles,  you want your muscles to be ready to fire and perform, you want to be in that somewhat elevated, alert mode to be able to perform.  Secondly, for  related reasons, studies have shown that static stretching does have a negative effect on your strength levels when performed prior to resistance training.  How much?  I’m not sure,  it’s probably not enough to make a huge difference since most of us aren’t olympic athletes or going for a personal best, but nonetheless I want my strength levels to be as high as possible to get a higher return from my workouts. 

Fourth is meditation.  I won’t even pretend to know anything about this one because I don’t really do it. Regardless, it would be a helpful tool regarding this topic.  Remember, meditation and falling asleep are two different things.

Lastly, food.  You knew it was coming.  Whole, non allergenic foods=Good.  Processed, high sugar, chemical ridden foods=Bad.  It’s just more work and stress for your body to try and figure out what to do with and how to handle these unnatural “foods”.  Do you know where your body dumps toxins?  Bodyfat!  If it gets a constant supply of this stuff, it will hold onto bodyfat so it has a place to put it.  No amount of cardio will overide that mechanism.

So, part 2 is next.  Until then, chill out!

A gym member approached me today and asked for some info about some supplements.   We talked for a bit about dosages, types of supplements etc.  This discussion got me to thinking about a common pattern I noticed among many people I meet in terms of  how they approach their nutrition, eating habits, and workout program.

Initially I was talking to this member about some supplements that may help her with her joint pain.  We discussed chondroitin, glucosamine, MSM, omega 3’s, and dosages.  Now you’ve all heard me rant and rave about omega 3’s and their benefits, blah, blah, blah, so you know how I feel about it. I asked how much omega-3’s she was taking and, as usual, it was something like 1 or 2 grams.  First of all, not enough.  If you’re just taking  it for general health and not specifically to combat anything, then 3 grams/day is probably fine.  If you’re trying to combat  inflammation, joint pain, depression, etc., I believe you need to take much more.  I usually suggest starting at 6-9 grams/day.  If you think that is alot, rethink it the next time you are eating a big mac and fries at McDonald’s.  Most people won’t think twice about ingesting 55 grams of the worst quality fat on earth, 1400 mg of sodium, and 107 g of bad carbs, but that 10 grams of  the worlds best quality fat is too much to supplement with.  Come on!!!…………No really, come on!!!  Anyway, that’s not what I’m really writing about so let me get back on track.

 I started thinking about how she and others tend to think about supplements and other “improvements” they are making.  Let me explain.  Yes, I believe Omega 3’s are extremely important to take, but,  in no way do I think that just taking mega doses of supplements is the way to go.  First of all, one of the most important factors regarding free fatty acids is not only how much omega 3 you get in your system on a daily basis, but what is really important is the ratio of your Omega 6: Omega 3.  The ideal ratio is 1:1 up to 3:1, but most of us are at 20 or 30:1.  We tend to get our omega 6 from all the poor food choices, processed foods, cookies, crackers, vegetable oils, fast foods, poor quality meats, etc.  Omega 6’s tend to be inflammatory.  They have their purpose but for the sake of this article they are strictly inflammatory.  This ratio idea is also applicable to other nutrients like vitamins, vitamin B’s fo example, and minerals, like sodium and potassium.  There is a delicate balance of these nutrients that is required for your body to function optimally.  If the ideal ratios get out of whack, things don’t work so well.  Most tend to think there is always a deficiency and they need to “supplement” or “add”  something to fix the problem, not always!   These imbalance are a major cause of the many health issues we see in today’s world.

When I explain this to people, their first thought is “oh, I have to increase my intake of omega 3’s to get back in “balance” and I’ll be fine”.  Well, yes and no.  In this case, most should increase their Omega 3’s… but more importantly is to remove the majority of all the bad foods that are contributing to our high omega 6 levels.  We need to first remove the negatives in our diet and get a grip on the amount of bad stuff we are putting in the system.  We shouldn’t just blindly ingest tons of bad stuff and then try to balance the system by adding more stuff to it.  Eliminate the bad, and increase the good (with modest supplementation) until your getting the results you want.  In this example by removing the bad choices you not only reduce the omega 6’s but you will also reduce fat intake, calories, and other chemicals your body was not designed to thrive on.  You have to get rid of the “well, I used to eat a whole bag of M&M’s everyday, and now I’m only eating 1/2 a bag a day!”  mentality.  Lose the whole bag!  We have to stop living the “I’ll choose the lesser of two evils”  life.   If you used to drink 2 bottles of wine a day, and now “only” drink 1 bottle..well, that’s better, but it still isn’t good for you.  You will not make yourself healthy by drinking “only” 1 bottle of wine a day.

We need to try to take in as many nutrients as possible in as little calories as possible.  It’s just the opposite in todays world.  No calories are being expended, and thousands of calories, nutritionally deficient calories, are being taken in.  That does not lead to the balance that our bodies require to remain healthy. 

If you really want to improve your health, you must focus first on removing the negatives; negative foods, negative actions, negative thoughts, negative exercises, etc.  We can not get healthy by adding stuff to combat the problems that are caused by the bad stuff that you continually allow to be a part of you.  Here’s another example of what I think is a little backwards.  Someones cholesterol levels test high, more often than not they are first put on some type of medication.  Something is added in order to fight the symptom but nothing is done to address the cause.  Wouldn’t it make more sense to first analyze your diet, pinpoint some of the possible causes (foods), and then remove them  to see if that would help lower your cholesterol first.  It just seems like a better first option than adding more “junk” to the system.  Again, I understand some people are predisposed to high cholesterol, but a majority of the population have high cholesterol because of stuff that is going in, not because they are deficient in statins.

This is also a common problem with people who may have some mechanical dysfunction causing joint pain.  The first approach is to usually add some type of anti-inflammatory to the body, then some type of exercise.  What is missing in this approach is the idea to remove the negative that is causing the problem.  My low back problems are a perfect example.  I can not tolerate flexion or loaded rotation.  I ruptured a disc because of repeated flexion while laying down new wood floors.  I had to have surgery to fix the disc.  If I continued to flex my low back after surgery, I would still re-herniate my disc and have sciatica.  The surgery wasn’t the cure.  It helped with a symptom (sciatica).  The “negative’ was repeated flexion.  I had to remove exercises involving flexion and rotation to remedy the problem, not add exercises to address the symptom, or add meds because I was deficient in ibuprofen.   Don’t treat the symptoms, eliminate the cause.    You can take all the meds and supplements you want but if you continue to ignore the cause (i.e. faulty movements, muscle imbalances, unhealthy diet) the problem(s) will continue. 

Remove the negative first.  Sometimes it is that simple.