80% of the things work for 80% of the people 80% of the time.

What those slices are depend on who the person is and what the goal is.

If you want to get better at any sport, do it frequently and under professional supervision.

If you want to lose weight, eat a little less, aim for 3 hours of aerobic (breathless and sweaty) activity with a few bouts of high intensity interval training a week.

If you want to improve general health, longevity and decrease your global risk of nasty illnesses, drink less alcohol, drink more water, eat a balanced diet, keep your weight down, don’t smoke and move regularly.

The problem is, for many people, simple is boring and they are convinced there is a short cut, an easy solution that limits the hard work involved in positive changes.

The bad news is there isn’t.

The good news is that hard work, consistency and simplicity are the 80% gainers, the actions that pay back.

The rest, until you are at elite levels, is propaganda and ways of making money move from your purse to theirs.

Define your goal, apply yourself and achieve.

A simple enough phrase and the title of an Asian Dub Foundation track, but one with a lot of possibility buried in it.

I first came across it in a book on the systems Chefs and cooks use to organise themselves in professional kitchens (Work Clean, by Dan Charnas). The point was that preparation for the next days service began the previous day, with sourcing the ingredients, preparing what was possible to do, cleaning and planning ahead.

It occurred to me that we could all apply this principle to many other areas of life, not just cooking, to reduce stress.

From getting our clothes for the next day ready before we turn in, to buying a train ticket the day before we travel, that little amount of prep can pay big dividends.

And of course, it is hugely apt when it comes to personal training and life changes. Not eating that second chocolate biscuit makes tomorrows workout more effective, 5 minutes of mobility work stacks to huge changes over time.

So begin today what you want to achieve tomorrow.

The rules are basic. They work. Yet we forget them all the time, or think that the latest fad will negate them. However, this is proved wrong with every wrong turn.

So:

• Simple is not the same as easy.
• Change takes time.
• Planning and preparation are vital.
• Monitoring the effect of your inputs is required.
• Getting the 80% right repeatedly gets you ahead of the rest of most of the competition.

If necessary, write these down and stick them on your wall.

There were a couple of pieces I read over the weekend that made me ponder for a few moments on weight loss, particularly in obese clients.

When they come to us for help, patients generally want change as soon as possible. So we put them on a low calorie plan and design a suitable exercise regime. If we do our job properly, they shed the pounds and their overall health improves. The problem occurs when they try and keep the weight off longer term.

One article from the weekend reading was a study of contestants on the TV show “The biggest Loser”. Apparently the goal is to lose as much weight as possible over the shows run, with advice given on exercise, diet, sleep and so forth. To win, one man spent up to 9 hours a day exercising, attempting to burn over 3000kcals a day, whilst eating 800 – 1000kcals. He won, but the research showed that it simply wasn’t sustainable, perhaps as expected, and over the course of the next few years, he gained much of it back.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight-loss.htm

Reading into the material a little more, this could have been due to a few basic factors. Firstly, his metabolism, in response to the perceived threat, had responded to the perceived famine and slowed down, subsequently staying low, such that even resuming a previously normal intake, he was still putting back the fat. The study indicated that for all of the contestants measured, this was approximately  500kcals less than their predicted Basal Rate per day. The other factor was that he possibly had not adopted and understood his eating triggers, such that he still had the urge to consume high amounts of low nutrient, energy dense foods.

The other article was a piece of research from Newcastle showing that well controlled weight loss has the ability to reduce the risk of type II diabetes, by reducing the intra abdominal fat and that this tends to happen first when losing weight.

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/magres/research/diabetes/reversal.htm

The Newcastle study reduced the caloric intake by half and recommended light to moderate exercise, using a medically managed supplement plan.

What we as practitioners can take away from both of these pieces is that health benefits can be seen from the weight loss but that past a certain point, we need to be careful to ensure the long term health of the client.

The biggest loser problem indicates that we need to avoid the famine reaction by only cutting the caloric intake slightly and whilst simultaneously increasing the exercise slightly, to create the negative balance. The weight loss, particularly in more obese clients, should be slow and gradual, and possibly driven more by diet than exercise initially, so the person can learn and understand the change in eating habits.

The Newcastle study shows the success of this and indicates that weight management is often supported by continued reduction in intake. One added point we can infer is that, as organ fat is used first, a possible plateau may occur when we come to start stripping off the subcutaneous, but aesthetically important fat, which will be far harder to do, since it is potentially more inert.

You’ve spent months training for it, avoided beers out too often, got up earlier, gone to bed later, read everything you can on the internet, planned and todays the day.

You woke extra early and missed breakfast because who can eat at 5am? You’ve driven to the venue, but the traffic was worse than you expected. You’ve got to the sign in line, but everyone else is there as well and the guy at the front forgot his ID. You finally get registered and find your space but hey, the laces on your best shoes snap.

Still got your A game?

The fact is, you are no longer prepared. You’ll take part but you will not be your best.

Why?

The early start might have been a bit too much and not what your body was used to.

The drive, a few hours, has left you stiff and knotted  up, with no time to work it out.

The queue to register has dumped more adrenaline into your bloodstream, knocking your glucose levels off, which combined with the lack of breakfast, has left you energy depleted before you even start.

Snapped laces, normally just one of those things, throw you into a negative mental place.

Competition is going to suck.

Lets have another go:

You’ve done the training and planned it through, in conjunction with your coach and respected partners. Ignoring web gossip, you know what works for you.

Looking ahead, you start the logistics planning a month before and figure out the event is 2 hours away, allowing another hour for traffic and you’re exceeding your previously defined limits for day travel. Experience has taught you that staying in a local cheap hotel the night before and providing your own breakfast is the best idea in this case, eye mask and ear plugs ready to ensure a good nights rest. You get up and get to the venue early. Register and then spend a while going over your practiced warmup routine, loosening up each joint, rehearsing the skills you’ll need and getting your body ready to perform.

Your laces snap, no biggie. You’ve got the mantra 2 is 1, 1 is none on your critical kit so have spares and thats it swapped out.

You sit quietly and go through some mental drills, visualising the event and seeing yourself perform brilliantly, preparing your mind for the expectation of success, seeing yourself overcome minor annoyances and difficulties easily.

A few deep breath cycles, your favourite tunes buzzing in your head, its go time. This time you’ve got it, you have your A game ready and its now between you and the finish clock.

Go get after it.

Whenever you go to see any professional, there are a few basic questions that they should be able to answer. The idea of these questions is to find out all you need to know to make an informed choice about your treatment and to me, these apply whether they are your GP, osteopath, or sports massage practitioner.

• What is the working diagnosis?
• What treatment techniques might you use?
• What’s the risk?
• What are the benefits?
• How long will it take to feel a positive effect?
• How long will it last?
• How long will it take for me to get better?

If they can’t offer you reassuring answers to these, keep asking.

And if you come to see us, I would hope to answer them as part of our discussion automatically.

Spring has arrived and there are simply no excuses for not getting out and running. However, there are many schools of thought on gait, foot strike and posture, most of which can be very confusing for the uncoached amateur, without access to external feedback and analysis.

This, therefore, is offered a brief review of the basics, some elemental pointers to quickly consider when moving.

Firstly, stop overthinking forefoot, midfoot or heel strike. This is more dependant on your shoes, personal mechanics, injury history and current mobility than idealised positioning. The impact point should be where your centre of gravity is about to be (given that inertia will carry your centre of mass over that point with no extra effort). Too far forward, most commonly due to overstriding, and the foot will act as a brake, whether you are landing on your forefoot or heel. This optimum positioning can be best achieved by allowing the leg and ankle to relax before landing and feeling the ground push up as you drive forward. The overall feeling should be that of an inverted pendulum with the mass at the top, such that your foot acts as the pivot, supporting and carrying you effortlessly over the top.

Secondly, spinal posture. Too many runners can be seen slumped forward and collapsing into their centre. This happens for a number of reasons (avoiding injured areas, poor soft tissue mobility, short hips…) but is a huge waste of energy, since it saps the natural rhythm from the elastic properties of the connective tissues. Again, this is a complex issue which cannot be corrected instantly, but checking that your pelvis is level, and your chest is open are nice simple cues with positive outcomes.

By correcting and cleaning these up, you should find that your running is smoother, requires less effort and in the end, is more enjoyable.

Running is both simple and complex, the process theoretically easy (left right left right repeat until end) the biomechanics rather harder due to the compromised nature of our existence.

Teaching or advising on form is therefore a potentially treacherous path, since each runner will be unique in their compromises and blocks.

When working, I tend to offer only 3 pointers- eyes forward, hips open and push away. I might, if the client is in a well supported posture and I experienced in body sensing, encourage them to open their chest, or loosen their ankles, but to focus on more can prove difficult, especially when tired.

These generate no confusing instructions, allow the runner to optimise their gait cycle naturally and help trigger appropriate neurological messages without overload.

All of which help reduce fatigue, injury and improve training effect.

I don’t want to see you with back pain, knee problems and shoulder injuries.

These issues are far too common. I see lots of them each week and it bothers me. I spend most of my days fixing these problems and although I can and will do it quickly and efficiently, I would prefer not to.

I want to see you before they start.

I want to get you in the clinic and give you the toolkit you need to enjoy the most fantastic machine in the known solar system, your body.

It is possible to keep yourself free of all these problems through some simple exercises, movement patterns and awareness.

So lets not talk about injury and problems all the time, lets start talking about what you can do to avoid the problems in the first place.

It’ll cost you far less as well.