Gym Humor - Awkward Runner

We all have a tendency to take life a little too seriously sometimes.  Take this as an opportunity to drop the stress and enjoy yourself, if only for a brief moment.

Fitness Fairytale - Lactic Acid

The DOMS Fairy.  He's as happy as he makes you....

Anyone who has participated in resistance training or some form of semi-vigorous exercise has surely experienced a visit from the DOMS Fairy at one time or another.  DOMS stands for Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, a condition which peaks between 24 and 48 hours following a bout of exercise (Connolly, Sayers, and McHugh, 2003; Smith, 1992).  It can be generally characterized as a feeling of combined soreness and stiffness within the muscles directly targeted during a recent training session. You know what I’m talking about. That phenomenon that has you glued to the toilet seat a day or two after an intense lower body training session. 

Help! I've sat down and I can't get up!

Not only is DOMS a pain to deal with (pun intended) both in the figurative and literal sense, but it also has the capacity to be a decrement to athletic performance (Connolly et al., 2003; Wilmore, Costill and Kenney, 2008) and training productivity. While the concept of DOMS is not foreign to those familiar to the training game, nor to the vast majority of the lay public, the causation of the condition represents an entirely different story.

Ask anyone in the gym or on the practice field to ID the culprit behind their muscle soreness, and you’re likely to hear a reference to lactic acid mentioned somewhere in the answer.  Lactic acid has been getting a bad rap on this front for as long as I can remember now, but undeservedly so.  The confusion may come from the production of lactic acid during activities which rely heavily on the fast glycolytic system for energy (Adenosine Triphosphate or ATP) production.  Fast glycolysis is the primary energy producer for training modalities such as weight training, plyometrics, sprinting and agility drills (short duration / high intensity endeavors).  Not surprisingly, these are the same types of activities that tend to induce the most prominent bouts with DOMS. 

Glycolysis refers to the breakdown  of carbohydrate for energy (ATP) production within the body; two primary systems exist, fast (energy production required at a high rate, insufficient oxygen, pyruvate converted to lactic acid) and slow (energy production required at a slower rate, sufficient oxygen, pyruvate utilized within the oxidative system). 

It’s also worth mentioning that for a time, a theory did exist linking lactic acid to the occurrence of DOMS.  However, more recent research has largely minimized the likelihood of this theory, showing that blood lactate concentrations (for simplicity’s sake think of this as lactic acid) typically return to pre-exercise levels within an hour of training (Baechle and Earle, 2008).  Additionally, researchers have also documented instances where exercises promoting high levels of blood lactate produced minimal DOMS, while others promoting low levels of blood lactate incited the occurrence of the condition (Dierking and Bemben, 1998; Wilmore et al., 2008).  Now that we’ve nailed down the origin of the confusion, provided you with a crash course in bioenergetics and cleared lactic acid’s good name, let’s look at the real story with DOMS.

Cool picture to break up the science monotony

To begin, it may prove helpful to think of DOMS as exercise-induced muscle damage.  This damage is caused particularly by way of unfamiliar exercises or those requiring the use of eccentric muscular contraction (contraction of a muscle while it lengthens).  Weight training, sprinting, plyometrics and agility work all require the use of eccentric muscular contraction to a relatively high degree as compared to the likes of distance running.  Hence the high incidence of DOMS associated with these activities.  Structural Damage to the muscle prompts the arrival of all the same culprits one would expect in any instance of bodily injury; namely swelling and inflammation. While not completely understood, it is believed that the inflammation process, prompted by the structural damage,   promotes the synthesis of various chemical substances which in turn cause pain via the stimulation of afferent nerve endings (Connolly et al., 2003). 

Unfortunately there remains no real means for the complete avoidance of DOMS.  Its severity may be attenuated by avoiding unfamiliar exercise, limiting eccentric contractions or by utilizing a warm-up as a means of decreasing viscosity within a given muscle group before training (Szymanski, 2001), but that just about does it.  In the end, DOMS is something that is simply a part of the training game for the foreseeable future.  My best advice, learn to love the good hurt.

References:

Baechle, T. R. and Earle, R. W. (2008).  Essentials of Strength and Conditioning. Champaign IL: Human Kinetics.

Connolly, D. A. J., Sayers, S. P., and McHugh, M. P. (2003).  Treatment and prevention of delayed onset muscle soreness. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 17(1), 197-208.

Dierking, J. K. and Bemben, M. G. (1998).  Delayed onset muscle soreness.  Strength and Conditioning, 20(4), 44-48.

Smith, L. L. (1992). Causes of delayed onset muscle soreness and the impact of athletic performance: a review.  Journal of Applied Sports Science Research, 6(3), 135-141.

Szymanski, D. J. (2001).  Recommendations for the avoidance of delayed-onset muscle soreness.  Strength and Conditioning Journal, 23(4), 7-13.

Willmore, J. H., Costill, D. L. and Kenney W. L. (2008).  Physiology of Sport and Exercise.  Champaign IL: Human Kinetics.

Gym Humor

Because laughter has been linked to physiological and psychological  health benefits (Mora-Ripoll, 2010).



















References:
Mora-Ripoll, R., 2010.  The therapeutic value of laughter in medicine.  Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, 16(6), 56-64.

Five Things I Wish I would Stop Hearing

1.  It’s all you! (Usually followed by some form of bro or bra)

This one has been addressed so many times I’ve lost count.  However, the problem persists, so I may as well cover it again.  The primal “It’s all you” chant is usually heard in close vicinity to the bench pressing station and oddly enough, is exclusively applied to only those repetitions that are in fact, not all the person doing the actual exercise.  Here’s a hint, if you are spotting and you have to physically touch the bar, it’s no longer all them.  Let’s stop inflating egos; there are enough big heads in the gym to begin with.

Got my traps from spotting my buddy's bench

2.  If you’re not sweating, you’re not working!

I hear variations of this quite often.  For some reason or another, we have a tendency to equate sweat rate with workout effectiveness but it’s simply not the reality of the matter, and in some situations could be a particularly dangerous way of thinking. 

 

Physiology lesson - While evaporation (i.e. sweating) does represent the body’s primary means of temperature maintenance during exercise (adults especially, kids are a slightly different story), it is not our only avenue for heat dissipation.  The others include convection (loss of heat by way of the movement of fluid or air across the skin), conduction (loss of heat through direct molecular contact with another object), and radiation (loss of heat to the area directly surrounding the body).  Dry heat loss (convection, conduction, radiation) can be influenced by factors such as amount of clothing worn (insulation), humidity, air temp, shade and / or air movement (wind, fan).  Basically what I'm trying to get at is this; the body has multiple cooling mechanisms available to it and these mechanisms can be influenced by environmental factors.  Simply because someone is not sweating all over themselves does not necessarily mean they are not working hard.

Now that I have “nerded” out on you, let’s take a moment to look at this from a slightly less science geeky point of view.  Imagine the last workout that made you get your sweat on.  Got it? Good.  Now envision doing that same workout in a sauna with a sweatshirt and sweatpants on, did you sweat more? I’m guessing the answer was yes.  If it was no, you need to make an appointment to visit your doctor, there is something wrong with you.   Now imagine that workout again, but this time on a winter day in two inches of snow with a wind chill of -15 degrees and you’re in your underwear.  Did you sweat profusely?

 

Hopefully by now you are starting to catch my drift here.  If not and you still believe that sweating is the best indicator of a good workout, boy do I have a training plan for you.  Here is how it goes, 1-visit Arizona in July or August (Mesa area, I’ve been there, it’s nice), 2-Wait for noon to come around, 3-lock yourself in your car (not running) on the blacktop in a spot that will assuredly not receive any shade, 4-sit for an hour and enjoy your workout.  There you have it.  Oh and do me a favor, let me know how buff you get from this.  Thanks.

Hard at work, just getting their swell on.....

3.  What supplements should I be using?

Here’s how this one generally goes:

Athlete / Client – what supplements should I be taking if I want to get jacked?

Me – How has your diet been?

Athlete / Client – It’s pretty good, not perfect.  Well, I guess It could be better……trails off

Me – Uh-huh, and how consistent have you been with your training?

Athlete / Client – I’ve been pretty good about it…..for the most part……I’ve only missed x number of days last week…….

Me – Thud, Thud, Thud (sound of my head banging against a brick wall)

Here are some of the words that my computer thesaurus supplied as synonyms for the word supplement: extra, complement, add-on and extension.  It baffles me as to why we are so fixated on supplements (extras, complements, add-ons) when we struggle so mightily to get the basic building blocks right.  If your diet is crap don’t worry about supplements, get your diet right.  If your training is crap, don’t worry about supplements, get your training right.  Once those two areas are set, then we’ll talk extras, add-ons and complements.

4.  WOD

This one came along with the whole Crossfit craze.  It’s actually an acronym for “workout of the day” but all it conjures up for me is the actual word “wad”.  When I hear “wod” I think wad of gum, spit wad and / or various other uses of the word that are less than appropriate for discussion here.  In reality, “wod” simply annoys me.  I mean really, what’s wrong with just calling it a workout?  Whatever the reasoning, I ask that you please avoid the use of “wod” while around me, or I may just wad up my fist and PYE (Punch You in the Eye).  You’ve been warned.

5. Water Makes You Weak!

"A water break? Water is for cowards. Water makes you weak. Water is for washing blood off that uniform and you don't get no blood on my uniform, boy you must be outside your mind!"

Wow really?  That’s weird; I seem to recall something about water being relatively important to, oh I don’t know, our existence.  Denzel must not have taken time to study his exercise physiology.  After all, water does make up 73% of our muscle content, 93% of our blood volume and 50-70% of our total being (Kalman and Lepeley, 2010).  Furthermore, water loss has been found to negatively impact athletic performance, endurance, muscular strength, mental acuity and coordination (Kalman and Lepely, 2010).  Look, I get it; it’s a tough guy thing.  But remember, on this occasion, there’s a fine line between being a hard-ass and being a dumb-ass.  

Want to become a real hard-ass?  Drink your water!

References:

Kalman D. S. and Lepeley, A. (2010).  A review of hydration. Strength and Conditioning Journal, 32(2), 56-63.

Should You be Dedicating Time to Traditional Balance Training?

It worked for Daniel Son, so why not? Right?

While revisiting an article by the late Mel Siff, I came across an interesting concept concerning balance training.  When we examine most balance based training devices, we find that the vast majority require balance in a stationary position, meaning the feet are not allowed to move.  With the feet fixed, the only available method for achieving and / or maintaining balance is through the careful manipulation of the various joints from the ankle on up, particularly that of the hip.  Siff refers to this stationary balance strategy as the “hip strategy”.  In essence, when balance is lost and the feet are made to stay unmoved, we naturally attempt to regain balance by manipulating our center of gravity through flexion and extension of the hip joint.

Hip Strategy

Siff (2002) argues that most sporting endeavors actually favor a stepping or grasping compensatory response when balance is challenged.  A technique not allowed in “traditional” balance training.  Watch a running back that is knocked off balance during a run. His gait pattern changes in an attempt to re-gather himself and if this is not successful, or the center of gravity has been significantly disturbed, a hand may drop to the turf for an extra point of ground contact (wider base of support).  This is only one of many examples of the stepping and grasping balance strategies seen in sports.  Interestingly enough, some evidence may exist showing a preferential selection of the stepping and grasping strategy over the “hip strategy” when subjects are provided with the option between the two (Siff, 2002). 

Combination of Step and Grasp

While I still see value in training the “hip strategy”, through controlled single leg movements aimed more at strengthening important joint stabilizing musculature than specifically improving steadiness, Siff’s argument certainly raises a few questions in regards to its usefulness for improving on field athletic performance where balance is concerned.  As if this were not enough, research comparing the effects of traditional and unstable (wobble board, dyna disk and Bosu ball) resistance training on strength, balance and functional performance found no statistical difference between the two training modes in regards to balance enhancement (Kibele and Behm, 2009).  In short, training on devices designed to improve balance failed to outperform traditional ground based training methods.

With the above thoughts and evidence presented, I think we have sufficiently provided the means to answer the initial question posed.  I now leave you to make your own decisions on what you will and will not be spending your time doing in the gym.

References:

Kibele, A. and Behm, D. G. (2009). Seven weeks of instability and traditional resistance training effects on strength, balance and functional performance.  Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 23(9), 2443-2450.

Siff, M. C. (2002).  Functional training revisited.  Strength and Conditioning Journal, 24(5), 42-46.