To help you stay injury free
and prolong your Bodybuilding career
Ok guys, We’ll get the disclaimer out of the way first, this is not a sexy, wham, bam thank you mam type article full of screaming high intensity work outs or the latest super supplement from the planet Zog that guarantees you will look like Zack Khan in two weeks (but remember that individual results may vary)!!
We will ask you to bear with us however as thinking about some of the matters raised will help you stay free from injury, improve the overall look of your physique, enhance your time in the gym and help you remain functionally strong (rather than simply gym strong).
The areas we want to cover are:
● Posture
● Warm up
● Exercise form
● Stretching & Cool down
● Functional Strength
POSTURE
Once you’ve read this first section put the magazine down and go stand in front of a full length mirror, don’t pose, just stand naturally, or as naturally as us bodybuilders can stand, and take a careful look at your overall posture from the front and both sides.
Our guess is that a lot of you will be looking at a set of shoulders that are starting to round inwards, the backs of your hands facing the mirror, uneven shoulder height, uneven gaps between both arms and your sides, a head that is starting to thrust forward and glutes that are sticking out in a “duck style”.
Any of these is a sign that you have been pretty one dimensional in your training and that muscle imbalances and postural problems are starting to occur.
The obvious question to throw back at us here is “so what, just look at the size of my guns!” Well, if only life was that simple. There are two main reason to prevent these problems occurring, or start to correct them. From a purely aesthetic point of view you will look considerably better standing up straight with shoulders held back, it will improve the entire look of your upper body and give the impression of being taller. It wouldn’t be the first time that we’ve answered the question “what’s the first thing I should do to improve my chest” with “try standing up straight”. Secondly, and more importantly these imbalances will start to twist you out of shape leading to certain muscle groups being put under chronic strain leading to pain, restricted movement range, incorrect exercise form and ultimately injury.
Posture is something we check on all of our athletes as part of the initial physique assessment.
Correcting the problem tends to involve a re assessment of exercise form, sensible stretching, massage therapy and possibly the advice not to use certain exercises. Don’t be afraid to get the advice of an exercise professional trained in Postural analysis to take a look over you as some of the more subtle points can be tricky to interpret yourself.
WARM UP
There are 3 main components to a successful warm up schedule - mental, system wide and muscle group specific.
The mental aspect of any warm up should start on the way to the gym, trying to forget all the crap regular life may have thrown at you during the course of the day and get focused on the work out to come. Remember you will never get the chance to complete this work out again once its done, every session should be a building block in your physique so lets try and maximize the effectiveness of the hour or so we’re going to spend on the gym floor.
There are many, many ways to improve your initial focus and you have to learn over a period of time what pushes your own buttons, but whether its music, strong coffee and the latest NOX supplement, talking to your training partner or just concentrating on the work to come when you reach the gym you need to be “up” and confident of having a great work out.
System wide warm up is simply a matter of raising the body temperature slightly. No great secrets here, just extra layers of clothing, heater in the car, cup of hot coffee or a few minutes on the stationary bike. Personally we find it difficult to work efficiently from cold and you are leaving yourself open to injury.
Ideally, at the point of starting the specific warm up routines you will be sweating slightly, heart rate may be slightly elevated and you’re generally feeling ready to go.
We then start the specific warm ups. Rule one - this does not involve stretching! Very few people stretch properly and the start of the work out is absolutely the wrong time to do it. Various scientific studies have been carried out showing that potentially a pre stretched muscle is actually weaker than a non stretched muscle. Think of an elastic band that is normally tight and quite resistant to changes in its normal length. If this band is then continually stretched out it will, over a period of time become flaccid and weak.
This is not the perfect analogy but it does give a reasonably good idea of what could happen.
OK, if we cant stretch what can we do? Well, first of all general mobilisation of the joints involved such as arm rotations are a very good idea. However, we really want a warm up routine that is going to be absolutely specific to the work out we’re about to commence and the answer couldn’t really be easier, if you’re about to Bench Press then warm up with light bench presses, if your about to squat warm up with light squats! Not exactly rocket science we know but you are assured of warming and preparing each muscle involved in a particular movement in the perfect manner for what is about to follow.
When you consider you activate some 200 muscles when performing a squat (that’s right 200!) the importance of making the warm up as functional as possible starts to become self evident. As that bloody annoying Meer cat might say - Simples!!
EXERCISE FORM
This seems to creep into most of my articles when discussing any form of training but it really is SO important to get right for a multitude of reasons.
At the risk of sounding like a broken CD and repeating myself to often, enjoy the training DVDs the pros put out but please do not try to emulate their exercise form because more often than not it leaves a lot to be desired. (my initial thought here was to be a lot more blunt and say its crap but we are talking about many superb athletes who require a degree of respect). However, they are all genetic freaks and many have achieved their amazing level of muscle growth almost in spite of what they do rather than because of it.
For the vast, vast majority of us normal individuals you will achieve your own genetic potential only by doing things right and obeying the laws of physiology and anatomy. You will also stay free from injury far longer and prolong your career in the sport.
Looking purely at form from a muscle growth point of view, hypertrophy is triggered by 2 basic things, mechanical stress on the contractile proteins that make up the “business end” of our muscle fibres and the resulting acute and chronic metabolic stress which occurs. It’s outside the scope of this article to get to heavy on the science of what goes on but please let us know if the detail interests you because time spent studying the physiology of muscle growth starts to answer many questions.
Always strive to be a thinking Bodybuilder.
To cut a very long story short try to look out for a few basic guide lines:
● Always remain in control of any movement and concentrate on the muscle being worked
● Take the weight from muscle extension to full muscle contraction. Even the stretch at extension will
help stimulate growth. However do not comprise either muscle or joint integrity at the point of
stretch, you wouldn’t try to touch the floor with the dumb bells when performing a flying exercise for
example.
● Remember the eccentric, or downwards, movement is every bit as important, and arguably, more
important than the concentric, or upwards, movement of the weight so work the movement over
both these stages with equal concentration and intensity
● A good place to start when considering the repetition speed is 1 second up and 2 seconds, or more,
down. You could think of it as coiling a powerful spring on the way down and releasing its energy on
the way up
● Try and reduce momentum to a minimum, you really want to be finding ways to make the rep harder
rather then easier by swinging the weight around
● Work all muscle groups over a variety of angles and find out exactly what the muscles actually do
● Maintain good posture when completing any movement to help maximise the effectiveness of the
exercise and to prevent injury to either the main muscle being worked or one of the many
“supporting” muscles that play a part in every movement. Nothing works in isolation, remember those
200 muscles worked when squatting.
● Get your form checked out by someone who knows what they are looking for. It is very difficult to pick
up some things on yourself that look self evident when you’re watching someone else
● Try to develop a “mind muscle connection”, this is a bit tricky to fully explain on the printed page but
any experienced athlete will tell you feeling or being in touch with the muscle you’re working is so
important. This will also help when performing the compulsory poses during competition.
● Always be guided by safety factors, no exercise or movement is worth a lengthy lay off.
Remember, if in any doubt please ask, you need to get this right!
STRETCHING AND COOL DOWN
Stretching is another one of those things that seems deceptively simple but in actual fact very few people get it right. The key to using stretching successfully is to work with, rather than against, your body and this needs you to be aware of the existence of 2 components of muscle architecture - Muscle Spindles and Golgi Tendon Organs.
Both of these have a responsibility to maintain the health and integrity of both our muscle fibres and joints.
Muscle Spindles run along side muscle fibres and are there to detect any stretching motion that may cause us damage, particularly an intense quick stretch.
Think for a moment what happens if you’re casually walking across the gym car park when you put your foot onto an unseen patch of oil or ice. You’re foot and/or leg suddenly starts to slide from under you and all of a sudden you’re in risk of a muscle pull ranging from a slight tweak to a full blown tear. Before you can even think through what is happening and what to do about it your reactive nervous system has kicked in, activated the muscle spindles which in turn contract the muscle(s) involved in an attempt to stop the enforced stretch getting to the point where damage may occur.
Golgi Tendon Organs (GTO’s) are situated closer to joints and have an almost opposite role. If they detect that the body is being subjected to a load that will cause injury if it continues they will send signals to the muscle to relax and not continue contracting to the point where injury will occur. A theory that has been put forward is that in the case of a one off maximum power lift the GTO’s are seen as one reason why the lifter may fail in his attempt to complete the lift if they consider that further continued strain will cause a muscle tear or joint injury.
When we first start training the GTO’s are set at a relatively low level and will kick in at the un accustomed stress. Fortunately, the laws of adaptation take over and we slowly tolerate heavier and heavier weights.
With regard to after workout stretching we really only need to be concerned with the Muscle Spindles. If, as many people do, we simply select the muscle to be stretched then take the joint to its maximum range of motion, suddenly call out “oh, that’s tight”, try to force a bit more movement and then hold the stretch for some arbitrary period of time like 30 seconds we really are working against our own bodies.
All that will happen in this example is that the muscle spindles will detect the sudden stretch, tighten everything up and stay that way until the perceived threat has disappeared.
An alternative, much more sensible approach is to select the muscle to be stretched, slowly take the stretch to “the point of bind” where you first feel resistance against the movement, stay in that position for sufficient time for the tightness to relax (this is the muscle spindles starting to slacken off) then gently move the stretch on to the next point of bind, hold until everything relaxes and go one more time.
Actual stretching routines for specific muscle groups are very difficult to explain in print but, as always, please contact us with any queries and we will be happy to help.
Stretching is a much neglected matter in most hard core gyms but helping to return your muscle to their pre workout length will help you prevent injury and will certainly assist you in improving your physique and posture.
The whole stretching procedure is also part of our normal cool down routine. This is really any methods that help your body and mind return to normality after the workout. A stretch, some low intensity cardio, post workout nutrition and shower is really all it takes for us. You’re then ready to return to the real world!
FUNCTIONAL STRENGTH
OK, here’s a hard fact to swallow, you aint as strong as you think big fella! You may be able to bench 400lbs squat the best part of 600lbs and wear 6XL t shirts but in functional terms you may be a disaster waiting to happen.
As coaches we would not train anyone but a bodybuilder on a pure bodybuilding program. Two of the main reasons for this is that firstly most, if not all, bodybuilding exercises are carried out slowly and deliberately and secondly, they are all carried out in straight lines in what a student of anatomy would call the frontal and sagital planes, i.e. front/back and out to the sides. There is very little done in the transverse plane (twisting or rotational movements).
The problems start to occur when we consider just about any other sport or real life when movement tends to be needed quickly and in all planes of direction including twisting or rotation.
If dealing with a sportsman the training program needs to tailored to his or her particular activity and even though it will contain pure strength moves at certain points in the program sport specific moves will (must) be included.
Even the activities of daily living (adl’s) will call from time to time for bending, twisting, rotational moves to be undertaken. How many times have you or someone you know stayed injury free within the confines of the gym only to complain of a pull or spasm occurring on something stupid at work or around the house.
Now, we are very aware that very few Bodybuilders are going to start incorporating Strength and Conditioning moves that a Martial Artist would be proud of into their routine and we therefore strongly suggest that you work hard to maintain or improve flexibility in all planes of movement. The 3 main routes to help achieve this are correct exercise form to ensure that you remain strong over a muscles full range of movement and that foreshortening does not take place, a properly thought out stretching program and regular Sports massage therapy that will help anyone in hard training in a multitude of ways.
As is normally the case there has been so much detail that we have been forced to leave out of this article for reasons of space and to prevent it starting to sound like a post graduate lecture. At the very least we hope that it will at least get you thinking and asking a few questions of your own training.
Sports Massage will be the subject of another article but in the meantime if anyone has any questions please contact us thru the Physical Frontiers web site.
Paul K Ehren
British Senior Champion 2010/11
|
