Flexibility v Mobility + Consistency Over Intensity

 Flexibility vs Mobility

This explanation about the difference between flexibility and mobility from Chris Sommer was very good and to the point.

“Flexibility” can be passive, whereas “mobility” requires that you can demonstrate strength throughout the entire range of motion, including the end ranges.”

I find a lot of people say they have to work on their flexibility, which is true a fair amount of the time, but long term what they need is to increase their mobility. After a few weeks of stretching and gaining some flexibility I find they have to get stronger at those end ranges as mentioned above. People tend to over-do the flexibility and neglect the mobility in certain sports. There is an optimal level of flexibility needed for each sport, not a maximal level. Charles Poliquin taught me this a long time ago. For example, a rugby league player needs to be flexible but he doesn’t have to be as flexible as a gymnast.

Related article:

Will strength training affect my flexibility?

Consistency Over Intensity

Chris also has a good saying to remind athletes that adaptation takes time. He says “Slow down. Where’s the fire?” Adaptations from training can take weeks or months of consistent work. Gains don’t come linearly. You may see next to no progress for a while and then all of a sudden your strength seems to go through the roof all of a sudden or you pick up a skill you had been working on for a long time. It is like something just clicks. Sometimes you just have to be patient.

If you rush you increase your risk of injury. You want to coax the body into building strength or muscle mass not force it. So from one workout to the next we may only increase the load by 1kg but it doesn’t matter you are still adapting and making your way towards your goal. By doing this consistently you can maintain technique and eventually you will have increased the load significantly. If you add 5kg to the bar each workout it will not take very long before you are grinding reps, hitting a plateau, and injuring yourself.

Ed Coan spoke of this at great length in a seminar when talking about longevity in powerlifting. It also applies to other sports. Basically what he said was you can have a long career through making gradual progress from session to session and comp to comp or you can go crazy, train 3 times a day, get really quick results, but only have a short career because you have ruined your body and can’t do your sport anymore.

Weekly Education Review

 Each week our coaches learn about certain topics which we then discuss as a group. This week:

Milenko soft tissue:

Milenko spoke about why using a trigger point combined with movement of the muscle works better to release the tissue you are targeting. This is what Kelly Starrett would call "Smash and Floss".

You apply pressure to an area of painful tissue and move the limb around in all different directions, through as much range as possible. It is like you are trying to perform your own version of Active Release Technique (ART) or trigger point therapy.

The movement is trying to "unglue" the deep mechanical restrictions of the tissue and restore the sliding surfaces.

Sarah sleep:

Sarah gave us a good review of what she learned about sleep.

• You should try to keep your circadian rhythm – this is achieved by waking with the sun and going to bed a couple of hours after it goes down.

• Manage light exposure – get blue light in the morning to wake you up / become alert. Early sun exposure is really good. Block blue light of a night to help prepare for sleep. Light sensors in the eye will be tricked by blue light into thinking it is still daytime. Blue light will suppress melatonin, which is a hormone that helps us fall asleep.

• Sleep improves your memory. If you learn something and then sleep or nap afterwards you will retain more information.

• Sleeping pills can be addictive. You also don’t go through all the sleep stages, so it isn’t quality sleep.

Some other circadian resets are the timing of your meals and exercise.

A good book on circadian rhythm is the circadian code by Sachin Panda https://www.amazon.com.au/Circadian-Code-weight-supercharge-energy/dp/1785042017/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1599944691&sr=8-1

The best book on sleep is Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep in my opinion. It explains the why’s and links poor sleep to so many health concerns. https://www.amazon.com.au/Why-We-Sleep-Unlocking-Dreams/dp/1501144324/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=matthew+walker&qid=1599944812&sr=8-1

Some articles on sleep we have put on the site:

https://www.totalhealthperformance.com.au/post/2017/01/17/sleep-and-memory

https://www.totalhealthperformance.com.au/post/2017/08/01/sleep-more-to-increase-speed-and-performance

https://www.totalhealthperformance.com.au/post/2017/09/23/keeping-a-regular-sleep-routine-improves-health

https://www.totalhealthperformance.com.au/post/lack-of-sleep-and-it-s-impact-on-hormone-levels

https://www.totalhealthperformance.com.au/post/2018/07/31/sleep-to-lower-your-risk-of-injury

https://www.totalhealthperformance.com.au/post/benefits-of-napping

Toby mechanical advantage technique:

Toby talked about the 1RM front squat straight into the back squat for as many reps as possible.

• This is a way to prolong the time under tension on the muscles.

• It is an accumulation technique for a relative strength phase when done like this. You could use it for relative strength and also functional hypertrophy.

• If you wanted to use it for hypertrophy you could do mechanical advantage drop sets. Basically you take the hardest variation of a lift and then work towards the easiest. An example workout could be:

A1 – Pull Ups – 5 x 6-8, 40X0, 10 seconds rest

A2 – Chin Ups – 5 x max (maybe 1 or 2), 40X0, 10 seconds rest

A3 – Chin Ups Neutral Grip – 5 x Max (maybe 1 or 2), 40X0, 120 rest

Results Matter

 

@darcy.eade has been with us for 2 years now and is by far one of the strongest female athletes in the gym.

She has consistently increased in all her of her lifts while maintain a lean and athletic physique. One of her best lifts being a 115kg deadlift on a podium for 3 reps when she was 13 years old at 57kg body weight.

She is faster on the field and more dominant in tackles.

She achieved her goals through hard work and sacrifice. Most kids won’t be getting up to go to the gym before school, but she does, just like the majority of our junior athletes.

Looking forward to what we can continue to achieve in the future.

#thp#totalhealthperformance#totalhealthperformancecentre#teamthp

Whey Protein Could Be the Cause of Your Acne

 If you have eliminated sugars and dairy in your diet but are still consuming whey protein post workout, this could be the cause of your acne, especially if it is located on the trunk. It is commonly overlooked as many people don't recognize that whey is isolated from milk.

I made this mistake myself recently. As a teenager I had really bad acne so I still get some outbreaks here and there, but nothing major. These past few months I have been having whey post-workout again after having been off it for a long time, and noticed a lot of acne starting on my back and shoulders. I'm going back to EEAs post workout now to see if it is the whey causing the acne.

Looking at some studies, whey is a fairly common cause of these outbreaks so if you have been seeing an increase in the amount of acne on your trunk and can't relate it to your nutrition, whey could be the source of the problem that you may have missed.

If you are worried about a post-workout shake of some sort, then you could take something like the following mix:

• 15g BCAAs

• 15g EAAs

• 10g Glutamine

• 5g Creatine

• 5g Glycine

Depending on your goals, you can tailor it to your needs.

Athletes and Gut Health

The microbiome is a big area of study and is very complex and very complicated. I don’t think we currently know all that much about it. In saying that, I think there are some things we can take away from all the research people are doing to see how / if they relate to ourselves and our athletes and try to make adjustments accordingly.

This study, The Athletic Gut Microbiota, goes into great detail in regards to what impacts the gut microbiome of athletes, some of the beneficial changes seen in athlete’s microbiome compared to sedentary people, and some of the negative consequences athletes can face when training really hard in regards to their gut health. It also highlights how quickly the microbiome can change, especially in response to dietary changes and in the type of exercise performed.

In general, it has been shown that athletes have more diversity of gut bacteria. Diversity is thought to be beneficial to health at this point by many experts. Active individuals microbiota also display more health promoting bacterial species.

They also found that athletes produce more short chain fatty acids which are associated with “enhanced muscle turnover (fitness) and overall health than less active individuals”. Dr. Marc Bubbs explains in his book Peak, that SCFA propionate is beneficial for the integrity of your gut wall because it increases the number of tight junction proteins and down-regulates pro-inflammatory TNF-alpha in colon cells. He also mentions that butyrate is burned in the mitochondria of intestinal cells to produce ATP, is a key regulator of mitochondrial function, and supports fatty acid oxidation, improving your fuel efficiency, which is crucial to all athletes.

Another key point highlighted in the study “The athlete/exercise-associated gut microbiome may possess a functional capacity primed for tissue repair and a greater ability to harness energy from the diet with increased capacity for carbohydrate metabolism, cell structure, and nucleotide biosynthesis”.

The type of diet the athlete eats has a large impact on the makeup of the microbiome. For example, bacteroides levels can increase on a higher fat, higher protein diet, they tend to be beneficial as they are capable of breaking down pretty much everything in the diet. “Protein intake appears to be a strong modulator of microbiota diversity, with protein supplementation, such as whey, showing potential benefits that need further study in humans.”

“Higher intake of carbohydrate and dietary fiber in athletes appear to be associated with increased abundance of Prevotella.” Prevotella is generally higher in endurance athletes such as elite cyclists.

Changes in the diet can lead to changes in the microbiome within 24 hours.

The type and intensity of the exercise also plays a role in the composition of the microbiome. It doesn’t matter if athletes are meat eaters, vegetarians, or gluten free or not, the type of exercise they perform, anaerobic or aerobic, seems to show a more similar pattern between their microbiome’s. So, athletes in anerobic sports will have similar gut microbiome profiles, for example.

“Nearly all studies included in this review have shown positive correlations between gut taxa and exercise. Overall exercise appears to enrich microbiota diversity, stimulate the proliferation of bacteria which can modulate mucosal immunity, improve barrier functions, and functional pathways capable of producing substances (e.g., butyrate and propionate) that can increase performance and health”.

Overtraining or excessive exercise has been shown to negatively impact the athlete and lead to leaky gut. “Prolonged excessive exercise has a deleterious influence on intestinal function, including increased intestinal permeability.”

The longer the duration of the event or training session, the more damage seems to be done to the gut. In Dr. Marc Bubbs book he mentions a study where 87% of ultramarathon runners had occult blood in their stool post-race.

Too many sports drinks and too many carbs from cereals, breads, and processed foods for example, also impact the gut negatively, leading to inflammation.

“Food intolerance and undetected gut issues impede squat performance” – Charles Poliquin.

The reason for this is that gut issues create inflammation and this inflammation inhibits core contractions. Because of this you are unable to create as much intra-abdominal pressure as you could, which means you can’t brace as well throughout your lifts. This decreases performance and increases the risk of injury.

Other common things that can impact gut health of athletes are chronic stress, antibiotics, and travel. These are all things to take into consideration when preparing your athletes.