If you have ever stretched, why?

In fitness we know certain things like if you run more you get better at it, the same for all movements. If you lift weights you will traditionally get stronger or bigger and maybe even leaner, if you have the right diet to support those changes. But what about stretching? Well it's in the name isn't it, when you stretch something it gets longer. So the mental shortcut that we all go through is that when we stretch our muscles they get longer, it happens with other things so it must be true. Stretching has been the mainstay of fitness and therapy for decades, to prevent 'short' and 'tight' muscles we have stretched them. But does it work to lengthen your muscles?

It's understandable that people without specific knowledge would adhere to the general guidelines provided by people who obviously know about these things. If they say that after a workout we should stretch all of the major muscles used in the workout for around 15 seconds for a maintenance stretch then you would of course do it. My issue with this is that it's just not very personal and a prescription such as total body stretching can take around 10-15 minutes to complete, after every workout that could be around an hour a week or a couple of days a year. With time being a constant issue for many, time saving may help more people get the much needed exercise. Also, many have spent significant time stretching without significant improvements in the length of the muscle and subsequent range at the associated joint i.e. tight hamstrings seen in hip flexion, so stretching doesn't always stretch, fact, why not?

The body is complex, there are any number of reasons why one would have a tight muscle, if the reason is not to do with an unaccustomed sensory experience of the stretch feeling then what is it? The answer lies in the relationship of that muscle with the rest of the body, indeed the first place to look might be around the local region but this is commonly not the case. If stretching the hamstring as an example over 8 weeks doesn't work then I'd stop doing it and look elsewhere, in my experience, your best bet is a Biomechanics Coach but it all depends on the experience and knowledge of the specific professional.   

So with all of the knowledge that I have accrued over the years my advice would follow thus:

1. Follow a programme of exercise that maintains structural balance and you will reduce the need to correct posture with stretching or other interventions.

2. Prevent static postures for extended periods of time to reduce the need to correct faulty movement and postural issues gained from them.

3. Use massage techniques such as foam rolling and self massage to help maintain natural viscoelastic properties of tissues and work out old issues.

4. Avoid injuries from progressing too quickly in exercise and vary activities to reduce overuse injuries, get injuries seen to as soon as they present.  

5. Maintain a healthy diet and level of hydration.

6. Reduce stressful situations and utilize methods such as deep breathing and meditation to combat it if you become stressed.

7. Get the rest your body requires.

8. If a muscle or movement feels like it needs stretching then by all means do so. It might not need stretching, it might need the opposite or something else entirely. Seek further advice from an adequately qualified professional on the correct approach to treat an issue if there is no change. Be prepared that this may take time to assess and develop a strategy for you.

To review, stretching probably shouldn't be called stretching but it is, off the top of my head I can't think of a better single name. Personally I would attempt to decide what the required outcome is and call the movement something to do with that. Muscular Sensory Reprogramming MSR springs to mind for traditional use of stretching. So generally in the absence of better advice I'd carry on with your stretching as you wish, if your body is trying to tell you something via pain, discomfort or obvious movement issue then you should pay attention and have a professional investigate. 

Here's a quote from an incredibly enlightening article I have finally read.

"Traditionally, rehabilitation literature has attributed increases in muscle extensibility observed after stretching to a mechanical increase in muscle length. A growing body of research refutes these mechanical theories, suggesting instead that in subjects who are asymptomatic, increases in muscle extensibility observed immediately after a single stretching session and after short-term (3- to 8-week) stretching regimens are predominantly due to modification in subjects' sensation. This research brings to light the importance of using sensory endpoints when assessing muscle extensibility, the value of multidimensional muscle length assessment, and the need for basic research in this field. Multidimensional evaluation of muscle length can lead to a more comprehensive and effective approach to addressing disorders of muscle length and has application in developing fitness guidelines".

Increasing Muscle Extensibility: A Matter of Increasing Length or Modifying Sensation?

Cynthia Holzman Weppler and 

S. Peter Magnusson. Physical Therapy. 2010

Are you getting it in the morning?

If this is your usual though process in the morning then perhaps you should read on..."Cereal, milk, eat, door" or perhaps "toast, butter, door".

Protein intake at breakfast should be given more consideration. This is especially true as the older we get the less we can synthesize dietary amino acids (net protein utilisation) and the more we need to retain muscle mass to reduce the effects of muscle loss with age (sarcopenia at 3-5% per decade after the age of 30). Where participating in regular physical exercise the requirement increases to enable adaptations that promote fitness. And you should be participating in regular physical exercise.

After an overnight sleep induced fast your available protein pool (nitrogen balance) will be in a depleted state, meaning that one of the first stages of malnutrition - catabolism (muscle and lean tissue breakdown) - will have started and the anabolic (muscle regeneration or building) process can not continue. For this reason a regular protein intake in line with your nutritional requirements at intervals of 3-4 hours is recommended for strength and conditioning adaptations to occur.  Grass fed beef, nuts, free range eggs, fish, free range chicken etc make for appropriate breakfast choices to support lean tissue health.

Simply having a processed cereal and/or toast is a recipe for simply surviving not thriving, the milk, butter and fortified products will just about save you from complete malnutrition but this is a weak choice for sustained health over a lifetime. Many people also turn to healthy juices and smoothies for a quick breakfast, there are too many permutations to vilify juices and smoothies but they aren't all created equal. Adding oils, fats, protein, fibre etc will generally lead to sustained energy whereas omitting these things will do just the opposite. Blood glucose from sugar and insulin spikes with troughs do not set you up for sustained energy throughout the day and they generally lead to increased body fat and reduced lean muscle.

I recommend variety for breakfast, by all means have your usual choices but break it up a bit and add in protein options with reduced sugars and carbohydrates, unless of course you're going to be using it for exercise in the next couple of hours.

Personal Training - Jack Of All Trades Master Of Personal Training

What I do for a living, it's like this... "personal trainers are now expected to [also be] be salespeople, psychologists, nutritionists, post-rehabilitation specialists, and motivational speakers". I'd add in: marketing pro, web designer, writer, secretary, PA yadda yadda yadda. All to be able to provide people with health and fitness advice and support. Now I find I have to learn more about the Biopsychosocial model of pain to learn how to precisely talk to people so that I don't compound any issues that they might have, i.e. "long-term" not "chronic".

Am I going too deep into aspects of the human body that don't concern me? I don't think so, to provide a better service to my clients without asking them to go to other professionals all the time for the things that I think require some attention, I need to at least know that things exist, then at least know in part how to deal with them, investigate further or then refer on to the specific professional who CAN deal with the issue. Then how do you know which professional, not just is it Physio, Chiro, Osteo, Bowen..... there are differences between practitioners knowledge base and experience.

Most say NHS professionals should be the first port of call to refer to but then most say that the NHS has never really helped them or has helped but with the more severe treatments like surgery and drugs before even trying the basic methods first like correcting diet and exercise. Do they even know? It would seem on the surface that they don't, but then that's dependent on the individual, some do and some don't. Every time I or a client speaks to a Doctor, Specialist or Surgeon they wholeheartedly agree with the soft methods first but actually they don't really do them with enough attention.

I think there's a reason the NHS would rather take to the quick fix methods such as surgery and drugs, I think it's actually driven by people themselves. The patients themselves drive this behavior because corrective methods such as changing diet or adhering to a consistent exercise programme require great effort and where you are not paying for the service you are far less likely to put in the effort, therefore you require the method that works and will require the least effort possible.

So to bring it back round, I don't know about surgery and I don't know about pharmaceutical drugs but apart from that I do need to know a great deal about everything else to be able to promote and safely provide exercises to people who require more help to perform better and if I must know about sales and marketing, nutrition, psychology etc to be able to help more people with a holistic approach to performance then so be it, it's good to be busy.

If you want better outcomes for yourself in health and fitness then in my experience you really need to A. Pay for it or B. Really really want it. I work with clients that don't pay for my services and clients that do and this trend runs through everyone. Those that pay or have a high level of importance for the change will do what I tell them to and generally get good outcomes, otherwise they don't and nothing changes. One or the other. An that leads me nicely onto philosophy, but that's for another day.

Rant over!

Do we need prehab? 'Therapy' before injury.

Here's something that seems to be a bit contentious in the Sports Physio world, or at least with one that I have met. This Physio seems to think that colleagues would follow the same belief that trying to predict someone's chance of injury and "addressing problems before they even exist" has the potential to in itself cause a problem.

What was being referred to is the connection that quite rightly exists between the muscles/structures and the control systems in and under conscious or subconscious control. There is the possibility that through the knowledge that one has an existing issue which has the potential to cause injury or excessive wear and tear over time that the issue could be worsened or another one arise in its place.

So is a Body MOT, a prehab intervention to do just this necessarily a bad thing? Well this Sports Physio certainly thought so and wouldn't like to align business with mine to help individuals avoid injury or aid recovery with added prevention of future recurrence. I wouldn't like to suggest that as the role of a sports physio is primarily to aid recovery of injury after it has occurred and that as many injuries are of an overuse intrinsic biomechanical nature that their prevention in the first place could well affect business therefore being counter productive.

Actually I would love to say that. There are a number of activities that a person probably shouldn't do if they wish to avoid injury and move forwards in their goals. Knowing what those may be isn't an exact science at all. The question when thinking about exercise or activities: Does this person have a tolerance to support this activity?

How would we know the answer to this? Practically, a survey would start to reveal answers that could be interpreted by a professional with experience. The most basic example could be: This person wants to run 5km, Have they run before and if so have they run this distance before? That's pretty basic so to improve the accuracy of this one would go further. Some professionals would just need to view the person running to give a reasoned answer. Another way, and it's just a tool like all the others is to perform a biomechanical analysis.

Much research that now exists and the work that is being undertaken by many, does suggest that (as has always been the case) 'prevention is better than cure' and that a great degree of prevention is possible through specifically targeted pre-habilitation. It only takes a certain amount of common sense to know this but non-the-less the researchers are out there doing their thing to bring the science in and seeing supporting results.

7 Ways Towards pH Balance From Eating Greens

I was talking with a client today who understands that managing the body's pH level from the foods we eat is a potential source of better health has led me towards providing you with this list of 7 ways you can get more greens into your diet.

I not trying to 'teach granny' here but we often forget to get our 5-a-day in, fact is for various reasons it should be more like 10-12 a-day.

By their nature green vegetables promote better balance within the body through reducing the need for it to work harder trying to maintain a normal pH level. Conversely there are other foods that add more of a load towards an imbalanced pH, these are generally the foods that you already know should be largely excluded from your diet or consumed in moderation such as: fizzy drinks, refined wheat products, sweets and other sugary products and even red meats.

Where pH is concerned, the balance of a meal is evened out in the stomach as is the glycemic load (GL -  rate of sugar uptake into the blood stream) where all foods are mixed together to form chyme before passing into the intestines for further digestion. You may find that eating certain foods causes acid reflux, this is not the same as managing pH balance with alkalizing foods but as ever a healthy diet is a healthy diet and that means generally you will have less issues in the long-term.

1. Cooking - we are often limited in our choices by limitations in our repertoire. Use Google to expand on your intake of green vegetables and try out some now recipes.

2. Drink your greens - my children found delight in a spinach, kale, apple and lime juice and so will you, so if you don't already have a juicer and a blender then I recommend you get them asap and get going. Again you'll find all the recipes you need on Google.

3. Soups - I find that the best soups are the quickest. Stock and vegetables in a pot for 20 minutes then either blend whole/part or not at all.

4. Stir-fry - Again this is quick and easy, most veg require scant preparation so where speed is the essence this is perfect. When was the last time you made a stir-fry?

5. Salads - it's that time of year. When was the last time you added Kale to a salad? Most of the vegetables you cook can be eaten raw and as such impart more vital nutrients that are lost in the cooking process.

6. Omelettes - Cereal for breakfast? Unless your cereal is loaded with berries/fruits, nuts/seeds and/or you have protein on the side you're not getting a head start on the day’s good nutrition. Omelettes are a sure fire way to get quality protein/fats and be able to add in more vegetable. Again a few more minutes to make than cereal or toast but the bang for your time buck is way more.

7. Use green leafs - do you like to wrap your salad and meat in bread? Try using green leafs instead to make a wrap and experiment with different lettuces and cabbages.

So your day could look like this:

• Breakfast - Omelette with spring onions and green peppers.

• Mid-morning snack - Smoothie with banana and avocado.

• Lunch - Salad: Kale, beetroot, carrots, red onions with olive oil and lemon juice. Side of flaked tuna.

• Afternoon - Green pea soup.

• Dinner - Chicken stir fry. Broccoli, peppers, mange tout, carrots, red onion.

How many fruit and vegetables 'A-Day' in this sample day? 10-12 portions depending on portion sizes.

Basically this is the sort of diet we should all aim for on a daily basis to promote good health. The constituent parts are all there and depending on how much protein you use in portions you should be getting around your intake to support muscle maintenance in-line with a basic strength training plan. Your carbohydrates will be mostly slow release and of high quality for greater nutritional value to support a leaner body. Your fat intake will be high quality to support proper cellular metabolism and functioning. Your fiber intake will be amazing for a healthier digestive system and all sorts of other stuff too.  

Give it a go and then expand on your repertoire with a little help from Google.

Is your exercise programme effective?

I’m inspired to write this because of the number of clients I’ve helped as a Personal Trainer, who are doing prescribed exercises that may not be the most efficient at getting them towards their goals. Often the way in which they are being done becomes largely a waste of time. So I’m going to help you and give you some ideas to question what you’re doing.

Let’s take the example of a programme supplied by a gym to a new client 6 months ago because this is common. At the end I’ll sum it all up.

The client hasn’t progressed the workout in reps and weight - Why not? “Because the trainer told me to do 15 reps x 4 sets of each exercise”. What about increasing the weight? “Nope, they didn’t say anything about how to do that”.

Static stretching before exercise - Did the trainer assess you for the need to do static stretching on specific muscle groups? “Nope”. Then how do they know that you need to try to increase the ‘length’ of the structures in between that joint and that joint?

Cardio before a strength workout - Do you end up quite tired after doing the cardio? “Yes”. Then why?

Exercises for individual muscles i.e. biceps - Do you need to rehabilitate, pre-habilitate, improve performance in an associated exercise, address structural balance or body-build a specific area for a comp? “Nope”. Then why?

A generic cardio session after a specific weights workout – Why? Didn’t your weights workout tire you out enough?

There are no stand-alone sessions based around the endurance aerobic activity that is a major goal, distance running, when there is time available for it. – Why?

Simply put, a basic workout should go like this: Total body non-specific warm-up, pre-habilitation exercises targeted at helping the body move properly, warm-up with specific movements and increasing intensity geared towards the primary exercises, primary and other supporting exercises, relative cool-down and general static stretching.

If you must put in a more aerobic based exercise, generally you should do it after the main strengthening exercises. There are times when you would do it before or during other exercises, preferably in a separate session entirely.

There are many variations and reasons why your programme would be structured in a certain way, it's just important to understand the reason why you're doing it or at least for there to be a supported reason that helps you towards your goals in the most effective and efficient way.

So this client and many others have a really long programme that can be condensed, chopped, refined, progressed and upgraded. In this case keeping the number of sessions per week in the gym and more outdoors but reducing the time by half and increasing the effectiveness many times over. Win, win.

I hope that this helps you to think more critically and to give you some ideas about what you’re doing in the gym or at home. Admittedly it’s not easy giving someone you have just met a full exercise prescription for the next 6 months in just one hour. I recommend that gym instructors keep it simple and general then they can spend more time on ensuring that the client understands how to progress properly, after all without making things harder over time there will be no improvement in fitness. Gyms also need to give more time to members for support

Next blog article – When to static stretch before exercise.

Do You Have A Work-Life Balance

Does fitness just complicate matters for you? So much so that it’s not something you contemplate doing on a daily basis or do you find that it actually helps you to manage the rest of your life with more efficiency? Time or the lack of it is a common barrier to exercise but what if the time you invest in a regular routine of fresh air and exercise that is “planned, repetitive, structured and purposive” actually paid back more than it cost, surely that would be a winning deal.

In a recent article in the Harvard Business Review on just that topic the authors found that in those who undertook regular physical exercise professionals were able to better manage their work and life balance with less conflict than those who didn't participate in regular exercise. I think the word ‘conflict’ is an incredibly powerful word to use for describing what happens when the natural and peaceful flow of life is disrupted.

We know what happens to the body in real life conflict: stress hormones - cortisol, fight or flight mechanisms – adrenalin, and what happens with these is that homeostasis (the natural balance of simply being) is disrupted. As Shawn Talbott PhD. says in his book ‘The Cortisol Connection – why stress makes you fat and ruins your health and what you can do about it’, “a chronic stress response, such as the one we mount every day when faced with deadlines, money concerns, traffic, family concerns, irritating coworkers and other worries causes an immediate and profound change in a variety of hormones in our bodies”.   

The authors in the HBR article investigated further in order to be able to distinguish the reasons why exercise reduces conflict in work-life balance and their findings are very interesting. They found that a reduction in stress is gained from regular exercise and that this transfers to a more positive attitude and an increase in self-efficacy. In practical terms, people with high self-efficacy are more likely to feel they can take on difficult tasks and do them with less stress involved.

We all know that managing the work-life balance is generally hard and at times down-right impossible. It is at these times that it seems impossible to be able to maintain some semblance of an exercise routine. Perhaps if our perceptions and priorities changed to release some pressure with these sorts of methods before the lid blows then we would find a less health challenging time arises out of conflicting situations, as there will always be conflict.

There are a number of ways in which you can fit more exercise habits into your schedule and having the support of those who require your time is paramount. If it’s your family then being able to manage roles and responsibilities with the help of your relatives will enable you. Supplemental to this many employers are now finding that as they too benefit, having staff more capable in their work roles with less conflict from home is of benefit to the bottom line. Sometimes all it takes for a company to turn around many of its staffing issues is an open mind and leaders who are prepared to steer in the direction of a comprehensive mental and physical health plan.

So go forth and make time to exercise safe in the knowledge that when you do so you are giving to yourself and at the same time giving to those around you. As is always my advice – keep sessions short and snappy and steer clear from the long distance running, it’s just a waste of perfectly good time!

10 Ways to Reverse the Festive Season

Progression Not Perfection

So that was Christmas and its side-kick the New Year. You did the normal thing and gave yourself some time off. You indulged (although my indulgent behavior being 3 or 4 Roses, a biscuit and a glass of Port might be laughable). You went for a few walks but other than that not a lot more. Does it really need to be broken down much more than that? Can we not move on and get back to the way we were before, as in last year? In a word; No!

Although, as I say a lot, that depends on you. If the way you were before was active, healthful, and holistic in your lifestyle then yes you just need to get back to it. For the majority of people though getting back to it as you did last year just isn't going to cut it because last year wasn't good either.

I’m of course speaking generally, I’m not picking on you but as the studies demonstrate and as is also quite objectively obvious the general population is on the slippery slope towards the film ‘Wall-e’ type scenario where everybody is transported around on floating platforms due to being too lazy and overweight to walk.

The festive season and other holiday periods are by and large responsible for the health epidemic sweeping the globe (1) and indeed your fat cells, generally speaking of course. So if you have a vision of yourself in the future as you are now, even perhaps more as you were in your younger years then the time is now to do something about it. Do something before your body adapts to the way you are and really rather likes the extra supply of energy ready for a starvation event that is unlikely to ever arrive.

We’re getting pretty savvy about how to lose weight in the New Year. Mostly people answer their own questions when they ask me “what’s the best way to lose weight and tone up” followed immediately with “I suppose I should just eat less and do more”. A pretty simplistic way of putting it but essentially correct. Just add a few more personal details in there and you have a recipe for success.

My thing is to add in the few extra details for you. Main thing is that you should keep it simple, fun and above all keep it going. Consistency is key to everything in health and fitness.

Here are a few pointers to get you going in January:

1.       You've eaten a lot of sugar – Cut right back on everything that contains the stuff.
2.       You've eaten loads of bad fats – Stop, now put loads of good fats in. Think nuts, seeds, olive, coconut, fish, avocado and quality reared animal fats in moderation.
3.       Protein probably wasn't a problem over Christmas but might not have been high quality so keep up the good meats of fish, chicken, turkey and beef and cut the porkers. Hams, sausages and bacon galore isn't clever for a lean toned bod.
4.       Quit convenience foods now, really, quit it. If you make your own food at home there’ll be less of everything nasty and more of the good stuff so go easy on the added salt and sugars. Rid your cupboards of almost everything with an ingredients list with more than 3 things on it.
5.       You’re probably keen to stop boozing for at least a couple of months. Good idea all round. Drink more water, teas and pressed juices to give your body some nutrients and a break from stimulants and sugars.
6.       No doubt you've had a wheaty time with breads, pastries and wheat flour added to almost everything. Now is a good time to see how you react when you don’t have wheat. Try it, you might like it, what have you got to lose?
7.       Dairy. Hmmm. Some good and some bad. Quit that too for several weeks and see what happens.
8.             Move more in work and at home. Don’t slouch on the couch or at the desk or anywhere for that matter and expect your body to look lean and toned. Your body adapts to whatever you throw at it. Want to be a better couch potato, be my guest.
9.            Do a good variety of physical exercise and make sure it’s progressive. I thing the Physiotherapists and other ‘fix me’ professionals do well out of you all this time of year. Alternatively get someone who knows about Biomechanics to ‘prehab’ you before you go from sofa sloth to gym bunny. You've got to earn the right to display athleticism or you will probably do yourself some damage. Yep, done that before. 
10.       Sleep, stretch, massage and meditate more. Stare at screens less too. Smile at every opportunity. Live life to enjoy the rice variety of people and experiences not rich food and the variety of television shows.

Any questions? As I love nothing more than helping people feel better about themselves you can apply for a free no obligation consultation to 'fill in the details' towards your healthy vision by calling me today on 07850219927. 

Alternatively you can visit the website at www.smilefit.co.uk, 

Like the Blog then read more of my posts and save the blog to read more in the future about all sorts of health and fitness stuff. 

1. http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM200003233421206#ref11