A few of my friends on facebook have posted a question like this: “How can I get an action hero body?”
Now, Hollywood action stars have a few advantages: they all have a personal trainer, they can get someone to cook healthy meals for them, and they have lighting technicians making sure they always look their best.
But you can totally steal their workout and do it on your own.
Have you seen “Spartacus: Blood and Sand” on TV? I’ve caught a few episodes – pretty cool.
And the stars definitely have that “action hero” look:
Here’s a video of the Spartacus stars working out:
(Don’t copy their kettlebell form! Everything else is all good )
The Spartacus workout above was written by Rachel Cosgrove, owner of Results Fitness in Santa Clarita, CA.
Here’s the complete program:
60 seconds work / 15 seconds rest
1. Goblet Squat
2. Mountain Climber
3. One Arm Dumbbell Swing
4. T-Pushup
5. Jump Lunges
6. Dumbbell Bent Over Row
7. Dumbbell Side Lunge and Touch
8. Dumbbell Renegade Row
9. Dumbbell Lunge with Rotation
10. Dumbbell Push Press
Total Time: 12:30.
Rest 2 minutes and repeat.
Total Work Time: 27 minutes!
After trying one of my bootcamp workouts, you’ll know that a circuit like this are no joke.
By working every muscle in your body, you not only strengthen and shape, you get a whole body cardiovascular workout… at the same time!
If your idea of “cardio” is running on a treadmill or playing on an elliptical machine, you’ll find that a workout like this is really fun, really intense, and more effective at building an Action Hero Body than anything else.
When I was first introduced to the kettlebell, it was in the winter of 2002/2003. Kettlebells hadn’t yet entered mainstream fitness and a guy at my gym had picked one up at an expo somewhere.
We pieced together the Turkish Get Up through experimentation.
Now, the TGU seems like a simple exercise… Just go from laying down to standing with your arm straight.
Simple? Maybe.
Easy? Definitely not.
At the time I was bench pressing 400 pounds and deadlifting over 700. The kettlebell only weighed 35.
Of course, I was shaking like a leaf and the ten or so ugly reps I managed left me so throughout my torso for an entire week.
Since then, kettlebells have really picked up steam as a fat loss tool. But they are a phenomenal way to train for mixed martial arts fighters in Carson City as well.
You see, kettlebells strengthen your core like crazy – and an MMA fighter with a weak core isn’t going to win any bouts.
Kettlebells also train you to use your body as a unit, the type of integrated training you won’t get from any machine training.
Grip strength is also built in almost every kettlebell exercise. This leads to not only greater grappling power, but stronger wrists, hands, and forearms to deliver devastating strikes to your opponent.
And don’t forget neck strength. Swinging, flipping, jerking, and snatching the kettlebell develops your neck at all angles, making you harder to control in grappling and tougher to knock out with a strike.
If you’re training to step into the ring and you want to WIN, add these Carson City kettlebell exercises into your program.
Carson City Kettlebell MMA Exercise 1: Fighter Swing
This kettlebell swing variation trains all the posterior muscles used in punching. When you do this, your nervous system will allow to to strike much harder.
In addition, the Fighter Swing teaches perfect shoulder stability for striking – no extended, loose shoulder punches like you would see in a bar fight. Just deadly surgical strikes with your full power behind them
Carson City Kettlebell MMA Exercise 2: Renegade Row
The renegade row is not only a good back and arm exercise, stabilizing your core as you move the heavy kettlebells up and down will give you unparalleled ab strength.
Carson City Kettlebell MMA Exercise 3: Get Up
The Get Up trains stability and tension through your whole body, essential for all MMA techniques.
You will also get more efficient at returning to your feet after a scramble or knock down.
Carson City Kettlebell MMA Exercise 4: Rocking Chair
The rocking chair build on the figure 4 position used in many different submissions. It also trains you ability to stand up without using your hands, leaving you free to shoot, strike, or guard your face.
Adding in a press gives you even more core training, with the bonus of shoulder and arm strength:
Carson City Kettlebell MMA Exercise 5: Snatch To Windmill
Snatching is a full body explosive move that trains power like no other. Adding in the windmill for core stability makes this one of my favorite kettlebell combinations.
Carson City Kettlebell MMA Exercise 6: Side Hop Swings
Lateral movement is under-trained by many aspiring MMA fighters. Side hop swings are a great supplemental exercise that help you build your ability to move sideways for dodges and attacks.
It is also a great conditioning circuit add-in.
Carson City Kettlebell MMA Exercise 7: Bootstrapper Squat
The bootstrapper squat trains full range of motion squatting that rally works your hamstrings, hips, and ankle mobility. Areas a fighter has to take care of.
For a bonus to your grip and arms, try it “gun grip” style:
There you have it! 7 excellent kettlebell exercises for Carson City MMA fighters.
Now remember: Use excellent technique, but keep in mind that you are a fighter who uses kettlebells to improve your strength, skills, and endurance in the ring. Don’t spend all of your time becoming a kettlebell expert. They are an invaluable tool, but JUST that. You still need to be spending 80% of your training time working on fighting skills if you want to dominate your opponents.
Kettlebells are one of my favorite training tools. A weird looking hunk of iron you get to do cool tricks with? Count me in!
And kettlebells are taking off in popularity, most likely because so many celebrities are using them with their personal trainers.
Kim Cattrall, Jennifer Lopez, Katherine Heigl, Penelope Cruz, Robert Downey Jr, the Pussycat Dolls, Lance Armstrong, Mariska Hargitay, Sylvester Stallone, Clair Danes, Ethan Hawke, the cast of “300″, and Matthew McConaughey all work out with kettlebells. (I feel more famous just for typing all those names!)
The most basic kettlebell exercise is the swing:
If you want to blast off fat, strengthen your whole body, and build scary endurance… the kettlebell swing is your go-to exercise.
Now, don’t just rush out and get a kettlebell workout DVD and try to follow along. After a kettlebell workout with Jillian Michaels you won’t be burning fat, you’ll be looking at your spine lying on the floor and cursing her name. Even if you don’t know anything about exercise, you can see Jillian is putting the low back at risk with her kettlebell technique:
I don’t want to try to teach the swing over the internet, you really need an experienced trainer’s eye on you to get it mastered. BUT, if you’re kettlebelling it up already, here are a few tips to help you groove your swing:
NEVER round your back over at the bottom of the swing (see Jillian pic above). Keep your low back locked into neutral position.
Don’t try to pull with your arms, back, or shoulders. Drive with your butt and hamstrings instead.
Don’t just pick up the kettlebell. Set yourself up perfectly first, with the kettlebell in front of you, then “hike” it back to start the first rep.
Keep your chest up and your back flat.
Don’t just let the kettlebell come down on its own. “Snap” it back like you’re hiking a football.
Flex your lats (big muscles on your back) to keep your shoulders packed tight.
I know first-hand how much. I was rear-ended a few years ago and it messed me up big time.
When your back hurts, it’s hard to be happy or think of anything else. It wears on you constantly. My friends tell me that car accident aged me ten years.
So I want to share a few simple strategies that can help you with your back pain. These have helped me.
1. Loosen up your hips.
If your hips are tight, your back has to take on the work that you should be doing with your legs and butt. Here’s a post with videos of my top three favorite hip loosening and strengthening exercises: http://woldfitness.com/2010/08/fixing-knee-pain-with-hip-exercises/
2. Train with kettlebells.
I know, I know. The personal trainer at your gym has been telling you that machines are the safest way to exercise. But the truth is, when you exercise on a machine it can actually INJURE your back!
Machine-based training forces you to follow the path of the machine, even if you’re built too tall, too short, or too wide. And when you’re all braced into a machine, you’ll do whatever it takes to lift the handle or push the platform, which can wreak all sorts of havok on your joints. And…. your back is an incredibly complex series of joints and muscle levers, so machines will jack you up right quick!
“Real world” exercises like moving your own bodyweight, barbells, dumbells, and odd objects like kettlebells teach you to support and use your whole body, not just one isolated part.
My chiropractor told me that as long as people are doing crunches, he’ll have job security.
Yes, a strong core is essential for getting rid of back pain, but the old Jane Fonda-standard crunch is exactly the wrong exercise.
The way your back bends during crunches puts enormous stress on the disks in your low back. And studies have found that after doing crunches your back is actually able to handle LESS stress!
Reverse crunches, planks, and rotational core exercises are all going to strengthen your stomach muscles without damaging your back (provided you find a trainer who teaches you correctly and then watches your form). Check out tip number 11 below.
5. Learn the Cook Hip Lift.
This drill will help you fire up your butt muscles, so they can take on the load you’ve been putting on your back.
6. Fix your sleeping position.
Just think, if your sleeping posture is bad, you’re spending 6-9 hours tweaking your back!
If you sleep on your back, put a pillow under your knees.
If you sleep on your side, put a pillow between your knees.
If you sleep on your stomach, STOP!
7. Get in line.
If you’re trying to exercise and your back is jacked up, you’re likely to make it worse – even if you’re doing the exercises correctly!
See, sitting, postural problems, and bad exercise habits have mis-aligned your spine, and until it’s in place, you’re just training it to stay misaligned. The pain won’t get worse, but it won’t feel much better, either.
I get regular chiropractic adjustments to make sure my spine stays in line. Here in Carson City is the best chiropractor I’ve ever been treated by: Dr. Brian Russell.
The big mistake people make with chiropractic is only going in when their back hurts. That’s like exercising only when you get fat, it doesn’t work!
You need to see your chiro regularly, to stop back pain before it starts! We get constant small misalignments in daily life, they add up over time. Regular chiropractic treatments keep your back healthy and happy.
8. Learn the Shin Box Switch.
The guy who taught this to me said to use it with clients who are becoming “chair shaped.”
It’s a great drill that I do at regular intervals whenever I’ve been sitting for a long time (like when I’m writing awesome health and fitness posts and bootcamp workouts!)
9. Get a ten dollar massage!
Go to amazon.com and order a full-round foam roller. There are lots to choose from. Then do this series of self-massaging exercises every day:
Every day you build up little bundles of scar tissue in your muscles. This scar tissue binds up and pulls you out of alignment. The best way to break up this scar tissue and prevent it from re-forming is a daily massage over the most common trouble spots.
A foam roller lets you massage yourself effectively without having to visit a spa every day. (And they are fun to hit people with!)
But a lot of people experience back pain because they are dehydrated. Sometimes people will come into my bootcamp gym and point to where their back hurts.
It’s actually their kidneys! Kidney pain can radiate through the back, and a lot of kidney pain is caused by not drinking enough water.
I recommend working up to drinking an ounce of water per pound of bodyweight every day. Since this seems SUPER HIGH to most people, set a bare minimum of half an ounce per pound of bodyweight. (If you weigh 200 pounds drink a MINIMUM of 100 ounces of water a day)
Or you can follow the “pee rule” I learned as an athlete: Look at your urine, if it’s brown stop what you’re doing and drink a lot of water. If it’s yellow, drink more water. If it’s clear, drink more water anyway!
11. Strengthen your core!
Your stomach, side, and back muscles all make up what is called your “core.”
(Don’t worry, I’m not going to try and dazzle you by talking about muscles with names like multifidus, transverse abdominus, and quadratus lumborum )
Here are a few posts I’ve done with videos of REAL core exercises that will strengthen your middle and help get rid of back pain:
(All of the exercises above are advanced, talk to your trainer to see which are right for you)
12. Build low back endurance.
Dr. Stuart McGill, the MAN when it comes to back health, says that lower back endurance is more important for preventing pain and injury than is low back strength.
It makes perfect sense if you think about it, no matter how strong you are, if your back is tired you’ll have bad posture and when you try to use your strength, you injure your back.
I like to use the Bird Dog exercise for building back endurance:
Two big mistakes most people make with this exercise are:
a) Looking up or forward. Keep your neck neutral and look at the floor.
b) Sagging or twisting the low back or hips. Envision a cafeteria tray on your back, and keep all four corners of the tray even.
13. Dehydrate your spine.
When you sleep, your spinal column fills with fluid. If you start exercising or stretching or even bend over wrong to pick up your slippers, you can herniate your low back.
Before you do any bending, lifting, or twisting, stand or walk for at least ten minutes to let the fluid in your spinal column dissipate.
I walk around my condo complex first thing every morning while my kettle heats up for making tea. All you need to do is stand up tall before you start any activities.
14. Quit eating soy.
Like tip number 3 above, soy is a food that causes all sorts of damage inside your body.
The more your cells are under chemical attack from your food, the less your body will be able to focus on healing and strengthening your back.
15. Double down on hip flexor and piriformis stretches.
Tight hip flexors and piriformis muscles cause your pelvis to tilt forward and pull your spine out of alignment. To help fix that, do a LOT of these two stretches (several times a day, not just before workouts):
When you gain weight, it pulls your hips out of alignment. Then when you exercise to lose weight, the weight might go, but the muscle imbalances remain!
So losing weight is the FIRST step, then second is to work with someone who understands muscle imbalances and how to fix them.
I was going to make a video about this, but my bro Kevin beat me to it! Check it out:
All right!
I have another 33 tips for getting rid of back pain already written down, so make sure to subscribe to my newsletter and enter your email in the box at the top right of this page
Today I want to talk about the best off-day workouts you can
do between hard sessions of Training.
In most cases, simply walking, biking, hiking, stretching/easy yoga,
and easy bodyweight exercises are all good enough off-day activities.
Doing 500 kettlebell swings and 200 pushups on an off-day might be
fine once in a while for an advanced person, but in reality, that
is not an off-day. That’s a workout.
The 5 true purposes of off-day activity are:
1) For health (if your life is sedentary, i.e. desk job + commute +
sitting down leisure time), then you simply need to get up and get
moving for 30 minutes each day at a minimum.
If you are a manual laborer who walks 3+ miles per day or does 1+
hour of moderate activity (lifting boxes, etc), then you really
don’t need to obsess about off-day activity – stretching, foam
rolling and massage, and meditation are probably best for your health.
We’re not trying workout on our off-days. We’re just trying to
improve our general health and well-being.
2) Mobility (aka Yoga) – In many cases, we can do low-intensity
bodyweight exercises and mobility drills to fix our bodies.
This includes foam rolling, simple torso (ab endurance exercises),
shoulder mobility drills, hip mobility drills, moderate bodyweight
exercises, and stretching. This will not qualify as a workout, but
will get you a bit of a sweat going.
And there are some cool new bodyweight exercises in this program:
Combined with walking, mobility exercises – such as those found
in my “Old Man Warm-Up” would be an excellent way to spend 45
minutes each day.
3) Enhanced recovery from past workouts and preparation for future
workouts – same movements as above but this is a different benefit.
By doing light activity, we get blood flow to the sore areas and
this might help recovery, decreasing soreness and getting us ready
for our next training session.
4) Social time with family and friends and errands – Incorporate
light activity into your daily life. Take the dog for a longer
walk, meet your friends for a walk, play extra long with the kids
outside, or do your errands by foot rather than by car. Heck, walk
around a shopping mall and people watch.
5) Relaxation – Unplug. Go for a walk without a phone, ipod, or in
my case, a portable CD player. (Yes, I have one and I use it
regularly.) Let your mind wander as your body wanders.
That said, what I do on my off-days is something that I call my
“Old Man Warm-up”, that I also do before all of my hard workouts.
It lasts about 25 minutes, and in the list below I’ve added a few
other exercises to give you a little extra sweat without stealing
from your recovery.
2) Acuball rolling: calves, glute, biceps (I have a sore left biceps).
This takes about 5-10 minutes.
Then I move into a bodyweight circuit.
3) Cross-body arms (also called X’s in some manuals)
4) Bodyweight squat
5) Bird Dog or Bird Dog with Leg Abduction
6) Glute squeeze
7) Plank or side plank or ball plank or bird-dog plank
8] Band pull (done 4 times at various points in circuit)
9) Overhead lunge (using broomstick)
10) 1-Leg RDL
11) Stick-up
12) Chest stretch, shoulder stretch
13) Psoas/hip flexor stretch
14) Downward dog stretch (hips up position)
15) Cossack lunge
16) Yoga Pigeon stretch
*17) Stability Ball Leg Curl – 10 reps
*18) Pushup – 25% of max reps
*19) 1-leg lying hip extension
*20) Chin-up – 25% of max reps
21) Spiderman Climb with 3-second hold at top
22) Forearm stretches
23) Neck/trap stretches
24) Leg swings
*25) Total Body Extension – 10 reps
I hope this off-day activity guide clarifies the purpose and
recommendations for these days.
Add a little gratitude and meditation for bonus karmic points and
you’ll feel like you’ve done something without doing too much.
“The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but instead will interest his patients in the care of the human fram, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease.” – Thomas Edison
Paleo eating and primal living are Big Topics in the health and fitness world. What does it mean to “go Primal”?
Basically, it means eating the foods your body way designed to eat and living the way your body was designed to live, with the purpose of fitness and health in general, and often weight loss in particular.
Heading up the Primal movement is a cool guy named Mark Sisson:
Primal (for the sake of brevity I’m going to drop the /paleo today ) living allows your genes to express themselves in certain ways. What do I mean?
Simple example: I have a tattoo on my forearm. Think of that as a certain gene. Maybe the gene for Type 2 Diabetes.
Whether I wear long sleeves or not determines if my tattoo will show, that the gene will be expressed.
In this example my sleeves represent my lifestyle. If I exercise, eat lots of fruits, vegetables, and meats, and stay away from booze, grains, and sugars, the diabetes gene won’t have a chance to be expressed. It’s like wearing long sleeves.
If I skip the gym and eat whatever I want, it’s like rolling up my sleeves and letting the diabetes gene be expressed – my lifestyle determined I would get diabetes.
The gene was there the whole time, what determines if the gene goes into action or not is your lifestyle.
As Mark says: You Have To Fit Your Genes To Fit Into Your Genes.
To have the kind of lifestyle that allows your “skinny genes” and healthy genes to be used, you can follow simple Primal guidelines. Here are Mark’s 10 Primal Laws…
1. Eat Lots Of Plants And Animals
I believe nutrition is the single biggest thing you can do to lose weight and get awesome health. And the two biggest things you can do to improve your nutrition are to eat more vegetables and to eat more animal protein.
You should aim to have some complete protein in every meal, as well as a bunch of veggies.
2. Avoid Poisonous Things
This one is a doozy! No one goes around drinking drain cleaner, but we put things into our bodies that are almost as bad.
Even if you’re just interested in weight loss and don’t give a damn about your health, poison foods will still completely reverse your progress.
See, if you’re eating foods that your body has to fight (ex: grains), it won’t be able to absorb the good nutrients from your meats and vegetables PLUS it won’t let you lose any fat.
You know how an infected cut swells up? The swelling helps fight all the funk from the infection.
As soon as you ditch grains, soy, sugar, and alcohol, all the bloating in your body starts going away. Why the bloat?
Basically, your body was swelling to help it fight off foreign invaders.
Getting rid of poison foods will make sure all the effort you put into diet and exercise won’t go to waste.
3. Move Frequently At A Slow Pace
Another tricky one. Back in paleolithic days, humans had to walk all over the place.
We didn’t run, we WALKED. If we ran around and burned all our energy, we’d be screwed if we didn’t find food right away.
Almost no one goes for leisurely walks or hikes any more. We have to turn it into an exercise challenge. Whoever has the highest heart rate wins.
Walking does all sorts of good things for your body. Yes, it burns some calories, but that’s not why to do it.
Walking gets you outside, walking is relaxing, walking through the forest can actually help fight cancer, walking just plain feels good.
My advice: Go for a walk outside a few times a week, on the weekends get up in the hills and go for a fun hike with family and friends.
4. Lift Heavy Things
“Lifting heavy things” doesn’t mean hitting the weight room 3 hours a day to try and look like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Part of Primal living was moving rocks, climbing trees, dragging dead deer, lunging down to pick berries, pulling a travois, and all sorts of other full-body movements.
Dumbbells, kettlebells, barbells, sandbags, tires, and my favorite – your won bodyweight – are all things you can use for resistance training.
5. Sprint Once In A While
Sprinting doesn’t mean lacing on some old New Balance Joggers and heading down to the track, it just refers to moving very fast (for your level).
Interval Training on a bike, treadmill, or rowing machine works great.
So does rocking out a fast set or bodyweight exercises.
So does jumping rope.
Moving quickly is very Primal – imagine a bear was chasing you and if you didn’t make it to a tree you’d die. No one moves with that kind of intensity any more.
6. Get Adequate Sleep
Getting enough sleep is a HUGE piece of the weight loss equation.
If you don’t sleep your body will start craving simple sugars, completely screwing up your eating plan.
No rest means you won’t recover from your workouts, instead of building a healthy body you’ll just be digging yourself into a hole.
No sleep means you won’t be able to bring any energy to your workouts. It SUCKS trying to do fast bike sprints when you didn’t sleep the night before. You go so slowly you wonder why you’re even doing them at all.
Some simple things you can do to sleep better are: no TV or computer an hour before bed (the light from the monitor interferes with sleep hormones), no booze or caffeine in the evening, get exercise during the day, get sunshine as early as possible, and eat lots of meat and veggies.
7. Play
So many people drop the ball on this one.
No one ever goes out and has fun anymore.
I love going to the beach and tossing a football around with friends, wrestling with my cousins’ kids, climbing trees, shooting hoops with my dad, and just enjoying life and movement.
The biggest mistake I see people making with play is this: They play to get in shape, they don’t get in shape to play.
Weekend Warriors go out and play flag football without building up their leg strength, shoulder health, and agility, and they get hurt.
Go out and play to have fun, as you get in better shape you’ll be able to totally dominate more intense games.
8. Get Adequate Sunlight
Did you know getting more sunshine will reduce cholesterol levels? It’s true! Your body uses cholesterol as part of the vitamin D making process. It’s one reason why your cholesterol levels test higher in the winter than in the summer.
Vitamin D prevents a lot of diseases and is essential for healthy teeth, bones, nails, eyesight, and the absorption of other vitamins and minerals.
Going out and getting burned is a Bad Idea. 20 or 30 minutes of sunshine a day (maybe during your walk!) will help you keep your vitamin D tank topped off.
(Oh yeah, smaller daily doses of sun have been shown to actually PREVENT skin cancer!).
9. Avoid Stupid Mistakes
“Hey! I’m going to make my New Year’s Resolution to run a marathon! Tomorrow I’ll go out and see how far I can run!” <- Stupid Mistake
“Exercise sucks! I’d rather be fat!” <- Stupid Mistake
“But I don’t liiiiiiiiiiike vegetables!” <- Stupid Mistake
“I worked out so I deserve this treat!” <- Stupid Mistake
Back in paleo days, stupid mistakes could kill you fast. “I’m going to poke that tiger with a stick!” <- Stupid Mistake
Stupid mistakes can still kill you fast (“Screw the seatbelt!”), but most of the stupid mistakes we make are smaller ones: Skipping breakfast, ditching workouts, going to bed without brushing your teeth.
As a guy who makes more stupid mistakes than anyone else (“Watch me jump off that roof!”), I can tell you that the fewer dumb mistakes you make, the better your life is going to be.
10. Use Your Brain
Our Primal ancestors had to learn or die. They had to observe what was going on around them and constantly solve problems.
Most of what we do now isn’t life or death, and we don’t have to track down our own meat anymore, but I’m always amazed at how people let themselves stagnate.
They never try anything new. They never learn anything new. I have no idea why.
It’s been shown that doing sudoku or word puzzles can help prevent dementia (I play games on Luminosity.com when my brain is feeling sluggish).
I figure that you can get even more bang for your mental buck by doing “body sudoku” – exercise puzzles that challenge your brain to learn something new while kicking your health and fat loss into overdrive.
An example would be the Spiral Squat – something totally out of the box for 99.9% of gym-goers, yet a great exercise and mental stimulant:
Just remember Rule Nine: Avoid Stupid Mistakes when you’re learning new exercises. If you can’t get off the toilet without straining, don’t try a rock-bottom twisting squat, ok?
Conclusion
To put these Ten Primal Laws into your daily routine, here’s a painless method: Pick one Law a week and get on it. Or even one Law every 2 weeks.
Make each one a habit before you add the next.
Pretty soon you’ll be wearing your Skinny Genes :p
Which needs to be stronger, your foot or your footwear?
Barefoot training is one of the biggest mindset shifts happening in the training world today.
We’re finding out that people are having a very hard time getting rid of foot pain. What do people do when their foot hurts? They stay off it and put on a tougher shoe, which further weakens their foot and deadens their proprioceptive abilities.
What’s really weird is that in places where people don’t wear shoes, they don’t have any of the foot and arch problems we have in America!
Go to a drug store in the US and there is a whole aisle dedicated to pads, supports, and orthotics to get rid of foot pain. I posit that all of this support and padding is just making things worse!
In my volleyball athletes, much of our training is directed towards putting force through the feet and into the court. (You don’t actually “jump.” You shove against the Earth and according to Newton’s Law of Equal and Opposite Reactions, the Earth “shoves you back” just as hard and propels you into the air.)
The ability to put force into the ground and move your body through space is ultimately reliant on the strength and your control of your feet.
It’s a big problem that we never train our feet and that they just get weaker and worse as we get older.
If your hands are weak, it will limit your strength and skill in upper body exercises. The same is true for your feet and training your legs.
Now, how does a weak foot link up with ankle braces and knee injuries?
Simple
In my exercise seminars, I teach people the “Stack of Joints” theory.
The stack of joints theory is that your body is a bunch of joints stacked on top of each other, and we look at it from the ground up.
Some of your joints need to be stable, and some need to be mobile. They alternate with each other:
Ankle – Mobile
Knee – Stable
Hip – Mobile
Low Back – Stable
Upper Back – Mobile
Shoulder – Stable
If a joint is messed up, a good physical therapist will look at the joints above and below it.
As an example, if your low back hurts, it is probably because of a lack of mobility in your hips and upper back, and your low back has to take on their work loads.
That’s why if you have low back pain, we do a lot of HIP exercises. By fixing the joints sandwiching your pained areas, we can fix the cause of the problem.
Now, a weak foot and a locked up ankle CAN’T be mobile. I mean, if the ankle is in a SPLINT, it obviously can’t move.
This splinting of the ankle forces the knee the take on all the mobility that was meant for the ankle.
A study that was released last month looked at non-contact ACL tears in female athletes:
Koga H, Nakamae A, Shima Y, Iwasa J, Myklebust G, Engebretsen L, Bahr R, Krosshaug T. (2010). Mechanisms for noncontact anterior cruciate ligament injuries: knee joint kinematics in 10 injury situations from female team handball and basketball. Am J Sports Med. 2010 Nov;38(11):2218-25. Epub 2010 Jul 1.
The researchers found that the mechanism for injury was rotation at the tibia:
(click picture to enlarge)
So instead of the ankle and hip taking on the rotation, the knee took it and “popped” the Anterior Cruciate Ligament.
This happens more often when the ankle is locked in a splint. A weak foot and stiff ankle may sustain some injuries from a quick twist, but as a strength and conditioning coach, I’d much rather deal with a sprained ankle than a torn ACL. If you’re confused why, here’s some simple math:
Sprained Ankle: Two weeks off, Can tape up and play if it’s a big game
Torn ACL: 6 months to two years off, might never be the same again, $50,00 surgery
The study I mentioned above also had these points:
- Non-contact knee injuries happen during cutting or one-leg landings
- At foot contact the knee pointed in (valgus)
- The tibia rotated internally then externally
Here are some ways to prevent non-contact knee injuries:
1. Do all non-volleyball court training barefoot or in “barefoot shoes.” This lets your foot and ankle strengthen.
2. Avoid splint-type ankle braces. Go with a softer lace up brace. It might not protect the ankle as much as a splint, but a softer brace protects the knee much more.
3. Focus on prevention. Prepare physically for the demands of your sport. A strength and conditioning program can take as little as an hour a week (in season).
4. Train the around the joints as dictated by the mobility/stability continuum (stack of joints theory). Knees should be trained for stability, ankles and hips for mobility.
5. Learn proper technique. Jumping is a skill, and it should be trained with as much detail as any other sports skill.
6. Deceleration training. The knee injuries in the study above occurred during landing and cutting movements. Training the ability to stop with perfect technique and strength would have prevented ACL injury.
7. Nutrition nutrition nutrition. There are two keys to nutrition, the first is obvious: Any extra weight in the form of fat will increase the force through the knee joint and will precipitate injury. The second key is that a diet high in inflammatory foods such as grains, sugar, and dairy will diminish the integrity of your joints.
8. Don’t try to substitute energy and enthusiasm for preparation and technique. An athlete throwing themselves around the court will break their body. If you want to perform at a higher level, train at a higher level.
9. Posterior Chain Training. The hamstrings, butt, and low back are all key areas that need to be strengthened in any athlete. Sadly, these muscles are often totally neglected in training. Simply firing up your butt muscles with the humble glute bridge during your warmup will help.
10. Keep your eyes on your goal. It may feel weird and awkward and scary to exercise without ankle splints, especially if you’ve been wearing them for years. Soon the discomfort will pass and you’ll be a stronger, better, healthier athlete.
Thank you so much for reading. Let me know if you have any questions in the comment box below.
Almost everyone who first comes into my gym has shoulder issues.
It may be from poor posture, injury, working on a computer all day, or poor exercise program design.
Whatever the reason for jacked-up shoulders, there’s only one thing to do… Fix them!
Most people think the reason for their shoulder pain is a weak rotator cuff. They don’t realize that there are actually several muscles that make up the rotator cuff! Take a look at this picture:
Notice anything interesting? All of the rotator cuff muscles attach to the shoulder blade!
It doesn’t matter how strong your rotator cuff is if the muscles anchoring the shoulder blade are weak. I like to use the anology of trying to throw a big rock while you’re standing on an icy parking lot: The stronger you can throw, the more likely you are to knock yourself down.
The same thing happens in the shoulder: Super strong rotator cuff muscles won’t prevent injury if they’re on an unstable surface.
Now take a look at the muscles that control the shoulder blade:
Shoulder pain happens when these muscles are stiff and weak; the shoulder blade dances around and causes all sorts of problems.
The circuit I’m about to show you is one of my very favorite ways to start fixing shoulder pain, and you can do it anywhere. (Some of my athletes lie with their chest off their bed, some of my personal training clients lean over their desk)
This “miracle cure” is called the YTWLI. Check out this 20 second video, the name YTWLI comes from how each position looks from above:
I’m going to break down each move for you, then give you a program you can follow at home to help get rid of shoulder pain by fixing the CAUSE of imbalances.
Shoulder Circuit Exercise: Y
Arms are about 90 degrees above shoulder level, with your thumbs pointing up to help with external rotation:
Shoulder Circuit Exercise: T
Your arms shoulder be just above 90 degrees from your torso, with your thumbs pointing to the ceiling.
The BIG KEY here is to squeeze your shoulder blades together – to “pinch a pencil” with your scapula.
If you have weak shoulder blade retractors, you’ll unconsciously pull your arms down toward your hips to substitute the big muscles of the lats for your weak retractors. The angle should NEVER be less than 90 degrees from your torso.
Shoulder Circuit Exercise: W
Your upper arm should be at a 45 degree angle from your torso, with your elbows locked at 90 degrees.
Touch your elbows together in front of your chest, then pull your shoulder blades together to flare your arms.
Shoulder Circuit Exercise: L
This is a big time external rotation exercise. When you sit or slouch, your shoulders pull inward.
With this exercise you reverse that movement.
Your upper arms should be straight out from your shoulders (90 degrees from torso) and you want to lock your elbows and rotate your arms until your wrists are by your ears.
A common mistake with this movement is to curl your hands in toward your body instead of keeping the elbows locked and rotating your upper arm.
Shoulder Circuit Exercise: I
Very simple: just push your hands out and up and pull your shoulder blades down towards your hips.
Bring your elbows all the way to your ribs and then press again.
I first learned this circuit while I was interning at a Physical Therapist’s office. It’s very simple, and here’s the key to making it work: Focus on moving your shoulderblades in order to move your arms, not using your arms to move your shoulderblades.
The emphasis should be on scapulothoracic (shoulderblade) movement, not on glenohumeral (shoulder) movement.
This changes it from an ok shoulder exercise into a great shoulderblade stabilizing exercise.
Doing It
I like to use a Swiss Ball as my chest support, but a bench, incline bench, or any other support works as well.
If you’re SERIOUS about fixing your shoulders, you can do this every day. If you’re just preventing shoulder issues, 3 times a week is enough.
What you’re going to do is 8 reps of each position with no weight and no rest in between movements. This is a total of 40 reps per set.
Do two sets.
Add two reps each week until you reach sets of 20 reps each (100 rep set).
When all 100 reps can be done perfectly for 2 sets, go back to sets of 8 with very light (one or two pound) dumbbells.
That’s it! It takes 2 minutes a day.
Lots of my personal training clients have found the shoulder pain they’ve lived with for years completely disappear in less than a month!
If you have shoulder pain, get on the YTWLI circuit!
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, one of the most highlighted books on my shelves.
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