Training Is Like Farming

Guest Blog by – Michael Boyle

I think I remember Stephen Covey in his book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People making reference to what I believe he called “the law of the farm.” The reference was meant to show that most of the truly good things in life take time and can’t be forced or rushed. Covey described the process of farming and alluded to how it requires patience and diligence to grow crops properly. In addition, farming requires belief in the system. The farmer must believe that all the hard work and preparation will eventually yield a long-term result.

As a strength and conditioning coach, business owner and personal trainer, the concept has always stuck with me. The process of exercising is much like farming or like planting a lawn. There are no immediate results from exercise and there are no immediate results from farming.

First, the seeds must be planted. Then fertilizer (nutrition) and water must be applied consistently. Much like fertilizer in farming, too much food can be a detriment to the exerciser. Only the correct amounts cause proper growth. Overfeeding can cause problems, as can underfeeding. As I sit and wait for my lawn to sprout or crops to grow, I feel many of the same frustrations of the new exerciser. When will I see results? How come nothing is happening? All this work and — nothing.

The key is to not quit. Have faith in the process. Continue to add water and wait. Farming and exercising are eerily similar. Continue to exercise and eat well and suddenly a friend or co-worker will say, “Have you lost weight”? Your reaction might be, “It’s about time someone noticed.” Much like the first blades of grass poking through the ground, you begin to see success. You begin to experience positive feedback. Clothes begin to fit differently.

When my friends or clients talk to me about their frustration with their initial lack of progress in an exercise program, I always bring up the farm analogy. We live in a world obsessed with quick fixes and instant results. This is why the farm analogy can be both informative and comforting.

An exercise program must be approached over a period of weeks and months, not days. The reality is that there is no quick fix, no easy way, no magic weight loss plan, no secret cellulite formula. There is only the law of the farm. You will reap what you sow. In reality, you will reap what you sow and care for. If you are consistent and diligent with both diet and exercise, you will eventually see results. However, remember, much like fertilizer and water, diet and exercise go together.

Try to grow crops or a lawn without water. No amount of effort will overcome the lack of vital nutrients.

The law of the farm.

Plant the seeds.

Feed and water properly.

Wait for results; they will happen, not in days, but in weeks and months.

Does it hurt?

Guest blog post by Michael Boyle

I get asked rehab questions all the time. I have rehabilitated athletes in almost every major sport who were told they were “all done” by a doctor or a team trainer. Because people know my background, they often ask for advice.

Most of the time they ignore the advice because the advice does not contain the answer they want. They say “it only hurts when I run”, I say things like “don’t run”.

A famous coach I know once told me “people don’t call for advice, they call for agreement or consensus. If you don’t tell them what they want to hear, they simply call someone else”. His advice to me, don’t bother wasting your time with advice.

Here I go again wasting time.

If you have an injury and are wondering whether or not a certain exercise is appropriate, ask yourself a simple question. “Does it hurt”? The key here is that the question ‘does it hurt?” can only be answered yes or no. If you answer yes, then you are not ready for that exercise, no matter how much you like it. Simple, right? Not really. I tell everyone I speak with about rehab that any equivocation is a yes. Things like “after I warm-up it goes away” etc. are all yes answers. It is amazing to me how many times I have asked people this simple question only to have them dance around it. The reason they dance around the question is that they don’t like my answer. They want to know things like “what about the magic cure that no one has told me about?”. What about a secret exercise? I have another saying I like, “the secret is there is no secret”. Another wise man, Ben Franklin I think, said “Common sense is not so common”.

If you are injured and want to get better, use your common sense. Exercise should not cause pain. This seems simple but exercisers ignore pain all the time and rationalize it. Discomfort is common at the end of a set in a strength exercise or at the end of an intense cardiovascular workout. Additional discomfort, delayed onset muscle soreness, often occurs the two days following an intense session.  This is normal. This discomfort should only last two days and should be limited to the muscles not the joints or tendons. Pain at the onset of an exercise is neither normal nor healthy and is indicative of a problem. Progression in any strength exercise should be based on a full, pain-free range of motion that produces muscle soreness without joint soreness. If you need to change or reduce range of motion, this is a problem. Progression in cardiovascular exercise should also be pain free and should follow the ten percent rule. Do not increase time or distance more than ten percent from one session to the next. I have used these simple rules in all of my strength and conditioning programs and, have been able to keep literally thousands of athletes healthy. I’m sure the same concepts will help you.

3 Reasons Why You Should Not Stretch Your Hamstrings With A Straight Knee

1. In function the Hamstrings never function with a locked out straight knee.

2. The Hamstrings meet their tendons a few inches above your knees. If you feel a pull in the back of your knee during a hamstring stretch, you are loading the ligaments and joint capsules rather than stretching your hammies.

3. Ligaments hold your joints together. They do not stretch well, except in kids. Stretch a ligament by only 6% and it will tear. A ligament that has been subjected to excessive stretching undergoes microtears, gets scarred up, elongated, and weakened. A stretched ligament means a loose and unstable joint just waiting for a severe injury.

The solution is to bend the knee slightly to unload the ligaments and make sure you stretch the hamstrings in all 3 planes of motion.

10 Reasons Why Crunches And Sit Ups Are No Good For You!

The true authentic function of the abdominal muscles (front butt or front line of the body) during human movement/function, is to control the motions of the pelvis and rib cage (thoracic spine) in all 3 planes of human motion.

It is important you understand that the abdominal muscles get turned on (activated/stimulated) the same way every other muscle in the body gets turned on, by lengthening (stretching or loading) first.

Therefore when you select abdominal exercises, you’ll want to select and perform exercises that teach your abdominals to do what they really do when we move and function in the real world.

This type of training logic will ensure that what you are doing will carry over to what you ultimately want to be able to do better, giving you the most bang for your buck in your overall investment in your physical health and well being.

1. Crunches and sit ups shorten the stomach muscles (rectus abdminus) which will depress the rib cage and pull those who perfom them into a more rounded shoulder, hump back, slouching looking posture (kyphotic posture) along with tightening the hip flexors even more. (If that’s what you’re looking for keep doing those crunches and sit ups baby!)

2. Crunches and sit ups are performed lying on your back, while most of  human function occurs in an upright position.

3. In real world everyday functional activities we never use our abdominals in an isolated manner, like a crunch or sit up teaches us to do.

4. Traditional crunches and sit ups do not load the hips and thoracic spine into extension.

5. Crunches and sit ups do not link the motions of the pelvis, rib cage and shoulders together. (The Peltrunkula Phenomenon)

6. Crunches and sit ups isolate and train the abs in 1 plan of motion. (The abs like every other muscle and joint in the body work in all 3 planes of motion)

7. Crunches and sit ups do not train the abdominals t0 lengthen and load through the full spectrum of movements that are incurred in daily living and sports: bending, twisting, reaching, walking, running, lunging, etc..

8. Crunches and sit ups do not involve the butt. (“if the butt ain’t movin the abdominals ain’t groovin”)

9. Crunches place high compression loads on the lumbar discs (lower back) and cervical spine (neck) due to forced flexion.

10. Crunches and sit ups do not involve a transfer of energy from the foot/ankle. (“If the ankle and foot are tight theres a good chance the core ain’t right”)

So if crunches and sit ups teach the abdominals to do what they don’t really do in the real world (true authentic function) then why would you ever do another crunch or sit up ever again?

Would you ever invest time or money into something you’ll never use, feel good about, or benefit from?

If you perform crunches and sit ups, take a minute and think about Why? If the why has nothing to do with looking, feeling, and performing at your very best and doing so for a long time, you may need to revise your training strategy.

Click Here To See A Functional Abdominal Workout

How Many Resistance Training Days Per Week?

While recently reading a newsletter from one of my mentors Alwyn Cosgrove (who I am going to visit at the end of the month for a program design seminar out in Santa Clarita Ca), I came across some interesting research that you might find helpful in answering a few of the most commonly asked questions regarding training.

How many days per week should you perform some type of resistance training?

How many times per week should you train each body part?

Should you do full body workouts or body part split routines?

From Alywn Cosgroves Newsletter :

In multiple studies, researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston have reported that muscle-protein synthesis is elevated for up to 48 hours after a resistance-training session. So if you work out on Monday at 7 p.m., your body is in muscle-growth mode until Wednesday at 7 p.m. After 48 hours, though, the biological stimulus for your body to build new muscle returns to normal.

In other words – training a muscle for optimal growth means we’re looking at every 48 hours or so, not every 168 hours (once per week). This isn’t opinion – it’s science.

As practitioners we have to look at two things – our own experience, and what scientifically controlled studies show.

Another study:

McLester et al

Comparison of 1 Day and 3 Days Per Week of Equal-Volume Resistance Training in Experienced Subjects

Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2000, 14(3), 273-281

Showed that when subjects performed the same total amount of work per week (e.g. one set, three times per week vs, three sets once per week), that the three-times-per-week group gained more muscle and strength than the once per week group. These findings suggest that a higher frequency of resistance training, even when volume is held constant, produces superior gains in 1RM and muscle.

And finally:

Wernbom et al

The influence of frequency, intensity, volume and mode of strength training on whole muscle cross-sectional area in humans.

Sports Med. 2007;37(3):225-64.

Which was a review paper – basically looking at all the hypertrophy studies to date – and concluded that two times a week, with a strong tendency towards three times per week was optimal for hypertrophy.

At Colby Conditioning we view the human body as an integrated unit that works as a whole to produce a desired chain reaction and prefer full body workouts vs. splitting the body up into separate compartments.

For our clients that are really serious about getting great results, we encourage them to commit to 2-3 days per week (with 3 being ideal) of total body workouts using a variety of tools.

According to these studies are recommendations seem to be on point!

The Best Types Of Cardio For Fat Loss

I happened to be reading an article the other day

http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance_interviews/sucker_punch_alwyn_cosgrove

and came across this quote which really simply sums things up if you want to change your body. I think you can get away with less protein intake but overall you can’t go wrong with Chad’s suggestions of keeping it simple.

“If I told you to consume one gram of protein per pound of body weight , fibrous vegetables, water, green tea, 12 grams of fish oil, and spread those out over the course of six meals each day, you’d be anything but impressed. But if I held you in captivity and forced you to do that every day for a month, you’d be blown away by the results.”  -Chad Waterbury

Do that for 8 weeks and people will accuse you of being on something.

I hope by now you understand that interval training is the way to go if you are trying to get lean and burn more fat because it burns more calories and elevates your metabolism up to 24 times longer than traditional steady state cardio.

Below are some of my favorite types of Interval workouts that will help you burn lots of fat and improve your overall conditioning level.

It is also important to note that I am not a big fan of most traditional cardiovascular equipment because most machines like the elliptical do not properly work your hip flexors and extensors. Most cardio machines don’t require or allow hip extenson past neutral. Combine that with the fact that most people already have tight enough hips and you have a recipe for dysfunction.

1. Airdyne Bike Sprints – are the safest option because there is no deceleration component (eccentric stress – the stuff that makes you sore and delays recovery) required when pedaling on a bike. The other nice thing about the airdyne bike is that the combined arm and leg action helps produce a higher heart rate than just pedaling alone. Essentially, you get maximum disturbance with minimal muscular disruption. Another piece of equipment I like similar to the airdyne is the Versa Climber - which is done standing and allows for more hip extension.

2. Sprints – are probably the best option, but not everyone can do them without risking injury. Just take a look at sprinters and you can easily see the benefits that sprints will have on your body. Have you ever seen a fat sprinter? With sprints, make sure you prepare your body properly beforehand, start slow and gradually work your way up. I would suggest no more than 40 yards to start at around 85% with at least a 90 sec. rest period in between.

3. Slide Board – is a great bang for your buck tool that we use with most of our clients. The slide board allows you to condition the body in the frontal (side to side) plane vs. always going forward in the sagittal plane. The other great benefit about the slide board is it helps strengthen the hip and groin musculature in a different way compared to other commonly favored activites.

4. Hill Sprints – the nice thing about hill sprints is that they are safer than sprints because the hill will slow you down making it less likely to injure a hamstring or hip flexor. Find a hill that you can sprint in about 5-30 sec. and follow the same guidelines for sprinting. If your hill is short  just do more sprints with less recovery over time.

5. Sled Sprints – these are done by attaching a weighted sled to your waist or to a harness that goes over your shoulders. These have the same benefit as hill sprints in that the weight slows you down making the risk of injury less of a concern.

6. Prowler Pushes - I only wish I currently had enough space for one of these. The prowler is a sled with upright handles that you push that is very demanding and burns a ton of calories.

7. Shuttle Runs - are another excellent fat burning option that I would consider very advanced because of the high muscular demand of acceleration, deceleration, and change of direction. 300 and 150 yard shuttle runs can be performed on a 50 or 25 yard course with the 25 yard course being harder. Shuttle runs should also be preceded by a few weeks of tempo runs done preferably on a football field.

8. Jumping Rope - a simple yet effective option that helps increase foot speed and calve development. You can also incorporate jump rope into a circuit, use it on it’s own, or use weighted ropes.

9. Kettlebell Training - is a great training method that allows you to train in a short amount of time by moving from 1 exercise to another without having to move to another tool. Kettlebells are also very effective for building power endurance, are excellent for circuits, and can be used after your workout in place of traditional cardio as finishers. A simple but very effective kettle bell wokout is to do 20-50 1 arm swings per side with minimal rest for 5 – 10 minutes. This will get your heart rate jacked up big time!

10. Bodyweight Exercises and Circuits -performing different body weight exercises with moderate to high reps in a circuit like squats, push-ups, lunges, moutain climbers, walks, jumps, jumping jacks, squat thrusts and step ups in all 3 planes of motion

11. Battling Ropes - Are heavy one and a half to two inch thirty to fifty foot long ropes that you loop around a heavy immovable object and grab both ends being sure to pull the rope taut so that there is no slack and start creating a wave with the ropes so that it does a snake like motion. You can use both hands at the same time or alternate. Try maintaing power for 30 seconds before taking a rest interval.

12. Stadium Stair Sprints - This is an old school method of conditioning but still very effective. Just go to the local high school or college field and sprint up the stairs. If the stairs are longer you may want to sprint straight up, walk down and repeat for 12 – 15 sets. If the stairs are short you could sprint up, jog down and repeat four or five times before taking a short rest period.

13. Barbell/Dumbbell/Kettlebell Complexes - involves doing a set of exercises all in a row without ever putting the bar down. Reps of  5-8  of each exercise are usually performed all in a row before moving to the next exercise without ever letting go of the bar. After completing all the exercises a rest period is taken before repeating the complex. These are really hard and light weights should be used to start.

14. 400-Meter Sprints -  Are one lap around a standard track. These would also be listed in the advanced category. I would suggest using 400 meter sprints after you have worked on building up some speed from sprinting for a few months and then start with one 400 meter sprint workout per week at first as they’re very hard.

15. Interval Running - Basically with interval running you’ll alternate between jogging and sprinting. I would suggest starting with two a week and building up to 3 if you are trying to lose fat. Stay with two if your trying to build muscle. My favorite Interval run is the 15 minute interval build-up run.

One final but very important note is to always remember to try to do a little better each week by increasing the intensity but make sure to never increase the total time or distance by more than 20 percent from week to week. A 20 percent increase will continue to improve your results without an increased risk of injury. In order to watch this it is very important to keep track of both distance and total time.

The 7 Essential Components of an Exercise Program

In today’s day and age, we are currently in the middle of an obesity epidemic.

The clients have changed, their lives have changed and their body structure (posture) has changed.

Our average client today usually arrives with a host of musculoskeletal imbalances, injuries, mobility/flexibility, soft tissue restrictions, poor movement ability, poor posture, higher body fat percentages, and overall in worse shape than years past.

Traditional programs of the past (body builder emphasized body part split routines, machine based, endurance emphasized steady state cardio) are no longer effective solutions for todays clients.

Today’s exercise programs should consider 7 essential components that in my mind need to be addressed with everyone.

At Colby Conditioning (personal trainers in boston) we feel it is very important to program the following 7 key areas with all of our clients.

1. Movement Preparation: Prepare the body to move in all 3 planes of motion, turn on the system, stretch muscles, and enhance movement. For us this currently means taking a look at and improving needed mobility  at the  foot/ankle, hip, and thoracic spine in all 3 planes of motion. Along with our 3d locomotion series which consists of mostly skipping and shuffling in all 3 planes of motion.

2. Pre-habilitation Training : Corrective based exercises focused around the common areas of injury. For us, we currently tend to program and categorize the trunk/shoulder (peltrunkula) and ankle/hip.  

3. Speed/Power/ Elasticity: Needs to be programmed and developed for everyone in all 3 planes of motion. Depending on the client and their goals we like jumping, hopping, and leaping in 3 planes of motion along with some other traditional techniques and exercises. Power is lost faster than strength especially as you get older. 

4.  Vertical Core Training: Core training based on how the core muscles really function in the real world when we move, which is in the presence of gravity, upright, and with the foot in contact with the ground. This means we select exercises that teach the core muscles to do what they really are supposed to do during human function (lengthen first vs. shorten like a crunch or sit up, and to control the motions of the pelvis and rib cage in all 3 planes of motion). For us, most of our dynamic plank stabilization stuff is done in our trunk/shoulder prehab component.

5. Strength/Resistance Training: Important to help build lean muscle, increase metabolism and fat burning. Currently for us, we take more of a movement based approach with emphasis on function (exercises based on what the muscles really do, real world strength) and integrating the entire system in all 3 planes of human motion . (Not isolating muscle groups)

6. Metabolic Conditioning/Energy System Development: The ability to step out of your comfort zone an do higher levels of work repeatedly over time (interval training) – not just getting on the elliptical or going for a run at a steady state pace. Depending on the client and their situation we may use a variety of different tools to accomplish this:  slide board, airdyne bike, trx circuits, kettlebells, timed sets, bodyweight circuits, finishers etc..

7. Regeneration/Recovery: I like Athletes’ Performance owner Mark Verstegen’s model work+rest=success or Paul Cheks “Train Don’t Drain”. In my mind everyone is an athlete that needs to perform on a daily basis, whether you’re a mom or a professional athlete the differences are in the game you have to play. If you have a training strategy you need a recovery strategy – nutrition(post-workout recovery shakes), soft tissue work (massage, rolfing, active release technique) adequate sleep, and other ancient healing arts like chi gong/gung, tia chi, meditation, etc.. may be helpful to you.

If you are serious and want optimal results? You need to include these 7 components in your regimen. Life is much too demanding on your body, mind, and spirit not to.

To find out more about how Colby Conditioning (personal trainers in boston) can help you and you click on the link below and receive 2 free private coaching sessions, a 30 minute massage, a consult and assessment with no pressure or obligation.

http://www.bestpersonaltrainersinboston.com/personal-trainers-in-boston-consult.html