Creating Chaos - For Fitness & Sport Professionals

If you're not familiar with the John Steinbeck classic then it's well worth a read. With two main characters, the book follows the tragic story and relationship of George Milton and Lennie Small, two misplaced ranch workers. George, an intelligent yet cynical man and Lennie, a man of great stature and strength yet limited mental abilities.

The two characters highlight a classic paradox that currently resides within the fitness industry. George represents an athlete who may not have all the resources in the world but knows how to make the best of the tools he does have. Lennie however represents people with excess muscle mass that don't understand or aren't able to use their physical capacity, those with an abundance of dumb muscle.

In a world that seemingly places a greater importance on appearance over functionality, perhaps it's not so surprising that the fitness industry is filled with large proportions of muscle bound enthusiasts that don't necessarily have the ability to use their physical capacity to it's potential.

1. Pull up - your bodyweight
2. Overhead press - your bodyweight
3. Bench press - 1.5 x your bodyweight
4. Squat - 2 x your bodyweight
5. Deadlift - 2.5 x your bodyweight

• the build up of structures: without protein, many structures within the body would be fluid. There are two distinct types of structural proteins: fibrous (fundamental to cartilage and other connection tissue, hair and nails) and motor (used to spontaneously move and convert chemical energy into work).

• as enzymes: enzymes catalyze chemical reactions. Enzymes carry out most reactions involved in metabolism, as well as manipulating DNA in processes such as DNA replication and DNA repair.

• Antibodies: antibodies are protein components of the immune system whose main function is to bind antigens, or foreign substances in the body, and target them for destruction.

As coaches and fitness professionals, one of the first steps with any new client is finding out their current state in terms of posture, stability and movement. Crucial information if the exercise programme developed is going to have any realistic relevance to their current physical state.

The common movement screens include squats, lunges and hurdle steps. All completely valid assessments that each gives a unique perspective but are we missing anything? In our experience, there are some major ignorances that the industry can often forget when conducting movement screens with clients so here's a couple of top tips to helps make your movement assessment as accurate and useful as possible:

• Whenever you mention the word posture, clients (who sometimes don't realise they're doing it) pull their shoulders back, puff their chest out and stand the head tall. You're not wanting to assess whether or not they can stand to attention but get a snapshot of how they hold their body. Get your client to jump up on the spot a few times or march on the spot for 10 seconds with their eyes closed before settling; then look to start observing posture. An immediate photo is the easiest way as this can be studied for longer as well as being referred to for benchmarking and raising your client's awareness.
• Asking a client to perform a familiar movement isn't necessarily giving you the information you want. If you ask a client to squat, they'll then go on to perform their own interpretation of a squat. This could be based upon their own personal experience which may not be the technique that you're personally looking for. Bearing in mind that for decades, squats have been taught as feet parallel, hips down to level with the knees, knees no further forward than the toes etc. Instead of basically assessing their cognitive association of the term squat, simply give a command instructing the movement sought e.g "With your feet flat, take your hips as near to the ground as possible and then return to standing"
• There is a fine line between testing the body's ability to perform movements and then testing the local strength or endurance of the musculature. If you're looking to test just movement then no more than 3 or 4 repetitions of the movement should be performed. Persisting beyond this will challenge stamina which is a completely different assessment. A de-conditioned individual or athlete would likely demonstrate fatigue, affecting movement performance and rendering any observations as limited.
• Demonstrations are useful but if possible, screens should be done without. For showing new exercises, demonstrations are vital and should always be used but movement screens bring out individualities of movement. Everyone has their own unique natural alignment and again, giving instructions for the movement will help profile your client towards giving their most natural preference towards approaching that movement. A demonstration would then start to assess your client's ability to accurately interpret a visual representation, potentially obscuring their own natural performance to mimic your technique. 

A key aspect of coaching, personal training or being a fitness professional is education. Its getting the full understanding across that makes the difference. The what, the how, the why and the when. Yet the uphill struggle is that some common misconceptions are still favoured by the masses and the media. So, are your clients suffering from the beliefs of cruci-fitness...a sure way towards little results, niggling pains and injury?



Here are just 5 of the most common ill-beliefs that stand in the way of success for millions of gym goers and couldn't be further from the truth:

1. Cardio is the key to weight loss - With many gyms kitted out predominantly with cardio machines, it's understandable why people fall into this trap. The fact is, it's easy for gyms to just plonk these machines everywhere because they're self operated and it cuts down on the need for manning. If more effective training was to be done in gyms, it would require a lot more coaching and education. Cardio just isn't the key to getting rid of unwanted fat. Running is often seen as one of the most effective ways to burn calories but this just really is not true. There is no better article to explain this than John Kiefer's 'Running Into trouble'. Well worth a read and pass it onto your clients. Resistance training develops the lean body mass that will dictate metabolism, support joints and make the body much more efficient at movement.
2. Tunnel vision - Doing the same thing over and over again. It happens so much in gyms that we almost become blind to it. Members going day after day and week after week repeating the same old programme or even worse, the same single activity every time. As we all know, plateau is a problem but actually, in this context, the much more severe issue is the risk of injury. Repeating the same thing over and over again not only makes the body so efficient at the activity that it burns less and less calories in the process, it also leads the body towards the exercise equivalent of RSI (repetitive strain injury). Furthermore, this generally leads towards a decrease in flexibility which is another common guilty ignorance. 
3. More is more - Ignoring recovery time is a huge sin. It doesn't take a genius to understand that exercise is stress on the body and the only reason it is beneficial is due to the way in which the body responds to this stress. And this response is only possible with sufficient recovery time and good nutrition. You wouldn't expect an ill person to recover eating crap food and having no rest. Well, the truth is, after exercise, the body is damaged. It's in a state of health below normal and will only get better on a strict course of medicinal sensibility. Ignoring the body's needs completely curbs the room for progress to take place.
4. Quantity over quality - You may have heard the old adage 'Practice makes perfect'. Well, this may be true if what is being practised is done to perfection. If this isn't the case, the reality is 'Practice makes permanent'. There is no substitute for striving to perfect movements. 100 poorly performed squats do not outclass 1 perfect squat nor do they achieve the same results. This is an attitude towards exercise that should be embraced yet so often is ignored. The adage should be 'Practice perfection and achieve perfection'.
5. Single planar movements - As trainers, we understand the concept of tri-planar movement. However, most commonly practised exercises and activities are rigidly set in the saggital plane. Running, cycling, press ups, squats, lunges, sit ups...all saggital. Yet most injuries occur in the frontal or transverse plane. It should be in the code of ethics for fitness professionals that we aim to educate the importance of embracing all planes of motion. This doesn't just support injury prevention but better results. Muscles are often integrated through more than one plane to other muscle groups and the only way to stimulate complete responses from these muscular networks is diverse movement.