Tag: training

Mind and Body

Modern people are poor on time and rich on distraction.  We are all about multi-tasking and it would be great if exercise can be one of those things you can multi-task away, say while watching TV and playing with your phone.

Our muscles contracts and relaxes due to electro-chemical signals from our nervous system to our muscle.  This is the reason why our body twitch uncontrollably when we accidentally get electrocuted.  This mechanism is useful in physiotherapy.  Muscles that are not used tend to shrink. When our joints are injured, we cannot do regular exercise.  Pulsed electric frequency can be used to stimulate the muscles and prevent them from shrinking while our joints are recovering.

These days, these mechanism are being used, such as by a product that sounded like “sixpack” to promote a method of gaining muscles without breaking a sweat, allowing you to finally multi-task while gaining muscle!

What is the Problem?

Electrocuting yourself while binge watching netflix might seemed to be a good idea to get six pack abs.  But what exactly are you missing when you skipped the squat rack for electric pad?

Movement Proficiency

People that are properly trained in functional movement patterns (not to be confused with a misguided youtuber with similar handle) will learn how to  move in a joint conserving way.  For example, when they squat, they will know how to engage both the posterior and anterior chain of movement, using power from the hips and how to align the knees.  This skill will enable them to move in a joint conservative way while generating high power.  You will not learn this skill if you simply zap your legs.

My main bread and butter right now is training 70-80 year old grannies proper functional movement patterns as described in Prof. McGill’s Ultimate Back Fitness. These people are people with early knee osteoarthritis issues that have been to the best orthopedic surgeons, acupuncturist and physiotherapist money can buy in Hong Kong and still find it painful to walk, sit and climb stairs. The reliefs they are getting after several sessions with me are caused by their increased movement skills and this cannot be earned by simple muscle electrocution.

Neuromuscular Connectivity

Your skeletal muscles are connected with neurons to your brain.  This connection is what enables you to consciously move your body.  The more you train, the more refined would your connection be.  Think of martial arts masters, olympic weightlifters and powerlifters that are able to recruit high proportion of their muscle fibers at multiple joints to execute a single movement in harmony.  This is connection cannot be built when your training method doesn’t even involve your conscious mind.

Bone Density

It costs USD 22,000 / kg of items shipped to ISS. NASA and CSA is definitely spending way more money sending a glorified treadmill and squat rack into space when they could save a tonne of money in the short term simply sending those muscle electrocuting pads.

Your bone is actually alive.  It has blood vessels and neural network inside.  This is why your bone can heal after fracture.  Your bone can also increase in density with repeated loading-unloading such as squats and deadlifts.  Athletes, farmers and construction workers have high bone density due to this mechanism.  Just don’t expect this benefit if you are a couch athlete.

Conclusion

By all means, if your goal is simple cosmetics, then these type of devices can definitely help you. Unlike training with improper movement, this method of training have no risk of harming your joints.  But proper exercise have far more benefit than simply looking buffed.  You will not get those benefits without putting the actual work.

Training for the Ages

Nobody Likes Aging! But just as surely as the time ticks, our bodies will start to slow down once we past a certain age.

In my younger days, I could cycle for hours on end but I had to stop over five years ago due to Sciatica where my L5/S1 spine disk was pinching my right foot nerve.  I only realized the relationship between cycling and sciatica through Dr. McGill whose research can be read on Back Mechanics.

For some of us, it might be one of the knees starting to act up after walking for a certain distance.  Others might be having problems with shoulder pain after a typical benchpress session.  The easiest solution seems to be to stop training all together.  If you do, your strength will surely recede, followed by your mobility and lifestyle.  Is this how you are supposed to spend your golden years?  Below are some training trips to ensure you can extend your strength and mobility further down the road.

1. Train Movement Patterns, Not Individual Muscles

When you train the muscles individually, you are training your body in separate parts, and this will create unequal loading on your joints especially the knees. Train in movement patterns instead where all the muscles in the joint can work in concert.   Think of a proper squat training that trains both your posterior and anterior chain of movement on the legs versus a knee extension exercise. Movement pattern training will allow you to train in a more joint conserving way.

2. Train With No Pain

In the old days, its fine for you to say “No Pain, No Gain!”  The fact is, once you reached a certain stage of your life, your joint collagen has been rubbed off from decades of moving improperly and your recovery rate has simply dropped.  No amount of miracle pills can change that.  Training with the same principles will only cause increased pain the next day.  A better way is to ensure the movement patterns are done correctly. You can learn more of movement pattern training in Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance. This means knees should not cave inward during squats, etc. As Dr. McGill said, “practice does not makes perfect, practice makes permanent!” There is a difference between muscle pain after training and joint pain during and after training.  The former is good, the latter is bad and if your personal trainer can’t tell the difference, then you should probably get a better one.

3. Cycle Your Training

This is something powerlifters and other strength athletes have known for decades.  Basically if you keep on training the exact same way day in and day out, you will get injured.  The best way to avoid it is to cycle between training methods.  Perhaps there are days where you train with kettlebells, other days when you train with TRX, and another with classic barbells.

4. More Frequency, Less Intensity

When we train, we are actually destroying muscle tissues. These tissues would then be rebuild stronger than before.  Hence we become stronger over time.  In our younger days, the further down we “dip”, the further we would “bounce back”.  Unfortunately, as we age, the less we are able to “bounce back” from a “dip”.  Hence a person might be able to do a two hour session three times a week in his twenties to maintain his strength.  Once this person hits his fifties, a one hour session, six times a week would be far more prudent.  Then in his eighties, half hour each morning and evening, six days a week.  This way, this person will experience less “dips” without straining the recovery too much.

Conclusion

Just because things are starting to slow down, it doesn’t mean that you should just give up and resign to a walking stick or wheel chair.  Instead, what you need to do is to adjust your training matching your current health to ensure that you maintain your strength and mobility without harming your joints.

8 Easy Ways to Build Lean and Strong Body

You probably heard often enough that if you want to increase your strength or muscle mass, you must also first increase your weight, and in reverse, if you want to reduce your body fat, your strength will drop down automatically. This might be true if you are already training intensively for long period of time. However, for most people you can increase your muscle mass and reduce body fat at the same time by following these easy tips:

sleeping-girl

Adequate Sleep

This may sound odd. How come you are telling me to sleep when I want to be lean and strong? But the fact is, while you sleep, your body will be engaging in catabolism that converts body fat into energy. Sleep is also essential for your muscle to recover and become stronger. Hence, if you are on a short term business trip and you must choose between adequate sleep or training, sleep would be a wiser choice.

Good_Food_Display_-_NCI_Visuals_Online

Adequate Food

This might also sound strange. How come you are telling me to eat when I want to slim down? The key here is long term success. If you drastically reduce your body weight with extreme diet and exercise from the beginning, you run the high risk of metabolic damage like “The Biggest Looser” contestants experience. Clearly this does not give you the license to gorge on a buffet. The trick is eating reduced portion with increased frequency. You should also emphasize quality over quantity.

squat

Proper Training

When people talk about exercise and weight loss, most would think of jogging or cycling. Although heavyset people run the risk of knee and ankle injury if they jog too much. Those with thick spine also run the risk of sciatica if they cycle with bent pose for too long. Weightlifting is usually ignored even though you can increase your basalt metabolic rate by up to 48 hours after weight training. And especially for deadlift and squat, you will also increase your testosterone, growth hormone, and insulin-like growth factors production, all essential for lean muscle development. Of course you might need the help of a good coach to help train you how to squat and deadlift properly so you won’t injure your back and knees.

purpleyamphoto

Eat Your Carbs

Some people are better adapted to low-fat high-carbs diet while others are more suited with low-carb high-fat diet in their quest for healthy weight management. The key here is consuming what your great grand parents would recognize as food. Unfortunately some people took carbs avoidance to the max which will cause three things:

  1. Bad mouth odor. This is due to the catabolism that also occurs while you sleep. Only with chronic deficiency in carbohydrate, it will occur the whole day, overworking your liver and causing bad breath. Catabolism is also the cause of your bad breath when you just wake up.
  2. Loss of energy. When you engage in anaerobic activity such as weightlifting, your muscle relies on glycogen in your muscle and blood as a source of energy. Glycogen itself comes from digested carbohydrate.
  3. Difficulty in burning fat while training. This is essential although it sounded weird. But the fact is, the fat burning metabolism cycle that occurs during aerobic exercise needs to be triggered with carbohydrate. That’s right, fat burns with the flame from carbohydrate.

Of course quantity must adjust to your body type and quality is essential. Steamed yam, boiled potatoes and brown rice is far superior to noodles and biscuits.

spoon-sugar

Avoid Excess Sugar

Whoa, you just told me to eat carbs, and sugar is carb right? So why avoid sugar? It is true that a moderate quantity of sugar (less than 6 gram) prior to exercise can help increase your strength while training (and consequently burns more calories). But outside this phase, sugar consumption is best avoided. This is due to the high speed of sugar absorption inside the body. This feature is useful for those running a marathon. But for normal people, sugar consumption will only lead to a spike in blood sugar followed by fat build up.

beer

Avoid Alcohol

This is essential! Other than containing high calories. alcohol consumption will also lead to fat deposit in the abdominal region. Alcohol will also lower the energy availability in your muscle and slows down your metabolism while training. That’s why, if you want to have a 6-pack abs, you should avoid alcohol.

Sliced_Matsusaka_wagyu_beef

Eat Your Protein

Plenty of nutritionist and doctors said that you only need to consume 0.8 grams of protein per kg body weight per day. So if you weigh 70 kg, you only need to eat 56 grams of protein. 3 ounce of beef contains approximately 21 grams of protein, 250 ml of milk contains 8 grams of protein and one hard boiled egg contains 6 grams of protein. But if you want to increase your muscle mass and loose body fat, you need to consume far more than that. Based on latest research, you need to consume up to 2.0 grams of protein per kg body weight per day in order to cain optimal result. Again, quality is essential. Hard boiled eggs and steamed wild caught fish is far superior to hotdogs.

fish

Fish Oil Consumption

This is something most people tend to ignore. Modern food is rich is highly processed vegetable oil. Even bread, biscuits and instant coffee often contains them. And most highly processed vegetable oil and margarine is rich in trans fat and omega-6. Trans fat itself is proven to be the leading cause of the rise in obesity and heart disease. Omega-6 will also cause a host of health issue from arthritis, heart disease, to obesity. On the other hand. omega-3 has the function to neutralize most of the harmful effects of omega-6, other than muscle and joint anti-inflammatory function that will allow you train with increasing frequency. You might be tempted to say “but I already ate my fish oil but don’t feel any of the benefits.” And the problem lies with the composition of omega-3 to omega-6 you are consuming. Don’t get it wrong, cheap fish oil usually contains far more omega-6 than omega-3 due to the low quality of raw material they use. That is why cheaper brands dare not to say how many omega-6 is actually in their supplement and they would not state it doesn’t contain omega-6 either.

Train with Your Brain, Train for a Purpose

So the other day I was helping a Muay Thai fighter / trainer “see the light” as she is having low back and upper back pain. Its interesting how in this modern day and age, there’s so many otherwise smart people that simply imitates follow certain “youtube stars” exercises for inspirations. I hope this article will help those still “living in the dark” train better.

Learn to Stretch Smart

Halsana-or-Plow-Pose

Ah, if I get a penny for every person that cracked their cervical spine due to this pose, I would be rich already. Let me get this straight, your cervical spine is very thin and was never meant to hold your body weight. Good trainers know how to balance between risk of certain stretch and the associated reward. Some people ended up putting some if not most of their weight on their neck while in this position. Hence this is a particularly risky pose. I have attended Ann Barros’ Iyengar yoga teacher training. She is a direct disciple of Iyengar himself. And she is not very fond of this pose, to put it in kind. So if you want to loosen up your neck after a session, there are better ways to massage your neck, say using self myofascial release any good trainer should know.

Second of all, as Dr. McGill has often emphasized in his book “Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance“, Great athletes don’t just stretch their muscles endlessly, they fine tune the muscle elasticity for specific athleticism. Any motorhead out there can understand that the suspension of a street race car is designed to be rough but stable while a family sedan suspension would be designed for comfort. The same can be said about your back and core muscles. Some are designed for mobility and some are designed for stability. The more mobility you introduce to a particular joint the less stable that joint is. As an example, the best long distance runners do not have a very loose hamstring.

Yes I know how trendy it is to infuse yoga to other training. But how many yoga master you know actually won any Olympic gold medal? Fact is, some poses might be good to train your core stability and endurance, while some others will wreck your back, especially if you already have discogenic pain and you have one of those crappy yoga teachers that like to “challenge” you without realizing that individual bone structures are different and will affect a person’s mobility.

There’s a Time and Place and Limit for Everything

balance boardIf you are an athlete that needs to push or pull with one leg or one hand at a time, your training should definitely have more balance component to it than a power lifter. However, some “youtube stars” have apparently jumped the sharks in terms of proprioceptively enriched training and unless you are training to be a circus performer, then it doesn’t really matter if you can jump on a swiss ball. In fact Eric Cressey once did a research on athletes with no ankle problems where the control group did regular athletic training and the study group had combined BOSU ball stability training thrown in. Within 6 months, the group with the additional BOSU ball training actually performed WORSE than the control group.

The key here is to train specifically for your sport. An NFL defensive lineman needs to be able to counter dynamic loading on the upper body while standing on stable surface. Telling him to squat on a BOSU ball would be the other way around. Hence Dr. McGill emphasized on recognizing the athlete’s movement pattern and then train them specifically. He would further explain all this in his book.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, it depends on what you want to do. Why do you train? If you are a Muay Thai fighter and you are using a body building protocol to increase your power, you might find your strength and weight increases but you became a lot slower. If you are a big boned individual and you want to loose weight, going to any random yoga studio might leave you with lots of pain, not the good kind, more in the league of pars bone fractures and disc bulges. Some yoga teachers are more enlightened and will know how to customize the exercise for you but I do not have faith in most of them. Hence the title, train with your brain, train for a purpose. You should first decide what your goal is, understand your body, then train accordingly. If you decided to follow a particular “guru”, then you should question the scientific justification he/she uses to develop your program. I for one follow the McGill method.

Exercise or Diet for 6-pack

[:en]Ah, the eternal question. Which is more important?

If Coca-cola, Nestle and PepsiCola has their way, then diet soda is actually helpful for weight loss and exercise is much more important than diet. Well, for the obvious reasons, we can’t simply take this at face value right?

Meanwhile at the end of the spectrum, mainstream media like New York Times and and CBS are all saying how dieting is more important than exercise.

Now here is where it gets interesting. According to University of North Carolina research, from 2003 to 2012, US per-capita consumption of soda and junk food has actually decreased. So if diet is more important, then the number of obese people living in US should be decreasing right? Except that according data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2007 to 2012, the number of obese people in USA during this period actually increased. So surely diet is not the most important thing.

Well, according to research done by Mayo clinic, apparently over the past decade, US population physical activity continues to decrease. And according to the latest research done by Loughborough University, exercise actually help decrease appetite, and works much better at lowering your body fat content than diet. So apparently in this case Coke and Pepsi might be more right than NYT. As Aleksey Torokhtiy, Russian weightlifting gold medalist said on reddit AMA, he doesn’t go on any diet, he just eat anything he likes to eat.

So have you hit the weight room this week ladies?

Click here and subscribe to my channel for simple exercises that will help you get loose fat and get strong![:zh]Ah, the eternal question. Which is more important?

If Coca-cola, Nestle and PepsiCola has their way, then diet soda is actually helpful for weight loss and exercise is much more important than diet. Well, for the obvious reasons, we can’t simply take this at face value right?

Meanwhile at the end of the spectrum, mainstream media like New York Times and and CBS are all saying how dieting is more important than exercise.

Now here is where it gets interesting. According to University of North Carolina research, from 2003 to 2012, US per-capita consumption of soda and junk food has actually decreased. So if diet is more important, then the number of obese people living in US should be decreasing right? Except that according data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2007 to 2012, the number of obese people in USA during this period actually increased. So surely diet is not the most important thing.

Well, according to research done by Mayo clinic, apparently over the past decade, US population physical activity continues to decrease. And according to the latest research done by Loughborough University, exercise actually help decrease appetite, and works much better at lowering your body fat content than diet. So apparently in this case Coke and Pepsi might be more right than NYT. As Aleksey Torokhtiy, Russian weightlifting gold medalist said on reddit AMA, he doesn’t go on any diet, he just eat anything he likes to eat.

So have you hit the weight room this week ladies?

Click here and subscribe to my channel for simple exercises that will help you get loose fat and get strong![:id]Ah, pertanyaan abadi. Mana yang lebih penting?

Kalau kita mau mengikuti pendapat Coca-cola, Nestle dan PepsiCola, minuman soda diet itu bisa membantu mengurangi berat badan dan olah-raga itu lebih penting dari diet. Namun untuk alasan yang kita semua tahu, kita jelas tidak bisa percaya begitu saja bukan.

Sementara itu ada pula pendapat yang bertolak belakang, dimana media massa terbesar seperti New York Times dan CBS semuanya mengatakan diet itu lebih penting dari olah raga.

Naah, mari kita teliti lebih dalam. Menurut penelitian dari Universitas Carolina Utara, konsumsi soda dan makanan cepat saji perkapita di Amerika dari 2003 ke 2012 telah menurun. Bila diet itu penting, maka jumlah penduduk gemuk di Amerika seharusnya berkurang bukan? Namun menurut data dari survei National Health and Nutrition tahun 2007 hingga 2012, jumlah penduduk gemuk di Amerika dalam jangka waktu ini justru meningkat. Tentunya diet bukanlah yang paling penting.

Menurut penelitian dari Mayo Clinic, nampaknya dalam satu dasawarsa ini penduduk Amerika semakin malas bergerak. Sedangkan menurut penelitian terakhir dari Universitas Loughborough, olah-raga membantu menurunkan nafsu makan, dan jauh lebih efektif dari diet untuk menurunkan kadar lemak badan. Jadi dalam hal ini kelihatannya Coca-cola dan Pepsi justru lebih benar dari New York Times. Seperti kata Aleksey Torokhtiy, peraih medali emas angkat besi dari Russia, “saya tidak pernah berdiet, saya makan apa yang saya kepingin makan.”

Jadi ibu-ibu sekalian sudah pergi ke gym bulan ini?

Klik disini dan berlanggananlah ke saluran YouTube saya untuk ide latihan sederhana yang bisa membantu anda mengurangi lemak tubuh dan menjadi kuat![:]

Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance

Get the latest scientific evidence on back exercise – what helps and what hurts, and why from world most renowned authority. Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance provides professionals with the evidence based to design and prescribe the best exercise programs for the back. Professor McGill’s unique approach is based on years of scientific research into back function of injured people through to elite athletes. His expertise is sought by governments, corporations, professional sports teams and athletes.

HKD 640 + Handling 45 (Local HK Only!)

IDR 1,100,000.- plus IDR 20,000.- handling fee for Indonesia. email magnus.performance@gmail.com  for Indonesian order and Inquiries for shipping to other Asian Countries

A complete description of a 5 stage program is provided. Many examples illustrate each stage within a bad back rehabilitation program together with a performance enhancement for athletes. Beginning with recognizing and re-pattering perturbed motor programs and progressing to the enhancement of stability, then endurance, the final stage continue with strength, power and agility training. Each step is well illustrated and instructive. Added to this are general approaches to assess the demands of individual activities and sports and how to identify the critical components that need specific focus in an individual’s back. Dr. MGill’s style makes for easy read of this thorough and rich resource.

Be prepared for a new approach. Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance is a myth buster!

Back Mechanic: Step by Step McGill Method to fix Back Pain

In an age where a seemingly endless amount of gimmicky back products are in circulation, a definitive guide to self-assessment and rehabilitation is more essential than ever. Back Mechanic guides you through a self-assessment of your pain triggers, then shows you how to avoid these roadblocks to recovery. Then effective exercises are coached in a step by step progressive plan. Spine expert, Prof. McGill used his 30 years of research findings and clinical investigations to create this evidence-based guide that has helped thousands reclaim their lives. This knowledge is now available to you in this richly illustrated book. You will become your own best Back Mechanic and advocate.

HKD 330 Book Only

HKD 700 Book + Video Modules

email magnus.performance@gmail.com  for order and inquiries

Praise for the “Back Mechanic”:

“Dr. McGill is Men’s Health’s go-to expert for back pain issues. His cutting-edge but practical advice has not only benefited our readers for more than a decade, but even helped my own father avoid surgery and experience lasting relief. Dr. McGill is truly the Jedi master of spine rehab.” – Adam Campbell, Editor-in-Chief, MensHealth.com

“There is no one better than professor Stuart McGill to advice on how to avoid and treat low back injuries. He has created a scientific foundation of what causes back pain that has guided clinicians around the world.” – Chris Riddoch, Professor of Sports & Exercise Science, Bath University, UK.

“Dr. McGill’s work is making a huge impact on the health of pilots and airmen. In the USAF, if you don’t know about the teachings of Stuart McGill, well let’s just say you don’t know.” – Philip Hardinger, Combat Medic, USAF

“He figured out my back and salvaged my Olympic career. The approach is in these pages with many clear and helpful illustrations.” – Bethany Hart, USA Olympian

“Dr. McGill is the most widely recognized spine researcher in the world. This book brings his knowledge straight to the people who need it most.” – William Morgan, DC Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Consultant to the White House

“He is the Dr’s back doctor, and in these pages guides the reader through the essential steps to become pain-free.’ – Dr. Clayton Skaggs, Injury Prevention and Performance coordinator, St. Louis Baseball Cardinals, and, Medical Director, Central Institute of Human Performance, St. Luis, USA.

“Since implementing Dr. McGill’s treatment protocols, our worker compensation patients have returned to their job sooner. In this book he explains back pain, and provides the reader with practical steps toward recovery. Distinctly readable.” – John Repac OTR/L and Rada Lorenz, RN, Montana Health Network, USA

“Dr. McGill’s unique approach restored a pain free back following a major back injury despite other experts telling me that my powerlifting career was finished. Once pain-free, I came back even STRONGER, and set records in powerlifting.” – Brian Carroll, Champion Powerlifter