This blog will cover a brief summary of what strength is and how to increase strength.
This includes human movement and why combining motor learning and hypertrophy are the two most important factors for continued progress with strength development.
Key Points
Prolonged strength development = hypertrophy and coordination
Stop blaming muscles, start blaming your movements
Your scapulars have 17 muscles connected to each of them. Your pelvis is connected to over 30 muscles. Over 100 muscles are connected to your foot. Reducing your movement down to muscles can get very messy very fast. You have over 600 muscles in your body and only about 206 bones in your body. Start giving more love to the movements of your bones. It will make your life easier.
So when breaking down a human movement remember to always start proximal before moving distally (I explained this in my previous blog). So for movements involving your hips we always look at what the sacrum and spine is doing.
Is it tucking/Counternutating enough while squatting (posterior pelvic tilt)? Is it extending/ Nutating the right amount during a hinge (anterior pelvic tilt)? Is your hips and ribs stacked through the whole movement? These same principles apply to your sternum and scapula but will be talked about on a later date.
Remember….. strength IS a Skill
What is Strength?
Strength is all about force production. In the world of barbell sports it is about how much weight you can lift, squat, snatch, clean and/or press. In the physiology world it is about how well your Central Nervous System (CNS) can stimulate the most amount of large muscle fibres in the least amount of time. This means there are two major factors: your CNS (coordination) and the size of your muscles.
This is where the difference between strength building and strength expressing exercises become really important.
Let’s use my favourite lift as an example. We use Low Bar Squats to express our strength but High Bar, SSB and Front Squats to build it. The reason why is because the more upright your squat is the more force is going through your legs and less through the muscles around your spine. Your legs (quads and glutes) have a much larger capacity of growth compared to your erectors.
This is where the fun part comes in: training. Just like every other skill that you do practice indeed makes perfect and the cool thing is that this practice, especially when done right will also help grow these important muscle fibres. So if you want to get better at squatting, yes you do want your quads to get bigger but only doing leg extensions isn’t the best way to get there, doing more squats is.
Talk to our exercise physiologist brisbane team about how can help you reach your performance goals.
By now most of you would have heard of this duo once or twice in the context of rehab and/or performance. This blog is to cut through the fluff and help you get a better understanding of what everyone (including us) keeps talking about.
Key Points:
Breathing is the key
Stretching ≠ improving mobility
You need to be stable to be mobile
Mobility vs flexibility – what’s the difference?
Mobility is different to flexibility. Flexibility is passive and Mobility is active. I am a perfect example of this. When someone puts me into position I have a ton of passive internal rotation of the femur, but when I try to get there myself I cramp really fast.
Remember stretching only has a short term effect. The real thing that will improve your mobility is learning how to move properly. We all know by now that we are stuck in certain patterns and postures. For example, I am super extended with a duck butt (anterior pelvic tilt). What that means is that my center of gravity is naturally tipped forward. This adds more pressure on my ankles and decreases my dorsiflexion. I can do all the ankle stretches in the world, but until I learn how to get out of my duck butt by learning how to stack I might as well hit my head against a brick wall.
Are my ankles tight or am I just shit at squatting?
The majority of the time people blame their ankles on their poor coordination. Remember squatting like every movement is a skill, just like how a musician has to practice for years to be good at their craft we too need to practice getting into positions. The most important factor for getting into these positions is being able to stay stacked and subsequently use the prime movers of the exercise.
Understanding stability
The stability we talk about is in the context of strength-skill and force production, and less in the terms of bosu balls. The more stable you can be, the less energy is lost unnecessarily. This is where I introduce to you a new concept called ‘proximal to distal’. I mentioned it before in the ankle mobility example.
Put it simply, the more stable your spine can be, the more force you can transfer through your hands and/or feet. Or put it another way: the less stable the hip and scapular the more jacked up the ankles and forearms are. This is mitigated through a good quality rib-cage and pelvic stack.
So what is a stack?
A stack is when you are able to get into and maintain a neutral spine throughout a movement. An effective brace is only properly utilized when you have stacked your hips and ribs over one another. Take a look at the examples below, can you spot which one is incorporating a proper stack?
The most effective way that we teach people how to stack their hips and ribs is through breathing drills. Now, I know what you are thinking: “I have been breathing my whole life, why the hell do I need to be taught how to breathe”. Throwback to my previous blog, we know that we are stuck in certain positions. Breathing drills are a great tool that we use to ‘reset’ our posture. It teaches you what neutral feels like and allows you to know how to brace properly. This is explained further in our Training Fundamentals course that is available on our website.
Hopefully this will help you to do some problem solving of your own – if you have a pesky ankle or wrist, focus on getting stronger rather than stretching till the cows come home.
We all grew up being told to ‘stand up straight’ and to ‘stop slouching on the chair”. Nowadays sitting has been described as the new smoking and stand up desks are selling out faster than hot cakes.
What if I told you that these beliefs are possibly causing more harm than good?
Key Points:
Stop labeling your posture as good or bad
Posture only matters when load is involved
You are the only person in control of your body (hopefully)
Okay before I do a deep dive into this topic, let’s define posture.
Posture is the default movement patterns and positions that your body likes going into.
Everything in nature is inherently lazy. Your body prefers to be in certain positions because it is comfortable, and that is completely normal. So labeling a posture as good or bad could be leading you into something called “guarding behaviour”.
What is guarding?
We all have seen those videos of cats overreacting when jumping onto alfoil on the kitchen bench (if you haven’t, stop what you are doing right now and look it up). From now on that cat is going to expect a rude shock whenever it jumps on the counter top – and actively avoids it. You are the same. You learn that a particular movement may cause discomfort so you actively avoid doing it. Let’s use pushing your knees over your toes as an example. The problem lies in the fact that you are not made of glass, you are not fragile and you ARE MEANT TO MOVE.
“Motion is lotion, rest is rust”
Dr. Anne Schuchat
By not moving your knees over your toes what happens is that the muscles in this case your quads atrophy (shrink) and sensitize. This means that when you go to use your knee – your muscle fatigue quickly and starts to hurt. Due to this extra sensitization, what would normally be a 3/10 pain ends up being a 10/10 pain; Unfortunately this can spiral. That is when a good health professional (like one our amazing EP’s) educates you on how to desensitize this area.
When does posture matter?
When force transfer is involved. Be it running a marathon, squatting 300kg or simple picking your kid off the floor. These are times when having a stacked neutral posture matters. If you are able to properly load the prime movers of the exercise it means that you are able to do the activity more efficiently without overloading the secondary/ supportive muscles. There are people who are naturally flexed AKA kyphotic, others who are extended AKA lordotic, and some who are both. The first step is to figure out what posture you have. A good way to know this by looking at your lifts. If you are good at squatting chances are you are probably flexed. And if you are good at deadlifting you are probably extended. After you have figured out what posture you have the next step is to learn how to stack, breath and brace. This is a whole other can of worms that needs to be opened on another day.
So why am I telling you this?
To empower you to take control of your body. At the end of the day you are the only person who can make positive changes to your life and body, our job is to facilitate this positive change not do it for you. If you are struggling with any of these topics send us a message or comment below and one of our exercise physiology brisbane coaches we’ll be in touch.
