Clean your room!

Have you ever woke up one morning knowing that you had to clean your house/apartment /basement/garage etc?  That unexcited feeling we all get when we have chores to do, but don’t really want to.  However, we end up talking ourselves into it because we know its for the best.

  Its hard to get started but being the responsible and sensible adult that you are, you get off your butt and start moving.  You are a little choppy at first: not sure where the cleaning supplies are, what part of the house to clean first, where to store things you thought you had lost etc.  Then you start to get in the zone.  Things move like clockwork.  You know exactly what you’re doing and where you’re going.  It flows.  Time flies because you are focused on what you’re doing and how you’re doing it.  You want it to look nice, feel nice, and have the ability to operate properly…..after all its YOUR home! 

And then, just like that, you realize that you’re done.  You’re tired but you feel accomplished.   You realized how simple and painless it actually is.  You realized that you’re actually pretty good at it too!  Most importantly, the organization that you just created makes EVERY SINGLE PART of your life that much easier.  Things work easier, you know where you stored things, you can move around the space more efficiently and effectively.  And for the amount of work you actually had to do, you appreciate how worth it, cleaning was.  Finally, you think how silly it was that you were anxious and annoyed about doing it in the first place.

So why don’t you just treat your exercise routine the same way?

The Law of Diminishing Returns

Warning: this blog post is longer than I expected.  If you don't feel like reading it skip to the bullet points at the bottom .

When step counters like the Fitbit came out, everyone was counting their steps thinking it would lead to weight loss, more activity, and a healthier lifestyle!  And to be perfectly honest, in most cases, it did just that!  For the extremely sedentary, getting a certain number of steps each day increased their physical activity enough that it created a caloric deficit(weight loss benefits), a release of endorphins(mentally pleasing), and in increase in heart rate due to exercise(heart healthy).

However, just like any fitness gimmick (yes, the Fitbit is a gimmick as well as every single new invention that comes out promising to help you lose weight) the effects that it has on all the systems of the body starts to diminish after of few weeks.  Why though? I am still getting in my 5000 steps per day!  Shouldn't I still be losing weight, feeling more mentally alert, and making my heart healthier and stronger??  Actually NO. At some point in ANY exercise routine, you stop reaping benefits (making gainz for all you meatheads) and you actually start to increase risk of overuse injury.

In order to understand this, I will start by giving you an example of how over doing one form of exercise stops working after a while, then I will attempt to explain basic anatomy and physiology adaptations, how they can beneficial for a time and then detrimental at somepoint, and finally how we can fix this issue that is inherent to EVERY SINGLE exercise modality.

I would like to introduce you to "The Mailman Paradox" also called "the Train Conductor Paradox".  I need to state that I did not make this up and I read it on another fitness blog years ago but cannot remember exactly where.  Therefore, I am not taking credit for this as an original idea and if anyone knows where this is from please message me and let me know so I can site it!  The mailman paradox specifically refers to mailmen & mailwomen that walk for miles everyday around city streets delivering mail.  Their Fitbits might explode from the amount of steps they take!  They must be the healthiest group of people on the planet!  Well not to take anything away from anyone in the mail service industry as I am sure there are plenty of healthy people that work for USPS but what about the mail people who aren't super thin, don't feel the endorphins being released after their walks, and are on the verge of having a heart attack?

Why at some point do the benefits of doing the same thing over and over again start to decrease and the risk for negative effects increase?  The body adapts specifically to the task it is required to do.  In this case, it is required to walk a certain number of steps every day, and eventually the systems of the body that are required to do this task will adapt to make this task less taxing on the body and able to be performed more efficiently.  It will continue to make it easier until you become a master at walking that specific amount of steps.  And then what happens?  There is no reason for the body to continue to drop weight, increase heart rate, or release endorphins because walking is no longer a difficult task, it's just part of the normal routine. 

So then what about all the people that continued to walk the same amount of steps every day even after they have reached their peak performance?  They must surely still be doing something healthy for themselves and maintaining a certain level of health!  To the statement that they are maintaining some level of health, I AGREE completely.  However, if the question is, "are they doing something healthy?" I argue that in most instances, the answer is NO.  If the person continues to do the same exercise (in this example walking), without change or addition of supplemental exercise, over and over again, it will actually become detrimental to their health in the long run!  Remember, the body is composed of systems so although it may be keeping the cardiovascular system at a good homeostatic level,  think about what its doing to the connective tissue system, or the muscular strength system, or the the lateral movement system.  Read on to find out!

In order to understand this we must understand some basics of anatomy and physiology.  The body is composed of hundreds of "systems" all having the possibilities of carrying out various tasks.  In everyone, some systems are highly trained and some are not.  When one system gets really strong due to focus of training another system naturally has to be neglected and possibly even weaken.  You cannot be the best at everything people! This is why generally the best marathon runner wouldn't be the best power lifter.

So what systems need to be strong in order to walk?  Well to put it simply, we need to be good at moving in a forward in a straight line, without any external load, presumably over a basically flat surface.  Our foot, ankle, calf, and spinal muscles (with the help or detriment of our shoes) need to stabilize our body while our shoulder, hip and pelvic muscles move in a repetitive pattern.  This number of steps also requires the muscles to be more endurance based (type 1) rather than power based (type 2), and finally long walking requires our cardiovascular system to become very good at moderate intensity long cardio which taxes the aerobic system(as opposed to anaerobic).  Without getting too deep into gait pattern and theory, the repetitive movement associated with walking also makes the motor control aspect of walking become very efficient.  Therefore, your brain becomes really good at sending and coordinating signals to certain muscles to contract and relax in a certain order so that it becomes second nature and requires less effort.

What systems become weak if your exercise routine only consisted of walking?  First, any lateral or backward movement.  Not only does your body become less coordinated to do those movements but the stabilizing muscles mentioned above become weak in those planes of motion.  So think you have to side step or back step out of the way of a moving car, you may be more likely to roll an ankle since the joint hasn't been trained well to accept load in the direction.  In terms of individual muscles, typically in walkers, we will see "tight" calves, hamstrings, and hip flexors.  This may limit range of motion or ability to walk up stairs, walk inclines, sit and stand from a chair or the floor.  Repetitive walking on hard surfaces (concrete) also puts a lot of stress on the joints leading to increase in osteoarthritis if proper deload weeks are not programed to allow for regeneration of these tissues.  Finally since there is theoretically no resistance in walking on flat surfaces (physics would argue this) your muscles learn that they can be produce a relatively small amount of force and still be succesful at what is required of them.  They become weak and as soon as I ask you to walk with a 20 pound backpack or with a 130lb dog on a leash, your spinal muscles crumble,  the intrinsic muscles of your foot collapse, and your shoulders and neck have stressors on them never experienced before.  Another life example is this: as soon as I ask you to lift a 10 pound box from the floor and put it on the top shelf of my closet, you cannot produce the force to lift it, the movement pattern required to get something from floor to overhead is foreign to you, and the stabilization required to maneuver the box hasn't been trained.

Lets be clear, this is an extreme example, and the negative effects of walking will take years to manifest themselves as pain or dysfunction in the body.  If you can, take this walking example and connect it to sitting.  The act of sitting in itself isn't bad but rather its the amount of sitting that we do that causes anatomical and physiological changes over the course of years with the absence of physical movement.  This is exactly why sitting gets a bad reputation.  We overdue it, it gets to be highly detrimental to some systems of the body, and may lead to chronic pain. However, the example of overuse with walking or sitting can be applied to ANY AND ALL exercise routines performed continuously over the course of years: yoga, powerlifting, bodybuilding, gymnastics, running, Cycling, boxing, pilates, crossfit, swimming, circuit training, etc. 

So what is the fix to this problem of diminishing returns? Crossfit got it partially correct in explaining that variance in programing is key, however where they go wrong is to much variance day to day doesn't allow for the body to learn or improve at anything.  So you just stay mediocre at everything and never get any better.  However, if you were to focus on something in particular for a certain amount of time, lets say 4 weeks (the length of a standard mesocycle), or enough time to grasp the concept and become somewhat proficient at the movement you could theoretically learn a new skill and then progress it.  The following 4 weeks could be something relatively similar to build on the original skill or something completely different that eventually could be combined with the original skill to form a completely new and advanced skill!

Example 1:  Charles walks for 4 weeks gradually increasing his speed but keeping his distance the same.  Then he deadlifts for four weeks with the goal of increasing strength and force production of his legs.  Finally, in his 3rd mesocycle (4 week cycle), he is stronger and he knows he can walk a certain distance for x time.  So Charles decides to find out if with his new strength he can run that distance in an even shorter time.  Lo and behold he can because running is dependent on force output from the legs and proper gait patterning similar to walking.  Combine walking and deadlifting, you should theoretically get better at running (over simplification but hopefully you get the point)

Example 2:  Mary has been sedentary for a year.  She started beginners yoga and has done it every day for 8 weeks.  Her body feels great to move again, she has become more mobile in her joints, and she has lost body fat.  But now Mary has plateaued in weight loss, she doesn't get the same mental stimulation from yoga as she did before because she has become more proficient at the movements, and she finds it difficult to move heavy boxes around her basement.  Mary should probably start a resistance training program and try to put on some muscle on her frame.  This will help her stabilize her new found range of motion from practicing yoga, learn new and exciting movement patterns that are different from the ones she has been doing for 8 weeks, and increase her resting metabolic rate(a product of more muscle mass) to push through the weight loss plateau.  She also becomes more independent since she is more mobile and stronger allowing her to lift a heavy object from the ground safely!

Example 3:  Joe has always been strong however he started seriously powerlifting a year ago.  His numbers in the 3 lifts increased quickly but now he is always sore, stiff and achy.  This is probably related to the fact that the 3 main power lifts (squat, dead lift, bench) are simple, linear movement patterns and since Joe has gotten really good at them relatively quickly he neglected the thousands of other movement patterns and hundred of other systems the body uses to operate.  The fact that Joe's numbers increased quickly it is likely that his neurological and muscular system adapted but his connective tissue (ligament, tendon, joint capsule, cartilage, fascia etc) system didn't have adequate time to adapt (some estimate it takes 9x longer for these tissues to adapt to a stimulus when compared to muscle tissue).  First, Joe should think about doing some calisthenics in order to lighten the external load.  Next, Joe should work on mobility since he is probably immobile in all of his joints except in the required range of the three movement patterns that he over trained for a year.  He should not neglect strength but just continue to train it in other ranges and planes of motion that powerlifting typically neglects.

This blog post has already become much longer than expected and taken me way too much time to write.  So here are the basics to take away from it:
1. No movement or exercise is inherently bad or good for you!
2.  Movement or exercises are like drugs, at a certain amount, they can be very beneficial, however if you take too much, they can be highly detrimental!
3.  Your body operates using hundreds of systems coordinating functions together.
4. These systems can grow stronger or weaker depending on how they are used and trained.
5.  Try different modalities of exercise as they all have benefits and they all have detriments.
6.  Find a trainer or movement specialist that "trains the body not the exercise" (quote from an a beloved teacher of mine and a brilliant trainer Mike Smaltz).
7. Finally, if you suck at or hate a certain movement or exercise or modality it probably means you should work on it for a while to bring your limiting factor up to par with all the things you're good at.

Questions, comments, concerns?

-Steve Cornely
Triad Wellness Philly
triadwellnessphilly.com
steve@triadwellnessphilly.com
973-886-4034

Nutrtional Cleanses: Truth & Lies

Nutritional cleanses seem to be all the rage in today's world.  They are popularized by the health and fitness industry as a way to rid the body of “toxins”, lose weight quickly, restore the balance of healthy bacteria in your gut, or just as a general “reset” button for various physiological functions in the body.  

            In this blog I will only tell you the truth and the lies and allow you to make your own decision on whether to do a cleanse!

THE TRUTH:

1.     Your body is constantly working to rid itself of “toxins” and non useful byproducts of various physiological reactions.  It does not need help in doing this.  The best example I have for you is this:  after a night a drinking, all the alcohol is out of your system in 24-48 hours and you feel normal again.  Another example is if you have done drugs at some point in your life, you are still able to pass a drug test at some future point in your life because the body is fully capable of ridding itself of harmful substances without the help any nutritional supplement.

2.     A cleanse generally makes people feel better because they make a DRASTIC LIFESTYLE CHANGE!  Lets face it people generally eat like shit.  Even the people who think they eat healthy are eating like shit because what is considered “food” in our culture is laughable.  Going on a cleanse usually means:

a.     More water/less salt: less bloat=feel and look thinner

b.     Compared to before the cleanse begins, less calories are being ingested.  This means stabilized energy over the course of the day. (Only because people overeat and it makes them sluggish).

c.      Less processed food and more real food

3.     Drastically changing the way we eat is an extremely difficult task.  Eating is a daily habit for humans and create change in what we eat and how much of it is challenging.  However, the fitness industry has led us to believe the rewards are numerous and worth the challenge. 

Indeed, at the end of the cleanse period most people feel an extreme sense of accomplishment.   For some, this is a psychological boost to help us stay on a healthier lifestyle. Unfortunately for others, it’s an end to a period of suffering and they run back to McDonalds for a Big Mac and a frosty!  They fall off hard and they feel like a failure and back to the beginning.

4.     The things we eat on a daily basis come from years of habit.  The way to change habits that have become ingrained in us psychologically(emotional eating), physiologically (how our taste buds respond), and evolutionarily (yes, what you eat has been dictated by evolution) is to make small changes over the course of time.  Cleanses are not small changes

THE LIES:

1.     Excess vitamins and minerals DO NOT make your body more efficient at clearing toxins.  Your body uses what it needs and pees out the rest.

2.     There is no such thing as healthy vs. unhealthy gut bacteria.  The diet you eat dictates what kind of symbiotic bacteria will live in your gut.  So if you do a cleanse for 4 weeks, yes your gut bacteria will change but as soon as you go off the cleanse, your gut bacteria will again change.  It is impossible to say that every human should have the same make up of gut bacteria and that this mixture of food and supplements will give you that forever!

3.     When most people say they want to lose weight they actually mean, I want to lose fat.   During a cleanse, it is highly unlikely that you are doing that for the following cascade of events is what actually occurs:

a.     Significant calorie reduction

b.     Stress time (starvation mode) for the body

c.      Lose water (less bloat)

d.     Lose fat free mass (muscle mass) because it requires a lot of energy to sustain

e.     Retain fat because fat is a valuable source of stored energy that can help get you through a famine (or any period of time of reduction of calories)

Unfortunately our cultural appreciation for being skinny goes against our evolutionary development as a species to value fat storage as a necessary part of survival!  We tend to hold fat at all costs until the very last moment when energy is absolutely necessary. 

Therefore, if you don’t mind being skin and bones – meaning you don’t care about muscle—go ahead and fast, the number on the scale will drop!

4.     Your body does not have a reset button.  It is constantly adapting to stimulus from the environment.  Change occurs over a period of time (that period of time depends on the system of the body we are talking about) not instantly at the push of a button!

MY TAKE:

Cleanses do not do much for your body in terms of creating long term physiological change.  Sure, they make us feel skinny and less bloated.  They give our various subsystems of the body a rest (digestive system, endocrine system) from the craziness that occurs from our daily eating habits, and psychologically we feel accomplished and like we are starting a new!  However, most people reach that high and then eventually over the same amount of time the cleanse happened they revert back to old habits.

      I wish that someday people could see that the fit and healthy lifestyle that I try to lead is a choice of daily habits I’ve created for myself.  Much like the daily habit of brushing your teeth, taking it to an extreme for 2 weeks and then not brushing for 2 weeks doesn’t make your teeth any cleaner or healthier in the long run!  The average lifespan of a human Is somewhere around 80 years.  Why do we think that a cleanse for 4 weeks is enough to completely change how our body will operate?!

      I don’t think that cleanses are inherently bad.  They can be used as tools to make us feel better psychologically and get us back on track.  I personally have used them in this way.  For example, on Mondays after a weekend of excessive partying, eating and drinking, I feel better if I only drink water and black coffee for about 12 hours.  Then I typically work out and I go back to eating my normal meal of protein and veggies.

The fitness and health industry is riddled with lies and elixers that promise a better you.  Remember, what you truly want and decide whether a nutritional cleanse could be a useful tool to help you get to your goal.  Use critical thinking skills, ask someone you trust for help, and experiment on yourself without setting such high expectations that lead you to failure.  What most people want is a lifetime of feeling good about your body.  In my opinion, the best way to do this is to create healthy daily habits that are enjoyable and eventually become easy!

Yours in the quest for feeling good!

Steve Cornely

Triad Wellness Philly

steve@triadwellnessphilly.com

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What I learned from The Broad Street Run

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In early December, I competed in my first ever powerlifting competition.  It was a learning experience that took me out of my comfort zone and made me remember how fulfilling new experiences can be.  I immediately started thinking of other new things I wanted to compete in that would challenge me.

The Broad Street Run is Philadelphia’s most popular race for experienced and novice runners alike.  In early May for the past 39 years people have gathered on North Broad Street to run 10 miles down to the Naval Yard.  Living in Philly for the past 8 years, I have known plenty of people who have participated in this race and enjoyed it so I decided it was time for me to take a stab at it. 

Over Christmas, I was talking to my 2 younger cousins who were both elite high school distance runners asking them about reasonable goals for a 10 mile pace for me.  Now keep in mind, I haven’t run for any distance in probably about 5 years and I just came off a year of training my physiology to get really good at lifting the heaviest weight I possibly could (pretty much the opposite of endurance training).  So my cousins and I agreed that 8min/mile for 10 mile, although difficult was certainly attainable. 

So I set a goal, began a training program, and wished for the best.  The bullet points below are a list of things I learned during my training.

·      Long runs are not pleasurable for me.  I really do not enjoy going out for a run with any regularity

·      Disliking the training for an event makes achieving the goal a lot harder.  You don’t look forward to the training, which makes you not want to do it.  We are all motivated to do certain things for certain reasons and if the reasons aren’t strong enough, our performance will be suboptimal.

·      I really love bodyweight strength & mobility stuff.

·      While starting my running program, I continued doing A LOT (1hour/day) of hip, knee, and ankle mobility work during the months of January and February and it was detrimental to my running form.  You don’t need excess mobility to be a runner so don’t waste time and energy trying to create it.  You should however continue keep current mobility levels.

·      Running made my legs less muscular aka caused atrophy.  No one needs heavy bulky legs to run.  You need strong legs but not muscular legs (yes they are different).  Keep in mind, some of the weight I lost was muscle.

·      I trained and ran in VivoBarefoot sneakers and my feet felt fine.  This is only because I have been training for 10 years in barefoot shoes and eased my way into a running program.  Weak feet are a problem in our society.  Make your feet stronger by ditching “supportive” shoes but make it a very slow transition!   You don’t keep your hands in mittens all day, why do you keep your feet in tight shoes all day?

·      Running burned sooooo many calories for me.  This is only because my body was not conditioned to run and I am also quite large.  If you run all the time, your body gets more efficient at it and you don’t burn as many calories.  If you’re smaller (MiniCooper) you burn less calories (fuel) running than someone who is larger (Mack Truck).  So if you’re looking to create a calorie deficit keep that in mind.

·      During your taper, keep intensity and decrease volume

·      I need more rest than most people

·      When you start a running program, keep your volume low or you will get hurt!  This is a very individual thing so I cant recommend how low but whatever you think you should be doing, cut it in half to start.

·      No exercise is inherently bad.  Either your body is prepared for the stimulus it is given or it isn’t.

·      I’m a huge negative self-talker and it doesn’t help.  It sucks a lot.  I’m learning to be more positive and it helps performance immensely!

·      If you live in Philadelphia and you’re into health and fitness, The Broad Street Run is an amazing event to participate in.  You should do it at least once!

·      Not being able to do the workouts I really enjoy made me sad and depressed

·      Even though I hate running, I felt a strong sense of fulfillment after reaching my goal.  Sometimes doing what you hate has more rewards than doing what you love.  A little suffering never hurt anyone.

If you’re interested in trying a physical challenge and you need help programming for it let me know.  The main reason I succeeded is because of sound scientific programming and listening to how my body responded along the way. 

Steve Cornely

Triad Wellness Philly
www.triadwellnessphilly.com

973-886-4034

Steve@triadwellnessphilly.com

What I've learned in: 30 years on earth, 18 years of working out and 10 years of coaching

Last week I turned 30 years old.  I'm not the type of person that considers a birthday a "milestone reached" but I do enjoy using it as a day to reflect on the past, present, and future.  So in this post I will talk about what I've learned in 10 years of coaching, 18 years of working out, and 30 years on earth.  I promise to try to keep it fitness/health related but some points will most definitely touch on broader topics.  Hopefully, it helps you with some battles in your own life!

What Ive learned in:

10 years of coaching and training:

• earning trust from clients is the most important part of being an effective coach.  If my clients trust me, sky's the limit in the progress we can make as a team
• coach the whole person, not just a body.  Thoughts, feelings, and emotions are powerful things that can affect how well we move.
• celebrate small victories! 
• give people a mix of what they want, what they think they need, and what they actually need
• adapt your coaching style based on client needs physically, emotionally, and mentally -- however do not waiver from your core beliefs on safe effective training methods just to post cool stuff on the Internet
• genetics determine the height of the building.  Hard work & consistency determine what floor you're on
• peoples attitudes on any given day may or may not have anything to do with the training session or the coach
• our lack of movement on a regular basis, leading to declining health in our population is a societal issue that I, as one person, cannot fix alone
• my client and I are a team and I hate being the one who isn't pulling their own weight
• EVERYONE CAN BENEFIT FROM: more raw veggies, more protein, less processed food, more sleep, less electronics, and more varied movement more often.  IT IS THAT SIMPLE TO LIVE A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE!
• generally, people don't realize how hard you have to work in the gym to achieve ANY goal

18 years of working out: 

• there are no quick fixes 
• supplements are TYPICALLY a waste of money
• the "popular culture" fitness industry is filled with lies and false advertisements
• set goals and track your progress -- train with purpose
• rest and recovery can be more important to making progress than working out
• workout for yourself-- no one else
•  you cant be the best at everything the human body is capable of doing, but you can be pretty damn good at everything
• treat the gym as a classroom and learn something about yourself everyday
• aesthetic changes are 90% nutrition - that's why most of us are fatter than we would like
• coordination and grace are highly overlooked in the fitness community
• although a base level of cardiovascular exercise and "heart health" is important, most people do way too much of this and not enough strength training.  On the other hand, the people that strength train usually do way too much of that and enough cardiovascular training or mobility training.  These should be organized in focused 8-16 week cycles for maximum effectiveness
• science backed programming is important but not absolute.  EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT! 
• yes, working out should be fun! BUT we could all prob stand to do more things you hate and you suck at.  It should be hard hence the name "working out"

30 years on earth:

• cherish EACH AND EVERY person, thing, and moment in your life.  It can all be gone in a second
• hard work increases your chances of getting lucky.... and boy have I gotten lucky before
• Genuineness is an extremely important character trait.  People either connect with you or they don't and that's ok!  Don't change who you are to fit in.
• change although difficult and scary in the moment, is generally a great thing
• anything worth doing requires time, sacrifice, dedication, consistency, & structure.
• psychological health is just as important and tricky to navigate as physical health.  Some things that help: pray, meditate, read, write, and a great therapist
• if you're too focused on the end goal, you're missing out on the excitement of the journey
• what I'm working on in various aspects of my life: balance, moderation, self love, self forgiveness, focusing on what is important to me & taking control of my own destiny
• there is never enough time
• there is always more to learn- and making mistakes is necessary to learn

God, I can go on forever but I'll stop there until my 40th birthday!
Questions and comments are highly valued!

Thanks for reading,
Steve Cornely
Triad Wellness Philly
973-886-4034
steve@triadwellnessphilly.com

Listen to your body NOT YOUR MIND!

Listen to your body while you workout, not your mind. 

The mind tells us to quit when something is uncomfortable.  It can take you out of the moment and put you in a pleasant state.  Like thinking about whats for dinner.  On the flip side it can tell you something is too easy and you need to go harder or add more weight (both of which are rarely the answer to your problems by the way).  The mind has so many preconceived notions about movement & exercise.  "My mother hurt her back exercising, maybe I will too".  "This famous instagram model looks sexy, I should do what she does to look like her."  The mind and emotions are not reliable feedback tools during exercise.

Instead, listen to your body.  Feel whats happening both locally and globally. Feel what's contracting, what's stretching, what's stabilizing.  Get in tune with what your WHOLE body is telling you!  (I don't mean that endorphin release you get after a HIIT class or that relaxed feeling after a calming yoga class--not that either of these things are bad). I mean for you to feel the muscle cramps, the blood pumping into the muscles, the diaphragm pulling air into the lungs, the joints being compressed and decompressed, the tension in the non moving parts, the fluidity in the moving parts etc.

Once you start FEELING things in your body, you can start to DECIPHER to what they mean, and only then can you LISTEN to what your body is saying.  A restriction in movement somewhere? Why? Lack of mobility can occur for many different reasons.  Maybe I'm tight here or weak there? A burning sensation in the quads? Why?  Maybe there is lack of oxygen to this muscle or maybe I have a pinched nerve, or maybe I'm just over dressed!  Grinding in the knees while squatting? Why? Well I'm sure you have a guess but does it necessarily mean its bad and does it necessarily mean you should stop bending your knees all together?!  I bet your mind has an opinion on it, but how does your body feel about it?!  I bet it would still like to sit down every once in while, and walk up stairs when necessary. 

Here is the problem:  WE ARE SO DISCONNECTED FROM OUR BODIES THAT WE DON'T KNOW EXACTLY WHAT WE ARE FEELING, WHERE WE ARE FEELING IT, AND WHAT IT MEANS!  The good news is that there are some great movement coaches that are available to teach you how to feel, and what the feelings mean.  Find a good movement coach.  This is what I am.

Stephen Cornely
Triad Wellness Philly

 Why Strength Matters Most!

Every movement that humans perform is based off the ability to produce a force using their musculoskeletal system.  The ability to produce a force against a resistance is strength.  We are constantly producing force on a daily basis, whether to push open a door, pull on our dog's leash, bending over to lift a box from the floor, walking around the house, or even sitting up straight!  All of these seemingly simple activities are able to be performed because of our ability to be strong.  For this reason, strength training should be a top priority in all training programs.

Below are some examples of how strength plays a role in various forms of fitness and daily life activities:

1. running:  running can be described as the ability to fight gravity and inertia to move in a forward direction.  In order to do this our foot repeatedly strikes the ground propelling us forward.  As the foot strikes the ground, it is producing some level of force into it while the ground is producing same level of force back allowing us to move forward.  The amount of force produced is one of the determining factors in how far we will go with each step.  If we are able to produce a larger force with each step, then we will be able to go further with each step, and theoretically further over the course of our run.  There are many other joints (vertebral joints especially) in the body that need to remain "strong & stable" during running to allow for force to be produced into the ground but that is diving too deep into biomechanics for this blog!

2. mobility: some people think that mobility and strength are opposites.  The ability to move our joints in a full and controlled range of motion is mobility.  This requires strength!  Strength is a factor in determining someones full mobility.  For example, in order to do perform shoulder flexion (think lifting your arm up overhead as high as you can and even pulling the arm back past your ears) you not only need to have flexible lats but you need strong deltoids and strong scapular depressors (primarily speaking, lower trapezius) in order to successfully do this.

3.  sitting properly:  by this point I'm sure everyone knows how bad sitting for extreme lengths of time is (remember, sitting is not inherently bad but rather the fact that we do it for 75% of day is why it creates problems).  Now before I get into how sitting with proper posture requires strength, I need to give a disclaimer that sitting with proper posture for 8 hours a day is NO BETTER for you than sitting with improper posture for 8 hours a day!  Get up and move people!  That's what our bodies were made to do!  So back to my point.... when we sit, gravity pulls our chest down and our head forward creating a flexed spine and some sort of jacked up neck position (this varies depending on where we are looking).  In order to sit up straight we need to activate our erectors (muscles that help the spine stay upright & straight), and even more importantly our diaphragm to ensure proper breathing technique (side note: you're diaphragm is probably inhibited due to you sitting for prolonged periods, which then causes the neck and chest muscles to facilitate breathing, which then cause neck and shoulder pain).  So here is an example of how even something that is not movement based requires you to be strong!

It is for these reasons that people need to prioritize strength training.  This means lifting heavy objects or moving your body weight in a slow and controlled manner for anywhere from 3-10 sets of 2-6 reps.  It doesn't mean going to do circuit training or HIIT training.  Will these things make a person stronger?  Yes to a degree, especially if you're just starting on your fitness journey however, they tend to tax the cardiovascular system and the muscular endurance system more than the strength system which means you are training inefficiently and will hit a wall sooner rather than later.

It is very sad that some people will never be able to do a perfect form pushup, pull up, or deep squat.  Our standard of strength in our culture is supremely low these days and it is causing a TON of exercise and non-exercise related injuries.  So I am begging you, for your health, to GET STRONGER!  

“No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”― Socrates

Written by Stephen J Cornely 

@triadwellnessphilly

www.triadwellnessphilly.com