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On: scheduling

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There are 5 main barriers to exercise and lifestyle change.

  • Enjoyment
  • Access
  • Convenience
  • Affordability
  • Environment

Enjoyment: if you don’t enjoy the activity you aren’t going to be able to sustain it. This is not the same as not enjoying it during, when it’s challenging and perhaps painful, but whether it provides a sustainable level of enjoyment that reinforces its benefits over the discomfort.

Access: if you can’t access the appropriate facilities to support the activity then you aren’t going to participate. For example, if you like swimming but the nearest pool is 15 miles away then you are not going do it. Similarly, if the only gym is in a building with stairs and you are less mobile then you won’t go.

Convenience: you’ve found an activity you enjoy and a place to do it. But the timing is wrong, the only available slots or classes are when you are at work, or putting the kids to bed then you aren’t going to make it work.

Affordability: even if the location is good, it’s an activity you enjoy, and the timings are convenient. Another block is affordability. If you cannot afford it you simply won’t be able to do it.

Environment: you’ve got the activity, you’ve got the access, you’ve got the convenience. You can even afford it. The last one is environment. If it feels wrong, or doesn’t allow you to feel right then you won’t do it. From dark streets in the ending preventing you in feeling confident running, gym bros laughing and filming everything, to a crowded and cluttered family lounge preventing a home workout, the environmental barriers can be quite subtle but significant.

Simply being aware of these potential barriers can help all concerned, from health and exercise professionals to patients and clients, plan and adapt their goals to better serve their outcomes.

A reflection on training planning

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When thinking about training planning, whether for personal development or competition, there are a number of variables we all need to consider, whether as the trainer or trainee.

Underlying it all and before we can even start planning, we need to work out where the following are:

  • Intention
  • Attention
  • Focus

Both for the immediate goal and the longer term structure. Once these have been identified, and there can be only one or two main intention points, then the next step can be assessed.

Here, we need to look at which phase of training we are in. If we are a beginner, or have been training for only a short period of time, then we are still in base development, where we are learning the mechanics and improving work capacity. As we improve, we can start working on the individual elements of our chosen discipline. These can include:

  • Skill
  • Stamina
  • Strength
  • Speed

These lead to a development of work capacity. Or, the ability to do something faster, more accurately and for longer and more efficiently.

When looking at each days training plan, it goes through 4 phases, the length of which dependent on the above goals and the physiological status.

  • Move
  • Groove
  • Load
  • Cruise

We first start to move, to explore the body’s capacity for work that day, consider recovery from the last training session or injury. We then start to groove in the movements that we will be training that day. Once warm and ready, we can finally get the load moving, whether that is under a barbell, a HIT phase or a bike ride. Once we have completed the scheduled work, we finally cruise down, checking in again to note how we went, and to feedback for the next session.

The final, often overlooked and probably as important element of training is the recovery and nutrition. However, we tend to look at the work rather than the recovery, believing that more is better, which for most people, it tends to be, given the rest of their lifestyles, but with that, the nutrition element still has to be considered, and for most people, should be one of their two main attention points. Nutrition is a huge, complex and troublesome area, can be generally be summed up succinctly as:

“Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat”

Greg Glassman

Now, forget everything, go and play.

You evolved to run…

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It has been said many times before, especially here, that you evolved to run. The combination of an independent respiratory system (via diaphragmatic control), the ability to lose heat via sweat, the nuchal ligament in the neck, large gluteals and an achilles tendon all indicate that we run. There are also evolutionary theories that indicate our brains developed to allow us to predict the behaviours of animals we were hunting.

Running also has a fantastic effect on the skeleton, triggering hormones in the long bones that help control appetite (Lipocalin-2), driving osteogenesis (the continued creation of new bone) and preventing degeneration. It even helps neurogenesis, the creation of new brain cells and nerve pathways, by flushing fresh blood through at a much higher rate for longer, as well as suppressing excessive glucose storage by forcing muscles to use it as fuel.

Many people, including respected orthopaedic surgeons, believe that running is not healthy for the joints, and that it will leave to early degeneration. There is some validity to this concern, but with a certain number of caveats. If you have not run for a significant period of time, or are overweight, then you may experience joint pain when you start. Similarly, if you are not biomechanically efficient, then you find it harder work than you expect. Not only that, if you look at indigenous runners, they don’t do it in the same way we consider standard, rather running and walking, depending on the terrain.

However, a number of studies (https://doi.org/10.1002/art.24840, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00167-013-2686-6) as well as others, show that there is no detrimental impact on the joints, with some evidence that it actually helps strengthen the tissues.

What is the practical upshot of this? If you can, start running. Carefully, steadily and allowing a great deal of time. The upside far outweighs the downs. If you can’t, cycle or walk.

If you want to start running, do so slowly. Follow the NHS couch to 5k program. Given that any weight over your theoretical optimal (BMI of 23 – 27 depending on muscle mass) is increased load on the joints, limit your long runs to reduce the chance of injury while you work on the weight. And, as you approach a maintainable weight, you will experience the benefits far more than the lows.

If you can’t run, do something that mimics the cardiovascular and skeletal load. Lift weights, row, walk at a rate that leaves you sweaty, it all helps.

Beyond 3 basic skills

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Previously, the 3 basic movement skills were raised.

These were:

  1. Getting off the floor from lying on your front
  2. Getting off the floor from lying on your back
  3. Walking at least a mile carrying a load

These use the primal movement patterns and the vast majority of us have been able to do them since the age of 2.

We can therefore advance these and actually start to develop them as a physical practice to improve our health, with very little other equipment.

If you have not exercised for a while, or have pre-existing medical conditions, please do consult your GP or practice nurse for a health check before starting any program.

As a test day, start by going for a brisk walk, sufficient to get you slightly breathless after 10 minutes, then aim for a mile, or 20 minutes. Once in a safe place and once you are warm, get on the ground. First, from your front, get up. Then from your back.

If that was challenging, or you struggled to get up, your first month would be simply practicing until you can do 10 from both front and back.

Once you can do that, you can add some more load.

With nothing more than a couple of bin liners, a reel of strong tape, an old rucksack and a bag of builder’s ballast (sand / gravel mix), you can create all you need for a very effective workout.

Fill a bin liner with a few kilos of the ballast. Tape it into a strong, short sausage shape and place this in another bag for safety. Create a few of these, of differing weights.

Once you have the weights, put sufficient in your rucksack to equal 5-10 kilos then do a 30 minute walk at a brisk pace.

Once back, adjust the load in the rucksack to about 2-5kg and perform 10 front get ups with the bag on. The, taking a sausage across your shoulder, perform 5 with it on the right before doing 5 on the left. As you get stronger, increase both the load in the rucksack for the walk and the getup challenge.

You should find that that provides a decent workout and can act as a gateway to more training techniques.

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.

Thoughts on taping

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Having recently attended a very interesting taping course, I have been thinking more about possible mechanisms of function.

If you have not worked with modern kinetic tapes, they are woven cotton strip, normally 5cm wide, with an adhesive backing. The materials used in manufacture mean that the tape has the ability to stretch, allowing it to support or follow the skin. This also means that it has less ability to support or inhibit motion, since there is less strength in the cloth.

The tape can be applied either under tension or free, which apparently gives it different functionality and there is some evidence that it is effective, not just in supporting injuries, but also in reducing eodema and bruising.

It is the method of function that interests me, as unlike the older zinc oxide white tape, which is used to immobilise and support an area, this is used to guide and improve movement.

Others are doing far better research on this, but my overall impression of this tape is that, rather than guiding a muscle or joint through the physical properties within the material, it is improving neuromuscular feedback and athletic perception of the affected area, in turn leading to better patterns. I also suspect that it is dynamically guiding the fascia, around the structures, which in turn is improving the allowed function there. And, as we know, the fascia can connect many apparently unrelated structures so again, complete examination is required to ensure the most effective placement.

With these thoughts in mind, I am considering the use of kinetic tapes more in my practice and attempting to be more creative with their application.