Is your fitness slacking too? I've got a confession to make.

Is your fitness slacking too? I've got a confession to make.

So I went for a New Year’s Day surf and was hugely disappointed in my own ability to surf and manage in the tricky conditions. You see I've been a full time surfer for around 15 years and have prided myself for being able to go out in pretty much anything the sea around the UK can whip up. Not now though, I struggled and just about survived after a late and slightly boozy night (NYE) with a very early trip to the beach and I left the water after only 30 minutes instead of the usual 2-3 or more hours.

You see we've had baby Nina, now 5 months old, and I'm using this as an excuse for the state of my fitness. It is just an excuse of course, I've had plenty more opportunities to workout than I've actually used and now I've paid the price with what I would say is the worst level of fitness since I was in my mid-teens. A pretty bad example of a PT for certain.

I have used quite a lot of my free time to treat my own physical issues with the Biomechanics Coaching process and massage therapy methods. I do feel so much better now in myself and in my workouts than I have after suffering a chronic low back pain issue for 20 years and having none of the other professionals or methods have any similar level of effect.

So now I've made a good start to correcting my asymmetries, dysfunctions and weakness’ I can build my fitness again to an excellent level with less of the recurring injuries and limitations. Despite this I see no reason to allow my fitness to drop to such a degree. There are many ways to skirt around the issues I had with correctly targeted exercises as I would do with my own PT clients.

So my confession, I let myself slip, didn’t take my own medicine, was a hypocrite at worst and a fraud at best. I’ve got slower, weaker, fatter and everything in between. Over the festive season I hit the booze, the sugar and refined junk and did very little exercise. I’m kind of ok with allowing myself to do that in a no holds barred way for a while but now I’m over it. So I am now like many others at this time of year, for the first time in my adult life I’m going to have to make an effort. Before it was just what I did, how I was, my lifestyle revolved around sport, exercise and eating very well so it was no effort just to maintain a high level of fitness.

I hope I have learnt from this time and experience, I certainly don’t enjoy having such a limiting level of fitness and allowing my health to suffer like this. It takes a situation such as this for the level of importance for a change to be realized and take hold. Out if the two things we know to be most valuable in making such lifestyle changes; importance for, and confidence to be able to, I know that I have both now in high levels so it’s going to happen for me. As a PT I’m excited to find out where other people are at with these as the key motivation to a successful outcome for the struggling client often lays within these:

How important is it that you make a change?

How confident are you that you can make that change?

 Neil ERIKSEN BSc Health & Fitness – Personal Trainer, Biomechanics Coach, Massage Therapist

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.