Tag: injuryprevention

Master of the Basics

Squats! Everyone knows how to do it right? Just load the bar on your shoulders and start going up and down with your legs. Deadlifts are just picking the bar off the floor. Its so easy that anyone can do it! Its also functional for strength and muscle mass building, surely everyone should do them!

Are Squat and Deadlift All That Simple?

This person was lifting the bar in a bad form while being coached by a bad trainer

Fact is, improper technique for either squat and deadlift will cause injury when its not done properly. Back when I only had an NASM personal training certification, I didn’t realize that my poor squat and deadlift form was harmful to my back. My knee dominant squat movement was damaging my knee. Now that I have properly applied the McGill techniques described in Ultimate Back Fitness and cleaned up my techniques, none of the old injuries became problematic anymore.

Can Anyone Do Standard Squat and Deadlift?

You have probably heard the news floating around on the internet. Some old grandma was having problem simply climbing up the stairs, started deadlifting, and ended up having no problems climbing up the stairs while being super strong in the process. If a grandma can do it, surely anyone can do it too right?

What is the problem with this line of thinking?

There’s a reason why femur head replacement came in different sizes and shapes. Source: The San Antonio Orthopaedic Group

Different hips and spine angle results in different movement range. This is something determined by your DNA and training will not change it. Depending on the depth of your hip socket and your lumbar spine curvature, you might not be able to pick the bar off the floor without flexing your back. Same thing can be said about achieving a deep squat. Hence not everyone can do the standard squat and deadlift movements without high risk of injury. This may sound contradictory to my post on why you should try powerlifting. Just because you can’t do standard deadlift with a perfect form doesn’t mean that you can’t reap the benefits of deadlift exercise.

How You Should Train

Move Well

You must first learn how to move properly. When I was young, the ligaments and spine disks still have the capacity to perform even with faulty movement. But as I age, those injuries pile up and causes pain. Even if you are not in pain now, its not an excuse for you not to learn how to move properly. If your back hurts the day after every leg day, your leg day is definitely breaking your back. If you are unsure, get a proper trainer that actually knows how to coach proper movement.

Move Accordingly

If you are born with hips that will not allow you to pick the bar off the floor with a straight back, you could try using a trap bar or by lifting from a higher position. You won’t be able to compete in a powerlifting meet but you can still reap the benefit of lower body posterior chain strengthening from modified deadlifts. Having said this, it could also be a movement engram i.e. software issue but this is a topic for another day.

Ultimately these “basic moves” are not as simple as it seems and unless you want to experience spine and knee injuries by your mid 30’s (like the author of this article), you should focus on the right way to move for your body. Just like in martial arts, mastering the basics is no simple matter.

Truth about Stretching

Some of you that have read the Dr. McGill’s books might disagree with him in regards to what he refers to as “stiffness” and its importance in athleticism. I for one am a former martial artist that used to do splits while standing with one foot. So I understand your disbelief. When I told my shifu about my low back pain a decade ago, his suggestion was the toe touch stretch where you stand on both feet and try to reach your toes. I used to be able to touch my knees with my chin, with a straight knee. Those stretches only gave me temporary relief. So let me go though what the latest science actually says about stretching, specifically static stretching, and why I don’t do static stretching anymore.

THE PROMISES OF STRETCHING

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Yes, I’m sure most of you have read many articles about the benefit of stretching. This site even said that certain yoga poses can do wonders for everything from hangover, insomnia, sugar craving, depression, to the flu. What is absent is the research behind all these claims. Keep in mind that in this world of fake homeopathy and touch healing, I for one don’t really believe in any of them unless they show me the money i.e. actual non-biased, randomized trial. And as per my previous post regarding anecdotal evidence in health, you shouldn’t believe in anecdotal evidence either.

Now as an NASM certified personal trainer, I have also been taught about all the difference between static and dynamic stretching, self-myofacial release (SMR) i.e. foam rolling stretch, etc. and which to use at which phase of the training you are in. This of course begs the question: How effective are they in real life scenario. especially for injury prevention during training and soreness reduction afterwards. For the purpose of this article, we will stick to static stretching. Mainly due to the fact that this is the most common form of stretching everybody does prior to exercise.

STATIC STRETCHING TO PREVENT SORENESS

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Based on research done on Norway Knowledge Center for Health Services on stretching to prevent injury and and soreness, static stretching does nothing on risk injury.  Mind you that this is a big study on 2377 adult participants that exercise regularly. It was a randomized trial with international setting. The most the researchers could positively said about static stretching is that it reduces the risk of bothersome soreness after exercise (i.e. DOMS, Delayed Onset of Muscle Soreness).

George Institute of Global Health in Australia did a study on stretching to prevent muscle soreness after exercise that combined the Norway study above along with 11 other studies to compare the result in field and lab setting. Result from both settings are consistent and the conclusion was that, nope, it does not even reduce DOMS even in healthy adults, regardless if you do it before, after, or before and after exercise.

Last but not least, another study done by University of Sydney on effects of stretching before and after exercise to reduce muscle soreness and injury reduction also showed no noticeable difference on both counts. This study compared 5 past studies, two on military recruit training.

STATIC STRETCHING TO PREVENT INJURIES

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Proprioception basically means the capability of your muscles to give a feedback towards your nervous system by the way. Think about it as closing your eyes and doing squats or walking straight, your muscles should also be able to help you sense your surroundings.

So strength training, proprioception training, and stretching. From sporting point of view, which one is actually most effective in injury prevention? Based on 2014 study done by Copenhagen Institute of Sports Medicine of 25 trials regarding effective exercise interventions to prevent injuries involving 26610 participants with 3464 injuries, stretching not surprisingly showed no benefit in injury prevention, both acute and overuse injury. Proprioception and strength training on the other hand consistently showed undeniable benefit towards injury prevention in sports. That’s right not only would proper strength training gives you more Oomph during the game, it will also helps you prevent injury.

Last but not least, Joseph J Knapik of the US Army Center of Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine did a study in 2015 regarding the importance of physical fitness for Injury Prevention. His research result on military population shows that too much or too little flexibility increases injury risk. Static stretching prior to exercise does NOT reduce risk of injury but REDUCES strength and power (explosive strength) although warm up (low intensity activity prior to exercise) appears to reduce the risk of injury.

CONCLUSION

So there you have it folks. Based on studies of active recreational community up to military personnel, static stretching does not help reduce injury. It would even decrease your performance. This is no surprise since Dr. McGill’s research already indicated that too much flexibility will create instability. Motorheads also understand this well as soft suspensions with lots of travel cannot do tight corners on sports cars. What’s importance is your ROM (range of motion) and make sure you can do them properly for the range of activity of your choice. If you do Tae Kwon Do, Muay Thai and Jiu Jitsu, yes, you do need to have a very large, forward facing hip ROM and doing splits helps you achieve that. But if you are an elite marathon runner, having a tighter hamstring actually helps.