Author: The Camford Clinic

The only person to compare yourself to. 

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Not the guy in the next squat rack, not the girl on the yoga mat who can tie herself in knots and always looks perfect, not the professional on the tv. The only person to compare yourself to is….

You. 

Are you a little bit better than you were yesterday? 

Age inevitably degrades our performance slightly over time, with some researchers considering the average value to be 10% per decade, but most of us haven’t achieved our true potential in any decade so there is no reason why most of us cannot at the very least maintain results with improved efficiency and technical skill. 

Rather than using any comparison as an excuse, figure out what you need to do to be 1% better. Harder work is not always the answer, instead see if you need to get out of your own way by working on mobility, becoming more efficient or focusing on a specific movement. 

Gym free workout of the day

Got 10 minutes? Want to change your life for the better? High intensity short interval work has been shown to be highly effective. Try the following:

  • 2 minutes seated wheel breathing 
  • Then complete as many rounds as possible in 5 minutes of: 5 burpees / 3 inch worm pressups
  • 3 mins wheel breathing

Guidelines 

Wheel breathing– sitting comfortably, focus on your breathing. Allow each inhalation to be followed, smoothly and slowly by each exhalation. Picture yourself successfully going through the workout efficiently, effectively and relaxed. Afterwards, just focus on letting each breath flush all the stress and fatigue from your body, so you’re ready to face the day. 

Burpees– start standing straight, squat down hands on the ground, thrust feet backwards to press-up position, pressup, reverse to stand with a jump out of the squat. 

Inchworm pressups– start standing up, bend forward to touch toes, walk hands out until you are in the pressup position, lower down, hands off the ground into a back extension, reverse to get back up. 

Scaling versions

Burpees- 1 burpees is 3 air squats jumps. Squat down, knees behind toes, then spring back up to jump as high as possible. 

Inchworms- kneeling pushups with back extension. Kneel down, lower yourself smoothly, hands off and extend the back, then push back up again. 

Whichever version you do, try to keep going for the whole 5 minutes.

Semper Pergendum!  

The Camford Clinic. Professional osteopathic sports injury and life management in Alton, Hampshire. 

01420 544408

Info@the-Camford-clinic.co.uk

Can’t does not exist

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Not only is it a contraction of cannot, it is a word that disempowers us all. You cannot do that, I cannot do this. These phrases mentally weaken us by throwing up barriers that restrict our perspective.

Instead, reframe the statement. From I cannot, move to what is stopping me? With almost every goal and outcome, there are obstructions, whether physical, social or psychological. Some of these are with good reason and purpose (you cannot jump off the top of the london eye, for example), but for almost everything else, with a change in the way the statement is created, a path and a way forward can be discerned. From identifying what you want to achieve, it is possible to understand the knowledge you need to gain, the skills that can be learned and so step by step, move closer to where you wish to be.

We can get better, because we’re not dead yet.

Frank Turner Get Better

 

One foot in front of the other 

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The oft quoted line is “A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step”

What’s conveniently ignored is the subsequent steps. The ones up hills, through blizzards, rain and so forth. Inevitably our mythical mystic would have encountered these but they are brushed under the metaphorical mat unless pertinent to the retelling. 

A better narrative might be the one that admits such adversities and encourages progress and learning in spite or through the challenges. 

The trick is to maintain momentum, use easy moments to help carry over the harder ones and to accept that all things must change, all things have an end. 

In a running race, use the down and flat to recover, in a lifting competition, tactics, in the pool, don’t fight the water when tired and in life, take delight in the simple pleasures before the fading light. 

Semper Pergendum Sine Timore

Forward without fear! 

Breathe the pressure

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Come play my game, I’ll test ya…

Prodigy – Breathe

So sang the Prodigy and even if Keith Flint seems more than a little bit crazy, he perhaps has a point. 

Even under pressure, we still have control over our breathing. Very often, when stressed, we tend to hold our breath slightly, the effect of which is to change to vital gas balance in our blood stream. 

Respiration is one of the only autonomic functions over which we can have conscious control, and also the one that has the most profound effect on our physiology and mental state.

With controlled breathing comes situational control, the ability to mentally step back, assess the problem, be it a run, workout or stressful issue at work and regain focus. 

One of the fastest ways to control your breath under load is wheel breathing, where you follow an inhale / exhale cycle as though blowing a wheel around, no pausing, no flat points. Instead, you consciously become aware of a smooth, slower, deep pattern that starts to bring everything else back under control. 

Even a few cycles mid workout will pay huge dividends, so if in doubt, breathe. 

The secret to staying young… Revealed!

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Everyone experiences it in sightly different ways, but until science is able to halt biological aging, getting older is far better than the alternatives.The basic processes have a number of negative effects. Past the age of 40, and sometimes earlier, the body starts to slow down. Other than the obvious hormonal changes of the menopause or drop in testosterone, we begin to lose bone mass, muscle mass and neural communication speed. The microscopic cellular damage accumulated during life finally starts to overwhelm the repair processes, so the cellular systems tend to function less efficiently.

As this is a subtle and slow process, it is often not noticed until we realise we are able to do a less than before, that our balance is not quite as good and if we injure ourselves, it takes longer to heal.

The good news is that we can significantly slow this inevitable slide with a few simple concepts.

1. Lift weights. The saying use it or lose it is never more true than with muscle mass. Resistance work has been shown to preserve strength, help keep mental faculties and protect against illness. It also makes a significant difference if you do have to be admitted to hospital as you have more to keep you going and healing.

2. Mobilise, stretch and keep supple. Joints and soft tissue can lose their elasticity, so keeping them long and fluid will help you move better

3. Combine short high intensity bouts of exercise with lots of movement. This has been shown to keep body and brain firing more effectively and although you may not break records, challenging the body forces it to stay active.
4. Keep an eye on your diet. We are what we eat in every way. Protein is important, as is fat. Carbohydrate starts to become less so and gaining weight is not inevitable.

5. Learn new mental and physical skills. It was always thought that the brain stopped developing once we hit a certain age but research shows that we maintain a huge amount of flexibility and learning potential throughout life and are able to lay down new neural connections all the time.

This may seem like a long and tedious list but incorporating it should be simple. A few sessions of high intensity weight lifting week in a well supervised environment covers the skills, resistance training and high intensity areas, watching what you eat is as simple as checking what you stick on a fork and learning new information is at the click of a mouse with the Internet.

Aging is inevitable, getting older isn’t.

Why walking in their shoes will give you new insights.

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To understand someone better, it is said that we need to walk a mile in their shoes.

This is perhaps a little extreme but as with many statements, there is a lot of truth buried in there.

Walking in their shoes, or at least picking them up and looking closely at the wear patterns, both inside and out, will tell you much about the person’s interaction with the world. Do they currently have a prescription orthotic, or some form of insole? How has the outsole worn? Are both sides worn in the same way? Can you see the way the foot turns and loads inside the shoe?

By observing and considering the information provided, it can be possible to start gaining a better insight into how the person moves and hence any potential issues they may be adapting for.

If necessary, stand up and attempt to physically mimic their movement, and what leads them to that positioning.

Feeling it in your own body can be an eye opening experience and one that may hugely enhance your own practice.

Food- more than just fuel. 

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What we eat has a huge effect on how we perform. 

Not just in the balance of macronutrients (carbohydrate, protein, fat) but in the way each food affects us. 

We all know about food allergies, apparently increasingly common, where the person has a massive and rapid negative reaction to a specific item but there are some other ways what we eat influences our performance. 

One of the most important is the potential inflammatory response from consuming items that our body reacts to. This is known as a non IgE mediated reaction and are more commonly treated as food intolerances.  Because of the delayed onset, between 4 and 48 hours after ingestion, they are difficult to isolate. This also makes the effect harder to observe using standard clinical blood tests.

However, this background reaction can significantly effect not only every day life but athletic performance as well, due to the generalised inflammation it can cause. 

The most common reactive agents are: 

  • Dairy
  • Grain
  • Seafood
  • Nuts
  • Soya
  • Egg
  • Nightshades (tomato,aubergine,peppers etc)
  • Alcohol 

If you suspect that this is something you are dealing with, the safest way to detect these reactions is to follow a medically supervised exclusion diet under an experienced doctor so that they can help guide you towards avoiding the substances in question. 

Here’s why your six pack won’t make you a better runner. 

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Most core exercises are a waste of time. They will not make you a better athlete. In fact, they could be slowing you down and creating injuries. 

Why? Because for athletic performance in any discipline, one of the most important functions is the ability to connect your upper and lower body effectively and efficiently without shortening your front. 

The function of the abdominal muscles is to link upper and lower body, provide stability to the lumbar spine and pull the rib cage down during certain motions. 

A short anterior (front) from too many crunches or planks will reduce your hip mobility, create an unwanted curve in your back and reduce the power you can produce. 

To overcome this, by all means do your stability and integration work, preferably under professional guidance to give dynamic feedback but then lengthen and mobilise the front again (for example cobra stretch or warrior poses if you have no spinal or other issues). 

By having a long and fluid front, to work with a strong back, you’ll be closer to optimising your performance and breaking that PB. 
And of course, if in doubt, seek guidance from an experienced professional. 

Stability and Mobility

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Picture a runner on the track, an image of power ready to be released at every stride. If we were to snapshot them mid activity, we would see that:

  • The foot, as it contacts the ground, needs to provide a stable platform
  • The ankle, resting on the foot, requires dynamic mobility
  • The knee, for optimal power transfer, requires both mobility in the ankle below it and the hip above.
  • The hip, being a joint with a high potential range of motion, should be mobile enough to support the function of the knee below and the pelvis / lumbar spine above.
  • The pelvis and lumbar spine, one of the biggest force transfer areas in the body, needs a high amount of stability.
  • The thorax responds to load and stress by restricting, when a more fluid movement pattern would benefit
  • The scapula, floating over the potentially stiff thorax, becomes unstable as a compensation
  • The shoulder joint itself, due to posture and poor use, will be restricted
  • The lower cervical spine may become unstable as a response to the restriction in the thorax
  • Finally, and balanced on top of the stack, the head and upper cervical spine stiffens.

Looking at the above list (initially drawn from the work of Gray Cook) it is possible to see why, if one area is not functioning as optimally as we might like, the areas around it will adapt their own function to compensate, which can eventually lead to the risk of injury.

As athletes and professional practitioners, we can help reduce this risk by reversing the process with a well considered mobility and strength training plan, allowing us help the areas that don’t move and should, as well as strengthening the unstable zones.

From a practical perspective, it is generally faster and more effective to get a restricted area moving successfully, since it tends to respond more positively, as well as naturally allow the unstable areas to relearn their correct function,

It can therefore be recommended that we focus on:

  • The ankle, using ankle circles, calf stretching and getting any old twists or sprains reset
  • The hip, by stretching the glutes, lengthening the hip flexors and ensuring the joint is well aligned
  • The thorax, needs three dimensions of movement, flexion, sidebending and rotation
  • The shoulder, the most inherently unstable joint in the body, often needs professional assessment to ensure it is not guarding a hidden injury to the joint, and can be helped by improving the function of the internal and external rotation most effectively

By improving the range of motion in these, we can support dynamic development in the rest of the body automatically.

Running it off does not work

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Each week, we see a number of runners and increasingly gym based athletes, who have had an injury for a while and have tried to train through it.

This never works for a number of simple reasons:

  • Unless it was a non traumatic injury, it will have happened due to a chronic issue somewhere, which needs to be addressed before the problem resolves fully
  • If it was traumatic, there will be a knock on effect, which can get worse if you attempt to train through in any way that loads the injured area
  • Training through, even if it does not dynamically load the injured place, demands modifications in your form and movement patterns, which can cause injury later on

The best approach instead is to use the PRICE principles and book in to get it checked by a professional, who is used to working with athletes.

PRICE:

  • Protect: Avoid loading the injured area and strap or support it if you do need to move
  • Rest: Cut back on your workload and give it some time to heal properly
  • Ice: If acutely injured, cold treatment can help reduce the swelling and pain
  • Compression: A simple bandage may help reduce the swelling and pain, particularly in joints
  • Elevate: By raising the effected area to level or higher than the heart, the chance of swelling is reduced, helping the body heal more effectively

Whether you’ve tweaked an achilles, strained your knee or have a chronic lower back problem whenever you run over a certain distance, don’t just ignore it, pop a pill and carry on, call in and get it resolved quickly and effectively.