Posts

New Year’s Fitness Fads, Diets and other Bullsh*t!

/0 Comments/in /by

As we go into January, the inevitable launch of the latest fashionable diet and exercise fad is upon us. With this, heralds masses of inactive people looking to get fitter, and lose inches in 3-4 weeks that probably took them years of inactivity and poor nutrition to put on. If you are one of these, the end result, more often than not, is one of the following:

  • Twelve-month gym membership abandoned after one month.
  • Injury or pain leads you to give you up wha
  • Diet given up after a couple of weeks because you went gung-ho and asked too much of yourself, too soon.
  • Injury or pain leads you to give you up whatever exercise form you took up, and resort to “wait til you’re a bit fitter” before resuming.

All of these outcomes can be avoided with a little bit of rational thought and consultation with an educated, professional exercise/nutrition coach. [Side note: Why did I say educated? Surely any professional personal trainer is educated. Not necessarily… I am a certified strength and conditioning coach and learned very valuable information, but some of the most important coaching knowledge I have learnt came from sources other than my certification, i.e. books, DVDs and workshops attended year in, year out. So choose your coach wisely]

Anyway, back to the topic at hand – why do so many people looking to become healthier in the New Year fail? Usually, it’s because despite the best of intentions, they make the following mistakes. By alerting you to these, I hope to save you frustration, lack of progress, and most importantly, injury.

Typical Fallacies of New Year Health Fanatics

  1. Number one on my list is taking up a sport or exercise class without a proper assessment/movement screen. The simple truth is, many people are not ready to jump into an exercise programme without some kind of intervention to correct movement dysfunction, poor core stability, etc… You can read more on the importance of assessment here.
  2. Taking up running. What??? Taking up running is bad? Well… let’s just say that for many, taking up running, or jogging, or whatever you want to call it, is ill-advised. Oftentimes, it comes back to the lack of assessment. You may be too overweight and/or have too little muscle tissue for your joints to support the stresses of running. Running places loads of 3-5 times your body weight on your joints  every step. I realise joining a running club has many incentives: it’s group-based therefore offers motivation, it’s cheaper than joining a gym or a class, very little equipment needed. However, there is much more to increasing fitness than cardio work, which is where running falls. And, crucially, you never see orthopaedic surgeons running along the road. Why do you think that is?
  3. The dreaded detox diet – ok let’s get this straight: there are health risks to following any detox diets you read in magazines, newspapers or social media. Many people undergo a detox diet in January in a bid to rid the body of toxins that may have accumulated in the previous weeks, months or even years of unhealthy eating. One thing I always tell my weight-loss clients is, “you didn’t TRY to gain weight, so don’t TRY to lose it.” Make small, manageable, incremental changes to your lifestyle that are sustainable over the LONGTERM. For example, reduce sugar in your diet one week, and then reduce caffeine the following week, and so on…. By hitting your body with a cold-turkey detox diet you risk toxic shock, days of feeling miserable with numerous side effects. Anyone with health issues shouldn’t go on detox diets, e.g. diabetes, heart disease, or other chronic medical conditions. Teenagers and pregnant women should also avoid detox diets. Just eat healthily – plenty of vegetables, lean protein, gradually eliminate or at least reduce, sugar, caffeine, alcohol. Drink plenty of water and your body will detoxify itself.
  4. HIIT – High Intensity Interval Training: A popular method of getting rapid fat loss results, High Intensity Interval Training is both effective and time-efficient. The downside is that the associated elevation of heart-rate to quite high levels can be risky for several of the population. HIIT involves exercising intensely in short bursts with intermittent recovery periods. If you are not very aerobically fit, then HIIT can put quite a stress on you that you may not be quite ready for. It would be much more advisable to build up a base level of aerobic fitness before tackling HIIT. Strength training will lead to similar weight reduction and has the added benefit of enhancing your physique.
  5. Another factor to consider is that many of us are leading increasingly stressed lives. Whether it’s financial, physical or emotional is irrelevant. It still takes its toll on the body. Adding more excessive physical stress is inadvisable. To elaborate: the central nervous system consists of the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. The sympathetic system is used for “flight or fight” in stressful situations, but is not meant to be in use for long. Problems occur when we cannot disengage from the sympathetic nervous system and relax, thereby engaging the parasympathetic (or peaceful) nervous system. Exercising in the aerobic zone of 120-140 bpm heart-rate once/twice per week will help you to reduce stress levels, improve digestion and sleep better. This can be done running (if appropriate) or biking, or many other ways. Here is a great article on the subject: http://robertsontrainingsystems.com/blog/long-duration-low-intensity-cardio/

To wrap up, please take some key points on board:

  • If you are currently sedentary, get a good coach who can thoroughly assess you, including a movement screen.
  • Don’t skimp paying for quality coaching. Saving money now can cost you far more later, in terms of pain and finances. You have one body – take care of it.
  • Take it handy on the nutrition improvements. Make small, consistent changes. Think long-term lifestyle changes, not short-term all-or-nothing fad diets.
  • Running may not be good for you. Get an assessment.
  • Strength training is essential, but you may not be ready yet. Get an assessment.
  • HIIT is effective for quick fat loss, but it may bring on more stress than your body needs right now. Get an assessment.

Wishing you all the best for 2016,

Shane Fitzgibbon

Want to learn more about rational training and nutrition, while you have time to spare over the holidays? Check out my book, “Training and Optimal Health for Sports.” Free shipping this week. Digital version is also available. See www.trainingandoptimalhealth.com

 

Why Children NEED structured Strength & Conditioning

/0 Comments/in /by

This blog post is being written as I reflect on all the recent articles I have read about youth obesity spiralling out of control in Ireland, as well as the reports on young athletes being burnt out at ever increasing rates from exhaustion and/or injury. While these are opposite extremes of the scale, I believe they are opposite sides of the same coin. The issue is lack of education (or perhaps even lack of caring) on what exercise professionals can offer. While both are pressing issues, this feature is aimed at why active children need some amount of professional attention, even in amateur/hobby sports if they are to minimise injury risk.

While it is essential that children engage in regular exercise for numerous health benefits, it is also important to recognise that exercise and sport is not necessarily the same thing. One key difference is that sport is, by its very nature, competitive and therefore more demanding and rigorous than exercise for its own sake. It is also not realistic to expect a local, unpaid, volunteer, amateur coach (no matter how well-meaning) to be an expert in nutrition, injury prevention, injury rehabilitation, strength, speed & agility, etc… His/her expertise is in the game, not in determining the physical capabilities or limitations of the players (unless they also happen to be a professional trainer). Let’s consider the benefits of children participating in structured strength & conditioning, should their local clubs or parents be forward-thinking enough to provide it.

Fundamental Movement Skills (FMS)

Children are entering sports with less physical literacy than ever before due, amongst other reasons, to the amount of time spent indoors instead of out playing and the massive reduction of P.E. and free-play in schools. This has huge implications on children’s competency of fundamental movement skills, such as object manipulation, hopping, jumping, squatting, etc… not to mention hand-eye coordination and more. When a child joins a new sport lacking competence in essential FMS, is it asking far too much of the child to develop competency of intrinsic sport-specific skills?

index

Take a good look at the image above… This is the situation coaches have to deal with due to the increased amount of time children are spending sitting at school, watching TV, commuting, etc… Humans aren’t designed to spend long hours in the seated position. It drastically alters the tone of our muscles – shortening and tightening some, while lengthening and weakening others, to the detriment of posture. Ask someone to run or jump with poor posture and he/she will certainly make an attempt, but will lack efficiency due to the inability of certain muscles to fire in the correct sequence, if at all. At best, performance is reduced. At worst, the child eventually gets injured. A professional S&C coach recognises these issues with the squad and is able to intervene with appropriate corrective exercises, thereby dramatically reducing the risk of injury.

ONE CHANCE to get it right….

Prior to puberty is the best time for children to develop many of their fundamental movement skills, such as locomotion. Given that these FMS are the building blocks for athletic skills, then the strength of this foundation is linked to athletic success later in life. You may think that they have plenty of time to learn this… WRONG! If a child is not exposed to various movements in the early developmental stages, the brain undergoes a process of synaptic pruning, whereby apparently unneeded motor pathways in the brain are trimmed away. Exposing the child to these movement patterns later in life provides no guarantee of learning them, as it means that all new motor pathways need to be created in the brain. Children literally have ONE CHANCE to effectively learn fundamental movement skills well. “Parents – you have one chance to do this right” Dr. Greg Rose, Functional Movement Systems

Resistance Training

index

“Conceivably, if a child is ready to engage in sport activities, then he or she is ready to participate in resistance training,” Rhodri S. Lloyd, PhD & Jon L. Oliver, PhD. The benefits of resistance training are numerous. These have been documented extensively in my free eBook on Youth Conditioning, so I won’t revisit them here. If you want to pick up a copy use this link: http://www.connachtfitnessandperformance.com/enquiry.html Knowing that resistance training for children is both beneficial and, indeed, recommended, then why should parents or sports coaches seek a strength coach to teach the children? The answer is because children should not be treated like adults when it comes to ANY kind of training. A suitably knowledgeable coach understands what various modalities of resistance training, e.g. body weight, resistance bands, dumbbells, etc… are appropriate for a child depending on experience, age, etc… The Youth fitness coach understands that there are differences in approach needed for boys versus girls, and that a growth spurt changes the rules.

A special note for parents of teenage boys: boys involved in sports will eventually join a gym and lift weights. You must decide if you want them to learn good technique that will stand to them for life, or if you want them copying friends or other members of the gym, who may not be qualified to teach. A coach can help ensure that the ego never outweighs common sense. The younger they learn to lift correctly, the better.

Injury reduction

One of the most important roles a strength and conditioning coach performs is that of the assessment. Poor posture, previous injuries all affect the readiness of young athletes to participate in sport, often leading to injury. An assessment early on can identify risk factors which can be mitigated by intervention from the coach. Experienced S&C coaches are also adept at spotting fatigue and overtraining symptoms in young athletes. Frequently children get overtrained from participating in multiple sports, each one with a coach who may fail to realise that the child has little left to give. And naturally, every coach expects the best from each child in the squad. One area requiring particular mention is anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries in field and court sports. Teenage girls suffer five times more ACL surgeries than boys (Kelvin Giles, Movement Dynamics). There a few potential reasons for this, e.g. weak hip stability, quadriceps muscle dominance, etc… It takes a specialist to know these risks, to identify them in players, and intervene to reduce the likelihood of such injuries occurring.

Longterm development

I hear from many parents about the fitness activities that their children are doing as part of their particular sport. Frequently these are random, inappropriate and sometimes just make no sense whatsoever. They may be age inappropriate, and have no bearing on what was done the previous years, or to be done in the following years. A youth S&C coach plans for the future, and designs age-appropriate and experience-appropriate programmes for the young players, with a plan for where they are going and need to be.

A child’s age isn’t necessarily his or her age

Children should be prescribed exercise and have expectations based not on their chronological age (age since birth), but on their biological age (developmental or maturation age).

Case study: John and Michael both join the U12 soccer team. John is 11 and is an early bloomer. Michael is 10 and is a late bloomer. Because children can seem up to three years younger or older depending on whether they are early or late bloomers, John can have a biological age of 13, with Michael having a biological age of only 8. In this scenario you have two boys with biological ages of 13 and 8 on the same team. Should they be expected to have comparable levels of strength? Speed? Cognitive awareness? Of course not. Specialist youth S&C coaches will have a whole sequence of progressions and regressions that are suitable for the more or less advanced child.

Any team fitness activities must take into account the difference between biological and chronological ages. To determine your child’s biological age, visit http://www.growmetry.com/app_v3/index.asp?lng=2