Weekly Recap 3/29-4/4/2020
It is time for the weekly recap. We are back with our usual two articles, one Instagram post, and one Facebook post. Our first article focuses on how to make the most of your home workouts with no equipment. We covered a lot in last week’s weekly recap but Greg Nuckols offers a different perspective and includes a library of home exercises that you can use. The second article goes over why it is important to go outside. I think many of us are trying to get outside more during this time so hearing all of the benefits is motivating to continue to do it. In our social media post, Dr. Andy Chen covers why no activity is inherently harmful and why the properly progressing activities and managing stress are the keys to reaching our goals. Finally, Ben Cormack ask some thought provoking questions about position and pain and explains why coaches should be spending more time motivating clients, being positive, and encouraging self-efficacy than encouraging stability, muscle control, and “proper” positioning.
Articles of the Week
How to Make Gains Without a Gym by Greg Nuckols
Greg Nuckols reiterates that you can make home workouts effective even if you have no equipment. Although you may not love that you can’t get into the weight room at the moment, there are still ways of working out at home with what you have available. The information he provides is also useful for those that may want to begin strength training but are unable to purchase a gym membership or need to workout at home due to time restraints or childcare issues. There are some basic recommendations for equipment that he finds most beneficial for a home gym, but there are also many ways that you can get creative in finding things that can work as weights. Water jugs and filling implements with sand are great ways to make your own weights at home too. This article also has a giant master sheet of exercises that you can use to design your own at-home program.
10 Reasons Why Being Outside is Important by Sydney Sprouse at Askthescientists.com
With being quarantined at home, we all have been looking for ways to step outside and get some fresh air. This article is a great reminder as to why spending time outside is extremely beneficial. Getting outside helps to relieve stress, calm the mind, increase focus, and get you active. Right now is a great time to focus on getting outside more. Not only has the weather been fairly agreeable, many of us most likely have more time on our hands since we aren’t running around from place to place. Some people also have kids running around the house and finding things for them to do all day is nearly impossible. You can spending time outdoors in many different ways. Go biking or hiking, take a sunset stroll, take a chair and work or read in the sun, have a picnic, or create a scavenger hunt for your kids. There are so many ways to make the outdoors enjoyable. Find what you like and get out there to reap all of the benefits of being outside.
Social Media Posts of the Week
In this week’s Instagram post, Dr. Andy Chen emphasizes the importance of correctly dosed volume and intensity to promote the correct amount of stress. Too little stress and we are understressed and maladapted. In contrast, too much stress can be detrimental. Programming comes down to applying an appropriate amount of stress so that your body adapts and improves. The idea of slowly increasing volume/intensity over time is that you become stronger and more resilient and, therefore, your body is more able to handle more stress. As Dr. Andy Chen points out no activity is inherently harmful. You just need to make sure that you aren’t going too hard too quickly. Having a personalized program that is written specifically for where you are beginning and where you want to get to is crucial. In order to reach your goals and get better, you need an appropriate dosed program to get you there.
“One of the biggest misconceptions in the health and fitness realm is that a certain activity is bad for you. The reality is that any activity can be harmful if too much is done too soon. The analogy I like to use is based on running.
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Let's say that you decided to run a marathon. How different would you feel if you built up to running a marathon opposed to forcing yourself to run one right off the bat? Is the activity harmful if you run it right off the bat or is it the volume/intensity?
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In most cases, the activity isn't inherently harmful but our system is underprepared for the volume or intensity of that said activity. Let's say you chew a few pieces of beef jerky, this isn't a problem because you are within your envelope of function AKA your capacity.
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Now if you decided to chew two full packs of beef jerkys, your jaw might feel a bit sore or even uncomfortable. Is chewing a dangerous activity? No, you just simply did more than your body is capable of.
I love the illustration above from a paper by Dr. Scott Dye. Whenever I think of rehab or training, my goal is to manage stress. If the system is understressed, it is maladapted in the sense that we lose function. If the stress is always within the envelope of function then we maintain. Now, if we stress the system enough into the zone of supraphysiogical overload then we can increase of envelope of function when we recover. On the contrary, if the overload is too great then it is detrimental.
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Activities that reproduce your knee pain aren't inherently harmful. We just need to manage the stress accordingly and slowly build up our tolerance to the volume/intensity of those activities.”
Ben Cormack comes at us with a non-COVID-19 Facebook post this week. He covers why hyper-focusing on knee valgus and spinal flexion can do more harm than good. Many, if not all, athletes have knee valgus and/or spinal flexion when they perform their sport. However, there are many trainers and coaches out there that highly advise against having any knee valgus or spinal flexion when they are lifting. Of course, there is technique to squat, bench, deadlift, etc. and there are ways to perform them so you can continue to improve them and get stronger. However, our words matter and instilling fear and telling clients that certain positions are harmful is most likely doing more harm than good. As Ben points out, we should focus more on the items on the green side of the arrow than the red. Think about how you coach and how you can modify your coaching in the future so you are spending more time in the green and less in the red.
“File under not f*cking COVID related 😂” -Ben Cormack