Condition Kettlebell Gym

It is 8 weeks out from Fitness-Dixie show and so now I have to really get serious.  I am going to see what can happen with the Return of the Kettlebell protocol and try to gain a little lean mass.

DAY ONE 7/27

LIGHT DAY:

3 x (1,2,3) ladders 16kg+8kg - switching sides each time.  Except I got distracted and did (1,3,3) for the second ladder

5 squats in between each ladder

2×4 40kg sumo deadlifts

Warrior Diet:

Coffee w/ a little cream

J. Robb shake with a banana

Greek yogurt

DINNER:

roasted brussel sprouts (olive oil, salt, and pepper)

Rice pilaf/lentils with vegetable stock/hummus

2 glasses of wine

Where I went wrong: Cream instead of milk in my coffee but the coffee house I was meeting someone in didn’t have any milk option, I should have had a salad before the brussel sprouts and had planned on legally cheating with Arden’s Garden “Salad in a Glass” (unpasteurized beet, carrot, and parsley juice) but both stores by my place were out.  It also said that wine was best had with the high fat or high protein days and this is detox week, but I took the “best” to mean that it was “ok” this week.

Day Two 7/28

VARIETY DAY:

Z Joint mobility drills - RTK says to take it really easy on variety days.

Warrior Diet:

Coffee w/milk

banana

fruit cup

cold leftover brussel sprouts

DINNER 4:45PM:

roasted brussel sprouts

rice pilaf/jasmine rice/red lentils/hummus

Kombucha

Where I went wrong: again not eating (or drinking) a salad first, eating cooked brussel sprouts during undereating phase.  Even though they were cold.  Still have 45 minutes in my overeating 4 hour window… May have a glass of wine.  Still debating.

           I got my R-phase certification a little over a year ago and Z Health principles have shaped my training philosophies and have had a substantial impact on how things are done at Condition.  We always start and end with pieces of the neural warm-up and apply Z principles to our strength training, but until yesterday I had never done an actual assessment for someone who just came in to have a Z mobility assessment.  I have helped people in classes and worked with them on drills to help with strength increases and regaining mobility but if someone just wanted a straight up mobility assessment, I would always pass them on to Katie “the Brain” Bigelow.  But now that Katie is no longer on the East Coast, I had to step up and take it myself.

Z project #1 came in and had limited shoulder mobility and could not tilt her head laterally without pain.  I started with ankle tilts and toe pulls but while we were doing them she said “This is fun!  I do stuff like this all the time.”  No surprise that those exercises didn’t give much improvement.  I then moved to hip circles in rehab position.  Shoulder range of motion increased about 3 inches.  Aha.  Then we went onto work on the neck mobility.  We started with pelvis tilts (a/p and lateral) and pelvis circles.  Her range of motion didnt increase but the range that she COULD move into was now pain free!

She was so happy!  It was great to be able to help someone move pain free and as a bonus regain a little Z confidence in myself.

As most athletes who first meet Delaine and I at Condition Kettlebell Gym have noticed, we wear some pretty funky shoes – that is if we are actually wearing shoes. Well, here is the information you’ve all been asking us for about shoes.

      First, we must start with the basics. In today’s age, shoes are a materialistic accessory that more often than not matches the color of clothing. Thousands of years ago, before the invention of air conditioning, cars, and the light bulb Neanderthals walked the earth BAREFOOT. And so should you! The Neanderthal barefoot approach is significant, because this is actually the most efficient and healthy method of walking and movement for your body. Anatomically, there are 26 bones in the foot and ALL of them should be mobile. When taking a step, the force from the ground starts at the heel and is distributed throughout the rest of the foot and body. If one of the bones in the foot doesn’t move efficiently or is jammed, the force from the ground is altered and the distribution throughout the rest of the body changes. What does this change in force mean for you? Put simply, changes in joint and postural alignment and PAIN! The pain can occur in the knees, hips, and/or lower back, etc.

      So, you can’t walk the streets barefoot and you don’t want immobile and painful joints. Here are some shoe suggestions that will help minimize pain and postural changes and facilitate healthy and mobile joints: 

Nike Free

Puma Alsten

Converse – Chuck Taylor’s

Puma Speedcats

Vibram Five Fingers

Adidas Samba

New Balance 790s

Adidas Chiba

Reebok Driving Shoes 

      These are all athletic shoes that are great options for athletic performance, everyday activities, and even work! If you don’t have any of these shoes in your closet, you should check your current shoes to see if they fit the profile. An easy test is to pick up one shoe and bend the sole. If the sole doesn’t bend with ease, or only in the toe area, you should strongly consider purchasing any of the shoes listed above. Basic things to look for are flat shoes with a flexible sole throughout the entire length of the shoe, which will allow for all the bones and joints in your feet to move freely and efficiently. Also, if you’re puzzled about where to look or all the shoe stores you’ve checked don’t carry the above shoes, trying some of the following websites: 

www.nike.com

www.ebay.com

www.zappos.com

www.eastbay.com

www.vibramfivefingers.com 

      With a fresh pair of flat and mobile shoes you are well on your way to better performance with a more efficient and mobile body! 
 
 

Keep moving, 

Katie Bigelow

RKC Instructor

Z Health Level 4 Trainer

Earlier this week when I had a kettlebell class do a series of presses I found myself saying, “Keep pressing like that but don’t make faces.”  One lady asked, “Why?  Because it will get stuck like that?”  NO!  Because making faces is a sign that your balance of tension and relaxation is gone and that is the first step to inefficiency.  As a Z-Trainer, we learn that the path to efficiency is:

1. Perfect Form

2. Dynamic Postural Alignment

3. Synchronized Respiration

4. Balanced Tension/Relaxation

When you start a press, you should begin with proper form, then you make sure you are standing up straight with an elongated spine.  As you press you should sniff in at the bottom and blow (or hiss) out as you press.  Your abs, glutes, and quads should be full of tension, but your face and neck should be relaxed.

The pathway of ineffiency is the exact opposite.  The first thing to go is your balance of tension/relaxation, then your breathing gets off, and first posture, then form goes.  The best way to keep from having bad form is to stop and correct it before you get to that point.  When you notice that you are making faces, stop and fix your balance of tension and relaxation then proceed with your press.

For some reason the modern fitness world has taught us silly little rules such as “Don’t squat below 90 degrees” and “Don’t let your knee go over your toe when you are stretching.” Well, as my clients are told, you squat below 90 when you go to the bathroom every day so you better learn how to do it. The most important rule in fitness is “Don’t do something that hurts.”

Your body needs to be trained to do the things that your body does in life so that your Central Nervous System is comfortable with all ranges of motion and doesn’t “freak out” and contract the muscles when in a “dangerous” position and cause injury. When you sprain your ankle, for example, the sprain is likey to be caused by your body going into startle and contracting the muscles around the ankle because it is in an unfamiliar range of motion than the actual motion of rolling your ankle.

With that said, many sports related injuries can be prevented if the athlete would train for all possible ranges of motion, ranges of motion-in-mothion, etc… The following is written by Dr Eric Cobb, founder of Z-Health, after watching last weekend’s football games. Your body gets good at doing what you make it do. My Chargers had a few injuries that may have been prevented if they had trained their bodies to be ready for certain movements in the game.

Injury Lessons by Dr Eric Cobb:

“I, like many of you, spent a few hours this weekend watching football. In addition to enjoying the game and watching some excellent athletes in motion, I also watch football to see what happens when things go wrong…

“If you watched the San Diego/Indy game Sunday, you know it was very physical. A large number of injuries occurred and it was very interesting to try to keep track of them. I would say that at least half of the injuries sustained were “self-inflicted” non-contact injuries. In virtually every case, it was an athlete moving from unloaded (jumping, pivoting, turning, etc) to loaded while trying to change direction. These “instinctual” movements that form the basis of most “great plays” in every sport, are absolutely CRITICAL to train!

“In S-Phase, we cover an extensive plyometric progression for these exact events. Just like everything else in our life as athletes, we must design, implement and enforce practice of ALL POSSIBLE BIOMECHANICAL TRANSITIONS if we want to maximize player safety and performance.

“Nothing will make us bulletproof, but with a bit of imagination and diligence, we can prep our nervous systems far more effectively than much of what is being done in today’s training field.”

People often question me about why I don’t yell at them when they stop before they complete the “prescribed” reps or time interval for an exercise. Many of them have had trainers whose philopophy was “Just when you think you can do one last rep, do 5 more!” My clients are told that what their body is telling them ALWAYS overrides anything I tell them. The Z-Health school of thought is about training your body the right way and listening to what it is telling you. Here is Z-Health in a VERY small nutshell.

Z-Health Performance Solutions

Mobility Alphabet – each joint was meant to move into 4 planes of motion. Think of each movement as a letter in your alphabet and each of those “letters” make up a word

Sensory Motor Amnesia – If you don’t use it, you lose it. If you stop moving a joint in a certain direction, your body assumes that you don’t want that range of motion and “forgets” how to perform that movement to make room to learn other things. Simple proof: cut your thumb, immobilize it and it becomes stiff - not because of a cut on your skin, but because you haven’t been moving it.

Proprioceptive Map – Your Central Nervous System (CNS) constantly takes a scan of your body and sends signals to your brain to create a virtual 3-D map. The parts of your body that have full mobility are clear on this map, whereas areas of lost mobility are fuzzy.

Proprioceptive Map and Pain – Pain does not live at the site.

o “Pain” is your brain interpreting a warning signal.

o Your body is built for survival. Pain is important when there is actual danger involved (i.e. when you touch something hot and your CNS sends signals which make you quickly pull your hand away from the hot object.)

o There are other times when your brain sends unnecessary warning signals in the form of pain when you move your body into safe, but unfamiliar ranges of motion and the CNS perceives that movement as dangerous.

o When you begin moving your joints into all planes of motion, your proprioceptive map becomes clear and these ranges of motion are no longer perceived as dangerous, so there is no unnecessary pain.

Proprioceptive Map and Performance - Based on the clarity of your map, the nervous system decides how much energy it will supply to fuel the muscles which create movement.

o Your body as a car: muscles are the engine and your CNS is the battery

o Whenever the nervous system senses a threat it reduces the amount of speed and strength available for contraction of the muscles to prevent the body from damaging itself.

The SAID Principle “Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand” – The body always adapts to exactly what it does.

Pain follows the SAID Principle: If you get used to moving into pain, you get good at making yourself hurt

o When you are in pain, compensation patterns arise which set you up for more pain in other areas of your body and more poor performance patterns

What exactly is Z-Health?

o Z-Health is a system that retrains your CNS through joint by joint mobility drills

o Z Health improves athletic performance by focusing on improving the nervous system and making the map clearer (proprioceptive enhancement).

o As the body becomes more efficient at moving, speed and strength increase (with the same amount of effort) while the threat of movement (and resulting pain signals) decrease.

According to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) the majority of people who begin an exercise program quit within 6 months because they get hurt. They get hurt because they proceed with a poorly drawn map. Even “relatively healthy” individuals may be suffering from inefficient movement patterns, stuck joints, etc. which limit performance.

I have a confession to make. It goes against everything that I stand for in the fitness world, but lately I haven’t been able to help myself. My confession is that I like to make boys puke. Now, pushing your body that hard on a regular basis goes against all that I know to be true in how to make real progress. So many trainers have the philosophy that once you think you are finished, do one more rep. More enlightened trainers have the philosophy that once your form goes, you need to stop. Extremely enlightened trainers know that to really make progress, one must stop even before then, which is something I learned through Z-Health.

If you have ever studied the hormone cascade or what your body really does during extremely strenuous activities, you know that it is counter-productive to push yourself too hard. You know that “runners high” that people talk about? Well, that is exactly what it is. You are “high” from self-medication. When your body says, “Oh Crap! What is happening to me?” it releases Cortisol, which increases the amount fat and sugar released in the bloodstream and decreases cellular protein uptake (among other “really-bad-for-you things.”) That doesn’t sound like it’s going to help you lose weight OR build muscle, does it? When you feel that “high” or rush from an extreme workout, it is the feeling of your body medicating itself. And when do we usually take medicine? When there is something wrong with us!

So why do I like to make boys puke? Maybe it’s a version of little-man syndrome because there are many who take one look at me and walk into my studio expecting some version of pilates. Or maybe it’s because if I hear one more “mainstream” person compare kettlebell training to yoga I’m afraid that I will NOT be able to hold my tongue. “Um… yes, you are right. I’m pretty sure the Russian Special Ops got their strength and physique by stretching in the field for an hour.” I am not a mean person. These guys LIKE the fact that I make them puke. They seem even excited about it. “Yeah, man! After that last workout, I was driving home and I had to pull over and yak out the window. The people driving by gave me weird looks, but MAN did I feel good afterwards!” I’m not reveling in their misery. I am just excited to have given them something extra that they weren’t expecting. Is that so bad? Yes, it is. Because if I’m training these guys to the point of puking I might as well have them do bicep curls while hopping up and down on a Bosu. Ok, so it’s not that serious. But at the end of the day, it really isn’t helping.

If you really want to progress, whether your goals are weight loss or strength gains, you need to keep noxious stimuli OUT of your workout. That means no pain and no feelings that you are about to vomit. A noxious stimulus is a danger signal. And what happens when the brain is sent a danger signal? It pulls back the reins. If you are lifting, it says “Whoa! Something is not quite right here, let’s not allow so much force to be transmitted since I’m not so sure this rep is a good idea.” You can’t lift as heavy because your central nervous system won’t ALLOW you to (notice that I didn’t say that it was because you aren’t strong enough.) And did I mention that your body is smart? It gets good at doing whatever you have it do on a regular basis. That means if every time you train, you train to failure then your body gets really good at… (you guessed it)… FAILING.

So, how do you make real progress and real gains? You start out with perfect form. “Practice doesn’t make perfect, Perfect practice makes perfect,” a very wise man named Brett Jones told me years ago. (Knowing Brett and his affinity for quoting, I Googled that quote and it was credited to Vince Lombardi. :)) After you are sure that your form is perfect, make sure that you are in good postural alignment. There may be some slight arches in your spine, but no severe angles - lengthen through the crown of your head. Next, synchronize your respiration (when your lungs are compressed in an exercise, exhale.) It sound obvious, but sometimes my respiration is not in sync and I don’t even realize it because I’m trying to push out that rep!!! Not good. Lastly, make sure you have a good balance of tension and relaxation. Take the kettlebell snatch for example. There are points when your body is full of tension (i.e. the hip snap) and there are times when your body is somewhat relaxed (i.e. the bell’s descent.) So you go through the checklist: Good form? Check. Good Posture? Check. Synchronized breathing? Check. Balanced tension and relaxation? Check. Now what? Now you work out until one of those components is no longer there. Usually the first thing to go is your balance of tension and relaxation. When it does, stop. That’s right. STOP. Once one of those components goes you are no longer training efficiently; therefore, you are no longer training your body the right way to do something.

Perfect practice makes perfect so every single rep should be perfect and efficient. To really make progress, the exercise should be stopped BEFORE the first imperfect rep. And, for the record, feeling like you are going to throw up is not a component of a perfect rep.