The Finite Life

I hope this post finds you doing the things you love to do, pursuing your hobbies and interests, spending time with your family and friends, putting life in your days.

Life isn't guaranteed.  This was no more apparent then on Thursday here in Grand Rapids, MI.  A guy shot and killed 7 people, was in a high speed chase that put many people in danger, shooting at police officers the whole time it seemed.

I have several police officers as patients.  I think we all appreciate what they do for our community.  Something like this just struck home at what price sometimes they risk to do that.  It's sad that it takes the violent acts of a crazed individual to remind you to be thankful for people that risk their lives to keep us safe.  It's unfortunate that it takes death to remind us (me) that your not guaranteed another sunrise.

Don't procrastinate.  Don't waste time.  Be thankful for those that try to keep us safe.  Pursue your health so that you keep the good life in the years that you have.  Pursue something worthwhile.

Randy Pausche, author of the Last Lecture ( a book you must read if you haven't)  said something I like.

“We don’t beat the Reaper by living longer. We beat the Reaper by living well.”

A Few Good Reads/Studies

If you haven't seen this study, it does a great analysis of the deadlift vs the trap bar deadlift.  Essentially you could swap out a squat or a trap bar deadlift to hit the same musculature.  Here it is.  Trap bar vs deadlift.


If your looking for an interpretation of what it may mean for your training.  ANALYSIS.

Here was a study done on swishing  a carb drink in your mouth vs just water as two groups of cyclists peddle for performance in an hour time trial.  The carb group had significant improvements.  Pretty cool.  All you cyclocross riders take note!  Carb Mouth Rinse Study.

This study was from a Poliquin note.  Haven't found the exact study, but I've heard this before.  Groups were used to see if cooling the palm, heating the palm or nothing improved short intense exercise.  Cooling the palms was the big winner.  They did bench with 85% max weight.  The cooled palms group were able to do more reps.  I remember a few years ago reading about a glove that was being developed out of Stanford that cooled the body.  The subjects were able to keep up their max effort pull ups for much longer.  Nice.  Take those frozen bottles to the gym!

Claw Toes and Flexor Digitorum Longus

One problem often seen with runners is the development of claw toes.  While this can have a few reasons as to why, a very important cause to rule out is the health of the flexor digitorum longus muscle.  This muscle as the name implies, flexes the last four toes.  

Often times the toes will appear flat and normal, but if you do a calf raise or dynamic lunge, you will see the toes claw the ground to gain stability.  I was reading a post by Charlie Weingroff the other day and he believes that not only does the clawing inhibit the deep intrinsic muscles of the foot, but because the clawing allows less of an arch, it neurally inhibits the hip muscles.   Your body doesn't feel the strong arch, so it doesn't think you need the hip strength, because you are not in a propulsive position.  How interesting is that!

I have seen this in my own practice, but didn't really correlate it with inhibition of the deep intrinsic muscles and neurally inhibiting the hip.  I always assumed by bringing back the length of the FDL muscle, the whole fascial chain got stronger.

A quick evaluation you can do on yourself is to just get up on your toes and do several calf raises.   Do your toes start to claw?  If you do, do some myofascial work on the flexors and then proceed to concentrate on keeping the toes flat into the floor as you do another set of calf raises.  I find it helps to feel the big toe push into the floor as well.  Keep this up for several weeks.  In the long term it will help keep gait smooth and relaxed.  

Got Heart? Eccentric vs Concentric Heart Hypertrophy and How it Applies to Training

Growing up I always watched the cartoon GI JOE.  They always ended it with Sergeant Slaughter giving the advice "Knowing is half the battle."  Training is the same.  Knowing what you want, why and how to achieve it.

I'm going to outline a two methods to increase blood volume.

Eccentric Cardiac Hypertrophy:

The goal is to improve the ability of your heart to deliver oxygen and develop more blood vessels peripherally.  The work your doing stimulates eccentric cardiac hypertrophy.  You get a bigger left ventricle.  This gives you the ability to pump out more blood per heart beat.  

The bigger heart allows you to pump out more blood with less heart beats, so less work.  This allows more oxygen to your muscles.  More oxygen equals better aerobic capabilities.  

This is best developed by staying in a heart rate about 130-150bpm.  The session has to last at least 30 min with 60-90 being the optimal period.  If you currently have a resting heart rate in the 60-70s, this would be a good type of training to engage in.  If your returning to training after a long lay off, again this would be a great place to start.  

Now, if you go over the 150bpm, you are doing to much intensity.  What happens physiologically is that you don't give your heart enough time to fill up with enough blood to cause a stretching thus causing the eccentric hypertrophy to occur.  

Concentric Cardiac Hypertrophy:

So now if you start going over 150bpm what happens?  Well it depends!  If you apply the correct stress/reps/rest you get thicker walls of the heart. 

The goal again is to increase how much blood can be pumped.  Instead of getting a bigger left ventricle where it can push out more volume, you get a thicker heart with stronger contractions which can push out more volume. There seems to also be an increase in the number of mitochondria in the heart as well.  

These adaptations come into importance when the intensity of your activity increases.  This improves the power endurance of your heart.  

This adaptation is best developed by going all out (heart rate as high as possible)  for 60-120 seconds and then resting for up to 5 min with keeping your heart rate around 120-130.  If it takes shorter or longer you start the next rep when your heart rate reaches the targeted number.  

This is again information I've been reading about through Joel Jamiesons Ultimate MMA Conditioning and some other materials.  The big takeaway is that you should know the goals of your training.  Know the adaptations your trying to achieve.  Know how to achieve those adaptations.  Good luck.

Monday Motivation- 4th July (Olympic Experience)

Have a great 4th of July!

Don't Go Further, Go Faster

The more I read foreign translated articles and books about strength training and the more I get to talk and interact with a few foreign coaches, the more I see a different paradigm when it comes to endurance training.

In the US, I predominately see a go further attitude.  Other places it's a go faster attitude.  Time and time again, for example,  I will get a patient in that wants to run their first 5k or reach 40 miles in a week.  They may have some  setbacks, but eventually they reach their goal.

What happens next, I've observed,  is quite interesting.  Predominately, most will then say, I want to do a 10k or hit 45 miles next.  I've had very few people say, I want to run faster.

Here's the thing, you can go further, without really getting better as a runner.  You cannot run faster without getting better as a runner.  To run faster, you have to get stronger, get more energy efficient, improve biomechanics or some kind of combination.

Now I didn't say you wouldn't get better if you ran further, but it's not guaranteed.  Run faster though, it is guaranteed.  So go get faster!

Health Talk: Deskbound by Kelly Starrett

This is an excellent talk. This is essentially a ton of information that I try to teach my patients. Shoulder/Hip mobility and strength. Ergonomics. Dehydration and water, one nifty trick to find out if you are dehydrated. How to take care of yourself. Highly recommended.