Training – Page 6 – Performance Edge

Repost: Two Sides of the Coin- Mobility and Stability

A note from Dave:

As the owner and CEO of Performance Edge I constantly strive to educate my athletes, clientele and those in my community about the necessity and importance of a well-rounded training and/or exercise program. The following article provides some insight as to what the staff and I at Performance Edge work to provide daily…Balance!

Two Sides of the Coin- Mobility and Stability

To start, let’s first give mobility credit where credit is due. Mobility is (almost) everything. If you lack range of motion, no amount of muscle strength will power you through that restricted movement, at least not without serious repercussions – for example, pain. Restricted movements will force the body to compensate, creating further dysfunction. Additionally, if a muscle cannot achieve its optimal length, it cannot generate sufficient force.

In short, good mobility is a basic requirement of quality, safe, and efficient human performance. I am a fan. I’m psyched that the masses are aware that restricted mobility causes trouble and they are ready to take charge and do something about it.

As amazing (and necessary) as mobility is, if it’s “almost” everything, then the other side of the coin is – you guessed it – stability. Stability can exist without mobility, but you wouldn’t get too far. If everything locked down to stabilize, you would have a lot in common with a tree stump. On the other hand, if you had amazing mobility without stability, movement would be next to impossible and sloppy at best.

Thankfully, most of us fall somewhere just off to one side of the correct proportions of each. In other words, we are likely either walking around with a bit too much mobility without sufficient stability, or a bit too much stability without enough mobility.

The Problem of Excess Stability

The first scenario – excessive mobility while lacking stability – is an easy fix. Strength training. Stability work. Get control of all that movement. It would make sense then that in the case of the latter – mobility deficits with excessive stability – the same approach would help. Increase mobility. Stretch, roll, and release. Achieve unrestricted range of motion.

This approach focuses on deficits and increasing what is missing. For my gangly, mobile, Bambi-on-ice patients I want to focus on increasing stability. However, by only trying to increase what is missing, we fail to look at the whole picture. While my goal is not typically to decrease available movement, sometimes, somewhere along the process of increasing stability we might get a reduction in (hyper)mobility. Not necessarily a bad thing.

On the flipside, those with insufficient mobility need to consider the role stability plays in their dysfunction. It is quite easy to come to the conclusion that you have a limited range of motion, but how in the world would you assess that you have an excess of stability? Simple. They are one and the same. Yep, Finkle is Einhorn.

That tight muscle you assault on a regular basis is likely an overworked scapegoat, providing stability to keep you going. In the presence of instability, muscles and joints lock up to hold you together. You’ve always known you’ve had tight hamstrings, but you blame it on not stretching enough, too many posterior chain workouts, or perhaps genetics is your excuse. Haven’t you ever wondered the real reason your muscles were tight?

Did you ever consider that maybe those muscles can’t let go because they are holding on for a reason? When muscles start doing more work than they were designed to do, we have a problem. Tendinitis, muscle strains, decreased mobility. If you can teach a muscle to relax, not by pounding it into submission, but rather by turning on the correct muscles to create stability, the tight, limiting offender might just be able to let go.

The Best Application for Mobility Work

So here we are, in the middle of this mobility craze, borderline epidemic. As I approach the end of my first decade working as a physical therapist, I can say with absolute certainty that the number of people suffering from self-proclaimed mobility problems is an all-time high. Just a few years ago, I’m pretty sure I never heard the word mobility used by anyone outside of the health and fitness fields. At this point, it’s a tossup between selfie and mobility for most overused words.

Worse yet, mobility is not just an overused part of our lexicon but it is now becoming the sole approach to address movement dysfunction. Over-prescribing mobility drills for poor movement patterns is not all that different than a physician doling out antibiotics for every ailment. Just like medication, when the right drills are applied for the right condition, mobility work will be successful.

“Normal” mobility, without question, is a requirement to perform safe, efficient, and quality movement. Mobility drills such as stretching, foam rolling, and the like are all good ways to increase soft tissue pliability and increase range of motion. But for those of you consistently chipping away at these drills without yielding the desired change, perhaps it is time to step back and see what else may be going on. It’s time to ask where immobility stems from. If mobility work hasn’t helped yet, I’m not
sure more suffering will get you the results you are looking for.

So, is mobility just a fad? No. It’s a real thing. But it’s not the only thing.

Lauren Beasley, MS, PT, OCS, NKT – Total Physical Therapy

Repost: Speed Ladder Fallacy

by DEAN SOMERSET

Agility ladders. Speed ladders. Quick feet ladders.

They’re venerated among trainers looking to add athleticism to their clients, believed to result in more speed, agility, and faster feet. They’re available for sale in any fitness equipment retailer, with dozens of books of drills, games and patterns you can use to get the best benefit from them.

But do they do what we think they do?

Ladder training typically involves following a set pattern through a ladder that lays flat (or relatively flat) on the floor. By moving your feet inside and outside of the rungs of the ladder, the goal is to increase speed while still maintaining the pattern. American football typically uses tires or hurdles to encourage getting the knees up, but the mechanism are somewhat similar.

Before we get into the meat and potatoes of the article, I know I’ll probably get some hate mail from those who just skim through this and don’t read the entire context, so let me make a couple of statements to start.
When it comes to beginners, youth, and deconditioned, everything works to improve their strength, endurance, power, etc. EVERYTHING. I don’t doubt there are coaches who use ladder drills with their 12 year olds and see fantastic results, as there are also trainers who use them with their elderly and see balance and gait improvements, but it could be said that just doing body weight squats for an hour once a week would also produce the same or similar benefits, especially if their relative training age is low. The ladder is meant for the upper end of athletic performance in the definition of speed and agility, so let’s focus here.

Speed involves covering more ground in a shorter time frame. The basic formula is increasing stride frequency and stride length to increase speed. If you can run a 40 yard dash in less time, then you increased your speed
Agility is the ability to change direction rapidly through applying more horizontal force into the ground at an angle different than your current momentum. In order to do this effectively, your legs have to be well outside of the vertical position of your center of mass. If your center of mass doesn’t move, you haven’t changed direction, you’ve just moved your legs and not fallen over.

Everything done in the gym is merely general physical preparation for sports not performed in the gym. As a result, attempting to correlate athletic performance to any drill is futile due to the lack of specificity to the activities and chaotic nature of sports, as well as the processing of multiple variables in any instant of gameplay.
Speed and agility are products of the rate of force application, which means if you go slowly through the ladder, you’re not improving anything other than conditioning. If your rest periods are less than a 1:10 work to rest ratio (and in most instances more like a 1:30), you will not be maxing out power production, you will be working on cardio (GASP!!!)

For any training modality to work, it has to replicate or produce fundamentally similar benefits as the end goal. This means the given exercise or tool should closely replicate the speed, force quantity, force direction, rate of force application, and metabolic & neural demands of the activity. If it doesn’t, then it will not produce the desired benefits. This is a universal concept known as Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands. It will rear its’ head throughout this article.
Now that that’s out of the way and the people who barely read the article will comment like they read the article, let’s discuss the specifics.

Speed
Speed is a function of power, and the basic formula for power is (force x distance) / time. You apply a greater amount of force into the ground at a more horizontal angle in a smaller time, you run faster. As mentioned earlier, for running speed the basic formula is stride rate x stride frequency. You take more steps that are longer for each step and you outrun your opponent. An example of this is how in the last Olympics Usain Bolt completed the 100 m sprint with a stride count of 42 while everyone else did it in closer to 46-48 strides. His stride length was much higher and his stride frequency was roughly the same.

For a speed ladder to produce speed benefits, the individual doing it has to be moving at maximum possible speed, hitting the floor with maximum force, and at an angle that produces the best horizontal force as possible. If you hit the ground with a vertical force, you get a vertical force back.

To develop speed, especially horizontal run speed, a ladder may not be sufficient. Foot speed (the ability to move your feet) and linear speed (the ability to haul ass) are two different and quantitatively different things. To increase speed, you could do like this Keith Williams does and just run like you’re being chased by a grizzly.
True speed training requires a much longer recovery period than most other types of training as it’s highly demanding of the nervous system as well as requires much more utilization of creatine phosphate, both of which take a while to recover. As a result, true max speed training requires an all-out effort for 1-10 seconds, followed by recovery for at least 5 minutes in many instances. This means a work to rest ratio of 1:30 up to 1:300, and possibly longer. If you do an all-out sprint and then only recover for a minute, you’re only working with a 1:5 or 6 ratio, and won’t be able to put out the same resultant efforts.

Speed training is something that does tend to beat someone up with volume though, so most speed phases in training should be relatively small with more work done at lower intensities and only cycling up to max once in a while. For most elite guys, they can work at max for only a very short period due to their crazy high power output, but for more novice and intermediate athletes, they can use slightly longer cycles to work on technique and the development of neural efficiency as long as they’re not getting injured. It’s not an all-the-time thing.

Ladder drills could be very effective to work as a warm up for true speed training. The repetitive action of loading and unloading the legs can be a great warm up for the muscles, tendon elasticity, and also the cardio component of sprinting. However technique is very important, and focus has to be paid to speed above all else. Most people tend to go too slowly while also trying to make it too fancy.

Agility
Agility training involves a rapid change of direction from the initial direction of momentum. Essentially, if you’re running straight forward and someone jumps out of the bushes, you want to turn either away and run or turn towards them and drop the hammer. The most effective way to change direction involves having the legs move well outside of the vertical alignment of the center of mass, and driving into the ground at as horizontal of an angle as possible to create a strong impulse against the pull of momentum. Momentum could also be inertia if the person isn’t moving, and a rapid change from no movement to movement could be considered their “first step,” which isn’t classically speed training.

To train agility effectively, there has to be a large change of direction impulse, where the body has to absorb momentum and press out against it in an altered direction.
While ladder drills involve a rapid change of direction force from one position to the next, the direction of application is more vertical in nature compared to horizontal, and the extension out from under the center of mass is usually pretty small compared to more conventional agility training.

Ladder drills would work well as a warm up for the same reasons as for speed, but in terms of developing higher levels of agility, it may not be as beneficial. It could be incorporated more in lower threshold workouts to involve some change of direction with low loads, much like when doing deadlifts or Olympic lifts with less than maximal weight to work on technique and stay sharp.

Reaction Time
Improving reaction time involves decreasing the amount of time it takes to process a stimulus and create a decision and action to respond. Essentially, think if someone was to throw a ball at your head when you weren’t ready. The time it would take for you to recognize you’re going to get beaned and either move or make a spectacular catch would be the difference between getting onto the ESPN highlight reel or winding up on America’s Funniest Home Videos.
With any set pattern devoid of external forces acting on the body or randomness, there is nothing to react to. Therefore, typical ladder drills are more repetitive in nature in a set pattern and don’t involve reaction time. One way to work on reaction time with ladders is have blind signals to produce a change in the pattern. For instance, have the person go forward in the ladder and when you clap, they have to turn and sprint back the way they came or sprint forward. Another way is to have them go through a pattern then yell out either LEFT or RIGHT and they have to process the direction and make an action.

Now given the previous information, I probably came across as hating on the ladder. I don’t, and routinely use it in training my clients. It’s very beneficial for developing coordination, general conditioning, and also as a warm up for speed and agility training. I also use it as a precursor for agility and reaction drills, as mentioned previously, and I’ve found it’s very good for rehabbing ankle, knee and hip injuries for people looking to get back into running and chaotic movement sports like football and soccer. The lower force application and elastic recoil effect from the foot hitting the floor and responding back helps to improve the tendon response and also build up conditioning to impact-based activities.

Every device is a tool to use in the gym, and it has a specific application to provide the specific results you want. The ladder is a great tool when used appropriately, but much like a screw driver isn’t a hammer, it doesn’t help to build top end speed, agility or quickness compared to conventional training, and relying on it could potentially make athletes slower. It’s very beneficial for conditioning, rehabbing lower body injuries, and as a warm up for higher level demands, but on its’ own it’s not going to help build a better athlete.

Dean Somerset
BSc – Univ. of Alberta,
Certified Exercise Physiologist – Canadian Society of Exercise Physiologists
Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist – National Strength & Conditioning Association
Medical Exercise Specialist – American Academy of Health, Rehabilitation & Fitness Professionals

Shin Splints and Shin Splints Treatment

by PERFORMANCE EDGE

Shin splints are a term commonly used to describe lower leg pain. However, shin splints are only one of several conditions that affect the lower leg. The most common causes of lower leg pain are: general shin soreness; shin splints; and stress fractures.
Shin soreness is simply a muscular overuse problem. By including adequate rest in your training calendar, and using the R.I.C.E.R. regimen when pain does occur, you’ll be able to overcome 95 percent of all general shin soreness within about 72 hours. For lower leg pain that goes beyond general shin soreness, a more aggressive approach must be taken.

What are Shin Splints?
Although the term “shin splints” is often used to describe a variety of lower leg problems, it actually refers specifically to a condition called Medial Tibial Stress Syndrome (MTSS). To better understand shin splints, or MTSS, an understanding of the muscles, tendons and bones involved is required.

As you can see from the diagram below, there are many muscles and tendons that make up the lower leg, or calf region. It’s quite a complex formation of interweaving and over-crossing muscles and tendons.

The main components of the lower leg that are affected by the pain associated with shin splints are:
• The Tibia and Fibula. These are the two bones in the lower leg. The tibia is situated on the medial, or inside of the lower leg, while the fibula is situated on the lateral, or outside of the lower leg.
• There are also a number of muscles that attach to the tibia and fibula. It’s these muscles, when overworked, those pull on the tibia and fibula and cause the pain associated with shin splints.

Specifically, the pain associated with shin splints is a result of fatigue and trauma to the muscle’s tendons where they attach themselves to the tibia. In an effort to keep the foot, ankle and lower leg stable, the muscles exert a great force on the tibia. This excessive force can result in the tendons being partially torn away from the bone.

What Causes Shin Splints?
While there are many causes of shin splints, they can all be categorized into two main groups: Overload (or training errors), and Biomechanical Inefficiencies. Overload (or training errors): Shin splints are commonly associated with sports that require a lot of running or weight bearing activity. However, it is not necessarily the added weight or force applied to the muscles and tendons of the lower leg, but rather the impact force associated with running and weight bearing activities. In other words, it’s not the running itself, but the sudden shock force of repeated landings and change of direction that causes the problem. When the muscles and tendons become fatigued and overloaded, they lose their ability to adequately absorb the damaging shock force.

Other overload causes include:
• Exercising on hard surfaces, like concrete;
• Exercising on uneven ground;
• Beginning an exercise program after a long lay-off period;
• Increasing exercise intensity or duration too quickly;
• Exercising in worn out or ill-fitting shoes; and
• Excessive uphill or downhill running.

Biomechanical Inefficiencies: The major biomechanical inefficiency contributing to shin splints is that of flat feet. Flat feet lead to a second biomechanical inefficiency called over-pronation. Pronation occurs just after the heel strikes the ground. The foot flattens out, and then continues to roll inward. Over-pronation occurs when the foot and ankle continue to roll excessively inward. This excessive inward rolling causes the tibia to twist, which in-turn, over stretches the muscles of the lower leg.

Other biomechanical causes include:
• Poor running mechanics;
• Tight, stiff muscles in the lower leg;
• Running with excessive forward lean;
• Running with excessive backwards lean;
• Landing on the balls of your foot; and
• Running with your toes pointed outwards.

How to Prevent Shin Splints!
Prevention, rather than cure, should always be your first aim. Even before any sign of shin soreness appears there are a number of simple preventative measures that can be easily implemented. Since about half of all lower leg problems are caused by biomechanics inefficiencies, it makes sense to get the right advice on footwear.

Your feet are the one area you should not “skimp” on. The best advice concerning footwear is to go and see a qualified podiatrist for a complete foot-strike, or gait analysis. They will be able to tell you if there are any concerns regarding the way your foot strike or gait is functioning.
After your foot-strike has been analyzed, have your podiatrist, or competent sports footwear sales person recommend a number of shoes that suit your requirements. Good quality footwear will go a long way in helping to prevent many lower leg problems.
Apart from good footwear, what else can you do?

Firstly, a thorough and correct warm up will help to prepare the muscles and tendons for any activity to come. Without a proper warm up the muscles and tendons will be tight and stiff, which may limit blood flow to the lower legs and result in a lack of oxygen and nutrients for those muscles. Before any activity be sure to thoroughly warm up all the muscles and tendons that will be used during your sport or activity.

Secondly, flexible muscles are extremely important in the prevention of lower leg injuries. When muscles and tendons are flexible and supple, they are able to move and perform without being over stretched. If however, your muscles and tendons are tight and stiff, it is quite easy for those muscles and tendons to be pushed beyond their natural range of movement. To keep your muscles and tendons flexible and supple, it is important to undertake a structured stretching routine. It is important to do a range of stretching exercises for the Achilles, the upper and lower calf, and the hamstrings.

Photo courtesy of thestretchinginstitute.com

Standing Toe-up Achilles Stretch: Stand upright and place the ball of your foot onto a step or raised object. Bend your knee and lean forward.
And thirdly, strengthening and conditioning the muscles of the lower leg will also help to prevent shin splints. There are a number of specific strengthening exercises you can do for these muscles, including toe-up exercises; heel and toe walking; calf raises; and TheraBand exercises.

How to Treat Shin Splints!
Firstly, be sure to remove the cause of the problem. Whether it is a biomechanical problem, or an overload problem, make sure steps are taken to remove the cause.
The basic treatment for shin splints is no different to most other soft tissue injuries. Immediately following the onset of any shin pain, the R.I.C.E.R. regimen should be applied. This involves Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation, and Referral to an appropriate professional for an accurate diagnosis. It is critical that the R.I.C.E.R. regimen be implemented for at least the first 48 to 72 hours. Doing this will give you the best possible chance of a complete and full recovery.

The next phase of treatment (after the first 48 to 72 hours) involves a number of physiotherapy techniques. The application of heat and massage is one of the most effective treatments for speeding up the healing process of the muscles and tendons. The application of heat and deep tissue massage on the affected area seems to bring the best results. If you suffer from shin splints, be sure to spend at least a few minutes massaging the affected area both before and after you exercise.

Once most of the pain has been reduced, it is time to move onto the rehabilitation phase of your shin splints treatment. The main aim of this phase is to regain and improve the strength, power, endurance and flexibility of the muscles and tendons that have been compromised.

Repost: Power Development Using Boxes

by GREG INFANTOLINO CSCS | Originally printed in the NSCA TSAC REPORT • ISSUE 04 JANUARY 2008

In many operational settings the tactical athlete is required to jump onto, over, and down from different obstacles. It is imperative then that these athletes are trained to develop ex- plosive power and eccentric muscle strength. Plyometric, or jump training, is a great way to improve athletic performance in these areas. Training with plyometric exercises makes use of the stretch-shortening cycle, where an explosive concentric muscle action is preceded by an eccentric muscle action (1). This article is going to focus on box jump ups and depth jumps.

The goal in performing box jump ups is to develop explosive power. The first thing to think about when performing box jump ups is the height of the box to be used. Box height should be anywhere from six inches to 42 inches, depending on the athlete’s ability. Once the box height has been selected, the ath- lete stands facing the box with feet shoulder width apart. The athlete then performs a counter-movement jump up, landing softly with both feet on the box. They will then step down from the box and repeat for the prescribed number of repetitions.

Depth jumps are a plyometric exercises that involve a shorten- ing of the hip, knee, and ankle extensors immediately after they have been rapidly and forcefully stretched. This rapid stretch stores elastic energy and triggers the stretch reflex (1). Depth jump training is extremely taxing on the central nervous system and imposes significant stress on the tendons (2). Because of this, an athlete should be able to squat one and a half to two times their own body weight before starting depth jump training. Also, young athletes with less than three to four years of strength train- ing experience should not partake in depth jump training.

Depth jump training is not inherently dangerous; however, there is a risk for injury if done improperly or when the athlete is not ready to start depth jump training. To perform a depth jump, the athlete steps off a box and executes an explosive vertical or hori- zontal jump immediately upon landing. The box height for depth jumps can range from 12 to 42 inches (4). Therefore we start ath- letes with a 12 inch box and gradually increase the box height. It is important to note that the National Strength and Condition- ing Association’s position statement on plyometrics recommends that athletes weighing over 220 pounds should not perform depth jumps from higher than 18 inches (3).

Box jump and depth jump training should be incorporated into the tactical athlete’s training program due to the physical and operational requirements of their job. Developing power and eccentric muscle strength will help the tactical athlete perform their tasks easier and more efficiently, as well as help to reduce injuries that may keep them from partaking in operations.

References
1 Holcomb, W.R., J.E. Lander, J.E., Rutland, R.M., and Wilson, G.D. A biomechanical analysis of the vertical jump and three modified plyometric depth jumps. J. Strength and Cond. Res. 10(2):83 – 88. 1996.
2 Miyama, M., and Nosaka, K. Influence of surface on muscle damage and soreness induced by consecutive drop jumps. J. Strength Cond. Res. 18(2):206 – 211. 2004.
3 National Strength and Conditioning Association. (1993). Position statement: Explosive/Plyometric Exercises. Natl. Strength Cond. Assoc. J. 15(3):16. 1993.
4 Potach, D.H., and Chu, D.A. Plyometric training. In: Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning (2nd ed.). T.R. Baechle and R.W. Earle, eds. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, pp. 427 – 470. 2000.

Repost: Turning Weakness into Strength in the Off-Season

by KYLE BROWN, CSCS

Some athletes feel that the off-season is a time to let their bodies rest, fall completely off their diets, and spend this time partying the night away with little sleep or regard for their health and fitness. Typically, they use the pre-season as a time to rebound and acclimate to the demands of their sport. Yet, even as a weekend warrior, intramural or club athlete, having a year-round game plan will keep you a cut above the competition and ready to hit the ground running in the pre-season. Moreover, focusing on your weaknesses in the off-season will bring a new and improved you to the field next season. Off-season training is not only the best time to recover from your sport physically and mentally, but it is also the perfect time to train to counteract all of the muscle imbalances inherent in playing nearly any sport.

The off-season varies depending on the particular sport, but in general terms, off-season refers to the weeks after the in-season and before the pre-season (1). There is a fine line between resting too much and too little in the off-season. Ideally, an athlete should take the time off their sport to mentally rest as well as not put their primary focus on training the main muscles utilized for their sport. Instead, after a short period of rest (referred to as an unloading week), an athlete should focus on cross training or working on their muscular weaknesses and imbalances to get refreshed without lowering their current fitness level. For example, some sports require one arm or leg to be utilized more or their opposing muscle groups are neglected (i.e., the quadriceps are working but the hamstrings are not utilized). Some of the benefits of working on muscular imbalances during the off-season include: preventing chronic injuries, creating symmetry in strength and coordination, recovery of primary movers, strengthening of stabilizer muscles, and prevention of detraining or overtraining. During the off-season phase, a combination of resistance training and flexibility work will create stronger, less inhibited muscles.

ν References 1. Bompa TO, Periodization training for sports. 1999. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics