23 and 1

 When training we should always strive for the best, most balanced and functionally transferable program possible. This means correcting muscular imbalances, increasing range of motion, improving tissue quality, increasing strength and stability, and alleviating movement dysfunctions. However, if we are to truly improve we must also improve what we’re doing when not in the gym.

With the pace of life these days I would venture to guess that most active people spend 3 – 5 hours in the gym a week. This means we have 163 – 165 hours a week doing other stuff, which leaves ample time to undo all of the great things we do in the gym.

Posture

 One of the biggest offenders is posture. Like grandma always said, “stop slouching”! In this case, however, she wasn’t just being old fashioned, one of the most common postural dysfunctions I see these days is postural kyphosis, the forward rounding or hunching of the shoulders often accompanied by a head forward position. 

Postural kyphosis, look familiar?

We must remember that we are always training our bodies regardless of whether we’re in the gym or not. When we hunch or slouch, our anterior musculature will, over time, become adaptively tight and short while the posterior musculature becomes lengthened and weak. This puts a person on the fast track to becoming a hunchback in their later years. Though sometimes difficult to avoid, lives full of sitting, computer use, texting, watching TV, playing video games, driving and so on are not the best for ones wellbeing.

I’ve mentioned Dr. Vladimir Janda before in connection to what he coined the lower crossed syndrome. This is a muscular imbalance at the hips due mainly to a sedentary, seated lifestyle. However, unluckily for us, there is also an upper crossed syndrome, which is essentially the same thing at the shoulders. This means the deep neck flexors become weak as do the scapular stabilizers and mid back muscles. Working in opposition to this are overactive pecs and upper traps.

Upper crossed syndrome

Adding fuel to the fire is a head forward position. The average head is somewhere between 10 - 12lbs and positioned on top of the spine. As the head moves forward the back musculature must work harder especially at the base of the skull. As the head moves forward it also wants to drop so the small muscles at the base of the skull have to work very hard to keep the eyes level. Every inch forward adds about 10lbs of mechanical load to the shoulders and back so a 2” head forward position creates 32lbs of load on the back. Take it out 3” and we now have a 42lb head! Generally, as the head moves forward the shoulders begin to round further and as the shoulders round further, the more forward the head moves and so on.

Head forward posture: neutral, 2" forward, 3" forward

Luckily it takes time for extreme adaptation to occur so if you start now you can begin to reverse this slouching pattern. First thing you need to do is sit up, adjust your work station so you aren’t looking down at your monitor and make sure the keyboard is at an optimum height so you aren’t reaching for it. Stand up during the day as much as you can and maybe even stretch a bit if possible. A continually changing environment is better than a static one. Cut down on TV and video game time, this is generally wasted time anyway. Massage is a good way to alleviate muscle tension leading to imbalance. If this isn’t in the budget then self myofascial release works as well, refer to my previous posts “addressing tension and tissue quality” for more on the subject. 
This leads us to the time we actually spend in the gym. Most people need to pull more and push less. Focus on rowing, external rotation, and extension exercises; rows, face pulls, scapular wall slides, and thoracic extensions.

Seated Row - pulling exercise

Face Pull - pulling exercise with external humeral rotation

Scapular Wall Slide - external humeral rotation and shoulder mobility

Thoracic Extension using foam roller

 Spinal Extension -  "Cobra"

 This group of exercises will actively work against your slouching tendencies while renewed attention to daily posture will help prevent it in the first place. Just remember, generally, we spend about 1 hour in gym vs. 23 hours spent doing everything else. What you do in those 23 hours can easily undo that 1 hour in the gym.

Stay tuned for more on this subject in the future. There are plenty of other things we do in our daily lives that sabotage our efforts in the gym, this is just one of the most common.

Body as a Barbell

Building on my last post, some may feel a bit unprepared for exercise because they don’t have a trainer, a gym, or a bunch of equipment. While I would always recommend using a trainer, even just sporadically to tune up your program and form, you don’t need a fancy gym or equipment to get started.

Body as a Barbell

Body-weight exercises can be tough if done right so you can forgo equipment, at least for a while. Basic progression would follow a bilateral start and move toward a unilateral end. This would be something like starting with a basic squat, moving to a split squat (both feet on the ground), then to a rear foot elevated split squat, and finally a single leg squat. 

Squat progression - body-weight bilateral squat

Squat progression - split squat
 

Squat progression - rear foot elevated split squat

Squat progression - single leg squat

We can also play around with biomechanics to adjust intensity. Take a push up for example, we start on the knees (short lever), move to the toes (long lever) but elevate the hands (weight biased toward the feet which is easier), then hands on the ground (re-distributing your weight more evenly between feet and hands for increased intensity), and finally elevate the feet (weight biased toward the hands increasing intensity even more).

Push up progression - half push up

Push up progression - full push up, hands elevated

Push up progression - full push up

Push up progression - full push up, feet elevated

Another element we can incorporate to increase intensity is explosive movement. Any plyometric exercise is going to be more challenging than it’s standard counterpart. Jump squats are more taxing than standard squats; plyo push-ups are much harder than standard push-ups and so on.

Jump squat

 

One last consideration for controlling intensity is rest period. I generally do body-weight workouts in a circuit so time between exercises will have a big effect on intensity. For the beginner we would want at least a 1:1 work to rest ratio if not something closer to 1:2. A 1:2 ratio would be something like 30 sec. on/ 60 sec. off, moving to a 1:1 ratio (30 on/30 off) as conditioning improves. As you become more advanced the rest period becomes shorter until you reach a 2:1 ratio (30 on/15 off). The most challenging option would be to move straight through your circuit taking only enough time to switch exercises and resting between sets.

Tabata is a term that may come up with this type of exercise, which is a 2:1 (20 sec. on/10 sec. off) ratio workout done for 8 continuous sets at max effort. There are many ways to do tabata though the original was done on an airdyne bike creating a 4-minute set (20 sec. on/ 10 sec. off x 8). 

Airdyne bike, if you have access to one try Tabata

I generally do tabatas as a circuit because I feel that you perform better reps when other movements are spliced in. Imagine doing push ups in this work to rest ratio for 4 minutes straight. I don’t think it would surprise anyone that the last few rounds get pretty ugly form wise, which isn’t ideal.

The one catch to bodyweight workouts may be the pulling exercise. If you don’t have access to a pull up bar or something strong enough for inverted rows then some sort of implement will be required.

Inverted row

What This May Look Like

If we base our body-weight circuit off of movement patterns (remember last post?) we’d start with push, lower body, pull, and core. We then build off of this base, which might look something like the following:

1.    Push up, squat, pull up, plank

2.    Push up, split squat, mountain climbers, inverted row, renegade row (plank while alternately pulling one arm off the ground in a rowing motion)

3.    Cycled split squat jumps, push up (with feet elevated), single leg hip extension, mountain climbers, inverted row, Renegade row

4.    Cycled split squat jumps, push up (with feet elevated), heiden (speed skater), single leg hip extension, mountain climbers, pull up, renegade row, burpee

Turn any of these into a tabata and you’ve taken it to an even higher level of intensity. If #4 is done as a tabata it will effectively be 32 minutes of near continuous work that already includes challenging explosive exercises, definitely not for the faint of heart or lung.

         The take away from all of this is that keeping in shape doesn’t have to be a huge production that requires tons of equipment and time. I guarantee that option #4 above, done as a tabata, will be tough for even the seasoned athlete and it only takes a half hour. So unless you’re an endurance athlete, sacrificing intensity for duration is a mistake. You will get in better shape with something like option #4 above than you will simply doing cardio for an hour. Less time, better results, what's not to like?