Your hamstrings are not tight

In my experience, most people who claim to have tight hamstrings actually have an unrealistic expectation of how flexible they are supposed to be. As a coach, I am looking to get my athletes and clients to have about 100 to 110 degrees of hip flexion with a straight leg. That would take the leg slightly past vertical while lying on your back. Now, having more range than that can be good or bad, depending on your stability through the range of motion.

Stability, and I don't mean being able to do blindfolded single leg squats on a bosu ball while doing the YMCA, is arguably more important that static flexibility. If you are unable to stay 100% rock solid stable throughout a range of motion, you shouldn't be using that range, you'll wind up injuring yourself at some point. You'll need that flexibility to get through the range, but you need to be able to stay 'tight' or stable as well.

Static flexibility refers to the ability to lengthen a specific muscle or muscle group in a slow and controlled manner, and holding the stretch for longer than 30 seconds.

Dynamic flexibility refers to the ability to quickly get through a range of motion, such as a high kick in judo or your ability to do a full squat.

Stability refers to the ability to keep tension throughout your body, so that the prime movers for the given exercise can be used effectively. For example, if you're doing a squat and I try to push you over, I shouldn't be able to move you at all.

Static and dynamic flexibility are both great, assuming that you can stay stable throughout your range of motion. If you can't, then you need to get out of the stretch, regroup, reset, and retry. Before you start any stretch at all, make sure you've got your belly tight. You don't need to squeeze as if Chuck Norris was going to roundhouse kick you, 20-30% tension will be plenty. 

Here's some homework for you: spend 10 minutes per day stretching something other than your hamstrings.  Try stretching your hip flexors, glutes, adductors, calves, pecs, lats and triceps. Remember, belly tight, find the range that's tight, spend your time there, and reap the rewards of improved flexibility.

Hack Your Body: Improving brain function for optimal results

Welcome to the first installment in the Hack Your Body series, where I'll be sharing simple tips to help you get the most out of your body.

According to The Edge Effect by Dr Eric Braverman, the brain runs on four important neurotransmitters: acetylcholine, dopamine, serotonin and gaba. Each one serves a very specific purpose, and getting the combinations just right will leave you in the ideal mood to get the most out of your training session. The question is, what's the combo? In order to get the perfect cocktail, first let's look into each neurotransmitter briefly. 

Acetylcholine gives you more drive and focus, while triggering muscle contraction.

Dopamine is associated with reward motivated behaviour, drive, and is also a vasodilator. 

Serotonin increases will leave you feeling happy and relaxed.

Gaba will leave you calm.

If you're looking to get the most out of your training session, raising your dopamine and acetylcholine levels will give you the drive and focus required to attack the weights make some serious progress.

The following will help to raise dopamine and acetylcholine levels:

Phenylalanine is a precursor to tyrosine which is a precursor to dopamine. You can find phenylalanine and tyrosine in foods such as eggs, red meats, almonds, and avocados. 

Acetyl-L-carnitine is one of my favourite pre workout supplements, since it raises acetylcholine levels as well as increases the number of androgen receptor cells, therefore allowing you to more effectively use your testosterone. I'd suggest starting with 500mg, and raising as needed according to how you feel. Keep in mind that the body cannot use more than 2400mg at any given time, so taking anything above that is pointless. Typically, 1000-1500mg works best from what I've seen.

Alpha glycerophosphocholine (alpha GPC) is a precursor to acetylcholine, as well as stimulating a growth hormone release among other things. 200-600mg will do the trick nicely.

A few notes to consider: you'll want to avoid carbohydrates before and during your workouts since an insulin release will come with serotonin, which drives dopamine down. You also wouldn't want to take a bunch of acetyl-L-carnitine and alpha GPC right before bed, since you'd be so fired up that you'd never sleep.

If you plan your pre workout meal and supplement regime effectively, you'll be sure to have new found success in the gym! 

You aren't working hard enough

Working in a commercial gym for almost five years made me realize something; most people do not work nearly hard enough in the gym. I've seen countless people in the gym 2-4 times per week, yet for years they look exactly the same (if not a little worse). Upon watching them a little more closely, I came to realize how they could spend so much time in the gym, yet remain the same. These people tend to superset trips to the water fountain with casually chatting on the elliptical. That's a great way to get a strong jaw, but it won't do anything for your body composition or strength. Now don't get me wrong, I think it's great that these people are in the gym - it sure beats super setting flipping channels with beer can curls, but are they progressing from the mean or regressing towards it? 

There are countless ways to progress in the gym. Here are some of my favourites:

- more weight

- more reps / sets

- longer range of motion

- pauses in the tempo

- slower eccentric

- accommodating resistance (bands, chains, etc)

- drop sets

You can combine multiple methods too. For example on my last deadlift session, I lifted from a podium (longer range), paused two inches off the floor (pause in tempo) and had chains on the bar (accommodating resistance). It was very difficult, but I'll be a heck of a lot stronger as a result.

So the next time you're in the gym, remember this article and do more than last time. You'll be better off because of it.

Bang for Your Buck

Getting the best return on your investment is something that everyone hopes for. You want the most return for your dollar (the best car, best steak, etc) or you want to get the most work done in the shortest amount of time. Applying this to your workouts will save you time and energy, while delivering faster results. Shown below are two leg workouts for fat loss. One will be more effective than the other.

The loading parameters would be the same for each workout. Exercise A1 would be done for 6 reps at a 4010 tempo, A2 12 reps at a 3010 tempo and A3 25 reps at a 2010 tempo. Rest 10 seconds between A1 and A2, 10 seconds between A2 and A3 and 2 minutes after A3. Do A1 to A3 a total of 3 times.

Option 1:
A1 Machine Hack Squat
A2 Leg Press
A3 Leg Extension

Option 2:
A1 Front Squat
A2 Back Squat
A3 Walking Lunge


Which of these two look more challenging? Simply by using larger exercises, the people doing Option 2 will lose more fat faster than those who do Option 1.  You've got four hours per week in the gym, get the most out of them!

Health Risks of being Overweight

Everyone knows that being overweight is not healthy, but just how bad is it? Body Mass Index (BMI) is a calculation of your weight in kilograms divided by the square of your height in meters. At a normal BMI, a man with a 40 inch waist is twice as likely to die than a 34 inch waist. Also, for every 5cm of waist circumference, there is a 17% increase in mortality. A woman with a 35 inch waist is 79% more likely to die than a 29 inch waist, and for every 5cm of waist circumference there is a 13% increase in mortality.¹ Researchers at Monash University have found a link between obesity and type II diabetes, stating “it appears that the more fat tissue a person has the less sensitive they become to insulin.”2

Let's look to the United States for another example. Each year, state health departments use standardized procedures to collect information from U.S. adults. In 1990, 10 states had a prevalence of obesity less than 10%, while no states had a prevalence greater than or equal to 15%. By 1998, no states had a prevalence less than 10%, seven were between 20-24%, and no state had a prevalence greater than or equal to 25%.3 By 2007, only Colorado had a prevalence of obesity below 20%, thirty states had a prevalence greater than or equal to 25%, five of which were above 30%!4

I know what you're thinking, “But those are Americans! We aren't that bad in Canada.” In 2004, 22.9% of males and 23.3% of females in Canada were obese. Here in Ontario, we fell very close to that average, with 23% of our males and 22.4% of our females obese. What's worse is that 40.9% of males and 31.0% of females were overweight.5 That means that in Ontario, 63.8% of males and 54.3% of females were overweight or obese.

So what is causing this disturbing trend? Emotional eating? Too busy to exercise? Increased fast food sales? The low-fat craze? If you answered 'all of the above and more,' you'd be right! But don't worry, there is something you can do (and it isn't complicated).

The first step is to change what you're eating for breakfast. We all know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, yet we keep feeding ourselves high glycemic foods. The glycemic index (GI) ranks carbohydrates by their effect on blood glucose levels. Pure glucose has a glycemic index of 100, and is used as a reference point. Cheerios have a GI of 74, while Fruit Loops have a GI of 69. 6 That means that your beloved Cheerios have a greater effect on your blood glucose than Fruit Loops. As a comparison, red peppers have a GI of 10, and cherries 22. 7 Spike your insulin once, and you'll find yourself riding the wave of sugar cravings all day.

So tomorrow, rather than having your cereal, try some fresh, lean meat and nuts (no peanuts, they aren't actually a nut).8 Here's the kicker, don't even weigh it. If you're hungry, eat. Starting the day off with a high protein, high fat meal will help to regulate your blood sugar (read insulin) all day. Insulin management is the key to effective fat loss, but more on that later.





References:

¹ http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0801891
2 http://www.sawfnews.com/health/58776.aspx
3 http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/BRFSS/list.asp?cat=OB&yr=1998&qkey=4409&state=All
4 http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/BRFSS/list.asp?cat=OB&yr=2007&qkey=4409&state=All
5 http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82-620-m/2005001/t/4053595-eng.htm
6 http://www.gilisting.com/2004/05/glycemic-index-breakfast-cereals.html
7 http://www.the-gi-diet.org/lowgifoods/
8 http://charlespoliquin.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Article/270/The_Meat_and_Nut_Breakfast.aspx

How I Structure Workouts

The topic today is how to properly structure your workouts. To get the most work done while minimizing your rest periods, pair antagonistic body parts (ie. biceps and triceps, quads and hamstrings, chest and back). Pairing exercises like this will allow you to do more total work in your session, and it will increase muscle activation by inhibiting the antagonist.

Depending on your goal, you may use anywhere from 2-10 different exercises, with 6 being average for my clients. Using 6 exercises means ,on average, 3 different groups (labelled A, B, and C). In order to keep track of the exercise order, I use the following system (which was taught to me by Charles Poliquin):

A1 Chest
A2 Back
B1 Chest
B2 Back
C1 Chest
C2 Back

Exercise A1 is done first, then you would proceed to exercise A2 after resting the prescribed time. Once done the set of A2 you would rest again before returning to A1 and repeating the cycle until all of your sets of group A are done. Then you would do the same with groups B and C.

Having a set plan in place will make your workouts more efficient, and therefore you'll get a better result.

Question: When should I change my program?

Answer: I like hearing questions like this because it implies that the person already knows that they should not stay on the same program forever. That being said, when I ask them how long they've been on their current program, they will typically respond with anything from 3 months to 2 years (doesn't that get boring?). After hearing their response the next question is, "Why haven't you changed it yet?" Often times they will tell me that the program isn't easy yet, or that they don't know what to change to. Before diving further into those, I'd like to bring up the Kaizen Principle.

Kaizen is Japanese for improvement or change for the better. When applied to your workouts, it means always doing a little more (whether that be 2% more weight or 1 more rep). If it was possible to do 2% more weight, or 1 more rep on the same program forever, it would only take 2-3 years to become a world record holder in weightlifting. Your body will adapt to the stress you put on it. Therefore, if you continually stress it with the same weight, it has no reason to get stronger. Now, obviously you can't progress at the same rate forever. So when does it slow down or plateau? Typically, six workouts is all it takes. My clients will never do the same workout more than six times. It may take them anywhere from two to six weeks for them to do these, depending on how many different workouts they have . Once you've completed all six of the workouts, it's time to move on to a different program. What should you go to next? Well, that's a whole lot more complicated and will need its own post. In the meantime, do your six workouts, apply the Kaizen Principle each time, and enjoy the rewards.