Exercise Tip of the Week: Running is NOT Strength Training for the Lower Body!

On the left, 2008 Olympic marathon gold medallist Sammy Warinju.  On the right, 2008 Olympic weightlifting silver medallist in the men's 232 lbs weight class, Dmitry Klokov.  Who do you think has the stronger legs?

This one is for all my family, friends, acquaintances, and enemies who adhere to the belief that they do not need to do weightlifting for their legs, because they run, bike, or spend time on the elliptical.  If you spend time in the gym/weight room with the goal of getting strong, big, powerful, building endurance, or all of the above, you need to lift weights, or at least engage in some kind of resistance training, for EVERY part of your body.  Period. 

Running, biking, going on the elliptical, or doing some other kind of long duration aerobic work alone will not give you big, strong, or powerful legs, nor will it give you the other various benefits that resistance training will. Sprint training, however, is a good compliment to these things, but it works better when combined with weightlifting. Something you can get from aerobic work on these machines is local muscular endurance, so if that is your goal, than doing these things without weightlifting is fine, especially for endurance athletes.  Running, biking, or ellipcitcal-ing will not give you any of the other same adaptations as other types of resistance training.  Here's why, in a nutshell:

1. Long duration aerobic work does not elicit the right kind of muscle contractions to build size or strength.
2. Long duration aerobic training does not stimulate the type of muscle tissue that gets you big or strong as a result of resistance training.
3.Long duration aerobic training does not put the same stress on the body that resistance training does, and thus will not result in the same benefits.

Those are the main reasons that the treadmill, bike, etc will not give you the same results as resistance training.  I gave that short list because the scientific explanations behind those reasons are lengthy.  If you want a more in depth explanation as to why you need to suck it up and do squats, keep reading.

1. Lack of Eccentric Muscle Contractions.
An eccentric muscle contraction is one where the muscle contracts while actually getting longer, such as the phase of a bicep curl where you lower the dumbbell from your shoulder back down to arm's length.  Eccentric contractions are important because it is the eccentric portion of a movement in which the main stress is put on the muscle that will cause it to get bigger (and to a lesser degree, stronger).  When on an elliptical or cycling machine, there is no eccentric phase to the movement - in other words, there is no type of contraction that results in bigger or stronger muscles.  When running, there are eccentric contractions (they happen every time your foot hits the ground).  However, they are through a very short range of motion, they don't last the same length of time, and they do not bring forth as much force as eccentric contractions induced from resistance training do. 

2. Lack of stimulation to type II muscle fibers. 
We have two main types of muscle tissue in our body that cause movement - type I and type II muscle fibers.  Type I fibers cannot produce a lot of force and resist fatigure very well, so they are our main endurance muscle fibers.  Type I fibers also do not get much bigger, no matter what kind of training you do.  Sammy Warinju up top is chock full of type I muscles.  Type II muscles, on the other hand, fatigue quite easily, but can generate a ton of force.  They are the "fast twitch" muscles in our body, and they can grow considerably in size due to resistance training.  Dmitry Klokov is made up of mostly type II fibers.  Unless you are doing some kind of sprint training that requires short bouts of high force generation, no amount of time on the treadmill, elliptical, or bike is going to stimulate the type II muscle fibers in your legs.  As a result, no amount of time on the treadmill, elliptical, or bike will give you the size, strength, or power results you might be seeking during your time at the gym.

3. Lack of necessary stress to the body.
When I say "stress", I mean positive stress from exercise that is actually healthy for the body to endure.  Any weight bearing activity will cause adaptations to the body such as increased bone density, increased muscle strength, and enhanced tendon/ligament health.  However, the degree to which these adaptations takes place depends on such things as the loads put on the tissues/joints, or the range of motion through which they move.
Any movement we do on aerobic training machines rarely moves our hips, knees, or ankles through the same range of motion that many weightlifting exercises can.  Even if you do crank up the "incline" on the elliptical and you have to lift your knees really high, the force that our muscles must generate and that our joints and bones must sustain will still not be as high as when doing something like a squat or deadlift.
So yes, I'm saying the fact that a squat or deadlift stresses the body more than running or cycling is a GOOD thing!  When these exercises are done with proper technique, the stress on the body leads to our muscles, joints, and bones re-building themselves to be even stronger than they were before - not to mention stronger and healthier than aerobic machines can ever make them!

I'm not saying nobody should ever do cardio.  Trust me, I'm not one of "those guys".  Cardiovascular training is very important, and lots of people enjoy aerobic machines and should use them as much as they want to.  Just don't expect your legs to be as big, strong, or healthy as they possibly can be if cardio machines are the only training you ever do for your legs!


I almost forgot - resistance training results in LIFELONG health of the lower body!

Health Tip of the Week: Online food/exercise logs - to use or not to use?

In the quest to get healthy and meet health related goals, a lot of people have started logging their workouts or counting their calories using online exercise journals and caloric intake/expenditure calculators.  My girlfriend recently started using one herself, so of course I was skeptical (since I'm skeptical of just about everything) and had to investigate.  I will go through the pros and cons of such web sites by going over a few features of the food and exercise logs and calculators on http://www.livestrong.com/, as this is the one my girlfriend has been using and I have gone through with her.

Pros:

• It helps you meet goals you set: My girlfriend's main goal is simply to lose weight.  Putting her age, height, and current weight into a calculator on the web site gave her Basal Metabolic Rate, or BMR, which is the number of calories you burn simply from existing.  Then she picked her goal of losing one pound per week (which is a great goal, as it is healthy and realistic!).  Based on her BMR and her weight loss goal, she is given a target number of calories to consume each day to meet her goal.
• Calorie counting: The MyPlate feature of livestrong.com lets you enter the food you ate and tells you how many calories you get from carbohydrates, fats, and protein in that food. This makes counting the calories you consume through the day very quick and simple.  It also lets you see how much food (and how much of which foods) you ate, which helps you spot if you are eating too much of one thing or not enough of another.  You can even track how much water you drink throughout the day!
• Logging your exercise: The same feature on the livestrong web site lets you input what kind of exercise you did that day, and how long you did it for.  You can also input general physical activity, like gardening.  It then tells you how many calories you expended doing those activities.  This allows you to track your exercise and physical activity to see how much you really do from day to day.
• Showing the relationship between diet and exercise.  The coolest feature of the livestrong web site is that it calculates caloric intake from food and caloric expenditure from physical activity all at once.  It then shows you if you are over or under your goal for the day.  For instance, if your caloric intake goal is 1,500 calories a day, and you consume 1,700 calories but burn 300 calories throughout the day, your net caloric intake is 1,400 calories, and you have met your goal!  This is a great visual representation of how it takes BOTH diet and exercise to lose weight (or meet any fitness goal).

Cons:

• Body composition doesn't seem to be addressed. I didn't find anything on how much of your body is fat weight vs. lean weight (which is bones, muscle, skin, everything on your body other than fat.)  While there is no good way to assess one's body composition without using equipment in person, it would be good to at least have a mention of it somewhere.  When trying to lose weight, losing fat is good - losing bone, muscle, or fluid, however, is not!
• The numbers are not 100% accurate. It's necessary to measure exact serving sizes to get an accurate caloric measure of the food you eat, which most people don't do.  Same thing with exercise - its possible that even two people of the same size can expend a different amount of calories when doing the exact same exercise.  This is not to say that the numbers are wildly off-base, as most of them give you a general idea of what you have eaten or expended.  Just not an exact amount.

So are they good to use or should I not bother?
I think online journals and logs like this are great tools for someone who is just starting out exercising or changing their eating habits.  They let you visually see what you eat, what you don't eat, and how much exercise you do or don't do.  This is a great tool to have when trying to make lifestyle changes.  People simply need to keep in mind that when losing weight, they should try to focus on losing excess mass (fat) and not lean mass (bone and muscle).  The numbers from these sites also shouldn't be taken too literally, as they will never be 100% accurate.  But they can be very good guidelines that can set you on the right path to your fitness goals.

Meeting fitness goals is much easier if you can SEE what you are doing each day, and online logs make that convenient and easy to do.

Health Tip of the Week: The Importance of Trunk and Hip Musculature Endurance

Well, its a day late, but here it is, my newest health tip of the week!  This one deals with the importance of
muscular endurance as it relates to the muscles of the trunk and hips.

The muscles of the trunk and hips are ones that stabilize the spine, and all its related structures.  If the spine is not held in alignment for long periods of time, tissues can get damaged, nerves can get pinched, discs can slip/herniate, etc - in short, an unstable spine = back pain.

So what do the muscles of the hips have to do with the spine?  Well, the muscles of the hips are connected to the pelvis, which is the base of the spine.  Many muscles connect the pelvis to the spine as well.  Thus, it is possible to have a structurally healthy spine, but if certain muscles of the hips are too tight/too flexible, or too weak/too strong, the pelvis can be pulled out of alignment, which in turn will affect the spine as well. 

A few illustrations showing how many muscles attach to both the spine and pelvis, or the femur (thigh bone) and pelvis.  If just one of those muscles connected to the pelvis is too weak, tight, or loose, it can effect all the other connected structures!

Ok, so the spine, pelvis, and all connected muscles are interrelated.  Why is endurance of the trunk and pelvis musculature important?  We spend most of the day either sitting or standing up.  That whole time, our spine needs to be held in proper alignment.  All day.  Every day.  Hence, if those muscles that stabilize our spine are not able to work for long periods of time, they get tired, and can't hold our backbones or pelvis in the proper position anymore! 

I've heard that just the abs (or psoas, or multifidus, etc) need to be strong to alleviate back pain.  Is that not true?  It is not just one muscle that holds our spine and pelvis in proper alignment - it is ALL of the muscles on all sides of our trunk and hips that do this work! If one muscle is weak, tight, or loose, it can cause problems, but one specific muscle doesn't do all the work for one task. Our back muscles, obliques (muscles on our sides), our abs, and a whole host of deeper muscles (such as the psoas or multifidus) must all work together to brace our spine in a healthy position. 

Alright, so what exercises should I do to increase my trunk-hip muscular endurance?  Isometric exercises (exercises where you don't move) or, what I have begun to call iso-dynamic exercises (ones in which you are moving, but are trying to keep a certain part of your body still) are just as good as any type of sit-up, crunch, or dynamic trunk exercise, and they might very well be more applicable to what we do in the real world.  Lets elaborate:

Isometric exercises

The king of all isometric trunk and hip exercises is the plank and all its variations.  You can also do bridges, which target the lower back and the gluteal muscles (your butt). Different types of planks target different areas of the trunk and hips, but they all force your muscles to hold your spine, hips, and/or whole body in a straight line. Make sure to do different types of planks to hit your trunk and hips from all sides!

Iso-dynamic exercises

As I said earlier, an iso-dynamic exercise is one where you are moving your whole body, while trying to keep one part or parts of your body from moving too much.  Two examples are the bottoms-up kettlebell carry, and the overhead carry with a slosh bar. Both exercises invlove walking (the dynamic part), while your trunk and hips (as well as arms and shoulders) must hold the unstable load still while you are walking (the isometric part).  This static action of the trunk and hip muscles makes them work, which braces your spine and holds it in proper alignment.

So whats the best way to go about adding exercises like these to my workouts?

Here are the two ways which I believe are best:

• At the end of your workout, do two or more sets of different plank/bridge variations. Along the same lines, at the end of your workout, do two or more sets of some kind of iso-dynamic exercise, carrying the load for as long a distance as possible.  For the best results, do at least one type of isometric and one type of iso-dynamic exercise.  Whichever one it is, you want to be able to do the exercise for as long as possible, since that is what endurance is.  Therefore, you want to be able to hold that plank for as long as possible, or walk for the longest distance possible while carrying some kind of unstable load. 
• At the beginning of your workout, do these exercises as part of a warm-up.  By doing these exercises at the beginning of your workout, you "turn on" your trunk and hip muscles, and get them into "stabilization mode."  Be careful though, as you don't want to fully fatigue those muscles before going through the rest of your workout.  So you can still do two sets of isometric and iso-dynamic exercises, but don't go until failure.  Dial the length of your sets back a bit so that your trunk and hip muscles feel worked, but will still last through the end of the rest of your workout.

The moral of the story: having good endurance in ALL muscles of the trunk and hips that stabilize the spine and pelvis is important, both for the reduction of back pain and for long term back and hip health!

Quick Updates and Return of the Health Tips

So my last blog was in October.  This is mainly because of how busy I've been since then.  I randomly felt compelled to write a blog (and actually had enough time to do so) so here are some quick updates on things in my life.  I'm also hoping this will give me incentive to get back to writing once a week, but we'll see how that goes I guess...

Throwing and training:  Through January, I started making some great strides with my technique.  Mainly, using my abs, trunk, and upper body in order to push the ball more.  One of the ways I was accomplishing this was by driving my right hip into every turn.  Once I figured out how to do it, it was like a gas pedal I couldn't control - I'd go left, be on balance, have great releases, and all while going faster than I'd ever felt before.  I also noticed it would occaisionally bother my back a tad, but not nearly enough to worry about.  I figured this was because I was throwing a 16 and 18 pound hammer, and my body wasn't ready for those weights after some time off in the winter.  So, I decided to take some easy throws with a 4k one day.  However I was still going to try to work my technique like I had been, ie pushing with my hip - I figured my back would be fine.  It turns out that because I was throwing a 4k, and because I couldn't control my new technique, I ended up moving faster than my body could handle, and I strained my lower back.  I haven't thrown in a month.  There's a happy ending to this story though, which we'll go into during my health tip of the week later on...

Work: At Push To Walk, where I work as an exercise trainer for people with spinal cord injuries (SCI), I have been progressing in my training pretty well.  Since I last wrote a blog, I have started taking on my own clients, being fully responsible for planning and implementing their workouts.  It is awesome and fascinating to see not only how far SCI treatment has come in the previous few decades, but also how much further it has to go.  It is, however, an exciting time to be getting started in the field.  On top of the science involved in the job, it can be an emotional roller coaster sometimes, because as I get to know the clients, I begin to hear their stories.  Not only about how they may have gotten hurt, but about the things that some of them have to deal with in every day life.  There are also amazingly rewarding moments, however, like this one...



This is Kelly, a client at Push To Walk.  She sustained a C5 injury (broken neck) in 2006, leaving her with limited to no function of anything below her neck and shoulders.  This was a spontaneous video that happened to capture Kelly's first steps since she was hurt.  She is using a platform walker to support her body weight, and one of the trainers has his hands between her legs so that her legs don't cross.  Kelly, however, is moving her legs completely on her own, something she was not able to do for a long time after she got hurt.  It is moments like that keep me going, and that make me want to work even harder to bring all my clients to that level of recovery and beyond.

Life: Right at the beginning of the new year, my girlfriend and I tried (and miserably failed) to do the Paleo diet. Its something I've wanted to try for a while, but had never gotten around to.  You need to get rid of a lot of things while on the Paleo diet, like milk - which no force in the universe will ever get me to give up.  I might try again someday when I have more time to prepare and cook everything I eat, but for now, pasta and rice are just too damn convenient.

Science and Research:  I have partnered up with one of my old professors at East Stroudsburg University and have begun my first independent research study.  Remember the slosh bar and all the things I thought it might be able to do?  Also, how I said there's no research to measure or quantify what it can do to either prove or disprove my theories?  Well, I'm using all the fancy high tech equipment at ESU to try to get solid data to actually see what the effects of exercising with unstable resistance on a stable surface are on the body!

Since I promised to keep this blog entry short, I'll post the Health Tip of the Week (and subsequent happy ending to my throwing story) tomorrow.  This will also force me to make time to keep blogging...wish me luck!