Connotation and Denotation in Fitness/Nutrition

de·no·ta·tion

/ˌdinoʊˈteɪʃən/ Show Spel[dee-noh-tey-shuhn]

–noun 1. the explicit or direct meaning or set of meanings of a word or expression, as distinguished from the ideas or meanings associated with it or suggested by it.

 

con·no·ta·tion

/ˌkɒnəˈteɪʃən/ Show Sp[kon-uh-tey-shuhn]

–noun\
2. the associated or secondary meaning of a word or expression in addition to its explicit or primary meaning: A possible connotation of “home” is “a place of warmth, comfort, and affection.” 


I have zero knowledge of advertising, but I think they are striving to connote their products to what consumers want. For example, body wash's main function is to clean our skin and make us smell good. They are denoting that body wash works improves cleanliness and positive odor. It certainly does. In a commercial, body wash connotes a "fresh sexy feeling". Who doesn't want to be sexy? Man, I sure do. The advertisement is playing on our emotions and try to elicit a  positive response. The secondary nature of body wash becomes an aphrodisiac. It is connoting sex, and hopefully attracting (or duping) the opposite sex into making babies with us. OK, I took it a little too far with the Freud reference, but you get the point. 

In today's fitness world, connotation is all around us. A couple examples:

When you hear the word "core", what do you think of?
When you hear the words "whole grain", what do you think of?
When you hear the word "cardio", what do you think of?
When you hear the words "bench press", what do you think of?
When you hear the word "squat", what do you think of?
When you hear the word "diet", what do you think of?
When you hear the words "low fat", what do you think of?


What was the initial image you visualized for each of those words?

Does "core" connote to you a flat stomach, hours of crunches, burning and soreness in the abs, or stability ball? The word core CAN denote each of the previous examples, but they are certainly made popular by the media, and not science. The core musculature has a much deeper function than having a six pack. As Mike Boyle once said, "to achieve a six pack, you are better off putting down a six-pack rather than doing crunches." The function of the core is to stabilize the spine and stop motion. The way we currently train the core does not help us with that function. Try planks making sure your abs are keeping your spine erect, and not letting your low back muscles take over and cave in.






Do "whole grains" connote to you fiber, natural or organic grains, cardboard like substance that we have to ENDURE to eat well, or a healthier option to white bread? Whole grains CAN denote these attributes, but not necessarily. I suggest you start reading labels of bread. Most bread is highly processed. When you shop, look for NO high fructose corn syrup, 2-5 g of fiber content, 3-5 g of protein content, and as little ingredients as possible. Remember, just because whole grains sound better than sugary carbs doesn't necessarily mean they are. Read labels.


Does the word "cardio" connote to you rows of elliptical machines and treadmills humming at a slow pace with the murmur of fat loss in the air, something that your trainer or magazine MAKES you do, or some group class with a theme? 

It is great to start moving again with the intentions of improving your cardiovascular fitness level and shed a few pounds. Nothing wrong with that. Cardiovascular work should not take you more than 30 minutes. People tend to think more is better. More time on the treadmill means more calories burned and nicer legs! Not really. Your body adapts very quickly to slow paced work. Also, long distance cardio promotes dysfunctions if they already exist for you (sore back, knees, ankles etc.). Putting in headphones and zoning out while you "move" for an hour is boring and I don't know how we came to doing that. The days of monotonously lugging through an hour of putting one foot in front of the other should be over. Mentally engage yourself in the workout. Try these intervals on an exercise bike, or even in your neighborhood:

3 min light warm up
30 sec sprint followed by 45 sec cruise (walk) x4
30 sec sprint followed by 1 min cruise x3
30 second sprint followed by 1:30 min cruise x 2
3 minute cool down


If these are too easy, just simply alter incline, rest time, or sprint time. That is less than 20 minutes and your metabolism will be going for hours after that. Slow paced work does not stoke the metabolism for nearly as long. Now you have no excuse about time!


I will cover the rest next!
To be continued... 


I encourage you to share ideas, comments, and suggestions! Thank you!

Muscle Tightness

After re-reading my last post about tight hamstrings, I realized that I did not clarify the different states that a muscle can be in. I think I even confused myself.

I know that many of you ran the Rock&Roll Marathon yesterday so I will use the hamstring muscle because that area might be causing you some pain. I was reading through a forum post on the Anatomy Trains website and received a little clarification on the idea of  muscle "tightness". Thomas Myers differentiates between a "locked long" muscle and a "locked short" muscle. It should be known that both of these distinctions are abnormal lengths for a muscle tissue and put it at greater risk for injury.

When I say injury, I mean the sore knee and shin that you might feel a couple days out of a MAJOR stress to the human body. It is very rare, unless you were in the Lord of The Rings, that humans are permitted to move at a constant pace for long periods of time. Just realize that running for that long will bring out some dysfunction you have whether it originate at the ankle, knee, hip, back, or neck.

I am not saying that running is the devil, but most of us are not built to run long distance. Furthermore, most of of run to supplement our sedentary lifestyles. Running a long distance to stay active AFTER we have sat on our butts all day long is not normal. Sitting for long periods of time is not normal. I say normal in that the body was not built to handle the sedentary stress we put on it. I believe that we try to treat an extreme sedentary lifestyle with an extreme active lifestyle. It sounds like a lot of pain to me.

Back to the muscle stuff. The hamstring issue I posted last time is not as simple as improving glute function. If fact, during one's journey to find their ass function again, they will feel discomfort in their hamstring. The hamstring is the guy that wants to take over for everything. The hamstring would be called "locked long". It is in a constant stretched and toned state.

muscle tonus ,n the steady reflex contraction that resides in the muscles concerned in maintaining erect posture. Tonus has its basis in the positional interactions of the muscle and its accompanying nerve structure

Think of a muscle that rests in an over toned (hypertonic) state as being "tense". This is why your hamstring might feel tight to stretch. It does not mean that it is short and tight, but rather it exists in  a hypertonic state. Stretching a "locked long" muslce is not the best idea. This is where foam rolling and massage comes in. In simple terms, (I have very little knowledge of massage techniques) releasing a "locked" muscle will make more sense. Instead of stretching, most of us need some form of mobilizing tissues and joints. I am sure that anybody who has ever received a massage on their neck region feels 100% better after that session. Those muscles where probably locked in position because our shoulders and back were rounded all day.

Hypertonic muscles can also be weak. Think of muscle fibers as boards on a wood floor. They also have little ratchets that come off the boards to catch the board around it. These boards pull together to create a muscle contraction. If these muscles are either in a "locked long" or "locked short" state, they are not at an optimal length to create a healthy muscle contraction. Not having a healthy muscle contraction will decrease the muscle's strength and chance to gain hypertrophy. Ah yes, hypertrophy. You may not know it, but hypertrophy (growth of muscle) is what EVERYBODY is striving for when they go to the gym. Whether you lift weights to "tone" a muscle, or do "cardio" to shed fat that lies on top of the muscle, increased hypertrophy of a muscle is the scientific term of "looking good".

Lets take a real world example. A common "locked long" muscle is the hamstring. If anybody was watching the New York Yankees playoff games this year, think of Mark Teixeira's hamstring strain. Professional sports teams have access to the best facilities and medical professionals. I am positive that any sort of pain and he would go see the athletic trainer or team doctor. So how did his hamstring strain after all of this pre-game stretching and medical treatment? Well it might have happened because his muscle returned to that locked state after sitting in the dugout. We also know that some positions in baseball do not move very far to field the ball. It was only when he suddenly burst into hip extension (sprint) that his locked hamstring tore apart. Our tissues are extremely durable. Mark Teixeira did not just suddenly develop Usain Bolt type acceleration. That one hip extension movement was certainly preceded by many other hip extension movements just that day. He probably simply placed too much stress on a hypertonic muscle.

Start to think about these topics when you are training. Does something feel overly stretched or tight? Is your performance hindered from a "locked" muscle tissue? There is only one way to fix faulty patterns of movement, and that is by testing those patterns for dysfunctions. Remember, we are trying to find the origin of the problem, not just where the pain is!

Keep applying your knowledge and lets add some intelligence to our monotonous gym time!
Many thanks to Patrick Ward for helping me understand this stuff. Go check out his blog!

My hamstrings are tight!

So what does your current leg workout look like? Start off with a 5 minute warm up walk on the treadmill? Check. Go to the squat rack and do some "back squats" (I say back in that you are lifting the weight with your back, not your legs). Check. Head over to the leg press for 5 sets of increasing weight exponentially with an overly wide stance? Check. Head over to the hack squat machine (usually right next to the leg press) and do 5 more sets but with more reps and lighter weight? Check. Strut over to the leg curl machine to get the "back side of the leg" and knock out 4 sets? Check.

Okay, so I exaggerated that a little bit. In our already quadriceps and hip-flexor dominant world, you would think we would want to balance out the legs a little bit.

              Hip Flexors                                                                   Quadriceps   

In fact, I cannot think of any occasion in an average person's day where they get posterior leg work. As we stay in our sedentary lifestyles and practice poor training methods, we are just shifting all of our weight to the low back and hamstrings. I am positive that you have spotted someone today that had anterior pelvic tilt.

Anterior Pelvic Tilt on the left

Just because a muscle is tight, does not mean it is strong. The 2 main muscle groups in leg extension are the hamstring group and the glute group. People with anterior pelvic tilt tend to have tight hamstrings. Just stretching the hamstrings group only takes care of half the problem. Since the hamstring and glute group work together (synergistic), something is not firing right. Yep, you guessed it, your butt muscle. But Matt, I thought the butt was only there to sit on and cushion my sitting position? Well you are correct, that IS what you use it for, and not what it is supposed to be used for. Ask any good coach, trainer, physical therapist how important proper glute function is. Better yet, watch ESPN and see how many players of all sports are on the injured list due to hamstrings. Hamstring this and hamstring that. Bottom line is that if you improve glute muscle function, a lot of those injuries will go away. What exactly do the 3 glute muscles do?

•  Extends the femur and brings the bent thigh in line with the body (kicking your leg back)
• In a one legged stance, it supports the pelvis by tilting is posterior (or you would collapse forward)
• Keep body in an erect position by drawing the pelvis backward and assisted by you guessed it, the hamstring muscle group. 
• The glute medius and minimus abduct the leg (taking a side step)
• They are also lateral stabilizers of the pelvis (lunging and not twisting your legs)
• There are many more but these are important to the discussion

I hate anatomy too. You don't need to know all of these, but it important to realize their overall function in our activities and training. Next time you watch somebody lower their body at the gym or at work, do their knees collapse in? That means their glute muscles are not turning on. This can lead to hip, knee, and back pain. So when these people extend their leg (the back leg in walking) their hamstring will dominate the movement. Hamstrings are more of a hip extensor than a knee flexor. Doing leg curls (lying on your stomach and bringing your ankle to your butt) is almost taking the hamstring out of context. The machine was built in the 70's or 80's to isolate muscles for bodybuilders. We have totally taken function out of our workouts. Properly deadlifting works both the glutes and hamstrings in a hip extension movement. And we wonder why we get so many damn hamstring strains...

Stretching is one of the most controversial topics in exercise science today. There was a great discussion on the strengthcoach.com forums about how we achieve new "length" of a muscle. For example, when we simply hold a stretch on the hamstring muscle group, is the actual muscle achieving new length or is it other connective tissue, like fascia. Even if we actually achieve new length of a muscle, how long does it hold? A muscle is just like any other tissue which is made up of millions of cells put together. These muscle cells are lined up to make a muscle fiber.

A muscle might be short, stiff, or toned. Hip flexors might be very short after 10 years of sitting 60 hours a week. This shortness may lead to stiffness. A cyclist might need short hip flexors to generate power. That does not mean that they should be stiff, which would hinder their performance and cause injury. Going back to the "short" hamstrings and the weak glute muscle, we definitely need strengthen the weak butt muscles while making sure we do not substitute the hamstring because they share a similar action (hip extension). A highly toned muscle might mean that it will take over as a stabilizer in movements that it should not. That would mean that it is overactive. After all of that, we still have much discussion and research to do before we reach some solid answers. After those solid answers, there are going to be many circumstances to consider on how to treat a "short" or "toned" muscle.

So how does this pertain to my posture, training, and pain?

We can make general assumptions on how somebody's posture can be affected by sitting at a desk for long periods of time. I have seen them in a lot of clients. Is this assumption correct for other groups like football players? Absolutely not. People wonder why we have only recently begin to restore posture and resort to pain killers and surgery. Technology advances and new research have made giant leaps in these areas. We will fix what is the problem, right?

There are definitely  circumstances where we need to perform surgery or somebody needs to take prescription medication, but we should not substitute those in just because we can't move well. Moving well should become a first resort. Once we move well, we can run and train in a progressive way and not hinder our bodies with pain.

If I have a client that shows no movement dysfunctions either naturally or because we have continuously worked on them, I push their limits. People think that corrective exercise is a fad because because people spend to much time on it. Once they can pass certain tasks, they need progressive resistance to continually show effects from training. Doing a heavy single-leg dead lift is not easy, but it is certainly one of the most beneficial exercises one can do to reinforce proper muscle alignment and growth. The single-leg dead lift stimulates both the hamstring and glute muscles to a very high degree. Muscle growth leads to what most people like to call "tone". Increased muscle growth stimulates the metabolism at rest and burn more calories. I think that sounds a lot like what everybody strives to achieve at the gym.

Dealing with pain part 2

Money is and always will be a big motivator. Take care of your pain or else you will be literally and figuratively paying for it in the long run. Like I said in the last post, randomly increasing exercise through any modality will not help your nagging aches and pains. On the contrary, increasing exercise will only make it worse. That does not mean exercise is harmful, but we are going about this increased activity thing all wrong. My goal is to get people educated about their dysfunctions and to do something about them. It will save TONS of money in the long run. I have some friends that already have back and knee pain. Are their lifting techniques wrong? Probably. Do they keep running on sore knees and backs? Probably. We do not think about how we are setting ourselves up for pain and failure in the future. As I have said before, we have become too focused on hitting the muscle from every angle, or increasing the incline of our runs instead of moving correctly.

How do I move correctly?

Unfortunately, I can't screen you online. You might be able to give me a back round of yourself, but I will never see your body in action unless you come see me. I guess this could be a sales pitch but that is not my goal. My goal is for you to realize that everybody is different. We all have our unique habits like driving with one arm, holding the phone to your chin 3 hours a day, or squatting with your low back rounding or curving in.

Sorry lady but your poor attempt at a squat will only lead you to pain killers 

Lets go ahead and take a squat for example. To me it is all about the risk and reward. The risks of squatting incorrectly is increasing your risk of injury. I have always heard that squatting is the best exercise to work out legs. It only works well if you can get in that correct position. That does not mean go under a bar, start squatting, and expect to reap the benefits. You MUST be able to do a correct body weight squat before anything. This is where I come in. Sometimes giving verbal cues is not enough, and I must progress you to it. That is the art of training. There are many different ways to teach somebody to squat, but I will simply look for the correct path and allow your body to feel what is right. This is how we learned as babies, and we can gain a lot just by looking at how a child learns to move. This has nothing to do with leg strength. More often it is a lack of hip mobility, core stability, or both.

Core stability has become a buzzword in fitness today so I will dedicate a paragraph to explaining it's myth. Core stability will not be increased by doing a crunch. Do you see anything that resembles a crunch (rounding of the shoulders, flexion of back and neck) in a squat? Absolutely not.

stability  sta·bil·i·ty (stə-bĭl'ĭ-tē)
n.
 The condition of being stable or resistant to change.

Crunching does not create any resistance to change. It is actually a change in the position of the spine. Core stability is the ability to stabilize the trunk in the presence of external movement. As the hips drop back, we must keep the trunk stable and upright. Imagine putting 200 pounds on your back and dropping into a squat, the back cannot stabilize, so it just falls forward. You do not have to imagine much because you see this at the gym everyday. We cannot train core stability by isolating the abdominal wall and expecting it to turn on it's "strength" during a movement. We have dumbed down the body into parts, train it that way, and wonder why we have back and knee pain. 

Those rounded shoulders and forward neck look a lot like the people that experience neck and back pain. Oh well... we will just keep doing crunches but buy a $6,000 mattress to save our back. Very rational.

 So back to the risk and reward stuff. The reward of squatting correctly is practicing core stability, hip drive, working quads and glute muscles, and maintaining joint alignment and mobility. These are all great if done correctly. But Matt, I like to run a lot of miles everyday because it makes me feel happy. Fine. I would hope that before you start your 1.5 hours of non stop movement, that your joints have near perfect alignment. If they don't, your body will present pain. Resistance training should be a part of every runner's routine. You will not get big, bulky, and slow. On the contrary, you will reinforce good posture, strengthen the muscles, strengthen the joints, and look better. If your goal is to increase both the size (or tone, depending on if you are a male or female) and strength of your legs, squatting can do just that. If you decide to start adding weight to a dysfunctional squat, you will not:


1. Correctly timing the leg, hip and trunk stabilizers into effect.
2. After setting the stabilizers, then moving the prime movers (quads, glutes) to do their job and gain size and strength. 


If we make the quads and low back become stabilizers, it does not allow them to do their job. The more we do this incorrectly, the more we reinforce poor movement. This will undoubtedly lead to a plateau and most likely an injury.

I wish that everybody could come get a movement screen. Unfortunately some people don't have the time or money to come see a trainer. I just want people to realize the great benefits of moving well, and then strength training to reinforce it. We can save a lot of money on medical bills if we do. If you have nagging pains, go see a good physical therapist. If you need a recommendation, then ask me. A couple of visits through manual therapy and then setting a good strength training program can get you on the right path. If you don't have pains, then come get screened. This goes to young and old, athletes and non athletes. Just because you are 16-20 years old does not mean you lift correctly. You might have been progressed to weights too early before getting form down. Trust me, a lot of coaches out there are more impressed by improperly squatting 400 pounds, than properly doing a body weight squat. It needs to change. We can only do this by increasing awareness of proper movement and get rid of our dysfunctional habits inside and outside the gym.

Some homework...
The Joint by Joint Approach by: Michael Boyle 
This article is a great introduction to the way I think. Coach Boyle advocates thinking of the body as a whole and not in isolation.  

Dealing with pain

You should never feel pain during a workout. In regards to our everyday living, we have forgotten what pain is. Pain is a symptom given by the body that there is something dysfunctional. During a run, push up, sitting at your desk, or washing dishes, pain can be presented in many ways. Yes that nagging shoulder during your bench press is an injury. Yes those aching knees and shins after you run are an injury. Don't be so haste to keep up with your "routine" because they pain will manifest itself in a way that you will not be able to move. That does not mean that it will happen tomorrow, but if you do not change what you are doing, it will happen eventually. That pain will then make your life miserable and walk all over any goals you might have set.

When I first screen a client for movement, I always ask them if they feel pain during anything. A lot of times I will ask them and then they hesitate. I then go to the other side of the body and ask them. Usually it is a definite no. I then go back to the "kinda no" side. Usually it is a definite yes. I know these pains because I have felt them in my knee, back, and shoulder. I used to work through them in my workouts. I used to think that having some mild pain in my shoulder after my bench press was normal. It meant that I was working hard and making gains. I could not have been any farther from the truth .Like me, most people in our culture have some sort of pain.

The old cliche, "no pain, no gain" does not apply here. Pain is an outcry from our body that something has gone wrong and we have steered from the movement patterns we worked so hard to achieve developing as a human. Walking, squatting, running, standing, throwing, and pushing are just a few patterns of movement that we naturally developed. In today's world,  people sit during more hours of the day than ever. Do you think 80 million Americans had back pain 100 years ago? If they did it was because they were working 12 hour days of manual labor. At least they would not go home after that long day and watch TV till they fell asleep. Today, we sit at a desk, go to the gym and sit on a machine, go home and sit on the couch until we are ready for bed and we lay down and do it all over again. With the increased use of computers, we are forced to sit down and work. Machines have became very popular because they allow us to isolate certain muscle groups so we can look lean and cut all while sitting down!

 Idiot proof

What these machines have done is make our pain even worse. You cannot just exercise your way out of pain. It does not work that way. Increasing your time at the gym will not get rid of pain based on good intentions. I like to use a vehicle as an example. When we buy a new car, every part should be working properly. This is similar to how we developed from an infant to a teenager. We move great as young adults. As we live our lives, usually we become more sedentary. The car keeps running OK but we have neglected basic tune ups. We all know that every car needs scheduled maintenance. It is a pain in the ass. It costs money, time, and headaches. If we neglect the tune ups, we are putting our car at greater risk of dysfunction. This is similar to the problem we have today (and with my car). We have neglected to keep our body moving properly through the years and now we are paying for it. We see chiropractors, physical therapists, and massage therapists in order to cure our pains away. We feel great after a massage but when we wake up the next day, the pain is back. Why would the pain recede if we have not permanently changed anything? These treatments are similar to putting new tires on a car even though the suspension is out of alignment. New tires are great in the short term but they do not fix the underlying problem. Now your tires will wear out faster and the dysfunctional suspension will probably lead to more problems.

Technology is not always an advancement for the better. Many people in our culture "relieve" the pain instead of going to the source. It is not their fault. We have been raised by our environment to mask problems with new shoes, orthotics, sleep number mattresses, Tylenol, Vicodin, and ankle braces. These options seem OK to us because they make us feel better or more secure. We tend to go for the "lose 20 pounds in 20 days" diet, or "six minute abs". People expect to look and feel great while spending minimal time at it. People want things now. Advertising has set an all time low for the American public. They are betting that we are really this stupid and we are definitely living up to it. When was the last time you saw or heard an advertisement for moving well? We have forgotten about what truly matters; the human body and the movement we create. 

It is going to take a change from medical practitioners all the way down to trainers and coaches. We need to be educated to teach authentic human movement. Moving well should precede any exercise program. Unfortunately, people like to throw the hardest workout on themselves or to their clients just to show that they can make them sore or throw up. 

All I want to do is shed a few pounds and look good on the outside.... so why is moving well important for me?

To be continued....