I want to be clear that I am not here to pick sides, but share an interesting article.  I was about to post an write up on some common gym mistakes in training but this article really intrigued me.

I would like to share a link to the Men’s Health web site.  I have been reading this publication for a long time and they are usually pretty quick to pick up on a trend, fad or new fitness craze, but it took some time for them to focus an article on Crossfit.

http://www.menshealth.com/fitness/cult-crossfit

I realize that the article is average at best and it is a “popular” magazine, but what interested me more than the article (the bias is clearly evident) was the comments at the end of the Internet site.  It is clear that the followers of Crossfit have taken offence.  Once again, I am not here to offend but share interesting information.  I would like this to open discussing and see the comments this article creates.

Well, that title will surely get everyone’s attention. It has been a long period since my last post, and to the readers who have been with me from the beginning, learning and sharing; I apologize for the lack of work on my part.  When I was a kid I remember two months of summer lasting for what seemed an eternity.  Now, as a working adult and parent, four months are gone in the blink of an eye.   And the rather long to do list only gets longer, and very few things are stroked off complete.  What disappointed me the most was that I did not get though all the reading I anticipated.  However some reading was accomplished.  One comment I read in a book was the following attempting to justify this author’s method for hypertrophy training and a subsequent decrease in the amount or need for cardiovascular condition…

“If you are intent on improving your aerobic capacity, it’s important to understand that your aerobic system performs at its highest when recovering from lactic acidosis.  After your high intensity workout, when your metabolism is attempting to reduce the level of pyruvate in the system, it does so through the aerobic subjugation of metabolism… since muscle is the basic mechanical system being served by the aerobic system, as muscle strength improves, the necessary support systems (which includes the aerobic system) must follow suit.”

Do I agree with the above statement… yes to a degree?  Using weights to improve anaerobic capacity would be like building a house with only a Philips head screwdriver and a few hundred boxes of screws.  It can be done but it is going to take you a hell of a long time, much frustration will develop and it is not the most efficient way of doing it.   But, in the context of the literature that it was taken from, it was being used as a rationale to justify lack of cardio conditioning in a single set to failure protocol for increasing muscle size.  There is where I disagree with the justification.  The author used a perfectly good example of an adaptation to high intensity training, and stretched the explanation to suit the needs of his concept.  This is very common in popular literature and in some cases scientific literature.  Sometimes the numbers are stretched in the researchers favor, as is the concepts that are developed in the research.  I WILL NOT GET INTO BASHING THE TABATA “PROTOCOL” AGAIN,  but that sure is a great example.

As many of you know I love the old school lifting; cleans, snatch, squats, dead lifts, pushes and pulls (and all their variations).  You would think many of the old time strong men, who based much of their lifting on the basic movements and performing those lifts for mostly singles, doubles and triples would not be the group that would be hesitant to recognize the value of cardiovascular conditioning, but here is an excerpt from an interview with Arthur Saxon… one of the greatest lifters of all time.  (I am personally a big fan of Doug Hepburn, but that is a totally different post all together.)

Here’s what Arthur Saxon had to say about conditioning:

“The usual idea about strength–I mean the idea of the average reader of health magazines–is generally a wrong one.  Although a weightlifter (and weightlifters are supposed to be very narrow-minded in their views on this subject), I hope that I, personally, am broad-minded enough to recognize that a man does not prove himself an all-round strong man just because he is able to lift a heavy weight, especially when the weight is lifted once only. The following is my diagnosis of real strength:

Genuine strength should include not only momentary strength, as proved by the ability to lift a heavy weight once, but also the far more valuable kind of strength known as strength for endurance.

This means the ability, if you are a cyclist, to jump on your machine and ride 100 miles at any time without undue fatigue; if a wrestler, to wrestle a hard bout for half an hour with a good man without a rest, yet without becoming exhausted and reaching the limit of your strength.

Apart from sports, enduring strength means that the business man shall stand, without a break-down, business cares and worries, that he shall be capable, when necessary, of working morning, afternoon and night with unflagging energy, holding tightly in his grasp the reins of business, retaining all the while a clear mind and untiring energy, both of body and brain.

The man who can miss a night’s rest or miss a meal or two without showing any ill effect or without losing any physical power, is better entitled to be considered a strong man than the man who is only apparently strong, being possessed of momentary strength, which is, after all, a muscle test pure and simple.”

Beautifully said.  I as anyone who takes to the gym and trains do so with an intended purpose.  And in most conventional gym cases it is esthetic in nature.  I am at this time one of those who do so with the intent on hypertrophy.  However, as older posts of mine stress, I have a strong belief in the need for both aerobic and anaerobic conditioning (don’t confuse belief with like; I hate performing both aerobic and anaerobic conditioning but I do it).  What I worry about is people are going to read that author’s justification for little or no cardio and they are going to follow his/her word like a “gym lemming”.  I cannot stress the importance of conditioning to develop an all around fitness.  Fitness is not just looking the part, it is performing the part.

Once again, yours in health and performance,

Jeff Osadec, MKin, CEP, CSCS

I’m a pretty simple guy… minus the stuff that goes on in my own head.  That part is any thing but simple right now.  But I like a good pair of jeans, a plain tee shirt and my Chuck Taylors’.  I like simple vehicles, like my Jeep.  And when it comes to training, I like the basics.  Now this time of year in strength and conditioning is a busy time, with athletes back for the summer from school, winter sports performing their summer dry land training and, well, preparing for the fall.  So as you can tell, time is of the essence, and workouts have to be short, or tend to lean on the shorter side.

So with that in mind I started to think of doing, dare I say… Crossfit?  Yeah I said it, but let me explain.  As many of you know I at one point did my level one Crossfit training.  Or should I say, paid $1000.00 for a weekend for information I already knew.  But there was some fantastic information came out of that weekend, it was not a total waste at all.  However, to follow the online page is bound to get me injured, and I find it a little too much, “lets throw a bunch of S%#t at the wall and see what sticks.”  Although the main page of Crossfit claims to have a periodization to it, I am yet to see it.  However, a good friend and mentor of mine, Andrew at Natural High Crossfit has a great site, with a structure that I could follow.  He does strength focus before the her moves to the workout or WOD.  I have so much respect for Andrew and I tell people, if you have to follow Crossfit, then his is the site you should look at.

So I started back in May, however, I have admit, I did modify some of the workouts.  Okay, I modified all of the workouts to fit my liking.  I took out double unders (I suck at them) but I would double the amount of skipping.  I kept in box jumps but instead of something like 20 I would do 4 x 5 quality sets (my glutes do not fire well and I would be completing a sloppy set if I did not scale).  They say if you do something for 21 days it becomes a habit, so I can say I stuck with it for at least 21 days.  However, it did not and will not become a habit.  It is nothing against the workouts or how they were written, but I think that I am a bit too OCD for “Crossfit”.  Now the workouts did have elements of the basics, but here is where every thing fell apart.  I like to see progress, consistency and I track ever set, rep and load of the workout.  My workouts track volume by the amount of load lifted in a given workout.  And therefore I track that I am lifting more from one workout to the next.  To not have a consistency within the program, I could not follow that I was making the progress that I need to experience.

See, I like the basics.  And I have talked about this with other professionals in my field.  If you look around at all the top guys in our filed, we are all doing something similar.  Every one is doing a dynamic warm up, some form of power movement (Olympic lifting, plyo etc), the basic accessory lifts (push, pull, squat, lunge, twist and bend) and some recovery/ regeneration/ rest.  We are not doing a squat – to curl – to press on a swiss ball while doing calf raises, with knees banded.  We do not work in gyms covered in Chrome and Ferns.  We are doing the basics, the things that have worked time and time again.  And the key that I look for is reproducibility.  And that is what I found missing in the 21 day Crossfit experiment.  I could not go back and be certain in the fact that I could reproduce the results time and time again.  I do not get paid to guess in my job, I get paid to produce results, and if I cannot recreate results, well, I am out of a job.

So what should a typical week look like?  This is an example, as there are many combinations that could take place but the easiest breakdown is as follows, and I know, not everyone will be performing Olympic lifting movements, but I will modify the exercises based on the needs of the client.

Monday/ Thursday

Warm up – 10 minutes

Olympic type movement

(Snatch 5 x 5 and Clean Pulls 3 x 5 for example)

Strength

(Upper Push and Lower Pull)

Accessory

(Areas of concern like shoulders, core or glutes)

Recovery/ Regeneration

Wednesday

Cardio (intensity based)

Tuesday/ Friday

Warm up – 10 minutes

Olympic type movement

(Cleans 5 x 5 and Snatch Pulls 3 x 5 for example)

Strength

(Upper Pull and Lower Push)

Accessory

(Areas of concern like shoulders, core or glutes)

Recovery/ Regeneration

Saturday or Sunday

Cardio – Long slow distance work.

A simple break down like that will build the foundation to a program that will cover the basics that should be present.  And that is the beauty of it.  The programs do not need to be long.  My personal workouts last about an hour in length.  They are measureable, and the biggest part, reproducible.   Aside from the last little experiment, I would be honest in saying I have rotated a series of workouts, or modifications of the originals, over the past 6 years.  I would have to say going from 145 lbs back in 2005 to 196 lbs this past year, something must be right to reproduce gains time and time again.

It has been quite some time since I sat down and wrote.  Although it is no excuse, it was an insane last few months.  Flu bug hit the house, then a trip for a family wedding and a subsequent week on my own at the shop.  Therefore I was running the show, and I have to say things went rather smoothly.  That lack of time has made me more intent on writing, more so, now than ever.   I feel as if I have done a disservice to the blog and those who take the time to read it.  Mom, thanks for logging in do much to boost the numbers.  Over this time I have been emailing back and forth with a good friend, Graeme, whom you all remember is the guy who called me out a month back.

We have been discussing the assessment of movement and “dysfunction”.  There is great debate on this on the internet with many of the top guys in the game of strength coaching taking sides and in some cases splitting hairs over the nuances of assessing movement.  As I have talked about in previous blogs, I utilize a screening process to aid in the development of programs for all the athletes that I work with.  Graeme had read a post from Vern Gambetta who had his take on assessment of movement.  Knowing that I have used some type of screen in my coaching Graeme asked my opinion.  The subsequent response was that Graeme and I have a similar view in the use of assessment of movement and recognizing dysfunction.  The following is Graeme’s take on movement assessment.

Assessing movement requires there to be levels of quality to movement (obvious). Of interest then is what constitutes movement quality. It’s probable that not everyone will agree on the constituents as quality is subjective and it’s definition is difficult to pinpoint, but I think that key criteria to movement quality are:

1. 1.     Whole-body Coordination / Rhythm. The relation of body and limbs to each other across time and space.
2. 2.     Active Mobility. The capacity to move joints through a wide range/amplitude via contraction/relaxation of appropriate muscles
3. 3.     Speed of Movement.
4. 4.     General Technical Competency.

Obviously there are other factors at play (proprioception, motor control, muscle balance, posture, stability, balance, etc) but I consider some of them further down the ‘ladder’ and some of them as categories distinct from movement (though interacting with it, since movement is an integrated expression of all body systems). I tend to think of 3 broad categories here.

1. 1.     Musculoskeletal Balance. Comparison of function (strength/mobility) between muscle groups and movements (right/left, agonist/antagonist, push/pull/squat/lift/rotate) and the impact of this on posture (spinal & skeletal alignment).
2. 2.     Proprioception. Ability to sense ones position and movement in space.
3. 3.     Motor Control. Ability to contract/relax muscles to produce precise and accurate movement.

For me, confusion stemmed from the fact that tests have been developed that seem to address these other factors via specific movements, and are thus called ‘movement assessments’; the term has become umbrella-like. Personally, I think a lot of these ‘movement assessments’ are addressing Musculoskeletal Balance, Proprioception and/or Motor Control…they are just doing it through movement. So I now see our earlier conversation as having 2 aspects: 1) What is important in assessing movement quality and 2) the relevance/use of so-called ‘movement assessments’ .

So in that regard, I agree with Gambetta in that assessment of movement must focus on movement quality, with the emphasis on sport-related movements reflecting ones progress into specialization. In practice, this lies more in the domain of the head coach, not the S&C coach (they have more sport-specific expertise and far more observation time). However, it is our job to help address mobility/strength/awareness/etc issues that the coach picks up on. Still, as S&C coaches, we must be concerned with and regularly address lifting patterns. In doing so, I think it is flawed to try and mold athletes into an ‘optimal’ pattern, as each body type & physiological profile will result in a different ‘optimal’. Better to work within a general framework and make adjustments tailored to the individual. As Gambetta said, this can be done through daily observation & correction in training and does not necessitate a specific test.

In terms of ‘other movement assessments’ like the single leg squat, reach tests, etc, I agree with Gambetta in that they are of limited use in evaluating movement; their procedure involves movement, but the variable of interest is something else (stability/mobility, strength, balance, etc). He didn’t address whether he found them useful for other purposes. I think they are, but it’s the method of quantification and the purpose for which the test is used/interpreted that is crucial. I tend to lean towards screens for Musculoskeletal Balance. Partly because proprioception and motor control work very closely with one another and, when combined, result in coordination (which can be assessed visually on a daily basis). More so because, although Musculoskeletal Balance can impact movement quality, I consider it to be a separate entity that has its own health / performance ramifications.

The typical approach for tests of Musculoskeletal Balance seems to be to look for imbalance and then correct the ‘problem’. I think this is a flawed concept; as said earlier, we will always find something wrong if we look for it. Particularly in an athletic population where the sport itself will create (and perhaps necessitate) imbalance…hunched shoulders in boxers, R-L shoulder imbalances in tennis players, spiral line imbalance in strikers/throwers, hyperkyphosis in cyclists, perhaps slight scoliosis in skaters, etc. As you mentioned, the level of athlete will alter our approach and I agree with you that, in the developing athlete, there is more merit to spending time working towards the ‘optimal’ value; this contributes to the base that we specialize off of. However, there is the risk of spending too much time on correcting an endless list of ‘faults’, with no good evidence (that I’m aware of) that it translates to improved performance. In fact, I remember Matt Jordan commenting once that according to some of these tests, the best athletes in the world are sometimes ‘unbalanced’ and full of ‘dysfunction’. Just like we accept compromises in certain biomotor abilities to specialize in others, it is also likely that we have to accept compromises in Musculoskeletal Balance to specialize in a movement demanded by a sport. If the imbalance is not affecting health, risk of injury, or the ability to train/compete, then I’m not convinced dedicating time to correct it is worthwhile. Though Poliquins ‘Structural Balance’ work indicates lifts can be improved by addressing imbalance between various exercises, this is only of interest to me if the exercise that will be improved 1) has relevance (i.e. transfers) to sport performance, which is dependent on the lift, and 2) the current maximal strength level of the athlete in that lift. I would be interested in learning if his process impacts risk of injury or posture (I have a hunch it would…I just haven’t found anything on it yet).

Instead, I think screens should be used to create an individual baseline and then monitor to prevent extreme imbalance that has known health implications. They may also provide information as to why certain movements are difficult, or provide a goal if returning from injury. I’m unsure of the value of correlating results to performance given all the other contributing factors…but maybe. Of importance is to favor screens that score quantitatively over qualitatively and objectively over subjectively. I like the idea of using/comparing maxes of typical exercises (i.e. front/back squat, snatch etc) as they are more applicable movements without familiarization issues, scoring is not subjective, results can be obtained from recent training sessions (or tests added with minimal training interruption). They also allow for comparison to performance standards (if available). I see tests requiring subjective interpretation like the overhead squat or Klatt Test more as an indicative/confirmation tool if a technical issue is unable to be corrected by movement/load adjustment or raising awareness; again, probably of more use in developing athletes. Of course, true diagnostics of muscle dysfunction should be left to the PTs/ATs!

To try and tie this rambling string of thought together….I consider ‘movement assessment’ to be a specific term relating to overall movement quality (coordination/rhythm, active mobility, technique and speed). This can be looked at on a daily basis within training w/o specific tests. Probably prudent to note that this is different from technical analysis (which would be more concerned with a reductionist view of body position as oppose to a global view of body movement). Other ‘movement assessments’ are poorly termed as they actually assess characteristics other than movement. In terms of those looking at Musculoskeletal Balance, I think there is value in periodic comparison of specific maximal lifts and posture assessment, with the interpretation from a health perspective rather a performance one (working to prevent extremes rather than trying to achieve a desired ‘optimal’).

Thoughts?

In my own practice, I utilize the Functional Movement Screen (FMS), but only in combination with other test, such as spinal alignment and strength testing.  Although the tests do address dysfunction, it answers many questions on limitations to movement.  Those may be hip or ankle immobility but that aids me in understanding the movements exhibited by my clients.  As I have also maintained, although I look at posture and dysfunction, I understand that there will be certain “dysfunctions” specific sports will foster.  Many of my swimmers exhibited rounded shoulder for example.  It was a product of their sport.  Did I try and change it?  Yes, to some degree, but it was in the aim of not exacerbating the issue further and realizing that I would consider “normal” for a general population, would not be valid for an athlete.   The biggest issue I see with movement assessments, and much of the testing in general is many coaches test for the sake of testing and do not address the issues, or utilize a consistent follow up program to monitor change.  Therefore what was the purpose?  As well, there is some degree of understanding what to do with the results of testing.  I think the issue is with the so-called certification of testing, where as you attend level one, and can now administer the FMS for example.  However, to understand the correcting phase programming you must attend level two… at another monetary cost.  Many coaches think they will “figure” out the rest after level one, as they are reluctant to spend more on their education, only to not fully understand the results of the test.  They lack the dedication to follow through fully with the understanding or the accreditation.  For these reasons, movement assessment tends to get a poor reputation.  I think there is merit to testing, whether it physiological, strength or biomechanical, however the utilization of the testing results must be incorporated with training so that improved results are see.

As this is getting rather long, I will leave it there for many of you to ponder on your own.   I think this leaves a lot to consider and I would once again like to thank my good friend Graeme (one of the smartest guys I know) for allowing me to share his thoughts with you.

Yours in Health and Performance,

Jeff Osadec, MKin, CEP, CSCS