Weekly Recap 8/3 - 8/10

This week we kick things off with an article from Austin Baraki about Abnormal Labs in Exercise Part I: Kidney Function. The second is a guest article from powerlifter Emma Jarman who conducted a brief poll about disordered eating among female strength athletes.

Our two social media posts of the week are Paul’s post about Movement Idealism in the Fitness Industry which talks about the idea that if you don’t do a certain movement by an arbitrary set standard something bad will happen. See part 2 here. To conclude, we have Ryan The Barbell Doc with his post about how posture is a hot topic nowadays, with damn near everybody thinking they need to "fix" their posture in order to deal with whatever pain/injury they're dealing with.

Articles of the Week

Abnormal Labs in Exercise Part I: Kidney Function - Austin Baraki

Austin dives into lab work and what to look for in this week’s article. He frequently receives questions from lifters who see their doctors and get a variety of screening tests done, including bloodwork.

Interpreting lab data accurately can be a tricky endeavor, particularly for individuals who lack training in clinical medicine. Simple comparison of results against the lab reference ranges, for example, is a recipe for problems ranging from over-diagnosis, over-treatment, and unnecessary anxiety to missed diagnoses and preventable downstream harm. While we cannot fully educate the public in clinical lab interpretation, with these articles he hopes to answer some basic questions to guide more productive conversations between clients and their physician. However, these articles are for informational and entertainment purposes only.

Disordered Eating Habits Poll - Emma Jarman

Emma, a guest writer and elite powerlifter, recently took to Instagram to take a quick poll of women within the realm of strength sports. The question was: “Have you ever struggled with disordered eating habits? Yes or no.” Out of the 110 women that responded to the poll, 101 said “yes.”

 Ninety-two percent of the women who responded to my poll have struggled with varying degrees of disordered eating. Out of those 101, 70 are strength athletes in some capacity (not a single strength athlete voted “no”—100 percent of the female strength athletes who participated in my poll have either previously or are currently struggling with disordered eating habits) and agreed to answer a few questions regarding their disordered eating histories and habits. Told mostly in their own words, this is their story.

Instagram Posts of the Week

Movement Idealism in the Fitness Industry Ever since I started calling out accounts on my story people have been sending me profiles of fitness coaches spewing BS. A common theme I have noticed is this sort of movement idealism created by these trainers. This idea that if you don't do a certain movement by their arbitrary set standard something bad will happen (usually revolving around getting hurt) or that if you can't reach their arbitrary requirements you aren't "allowed" to do certain activities. Usually accompanied by a much prettier and fancier of that green check and red X and some sort of sale on their patented way of fixing the very problem they just created. What if I told you these ideas where based on an overly simplistic view of movement and pain and did way more harm then good (more on that tomorrow) 1. If lifting is just applying stress to the body why do we deem some positions as dangerous in lifting but celebrate them in sport? When an extreme sport athlete lands a big jump and goes into spinal flexion no one bats an eye but a little spinal flexion in a deadlift and the Internet goes crazy. 2. What if I told you we, as humans, are absolutely horrible at detecting these fine movement variations we are claiming to fix? Did you know it has been shown the lumbar spine moves through a substantial amount of flexion-extension range of motion in excess of 35% during compound exercises like the good morning, kettlebell, swing, and squat. the lumbar spine also rotates and laterally flexes some amount during and between reps on the squat and deadlift and we don't detect any of it with the naked eye. 3. When we correlate moving a certain way to pain we are grossly overestimating biomechanics role in pain and greatly underestimating the million other factors at play when we are talking about pain (check out the @resilienttraininglab podcast episode 10 with @eric.soko.dpt for more on this) Continued in comments. #beresilient @revolutionfitnessclubs

Paul Milano