It’s dark because you are trying too hard.
Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly.
Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply.
Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig.
Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me.

…

So throw away your baggage and go forward.

There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet,
trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair.
That’s why you must walk so lightly.
Lightly my darling,
on tiptoes and no luggage,
not even a sponge bag,
completely unencumbered.

-Aldous Huxley, Island

They say it takes zero muscles and energy to just sit there with no expression in your face while it requires tens if not hundreds of contractions to show any emotion or even a basic facial expression. Whoever they are, in this case they are spot on.

I can still remember a rowing coach yelling at me that I should be trying harder. Ok, let me rephrase, it LOOKED like I was too comfortable, so I must have been taking it easy – you know I didn’t have the grimace of intense torture that tells the whole world that you eat pain for breakfast, lunch and dinner with an extra side of suffering. I also had a nagging suspicion that was the main reason I got a negative review at a job (that I subsequently had to voluntarily ‘resign’ from) because I looked too comfortable and didn’t complain like the rest of my coworkers, so I must have been grossly inefficient and slacking. While my personal experiences are just that – experiences, I suspect you share them to a degree. Nowadays whether it is a professional setting, or a weekly training session or even a favorite past time hobby, it is highly accepted, even required to show the intense effort of whatever it is you are doing, lack of stress is for slackers! Yet when we look at any great athlete, craftsmen, etc they are a pleasure to watch in their controlled almost nonchalant movements, while obtaining great results. That raises the important question:

Why should you have to work hard, if you can do better with less effort?

This is the first out of a 4 part series focusing on details and fundamentals on how to (re)learn to move easy, it is not aimed only towards athletes, but towards everybody. I have separated the progam it into 4 separate articles.

• Phase 1: Activation and Awareness
• Phase 2: Integration
• Phase 3: Global Coordination – Whole Body Movements
• Phase 4: Dynamic Control – Making it Automatic

What you will read below is not just a program. The most important part are the exercise descriptions.

Why?

Terms like gluteal activation, yoga, mobility, flexibility, etc get randomly thrown around and you see in gyms worldwide, people trying to perform some of the movements described in this series.  The most important aspect of doing anything in life, that includes training is awareness – knowing WHY you do it. For a fancy term  it is called neuromuscular awareness – it’s your brain that runs the whole show. The mind and body note every movement pattern whether it is good or bad, so feed only the most efficient messages into the nervous system. Otherwise you are literally and figuratively just “going through the motions.” Undoubtedly you will notice patterns between all movements; it is easy to recognise the errors and identify them in other movements that you may use (daily, etc.). Therefore ‘feeling’ what is moving etc is the goal behind this series of 4 posts.

Functional movement is simple stuff, we are born to do it, yet we are very good at making things complicated. In addition the coaching establishment has made it all look like a mystery that only they – the professionals have the answer. We all want everything yesterday and simple trainings are wrongly viewed as weakness.

With that being said:

DO NOT SKIP Phase 1.

It doesn’t mean you are weak.

I repeat, do not skip Phase 1. Phase 2 and beyond type of movements represent some of the common gluteal activation, lunges, etc. exercises that you see some of the “more knowledgeable” personal trainers prescribe. Phase 1 should feel easy and certainly “doesn’t look cool” and probably why it is skipped over.

 You can see some of the weight training programs that I did in seasons past and you will without a doubt find the exact exercises. Also in my rowing days we had a core/body program that used almost all of the exact Phase 2 and 3 drills outlined in the series. We as a team had ZERO instruction why we had to do them (just a printout of photos and number of reps/set) and even less supervision if we were doing them correctly. My coaches at the time were convinced that: “If this was the same thing the national team was doing, it must be good for us. I am repeating myself though “banging square pegs in round holes” is NOT coaching or in the words of [amazon text=Tyler Durden&asin=0393327345].

Sticking feather up your butt does not make you a chicken.

“A movement is a movement so what is the big deal?”

If you do not have the basic and I do mean the quite fundamental muscle firing patterns that activate the deepest stabilising muscles, you are already starting in a disadvantaged, subotpimal and energy inefficient position. Therefore without having the awareness of how to set up your body for correct movement, you will find a way to go around it – you WILL compensate. If you compensate during training with isolated movements suboptmally, you WILL break down even more when under load, tension or fatigued (ie race day). Without a functional foundation (Phase 1) you are moving in a wrong way and this is NOT functional. In addition a highly active and correct muscle pattern (signals from the brain) is REQUIRED for building strength.

Before getting into the program there are words of the author who inspired this article:

Performance plateaux and chronic injuries relate to training which only asks “how many?”, “how much?”, “how far?” and “how fast?” without insisting on “how well?”

-[amazon text=Joanne Elphinston&asin=1905367422]

How to Approach the Program

If you just landed here, it would be wise to read Part 1 and Part 2 of the functional series, since that way you can avoid some confusion about why some of the exercises are included and also there you will find diagrams describing muscles such as GMax, GMed, TrA, etc – in short

Ideally, you would have performed the evaluation described here, though the good part is that we all get broken up in the same way – just the degree varies. Muscle imbalances form patterns and in our mostly sedentary way of life our butt muscles (GMax and GMed) get inactive and we use our “abs,” to tense up and hold our breath to stabilise the trunk when we “give it all.” As such this general 4 phase approach would benefit most people. For further more specific education, I have included some publications at the end of this article. In addition a PDF version is available for download at the end of this post.

• Do NOT Skip Phase 1.
• Perfect execution is key. Do less repetitions but perfect, rather than the full set with poor form.

Equipment

Equipment is rather simple. You will need a swiss ball that you can comfortably sit with knees at 90 degrees. Ball should be inflated enough to be firm. Do not deflate it in order to get a better fit.

The average person up to 170cm, (5’7″) will find a 55cm ball suitable and up to 185cm (6’2″), a 65cm ball will work nicely. If you are over 190cm (6’3″), a 75cm ball should be used.

Also you will need a stretch band (available at physiotherapy/fitness stores) and a weight (NOT heavy) that you can hold like a medicine ball.

Phase 1: Activation and Awareness

Duration: 2 weeks or until movements can be performed effortlessly

When and How often?: 2-3/week

As the title suggests, this phase focuses on teaching the connection between the brain and the muscles you are trying to activate – in this case the deep stabilisers. These muscles work at low levels for looong periods of time and act as a support for all movements. Why?

If you put roller skates and stand next to a wall and push against it two things can happen.

If the wall is flimsy you will push it over and you won’t roll far if at all. However if the wall is stable you will be able to push as hard as you can. When it comes to the human body the spine, pelvic and shoulder girdles can be viewed as the wall and the stabilising muscles is what makes that wall stable (and also what holds the body up so you don’t collapse on the floor as a bunch of bones/bricks.) It is this stability that allows for powerful leg and arm movements.

We don’t think much about the stabilisers, which is why it is easy to use other larger and sensory “louder” muscles. For example, you can see your quads and feel them as they contract more and more.

You are looking for effortless control of your pelvis and trunk area while you are moving your arms and legs. Do NOT be fooled that you are not doing anything. It is an activation and NOT a strengthening routine.

Movements are simple and do not be surprised that they might seem awkward at first. Pay very careful attention to what and where you are feeling it.

Aim for PERFECT movement every time. As you fatigue and start using additional muscles or “go back to old habits,” switch to another exercise. Phase 1 movements are perfect for warmup and in between (weight) sets, etc.

Ball Bouncing

6x30s as a starting exercise

Among the most fundamental movements that we our muscles are hardwired (LINK) to do is the ability to resist gravity. Particularly the deep stabilisers around the spine. You can emphasize that movement by “ball bouncing”

Sit on a swiss ball and find your sitbones with your hands. Arch your back back and forth and feel your pelvis tipping forward and backward. Find the position where you are sitting directly above your sitbones. This is the position for ALL seated exercises.

Stretch both arms overhead and feel your stomach draw in as you do that. Squeeze your butt muscles and as such initiating a slight bounce. Make sure you are ‘landing’ directly on your sitbones

• Possible problems: Inability to contract the glutes (butt muscles)
• Solution: Glute bridge (see below)

Seated Knee Lift

2 sets of 10reps/side

“Tight hip flexors” gets thrown around as a thing that people have. Even more frequently the idea that you should just “stretch them out” is toted as the solution. However, why did you get tight hips flexors to begin with? If you used them as a way to balance your trunk, muscles not designed for a stabilising role react in two ways. They become overactive and tight and their full range of motion is limited (they are always half on). Therefore you need to get your deep trunk stabilisers activated and give your hip flexors a break.

Sit directly over your sitbones on the edge of a chair. Lift both arms to the side; they will be your reference for any unwanted side to side movement. Take a deep breath (don’t tense up) and lift one leg off the floor and hold it for 5seconds. Your arms should not have moved and no visible activity of your “abs” should be happening. You should be able to breathe effortlessly by expanding your ribcage. You should feel your lower abdominals working and the lifted leg should be straight (correct if not).

Once comfortable on the stable chair you can perform the Seated Knee Lift on an unstable surface (swissball, etc)

Greyhound

One of the easiest and hence most (ab)used way to stabilise your trunk/spine is by tensing your abdominal muscles. That is why core strength is labeled as extremely important, right? Not exactly. The deep abdominal stabilisers are perfectly suited for that and function at low energy cost and do NOT limit breathing (by tightening the ribcage). The Greyhound is an exercise to activate and increase your awareness of that important muscle group. In sports where maintaining a stable trunk while moving the arms and legs (rowing, cycling, etc) overactive abdominals limit breathing, fluency of movement and have a high energy cost.

There is a progression from Greyhound 1 to Greyhound 3 and adding increased skill and load demands afterwards. Follow the numbers=).

Greyhound 1.0

3 Sets of 10 reps/side

Lie on the floor with knees bent; feet flat on the floor. Put your palms on your lower abs, just above your navel. Feel your breathing. Release any unnecessary tension from your abs as you exhale. Do NOT force exhaling. While still breathing normally and relaxed, move one arm above your head – feel your stomach drop toward the floor just like a greyhound and your spine and rib cage lengthening.

Think of releasing your spine rather than pinning your back towards the floor. Your back should not arch and you shouln’t need your abs. Once you can relax proceed to version 2.0

Greyhound 2.0

3 Sets of 10 reps/side

Same as above though this time take both arms overhead. You are still lengthening your spine. You should not feel like you are bracing your abdominals. Arms should move with almost no effort. Once you can do the above without tension, it is time to add some challenges – skill and load

Greyhound 3.1: Increased Skill

3 Sets of 10 reps/side

Perform Greyhound 2.0 and once relaxed slide on heel on the floor trying to get it as far as possible from your fingertips

Greyhound 3.2: Increased Load

You need a small weight (1-2kg/2-4lbs) that you can hold with both hands. Perform Greyhound 2.0 and move the weight with as little effort as possible above your head. No abdominal tension and no back arching as the basic exercise.

Glute Bridge

2 Sets of 5-10reps

The glute bridge is among the most popular gluteal activation exercises. I don’t have to repeat though that if a muscle is inactive  others will take its role and as such there are wrong ways to perform the glute bridge. Among them are using your back extensors and/or hamstrings.

Lie on the floor with knees bent and feet flat at shoulder width apart. Relax your abs, flatten your back by rolling your pelvis towards you and slowly lifting your butt of the floor. You are curling up rather than going vertically up. Hold the position for 10 seconds. You should feel your butt muscles doing most of the work.

You should NOT feel tension in your back muscles or hamstrings. If you feel any discomfort/tension there, lie down and try rolling the pelvis more towards you. As you go back to the starting position you are uncurling – ie putting one vertebrae after the other on the floor and not just straight up and down.

Experiment. If you have really inactive glutes it might take a session or tow until you can actually control the tension in your lower back etc.

Clam

2 Sets of 5-10 reps/side

The gluteus medius or GMed is crucial for stabilising the pelvis ie keeping it level when you are switching balance (when walking, running, etc) from one leg to the other as well as internally rotating the thigh. If GMed is inactive you will use the big abdominal muscles in a stabilising role and limiting breathing and adding a lot of tension. The clam is the perfect exercise for isolating the GMed, though there are wrong ways to do it (such as too fast, wrong position etc. and I have done them as well..).

Lie sideways with the top arm in front of you. Your knees should be at around 90 degrees or less and when relaxed the top knee should overlap the bototm by about 5cm (2in). That way your pelvis is tilted forward, therefore you cannot use some of the bigger muscles (Gluteus maximus, etc) to compensate. Raise the top leg up (spread your knees like a clamshell) and hold it for a 10s count; you should feel tension at the top of your butt. Slowly come back to the starting position. If performed correctly the overlap should still be there. Only the leg should move, you shouldn’t’ be rolling your body back and forth.

Superman

1-2 Sets of 5-10 Reps/side

This is yet another exercise that when performed correctly does wonders and when done wrong is of little value. The Superman coordinates the stabilisers along the entire body. As noted above you are looking for relaxed but firm position with no extra effort and no abdominal “tensing up,” breathe freely.

Start on hands and knees with your head and neck in straight alignment with your spine; Hands under your shoulders, knees under your hips. Draw your belly upwards and press your chest up so that your spine is straight. Press directly out with one heel, straightening your leg; make sure your pelvis doesn’t sag or drop. Stretch out the opposite arm as far away as you can – your shoulders shouldn’t drop and your back should remain flat. Hold for 5 seconds and return to the quadruped position.

Variation 1: Start in your basic superman position with opposite arm and leg outstretched. Move your arm out to the side, then under your body, and straight out in  ont again. Your trunk should remain still throughout the movement.

Variation 2: Increase speed of dynamic control. Perform the Superman as described above; however this time snap your arm and leg out into position and then hold for a moment to ensure that you have hit the target position. Bring your arm and knee back under your body.

Once you can perform 10 PERFECT repetitions you are ready for the next level.

Hovering superman

Same position as above, however lift your knees off the ground. Same points as above apply. Hold for a 5 count.

Conclusion

We all have those moments when we just say

I never knew  I had all these muscles

With Phase 1  I hope to have introduced you to a new friend – your deep stabilising muscles. We have this predominant tendency to show to the world that we are trying hard and as such we had forgotten the feeling of effortless-ness. Therefore it is time to relearn to enjoy how easy should really feel like and use this awareness as a base for any of your movements. Just remember – great champions are the ones who make the difficult look easy.

PDF FILE DOWNLOAD: Fluent_Movement_Phase_1_Activation_and_Awareness_TheTallCyclist

Stay tuned for the following training phases for fluent and efficient movement.

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For Further Information

As someone who grew up with the “Do More Harder” and “No Pain, No Gain” mentality I give a lot of the credit towards my understanding of efficient movement and towards the newly regained awareness of my body to:

[amazon text=Stability, Sport and Performance Movement&asin=1905367422] – Joanne Elphinston

[amazon template=thumbnail&asin=1905367422]

This article is for my personal use and educational purposes only, please always consult a licensed health professional. I cannot be held responsible for any damages caused by the information contained in this article.

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The post Making it Look Easy – Functional Movement for Endurance Sports appeared first on The Tall Cyclist.

It’s funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they’ll do practically anything you want them to.

-J. D. Salinger

This article comes so late in the Functional series for a reason. You MUST have very good functional movement/technique, full range of motion and sufficient mobility and body control otherwise you will be adding strength to dysfunction and in the end hurt yourself, not if but when – in short you are limiting your progress. Unfortunately, strength training/gym work, is where almost everybody starts when they ‘want to get serious.’  Therefore, I highly advise you to head over to Fit, Fast, but Are you Functional before continuing with the article below.

The above quote by J.D. Salinger is unfortunately quite valid when it comes to strength training for endurance sports or strength training and gym work in general. Training advice varies from anecdotal to contradictory to plain dangerous. The same questions crop up all the time, with endless repetition of ‘wisdom and personal experience.’

Should you lift heavy until exhaustion or use light weights as fast as you can with no rest? Why choose one over the other? What is strength? What is power? (I have a power meter on my bike so it must be a power sport!). “Just go to the gym and find something to do, anything is better than nothing!” Marathoners don’t need strength, just endurance, but my training partner is an Ironman triathlete and he lifts weights and beats everybody etc., etc. If you asked yourself why on any of these questions, the following article is for you. If you did not, that this article is definitely for you.

Sadly, and I have been a victim to that myself, most strength training approaches follow two paradigms:

1. If it was good for him/her, it must be good for me. I call that the banging of square pegs in round holes.
2. If some is good – more is better!

Combine the two and you get rocket fuel – uncontrolled explosion or in simpler terms overtraining and (debilitating) injury, most importantly dissatisfaction with (or worse quitting)  the amazing world of (competitive) sports.

The problem with the above principles is that they completely ignore what you, your body, or your sport/activity needs. A distance runner and a 100m sprinter come to mind – same activity, different demands – 10s all out vs. hours of resisting fatigue.

So what are the needs of your particular sport?

Elements of It All

Almost all physical activities, including sports, incorporate elements of force , quickness, duration. In simple terms – strength, speed, and endurance. Any of those three that requires a higher contribution is said to be a dominant ability. A good number of sports require mastery and peak performance in two abilities.

Why?

Strength + Endurance = Muscular endurance or the ability to perform many repetitions against resistance for long periods of time (turning a big gear on the bike, overcoming water drag when swimming and resisting gravity when running.) Therefore strength is important for endurance (dominant) sports and events. I get into the why (physiology) of it in the coming paragraphs

Strength + Speed = Power or the ability to perform an explosive movement in the shortest time possible (fastball in baseball, javelin throw, etc.)

Speed + Endurance = Speed endurance or the ability to repeat a high velocity action several times per game (cutting in basketball, soccer, ice hockey etc.)

At this point is where a lot of the confusion comes in and the banging of square pegs into round holes galore begins, even in some ‘respected cycling books.’ For example, the fact that you have power meters in cycling does NOT make it a power (dominant) sport and that pure endurance (dominant) sports would not benefit from strength training. Yes you might need to sprint occasionally in a bike race, however, it does not come remotely close to Usain Bolt’s olympic 100m sprint winning effort. You are still in the extreme corner of the triangle, and trying to get to the ‘sprinter’s region’ is useful only if you plan on hanging up your bike for good and putting on a pair of running cleats.

In the graph below are some examples of where various sports fall into. ALL EVENTS lasting longer than 6min, fall into the extreme right corner.

• Track, 200 meters: Acceleration power, reactive power
• 4,000-meter pursuit: M-E medium, acceleration power
• Road racing/TT: M-E long

So me (the endurance athlete), do I need, to do strength training or not?

Short answer is yes. Long answer is let me explain….

How Did the Confusion Start?

When it comes to strength training, a lot of it has been (wrongly) influenced by five schools of thought

Bodybuilding: When you think the gym and/or strength training/lifting weights you imagine Arnold Scharzenegger and the like. Every poster and gym oriented magazine is more or less entirely influenced by bodybuilding. Size and appearance (NOT functionality) are the name of the game. Speed and strength are not a focus at all. The bodybuilding method employs 6-12 reps to exhaustion resulting in increase in muscle mass (hypertrophy). Besides sports like american football, increase in muscle mass is rarely beneficial. In addition as exercises are performed to fatigue the rate of muscle contractions are 4-6 times SLOWER than in any athletic ability. Slow is rarely a positive attribute in any sport.

High-intensity training (HIT): All year (season) long with 20-30min per session until positive failure (you can’t lift the weight without the help of a spotter).  Adherents to that school of thought stand firmly behind “harder and faster every session,” with disregard to the competition schedule and the need for peak performance. This is extremely stressful and relies predominantly on burning glucose (why you crave sweets afterwards…), rather than fat, so it is overall detrimental to health and endurance performance (more details in my carbohydrate article). HIT is very taxing for your body, add to that a job, family, not sleeping correctly and it can contribute to overtarining significantly. In addition, if you have any technical deficiencies aka dysfunctions this is the absolutely best way to hurt yourself…badly. Rates of injuries in Crossfit are in the 75% figures – absolutely insane and that must stop!

Olympic weight lifting: Clean and jerk, power clean and snatch are the moves that encompass olympic weight lifting. In my opinion the technique (learned with a broomstick or light barbell) to do those type of lifts is extremely important since it teaches you to use your bodyweight against resistance, organize your spine, generate torque, etc. HOWEVER, unless you are training for a competition that involves those specific movements, they are of NO USE to you, zero, none, zilch. Why? Olympic lifts rarely, if at all work the muscles the way they are used in (most sport) activities. Unfortunately this method is a direct victim to the “if some is good, more is better” and coaches keep putting them in schedules left, right and center.

Power training throughout the year: While this does not apply to endurance sports, it deserves a mention. A lot of track and field coaches train power year long using plyometrics (medicine balls, etc; remember fast+strong=power). Athletes will improve, however, as discussed above strength is a component of power and as such spending a period to improve maximum strength will have a very positive improvement on power. And that brings me to…

Periodization of Strength: Strength training for your particular sport must meet the physiological demands (10s all out vs 4+h steady pace) and should ultimately result into the development of either power OR muscular endurance (look at the triangle). Sounds logical though as you have seen above, it is rarely the preferred method. This is an extremely successful approach develped by [amazon text=Tudor Bompa&asin=1450469434].

So how heavy and how often should I be lifting?

Muscle Contractions and You

As mentioned in the muscle imbalance article, it all starts with your brain or your central nervous system (CNS). Each muscle is innervated by two types of neurons – motor (responsible for movement) and sensory (relaying signals of pain and position).

Muscle fibers vary in length (couple of inches to 3ft/1m). Fibers grouped together form a fascicule that are held together by the perimysium. In tern, each fiber is made of myofibrils that contain the moving units – sarcomeres. Each sarcomere contains thick filaments (myosin – purple) and thin ones (actin – green) that form crosslink and slide towards each other when a contraction occurs. Please see the pictures below.

Three factors determine how strong a muscle can contract – fiber count, fiber length and fiber thickness. There is not much you can do about your fiber count – you are born with it. Through training you can increase the fiber thickness. Fiber length – the most optimum contraction occurs when the most number of cross bridges can happen in the sarcomere. Coincidentally that is at the resting length of the muscle. HOWEVER, as discussed in the muscle imbalance article, if a muscle is partly contracted or ‘tight,’ it is more readily activated and the contractile force is reduced. Same goes when a muscle is stretched – actin filaments (green) are too far from the myosin (purple) for a significant number of cross bridges to occur. This is yet another strike against static stretching!

Motor units

Muscle fibers and motor neurons form to combine a motor unit. One neuron can connect to one or more fibers. When an impulse comes either ALL fibers contract or none – all or none law. Low load/light weight results in the recruitment of some motor units.  As the weight increase more motor units are recruited. Therefore the first takeaway point is:

To exercise the whole muscle heavy or maximal weight must be used when every motor unit is engaged.

As you probably know muscle fibers are grouped into slow twitch (ST/endurance fibers – weaker but fatigue resistant) and fast twitch (FT/sprint fibers – strong and fatiguing). Anatomically the difference between the two is in the innervation. A slow twitch fiber has 10-180 fibers that are connected to a single motor neuron while a FT one has 300-500+ fibers. You see now why it is through heavy/maximal load NOT to fatigue you train your FT fibers. As soon as the FT fibers are tired, you will switch to using the small motor units of the ST fibers.

Maximum strength = the highest force that can be performed by the neuromuscular system during a maximal contraction.

If you ever observed how good (track cycling) sprinters train; warmup and couple of max efforts and than they go home – 10-20min total, you wonder how can they call themselves athletes!? Now you see why.

In the context of endurance events, when you have ‘activated all motor units’, the body has ‘reserves’ to call upon as noted above strength+endurance = muscular endurance. Even for non athletes, having that “neuromuscular awareness,” is very important. Another point I want to make here is that untrained subjects have 56% (!!!) of fast twitch fibers. A lot of research has been done and conversion between ST and FT fibers can occur, though the mechanisms are still unclear. Therefore genetics is no excuse or a legitimate reason to pick one activity over another.

Now before you go and load up the weights at the gym there are some additional important points that need addressing.

Creating a Strength Training Plan

Strength is at the top of the abilities triangle for a reason. It is a crucial component in muscular endurance and power. It is by developing strength that you can supplement and improve your endurance (ability to not fatigue under load). In the words of the father of strength training periodization – [amazon text=Tudor Bompa&asin=1450469434] strength training should follow the specific needs for the sport or in technical terms – anatomical adaptation (learning correct movement, etc), followed by maximum strength phase, conversion to muscular endurance phase and off season (transition). Or in simple terms:

How to periodize?

Cycling and other endurance dominant events as the name suggest rely on the ability to resists fatigue over long periods of time (>4min), therefore this is the absolutely most significant ability – or the capacity to burn body fat for energy rather than glucose (glycogen). Therefore developing a healthy fat burning ability (your ST fibers) should be always at the top; also known as building an aerobic base.

Why?

Unlike their much stronger FT brethren, ST fibers are endowed with better circulation, etc., and as such are indispensable for removing metabolic waste etc, that the FT have trouble getting rid off on their own. In addition ST muscles are the ones that stabilise the spine and joints in order for a powerful movemnt to occur.

Equally as important, you need to learn (what it is) to be functional. There is a reason this article appears so late in the Functional series. I highly advise you to read part 1 and part 2. Otherwise you will be adding strength to dysfunction which is never good; nobody wants to be in pain and injured.

Respect your bodyweight. You don’t need a highly sophisticated and fully equipped gym to maximally challenge your muscles. You can do that by doing bodyweight exercises and/or using couple of dumbbells/kettlebells. If you can’t squat with good form, butt to ankles, with just your body weight, you are not ready to do a barbell squat – period. Body weight strength exercises and progressions are coming in the end of this series in the following weeks.

It takes time. Strength training is not just for your muscles; the structure that supports you – bones, joints, tendons, etc. needs to adapt as well. You must start with correct movements.

As mentioned above and I cannot stress this enough – to gain strength you must be doing (close to) maximal efforts NOT to fatigue. That quite often means very short sessions.

As you develop a solid aerobic (fat burning base) you will progress towards anaerobic activities/racing which would take care of the conversion of your trained strength – to power and/or muscular endurance. For those of you who don’t race doing some short all out efforts when fresh/rested would do the trick.

Conclusion

Strength training or gym work is an area of sports that is filled with the greatest amount of controversial and quite often harmful ‘conventional wisdom.’ For one reason or another bodybuilding has become synonymous with strength, unfortunately that major influence has done most athletes greater harm than good. Most importantly it has added a lot of confusion on what it takes to optimise general fitness and athletic performance.  Confusion further fuels more confusion. You can’t just take a succesful program, “tweak” it a bit and hope that it will work just as well, if at all. Tweak is not the same as understand and it happens quite often. With this article I hope to have helped you head on your way to understanding what and why and how to do strength training. As a closing comment, a quote by [amazon text=Michael Boyle&asin=1931046018] has stuck with me:

When you train those who make their living from sport, you assume a responsibility. You must now improve another while not hurting his or her earning potential. When you train someone’s children you assume an even greater responsibility. You hope to make better athletes and better people.

-Michael Boyle

I can only add here that when you are training yourself, you should be aiming towards the functional goal that will make you fit for the needs of your activity/sport – even if that activity is life.

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Functional Series

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A lot of the information in this article is based on the great work of the the father of periodization – Tudor Bompa, grab yourself a copy

[amazon text=Periodization Training for Sports&asin=1450469434] – Tudor Bompa

[amazon template=thumbnail&asin=1450469434]

[amazon text=Serious Strength Training&asin=1450422446] – Tudor Bompa

[amazon template=thumbnail&asin=1450422446]

[amazon text=Advances in Functional Training&asin=1931046018] – Michael Boyle

[amazon template=thumbnail&asin=1931046018]

A drop of support means an ocean of gratitude.

If you find motivation and value in the content of TheTallCyclist, consider making a donation.

 

• All images are copyright to their respective owners; unless otherwise noted I do not own any of them.
  Cover: www.pixabay.com
• Olympic weightlifting: Wikimedia commons
• Muscle fiber images: Source

The post Strength Training for Endurance Sports appeared first on The Tall Cyclist.

Your best position is your next one

-Unknown autor

Out of the 168 hours in a week the one thing we all with very minor exceptions do besides the ~56 odd hours of sleeping is 40+ (25%+) hours of sitting. At breakfast, in the car, train, at work and than repeat in reverse order. From age 6 in school and into eternity.

Guess what? Our bodies get used to it. Unfortunately not in a good way. Slouched shoulders and humped back are a common occurrence among everybody. All as results of muscle imbalances. When a muscle doesn’t need to support a posture against load/gravity, it gets lazy and it’s antagonist buddy has to do all the work – it gets tight. In short (pun intended) things get out of order all over the place and no wonder low back pain, tight neck and tension headaches are considered normal. Astronauts in zero gravity have some problems like that as well.

The “Active Couch Potato”

Nowadays it is easier than ever to keep track of your fitness and activity levels. Step counters, sleep monitors, heart rate variablity apps are widely available and easy to use. They all represent a step toward a more active lifestyle, though our chairs, desks and automobiles still occupy a significant part of our daily lives.

I don’t know who coined the term though I heard a study (and I truly believe it) that measured how much professional athletes spend inactive (sitting) in day. The figures were stunning – in short besides their chosen activity, they were mainly sedentary – an active couch potato.

Competitive athlete or not, you cannot be going against your body’s natural positions for a more than a quarter of your living hours and not expect (painful) repercussions.  There is a big room for improvement in lifestyle factors in order to improve general wellbeing and athletic performance and this is what I will be covering in in the ‘Experiments in Speed’ section. One place for big improvement that you can make is what is referred as the active workstation. Therefore sitting or rather minimising it should be a priority.

The Active Workstation

Everything new is the well-forgotten old

If you are not sitting down you must standing  (or lying down). As such standing desks are not new. Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemmingway, and the writer Philip Roth are among many famous standing desk users.

So the real question is?

Why Would YOU Want an Active Workstation?

It is not a case of just standing there…it is an active workstation

Out of the many ways too look at it, I have only 2 words for you – neutral spine. In this position everything sits in the way mother nature intended it to – in balance and readiness. I know there are studies and information about the long term effects of standing (though bad diet is a good contributor to most of them), however, this is the point to make an important distinction – it is not a case of just standing there; it represents more than a place to work – it is an active workstation – remember your best position is your next one; you are in dynamic stillness, free to move and not confined to a single position. You can get a kettlebell or a pair of dumbells and do a couple of lunges/squats every once and a while (with neutral spine/good form) and a floor pad with a texture to keep your feet constantly receiving new stimuli.

So how can you set up an active workstation?

I have seen some creative ones that use dressers, though for my personal use, being the taller than average individual I needed something different. Also it neded to fit the small corner in the appartment where I have my work area. Therefore what is next is one out of millions of possibilities that can suit your needs – a spark to ignite your creativity.

How Did I Build My Active Workstation

I did some quick searches and figured out that with black iron pipe (20/27 or 3/4in) would suit perfectly due to the following advantages.

• It is modular. You can change the size/height at any time if you move, change working space, you can add shelves etc.
• It is cheap and widely available in variety of sizes, fittings, etc. Therefore possibilities are limitless.
• I have a small place in my apartment where I work therefore, this was the perfect solution. Black iron pipe is also very good material for all kind of steampunk/industrial type of furniture, bookshelves, lamps, etc.

First things first, how should a standing desk fit?

Though standing on one leg like the illustration is NOT a way to hold a neutral spine, the important fit points are:

• The table top should be at a height so that with relaxed shoulders your elbows are at 90 degrees or slightly more.
• When with neutral spine/good posture your eyes should effortlessly find the top one third of the screen; you will need some kind of small shelf. Books might work here.
• From time to time you might rest one leg on a crossbar/footstool/kettlebell

The Nuts and Bolts (and Pipes)

Some Tips

• Pencil and paper. Measure the height of your elbows (with a help of a friend) from the floor in order to achieve the dimensions mentioned above. Do your project on a sheet of paper first and triple check your calculations and the number of parts you will need. Everything times 4 for each leg, but you have some crossbars, etc.
• 3/4 inch pipe is fine for most needs. 1 inch might be better for larger desks with multiple screens/computers, etc. Anything smaller than 3/4 might be too flimsy in my opinion. Larger tops might need some sort of crossbar under the countertop as well.
• The pipes do not butt against each other in the joints. Therefore the assembly ends up longer/taller than what you pre-calculated – 2-4cm (1-1.5in) per joint. This is what happened to me and why I had to get creative and there is a T-joint awkwardly out of place at the bottom of the desk. Thankfully, as pointed previously, it is all modular. I ended up with a completely different model than what I envisioned and had a lot of parts left. It was a lego puzzle and a good brain exercise as well!
• Black iron pipe comes with some kind of dark oily film to protect it from rust. You can use mineral spirits/acetone to degrease it before you assemble, so you don’t get it on your nice clothes once you are working. That being said, put some old clothes and degrease in a well ventilated area.
• Use thick working gloves. Pipes might have burrs, etc. and threads might be sharp. I bet you don’t remember when you get your last tetanus shot….
• I didn’t paint mine for a natural look. If you decide to paint it use a primer first and than paint.
• For the countertop if using raw unpainted wood, pretreat it with some oil suited for the purpose (ask in your local hardware store if unsure)
• Sand sharp edges so you avoid tearing up your nice clothes/bruising yourself by accident.
• The flanges require some hefty screws so pre-drill small holes in the wood so you don’t end up cracking it. Bar soap (NOT liquid) and/or candlewax is a wonderful lubricant for driving in screws.
• Put some soft felt pads on the bottom of the legs so you don’t end up scratching your floor

Materials

• I think the most stable construction is one with an H that holds the legs at the bottom keeping everything firm and not wobbly. Make it to fit YOUR needs (and the ones of other users of the workspace).
• Black iron pipe in lengths to suit your need. I couldn’t get ones longer than 300mm (~1ft), the stocks where you are might vary
• Joints – straight and T
• Floor flanges to attach the legs to the top
• 4 black iron end caps (also useful for levelling)
• Wooden top (for both the desk and the small shelf) – in my case what I had cut out to make it fit in the corner, fit the small IKEA shelf perfectly.
• Wood screws
• IKEA Lillangen feet
• (Power) screwdriver
• Spirit level
• Patience and creativity

Total cost: ~120 euros ($130 at the time of this post)+3-4h on a Sunday afternoon. While some might say it is not cheap, remember that a single visit at the physiotherapist is 60 euros (local rates) and it is usually not fully, if at all reimbursed by insurance (everybody has muscle imbalances, so insurance companies would go broke and they ain’t that stupid).

Here are some more pictures of my current active workstation. The little gray table on the right is where I used to sit before. I was too busy trying to figure everything out, so I didn’t take before pictures, since as I had to change plans on the go, I was experimenting all afternoon and at some point it was just finished. It is super solid and after some adjustments of the end caps to level everything out it was all set up in my work corner.

As this is one of many future ‘Experiments in Speed,’ I will give it a good 21-30 days and come back here and report on my experiences – positive and/or negative.

Best of luck with building your own active worksation and I leave you with a cute video by Kelly Starrett.

And remember changes will feel unnatural at first, give it time, it’s a process.

Curious?

[amazon text=Becoming a Supple Leopard&asin=1628600837] – Kelly Starrett

[amazon template=thumbnail&asin=1628600837]

[amazon text=Ready to Run&asin=1628600098] – Kelly Starrett and TJ Murphy

[amazon template=thumbnail&asin=1628600098]

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For further information check the ever-increasing Reading List

I welcome comments, however, before asking a question please visit the Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) page.

This article is for my personal use and educational purposes only, please always consult a licensed health professional. I cannot be held responsible for any damages caused by the information contained in this article.

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All images are copyrighted to their respective owners. I do not own any of them.

• Winston Churchill: Link
• Standing desk measurements: Wikimedia Commons

The post Experiments in Speed: The Active Workstation appeared first on The Tall Cyclist.

All human beings should be able to perform basic maintenance on themselves.

-Kelly Starrett, [amazon text=Ready to Run&asin=1628600098]

Sport and life for that matter do not end  in absolutes such as the number of hours put in towards a goal. While focus is important, an often elusive term thrown around – specificity – comes to mind. Though in its essence the only true question any of us should be asking at any time should be:

How prepared are you for the demands of life, training and/or competition?

If you are the best in the world – yes you are great that day, that moment, that season or even for the length that your achievements stay in the record books, long after you stepped down form the awards podium. HOWEVER, you, your body and the way you move is something you have to deal with for your WHOLE life, each second of every day. Yet most of us forget (and I have been there myself…) that we have to be a functional human first – before we start considering a performance based paradigm.

Without a functional foundation, you are limiting performance and setting yourself for injury. In a world revolving around hacks, quick fixes and wonder supplements it is easy to waste and spend the most precious commodity – time as well as money – by going down the wrong path, or just keep doing more of the same to only to come back to disappointment. Therefore in this article, I plan to give you the tools to assess and address any ‘cracks’ and missing parts in the foundations that all activities and sports rely on – being a fully functional human. Most importantly you will have the knowledge to be your own physical therapist. Whether you are a professional athlete, amateur or a coach, this article is for you. This articles gives you a flashlight to highlight any fundamental shortcoming  – Phase 1. The subsequent posts in the functional series will give you the tools to fix what you exposed.

If you just landed here, some background (and definitions of the terms used below) on what actually makes any of us a functional human/athlete can be found in Part 1 and Part 2. 

Nobody wants to be injured or be in physical pain, lose training time and overall enjoyment from life; as athletes or coaches we further want to achieve what the the great masters of sports do – to make all movement look effortlessly easy on the way to great victories. While fitness and speed are usually used to describe what is it that all great champions have, it misses the most important aspect – functional – having a mastery of the human body and performing all movements, even under stress and fatigue in the most efficient way mother nature intended us to. A quick reminder is that being functional relies on 2 aspects.

1. Motor pattern – kinetic chain  – your brain sending the right signals to the correct muscles; doing the right motions in the correct sequence.
2. Structure – muscles/joints/tissues

It is not a case of either one or the other – both combine to form functional stability and mobility. By testing simple movements without any load, stress or fatigue, it is easy to get a clear picture of the basic control you have of your body. All of the exercises below represent normal human movements and ranges of motion, yet do not be surprised that you, like many elite athletes struggle with the tests here. We are all very skilful at hiding dysfunctions through high-level compensation; the human body will go around a tight or weak joint/muscle group and use alternative (inefficient/damaging) movement patterns. Whether it is a popular case of ‘skipping or never been properly shown the basics’ or ‘rushing into it/jumping straight into the deep end,’ it does not mean you will not do well in your chosen activity, it means that you will be able to do better, quite often with less effort.

Almost everybody is willing to go harder, do more and try that new training plan, purchase more gadgets, eat less junk food and in rare cases even doping in order to reach new heights, yet being functional is generally being ignored and forgotten. Therefore including functional training as part of your workout routine would open tremendous potential for improvement and most importantly minimize the risk of overuse injuries – you can’t build a skyscraper on a weak foundation that can only support a mud hut. Proper movement is not a theory. While the ‘no pain, no gain’ and suffering at all times seem to be the norm, functional training represents the polar opposite. It’s easy and the benefits outweigh any number of intervals, hard training you can do. The fact that you are a runner cyclist, etc. shouldn’t mean that you can’t help your friends carry that couch up the stairs or do some yard work because you are afraid of throwing your back out or pulling a muscle somewhere.

As a final note before getting into the main part of the article, this is not a genitalia measuring contest – each one of us is unique also when it comes to disfunctions – therefore failing a functional test does not mean you will do poorly in racing or you are a bad person/athlete or you are better worse than your teammates/training partners – it represents an area for (significant) improvement; it means you never asked the right questions from your body so you never got the answers that would have told you that it wasn’t your constantly tight hamstring that was the problem but a weakness in your lower control zone (pelvis). Testing is training. Lastly, be critically honest about yourself.

The beauty of all the workouts here is that they are so simple that they make even small errors pop up, as well as each exercise is repeatable so that you can measure and directly see your improvement over time. Exercises to address disfunctions will appear in the next instalments of the functional series.

Therefore the functional assessment as described in this article will be divided into two sections.

Section 1: Assessing Your Basic Functionality (as described by [amazon text=Joanne Elphinston&asin=1905367422])

Section 2: Checking for lack of range of motion, restricted tissues, tight and imbalanced muscles etc. ([amazon text=Becoming a Supple Leopard&asin=1628600837] and [amazon text=Ready to Run&asin=1628600098])

Lack of proper motor control is only part of the story and not being able to get into some of the positions above means that you lack range of motion in tissues and joints. Stretching is NOT going to make it better, mobilisation will. How and why will feature in that section.

Section 1: Basic Functional Assessment

The human body and movement as a consequence cannot be viewed in isolation. It is not just a matter of the biceps contracting/triceps relaxing to flex the arm – there is wayyy more functional stuff happening. Therefore through the simple tests here you can see if some parts of the kinetic chain are not functioning properly and as such you are seeing compensation patterns that are inefficient and quite often damaging and the reason behind 98% of all injuries.

Unlike most other sports, here you are looking for the lowest possible result. Zero (0) points means you are functional in that area. Besides the basic balance, score the third attempt. Any mistake adds a point and a score above zero represents an area that needs addressing. The higher the scores, the higher priority issue it represents; anything above 3 means REALLY high priority issue that might be causing quite significant muscle imbalance (pain) and is for sure wrecking havoc on performance.

In addition, it is through our feet  that we find our balance, it is how we evolved and it should be natural and easy. Therefore any ‘foot fixing,’ rigidity and over activity in that area is an automatic point. Similarly a good way to compensate for dysfunctions is to make a pain face, etc – any lip biting, face tensing, etc. is another automatic point no matter the exercises.

The diagrams here are for illustration, the PDF version of the test+a scoring sheet are available for download at the end of this article.

Preferably, do the tests barefoot or with thin socks

What to do when finished? Functional exercises are coming in the future instalments of the Functional Series.

Static Balance

While rarely an activity or sport relies on standing still, balance represents the communication between our feet and the brain as well as the control we have of the spine. The test is performed first with your eyes open and afterwards repeated with eyes closed. Why the eyes closed part? We achieve balance through three systems – vision, somatosensory (information from skin, joints, muscles, etc) and vestibular (in the inner ear). When you eliminate the vision it reveals how well the remaining two are functioning. While running/moving in in changing and/or low light conditions if you are unable to quickly and reliably find your balance you can twist your ankle, fall down etc. While it doesn’t  relate directly to cycling, I remind you again that we are human first.

Eyes Open/Eyes Closed

Functional mobility

Functional mobility represents relationships between body parts. You should be able to move one body part without influencing another, usually referred to as dissociation. Any shortcomings here point towards lack of body awareness, weak or inactive muscles group(s) and/or towards asymmetries between left and right sides of the body. The latter is particularly important in cycling where the pedaling action requires perfect symmetry and any deviation from that would be further compensated through dysfunctional patterns (more information here).

Arms Overhead

What’s being tested?

• Shoulder mobility
• Trunk control

Seated Hamstring Test

This test can be done with two chairs if you do not have a swiss ball. Be (safe and) creative.=)

What’s being tested?

• Lumbo-pelvic control
• Hamstring length

Body Rotation

Body rotation is important during walking gait, it is the rotation of the pelvis that stores energy that is used in the next step, therefore any limits here would influence everyday life and/or running, etc. Weight should shift between both legs as you rotate.

Whats being tested?

• Available range of motion on both sides
• Weight shift between feet

Lower and Central Control Zone

Static Lunge/Split Squat

What’s being tested?

• Spine control
• Gluteal activation
• Hip mobility and leg control
• Balance

Standing Knee Lift

What’s being tested?

• Spine control
• Lateral (side to side) pelvic stability
• Foot and hip connection
• Hip flexion

Upper Control Zone

Wall Press

What’s being tested?

• Ability to stabilize your scapula (generate torque with your shoulders)
• Upper and lower body coordination

The wall press represents a ‘no load’ pushup and examines:

Global Control – Superman

What’s being tested?

• Scapular stability
• Pelvic Stability
• Trunk control

This is an exercise to test how all three zones (shoulders/scapula+trunk+pelvis/hips) are coordinated globally

Section 2: Body Archetypes and Mobility

Some of the reasons for not obtaining a perfect score above is because you lack the range of motion to get into the positions – you have joint/tissue restrictions. Stretching is NOT going to fix that because it focuses on only one part of the system the muscles. Stretching lengthens a muscle, however, your brain doesn’t know what to do with it. The muscle had become tight because of a muscle imbalance due to a bad position  – it molded itself to whatever you put it throughout the day. Therefore CORRECT position and application of it through movement (motor control) as described in the section above is paramount, afterwards you will need to address the structure – joint, fascia, muscles, etc. This section will show you how to do it.

Body Archetypes

Adopt a stance with the head erect, neither hanging down, nor looking up, nor twisted. Your forehead and the space between your eyes should not be wrinkled. Do not roll your eyes nor allow them to blink, but slightly narrow them. With your features composed, keep the line of your nose straight with a feeling of slightly flaring your nostrils. Hold the line of the rear of the neck straight: instill vigour into your hairline, and in the same way from the shoulders down through your entire body. Lower both shoulders and, without the buttocks jutting out, put strength into your legs from the knees to the tips of your toes. Brace your abdomen so that you do not bend at the hips.

-Musashi Miyamoto, [amazon text=The Book of the Five Rings&asin=1590309847]

Many years ago Musashi put into words what it takes to be in neutral spine position and what Kelly Starrett in his [amazon text=absolutely brilliant book&asin=1628600837] refers to as generating torque (for more information see the final sections here). In simple terms, you are activating the muscles that support the joints (taking up the slack within hip, shoulder capsules, etc). When you fail to do that you are hanging on by the tendons and ligaments and you create an instability. Our bodies are smarter than that and will resort to a bad position (knees turned in, collapsed arches), slouched shoulders, etc.

We generate torque in our hips and shoulders or the pelvic and shoulder girdles in order to bear weight and as a stable platform perform strong movement with the arms and legs. Therefore it is no wonder that it is those areas where a lot of the functional movement happens. The idea is that when doing complex movements/sports you mask (compensate/go around) problems with mobility. How can you see which parts are limiting you? Kelly Starrett in his amazing book [amazon text=Becoming a Supple Leopard&asin=1628600837] calls them archetypes that are based round the hips and shoulders

Shoulder Archetypes

Hip Archetypes

Archetypes represent optimal STABLE positions of the human body, that mimic everyday motions, therefore  by using archtype positions you can highlight problems and most importatnly if you will know what a strong and stable position is and you can use that knowledge in everyday activities.

How does that refer to mobilisation?

Mobilisation

First, not surprisingly the archetypes closely mimic the positions in Section 1 (lunge, wall press, etc).

Second, if even with proper technique if you are unable to get into these stable positions, it means your joints, fascia, muscles need work.

The reasons can be grouped in three categories:

Joint Dysfunction

If a joint is ‘tight’ muscles around it have become imbalanced. Therefore when you put a joint in good position the muscles and fascia around it would automatically improve. How did the joint get tight in the first place? When held in bad positions for prolonged periods of time, the body molds around that posture and the joint capsule gets adaptively tight – sitting with slouched shoulders is the perfect way for tight shoulder and hip capsules. You can mobilize the muscles around the joint and create slack, however, you are not dealing with the main culprit – the capsule. As you can imagine the capsule is very strong; it is a ligamentous sac that encloses the liquid (synovial fluid) and is the first thing that holds bones aligned. When you stretch the muscles around it it barely budges, while the muscles scream for mercy. By NOT addressing the joint capsules you are leaving a good deal of mobility and improvement untouched.

How to address it?

Gapping with a Band/Banded Floss

You need to create space within the joint. One way to do it is by using a flexible band such as an (old) bicycle tube and hold a static position as shown below. (you can tie the band to something stable such as the support of your stair railing)Works best for shoulders and hips. When restricted – hips get pulled to the back of the capsule while shoulders to the front -you distract/pull them to the center – in general, hips need to be pulled to the front, shoulders to the back. Physical therapists call it traction. Now you can do it yourself.

The banded flossing is an ideal way to mobilise the joint while going in and out a position/archetype. You are using the newly opened joint capsule in full range of motion. In the example above it means lunging.

Force and Rotate

You can force the joint to its original position by using a dumbell/kettlebell/band. I can personally attest that this one works pretty good with the kettlebell (it did seem kinda scary at first).

Flexion Gapping

This one is only used for (creaky) knees and elbows ie. hinge joints. You put a towel or rolled up t-shirt in between the two levers and create a space to restore the range of motion.

Sliding Surface Dysfunction

Try squatting with skinny tight jeans. You can’t or at least only a little. For unrestricted movement your skin, fascia, tendons and ligaments must glide freely over each other. For example prolonged sitting makes your gluteus maximii (butt muscles) stick together and as such you can’t contract them fully (or at all) and as a result you can’t stabilise your pelvis and/or have to rely on your hamstrings as a hip extensor (tight hamstrings anyone? ). This is among the main reasons behind chronic low back pain, though I digress.

If you pinch your biceps whether it is relaxed or contracted it, there is no pain or weird tightness. That is how healthy tissue should feel like – supple and pain free.

How to address sliding surface dysfucntion?

In short: You have to use large shearing forces aka pressure or the way you use a rolling pin to flatten dough.

Smash (and Floss)

Best done with a tennis, lacrosse (large tennis) ball or The Sock! (two tennis balls in a sock tied at the end). You are pinpointing a tight area/spot. Take a deep breath and relax (as much as you can)for a deep tissue mobilisation.

Contract and Relax

Once you hit a tight spot with the smash, the initial (pain) reflex is to tighten even more. How do you counter that? You inhale and contract the tight muscle and than you exhale and relax so you sink even deeper in the tissue. It’s using your body’s natural neuromuscular abilities in order to mobilise a tight spot. Rinse and repeat a couple of times.

Global Shear/Pressure Wave

This is exactly the rolling pin and dough flattening idea. Best used on large muscles such as your trapezius, calves. You can use a broomstick, rolling pin, bottle, etc. Do it slow and steady.

Voodoo band

Ever wondered what to do with that bike tube that is not good anymore? Cut the valve and ‘fillet” it longitudinally to create a Voodoo band. This is a high-powered shearing method that breaks up scar tissue and helps with mobilising a compromised joint. The idea is that you tightly roll the band around a problem area and perform the desired movement. For example you wrap it around your knee and squat. DO IT FOR NO MORE THAN 2 MINUTES! The massive shearing forces around the tissues will surely break up any scar tissue, free up the layers of fascia and after you remove the band the blood rushes back into the previously restricted body part and flushes everything out.

Also the commercially available voodoo band is exactly 28 inches (road tyre size) long – coincidence – I think not.=)

This is a way to get rid of joint swelling, though I personally have no experience in using it like that.

Muscle Dynamics and Imbalance

Lastly if you have addressed the joint and sliding tissue, you are left with the muscles. Tight or weak for variety of reasons you need to push them to end of their current range, relax and do it again. Unlike static stretching, you create a contraction, contractions are signals form the brain as such you are actively moving in and out of a position. Once you have increased range of joint motion, you have to learn to use it. Leg swings are one such example.

Everything listed above represents tools. Tools work best when used properly.

Here are some rules:

Rules of Mobilisation

• 90% of the stuff you can addrss yourself, the remainder might be serious stuff (stress fracture, torn ACL, bone cancer, etc.). Go get checked out by a trained professional first to rule out the 10%.
• Common sense: If it feels weird it is weird. Normal range of motion is called normal for a reason, don’t force anything.
• Some pain is, OK; burning nerve pain is your body yelling stop!
• Make it count; 10-15min a day means getting down to business and not lazily checking your phone while sitting on the roller; 2-3 exercises per day should be enough
• 2min per side.
• Consistency: try to find 10-15min every day (between commercials, etc.)
• Above and below: For example: If you are addressing a knee problem, mobilise your ankle and your hips. Remember that the site of pain/discomfort is rarely the cause.
• It is my experience that those are best performed AFTER training, before going to bed. They cause a massage like relaxation.
• Leave no area unexplored.
• Be creative, it’s a dynamic process. One week your trapezius might get tight, others might be your calves.

Putting it All Together

It’s important to take a whole body approach so you can enjoy pain and injury free life and athletic performance. As such taking a functional path to assess and evaluate how you move, should be part of EVERY training regimen. Especially if you are just getting into (serious) training. Pain and injuries are NOT a badge of honor or a sign you are working hard, they show that you are doing things wrong. You cannot wait for something to break down and pain to start screaming at you; be proactive – in a way preventative maintenance. Even when you are nursing a minor injury you need to know the true cause behind it, so it doesn’t become chronic and worsen over time.  The most important part is that you have to make lifestyle changes first – (less sitting, more movement, neutral spine posture). The second is that you need to realize that functional movement is not an opinion, reserved for those with enough time on their hands. With this article I hope to have given you a further understanding and easily accessible tools that you can be your own best physiotherapist.

Stay tuned for the next instalment of the Functional Series.

Download link towards Functional Assessment: Basic_Functional_Assessement_TheTallCyclist

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Functional Series

Further Inspiration

This article is crystallisation of some great work by amazing people – check it out!

[amazon text=Becoming a Supple Leopard&asin=1628600837] – Kelly Starrett

[amazon template=thumbnail&asin=1628600837]

[amazon text=Ready to Run&asin=1628600098] – Kelly Starrett and TJ Murphy

[amazon template=thumbnail&asin=1628600098]

[amazon text=Stability, Sport and Performance Movement&asin=1905367422] – Joanne Elphinston

[amazon template=thumbnail&asin=1905367422]

This article is for my personal use and educational purposes only, please always consult a licensed health professional. I cannot be held responsible for any damages caused by the information contained in this article.

A drop of support means an ocean of gratitude.

If you find motivation and value in the content of TheTallCyclist, consider making a donation.

 

• Cover Image: Wikimedia Commons
• Voodoo Floss: Link

The post Mobilis en mobilis – Functional Assessment and Mobilisations appeared first on The Tall Cyclist.

He’d actually been rather attached to his old cheap boots. He could read the street in them, the soles were so thin. It’d got so that he could tell where he was on a pitch-dark night just by the feel of the cobbles.

-Capt. Samuel Vimes, [amazon text=Feet of Clay&asin=0062275518]

Sixty tons, 15 elephants or 30 passenger cars. This is the amount of weight one foot has to bear by just walking a mile. Couple of million years ago we stood on two feet, rather than four, and started walking and have not stopped ever since. While our feet rarely receive any attention, they are probably the part of our bodies that has to take the most wear, tear and abuse than anything; A crucial part behind health and fitness, day after day we mostly neglect them. Therefore it begs the question what is so special about our own two feet and why should you take better care of them?

Our Own Two Feet

Two feet that:

• Have 52 bones or ~25% of the total 206 bones in the body
• Contain 33 joints (20 actively articulated) or ~10% of 360 total joints 
• 100+muscles (and ligaments) from the 640 in the rest of you
• Contain approximately 7800 nerves

Why the complexity?

From brute force to agility and speed to delicate movement and balance as well as endurance to cover huge distances, it all starts with the feet. A stable base that is at the same time both robust and delicate. The inbuilt intricacy is the cause of the fundamental features of being human – walk and run. It is no wonder that any disturbance (usually caused by muscle imbalance) of the  complex anatomy that is the foot can have effects that can be felt in other parts of the body such as the knee, spine and even shoulders. 

Top Down

I am going to take a small step back and ask you.

Did you feel your clothes on your body BEFORE I asked you about them?

Probably not and even as you are reading this unless you consciously start directing your thoughts towards them, you will largely not think about your shirt touching you skin?

Why is this important?

Accurate information from the proprioceptors is necessary to coordinate movement and protect joints (link) Proprioreceptors throughout joints, ligaments muscles etc.constantly convey information to the brain about our position against gravity, posture and movement. As you can imagine this is a LOT of data and even our amazing central nervous system (CNS) gets overloaded by a factor 1.5 million, yes million. Fortunately we have evolved a very practical prioritization system that allows of certain messages to immediately emerge from the background noise. The two category of stimulus that get prioritised are:

1. Movement
2. And/or change in the quality/intensity of the stimulus (ie. somebody pulling on your shirt)

This all occurs unconsciously, you don’t think about it.

Why all this brain talk when we are concerned about something quite literally at the exact opposite end of the human body?

Let me explain…

or in simpler words how form follows function.

Foot Structure and Function

The foot can be divided into three parts – fore-, mid-, and hind-foot. We bear most of our weight on the forefoot and we keep our balance thanks to the ‘ball of the foot’ behind the big toe. The midfoot contains the arches that serve as shock absorbers while the hind-foot makes the connection with the tibia and fibula and the muscles of the lower leg. You can think of it as a tripod.

Muscles

The important point to realise that just like the rest of the body the muscles associated with the foot follow the same patterns of muscle imbalance described in my previous article. Any imbalance can ultimately affect the motor pattern/final movement that can lead to compensation and overuse injuries.

Tibialis Anterior and Tibialis Posterior

The tibialis anterior and posterior are key muscles for the stabilization of the lower leg. Tightness in the calf (gastrocnemius) and sometimes pain in the Achilles tendon might be as a result of the inhibition of the tibialis posterior. The tibialis anterior is responsible  for raising the foot (ankle dorsiflexion) and assists in turning the foot inward. In addition the tibialis anterior is the muscle often associated with ‘shin splints’

Peroneus Muscles

The Peroneus longus and brevis muscles stabilise the outside of the ankle and they move the outside of the foot up

The peroneus tertius muscle as well has a role in stabilizing the outside of the ankle and allows the ouside of the foot to turn turn upward with the ankle

The Calf (Gastrocnemius and Soleus) Muscles

The calf is the muscle that usually gets a lot of attention since it represents the bulk of the volume around the lower leg. The calf itself is composed of the gastrocnemius and soleus muscles that form the Achilles tendon.

Plantar muscles

The muscles of the actual foot form four separate layers, though the take away point is that they have ‘grabbing’ action that is important for walking, running, balance etc.

Most importantly the arches of the foot are supported by musculature. Remember the 60 tons that each foot bears when you walk a mile? That is where it is predominantly happening.

All of the above structure is responsible for the amazing freedom of movement that is present in the foot such as toe flexion, inversion and eversion, pronation and supination as well as balance. Coupled with the fact that we have a good amount of nerve endings at the bottoms of our feet it all acts in harmony with the nervous system, and you don’t have think about it.

One Thing Loud and Clear

Now we come back to the overloaded nervous system I described in the previous paragraphs. When walking barefoot or just standing, there is always something changing underneath your feet (arch tension as you slightly rock back and forth to find your balance, texture of the surface, ankle and toe position, etc.) Therefore, the brain is paying attention to the input – constantly coordinating movement and protecting the joints; it knows what the feet are doing at ALL times. Once you put over supportive shoes, orthotics, casts, athletic tape etc.,  the ‘loudness’ and quality of the signal diminishes. If the input is not ‘loud’ enough it would not get priority and as such it gets left on autopilot where unless something really drastic happens, it does not readily chage according to the current condition – a proprioreceptive black hole.

You don’t believe me? Stand (barefoot) on one leg. Easy? Sure. Now close your eyes. Not so easy this time, eh? Unless you avoid wearing shoes, your feet lack a degree of developed kinestehtic sense; there isn’t quality and reliable information from the feet, so you have learned to compensate with your vision in order to find your balance and control your movement and position.

While just an innocent example, the fact that since the age of  3 we have our feet shoved into (quite often uncomfortable) shoes, all of the many bones, joints and muscles gets put in a cast where they do not get used as we evolved to. In 1954 when researchers Basmajian and Bentzon measured the electrical activity in foot muscles using an electromyographic (EMG) device. This study showed that when shoes were placed on the feet, certain muscles lost significant function. At best, when you wear shoes the body tries to compensate by increasing muscle activity – increasing energy cost – not a good things for endurance events among other things – this is one the ares of improvement according to [amazon text=Dr. Phil Maffetone in his book about the sub 2-hour marathon&asin=1629148172]. Usually though a number of muscle imbalances start brewing underneath the surface eventually causing a plethora of problems, sometimes  in other parts of the body such as the knee, lower back, etc.

Unless you dropped something heavy on your foot, or in other words direct catastrophic damage (broken bones) had occurred, with some easy self help all of the accumulated imbalances are easily fixable. While just weaning off oversupported shoes by walking barefoot (with socks if you are cold) as much as possible (at home, work etc.) is enough to fix almost all problems, keep in mind that you have spent many years/miles into a suboptimal foot position, so you have to go at it slowly and some muscle discomfort is expected at the beginning. If you ever had a broken bone, you didn’t just remove the cast and go do an Ironman triathlon. Therefore if you go out and buy some of the Vibram five finger shoes slow and steady is the name of the game. 

Also I am aware that some of you might say that orthotics fixed your problem and you are happy about them. Orthotics just masked a symptom and did not address the cause. (ie Why did you have a complaint/knee pain in the first place if you didn’t crash your bike etc.?) We are hardwired for survival and as such movement blocks pain – mechanoreceptors can override the pain signal. For the same reason your injured shoulder hurts the most when you are lying in bed at the end of the day – you are not moving. Orthotics work in a similar way, ie they stimulate the mechanoreceptors by altering position, though in the long term you are causing muscle imbalance in the foundation of almost every movement that you do and potentially setting yourself up for injury.

While theory is nice it is always better with a visual example.

 A Real Life Example – Rigid Soles and Collapsed Arches

The person who inspired me to look more into why feet are important for athletic activity, is bike fitting guru – Steve Hogg and his series on Foot Correction for Cycling

I am a big fan of extreme examples since the contrast they provide perfectly illustrates a point. Cycling shoes are a special case since they have a very rigid sole for optimal power transfer and you are pushing against a solid platform (pedals) with the front part of the foot while the rear foot and ankle are left hanging (or the technical term – open kinetic chain). Therefore the foot tripod is missing one of it’s supports (the rear). The ankle/arch collapses (and loads the knee sideways) and as such the arch tension rarely changes, it just remains collapsed, the signals from the feet get treated as noise and you are left pedalling with poor mechanics (knees turned in, etc). You can consciously think about keeping everything in alighment, though once attention drifts (and it always will) you(r brain loses) sense of what your feet are doing. Therefore in the case of cycling arch support is necessary to give a (mechanical) stimulus the arches and make them flex with every push/pedal stroke and cause a loud and clear proprioreceptive input to the brain and not just background noise. In addition a wedge might be further needed to correct/align the foot for optimal proprioreceptive input. Therefore in an unnatural setting ie rigid sole shoes, heel not on the ground and bicycle pedals, some support is needed, HOWEVER, that correction mimics the foot’s natural way of moving/communicating with the brain and is not a true mechanical support, it is NOT a cast causing muscle imbalances.

I can say with certainty a that many months ago when read Steve’s article it got me thinking, in the case of cycling proper foot correction makes a huge difference; you can read more about my experience with Steve Hogg’s methods during my Visit at The Bike Whisperer. 

Conclusion

Our feet represent our structural foundation and in the words of [amazon text=Dr. Phil Maffetone&asin=1616080655] – Our feet must last a lifetime. The fascinating complexity is a result of long evolution that ultimately made us able to walk and run for long distances over varied terrain with amazing agility. I should come as no surprise that such feats are possible through the engineering marvel that is the human foot. A lot of the way we talk and move starts with the feedback we unconsciously receive from the feet and we are still trying to fully understand the full complexity. Unfortunately we mostly ignored that evolutionary fact and started looking for quick fix solutions – specialty over supportive shoes, orthotics, etc. We don’t need crazy gadgets, we need confidence that our feet are strong enough to do everything our bodies require of them. As a final note – our ancestors probably didn’t have broken glass and jagged metal objects where they walked, however, we should strive to look barefoot whenever possible or with only minimal support around our feet.

Walk on! and stay tuned for the remainder of the Functional series where I will be including some easy at home exercises for better foot health.

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Functional Series

Further Inspiration

Some of the Great Inspirations behind this article can be found here:

[amazon text=The Big Book if Endurance Training and Racing&asin=1616080655] – Dr. Phil Maffetone

[amazon template=thumbnail&asin=1616080655]

[amazon text=Ready to Run&asin=1628600098] – Kelly Starrett and TJ Murphy

[amazon template=thumbnail&asin=1628600098]

[amazon text=Born to Run&asin=0307279189] – Christopher McDougall

[amazon template=thumbnail&asin=0307279189]

[amazon text=Assessment and Treatment of Muscle Imbalance &asin=0736074007] – Phil Page, Clare Clark, Robert Lardner

[amazon template=thumbnail&asin=0736074007]

Steve Hogg’s Bike Fitting Blog

This article is for my personal use and educational purposes only, please always consult a licensed health professional. I cannot be held responsible for any damages caused by the information contained in this article.

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Images: Wikimedia Commons

Cover: Source

The post Feet and Endurance Sports appeared first on The Tall Cyclist.

Every ‘body’ tells a story.

-Vladimir Janda

This is a continuation of Part 2: Functional Anatomy, therefore if you just landed on this page, I highly advise you to start with Part 2 in order to familiarize yourself with the terms that appear in the following paragraphs.

Friends do not let friends skip leg day or so the story goes. While the desire for an estehically balanced muscles is a somewhat arbitrary place start, muscle imbalance is not always as obvious while at the same time it is something that almost everybody has had to deal at one point or another. That nagging neck pain or the chronic low back tightness that has plagued you since what seems forever. Yet the problem never really seemed to go away no matter how much you massaged the troubled area or no matter what wonder gel or cream you put on it or how many ibuprofens you took. It kept coming back…at the same spot. In worse cases you even had surgery, rehabilitation and…no improvement.  The question is why and what can you do about it.

In Part 2 of the Functional series one of the important take away points was that the human body especially when it comes to movement, cannot and should not be viewed in isolation. The model that muscles act in isolation (SP) is incomplete and as we have evolved to walk/run from head to toes there is something happening with an optimal way of doing so. There are muscles designed for posture and (joint) stability that can function at low energy cost for long periods of time, while there are muscles that activate in an on and off fashion to create movement. It all happens in a carefully orchestrated kinetic chain(s), however, when roles gets switched, somewhere along the kinetic chain you get a signal – most notably injury, inflammation and/or pain. Tissue damage and pain can cause muscle imbalance (tightness or weakness) and vice versa. The muscle imbalance can cause wrong movement patterns/bad technique and the reverse is also true and why proper movement is paramount.

Muscle Imbalances and YOU

 Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution

-Theodosius Dobzhansky

Balance

Why do humans need muscle balance? All human movement is reciprocal, muscles can only pull, therefore that requires opposing muscle groups (antagonists and agonists) to be coordinated. For example when you extend your arm the triceps muscle is the agonist and the biceps is the antagonist. The roles are reversed when you move the arm towards you. It is this fact that creates the need for relative equality of length and strength between opposing muscle groups. This balance stabilizes joints in the most optimal position and provides the base for stable and efficient movement – in short being functional. The musculoskeletal and central nervous system(CNS) as well cannot be viewed in isolation since they act together – forming the sensorimotor system (SM). Your posture is a direct reflection of the health and functionality of the SM. Your posture influences the way you walk (gait) which influences how well you move and perform athletic activities.

Imbalance

It is the freedom of movement designed in the human body that allows for more than one way to perform a movement, and since our bodies are hardwired for survival, the CNS would always prioritize joint/spine stabilization even if it has to use inefficient motion. Therefore the change in muscle recruitment alters the movement pattern and ultimately the motor program in the brain.

Every movement, athletic or not requires coordinated muscle action – also known as a kinetic chain. For example simply extending your arm starts with the muscles around your spine stabilizing the skeleton, providing a foundation from where the arm muscles can move the arm away from you. Therefore a kinetic chain can be broken down to its links. It starts with a firm foundation provided by the local stabilizers )joint stabilizers) followed by the global stabilizers and the final movement caused by the global mobilisers

Local stabilisers (joint control)>Global Stabilisers (force production/control through motion/)>Global mobilisers (Movement)

This pattern of muscle activation is a direct result of our evolution. Let me explain…

The postural or tonic muscles are older phylogenetically (they evolved first). These muscles are mostly composed of slow twitch(fatigue resistant) fibers and are involved in receptive and rhythmic activities and keeping our posture in relation to gravity; they can function at low energy cost for looooong periods of time. The tonic muscles are dominant i.e. if given the choice the CNS would always give them priority.

Priority over what?

Over the evolutionary younger phasic system muscles that are mostly fast-twitch and perfectly suited for on/off behavior – movement. The phasic muscles are (easily) fatiguable.

Granted it is not a true black and white separation and there is some overlap in function between the two systems, what is consistent is the prioritization level. In cycling terms if you have poor position and are shifting on the saddle all the time, the phasic muscles used to put power to the pedals get lower priority – energy needed for movement gets re-routed for stabilization. Though I digressed a bit….

Therefore, going back to the evolutionary priority of the muscles –  it is predictable what happens if you are always called upon – you become (literally) high strung/tense and when you are mostly ignored you become lazy and weak.

As a result muscle imbalance patterns are largely the same between individuals. Children as young as 8 show them, though not with the same severity as (more dysfunctional) adults.

1. Muscles predominantly static, tonic, or postural are prone to get tight and are readily activated in various movements.

2. Muscles that are predominantly dynamic and phasic in function have the tendency to grow weak

Full list of all postural and phasic muscles.

Causes of Muscle Tigthness and Weakness

How do you determine whether a muscle is tight or weak? You test its ability to resist being lengthened or its tension/tone. Muscle tension is a result of the neurological control (from the CNS) and muscle structure.

Muscle Tightness

Muscle tightness is the primary reason behind muscle imbalance and it is something most of you have had to deal at some point. Think of that tight neck when you slept in an awkward position.

When the CNS tells a muscle to get tight, its opposing buddy (antagonist) gets inhibited/switched off; it happens subconsciously – you don’t think about it, it is a protective measure. As a result the joint gets stressed due to unbalanced forces which further causes compensation/poor movement pattern. Both combined  results in an (oversuse) injury. Tight muscles are usually shorter and have a lowered activation threshold (they are more or less ‘always half on’), therefore it is those muscles that get recruited first in any movement whether they have a role in there or not, hence further contributing to the vicious imbalance cycle. Again think of your stiff neck and how you probably had to rotate your whole body to look around you.

Why does a muscle decide to get tight in the first place?

Primary emotions such as pleasure, depression, fear – stress can do that quite well – ie when you get scared you tense up. Trigger points (TrPs) are small parts/nodules in the muscle that are super irritable and as a result can lead to increased tension in the whole tissue. There is lack of consensus on the causes of TrPs among health professionals, though nobody is denying these taut bands of tissue exist.  The most extreme case of muscle tightness is called a spasm – often this is done in order to immobilise a joint as a final protective measure. Your spine is a joint and hence why you are in a lot of pain once you life heavy with un-braced position, if that didn’t happen you would be broken in half…literally.

Structurally if a muscle is kept under tension long enough, it gets shortened as the contractile fibers gets replaced with scar tissue and logically the overall strength decreases. Shortened muscles are not painful but tender to touch.

Here I am going to stop you thinking that you can just ‘stretch a tight muscle out.’ Below you will see why.

Muscle Weakness (and Inhibition)

As mentioned above, neurologically muscles get switched off in response to their opposing buddy (antagonist) being switched on; it’s a reflex so that you don’t end up tearing a joint apart from all directions. TrPs lead to overexcited, always on tissue that gets used all the time and eventually fatigues. Fatigue itself can cause a muscle to get inhibited and change in movement pattern – I am yet to see an exhausted runner/cyclist/swimmer with anything remotely close to perfect form.

Now I come to stretching, particularly passive stretching where you just sit there for long periods of time waiting for something to happen. In the short term you are separating the contractile fibers (green and purple in the image below) so that they cannot connect with each other for a strong contraction to happen. If a muscle is kept longer than neutral for extended periods of time,  due to additional sarcomeres being added to the fiber, the length tension curve changes – the muscle gets weaker. Dynamic stretching such as leg swings is ok since it involves the CNS – you consciously move in and out of the range of motion.

Lastly as you already know by know a shortened/tight muscle gets readily involved in movement since it is always half-on and as such it fatigues, gets bigger (hypertrophy).  Due to the tightness oxygen cannot get everywhere and the muscle gets weaker.

The important point is that muscle weakness is directly related to over tight muscles while both cause muscle imbalance.

The theory is all nice though a picture is worth a thousand words. How does it all look in real life.

Muscle Imbalance Patterns

Postural muscles get tight, while phasic muscles get weak. All people have the same muscles therefore we all get broken the same way, only the severity differs.

Upper Crossed Syndrome

In the upper crossed syndrome (UCS) tight upper trapezius crosses with tight chest muscles and weak neck flexors cross weak lower trapezius. This leads to joint dysfunction in the upper neck or the all common neck forward with tightness and pain. Sitting with your monitor too low as well as ‘smartphone/texting neck’ are among the main culprits and causes.

Lower Crossed Syndrome

Sitting is the new smoking.

The Lower Crossed Syndrome (LCS) results due to tightness of the trunk extensor on the back that cross with the tight iliopsoas and rectus femoris muscles at the front of your hips and weak abdominals cross with weak/inhibited gluteus maximus and minimus (more details on why this is bad in Part 2). In simple terms what I just described is sitting in a chair, at work, in a car, etc. Since age 6 we spend most of our time sitting, no wonder why most of the symptoms of LCS can be found in a good number of the population, even athletes. Just taking alook at the people you see on the street you can already recognise some of the patterns.

LCS creates a dysfunction in the lumbar spine, sacroiliac and hip joints; in simple terms you get low back pain and the hip dysfunction can manifest itself in knee pain (more details in Part 1 of the series). Inhibited Gluteus maximus can lead to irritated hamstrings, etc.

Layer Syndrome

Layer syndrome represents a combination of UCS and LCS and is a more advanced form of muscle imbalance and motor dysfunction.

Proprioreception and The Foot

The muscular system is always faced whether to make decisions based on commands either from the CNS or the Peripheral Nervous System (PNS) – do as you know or do as is required by the current (environmental) conditions. Therefore muscles must be able to respond to variety of stimulus including position, posture and movement also know as proprioreception. Most of the proprioreception comes from our feet, unfortunately we have put (quite often very uncomfortable) casts around them – shoes, with various ‘support mechanisms’ ultimately inhibiting our innate ability to adapt to the terrain and it is often reflected in our posture. it is the way we stand in space against gravity that is the true insight on what is going on with the sensorimotor system and as such can tell a lot about the types of muscle imbalances present. Read more about the foot in my article here. 

Which brings me to the….

Conclusion

He who treats the site of pain is often lost.

This article is for my personal use and educational purposes only, please always consult a licensed health professional. I cannot be held responsible for any damages caused by the information contained in this article.

Sources:

• Cover image
• muscle balance
• UCS Posture
• [easyazon_link identifier=”0736074007″ locale=”US” tag=”thetalcyc-20″]LCS Posture[/easyazon_link]

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The post Muscle Imbalances and Endurance Sports appeared first on The Tall Cyclist.